Council should OK housing measure

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October 22, 2009

Anonymous Pharos-Tribune Thu Oct 22, 2009, 08:46 AM EDT

The Logansport Plan Commission’s proposal clearing the way for homes to be built in the city’s older neighborhoods is great public policy.

The city’s current ordinances were drafted at a time when the older neighborhoods were filled with houses. They were intended to regulate subdivisions on what were then the outskirts of town.

Now, some of those older neighborhoods are showing their age. Some of the old houses have fallen to the ravages of time and neglect.

It only makes sense for the city now to take another look at its restrictions and make way for new houses to fill those vacant lots now scattered throughout the city.

The amendment approved by the planning commission last week would allow for houses to sit closer together, as they do in the city’s older neighborhoods.

Nationwide, cities have had a tendency to sprawl in the last 60 years. In the years after World War II, families began a move toward the suburbs, abandoning those older neighborhoods where they grew up. They traded the small yards of the central city for the big yards on the edge of town.

Logansport is clearly not a big city. It has not seen the devastation experienced by some of the older neighborhoods in Indianapolis.

But time and the migration away from older neighborhoods have taken their toll. Week after week, city officials work to eliminate the blight created as homeowners give up on their dilapidated houses. To their credit, city officials have been tearing many of these structures down, eliminating eyesores that have turned into magnets for criminal activity.

The good news is that families are beginning to reclaim some of those older neighborhoods. They’re restoring some of the older homes and trading a 15-minute drive to work for a 15-minute walk.

Now, it simply makes sense for city officials to clear the way for property owners to put houses on those empty lots. That’s what this measure was designed to do.

The ordinance now moves to city council for consideration. The council should add its approval and take another step toward redevelopment of some of Logansport’s core neighborhoods.

Want to go?

What: Logansport City Council meeting

When: 5 p.m. Nov. 2

Where: City council chambers on the third floor of the City Building, 601 E. Broadway

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Council should OK housing measure

Cass County commissioners recently passed an ordinance giving three departments the authority to issue tickets to individuals whose properties are in violation of county codes. Do you support this move?

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