Community Development Block Grant (cdbg) Commission - Regular Meeting

I call the meeting of the order of the Dane County CDBG Commission to order at 5.03 p.m. And I believe staff have the role. So I will look for a motion for the minutes from the June 2nd meeting.

Move.

Engelberger did first. Do I have a second?

Okay.

That was Commissioner Kraft.

Second.

Correction. Oh, yep. Thank you.

It says I was present. And on that basis, I'd be happy to claim the $30 for the meeting. But in fact, I was in Zagreb, Croatia, fast asleep in my bed at midnight.

I appreciate that correction, Ron. So we'll make that note. Any other corrections to the minutes? All right. With that correction, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed?

Aye.

Okay. Motion passes. All right, then I will look to start the public hearing on the CDBG-PRO housing recommendations that were preliminarily reviewed at the last meeting. I will open the public hearing at 5.05 p.m. We do have, let's see, in the audience, Richard Downey from the Village of Deerfield is there, but does he wish to speak? think i need to ma'am no okay do you thank you okay uh no he does not wish to speak and then um becky bins also had commented but she was not looking to speak from the city of sun prairie so so um all right then um and there were no other uh nothing else submitted correct no other public comments for the public hearing okay So then we will just wait until it is 5.06. And then we will close the hearing at 5.06 p.m. Then on to the action items, which is the approval of the CDBG pro-housing preliminary funding recommendations. Is there any comments from staff before we look for a motion?

Balthazar, did you want to give a brief update on this?

Yeah, I can just provide that. Can you hear me okay?

Yep.

So I can just provide a little bit of a background about the funding, you know, about the RFP. So how that work, they think of these families through the pro-housing program to help remove barriers to affordable housing. Just to give you a little bit of background, we first introduced Pro Housing Program during the Urban County Consortium meeting in November 2025. We then developed a distributed to Dane County Pro Housing Municipal Interest Form to 60 Dane County municipalities. The form helped us to identify communities interested in participating, understand the housing barriers they were experiencing, assess readiness, and determine where technical assistance could be the most beneficial. We submitted an interest form to 60 municipalities. 14 of them responded, and 13 of them were unique responses. On March 11, 2026, the county hosted an informational webinar that provided an overview of the broad housing program. eligible activities, application requirements, funding priorities, and applicant expectations. The following week, during the week of March 16, 2026, we held a virtual office hours where municipalities could ask general questions, discuss application readiness, and learn more about program requirements. Again, March 11 was the informational webinar in the week of 16, the virtual hours. We have a total of 20 individuals registered for the webinar, 19 attended the live sessions, and we have representatives from five municipalities participating in the virtual office hours. It is important to note that during the office hours, we answered general questions about eligibility and program requirements, but we intentionally did not provide proposal-specific guidance to ensure a fair and competitive application process. The application review process, we did, let me just go back a little bit. So we released, the phase one RFP was officially released March 23, 2016. Municipalities were notified directly. Procurement questions were handled through Dane County Procurement and the opportunity was publicly advertised in the Wisconsin State Journal on March 27. To encourage participants from communities of all sizes, Dane County established a minimum award of $15,000 and a maximum award of $150,000 for eligible projects. Following the release of the RFP, Dane County received applications from municipalities interested in addressing local zoning and regulatory barriers. We received from the City of Monona, Village of Deerfield, Village of Wanaki, and City of Sun Prairie there was a total of 279, 750 in request. And we still have, as of right now, a remaining funding of $720, $250. We are, you know, after this first RFP closes and everything has been processed and the County Board has approved contracts, we are gonna be opening a second phase, a second round of RFPs for this area. And I think that's all I have. I don't know if there are any questions.

was also hoping that um so kathy has joined us and kathy's the chair of the application review team so if there are questions for balthazar on his information that'd be great and then kathy can explain the evaluation process of the application review team if you're ready kathy i didn't mean to put you on the spot

Yes, I think we had everything online through open.gov. We were all able to review all the applications and score them according to the criteria that the committee approved. They were all fairly consistent in terms of quality. And so we recommended full funding for each one of the applicants. I'm not sure what else you'd like to know, but I'm happy to answer questions about the process we went through if you have any.

Thank you. Does anybody have questions for staff or for the application review team? All right. Hearing none.

