City of Asheville works to put more neighborhoods on the map

Press release from the Communication & Public Engagement division of City of Asheville:

Asheville Neighborhood Services Coordinator Marsha Stickford is on a mission: She wants to get to know every neighborhood in the City!

Stickford has a knack for connecting people with helping organizations and vice versa. Think of her as a concierge for City neighborhoods.

She works with the City’s Neighborhood Advisory Committee, a nine-member group established to advise Asheville City Council on neighborhood issues. The committee works to strengthen neighborhood identity and resilience, and to facilitate communication and cooperation between Asheville’s neighborhoods and City offices.

While the City is well acquainted with many neighborhoods, the goal is to identify more. So the City is working on a neighborhood registration initiative with the idea of putting together an interactive map of Asheville neighborhoods. On this map, people could find out about neighborhoods and who the primary contacts are to foster collaboration between neighborhoods and the City.

“The interactive map will highlight each neighborhood, and can include a link to your neighborhood association Facebook page or webpage and include contact information,” says Stickford. “This will give the City the ability do more outreach about issues and regional City meetings. It will give neighborhoods a place where they can find information about each other and can then work collaboratively on issues.”

The idea is that with the interactive map neighborhoods can share information on what they are doing well to help other neighborhoods.

So far, nearly 30 neighborhoods have registered with the City. But we’d like to add more!

“There are neighborhoods that are really organized and have an active relationship with the City while others don’t,” Stickford notes. “But the City still cares about those neighborhoods that are not that organized.”

What are the advantages of registering your neighborhood with the City? Better communication about your needs springs to mind.

“Organized neighborhoods help build consensus about what the issues are and possible solutions and then can work with the City more effectively,” Stickford says.

Rather than having individuals call the City about issues, working cooperatively can help City staff more effectively serve a neighborhood on traffic and crime issues, for example.

To submit a registration for your neighborhood, homeowner or resident association, please visit the City’s Neighborhood Services webpage, where you can get more information about the benefits and criteria for neighborhood registration and access both an online and printable version of the registration form.

For more information, contact Marsha Stickford at mstickford@ashevillenc.gov  or (828) 259-5506.