City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, thank you very much. This opens the public hearing for the City of Altoona's 2026 annual action plan. The purpose of this hearing is to receive public comment on the proposed use of funds for the program year 2026 annual action plan, which is the second annual action plan under the City of Altoona's 2025 to 29 consolidated plan. The consolidated plan provides a roadmap for budgeting the city's community development block grant and home investment partnerships program entitlement grant funding. The process of developing an annual action plan takes about six months to complete. The first public hearing or needs hearing was advertised in January and held on February 11th. Applications were received until February 20th. And we finally received our notice of funding allocations on April 10th. That means that we are a month behind our normal schedule. And so we're now concluding or we're close to concluding our public comment period, which start on May 7th and ends on June 5th. The total amount of funding is as follows that we're receiving. CDBG entitlement is $1,515,627. Program income under the CDBG program is anticipated to be $80,000. Fiscal year 2026 home funds is $290,874.28. The city has budgeted $303,000 $125 of CDBG funds for administration and $29087 or 10% of the home funds for home administration. The city received a total of 15 applications for the CDBG program. This is roughly $2.7 million or twice the amount available and three applications for home projects totaling $313,849. And Eric, would you mind going over the projects? You got it.

Hello, Eric Luchanski. I'm on, yeah. Director of Community Development. We're going to go through all the projects here. So we'll go by name and do a general description of each project and the amount funded. So CDBG Project Administration, which is operational budget for the city, for general management, monitoring, coordination, oversight, and evaluation of projects for the CDBG Block Grant Program is $303,125. single-family homeownership homeowner rehabilitation loan program which aids in rehabilitation loans sure single-family homeowner rehabilitation loan program rehabilitation loans to low and mod moderate income homeowners and funding for lead-based paint remediation to assist low and moderate income homeowners as part of the city's rehabilitation program That's $411,516. The next line item is single family owner occupied emergency repair program. Provides no interest deferred loan funds, amortize over four years to low moderate income homeowners of up to $5,000 to correct exterior code violations, excluding mowing and up to $20,000 for emergency repairs to heating, plumbing and electrical system failures or other repairs as determined necessary by city inspectors. That's $12,500. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's right. And then the emergency roof repair assists with providing homeowners at 0% interest with deferred loans to be forgiven at a rate of 25% per year for four years. The program is limited to roofs only, and that's $60,000. $60,000. 60, yes. There's street reconstruction and this project consists of reconstruction on streets and avenues within the low and moderate income areas within the city of Altoona. And that's $200,000. On to the next page, you're following along with the packet we have here. If you need a packet, I have a packet.

Oh, they're up there. They're up there. Packets are in the back. Did you sign in? Yeah, they're right there.

That's okay.

I know.

That's a lot of requests. That's a formal request. We've been doing that for you. For you, maybe. I'll just keep going. Maybe he wants a doorman too. Two doormen, two doormen. All right, we'll consider it. All right, so we have the Howard Avenue curb and sidewalk project. This project is for the construction and replacement of curb, sidewalk, and ADA accessible ramps for two contiguous blocks on Howard Avenue on both sides of the avenue. The project would improve accessibility and increase the safety of the area by replacing uneven sidewalks and providing ADA accessible ramps. This is on the second page. That's $400,000. The fire station rescue airbag replacement proposed to replace obsolete rescue airbag lifting systems based at Fire Station 330 with 11 new NFPA compliant rescue airbag systems. And that's for $20,697. The next item is Fire Station 330 Vehicle Stabilization Struts Replacement. This is a proposal to replace obsolete vehicle stabilization struts based at Fire Stations 310 and 330 with four new NFPA compliant Telecrib all-in-one strut or equivalent vehicle stabilization strut systems. And that's for $7,996 dollars. Next we have Altoona Housing Authority. CDBG funding will provide the required 25% match for a three-year resident opportunities and self-sufficiency grant to hire a service coordinator to assist seniors who are aging in place and that totals $88,000. Next we have Overflow Church Jefferson Park Meal Program Initiative. Through the Jefferson Park Initiative, Overflow Church will provide free meals to anyone in need in the East End area of the City of Altoona. And that's $33,200. Next is the Overflow Church Warming Center. The Warming Center serves as a winter overnight shelter for individuals aged 18 and older experiencing homelessness. Funds will cover staff expenses who will work with volunteers to operate the center throughout the winter season. $58,592. Next we have home project administration. Home funds will support administrative costs. Yes, we're moving on to home funds. That was the total CDBG budget, which $1,595,627. Zero cents, sir. And then we have the Home Project Administration. Home funds will support administrative costs and staffing to oversee home funded projects. $29,087. 29, yes. Then we have the Rental Rehabilitation Program. The Rental Rehabilitation Program consists of 50% match with a maximum grant of $24,999. Actually it's 24,950 actually. $24,950. Units will be rented to income eligible tenants and will comply with five-year home affordability period requirements. Structures located within the city limits containing substandard rental units are eligible. That's for a total of $131,787. dollars and then next we have ida cdc woodrow wilson gardens window replacement this is improved dwellings of altina community development corporation ida cdc will use home funds to replace 170 double hung windows at its very low income senior housing development in the garden heights neighborhood of the city A converted school building, the balance will be paid by owner match for a total project cost of $135,000. The total requested is $130,000. Total home budget is $290,874.28. So the total overall budget is $1.886,501.28.

