City leaders have released a new online tool for residents in Metro Council districts 6 and 8 to submit ideas on how to improve health in their neighborhoods. Both districts have $75,000 to spend on project ideas pitched by community members as part of Louisville's participatory budgeting initiative called Our Money, Our Voice.
Councilman Brandon Coan (District 8) and Councilman David James (District 6), along with Metro’s Center for Health Equity, are partnering on the project.
T Benicio Gonzales, interim director at the Center for Health Equity, said Our Money, Our Voice is currently in the idea collection phase.
“We are now at the stage where these two districts are going to be submitting ideas about what we should do with this $150,000,” Gonzales said.
James said after ideas are collected from neighborhood residents, proposals will be vetted and then residents will vote on them.
Coan said he knows of some residents who are interested in playground and park updates.
“There's a group of parents and other stakeholders who are interested in some playground improvements. I know there is a group of folks interested in saving or sort of revitalizing the Douglass Community Center,” he said. “There’s another little pocket park in the Tyler Park area called Beechwood Park that's still raising money to build out.”
Coan said the city has a long way to go "in terms of making sure it's clean and beautiful."
“I think that for a city to be clean and beautiful and comfortable, [with] places to sit, and are safe to sit, adds as much value to quality of life as any big city type of amenity,” he said.
District 8 neighborhoods include Highlands Douglass, Bonnycastle, Alta Vista, Cherokee Triangle, Deer Park, Gardiner Lane, Hawthorne and Tyler Park. District 6 neighborhoods include Algonquin, California, Limerick, Russell, Taylor-Berry, Victory Park, Old Louisville, Park Hill and Russell.
Funding for the projects will come from city capitol infrastructure funds and from Mayor Greg Fischer’s Healthy Hometown Movement project.
The deadline to submit ideas is Nov. 2.
