HUBBARD TOWNSHIP Planners await word on grant OK for Maplewood Park revitalization

The grant does not include money for sanitary-sewer installation.
By MIKE VAN CLEAVE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
HUBBARD -- The Trumbull County Planning Commission should know by the end of March whether Hubbard Township's Maplewood Park area will be approved for a state Community-in-Distress Grant to help spur revitalization efforts there.
Alan Knapp, the planning commission's assistant director, said the grant would give the commission about $600,000 to repave streets, revitalize housing, establish a public park and install storm sewers.
If the Maplewood Park area is approved for the grant, the process could begin this year, Knapp said.
Final arrangements
Commission officials, township trustees and Maplewood Park citizens had a meeting Thursday to make the final arrangements for the grant to be written and then submitted to the state development department.
For the past two years, citizens groups such as the Maplewood Park Improvement Club have been striving to get the project under way, trustees said.
Along with giving people in the Maplewood Park community storm drains and paved roads, the grant will authorize the commission to buy nearly 2.2 acres of foreclosed property for a public park.
Louis Jackson, member of the Maplewood Park Improvement Club, said, "We just want a place for the kids to play."
Sewage problem
Another matter of concern for Jackson was the sewage problem in Maplewood Park. Planning officials said, however, that the grant wouldn't cover the costs of replacing the area's septic system with a sanitary-sewer system.
"We had several meetings with the citizens, and that was one of their biggest concerns," Knapp said. "We couldn't address sanitary sewers with this grant."
Knapp said the commission will address the issue of sanitary-sewer installation in two years.