{"id":64271,"date":"2023-05-05T10:19:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T14:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/?p=64271"},"modified":"2023-05-05T10:22:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T14:22:07","slug":"blightfight5423","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/blightfight5423\/","title":{"rendered":"Blight Fight reaches 500: Demolitions make way for Mill Hill rejuvenation, Ocmulgee Mounds expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, May 2, our Blight Fight initiative officially made it to 500! Our Public Works crew removed two blighted houses at 371 and 383 Dewitt Street. <\/span>You can watch the demolition here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to just tear things down. This is about building our community up, something that we intend to do,\u201d said Mayor Lester Miller.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The two properties are near the Mill Hill Community Arts Center and will be\u00a0 donated to the National Park Service as part of the expansion of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. Clearing these dangerous and dilapidated houses will add more life to the Mill Hill rejuvenation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The past 10 years, the Urban Development Authority (UDA) and the Macon Arts Alliance have led the effort to rejuvenate\u00a0 the Mill Hill: East Macon Arts Village, including buying, rehabbing, and reselling properties assessed under $10,000 . Those have all been sold to new occupants and have added $1.1 million to the Macon-Bibb tax base.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThis has been years in the making,\u201d said UDA Executive Director Alex Morrison. \u201cThe houses demolished on Dewitt Street were also acquired by the UDA, but not just part of the Mill Hill effort but as the bigger picture of what\u2019s going on in East Macon and the cultures that preceded us as Macon for thousands of years.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that long term vision, we wouldn\u2019t be at the precipice of creating America\u2019s 64<\/span>th<\/span> National Park and Preserve<\/span>,<\/span> which is slated to happen this year,\u201d said Mayor Pro Tempore and Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative Executive Director Seth Clark. \u201cCongress will not do that unless they see progress from the gateway communities in the United States of America that are stewards of that park and this<\/span>,<\/span> is what they are looking for.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Mayor Miller\u2019s early actions (based on community feedback) was to be more proactive with removing blight from neighborhoods, especially since there were blighted structures that had sat vacant and deteriorating for nearly a decade. So he launched the #BlightFight in April 2021, bringing together multiple agencies, departments, and companies to remove the dangerous structures from neighborhoods more quickly.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During the press conference, District 3 Commissioner Elaine Lucas praised Mayor Miller for his efforts in speeding up the process to remove dangerous and abandoned structures from our community. Later that day during the Commission meeting, Commissioners presented a brick from one of the two houses with a plaque and ordinance to commemorate his leadership. You can watch <\/a><\/span>that here.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUntil this present time, we were very, very frustrated at the slow pace of taking care of things like this,\u201d said Commissioner Lucas. \u201cUnder your administration Mayor, you\u2019ve not only done the talking, but have done the walking as well, and you have put money into projects like this to get it done. That\u2019s what we as Commissioners have wanted for years and years, and that\u2019s why it makes me sentimental to be here. It\u2019s a tremendous day.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Blight Fight does not stop at 500. Our Code Enforcement Department is working hard every day to get more blighted structures identified and in the process for demolition. If you would like to report a blighted house in your <\/span>neighborhood, click here.<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, May 2, our Blight Fight initiative officially made it to 500! Our Public Works crew removed two blighted houses at 371 and 383 Dewitt Street. You can watch the demolition here. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to just tear things down. This is about building our community up, something that we intend to do,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":64275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2866,2867,1806,8],"tags":[2063,121,1036,134,1791],"class_list":["post-64271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-code-enforcement","category-comms","category-mayor","category-news","tag-blightfight","tag-blight","tag-blight-fight","tag-demolition","tag-mayor-lester-miller"],"author_name":"","featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/IMG_7991-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64271"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64279,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64271\/revisions\/64279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maconbibb.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}