Parks, bike paths, energy-efficient housing and more: Grant could benefit Summit Lake
Akron City Council passed an ordinance on Monday allowing the city to apply for U.S. EPA grant funding to increase sustainability efforts in the Summit Lake neighborhood.
Casey Shevlin, city director of sustainability and resiliency, told City Council’s Public Service Committee on June 10 that recipients of the funding can receive up to $20 million and that projects must be completed in three years.
The grant is called the Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant. If the city receives funding, it would be applied to the Resilient Infrastructure & Sustainable Environments (R.I.S.E.) Summit Lake Project.
If the EPA issues grant funding, according to the report, the city would partner with the Ohio & Erie Canalway Coalition on “construction of greenways, [a] multipurpose trail, bike lanes, green housing rehabilitation, and energy efficiency upgrades for infill housing in Summit Lake.”
Attendance stipends, daycare among options to encourage community input
Esther Thomas, the city’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion, told the committee that, as per the EPA’s wishes, the city would implement the grant “with the community, not on the community or imposed upon them.”
Thomas said the city plans to engage with the Summit Lake Community Development Corp., Summit Lake Neighborhood Association, Summit Lake Community Council “and build upon the Akron Civic Commons work.”
“A key point which I think is really important is that this grant — and it’s different than other grants that I’ve seen — is that we’re encouraged to remove barriers for community engagement, such as stipends for attendance at meetings, perhaps even providing daycare so that people can come in and weigh in on their community and what the future holds for them,” Thomas said.
New green space
Speaking with the committee members, Shevlin said the creation of “greenways” in an area decreases people’s reliance on cars, which has a positive environmental impact.
“So, we’re working on development of greenways projects, so multi-use pathways that cut through traditional city blocks, allow for greater walkability, bike-ability, greater connectivity through the neighborhood,” Shevlin said.
Shevlin also raised the possibilities of creating small parks called “pocket parks" and community food gardens, as well as increasing the neighborhood’s tree canopy, which she said is lower than the city average.
Energy-efficient housing
Shevlin said housing plans for the neighborhood include “energy-efficient new infill housing and also energy-efficient rehab work on existing housing stock in the neighborhood that is older and probably drafty and needs reinvestment.”
City Planning Director Kyle Julien told the committee that a goal is for new housing construction to have “super-high energy efficiency” that could include solar electricity.
He said rehab work could include providing “funding to improve existing homeowners’ properties, replace some furnaces, perhaps upgrade the windows … so that we can reduce the energy costs, improve the energy efficiency, improve indoor air quality, which we know is a big trigger for childhood asthma.”
Adding bike paths
Julien said the effort to add bike lanes in the Summit Lake neighborhood is in part to ensure safety.
"The dangers of biking in this city are significant, real and in recent history, we’ve had two deaths of bicyclists this year," he said. "So, I think we have an obligation to address the mode of transportation for those folks and to make it easier and allow folks to get around with choice.”
Ward 7 Councilman Donnie Kammer, Public Service Committee chair said one of those deaths was in his ward, and that he’s since been looking at some of the city’s bike lanes.
“I am hoping we as a city can move forward and work together and try to address how we can make these bike lanes and our trafficways safer for our folks that do ride bikes,” he said.
Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at pwilliams@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @pwilliamsOH.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Energy-efficient housing and green space in Summit Lake grant proposal
