Rosedale residents express complaints, wants at community meeting with council members

Distrust and anger were evident at tonight's Rosedale community meeting, as council members' pledges for neighborhood improvements were met with skepticism from residents who said they had heard it all before.

“Stop putting us on the back burner. We have been back there for a long, long time,” Rosedale resident Mary Edwards said.

The meeting, which included Mayor Scott McBrayer and Ward 1 Representatives Andy Gwaltney and Britt Thames, was called to discuss the neighborhood's desires for improvements. These include road paving, new sidewalks, crosswalks, streetlights, street signs, historic preservation and abatement of overgrown, neglected or unsafe properties.

However, only part of the agenda was discussed as resident questions and comments took up much of the meeting, held at the Lee Community Center. As McBrayer, Gwaltney and Thames went through their own list of recently completed and proposed future changes, they were frequently met with requests from Rosedale residents to give more than just a verbal acknowledgement that these improvements will happen.

“People are feeling frustrated because they’ve heard this before,” said Jeremy Love, who has recently led efforts through the Rosedale Community Association to get more Rosedale projects on the city agenda.

Love asked the mayor and council members to sign his petition, which has over 200 signatures from residents around Homewood and includes not only individual improvements, but also a need for a Rosedale master plan to guide the neighborhood's development going forward. McBrayer said he could not sign the petition, but added that some elements of the petition were in the works already and others could be discussed by the council. After the meeting, Love said he was frustrated as he wanted a commitment from the city that these requests were being taken seriously.

McBrayer said that the Rosedale neighborhood should take his word as a commitment, and hold the city accountable if they don't follow through.

“Let our actions show you what we’re going to do. You don’t have to believe anything right now. But when we go out and do it, you can stand up and say, 'Those are men of their words,'” McBrayer said. “The things that we’re discussing tonight, I’m telling you we’re going to do those things.”

Several specific concerns were brought up by those in attendance. In regard to street paving, Thames said the city is proceeding according to a traffic study with repaving of the worst roads first and gradually moving up to small fixes and maintenance of roads in better conditions. Edwards asked about B.M. Montgomery Street as a particularly bad road, and McBrayer said he's working with Alagasco to pay for complete repaving of the street once their work on the utility lines underneath it are complete, similar to the recent repaving of Oxmoor Road.

“I’m pretty confident in saying Alagasco is going to treat B.M. Montgomery Street just like Oxmoor,” McBrayer said.

Rosedale has received about $1 million worth of new sidewalks over the last several years, council members said. Some residents said they don't feel like the right streets are getting priority in sidewalk creation, but McBrayer said the grants used to pay for the sidewalks don't allow the city to choose their location. Rosedale Drive is on the sidewalk list for the 2017 fiscal year.

“It’s free money and I’m not going to turn it down just because they won’t put them where I want to put it,” McBrayer said of the sidewalk grants.

The council representatives also presented a map of recent and upcoming sidewalk projects. Sidewalks on 17th Place South are in the design phase and a project on B.M. Montgomery Street is under review.

Gwaltney said he was hoping to get a consensus at the meeting on whether residents wanted the city to intervene on properties with overgrowth, abandoned cars and derelict structures. While he did briefly explain the legal process for abatement of these nuisances, there was no decision from those present before the meeting's timespan ran out.

“We don’t want to start the process without engaging the community,” Gwaltney said.

One resident spoke up to say that his property had been taken from him previously due to property maintenance concerns, and he felt that the abatement process would have the same results. Gwaltney said legally, nuisance abatement has no impact on ownership and only allows the city to enter the property to address a specific concern. Another resident said her car was towed for sitting in her yard while she wasn't working and was taking care of her mother.

“Before you start doing things, you need to knock on people’s doors and figure out what’s going on in the house,” she said.

Love also pointed out that not all residents could afford the repairs they would need to avoid the city abatement process and that some alternatives should be provided by the city so those residents don't lose their homes or cars.

After spending time in Rosedale and consulting a legal expert, Gwaltney and Thames have a list of about 13 properties that could qualify for abatement proceedings due to overgrowth, decay, collapsed roofs and other factors. However, Gwaltney said he would like to attend another community meeting to make sure that's what Rosedale residents want before proceeding.

“It’s a really big deal for the city to go onto private property and demolish a structure that belongs to someone else,” Thames said.

Smaller projects like crosswalks on Rosedale Drive and 18th Street and new street signs are much easier for the city to complete, and McBrayer said some of them will be brought to the council based on tonight's meeting. Going forward, he encouraged residents to contact him or their council representatives with problems or requests to fix the things they're "putting up with." Edwards responded that she felt like the neighborhood was putting up with repeated promises, and she wanted to see the city actually take steps to resolve their concerns.

Love suggested the idea of a Rosedale liaison being chosen to gather resident complaints and opinions on a regular basis to bring to the council.

“I am a neighbor like anybody else. Call me anytime,” McBrayer said.

Contact information for the mayor and Ward 1 representatives can be found on the city website.

After the meeting concluded, Gwaltney said he would like to attend the next Rosedale community meeting in March to continue talking about abatement and some of the other items they did not reach on the agenda. He said that he and Thames would continue work on some of the resident requests they heard in the meantime. Love said he would like to set his own meeting as well to hear from residents about specific concerns addressed in his petition.