At least one house deemed substandard in Vicksburg’s proposed urban-renewal area may need only a siding patch. Others may need much more.

The plan, in development for a year, targets an area south of downtown it says has 540 homes and businesses, including 148 it designates as &#8220substandard.” Their conditions vary widely, with some needing touch-up and others near collapse.

City Hall has had its eye on the mixed-use area, also known as the Oak Street Corridor, for more than a year.

As early as Monday, the Mayor and Aldermen may vote to initiate the plan, which will call for stricter code enforcement but won’t involve much property acquisition and resale. A public hearing on the project was held Nov. 10.

The attraction of the area is that its bluffs offer a spectacular view of the Mississippi. The governmental interest is that while it contains some of the city’s finest antebellum homes and historic areas, other portions have been in steep decline.

Not everyone is welcoming the oversight. One house the plan lists as substandard but may need relatively little work, for example, is owned by a business owner who thinks it may already be in compliance with city codes. The residence is the middle of three structures used by Smitty’s Furniture, 3109 Washington St.

Damage to a bottom-front corner of the house’s siding and peeling paint on at least one side of the house can be seen from the sidewalk on Washington. The business’ owner, W.D. Smith, thinks that must be why it’s on the list.

&#8220I can’t see how that could make the building substandard,” Smith said. &#8220My wife said it’ll be easy to fix – put a shrub in front of it.”

Smith estimated fixing the damage to the siding may only require a $10 to $15 patch and said he may have on-hand the siding for such a repair.

Other homes and businesses deemed substandard appear to need much more work. At least 24 of the substandard structures are vacant or abandoned, the plan says. Some have boarded windows and are dilapidated.

Mayor Laurence Leyens has said he wants market forces to redevelop the area.

City Planner Wayne Mansfield said, &#8220The urban-renewal plan states that the substandard-conditions classification includes structures that exhibit a need for either minor or major repairs and may have apparent code violations.”

The substandard designations that appear in the plan were made by the consulting firm the city hired to help create the plan, Jimmy G. Gouras Urban Planning Consultants Inc.

If the city board approves the plan city staff would inspect to identify building and related code violations and property owners would be informed of the improvements needed, Mansfield has said.

&#8220It is important to remember that one of the purposes of the urban-renewal plan is to prevent the recurrence of blighting conditions,” he said. &#8220A structure that exhibits the beginning stages of deterioration such as the need for painting may place it in this category.”

Critics have called the plan &#8220gentrification,” a term used to describe a pattern in many cities in which lower-income residents have been displaced in favor of wealthy investors. Leyens has rejected that label, saying the idea is to use the city building code to promote health and safety standards for all residents.

Leyens has said the city plans to acquire only two properties under the plan, an auto-detailing business at the intersection of Washington and Belmont streets and a business at 3200 Oak St. that was formerly pink but has recently been repainted.

If it is adopted, the urban-renewal plan would be the second in as many terms for the city board. Leyens began his second consecutive term as mayor in mid-2005.

The urban-renewal project began during Leyens’ first term was for downtown Washington Street. It resulted in a reworking of that area including a return to two-way traffic throughout, a complete resurfacing of the street, addition of lighting and landscaping along it and borrowing millions of dollars for property-acquisition.

A proposal for a $16.9 million bond issue is also pending before the city board but none of it would be spent on property-acquisition, city officials have said. The proposed bond issue calls for $7.8 million to be spent on street-repaving and related improvements citywide, including $570,000 to be spent in the urban-renewal area.

A petition opposing the bond issue was submitted to the city board Nov. 4 and staff of the city clerk’s office have been working to check the names on it against city voter rolls. The petition had been expected to be verified Wednesday afternoon but that estimate has been extended until this afternoon or Friday morning, City Clerk Walter Osborne said.