Tuesday, Sept. 4, Mayor Richard Keebler and the members of the Oxford City Council met and unanimously approved a resolution for the City Manger to enter into a contract with Robert McConnell DBA R&B Contractors to replace the roof and gutters at the Water Treatment Plant and Water Distribution maintenance facilities.
According to Service Director Mike Dreisbach, the current roof and gutters are not holding as well as had been expected.
During the meeting Dreisbach also brought forth a Resolution of Council to support a submission of a grant to repair the Dana Drive Bridge over Collins run in 2014, which was passed.
"We have been performing annual inspections on this structure, and recently we noticed more significant erosion on the bridge decking and the foundation," Dreisbach said.
This erosion has been caused by debris, which has been cleared out by the city as much as possible. The replacement bridge is expected to perform the same way as the current bridge, letting through approximately the same amount of water.
City Council also passed two other routine resolutions, one to have Chestnut Street from Main Street to Oxford Reily Road resurfaced.
The other was the certification of the County Auditor to levy necessary taxes.
The City Council also heard the first readings of two ordinances regarding housing in Oxford. The first ordinance is to repeal a zoning law on R-3 housing that hinders owners of apartments, such as Arrowhead, from redeveloping.
The new zoning law would allow the apartments to be rebuilt at roughly the same size with less available parking that must be provided by the landlord.
Community Development Director, Jung-Han Chen, explained that this is to encourage alternate forms of transportation such as biking, and landlords will be given the incentive of having to provide even less parking if they support alternative forms of transportation.
The second ordinance introduced by Chen, an ordinance adopting Oxford Code of Ordinances Chapter 1146.
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"The neighbors want this as a way to maintain their neighborhoods character," Chen said.
It would ultimately accomplish this by allowing for petitions by community members to place limits on the number of rental homes allowed in a community if approved by a two-thirds vote.
There is already a similar ordinance to this, which allows communities to petition for permit only parking.
According to City Council Member Kate Rousmaniere this ordinance would help to develop a sense of community as there would be more permanent residents and prevent the number of renters from growing too greatly.
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