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Council looks to extend consulting firm’s contract

LISBON –The consulting firm hired to help the village revitalize the downtown business district may be brought back for another year.

The Lisbon Area Chamber of Commerce is again being asked to join with Village Council in splitting the cost of contracting with Town Center Associates to help complete and then implement the revitalization plan, according to Mayor Joseph Morenz.

Chamber President Susan Shank said she intends to recommend at its Jan. 9 board meeting they agree to split the cost with council, which also meets later the same day.

“I think the first year with TCA were the building blocks and ideas of what we need to do,” she said. “It went as well as could be expected, but there is still a lot of work to be done.”

TCA specializes in revitalizing small town business districts and much of 2017 involved working with the village in drafting legislation beefing up the existing building maintenance code and enacting a new law requiring owners of vacant storefronts make some effort to lease or sell the building or face being fined.

Morenz wants TCA’s help as they begin enforcing the two new laws and assist the village in revamping the existing zoning code as part of the revitalization plan. One of the major zoning changes Morenz seeks is reducing the borders of the central business district as defined by the zoning code to a more manageable size and so the focus will be on the downtown.

For example, the northern border of the central business district extends to West Pine Street, where the Circle K convenience store sits, which Morenz believes is too far beyond the downtown business district. He favors “shrinking” it and doing the same with the east and west boundaries.

“We’re going to shrink the central business district to just the downtown,” Morenz said.

Another possible change would restrict the size of new buildings. Morenz favors doing this to prevent a developer, for example, from tearing down three older buildings and replacing them with a single new structure. He said the whole point of the revitalization plan is to retain as many of Lisbon’s historic buildings as possible for use by new and existing businesses.

“We want to try to keep the buildings there that are there,” he said.

TCA’s fee is $12,500, the same as 2017, but two chamber members donated $1,000 each, with council and chamber splitting the rest. Shank said a person who wished to remain anonymous wants to make donation for 2018 but she does now know the amount yet.

“We believe this is a step in the right direction and we believe we will see positive results for the village,” she said, adding some property owners have already responded by cleaning up their properties, while others have sold buildings to new owners who intend to fix them up.

Morenz said he ran the TCA contract past the council finance committee and they agreed to recommend it be approved by the entire council at the Jan. 9 meeting. He said Fiscal Officer Tracey Wonner has planned for the expenditure in the village’s proposed 2018 budget.

Morenz believes they are on the right track with the revitalization plan. “All of these things should start really coming together in 2018 … This is a proactive plan instead of a reactive plan, and our problem in the past is we’ve been reactive instead of proactive.”

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