The Mt. Adams Neighborhood Strategic Plan

To give you an idea of the top issues we are addressing in this plan, here are the basic categories. We have specific findings and recommendations for each of these issue categories. This is essentially the outline of topics for the plan we are drafting. We will share more details at the January open houses. All feedback is welcome.

- Community Life

- Development & Preservation

- Public Spaces

- Business District

- Parking

- Clean, Safe, & Attractive

- Infrastructure & Utilities

To share the results of our work so far, the steering committee for The Mt. Adams Neighborhood Strategic Plan will host two open houses in January, 2009. Please plan to show up for one of these dates and offer your feedback. We think you will be very interested in seeing what we have learned. Here are the dates.

- Sunday, January 11, 2009 from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m.

- Wednesday, January 14, 2009 from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m.

Mt. Adams Resident or Business Owner -

The Cincinnati Department of City Planning is currently working with the Mt. Adams community to develop a strategic neighborhood plan that will provide the foundation for a positive future in the neighborhood. Workshops held and surveys collected in June were part of this planning effort. In the next few months, we will host additional neighborhood meetings to discuss strategies to address the problems and opportunities you identified.

In the meantime, I’d like to bring to your attention important meetings happening over the next few weeks at Playhouse in the Park. Playhouse will be hosting a town hall meeting to discuss the pluses and minuses of remaining at its current location in Mt. Adams or moving downtown. The Playhouse meetings will be held on Monday, September 22nd and Monday, October 6th at 7:00 p.m. in the Marx Theatre. Please see the complete news release at the bottom of this email for more details.

The presence of Playhouse in the Park is an integral part of the Mt. Adams community. Please show your support of Playhouse and the importance of their continued presence in Mt. Adams by attending.

Here are two videos that make the case for speed bumps. This was also a big issue identified through the course of our community planning work. We sure hope nothing tragic happens while the Traffic and Engineer Department continues to say they are against speed bumps. The need is painfully obvious to our neighborhood families, businesses, the churches, and everyone else.

Channel 5 had a story on the parking problem in Mt. Adams. That is only one issue we are working on. Here’s a link to the story and video.

On June 25, 2008 Cincinnati City Council made some great progress towards adopting the recommendations from the View Corridor Study. This was a fantastic study completed in 2007 and the Mt. Adams Civic Association is fully backing the recommendation. These are the right steps towards preserving the most valuable asset we have in our small hilltop neighborhood, our views.

Here is a link to the City Council items.

Here is a link to the complete View Corridor Study.

This story was in the Wall Street Journal and it reminded me of some of the issues Mt. Adams is facing.

We had another great community workshop on Sunday. Over the past week, we have received tons of input from residents, renters, businesses, and other community participants. The steering committee will be working through this information in the weeks ahead to provide a summary for you.

Channel 5 was at the meeting and here’s a brief video. They were focused on the parking issues in Mt. Adams, but our efforts are much broader than that.

Stay tuned to this website for more.

Wow! We had a great neighborhood turnout for the first community workshop on Wednesday night. Everyone had such wonderful ideas and shared many of their neighborhood concerns. It very impressive to see how much the participants love Mt. Adams. The neighbors and businesses a passionate about improving our little corner of the world.

Thank you to everyone who came out Wednesday night. We hope to have many new faces on Sunday afternoon from 1-3 p.m.

Stay posted for more.

We had a very helpful meeting today with the members of the Mt. Adams Business Guild. This organization represents most of the businesses on the hill (e.g., retail, real estate, taverns, restaurants, and corporations). The purpose of the meeting was to involve as many business owners as possible in our strategic planning process. We used the time to capture their thoughts on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for being in business in Mt. Adams. We will include their thoughts in the analysis the steering committee has already completed. Look for that to be posted to the documents page in a week or so.

All of the businesses are also being encouraged to participate in the community workshops this week. We are excited to get everyone involved. Most of the neighborhood businesses are highlighted on this website http://www.mtadamstoday.com.