good excellent hello welcome everyone my
name is Elena Andrews I'm the landscape
staff consultant with the city of Bexley
and we want to we're here today to talk
about the alley of the future and really
you know talk about what does it mean to
re-envision our alleys in Bexley
Halley's are our corridors for utilities
for services for all manners of vehicles
but they're really so much more I mean
how many times have you pulled into an
alley and you've seen you know chalk and
kids are playing and they're doing
Hopscotch or kids are learning how to
ride their bikes or even just neighbors
talking over trash cans that have been
knocked over by a storm and you're kind
of putting it back together so
today we want to begin the dialogue as
well as the brainstorming and the
daydreaming about what alleys can
actually be and to kick us off it is my
pleasure to introduce Keith Myers he is
a graduate of the Ohio State University
he has over 30 years of Private Practice
most notably in 1984 he helped he was
one of the founding members of mksk
which is a nationwide landscape
architecture and urban planning firm you
probably would recognize some of his
projects here in Columbus he was
responsible for the master master
planning of the Nationwide Arena
District as well as the design for the
Scioto Mile and the sciota Greenways
in 2011 he was named a fellow to the um
fellow a fellow of the American Society
of Landscape Architects which is a
really great honor in 2012 he left his
practice and then actually joined Ohio
State his alma mater as the vice
president of the planning architecture
and real estate and there he spent 10
years helping to over sit oversee the
expanding footprint of Ohio State and
interestingly he was the design force
behind the
re-envisioning of Mirror Lake and
transforming it from kind of like a
concrete pool essentially into making it
much more natural and working with the
environment
so this year he actually retired he has
his own studio now Kay Myers and he has
agreed to come and speak with us this
evening and give us a little bit of
thoughts on alleys so with that I
introduce Keith
okay
so
um Alice I mean I could talk about this
for
um
you know 10 hours but I have 10 minutes
I've had a fascination with Halley's for
a very long time when I was much younger
I was working on the master plan for
Universal Studios in Florida and I
watched them build a section of that
called sting alley I went down there and
it was all brand new it looked like new
construction and I came back two weeks
later and I thought I was in Chicago in
1932. by the time the scenic patterns
got done with it and I just was
fascinated people loved it I was
fascinated as why people you know
responded to that alley later on you
know I looked into Ali's our office was
on Ludlow Street Columbus has no alleys
as many as you know well they do I mean
there are alleys in by definition
they're 30 feet from building to
building but it was decided that alleys
have such a bad connotation at time in
Columbus that they were all named
streets so um we had our office on
Ludlow Street which I disliked so I
promptly changed the name on my own to
Ludlow alley and our address to this day
is for MKS case 462 South Ludlow alley
um it's the only alley that's that the
post office will deliver mail to so I've
had this Fascination for a while if you
go to the next slide please
so um when the mayor asked me to talk
about this I wanted to just I I you know
I'm a bit of an amateur historian so I
can't just look at things as you know
here's where they are and here's the
future I have to understand why alleys
are here and I began to look into it a
little bit if you go to the next slide
please
uh Grady clay was a great urbanist from
the 70s I don't think many of you saw
the 70s I'm not sure how much of them I
saw but it was the parts that I remember
they told me I had a really good time
um but he was a terrific urbanist ahead
of his time I love this quote out of
sight and out of mind the American
Residential alley has been the
geographic and social outcast to the
built environment and that's largely
true
in fact it goes a little bit beyond that
if you go to the next slide please
um alleys have
um a reputation
maybe it's well learned maybe it's not
but dark alleys have been used and
popular culture for a long time if you
go to the next slide you could imagine
you know or you you know these things
you know nightmare alley a dark alley a
long walk down a dark alley and my
favorite was you know Raymond Chandler
who you know he and dashell Hammett had
a little thing going back and forth but
you know dashel Hammett took the crime
out of the nation face and dropped it
into the alley I mean that's beautiful
right
but at least really had a pretty
negative connotation if you go to the
next slide please
um and yet some of them are quite
beautiful these are all alleys from
around the world if you're in Great
Britain you'll find Muse which is a form
of Valley arcades are essentially alleys
connecting streets that have a roof on
them and um there are caves Cleveland
I'm from Cleveland if you know Cleveland
it has numerous arcades that connect
streets but the um one prominent one and
of course Lanes which you'll find Lanes
