Coordinated color scheme, signage regulation among plans to refresh area
By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times
COATESVILLE – Coatesville City Council, at its meeting Monday night, announced plans to beautify the downtown area this summer.
Beginning between First and Third Avenue and expanding until the area between the bridges on Lincoln Highway is covered, changes will include developing a color scheme to coordinate businesses, repainting according to that color scheme, and developing ordinances to limit the number of signs along sidewalks.
The first step to improvement will occur on Wednesday evening at 5:30 when council members and residents will meet at city hall and walk through the downtown area to assess what actions need to be taken.
Flags are one way that the City of Coatesville is using to make the downtown area more attractive.
“We want to assess what we need and how to go about getting it done,” said Council Member Arvilla Hunt who, along with Council Members Ingrid Jones and Jeff LoPrinzi, is on the subcommittee overseeing the changes.
The most noticeable difference will probably be the color palette, which will require establishments to be painted within a certain range of colors. Council has yet to make a decision on what colors those will be.
“It’s going to be something that complements the stone and brick buildings already there,” explained Hunt.
Board President David Collins said that he looks forward to developing rules regarding signage.
“We want to stop the proliferation of signs that any group or organization wants to post anywhere,” he said. “In my opinion, it starts to look a little tacky.”
The modifications will take place between June and September. During that time, council wants input from residents who will get a chance to be a part of the process at events like the walk-through on Wednesday. They also want to get the affected businesses to be on board.
“We encourage citizens to be a part; this is your city,” said Collins.
Council announced the plans during a report to the public in which they summarized the actions taken in the most recent quarter of the year and laid out plans for the next quarter. Collins said that council, city authorities, and committees will compile these quarterly reports in order to maintain transparency to the public.
“The purpose of doing this is so you, the public, can know what council is doing other than just voting yes or no,” he said. “We’ll be making information available to the public so you can see the value they’re [council members] adding.”
In the next quarter, council also plans on drafting criteria for the city service awards, investigating the feasibility of a supermarket downtown, and creating a city patch.
Council Vice President Joseph Hamrick said that collecting patches is a popular activity among children with disabilities.
“If these children are traveling, they might want to collect or trade patches,” he commented.
One step to improve downtown that has already taken place came in the form of flags flown this past weekend. The newly-installed brackets on Lincoln Highway were originally meant to be used on holidays, but in light of last week’s events in Boston, they were put up Saturday morning and stayed until Sunday night.
The meeting closed with Collins saying that he wants residents to be involved in the coming changes to the city and that they can do so by attending City Council meetings.
“Hold us accountable,” he implored. “We want to be more accountable to you.”
what we need is some stores and a farmers market in town like we use to have. We also need restaurants and the rif raf off the streets. We need police presence on the streets like it use to be in the olden days. We need to add stores like it use to be not these little stores that nobody goes to. If this is not done we are doomed for failure.