Spring cleaning is just as much a part of April as blooming plants and seasonal allergies. This year, the city of Dalton is organizing an effort for a “Spring CLEAN” in one of our founding neighborhoods. The Creating Lively Environments and Neighborhoods Initiative, or CLEAN for short, will kick off on Saturday, April 6, with an information meeting and free cookout at the Mack Gaston Community Center on Fredrick Street.
The Spring CLEAN will focus on restoring the shine to the neighborhood surrounding the Mack Gaston Community Center. The focus area is bordered by Fields Avenue to the east, Henderson Street to the west, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north and Morris Street to the south.
During this initiative, the city will focus its efforts on identifying property-related issues such as maintenance and upkeep and most importantly safety issues for residents in the neighborhood. The city’s Code Enforcement Department will lead the effort, performing inspections to locate issues that fall within property maintenance codes and local ordinances. The city will also be helping residents address these issues.
The Public Works Department will have special “trash amnesty days” during which they will pick up accumulated rubbish and debris items on properties that normally cannot be collected at the curb. The city is also partnering with agencies such as Believe Greater Dalton, Habitat for Humanity, Rebuilding Hope and others to help residents with the work. In most cases, those agencies can only perform work for owner-occupied properties and not properties that generate rental revenue.
“The city of Dalton is about 175 years old, and some of our foundational neighborhoods are maybe not quite that old but homes and buildings can be 100 years old or more. It’s a quality of life issue to bring those great neighborhoods back to their former glory,” said Andrew Parker, Dalton’s city administrator. “The CLEAN Initiative is something we’ve been working on with Believe Greater Dalton and our partners for a few months, planning to help with the work to restore the shine and help Dalton look its best and be its best for our residents.”
The CLEAN Initiative is modeled after successful projects in other communities such as the 5 X 5 program in Macon. In that project, city leaders identified areas of focus that measured five city blocks by five city blocks, thus the 5 X 5 name, and devoted public and private attention and resources on bringing the area back up to code. The results have been positive, with aging buildings either repaired or in some cases removed, and neighborhoods left thriving again.
Some of the code issues that the Spring CLEAN will focus on include rubbish and garbage on the properties; inoperable or unregistered vehicles on the property; overgrown vegetation; homes and structures with peeling, chipping or missing paint; and damaged exteriors.
The Spring CLEAN kickoff meeting will be Saturday, April 6, at noon at the Mack Gaston Community Center. Residents of the focus area are invited to come to the community center to learn more about the initiative and the resources available for assistance. There will be a cookout with free food for participants.