It’s cleanup week in these Sioux Falls neighborhoods

Several Sioux Falls neighborhoods will be looking a little nicer by the end of the week, thanks to two city programs.

Project NICE, which stands for Neighborhood Improvement Complaint Easement, identifies specific neighborhoods at risk of nuisance concerns and assists the neighborhoods to address those concerns.

City volunteers will spend the week collecting items residents have left out for disposal in addition to general cleanup.

In addition, these neighborhoods receive educational materials about the city and its services, which has allowed the city to keep neighborhood nuisance cases static despite the increase in population.

The crews are making great progress,” said Dustin Hansen, street division manager, who estimates they got at least 25 percent done the first day.

“I spoke with a couple residents on the routes and they were ecstatic that the City does an event like this each year.”

There are more than 100 city employees volunteering this year, and for the second year the city tried to put a fun twist on it for them.

“We allow them to form teams and create some fun team names. There is also a scavenger hunt as they are picking up items like find a couch or a basketball,” Hansen said.

“Also, citizens have done a really nice job of placing items on the curb and not mixing items such as tires, mattresses, and appliances. This makes the effort that much smoother. We are also not seeing a lot of items we would not pick up like electronics and household hazardous waste.”

You can dispose of those items for free at the Household Hazardous Waste Facility at Cliff Avenue and Chambers Street.

The border for the first phase of this year’s Project NICE contains two areas. The first area stretches from Minnesota Avenue east to the Big Sioux River from 18th to 26th streets; included is an additional area between 26th and 36th streets that reaches from Cliff Avenue east to the river.

But, as we all know, cleanups don’t last forever. So the city also developed a similar project called KEEP — Keep Environmental Enhancement Permanent —  to work in conjunction with the NICE program. This year’s Project KEEP border runs from West to Minnesota avenues between Russell and Sixth streets.

“For over 30 years, these projects have been extremely successful in keeping our neighborhoods healthy and safe, as well as helping to maintain property values,” said Dominic Miller, environmental health manager for the city of Sioux Falls.

“Our goal is to provide residents fair and equitable access to these programs while simultaneously maintaining or improving the environmental conditions of neighborhoods across town.”

Each year, the Sioux Falls Health Department’s environmental team receives approximately 1,800 calls and referrals from citizens concerned about neighborhood nuisance issues, and other city departments receive a significant number of calls about code violations.

Through these programs, neighborhoods are offered volunteer help from the city and are provided with education materials about services to keep their homes in compliance.

After the cleanup, a follow-up survey effort is designed to help ensure that each participating neighborhood is reviewed for environmental concerns and the appropriate people are notified for correction.

Click here to keep up with the cleanup crews throughout the week and for information if your neighborhood is part of this year’s project.