Johnstown is continuing to work together to make Vision 2025 a reality.

“When you look at these things they’re ugly. They’re not environmentally friendly. They’re not attractive. We’re completely cut off from our river, which is an asset to Johnstown, and my guess would be that they don’t manage flood control in the best way,” Ryan Kieta says.



All of that could change, but it could still take decades to fix. Kieta, the Vision 2025 facilitator, says Harvard University has funded a team of professional landscape architects from across the country that will come to Johnstown. They will lead the community in updating the flood walls.



“It’s going to be a very long-term project. I tell everybody that 15 years is probably unreasonable. It’s probably going to be longer than that,” says Kieta.



Kieta tells WTAJ that a Johnstown native who is currently an urban planner in New York heard about the project and offered to bring a team to the city. That man is Thaddeus Pawlowski, who will be the Harvard team coordinator. In a phone interview Pawlowski told WTAJ, “It would be really great to bring some of these amazing people to Johnstown to apply their experience, intelligence, and talents to some of the challenges this city is facing.”



The reason that the project could take so long is because they need to study the system for two-to-three years. Designing a plan could take up to five years. Plus, before construction starts, modifying the walls could require legislation.

Their goal is to clean them up, make them more efficient, but not unrecognizable.



“We don’t ever want to lose the industrial heritage because that lends itself to what Johnstown is,” Kieta adds.



The Harvard team will be in Johnstown for three days starting Friday September 9 for workshops.

They’re going to discuss with community members and local leaders what has worked and what hasn’t worked in other cities before continuing on with the project.