in particularly older North American
cities Boston and Philadelphia if you go
the next
um
so how did we get here well American
cities never had alleys when they were
first settled the settlement patterns in
New York and Boston and Philadelphia
Philadelphia had a plan New York and
Boston early never had a plan when
they're initially settled and the
streets
um were essentially laid out by the
dominant
um travel patterns in in the settlement
although
folklore will tell you they were cow
paths I'm not entirely sure that's true
Philadelphia had a plan done by William
Penn but it included no alley so there
were no alleys in early American cities
if you're on the next line
um
yeah the next there you go until about
1807 when they decided that they were
going to
um
and you know they were going to put the
grid into Manhattan okay the 1807
Commissioners plan essentially gridded
out all of Manhattan regardless of
topography or anything they just you
know laid it out and the the end so like
everything to this day everything south
of
um or north of I think it's Canal Street
um you know there's there's no alleys or
anything in there there's a few alleys
in New York south of
um Canal Street but not many there's one
called Courtland alley which is in every
movie you've ever seen of New York
um because it's used over and over again
because there aren't many to represent
alleys of New York which there aren't
any of so the reason the commissioner's
plan did this is when they ins when they
instituted this in Manhattan they took
out about 40 percent of the structures
that were on Manhattan Island but to be
fair that really wasn't all that much
then you know
um so but as partly his compensation
they decided they needed to make the
building areas as large as possible
and as a consequence there were no
service alleys next slide please
of course that has unintended
consequences that are with us today all
of the services then have to come
through the front
um and uh and any all of you have been
in New York many many times you've seen
this sentence be extreme example during
the garbage strikes but you see this you
know
um pretty much on a weekly basis you
know in different areas of the city feel
the next one
Philadelphia was a little bit of a
different story it had no alleys but
allies began to emerge
uh almost organically so what they would
do is as blocks blocks were fairly large
and people would cut through them and
they'd create these passages through the
blocks and eventually people began to
build buildings on those blocks and the
um uh then the lanes were established
and
the property owners asked the city to
take over the lanes and the city agreed
to maintain the lanes that they
dedicated the land to them and that's in
fact how many of the alleys in the old
part of Philadelphia would drive the
most famous of course being Alfred alley
which probably many of you have been to
but it's a beautiful little alley in in
Philadelphia go the next slide please
um the first time there were actually
alleys put into an American city where
in Savannah Georgia and
um oglethorpe's famous plan was more
than the 16 squares that it's so famous
for but actually he began to Institute
alleys at a mid block and you can see
how the cells of the urban development
in Savannah are much more porous than
New York
which there's a stark difference between
the two and if you walk through Savannah
you can feel it there's many ways to
wander through Savannah It's a Wonderful
City next slide please
um which I'm going to jump ahead now to
the present and and you can go ahead the
next slide
you could assume then at after Savannah
cities throughout North America started
playing with alleys you know Columbus
and Detroit Cleveland
um we're all planned with alleys in mind
and the alleys had a very important
function you know they they were the
service for for certain they provided
the service to the to the property
owners into the cities so you know in
the early days there were stables and
Carriage Houses and things back there
and um
uh in latrines frankly lots of things
were back along the alleys um and
utilities began to get routed down there
over the years and and you know they had
a pretty important function
um in 1869 uh fertile Homestead and
clever Val created a plan for Riverside
Illinois it was a railroad
um
suburb outside of Chicago and
um it was done without any alleys
without any right angles too I might
have but um
uh and it quickly established itself as
the new ideal of the American suburb and
alleys began to fall into disfavor if
you go to the next slide please
um and it got to the point where in the
30s the federal government began to
discourage the development of valleys
and by the 1950s subdivision regulations
and Zoning codes pretty much prohibited
new alleys being built any anywhere in
America
and that was the case until the 1980s
when the new urbanists emerged on the
scene led by Andreas tuami who rejected
the
um the Riverside Illinois ideal American
suburb had some there's tremendous
quotes about their rejection of that you
know they were not going to build
suburban slurvia and things Bexley
doesn't have to worry about but you know
you can find in almost any American
