Depew, left, and Neuhaus discuss the sidewalk project along Rt. 17M
TOWN OF WALLKILL – A $150,000 grant from the US Department of Housing
and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program
is the final piece of the financial puzzle needed to build some 1,000
feet o0f sidewalk along Route 17M in the Washington Heights section of
the Town of Wallkill.
That funding coupled with another $100,000 received previously from Washington and town matching funds of between $175,000 and $200,000 will pay for the work, which is expected to start this coming spring.
Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus and Wallkill Supervisor Daniel Depew stood in a steady drizzle Monday morning to announce the work is ready to begin.
The federal funds are channeled through the county and Neuhaus said the safety issue is near and dear to him.
“There is one thing that is special about Supervisor Depew and I is that we are both young dads and if you look behind us, you have a park that is going to have a sidewalk where you are going to have young moms that are pushing a baby carriage or young families getting to a new corridor,” Neuhaus said. The county executive also said Wallkill ‘has mastered” the use of the federal grants that are beginning to dry up.
Depew expects the project to take 45 days once it is begun this spring. With new lighting like that which was installed on Wallkill Winning Way connecting the two major shopping centers on Route 211, he said this new project will be a major improvement for the safety and walkability of that area of the town, he said.
County Community Development Director Richard Mayfield said the sidewalk “bodes well for the future stability of this neighborhood.”
