19th Ward Community Association
Housing Committee
Saturday Meeting Notes
September 29, 2012
Final

The Meeting convened at 10:20am.

Present: John B, Annie B, Donna S, Kiara B, Kim T

Donna and John reviewed what the housing committee has been doing for Annie, her daughter Kim and granddaughter Kiara.

Annie reviewed her experience with fire hydrants. She noticed her hydrant was in poor condition and called the City about it. It was in such bad shape that they had to replace it.

Currently Annie is having problems with speeding on Sawyer. There have been accidents. One child was killed. She and neighbors would like speed humps. She has talked to John Borek about it and he gave her “Speed Hump Selection Criteria” write-up. They will talk more next week. Neighbors on Sawyer had gotten petitions signed and jumped all the hurdles in 2002 to get speed humps. The Fire Department objected and that stopped the effort. John Boutet had talked about this to CPO's Carl Dickerson, and Andy DiMaria and Lieutenant Bob Hill from NSC office at the Public Safety Meeting on the 26th. Carl was going to look for the paperwork from 2002 effort and mail it to John. CPO's suggested that Annie talk to Dave Hawkes.

We talked about Student housing problems in the neighborhood. Those problems result from rowdy undergraduates who are unsupervised for the first time in their lives, and from landlords who rent to too many students and illegally convert houses. John and Donna pointed out that we need more people willing to work on the Housing Committee if we are to take on rental properties/student housing issues. We discussed getting people involved with the Housing Committee. Annie was disappointed not to see more people show up at this meeting considering she had passed out fliers to many people in her neighborhood.

We talked about getting a block group going on Sawyer to build closer relations between neighbors and as a means of getting more people involved.

Kim is a member of the very active Arnett block group.

We discussed School 16 and its impact on neighborhood, and RCSD impact on school. The state of the school impacts housing in the neighborhood. Again the lack of current parent involvement in the 19th Ward Community Association limits how much the 19WCA can do to help the school. Recruitment is needed for both Housing and School Committee success.

Kiara wondered if there is a limit on number of rental properties on a street.

Annie suggested getting people to volunteer to help neighbors by doing little helpful things like mowing lawns.

Kim works at Edison and Kiara is a student there. Kim mentioned she sees a lot of her students in the 19th Ward. Kim said students need to do community service work to meet their school requirement. We should contact Principal David Grant (324-9770) at Robert Brown H.S. of Construction and Design, 655 Colfax St. to see if we could get student volunteers. (Source: www.rcsdk12.org/cms/lib04/NY01001156/Centricity/Domain/1/12-13 Prin...)

Meeting adjourned at 11:45 am.

Our next meeting is Wednesday October 3rd at 11:00am.
Our next Saturday meeting the October 13th at 10:00am.

Minutes submitted by John B

Please pass the recruitment flier on to friends and neighbors: Housing Committee Flier 10-1-2012.doc