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The Grant Avenue Parkway project is primarily funded by a $21 million federal grant.
SBJ File
The Grant Avenue Parkway project is primarily funded by a $21 million federal grant.

Grant Avenue blight study a go, with one objection

Posted online

Springfield City Council voted 8-1 to pay $75,000 for a blight study for the proposed Grant Avenue Parkway project, a move that will allow future developers to skip this expense.

Councilperson Craig Hosmer was the lone dissenting vote.

In remarks last night, Hosmer pointed out that the normal process is for the developer to pay for a blight study for their own property, and the study either reveals blight or it doesn’t. “Now we’re paying for the blight study for the developers,” he said, and questioned whether the city would recover the cost.

The $26 million Grant Avenue Parkway project will create an off-street pedestrian and bicycle pathway along Grant Avenue between Sunshine and College streets, according to the project’s website. The three-mile route will connect downtown Springfield with the Wonders of Wildlife National Museum and Aquarium, while also hooking up with other parks and recreation amenities, neighborhoods and schools.

Councilperson Richard Ollis, who originally proposed the blight study, said that the public investment for the Grant Avenue Parkway project is important for the community. “We’re creating a design standard along the corridor which is the most rigorous that we’ve ever had in the city of Springfield,” he said.

Hosmer’s chief concern was that single-family homes might be declared blighted to clear the way for apartment buildings.

“We keep incentivizing more and more developers to tear down single-family homes and build apartment complexes,” Hosmer said.

Hosmer said 60% of the population rent instead of own their own home. Springfield’s renter growth rate from 2010-19 was the second highest in the nation after Waterbury, Connecticut, and it was the only Missouri city to shift to more renters than buyers in that span, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

“That spells problems for the city of Springfield,” Hosmer said. He added that the population is more transitory and experiences more crime, while there is less care for property.

“We all bemoan the fact that we’ve got 60% living in rental property and then we incentivize it – sort of schizophrenic,” he said.

He added that there are better things for which the city can use the $75,000 allocation. Ollis said it is not unusual to do a blight study for a project like the Grant Avenue Parkway. He asked Economic Development Director Sarah Kerner if there was anything in the proposed legislation that said the city would tear down single-family homes.

“Right now, we’re just funding the blight study,” Kerner said.

He added construction costs are at an all-time high, and individual studies are expensive and time consuming. “There’s no question in my mind that there’s blight along that corridor,” he said, noting that this makes the study especially advantageous.

But Hosmer objected. “The vast majority of blight studies tear something down to build something up,” he said.

He added that current residents on Grant Avenue would not benefit from the study.

“That’s the way that it’s worked in the city of Springfield ever since I’ve been on the council,” Hosmer said.

While he said that he supports the Grant Avenue Parkway project and sees it as a smart use of resources, he added, “I do not support using taxpayer dollars to pay for their blight study.”

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