Oak Ridge Today

City publishes summary of Oak Ridge Land Bank Partnership Strategy Workshop

Posted at
By 1 Comment

By City of Oak Ridge

On November 6, 2015, the Oak Ridge Land Bank Corporation, in conjunction with the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce, hosted the second Housing Strategy Work Session. The purpose of this meeting was to identify willing partners in the effort to improve housing quality in the City of Oak Ridge.

As a result of this collaborative meeting, feedback was gathered from six identified stakeholder groups, each having their own perspective on what needs to be done and what they could do in addressing the city’s identified housing challenges.

The participating stakeholder groups offered the following input:

Banks

[Read more…]

Land Bank has first housing strategy meeting on Thursday

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Oak Ridge Land Bank Housing Strategy

The Oak Ridge Land Bank Corporation will host its first housing strategy meeting on Thursday. The goal is to address the city’s housing situation while building partnerships in a collaborative effort to promote the city “as the place to live and work by improving our community’s neighborhoods,” a press release said.

The work session is scheduled from 1 to 5 p.m. Thursday, May 14, at the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce.

Agenda items including the state of housing, a mobile tour, and partner presentations by ADFAC (Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties), Habitat for Humanity of Anderson County, Oak Ridge Housing Authority, and Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. [Read more…]

Guest column: Concept paper concerning a housing policy for Oak Ridge

Posted at
By 4 Comments

By Pat Fain and Leslie Agron

Today Oak Ridge has a default housing policy that begins and ends with two modest grants from Housing and Urban Development consisting of objectives decided internally by city staff. Input from the public has been minimal at best, despite HUD requirements to hold public input meetings. These were held, minimally advertised and sparsely attended. In the past, these objectives were then approved by Oak Ridge City Council without holding Council work sessions to discuss real needs or creative solutions for those needs.

This year and this month, Council will begin an open and (hopefully) far-reaching discussion for a well-thought-out response to community concerns and the need to protect the tax base of the city from further erosion resulting from the deterioration of a significant portion of the housing built before 1945. This paper is to offer ideas and alternate thinking as the City Council proceeds to contemplate the path ahead. [Read more…]