Christine Yancey City Administrator

Riverside residents have an invitation to participate in designing their community through the 2022 Community Visioning Program. The city was awarded a $2,000 grant that will be used to develop a landscape plan that will graphically illustrate the vision of Riverside.

The Iowa Living Roadways Community Visioning Grant is through the Iowa DOT and Trees Forever.

Community Visioning is a process that encourages visionary and yet strategic thinking about transportation improvements.

“We’re going to be looking at a transportation survey, eventually, but we’re also looking at a regional assessment. We’re working with Iowa State University. They’re going to provide a research team and that’s what that $2,000 provides, to pay for them to do that,” said Riverside City Administrator Christine Yancey. “We’re going to look at our transportation assets and any barriers we may have, and then we’ll have a steering committee that’s going to review those assessments and then we’ll have design workshops.”

Interested parties can join the second Riverside Community Visioning meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 15 from 6-7 p.m. in the council chambers at Riverside City Hall.

“Serving on the committee would involve meetings about once a month, and as we get closer to the design, it might take more meetings per month, but the committee will work on what projects we’re thinking about what where we’d like to go with it… We’re in the very beginning stages,” Yancey said. “We’ll have several meetings. At one point, you will go into the community and write down what you like and don’t like about your community. Sometimes people are painfully honest about what they’d like to see changed. It could be anything ranging from sidewalks to signage to other transportation-oriented projects.”

Yancey said the entryway signs seen at the edge of town were part of a 2006 Community Visioning grant.

Yancey said “anybody from 16 to 106” is welcome to serve on the committee and can start by attending the Feb. 15 meeting.

“We want to take everyone because we want to broad range of ideas and thought processes,” Yancey said. “What we may think is great in my age group, someone else might not. They might think of something different. We want to hear from everyone.”

Interested parties can call City Hall at 319-648-3501 for more information.