Fairfield Village Council completes housing inventory

Judith Hovey, Fairfield Village Neighborhood Council beautification committee chairman, announced the completion of phase one of the neighborhood property survey at the group's Jan. 7 meeting. President Andy Ellard completed a property ownership database with occupancy stats using public records, she said.

The group also discussed grants for rehabilitating houses.

"We have identified ownership of 231 residences within our boundaries," Hovey said.

We believe that about 72 of these units are rentals. That means about one-third of our houses are occupied by tenants."

That number is substantially lower than the overall tenant-owner ratio for the city's residences, 40 percent rental and 60 percent owner-occupied, Hovey explained.

With the inventory complete the group is going to do a drive-by survey of properties. The surveyors will rate each residence on a four-point scale indicating good, fair, bad or demolish. With two volunteers, Hovey estimated the work could be completed by the end of January.

The next step is to prepare a master plan that would allow the council to apply for grants.

"These grants could be used to rehab or demolish properties," Hovey said. "We have six properties that need to be considered seriously for demolition," she said.

Hovey said she would like to develop a quality of life survey to find out what residents would like their neighborhood to become.

"With information from this survey we as an association can develop our priorities," Hovey explained.

Ellard reported on an $830 grant request made to the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.

"We asked for $300 of seed money for our neighborhood picnic," Ellard said, "and another $530 to pay postage and printing costs for a quarterly newsletter."

Ellard told the group he may write a grant request to the Community Foundation for a summer work program for kids.

The next meeting of the council is at 1 p.m. Feb. 5 at the Court Street Village Nonprofit Doris Sain Building, 727 East St.

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