THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601190586
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Neighborhoods throughout Hampton Roads will exchange ideas about code enforcement and related revitalization issues at a grass-roots regionalism forum Saturday.
More and more neighborhoods are learning the importance of timely enforcement of property codes, said Gene Waters, chairman of the Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations, which is sponsoring the forum.
Andrew Damiani, a former mayor of Suffolk, will lead the discussion, beginning 10 a.m. Saturday, at the Portsmouth Visual Arts Center, 340 High St., Portsmouth.
Damiani said he will talk about the role that code enforcement plays in preserving neighborhoods and how citizens can help.
``I hope we can open some dialogue rather than me preaching,'' Damiani said. ``Sometimes you can solve the problems without government.''
Damiani also said code enforcement needs to be tailored to various types of neighborhoods. ``You have to have different approaches'' to well-maintained, transitional and rundown areas, he said.
But in any neighborhood, he said, code enforcement should be seen as ``the backbone.''
``Even in suburbia, that was so untouchable from urban problems for many years, you're now starting to see this decay,'' Damiani said.
Damiani, a Suffolk City Council member for 20 years and mayor for four, said he'll also note the need for landlords to join civic leagues and for more regional thinking about housing issues.
``We have regional approaches to water and transportation, why not housing?'' he said.
Other resource people at the forum will include Sherman Edmondson, who heads code enforcement in Norfolk, and John Roger, president of Norfolk's Bayview Civic League, which has a citizen code-enforcement program.
There also will be inspection representatives from Chesapeake, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach.
Waters said suburban civic leagues are beginning to learn lessons of core cities like Norfolk and Portsmouth.
``We need to look at what do you have to do to keep neighborhoods from going downhill,'' said Waters, who lives in Chesapeake. ``We're losing good citizens who move away and leave the blight behind them.''
Ideas that cities and neighborhoods can learn from each other, he said, include the code-enforcement sweeps begun in Norfolk last year and now in Chesapeake.
Citizens, he said, also must talk about how their governments manage growth and allocate municipal resources between new and aging neighborhoods.
The forum will allow time for remarks from leaders of coalition and audience comments on any regional issue that effects neighborhoods.
``That's what our organization is all about - regional issues from the citizens perspective, on anything about the need for cooperative efforts,'' Waters said. ``We're a platform that allows citizens to have input into what they want Hampton Roads to be.'' MEMO: DETAILS
What: Grass-roots regionalism forum on neighborhood code
enforcement.
When: 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Saturday.
Where: Portsmouth Visual Arts Center, 340 High St., Portsmouth.
Sponsor: Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations.
For information: Gene Waters, 547-4697.
KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM HOUSING NEIGHBORHOOD CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS by CNB