Oxford is a city of neighborhoods. We all share the same desire for safe, attractive, pleasant places for our families to live and children or grandchildren to play.
I understand the importance of maintaining and increasing the investments we have in our property. One of my first priorities as an Alderman was to work to establish a set of neighborhood ordinances and hire a Code Enforcement Officer to enforce these ordinances. We have since hired two additional Code Enforcement Officers to allow us to be proactive in educating residents about ordinances and enforcing violations as needed. This has been very successful in addressing problems particularly in neighborhoods where students and Oxford residents share streets and in newly annexed areas.
Parking on narrow streets in our neighborhoods surrounding the University of Mississippi has long been a challenge. With recent changes in parking at the university, our problems have increased. I worked with our Parking Department and a group of citizens to implement a Permitted Parking District adjacent to campus. This program is working well to allow for full-time residents to find parking on their street as needed and preventing their streets from becoming parking lots.
Our Planning Commission and Historic Preservation Commission work hard and spend many hours analyzing development and renovation across our community. We continue to be diligent in protecting our single-family neighborhoods in any way we can.
Much time has been spent on traffic calming measures in our single-family neighborhoods over the past four years. We have a traffic calming study and process in place for those concerned about excessive speeding on their streets. We have developed a menu of different traffic calming measures to be implemented that includes solutions such as solar-powered radar signs and speed tables. We work with neighborhoods to find the best solution by seeking input from all of those affected.
Oxford Police Department has worked to find ways to meet with student organizations to discuss our expectations of students living in neighborhoods with full-time residents. Our goal is not to issue citations but to change behavior. We will continue to work to build relationships and address these issues.