REAP offers neighborhoods water bill rebates to assist with public entranceway maintenance
The City of Southfield launched the Residential Entranceway Appearance Program (REAP) to assist neighborhood and condominium associations to maintain their entranceways with water bill rebates of up to $500.
The City will award water bill rebates to neighborhood or condominium associations that enroll and meet the criteria standards. The program is designed to recognize the community appearance efforts of neighborhood and condominium associations that have irrigation systems installed in their public entranceways. Neighborhood associations that do not currently have an irrigation system installed may also apply for a grant of up to $500 to be applied towards the installation of a system.
The City is very pleased to be able to provide this assistance for our neighborhood associations. Neighborhood beautification efforts are an invaluable and an important part of keeping the city attractive and maintaining curb appeal.
The program also features a second-tier water bill rebate of up to $250 for neighborhoods that do not have an irrigation system installed, but still find ways to maintain their entranceways through manual watering.
In researching irrigation systems, it was found that there are only a handful of associations who actually possess an irrigation system, while many others manually maintain their entranceways. The program objective is to encourage all associations to continue maintaining the city’s high curb appeal standards. While having an irrigation system makes it easier for the city to verify an association’s water usage, the city does not want to exclude those associations who don’t have an irrigation system, but are still conscientiously caring for their entranceways. The second-tier REAP rebate is designed to award them as well.
Upon filling out a REAP application, associations will have to show (through photographs or other means) that the manual watering of their entranceway yielded tangible results in order to be eligible to receive the second-tier incentive rebate. The application will then be reviewed by the City’s Neighborhood & Information Center and its standards criteria committee to determine the rebate amount that will be awarded.
It shows that we are all-inclusive when it comes to beautification and curb appeal efforts. The city feels that everyone’s efforts no matter how big or small should be recognized and this is its way of acknowledging those efforts.
Neighborhood associations interested in enrolling in the program can download the application below or they can obtain one through the Neighborhood and Information Center located in city hall at 26000 Evergreen Road. Neighborhood groups must fill out the application and return it, along with a copy of their paid water bill, to the center by October 31 annually for consideration. For further details, call the Neighborhood and Information Center at (248) 796-5140.