suburb that's been built from the
midnight mid 20th century on
um the new urbanists go to the next
slide please
made liberal use of Halley's all of a
sudden they rewrote the codes rewrote
the zoning codes they challenged all of
the subdivision regulations and they in
fact
reintroduced allies into
a number of very significant projects
the Kentlands being won and the next
slide is one that is very well known
which is Celebration Florida where
there's a prominent use of valleys you
know throughout this development of this
disney-fied city there's other
criticisms one can make the new
urbanists
and I would love to chat about that at
some point because I have my own take on
a lot of that there's there's a certain
Stepford quality of the celebration I
find really troubling but anyway it's
but the alleys were a really nice
addition okay so if you go to the next
slide please and cities also began to
ReDiscover these these commercial alleys
in some of these forgotten areas so
Printer's Alley in Nashville became
quite famous for blues and music Black
Denali in DC was a really you know not
in a particularly good area town near
the convention center and it emerged as
kind of an art and
um and foodie hang out so these
commercial alleys became where the kind
of hip young urbanites wanted to hang
out and um and play
so the next slide please
so where's that what's that mean for the
future of Valley certainly you'll
continue to see these commercial cities
turn these commercial alleys in into
things but there's there's really a
broader initiative at work so if you go
to the next slide
um
mayor Richard Daly in Chicago decided to
tackle alleys in the early part of the
21st century about 2001 or not 2007 they
put the green alley program in effect
and you know his goal was to
really showcase these environmental
Technologies to manage storm water you
know and most alleys don't have storm
systems in them and as a consequence you
know there's a lot of nuisance flooding
and things that happen in alleys and
that was one of the things they wanted
to to tackle go to the next slide please
um in Chicago this study found that as
they started that went to get started on
this there was 1900 linear miles of
valleys almost
um five and a half square miles of land
of just alleys a staggering number
um so it's twice the size of Bexley
about the size of one in the ten and
double the size of the Ohio State
University that's all alleys in Chicago
so it's not an insignificant thing when
you decide you're going to tackle in
today
Chicago's has redone almost 300 alleys
um which is pretty impressive frankly
next slide please other cities took
notice in Seattle a 2010 study by Gale
architects
from Copenhagen actually found that
one-third of the public realm was
devoted to alleys it was interesting
there was
200 and some thousand square feet of
alleys and only 450 some thousand square
feet of streets
and squares and
other sort of and Parks public Realms so
the public Realms so you know they could
increase by paying attention to alleys
they could increase the public Realm by
almost a third you go the next slide
please
um so Chicago Detroit Seattle Los
Angeles all began to Institute green
alley programs and began to refocus on
their alleys in a big way if you go to
the next slide
now to to do that you know it's the
design problem isn't that difficult it's
pretty simple really
um it's it's a pallet of materials that
often includes simple permeable pavement
native plantings paint paying attention
to the vertical edges along the alley
um so you know if you have fences
leaning or falling down not good you
know but fences in them of themselves
are not bad you want an edge you know
along the alley and it's not really all
that difficult if you go to the next
slide
but the results of using these materials
and things can be quite spectacular and
um you know this is a fairly simple
approach to an alley that's permeable
Paving
intermixed with some old brick on both
sides and then just some very simple
kind of plantings along the foundations
of this go to the next slide please
in fact even a residential alleys you
know there's there's different ways of
using these materials and things to
create something that is um more
um honorific of the the role that alleys
play of and as part of the public realm
if you go to the next slide
so in conclusion I think it's
um
it's terrific that Bexley is looking at
this I think really terrific and
um when a few cities in Ohio I know that
it you know ever really tackled us on a
big way there may be others I'm not
aware of but
um and I think it's
um it's great that you can think about
putting alleys
into the um or to make them as important
in the public realm as the streets that
you pay so close attention to
next slide
um I love this quote by Brian azello you
know I love Ally's the back door to
everything and everybody needs a back
door right you know so our our neighbors
all come to our back door so it's great
so that's it
um thank you
um and I applaud the efforts you're
making here in Bexley so
thank you
Keith thank you so much for coming here
tonight you're you're when I asked Keith
to
come and talk to us
I don't even know why I knew you were
the right person I just knew you were
