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BELPRE -- On Wednesday, the Ohio Department of Development announced that it will be granting $1.5 million to designated communities with outdated zoning ordinances in the state of Ohio.
The City of Belpre received $85,000 as part of the Housing Technical Assistance Program, which will be used to come up with a comprehensive plan to update its business and housing infrastructure.
Belpre Mayor Susan Abdella said she is grateful that Belpre received a large sum of the grant money, and she is eager to make Belpre inviting to citizens as well as potential developers and investors.
"It was critical for us. We know that right now, Belpre is in a very big growth mode," said Abdella. "We need to work on making sure that we are a community that is open and embracing change."
Some of the big changes already announced by the city include a partnership with Marietta Memorial and Akron Children's Hospital to create a Women and Children's Hospital at the Belpre Medical Campus, as well as building a new, consolidated K-12 school on Stone Road following the passing of a school levy in May.
As part of their consolidated plan, the City of Belpre wants to tackle the challenges that come with updating building ordinances and planning housing located on the floodplain. "We've identified probably about 150 building sites in town. And that's every vacant lot that there is," said Abdella.
Another aspect of the city's infrastructure that Abdella wants to update are the water and sewer lines.
"We know that some of the materials that are listed in our zoning codes aren't best practices," she said. "Right now, there's a lot of galvanized lines still in the ground here in Belpre."
She estimates that the water lines have not been updated in over 70 years, which will present even more issues to the city as they start developing new structures.
"As we build this new water tank, it's going to be higher than our current tanks," she said. "There's going to be the potential for a lot of leaks based on old lines in the lower end of town because of pressure changes."
She also notes that there has been a lot of flooding in certain spots of the city due to poor draining of the storm water system, which will require an outsourced engineering study.
The City of Belpre has made multiple comprehensive plans in the past to cover smaller areas of city infrastructure. Abdella's goal for this current plan is to take into account both past updates and future opportunities for change to create "a roadmap to success for growth and development in our community."