SANFORD, Fla. – Some of the residents in a small, historical community are asking the City of Sanford to take another look at installing sidewalks.
“I love the neighborhood,” Renee MacKenzie said.
She and her family moved into the neighborhood off Mellonville Avenue about four months ago, and she was stunned to find out there were no sidewalks.
“I was okay with the (residential) streets because they’re very untraveled,” she told News 6. “Mellonville, however, it’s 25 miles-per-hour, but no one goes 25.”
MacKenzie wrote about her concerns to News 6 through ClickOrlando’s Hits the Road portal.
“My biggest concern is just safety, especially the kids and families that are here,” she said. “For instance, my neighbor has two little children, one and five, and he has no sidewalk on his whole property.”
MacKenzie trekked across her neighbor’s lawns to get to the home of her friend Suzanne Burleson.
“I’m worried about them tripping or having some kind of hazard,” Burleson said.
She lives right on Mellonville Avenue and she said when she looks out the window and sees a family with a stroller or kids going to the bus stop, she prays.
“I pray they’re going to be okay,” she said. “You see how busy it is, and how the traffic – they fly through here.”
Paying for progress
News 6 investigated and found the City of Sanford uses money from Seminole County’s one-cent sales tax for improvements, such as new sidewalks.
So far, the city has spent more than $30 million on new roads and new sidewalks.
“Kids are walking to school, and we’re putting sidewalks in those neighborhoods to keep the kids off of the streets,” Jeff Davis said.
Davis is the project manager for The City of Sanford’s Public Works.
“We would be open to the idea to have (a sidewalk) designed and put into place,” he said.
But Davis said his team has investigated installing a sidewalk along Mellonville before, and they discovered a problem – large oak trees.
“They’re no small oak trees, either. They’re large, established oaks,” he said. “From past experience, people really love their trees, and we decided we could hold off on this.”
Davis said the city may take another look at installing sidewalks there.
He cautioned, however, saying it would need to wait for additional funding and residential approval.
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