the right person we were sitting down
like who should we have kind of kick off
and talk about what allies mean and
Keith is like the uh Elena gave you all
the bonafides but he's like the uh the
spiritual mentor of the Columbus
planning community and he's this font of
wisdom and we had the good fortune that
he just retired from OSU so we were able
to smack him because his schedule has
been so full and so I really appreciate
what I just learned
um and how it affirms kind of what we're
talking about so thank you for sharing
that with us and I know that that's
going to serve to help us kind of guide
us through the project so
back in 2012 we launched
a love your alley project and the idea
of the love your allergy project was to
hey how's it going was to
encourage in a positive way just the
concept of of alley maintenance
we ran the PRI we ran it kind of on and
off for four or five years and it was
moderately successful like it did
encourage some
some better maintenance of properties
but then about two or three years ago it
got taken over in a really good way it
morphed it had a Grassroots involvement
of community led by Rebecca Ness Who's
involved with our esac and it turned
into a project that was not just about
beautification but also about Native
plantings oh and about
um
I just got distracted native plantings
and art artwork and uh just like a more
creative open approach to alleys and the
reason Rebecca's not here tonight and
many of the people involved in it is
because they just won an award from the
Franklin conservatories going to Green
award they're at the banquet uh we could
not figure a way to switch the night
um for the 2022
Community project of the year so
congratulations to them but we there we
go I have Applause for Rebecca
we do have a message from Rebecca which
you can see here hi I'm Rebecca Ness
Vice chair with green Bexley during the
past two years with the love your alley
initiative we've started restoring
biodiversity with native plants and our
talented local artists have added so
much Beauty with their many murals this
is Larissa carux's mural she painted her
soft bees with purple coneflowers and
some showy Goldenrod and in front of her
mural we planted purple coneflowers and
some showy Goldenrod to bring it to life
a little bit more
so right now I'm standing in one of our
90 alleys and I see so much potential
and opportunity here the alleys are an
underutilized space that we can use to
bring more sustainability to Bexley join
us in being an architect of the future
with the alley of the future competition
let's see what we can dream up
so I want to talk about what is this
competition
and you might start getting lazy because
there's only you know maybe five or six
people here in this room
but don't get too relaxed because as
soon as it sits the internet we're gonna
have like a 1 million views and the
competition is going to get hot so let
me talk about this
let's talk about what we've done with
love your alley so love your alley as
it's morphed into native plantings and
artwork has kind of showcased uh
beautiful sometimes Whimsical but very
profoundly effective
how these small little changes can
really influence our environment in a
really big way since we have a multitude
of images that kind of showcase the
different murals that we had in love
your alley and some of the different
um
art projects and the native plantings we
did have to do some transliteration of
some computer stuff so not all of those
came across
so as we thought about like how can we
take this to the next level we've
thought about well what are some other
things that could be impacted and as we
thought through it the most powerful
changes that we saw with love your alley
were very natives they were they were
they were Grassroots
they were passion projects and they were
fed by alley blocks at many times alley
blocks coming together and deciding what
is it that we want to see happen in our
alleys and so we thought about if we
want to go beyond what's been happening
with our love your alley projects into
into infrastructure where we're talking
about storm water retention we're
talking about Green infrastructure we're
talking about I mean I'll give you a
list of things we're thinking about but
I'm really curious what the community to
talk about we're thinking about smart
lighting that's sensor based that as you
walk down the alley the lights come on
and then it shuts off as you leave maybe
we're talking about
um
uh Gathering spaces because our alleys
in if you I don't know how many people
who live on an alley here if I make
sense everyone here lives okay so a
Sunday afternoon in a Bexley alley uh on
a on a bright sunny day on a block full
of small small kids is like a glorious
thing now it's a sensitive topic it's a
safety concern right because we also
have cars driving through those alleys
we also have cyclists driving through
those alleys so how do we get that
Community Gathering feel that we're
using already but make it safer so how
do we take what exists today and and
make it safer and then we thought about
like
well there are policies right so
blocks come together for block parties
and they say we'd like to close down our
