{"id":961,"date":"2012-05-23T14:15:33","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T18:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=961"},"modified":"2012-05-23T14:19:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T18:19:34","slug":"economic-developer-talks-coatesville-housing-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=961","title":{"rendered":"Economic developer talks Coatesville housing issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cassidy, who played big role in Phoenixville, offers solutions to revitalize Coatesville<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jamie Richard<\/strong>, Staff Writer, CoatesvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A local consultant is suggesting that Coatesville offer a grant program for homeowners, such as these just off 11th Street, that could offer up to $5,000 for home improvements and an overall boost in local property values.<\/p><\/div>\n

COATESVILLE \u2013 Community and economic development specialist Barry Cassidy spoke before the Coatesville Redevelopment Authority to propose ways to revitalize Coatesville at their meeting Monday.<\/p>\n

Cassidy was involved with redevelopment efforts in Phoenixville several years earlier and proposed several options for the redevelopment of Coatesville. \u00a0According to Cassidy, one of Coatesville\u2019s largest problems is housing and improving \u00a0its home ownership base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Coatesville\u2019s problem is a housing problem,\u201d said Cassidy.<\/p>\n

Cassidy suggested using community redevelopment grants to encourage tenants and apartment residents to become homeowners. According to Cassidy, a $50,000 grant could be divided among homeowners, granting each of them $5,000 for home improvements provided they match $500 to receive the funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about utilizing the existing housing, not looking at attracting people from outside but seeing who\u2019s living here and who can become homeowners,\u201d said Cassidy.<\/p>\n

Cassidy also suggested making improvements to Coatesville\u2019s downtown area in order to make it more appealing to visitors, as well as designating certain areas as enterprise zones, allowing them to be eligible for grants of up to $350,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s problems with the streetscape up and down that might not take that much money to fix,\u201d said Cassidy. \u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s the first thing people see when they come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassidy offered his services to facilitate the program in exchange for 10 percent of the awarded grant. \u00a0While members of the authority said they agreed with Cassidy\u2019s proposals, Vice President Jack Burkholder said they would need to further discuss the matter with the City Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t operate in a vacuum; we need to have the support of City Council,\u201d said Burkholder.<\/p>\n

The authority took no further action on the matter, but Cassidy assured the authority he would be willing to discuss the proposal with the City Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cassidy, who played big role in Phoenixville, offers solutions to revitalize Coatesville By Jamie Richard, Staff Writer, CoatesvilleTimes.com COATESVILLE \u2013 Community and economic development specialist Barry Cassidy spoke before the Coatesville Redevelopment Authority to propose ways to revitalize Coatesville at their meeting Monday. Cassidy was involved with redevelopment efforts in Phoenixville several years earlier and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[24,294,295,293],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-coatesville","tag-grants","tag-housing","tag-revitalization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}