Athens City Council yesterday held the first of two public hearings required to become eligible for up to $612,000 in state grants for repairing and rehabilitating houses for low- to moderate-income residents.
Doug Stanley, division director for Housing and Community Development within the Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action Program, presented council members with information about the grant program.
Athens is eligible to apply after holding two public hearings and deciding how many projects it can complete and how much money it will need to complete each project. The application is due April 7, and Athens is likely to apply for $300,000, Stanley said.
Also in order to apply, Athens must create a Community Housing Improvement Strategy, which is a five-year plan that stipulates specifically how much money the city wants to spend on each project. If the city cannot complete all the proposed projects during a two-year period, then it could lose funding and not be able to apply again.
The grant is competitive among all cities in Ohio, and the most any city can receive is $612,000 over a two year period. If awarded the grant, Athens will be funded from September 2006 to October 2008. With the current grant, approximately 14 homes are being repaired and two families assisted, Stanley said.
There are two components of the grant - home repair and home rehabilitation. In the repair component, one or two key safety items are targeted with costs between $7,000 and $8,000 per unit, and no repayment is required from the family.
In the rehabilitation component, all major components of the house are surveyed and repairs between $32,000 and $35,000 are made. Families are required to pay 15 percent of those costs back to the city through a permanent, no interest loan. The remaining 85 percent is covered by the grant by a declining balance loan, paid off over a period of ten years.
Also at last night's meeting, an ordinance to cover repairs of the Columbus Road Fire Department was adopted for a total cost of $136,800. Council originally appropriated $135,000 for the project in 2005, but the ordinance was amended to cover an additional $1,800 in costs.
The ordinance to repair the Sunset Drive Slips was adopted last night because of safety issues with the condition of the road.
17 Archives
Meghan Nicholson
