To discuss the sidewalk project, community representatives meet with the leadership of East Rochester

East Rochester, New York – Near the school building in East Rochester, there will be repairs and new sidewalks along several streets and neighborhoods.

There are a lot of pupils who walk to and from school because the school district is a walking zone.

Community members discussed what the modifications along roadways like Brizee Street will look like with the town/village leadership Tuesday night.

“Our yards are really small, and there are some beautiful trees that may come down because of this,” said parent Brandi Gross “I know there’s a lot of concern about kids getting to school, but it is a really small dead-end street and it’s pretty safe on the street.”

The installation of the new sidewalks, according to Allen Schult, will ease his concerns about his kids strolling around the area.

“We plan to be here long-term and want our kids to be able to walk and bike to school and not have to worry about them doing that,” he said.

Steve Davis and other locals are still worried. According to what he claims to have received in the mail, “they were coming through my yard and also wanted to remove a 220-year-old oak tree, which I was not very happy about.”
Davis, who lives on Sycamore Street, is requesting that the proposal be approved.

“My street was developed back in the 1950s,” Davis said. “There’s people there that grew up on the street that have come around and signed my petition who said when they were growing up, there were 50 kids on this street. They never had sidewalks. There was never problems.”

The purpose of the informational meeting, according to East Rochester Mayor John Alfieri, is to gather input from the community and take any required modifications into account.

“We’ve seen cases where installing a sidewalk would cut someone’s driveway down to where a car wouldn’t even fit between the garage and the sidewalk and you can’t park over the sidewalk,” he said. “So, we’ve had to look at the plan and we’ve had to tweak it a little bit here and there based on need.”

The renovation is financed by over $380,000 from the town/village and approximately $1.5 million in federal grants.

“Phase one of the project is approved,” Alfieri said. “Phase two will require a new grant application. We’ll have to apply again for the next round of funds. We estimate it’s probably five years between grants.”

This summer is when the first phase is anticipated to begin.

“We’re going to work out from the school,” added Alfieri. “That’s the main path that the children take to walk every day. So, if we start at the school and we start with Garfield, that we start to work off of Garfield Street and we work kind of like a spider web from there with sidewalks and there are sidewalks in that neighborhood already, which need repair. So, that’ll be a repair where some of the other side streets off of there don’t have sidewalks, that’ll be a new install.”