So thank you Eric. I'd like to note that all the projects that are being proposed serve low and moderate income persons. We had no slum light projects this year, no request for that. We had no slum blight removal projects requested this year, so they are all low mod income benefit projects. We had more requests for public services type projects than we had the ability to fund because we're restricted by a 15% cap. But in the final budget, our projects line up and we're under that cap. So anyway, moving forward, we'll receive comments tonight. The public comment period ends Friday at close of business. and then assuming there are no major changes we'll move forward with council action which is expected on Monday June 8th at the regular meeting and then will be submitted to HUD on and before June 12, 2026. HUD has 45 days to review so actually mistyped this they have until July 31st to review the plan however once they approve it our program year still starts on July 1 as usual so so that's pretty much sums it up and having read through all these things. Again, you have your handout. I'm sorry. I thought that would be easy to see. Let me know if you have any questions.

Probably the order operation. You can go first and then Bill goes second.

Please go up to the mic and state your name and your organization or address.

Can I move this? Does this? Okay. Okay. I'm Amy Burns. I'm the assistant pastor at Overflow Church. And first we want to say thank you for helping support us. With the program funding that started late this year, my question is, do I have to finish spending that by June 30th or with not getting funding until September this past year?

No, I actually I'll go back and look at your agreement. I mean, we can extend an agreement, but I think I already extended it.

I think I just want to make sure because we knew that was so late this year because of the budget. Right. And then Just to share a little insight, since the cost of everything we've been watching rise, our number of people served per week is almost up to 200, which is a jump from the 145, 150. So this, allowing us to receive this again this year is going to be very, very helpful for that community. So we thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public who would like to make a comment or have a question? Okay, Bill, do you want to ask from there or do you want to come up here to the mic so he can pick up? Yeah, because he's running this on the...

It's hard for me to walk nowadays. Were there anything, was there anything unusual this year? Kind of out of the ordinary for the CDBG portion?

The only, yeah, I would say the only thing out, I mean, our projects are all pretty close to what we funded in the past. All of our requests were known entities and people that we've worked with in the past. Yeah, our challenge the last few years has been delayed federal budget, which has put us behind. This year's not as bad as last.

How is the funding this year, the new funding this year compared to last year?

Actually, it's very close. I looked at that shortly before coming over here because I anticipated that question. I think it's only a difference of about $50,000 less for CDBG and about...

This year or less?

Yes, and maybe $25,000 more for home. But it was cut a lot last year, so they must be...

Is this the first year in a long time that there is no demolition money in CDBG?

Actually, we decided to, with the Altogether Altoona Fund, we decided to move demolition over to that and use the CDBG funding more for some of our larger public works projects. So we've been able to do some things that they've requested for a number of years.

Okay, and that was starting last year?

Yeah, it started last year.

Okay. And could you just go over, like, briefly how you figure out what to fund? What kind of discussions occur that lead to the slate of projects, I guess?

We actually have a rating system that HUD provides us with, and we score them. And we also look at low-income benefit. We look at how many times in a row they've been, or how... how often they've been funded, how much money they've received from us because we want to be fair. We look at the ability for them to meet reporting requirements and their history in the past of doing so. You mean the recipients? Yeah, the subrecipients. Just overall administrative history. just various things, capacity. Do they have a plan in place to do something efficiently and correctly? Because there's a lot of rules with the CDBG and home programs.

And I know it's norm, but like how, it's always impressed me as being a high amount for administration. And can you explain why? I think I know why, but.

Well, we're allowed to charge up to 20% of the grant. And the grant, it requires a lot of administration. I mean, it's not just filing an application. When we go through, as soon as this is up, we have to start the reporting aspect. We also have a consultant right now who we're paying out of that administrative line item as we transition from Mary Johnson, who retired, to make sure that we keep everything on a level until everybody's up to speed. But we have a few people who, like Adam and I, pretty much work full-time on CDBG because it just takes a lot of reporting, tracking, keeping the auditors happy. It's not just HUD. And so, yeah, we charge what we can. And one other thing, we do cover our fair housing. We have a fair housing contractor as well who handles our complaints and does some outreach. And they're part of the administrative line item at about $30,000 a year.

Could you go over a couple of the rules that require you to, I guess, spend a certain amount or a certain percentage of the funds on some stuff and then know more than others?

Right. So we have to, like I said early on in the hearing, At least 70%, like with home, everything has to be low income benefit and it's all housing. So it's a little simpler. With CDBG, it was meant to be kind of a broad block grant, the 70 style block grant. So there's a little bit of flexibility, but 70% of project funds have to be used for projects that primarily benefit low and moderate income persons. Now that can be done through like a public service where you're serving people. but it could also be done in an area. That's based on census data that we get from HUD. When we do sidewalks, we use that kind of data. Then the other amount is you can do urgent need, which we never do. It's just like almost off the table. Then there's slum light removal. We could go up to 30 percent of our project funds for slum light removal, which pretty much for us was demo. Public service activities, which are things like Salvation Army, are the things that help individual households with back utilities and so forth, or the meal program. Those are considered public service activities, and we can spend no more than 15% of our project funds on that. And we're limited to 20% admin. Okay. Sorry, I'm breathing into this microphone. Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you, everybody. Thanks, Eric. And I didn't introduce everybody. Jim Trexler is our housing program manager. And Adam McCoy, who is our accounting person. He keeps us straight. He's really good at it. And thanks, Nate. This concludes the public hearing.