block for this one day well maybe blocks
come together and they have policies and
they say that like during a certain time
on Sunday afternoons we're going to
agree as a block that we're going to
make sure that we don't need to access
our garage during those days during that
time and that we're going to use our
alley as more of a gathering space
doesn't have to happen it's up to the
alley to decide whether or not that's
something they would want to do
so the idea though is how can we go
beyond just simple aesthetic changes to
get a little bit deeper
so what is the project
or the competition the competition is
simply come up
with an idea
ideally bringing as many neighbors as
you can for what you think the alley of
the future looks like for you
in order for you to submit that
application you need to have at least 75
percent of your alley block neighbors
sign off on the application
be creative
have fun
you need to maintain access to utilities
we need to maintain access for trash
trucks we need to maintain access for
garages
other than that what can we do in our
alleys that would really revolutionize
those spaces and maybe revolutionize
isn't even the right word maybe it's
bring them back to their roots
because far too often the alley is that
forgotten backdoor we want it to be the
back door that we're proud of the space
that helps to capture that community and
you know
the time to talk about this is probably
like this is such a great time because
we've seen in the past three or four
years
something like a 30 percent increase in
deaths attributed to automobiles it's
not getting safer to be out in streets
I'm not saying weed Bexley I'm saying we
the United States of America
um so how do we create safer spaces how
do we create spaces where multimodal
transportation is embraced that's not
just a conversation for the Allies
that's also a conversation for our
streets but this is an opportunity to
embrace that
conversation
you might be asking what's my budget
that is a fantastic question
and it depends
so if the alley in question is five
houses deep
you know the budget is going to be a
little bit smaller if it's a entire long
Block in central or north of Bexley that
might be a bigger budget
we don't want to provide a whole lot of
guidance about budgets we want to look
around the country and the world and see
best cases and for you to come forward
with an idea and if your alley is
selected it might need to be honed from
a cost from a cost perspective
because ideally it would be something
that could be implemented and carbon
copied into other alleys along Bexley so
we're trying to create a pilot project
that can be successful
um Paving a street for example
like a normal
one or two blocks of a street costs
about sixty thousand dollars to pave
um alleys get paid less frequently than
our main streets but they do get paved
as well it's not a whole lot cheaper to
pave an alley so we know that we have to
sink funds into alleys but there are
alternatives that don't require repaving
every so many years so all that stuff
has to be factored in so I'm not at the
point where I could say this is what
your budget would be also Council has to
approve it
but I would say like if you come back
with a million dollar price tag that's
probably not going to be workable under
any size alley that we have in the city
of Bexley so that's a loose guidance
guidance but hopefully it's helpful
with that having been said I would like
to ask Elena Andrews to come back up and
already so key dates in terms of moving
forward
um on September 28th back here at the
Bexley public library and hopefully we
will get all of our technical issues you
know ironed out a little bit better
we're going to have an ask an expert
panel and a q a session so between now
and the 28th our thought is if you're
looking at the internet and you're doing
searches for you know images and
bringing those all together and if you
have some Initial Ideas you can come
here and then we're going to have a
variety of different professionals
myself maybe some you know other people
maybe we'll see if we can get Keith to
come back
um and a variety of different people and
you can literally come and say hey these
are our thoughts and is this realistic
are we in the right direction we have a
question about lighting we have a
question about storm water we have a
question about this so we can get a
sense of you know kind of just basically
helping to to guide you and you can ask
us any questions that you might have
then on October 6th we're going to have
what we're calling open Office hours um
from five to six thirty that's going to
be at City Hall and I will be sitting
either in the conference room or
someplace in City Hall and you literally
can just come in and if you have
whatever materials you would like to
submit bring them here and then I
basically can talk through you in terms
of ask you questions and help you flush
out ideas or you know say maybe think
about this or if you have additional
questions it's basically
um you know think of it like a desk crit
essentially so here's my design do you
have any comments on it I'm happy to
kind of you know provide any feedback
that may or may not be helpful
the submission deadline is going to be
