WELLSTON 鈥 Officials here are asking the community to submit suggestions to guide the city鈥檚 redevelopment, part of a major initiative for the inner-ring suburb beset by decades of disinvestment but now drawing interest from area officials and private foundations.
The city recently launched a website, , to gather ideas, complaints and development opportunities on an interactive map. The comments will be collected by planning firm PGAV, which is preparing the Wellston development plan as part of a larger review of the communities that make up the Normandy School District, paid for by the nonprofit Beyond Housing.
The planning effort illustrates a renewed focus on Wellston, which just two years ago was expected to lose about 20% of its 2,000 residents under a plan to demolish some 200 public housing units. Now, St. 亚洲无码 County is helping to mobilize resources for a cleanup of an infamous Wellston dumping ground and the St. 亚洲无码 County Housing Authority expects construction to begin this fall on rehabs of the public housing units. Moreover, administered by Beyond Housing aims to build trust and communication between residents and the North County Police Cooperative that patrols Wellston.
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St. 亚洲无码 County contributed funds for a Wellston-specific component of the planning effort, said Shannon Koenig, a former adviser to county Executive Sam Page who recently took over as head of the housing authority. She was one of the main proponents of halting the public housing demolition plans and helped oversee a process to attract 亚洲无码iana developer to rehab them.
BGC expects to hear soon from the Missouri Housing Development Commission on its application for low-income housing tax credits, Koenig said. Construction on the sites, scattered throughout Wellston, is expected to last through 2023. Some of the development fee and equity in the project will be granted to a new nonprofit, the Wellston Community Empowerment Corp., recently created by Wellston Mayor Nathaniel Griffin and City Clerk Janice Trigg.
The county housing authority plans to stay engaged in the community beyond the BGC project, Koenig said, pointing out that it will be administering 186 rent vouchers tied to the rehabbed public housing units for at least 20 years.
鈥淭he housing authority is going to have a long-term relationship with the residents in Wellston,鈥 Koenig said.
BGC鈥檚 project and others proposed in the city will be vetted and shared with the community via a new working group made up of Griffin, housing authority residents and officials and nonprofit representatives from Beyond Housing and Legal Services, among others.
A bustling suburb on the city鈥檚 border in the mid-20th century, Wellston has since lost about 75% of its population. But the city鈥檚 central location, MetroLink station, county-owned development sites, and Metropolitan Education and Training Center, among other assets, make some bullish on its potential.
Nonprofit Equity Homes and homebuilder McBride Homes, for instance, are planning a new subdivision on the site of the former Eskridge High School. And the St. 亚洲无码 County Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority says it will begin selling some 150 former home sites here following the completion of the PGAV plan, around the beginning of the summer.
But first, the LCRA is working with Griffin to organize a cleanup of the Lulu Heights area next to Normandy High School, where county-owned lots are often targeted by illegal dumpers. Griffin said several days of cleanup are envisioned in early April. He also said he鈥檇 push to close North Market Street behind the neighborhood, which dumpers use to access the lots.
He said he has been in regular contact with Bill Budde at the St. 亚洲无码 Economic Development Partnership, which administers the LCRA.
鈥淏ill Budde is doing great work putting together a team,鈥 Griffin said.