Community Planning and Capacity Building Team Meeting 1
May 25, 2017
City Hall
The following are notes taken during the Team meeting. They are unofficial ideas and comments that were brought up. Individual comments do not reflect views of Denham Strong or The City of Denham Springs. Comments are used to define issues and visioning. All comments are welcome.
Attendees:
Shawn Hima, Chad Bacas, John Cavalier, Cameron Hamby
Jeanette Clark,
Jack Slota, Deane Bingham, Beth Otto, Jason Perry, Kevin Nelson
The following items were discussed:
- City hall – The City Hall flooded during in August. Records, furniture and equipment were destroyed. The temporary City Hall is situated in a portion of the City that did not flood. This may be an opportunity to relocate the City Hall to high ground in the current building.
- The traffic in the Antiques District makes it difficult for pedestrians to cross the street. The possibility of diverting traffic (similar to Spring Fest) was discussed. This could be used on Saturdays for the Farmer’s market.
- Need to review zoning –unified development code. Update zoning districts. We have a ton of commercial – turn into mixed use? Research Question: what have cities similar to DS done with their zoning codes to achieve successful results? – Maybe APA could help with this? Monroe possibly used a grant from hurricane Ike (or some other event) to do a review/update of zoning.
- Many of the Denham Springs graduates stay in the area, but there is still the perception of dinky springs.
- Young people want to go to a big city where there is industry and more job options.
- Denham Springs is largely a commuter city. How do we get more jobs in the city?
- The opportunities here are more entrepreneurial. Are there programs to support start-up businesses? (David Dodd)
- What to do with condemned properties. Would a buy-out program be beneficial to the community?
Visioning:
Housing Options, show images of different housing types.
Images:
- Green Infrastructure
- Amphitheatre Park
- Bike paths along
- Comite river bike paths
- Pictures of other communities
- What activities would kids/young people like to have in Denham?
Question for Mitigation – Buy-out options. Could the city do this on their own even though they are part of the parish Hazard Mitigation Plan?
Research Question: Look at other communities and how they have dealt with abandoned properties. (Mitigation?)
Next meeting
Thursday June 1 3:30 City Hall
