A demolition crew is hard at work on S 6^th St.  They have been contracted by the Borough to demolish three houses along the east side of S 6^th St this month as part of the long term Bull Run Neighborhood Project.

The demolitions represent the culmination of years of planning and set the stage for a new chapter in Bull Run Neighborhood improvements.  The current activity is part of a flood mitigation and hazard reduction program funded by PEMA (the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency) and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency).

The work happening in the next few weeks will enhance public safety, by removing the some of the most vulnerable properties in the Borough from the floodway of the creek, improve public space, by expanding Hufnagle Park and ultimately allowing for greater access to the creek, and increase property values, by transforming the houses and lots on the other side of S 6^th St into park frontage.  It also allows the next phases of planning for the neighborhood to begin in earnest, looking in detail at the streamscape, the S 6^th St streetscape, and the neighborhood fabric.  In the coming year, state agencies, local officials, property owners and interested members of the public will be convened to revisit and update the plans from the 2004 Lewisburg Neighborhoods Task Force Report.

For some further background on the current project, it is necessary to look back to 1999 and a tragic fire that occurred in off-campus housing in Bloomsburg.  Bucknell University decided it was time to address concerns about the safety of the off campus housing for its students as well.  Lewisburg Borough and the University have been collaborating ever since on improvements to the Bull Run Neighborhood.  Initial planning efforts working with SEDA-COG's Community Resource Center resulted in the 2004 Lewisburg Neighborhood Task Force Report.  The Lewisburg Neighborhoods Corporation was chartered in 2006 in order to facilitate project implementation and ongoing neighborhood planning.

The plan put forward in the Task Force Report has been implemented in stages ever since 2004.  First the 7^th St Gateway streetscape improvements were implemented.  Then the 5^th St Overlook streetscape improvements were completed.  Between those two projects, the application for the PEMA and FEMA flood mitigation grants were compiled.  It has taken some time to come to fruition.

One of the signal focuses of the 2004 report was the recommendation that housing in the Bull Run floodway on the east side of 6th St be removed.  Structures in the floodway are subject to significant lateral forces from rushing floodwaters, as distinct from the rest of the floodplain where structures suffer from rising, but not necessarily pushing waters.  These buildings typically incur more damage in a flood, are more likely to suffer structurally, and generate in higher insurance claims.  Flood mitigation takes a cost/benefit approach and assesses whether a project is subject to repetitive loss and would be more cost effective to remove than to continually pay for recovery.