City Council - Regular Meeting

[clears throat] Okay. Um, I'd like to welcome everybody to the uh first public hearing for the 2026 CDBG home application process. Um, formerly known as our annual action plan. The annual action plan is a one-year plan that is uh part of our five-year consolidated plan. The consolidated plan was developed last year and basically sets forth priorities. Um so the priorities this uh under this plan the high priorities are housing, community development which includes community facilities, infrastructure etc. economic development and administration and planning. Um this year we we are only estimating right now what we will get in funding. Everything right now is still not announced. So based on what we received last year, we anticipate in anticipate receiving about $1.5 million in CDBG funds and 266,000 and change in home funds. We also expect to receive about $80,000 in program income through um repayments that we receive through various programs. Um this opens the round. Um applications are due Friday, February 20th to our office. Um they're available online. The link is a little bit hard to see, but you can see it online. Also, we can get get it to you, email it to you if you want. My email address is Dia Diaz and Diana White um altuna.gov and I should have introduced myself as Diana White.

I'm the deputy director of the community development department here at the city. Um we expect to um have a uh a proposed use of funds developed in March and published um on April 8th in the newspaper. There's a public comment period and during that public comment period we will hold another public hearing on April 29th at 5:00 pm here in the common room. Um the um assuming that the federal government uh gets its act together and we um have a completed budget and funds are announced as they typically are um we will uh send this to council for consideration at their May 11th meeting and in and get it to HUD no later than May 15. the program year is uh July 1 through June 30th. So um having said that quickly I'll go over what kind of things can be done with the funds. These funds are intended to primarily benefit low and moderate income persons. Um, so under the CDBG program, this would include things like acquisition of real property for lowincome end use, relocation and demolition activities to remove slums of light, rehab of residential and non-residential structures, public facilities improvements, um, neighborhood centers, conversions to school buildings, etc. All benefiting either a low-income area or low-income persons. public services within certain limits um and things like energy conservation, renewable energy

resources, um and assistance to businesses to carry out economic development activities that result in the creation of low and moderate income jobs. the um we have a uh chart in the back of the application packet as a current low-inccome um limits. Um the uh for our program the limit is at 80% of the median income. It's extrapolated by HUD and so for example for a family of four it's uh 67050 right now. These are adjusted every year. So that could change during the but the process. We also use um census data for um areas and we have a uh CDBG low income uh or low-inccome map on our website, the city of Altuna's website um that can be looked at to determine eligibility. Um and a city website is www. uh.unapa.gov. Uh ineligible activities are um uh any kind of uh acquisition, construction or reconstruction of buildings used for the general con conduct of government with a few very special exceptions. um political activities, certain income payments, and new housing units constructed by uh local government. Now, I'm going to move on to the home. I'm going to turn this over to Jim.

Hi, my name's Jim Trexler. I'm the housing program manager for the city of Altuna. [clears throat] Um my email is J Trexler, trexl altunapa.gov gov if you would like to contact me via web. Home funds are very tricky. There there's a lot of strings attached to them. Currently, we use the home funds uh for three things right now. Of course, we have admin out of that. We have a rental rehab program and then we are also obligated to fund our CHOTO which is IDA. Um home funds can be used for various activities including new construction of affordable housing, rehabilitation affordable housing, reconstruction of affordable housing and conversion of affordable housing. Site improvements uh refinance of debt on a single family to one to four family owner occupied. Um acquisition cost soft cost like architectural engineering related professional services. umformational services, affirmative marketing, affirmative marketing and fair housing, um chto cost as I said earlier. Um relocation, administration, planning. There are a few ineligible home activities. Um for instance uh provide project reserve amounts except for new construction or rehabilitation of a initial operating deficit reserve during the period of the project leased up to not to extend 18 months. Provide tenant based rental assistance for specific purposes of section 8 programs and eligible costs. Provide non-federal matching contributions required under other federal programs. Provide assistance for use Uses authorized by public housing,

capital and operating funds, repayment low income, moderate mortgages, provide assistance to home buyers acquiring housing previously assisted with home funds, and provide funds for acquisition of property owned by particular jurisdictions, I'm sorry, participating jurisdictions, except for property acquired by PJ's home funds acquired and blah blah blah. um can't pay for any delinquent taxes, fees on property assisted with home funds and cannot pay for cost is not listed eligible under home regulations.

Okay. So, um if if folks watching the hearing have any questions, they can always reach us um by calling the uh department at 814-949-2470 and uh you'll be directed to the right person to answer questions because this is complicated and we understand and we can prevent some um maybe mistakes on the application, help you out. I did I'm sorry. Okay. I was going to say, do you want the applications in triplicate like that? We used to always get those in triplicate. I just thought I'd bring that up.

Um, yes. So, I'll I'll get there in a second. I want to just That's a good point though. Um, I just want to say I I did mention that the primary primary benefit of CDBG and home is to low and moderate income persons. We can also do um up to 30% of our we can budget up to 30% of our funds for um slum light removal on a spot basis. Um and there's a category called urgent need. However, that is a almost never used in the whole entire country. So, um I just have to get that out to say make sure that everybody is aware. Um we have a we have we do have someone here in attendance. We have an application packet. It will give you the um uh guidelines. So, uh we do want you to submit um two copies. So, it's an original and one copy of the application. And um no later than 4:30 on February 30th. That's fe a Friday to the city of out February 20th. Did I say the wrong date?

Yes.

I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Anyway, send it to the city of Altuna, Department of Community Development. Our address is 13012 Street Sweet 400 Altuna, PA16601. To my attention, Diana White. Um or um and um if again, if you need technical assistance, please let me know. Um let me look here real quick to see if there's anything else I'm missing. I try to make this as clear as possible. Unfortunately, this is not a fillable form. We will be working on that in the future. And in um in the back of the packet, I have a sample of if you're proposing a public service activity, we do require getting demographic information from the um folks who are benefiting. So, I can help discuss that as well. That sometimes causes some um confusion or questioning. that also includes our our income limits. So, um I think that covers the basics. Um uh I will open it up now for questions. Do you have questions? Okay. Having said that, um I also want to say I'm in attendance here is Eric Lansky who's the director of the department. So, if for some reason you can't reach me, he can also help you um if you have questions. Um, thank you so much for attending tonight's hearing. Um, I wish you luck as you move forward and and I'm looking forward to getting your applications.