The Covington Board of Commissioners and city staff set new priorities for themselves at a special meeting over the weekend.
The roughly three-hour long meeting included discussions on everything from skate parks to police drones to non-compliant landlords, but in the end, the commissioners came away with five priorities they wanted to focus on and dedicate budget space to in the future.
These priorities were continued investment in the Central Riverfront Development, increased economic development in the Latonia neighborhood, sidewalk repair, the city’s affordable housing initiative and the establishment of a new dog park in South Covington.
No official action on these priorities was taken at the meeting.
Mayor Ron Washington described the Central Riverfront project as “our number one economic development project. We have too much invested not to give it sustained focus.”
While the commissioners eventually came away agreeing with this, there was discussion about how the benefits of economic development could be extended to the rest of the city, specifically in the areas south of 12th Street, which have seen comparatively less economic re-development than the areas to the north.
“I understand that’s a priority, but we cannot neglect anything from other parts of the city,” Toebbe said.
As it related to Latonia, Economic Development Director Tom West discussed several big developments at the Latonia Commerce Center on Winston Avenue, including the new Thermo Fisher facility. The center also includes a new library branch and the Enzweiler Building Institute. Toebbe, who lives in Latonia, said the commerce center doesn’t really look like a shopping center, and, as a result, has less of an impact on community morale.
“It’s not really a shopping center,” Toebbe said. “It’s turning slowly into an industrial park, which I’m totally fine with” for bringing in taxes, he said. However, he said, “the actual shopping left in that center is the Dollar General and a cell phone store and the thrift store.”
Commissioner Tim Downing said the city could do a better job about communicating the benefit of the development.
West, on the hand, reminded the commissioners that “we have to get that payroll tax in order to feed the budget,” even if the current state of the commerce center didn’t offer “sexy visual results.”
The commissioners agreed that Latonia deserved to be a point of focus for economic development in the future.
Commissioner Downing suggested the idea of a new dog park in South Covington. He’d identified a city-owned tract of land on Hands Pike, which is largely green space. City staff predicted the project, if ever approved, would cost about $40,000, which would likely need to come from the city’s general fund as it wouldn’t be eligible for federal grant funding.
The commissioners were broadly in support of the idea, but noted that upkeeping dog parks, particularly with maintaining the grass, could be onerous. Commissioner Tim Acri recommended putting down some kind grass “that’s not going to get beat down by the dogs,” pointing to issues the city’s had with grass at Kenney Shields Dog Park in Mainstrasse.
The topic of sidewalk repair was among the more in-depth discussions of the morning. Strategic Infrastructure Initiatives Director Keith Bales presented some basic information about the city’s sidewalks – there’s about 800,000 linear feet of sidewalk in Covington – and offered a handful of proposals for a systematic repair of sidewalks in the city, not including Mainstrasse, which is slated to undergo a longer-term project with a city contractor.
The city’s current sidewalk ordinance, adopted in 2014, mandates property owners maintain and repair the sidewalks in front of their properties. There is a provision, however, that the city can hire a contractor to do it on an owner’s behalf if the cost is then attached to a three-year assessment on the owner’s tax bill. The city could establish a fund to cover upfront costs for the contractors and then replenish their coffers over time as people paid the city back. Anyone in the city could use this program, which Bales didn’t believe had ever been activated.
Alternatively, the city could amend the current ordinance and restrict the above program to residents only; rental owners and business would not be eligible. Everything else would stay the same, but the up-front cost for the city would be smaller because the pool of eligible people would be smaller.
The third option would be to remove the contractor provision altogether and create a grant-funded program to fund repairs for low-income residents only. Everyone else would be responsible for their own repairs.
Lastly, the city could abolish the current ordinance altogether and take everything over themselves – repairing and replacing any sidewalk throughout the city as needed. Of course, this option would be the most expensive.
“Initial costs are going to be $7 million,” Bales said, “and you would budget $7 million a year if [the board] should take this route.”
City Solicitor Frank Schultz pointed out the city needed to be careful with adding payments onto people’s tax bills, as some lenders might register it as a lien and accelerate their mortgages, which could lead to people defaulting. One way to get around that would be to issue repayment contracts to owners, rather than adding onto their tax bill, but that option had its own risks if someone didn’t pay.
“Obviously, we don’t have $7 million that we could dedicate to this project,” Washington said, but the commissioners were in agreement that the issue needed to be addressed in some way.
“I think it’s going to be an issue where we’re going to kind of learn along the way,” Washington said.
Finally, housing as a topic influenced much of the discussion. The city’s affordable housing initiative, launched last year, aims to catalog and develop city-owned land throughout Covington in an effort to address the region’s housing woes. The city recently accepted a development proposal from a local developer to develop some city-owned land.
“Momentum is building,” Washington said.