The city’s progress in the area of providing a high quality of life was presented to the city council in the third monthly update on the 2015-2017 strategic action plan.
Providing a high quality of life is one of four essential purposes the city identified as a part of the action plan that serves as a detailed guide of what city staff are working on to further the city’s goals.
“The city’s purpose is to continue to build upon the high quality of life in Newton by focusing on growing community livability, cultural and historical resources, recreational amenities and community aesthetics, in order to benefit households and draw young families to choose Newton as their home,” management analyst Natalie Umsted said. “It’s a pretty broad purpose, and you can argue that essentially anything the city is doing is working toward that purpose.”
Within the overall purpose, the city has three goals to focus work. First, improving neighborhood quality is hoped to be accomplished through continued nuisance enforcement, residential neighborhood improvement, downtown improvement and additional work on low-conditioned buildings and demolition.
Second, growing community involvement and reputation has sub-goals of improving handicapped accessibility, the community reputation, working with Hometown Pride and the comprehensive plan, continuing community education and working on Newton’s city parks.
Finally, the third goal is to build new and improved housing including downtown housing, meeting housing needs and increasing housing units.
Umsted said several projects have been completed to further the goal including hiring a nuisance enforcement officer to help ensure the nuisance violations were caught proactively and the installation of sidewalk curb ramps on 42 different corners through out the city. The Hometown Pride community and Newton Parks Board have also been working with the University of Iowa to help create and design a plan for Newton’s 30 acre park.
“We’re going out and finding addition resources for our community,” Umsted said.
Additionally, seven homes are currently being constructed in the Fairmeadows North and the Eastgate Meadows developments and a new irrigation system is being installed at Westwood Golf Course.
Since July, Umsted said, Newton has received a number of recognitions throughout the state and nation for its high quality of life. The Get to Know Newton program was named program of the year at Iowa City Managers Association, Newton was named the People’s All-Star Community by the Iowa League of Cities and a Top 10 Affordable Small Town where you would actually like to live by realtor.com. Newton Fest was also named an outstanding new event by the Iowa Tourism Office and Travel Federation of Iowa.
“We’ve had an exciting, busy time for the last several months since we passed this action plan in July,” Umsted said.
The next essential purpose to be presented to the council is effective, efficient democratic governance in December. The cycle will then start over in January with a second visit to the purpose of making Newton a safe community.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com