Three groups will share in reallocated Community Development Block Grant funds from 2015, pending approval by the full Unified Government Commission.
The three projects selected, according to WIlba Miller, Community Development department director:
• Heartland Habitat for Humanity, $250,000 for exterior home repair to 25 single-family homes owned by low- and moderate-income persons.
• UG Public Works Safe Routes, $280,000 for sidewalks to Frank Rushton, Hazel Grove and Frances Willard elementary schools.
• UG Public Works Transit Sidewalks and ADA Ramps, $78,000 for partial funding of one of these sites, either Richmond Avenue and 4th Street, Kansas Avenue and South 65th Street, North 3rd Street and Oakland Avenue, or North 13th Street and Troup Avenue.
The CDBG grant recipients were announced at the Monday night UG Administration and Human Services Committee meeting. The grants will go before the full UG Commission at the Feb. 25 meeting.
After a committee’s choice of a Community Development Block Grant recipient was thrown out last year, the process was re-started and new grant recipients were announced Monday night. There was a controversy last summer about a project with an Argentine organization, Argentine Betterment Corp., which proposed using the funds for housing in a Turner neighborhood. The project had listed Commissioner Ann Murguia as an adviser, although she was not receiving any funds from the project and she was in a voluntary position. A grant made the year before that to provide housing in the Highland Crest neighborhood of the Turner area will still remain in place.
Miller said during the budget process last year, $608,000 of funds needed to be reallocated, and the standing committee redeveloped an application form. Proposals were accepted beginning last October, she said.
The UG received 15 proposals totaling $15.1 million, she said. Five were public infrastructures, two were for public building facilities, four had housing-related activities, five were building-related such as recreation centers, and one was economic development, she said.
“During the budget process we discussed the fact that these should be brick-and-mortar activities,” Miller said, referring to the UG committee’s focus for the funds that year. “They needed to be spent on a timely basis because we are under the gun for the timeliness of CDBG expenditures.”
The three criteria looked at in this allocation were timeliness, bricks and mortar, and helping low- to moderate-income people, she said.
Miller said letters will be sent to the organizations that applied but did not receive grants that would explain the reasons they did not receive grants.
Those reasons, Miller said, might include timing based on expenditures, or contingent on fundraising for their project, the historic preservation status of their building or extensive environmental reviews for some projects. Others already have CDBG funding that have not spent it yet, she said. Some were CDBG-Home program crossovers or had maintenance of building issues.
Miller said the applicants will be able to revise their applications and apply again. On Thursday night, Feb. 25, at the 7 p.m. meeting, a public hearing on CDBG projects and the UG budget is scheduled. That hearing is for the next round of applications, for 2016. For more information on this meeting, see http://www.wycokck.org/uploadedFiles/Articles/Public%20Hearing%20Notice%202%2025%202016%20final.pdf.
Melissa Mundt, UG assistant administrator, said that these projects at Monday night’s meeting had a shortened time because they were rollover dollars. In order not to lose funding, the UG needed to get projects in the pipeline that would be able to be finished by a certain time, she said.
“Hallelujah on the sidewalks,” Commissioner Angela Markley said was her first reaction to the projects that were approved. When she first came to the commission, she said she wanted CDBG money to be spent on sidewalks, but that wasn’t done at that time. She said she also liked that there were UG parks applications.
The projects that did not receive funding on Monday night, according to the UG agenda, included:
• Bethel Center for new entryway on 7th Street-$131,000
• Boston Daniels Center new youth center startup-rehab of building and operating costs-$90,000
• Catholic Charities for Hope Distribution Center-interior lighting for food warehouse-$7,178
• Downtown Shareholders-grant funding to new businesses-$84,711
• Franklin Center-design and rehab of center-$750,000
• Mt. Carmel-Maintenance and upgrades of 8 transitional housing units-$116,000
• Northeast Economic Development Corp.-Acquisition/Rehab, Minor Home Repair-$180,000
• St. John the Divine-Stabilization of church-$50,000
• UG Parks-Parkwood Pool expansion-$200,000
• UG Parks-Argentine Recreation Center-Upgrades to accommodate Fitness Center-$300,000
• Wyandot Inc.-Rehab Single Family House for PACES-$52,550
• JFK Center, $50,000.
Mundt said the UG committee has been discussing a pre-application meeting for those interested in applying for grants. There are some technical reasons that some projects do not advance, she said. For example, on UG facilities, there is a maintenance exclusion from Housing and Urban Development on public buildings, she said.
Mundt talked about holding pre-application meetings that would let appilcants know in advance what might be a problem and how they could resolve it, and to get the money expended in a timely manner.