7,000 vacant properties in Warren to be studied

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The nonprofit Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership has been awarded a $356,964 U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant to take inventory of Warren’s 2,000 vacant residential properties and 5,000 vacant lots.

The inventory will provide a database of housing information that will help the city prioritize the steps that will follow, said Mayor Michael O’Brien.

Assessments of each parcel will “help locate the best parcels for investment in order to return land to neighborhoods in ways that are accessible, sustainable and healthy” for the community, O’Brien said.

Matt Martin, director of the one-year-old Trumbull Neighhorhood Partnership, said he believes Warren received the grant because of the large list of neighborhood groups working to improve the city’s neighborhoods.

It is also important that the neighborhood groups have now been organized through an umbrella group called the Warren Neighborhood Leadership Council, Martin said.

Trumbull County also was only the second county in Ohio to create a land bank, Martin said.

The county land bank makes it easier for vacant and abandoned properties to be purchased by new owners so the properties can be used more productively, Martin said.

Doug Franklin, who will become mayor Jan. 1, said the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership inventory will be a good implementation of the city’s 2009 comprehensive plan, which was written by the Poggemeyer Design Group.

Because the inventory will involve public meetings throughout the city, all residents of Warren will be encouraged to participate in the project, Martin noted.

The inventory, which will begin in early 2012, will also involve an update of the city’s zoning code “in order to remove barriers to forward-thinking neighborhood change,” Martin said.

Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership was created with money from the philanthropic organization Raymond John Wean Foundation.