October 14th it is online and so um as
we move forward with this after the end
of today or hopefully sometime tomorrow
we're going to have the application
online for you to work and the
submission requires don't feel that you
need to have a perfectly drawn out plan
so some of the beautiful images that
Keith had shown of you know the cities
and all that it doesn't have to be that
level of detail if you literally have a
Google map and you say here's the alley
that we're looking at and here are some
images that we like and here are our
ideas it could be a written description
it could be a sketch on you know a
notepad piece of paper it doesn't
necessarily have to be a formal design
presentation we are not expecting you
know everyone to all of a sudden run and
go get a degree in landscape design and
make an absolutely beautiful rendered
you know image if you have that that's
fantastic that'll be really exciting but
we're also not going to judge based on
you know your presentation you know if
someone has a great finished polished
drawing we're not that's not necessarily
going to hold more weight than you know
someone who just has a fantastic idea
that they're very very passionate about
so we could go to the next slide there
is going to be the alley of the future
competition so we'll see this online we
just kind of went through on that the
next slide is a essentially some of you
might have seen this where it's almost
like a block party where we are going to
be asking that you do go to your
neighbors and hopefully your neighbors
all potentially want to participate
write their name their signature just to
show that we can have 75 percent of the
people on the Alley want to actually do
this so if it's just you and you're the
only one and no one else wants to maybe
find a different alley that you can join
and just you know
provide you know design ideas but that
is something that we do want to make
sure that everyone is kind of enjoying
that and I think is there any more
slides after that and so with that we
wanted to open it up and see if there
anyone has any questions while we're
here
um yes go ahead
I would say it's probably from Street to
Street
so it needs to be I would say it needs
to be oh yeah this would be interesting
it needs to be within an area that can
be have Ingress and egress so for
example there we have some alleys I can
think of like and pop into my head right
now in Central like on Stanwood for
example there's like a mid-block alley
you could be mid Block North mid block
South you just have to have a definable
area that could be
you know I think I said it you get it
okay sectioned off and and that you you
know anyone who doesn't agree with if
you don't have people that agree on that
petition then
um it might be helpful for you to be
able to kind of snip it down a little
bit maybe
yep
so
I have comments so
yeah so my question was so as a resident
you know I'm coming in from a resident
perspective but I also appreciate the
city's need for
you know run off for rain and
what's needed from the city perspective
I still want to make sure that that's
done like how do we
come at it from a residential
perspective we'll keep
yeah do you want to take the materials
at the end like I don't know what
material would be best for like water
runoff and then
right can we go back a couple slides two
one more
ask an expert so that one and that day
yeah on that day or quite honestly even
the open Office hours so it might be
something that you say okay we think
it's important to address storm water
management runoff in some way but we
don't necessarily want to have only
Hardscape you could literally say we
would like to have permeable pavers and
you know you can either come and talk to
us and we can you know kind of tell you
what all the different options are with
permeable pavers or you can do your own
research or just make a note on that in
terms of permeable pavers in this alley
one of the things that Ben had mentioned
is um whatever the winning you know
application is is most likely going to
have to go through a more formal design
process where we're actually working
with Engineers we're working with
landscape designers and all of that to
actually make sure that it is going to
work taking formal measurements of like
where you know the garages are actually
located and where the fences are
actually located so but you know for
instance if you say permeable pavers and
that's something that you need to do
don't feel the need that you have to
research it and become yourself an
expert and say you know well based on
this we want to make sure that we use
you know Turf block and we have to have
12 inches of you know number two gravel
underneath it in order to be compacted
to a level I mean we're not expecting
that it's more kind of we're looking for
the big picture idea
not me we might not cover every single
base because you guys might think of
stuff that we're not thinking of in
terms of sort of areas of expertise but
we'll have people that are you know
storm water management experts and can
talk about the different types of
permeable Pavements and lighting and
some of that stuff I will tell you like
yes storm water management is a city
interest
it's also a rest in interest so I mean
