On Tuesday, May 2, our Blight Fight initiative officially made it to 500! Our Public Works crew removed two blighted houses at 371 and 383 Dewitt Street. You can watch the demolition here.
“We don’t want to just tear things down. This is about building our community up, something that we intend to do,” said Mayor Lester Miller.
The two properties are near the Mill Hill Community Arts Center and will be donated to the National Park Service as part of the expansion of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park. Clearing these dangerous and dilapidated houses will add more life to the Mill Hill rejuvenation.
The past 10 years, the Urban Development Authority (UDA) and the Macon Arts Alliance have led the effort to rejuvenate the Mill Hill: East Macon Arts Village, including buying, rehabbing, and reselling properties assessed under $10,000 . Those have all been sold to new occupants and have added $1.1 million to the Macon-Bibb tax base.
“This has been years in the making,” said UDA Executive Director Alex Morrison. “The houses demolished on Dewitt Street were also acquired by the UDA, but not just part of the Mill Hill effort but as the bigger picture of what’s going on in East Macon and the cultures that preceded us as Macon for thousands of years.”
“Without that long term vision, we wouldn’t be at the precipice of creating America’s 64th National Park and Preserve, which is slated to happen this year,” said Mayor Pro Tempore and Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative Executive Director Seth Clark. “Congress will not do that unless they see progress from the gateway communities in the United States of America that are stewards of that park and this, is what they are looking for.”
One of Mayor Miller’s early actions (based on community feedback) was to be more proactive with removing blight from neighborhoods, especially since there were blighted structures that had sat vacant and deteriorating for nearly a decade. So he launched the #BlightFight in April 2021, bringing together multiple agencies, departments, and companies to remove the dangerous structures from neighborhoods more quickly.
During the press conference, District 3 Commissioner Elaine Lucas praised Mayor Miller for his efforts in speeding up the process to remove dangerous and abandoned structures from our community. Later that day during the Commission meeting, Commissioners presented a brick from one of the two houses with a plaque and ordinance to commemorate his leadership. You can watch that here.
“Until this present time, we were very, very frustrated at the slow pace of taking care of things like this,” said Commissioner Lucas. “Under your administration Mayor, you’ve not only done the talking, but have done the walking as well, and you have put money into projects like this to get it done. That’s what we as Commissioners have wanted for years and years, and that’s why it makes me sentimental to be here. It’s a tremendous day.”
The Blight Fight does not stop at 500. Our Code Enforcement Department is working hard every day to get more blighted structures identified and in the process for demolition. If you would like to report a blighted house in your neighborhood, click here.