City Village pioneer seeks help with cleanup

Lisa is a City Village pioneer, and has been since the concept of the ambitious revitalization effort was in the imagining stage.

Lisa owns a small cottage perched on a wooded bluff overlooking the river, which gives her a beautiful view of the water rolling by, and colossal sunsets, too, she says. She bought the house and an empty lot next door in 2013. The house is only 624 square feet, but its refinished wood floors would be welcome in any house in any neighborhood.

About the neighborhood … it’s seen better days. There appears to be only one or two other people who live on her street, and only a few houses that even look inhabitable. For example, around the corner, headed away from the river sit three dilapidated shotgun houses that look like they’ve been shot by a shotgun more than a few times.

So, other than blight, which is the current norm in the vicinity, what’s the problem?

“There are two major issues that I need help resolving,” Lisa wrote me. “First, for years, people have dumped garbage here. A city vehicle has even backed onto my property and dumped asphalt there. The trash on the city properties is a blight to the area and a haven for mosquitoes.”

Lisa said she has called the city numerous times, and they send out city crews to clean up the roadsides but say they can’t go down into the woods to clear out the debris that’s been dumped there.

She has also contacted the handful of private property owners on the street, and they’ve shown no interest in keeping up their lots either.

“The second issue I have is an ancient drainpipe that runs under my house,” she said. “The old metal pipe pours runoff from the street to behind my house onto a collapsing bank toward the Riverwalk.”

The old corrugated metal pipe, which looks to be 18-24 inches in diameter, comes out of the ground in her back yard, runs down a steep hill and pours water off what appears to a concrete or stone retaining wall.

She said she’s asked the city about it, and said city workers came, gawked at it and said they’d never seen anything like it. And then they shrugged and left.

Lisa, this will require some digging, which I will begin right away. I’ll find out what the city can and will do about the situation.

Meanwhile, as we like to say, stay tuned.

Update

I reported a few weeks back that it appeared the city was trimming the bushes that were blocking the maps to attractions that line Broadway. I was wrong. They were in the process of obliterating the things, most likely so that they won’t have to come back out and trim them over and over.

I hope they’re planning on replanting the bare beds with something low-growing that will still provide greenery but not require periodic trimming.

Any of you master gardeners out there have a suggestion?

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 7:54 AM with the headline "City Village pioneer seeks help with cleanup."