it all ties in right but yeah there's an
expertise level but like for us like
it's no you know we have a lot of things
happening right now in stormwater in all
of Central Ohio and bexley's not any
different than any of our local
communities which is a we have changes
in weather patterns B we have aging
infrastructure see we we're all adding
on to our houses so there's like more
sheeting of water happening so we need
to start to reverse some of that and
this is a great opportunity for us to
talk about like how do we get more
permeability in our infrastructure
my comments is I'd be thrilled if my
neighbor just covered their
broadbands as opposed to leaving it out
so that to me is like a behavior
and kind of making it beautiful right
like how do we make the alley actually
clean and beautiful
so I think that's one thing for me and
the other part is I think you know
Bexley has a lot of and this is what I
was discussing with you earlier a lot of
micro areas
overall competition while I'm
opening it's like how do we make all of
that security
we make Livingston as pretty as
you know the area around CSG right how
do we make the north gold area and some
other of the areas just as beautiful as
Central nicely so I think that's part of
what I'd like to see
approach as opposed to a block by block
or Alibi alley approach
sure so I mean I I love what you're
saying and just in case it didn't get
picked up on the microphone the question
would be like how do we go beyond just
any one given alley and coherently have
this beautification throughout the city
so one thing that we know is not super
effective at that is Code Enforcement
the stick approach yeah takes care of
the most egregious infractions but it
doesn't change culture and in fact I
think there's probably some good
evidence to support that like code
enforcement sometimes
because of the stick approach makes
people begrudging about the way that
they handle their property maintenance
and so
I think that when we raise the bar and
we show people what's possible we do
Inspire and I this isn't scientific
subjectively as we have shown good
examples of of alley beautification I
have seen an improvement in alleys
throughout the whole city so the hope is
that like as we put as we put our stamp
on one block and there's excitement
built around that and as we roll that
out to other blocks and every block
might have a different like in terms of
policies there might not that might who
knows the winning application might add
any policy piece to this but whatever it
is it might look a little bit different
but I think you know we've seen it with
love your alley where people are well
how do I get one of those murals like
it's just like this how do I elevate my
alley into that space and and it's not
an overnight fix just like the
Livingston Avenue plan that's beautiful
and I think we've got a lot of great
prospects for that it's not an overnight
fix but I think it's incremental
Improvement and the way we look at it
like we don't have the resources as a
community to fix everything overnight
but we certainly have the longevity in
patients to incrementally improve and
Elevate and I think this is a way to do
that
congratulations winning alley over here
I just
okay
[Laughter]
it's hot it's hot in here
did you want to add anything to that no
that was perfect okay any other
questions
the library has amazing resources to be
inspired there are books on stormwater
management
on the green alleys and on
infrastructure and if they're not here
you can tap into the central Ohio system
and find them
um so I you know if you're interested in
this here in the room or online
um get creative I think like
our best hope is that all of the
different submissions that we might see
that we'll learn from all of them and
that maybe that final alley and the
alleys of the future aren't amalgam of
some of these ideas that are are
building up here in the community yes
Sam if someone from the community would
have questions
so yeah if you have any questions about
the program you can reach out to
communicator bexley.org and we will
answer those questions or you could call
City Hall
614-559-4200 and you can ask to speak to
Elizabeth ellman who is our
environmental sustainability coordinator
um who can help at least direct you in
the right or answer the question in the
right direction
thank you
why don't you mention that yeah
so we um there are going to be a group
of judges and we will publish that
online
um it's going to be a variety of people
both from the city city council
community members but we wanted to wait
until applications were in because we
don't want to have any undue influence
or nor do we want to prevent anyone in
the community for actually participating
in this program so once all the
submissions are in we'll be able to
understand who we can ask to help judge
this and then we'll post that online so
I just wanted to if anyone had a
question about that I wanted to note
that
good point thank you
all right guys thank you so much for
joining us this evening thank you again
to Keith Meyer another
Round of Applause
the library closes 15 minutes
it's like Hunger Games here for the
alley books so quick run and get them
that's right