WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) – Talks of development in East Wheeling have been underway, and Edible Mountain’s open meeting brought community members together for feedback and to hear their thoughts on the future of the area.
The goal of this meeting was to look at the planning and ideas that Grow Ohio Valley and other organizations involved has collected over the last two years for spots such as the Nelson Jordan Center – which will be the central hub for these new developments.
Members of the community were free to share their values and wishes openly to assist in guiding the design process, which has received a 3.2 million-dollar abandoned mine land grant.
Hearing the community’s thoughts from every generation is their number one priority, which is where many ideas such as the future serenity spaces, and bike trails have come from.
”I really want the community to be involved and to know as much as possible, so for me, this is an opportunity to get together and share ideas and values and understand that none of this happens without the community being involved – without the community seeing what we’re doing and actually being involved and actually creating that. We want to create stories, and history and celebrate where we’ve been and celebrate where we’re going, but it doesn’t work if we don’t do it together.”
Glynis Board – Edible Mountain Placemaking Lead
”It feels amazing honestly to know that I just came here two years ago – I’m not from Wheeling but I feel amazing that I get to shape it for where my friends live, where I live now, you know… Hopefully, a new home to me.”
Siyan Lopez – Edible Mountain Steering Committee Co-Chair
Attendees voted on various maps of plans throughout the room on a point system – Red for their favorite and 4 points, down to Green, Yellow and Blue for their least favorite for 1 point.
The next step moving forward is to create a polished and rendered version of a masterplan combining all of the ideas and values discussed at tonight’s meeting for everyone to see.
