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New Campbell park opened on land formerly occupied by blighted houses
CAMPBELL
Campbell residents living on Bright Avenue have a new neighbor in the form of a small park and a Little Free Library thanks to a collaboration among the city, Mahoning County Land Bank and Rotary of Youngstown.
Tuesday morning, representatives of the partnerships were joined by eight National Honor Society students from Campbell Memorial High School and city street workers to dedicate a new park in a spot on Bright Avenue previously occupied by three dilapidated structures across five parcels.
The park includes a Little Free Library box – the first in Campbell – a pair of benches and three garden boxes for community use. Rather than grass, the park has been seeded with clover, which will require less maintenance by the city.
Dan Yemma, Mahoning County treasurer, said he hoped the park would help to maintain or increase the property values of homeowners on Bright Avenue.
Mayor Nick Phillips said the park initially would be maintained jointly by the city and the land bank, though eventually maintenance of the park will fully be done by the city.
Students from the CMHS National Honor Society will stock the Little Free Library with books and maintain the library. The Rotary of Youngstown and the land bank provided the library and is preparing to launch a book driver to restock all of the local Little Free Libraries around the area.
Marilyn McCallister, a guidance counselor and National Honors Society coordinator at CMHS, said the students would ensure the library is replenished with books and may expand its offerings in the future to include school supplies and non-perishable food items.
Maureen O’Neil, a property specialist for the city, said the park was meant to be a multigenerational space, allowing areas for older generations to garden or sit and a library stocked with books that will appeal to both younger and older readers.
The park is the most recent in a number of successful collaborations between the city and the land bank.
“I’m particularly fond of this project because of the three structures that were torn down on the land, one of them was thanks to our prosecutor hearings. We couldn’t contact the owners of the other two structures, so the land bank took over there and managed to secure the properties,” O’Neil said.
Campbell has an aggressive blight reduction program that combines regular code enforcement efforts with the city’s law department to prosecute negligent or absent owners of blighted properties. Since 2015, the city has demolished more than 40 structures through the land bank or by compelling private owners to do the work.
Deb Flora, land bank executive director, said the project was one of the largest the land bank has undertaken. “There’s still a sense of community pride here that you sometimes don’t see in other areas where we work,” she said.