PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) — The creation of Prineville’s first urban renewal authority requires a comprehensive plan unveiled during Tuesday’s city council meeting aimed at revitalizing the city’s aging downtown district.
If approved, the Prineville Urban Renewal Agency will focus on revitalizing Prineville, attracting new businesses and improving the quality of life of residents.
The city expects to adopt the final plan and ordinance in October of this year.
Planning director Josh Smith said: “The authority is the council, and that authority then manages the funding to deliver these projects and will hopefully renew or revitalize the district – in this case our downtown.”
The city has established seven concrete benchmarks that the planned urban renewal agency aims to achieve:
- Maintaining citizen participation
- promote economic growth.
- Promoting a unique district identity
- Make the city centre a destination
- improve multimodal transport
- Integration of the parking system
- to campaign for the protection of historical monuments.
“The city’s primary purpose is the streetscape. We’re talking about sidewalks, lights, the things you typically see in downtown Bend, Redmond, Madras and all the other cities in Central Oregon, to really enhance that streetscape, that public environment – that interaction between the public and the private,” Smith said.
If all goes well with the establishment of the Urban Renewal Agency in Prineville, the city says its first task will be to revitalize this part of town (Fourth and Main).
