BY TIMOTHY LAROCHE
[email protected]
CLAREMONT -— A document that prioritizes potential city investments will go up for review and possible adoption today.
The Planning Board is slated to review and potentially adopt the 2019-2024 Capital Improvements Program at its meeting tonight at 7 in the City Council Chambers. The CIP is a document developed annually that prioritizes strategic spending.
According to CIP materials: “The CIP serves as a companion document to the annual budget that helps city leaders identify future funding needs in a responsible and systematic fashion.”
If the CIP passes Planning Board review today, it will advance to the City Council for final adoption on Wednesday. Any amendments made to the document by the board will be presented at the council meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers.
Projects included in the CIP are evaluated by the board by their adherence to the vision set out in the recently adopted 2017 Masterplan. Projects are assigned a score between five and 15, reflecting their priority to department heads, contractual or legal obligations, public benefit, community service and master plan adherence. Higher scores mean that a project is assigned a greater importance to the city.
A single project, Pleasant Street Revitalization, received a score of 15, garnering the highest priority in all evaluation criteria. Estimated costs for the project come in at $5 million, with $500,000 identified in grants. The project would include streetscape and parking improvements, paving the way for greater economic development on Pleasant Street, the city’s mixed-use downtown center. According to master plan materials, Pleasant Street was once a regional “shopping center” as recently as the 1960s, before it became depressed after the closing of the monolithic Joy Manufacturing plant.
Other projects that received high scores in the CIP include: Opera House Square drainage improvements, emergency services dispatch radio replacements, Sugar River Drive slope improvements, Tyler Brook culvert replacement, Washington Street culvert replacements, roadwork and paving across nearly 120 miles of city roads and City Hall roof maintenance. All of the aforementioned projects received scores of 13 or greater.
All projects included on the CIP have been evaluated by the CIP Steering Committee, who consulted with department heads on city needs and opportunities.
“This CIP is the result of hours of constructive discussions among City departments and at no fewer than six public meetings,” CIP materials said.
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