Motion to approve.

Perfect. I appreciate that. I believe that was Engelberger. Do we have a second?

I'll second. Sanderson?

Perfect. Thank you. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? None. Motion carries. All right. So then we are on to future meeting items and dates. Our next regular schedule meeting. Oh, sorry, Chair Brown.

We do have one more action item. It's item D2.

Oh, I must be looking at the old agenda.

Sorry.

No, let me get there.

Oops. Yeah, I think there was a second agenda that was sent out on Friday.

Okay. I really love how... Barrett, we'll resend it to you if that's helpful. That is helpful because in all the nesting of the threads, I am not seeing it.

Yep, just one minute. I'll send it.

Got it.

OK, just sent it.

Taylor, you're on mute.

Yeah. All right. And then item two, CDBG pro housing grant program round three applications, but I see there are no attachments. So staff speaking on that?

Correct. Joanna, are you speaking on this item?

I can provide some background.

Okay.

On that.

Okay.

Excellent. So thank you very much. You know, we've been, as all of you know, we applied for round one. We didn't get it. We applied for round two. We were very, very successful, receiving $7 million. And as we continue doing this work, that's one of the areas, you know, we want to continue expanding. So The grant, we learned that the grant opportunity was released on June 3rd. The grant opportunities to August 3rd, we're trying to figure out, you know, what happened, why we didn't get to learn about the opportunity earlier, but we just need to move forward with what we have right now. The opportunities for us to apply for round three of the Blue Housing Funds We learn about this on Thursday. We mobilize. We look into different opportunities. We look into how can we strategize ourselves. As of right now, we have learned a lot of information. We are currently talking with the municipalities of Sun Prairie, Fitchburg, and Windsor to see if there is even an opportunity for Dane County to move forward with this application. So I think what I can say right now, and Joanna, if you are there and if you need to add something else, the only thing that we have right now is We look into the application. We look into the grant. We are trying to figure out what are the next steps. But before we can move forward, we need to try to see if Windsor, one of the municipalities, will be able to partner with Dane County. This is very, very early information. There is nothing yet set in stone. We're still looking and we also understand that we don't have a lot of time because this is to August 3rd. So I think the only thing that I can say is, you know, we are going to be providing information as it comes. If the county moves forward to applying for round three of pro-housing, we will need to do a public hearing that I believe is scheduled. That's the July 28th meeting.

July 28th.

So again, as of right now, we do not have any concrete information from what we have learned from Friday to this afternoon. We're still in the process of making that decision. And again, there's a lot of elements right now, Joanna. and the team that are trying to figure out you know what to do next and you know we're trying to hold a number of meetings so i think we'll just keep you updated with that i don't think there are any questions we don't have much information i mean one thing that i can provide is what's available is 50 million saying what we were thinking and applying for is five millions But again, there's a lot of stuff in the air right now. One more piece of information. This is a six-year grant. So it will start, if it happens, it will start December 1st of 2026, and it will go all the way to 2032. So it's a six-year funding opportunity for pro-housing.

Yeah, so we're looking... Go ahead, Chair.

I was just going to say, so we're looking for an action tonight to approve applying, but we're still not 100% sure that we will apply, correct?

Correct. If there was an action that you'd have to craft for tonight, I think it'd be the giving staff direction or the freedom to continue exploring this as a funding opportunity, knowing that we may either be the applicant or we may be like a supporting municipality, like let's say with the city of Sun Prairie, if the city of Sun Prairie were to take the lead, that we would, that this body is okay having us pursue federal funding. We made it an action item instead of a discussion point. I think the thought process there was being able to show to HUD that one we talked about this in a public setting right we'll still have the public hearing but we talked about it in in addition to the public hearing in a public setting and that you as the body of the commission pretty much gave green light to explore this as a funding opportunity And just to add on, on this no floor, I think one of the reasons why we're a little bit on the fence as to like who's applying, what we're applying for in the scope of the project, it's not the scope of the project. I mean, really what HUD's looking to fund is development, development of single family affordable housing homes. And owner-occupied rehabilitation. So we know that the scope is going to be in those two areas. What's unknown is who is the main applicant, right? Because that's the biggest part with the application. The second part goes back to geography. Who are the partners in this? And that's going to really shape what that program is. The other part that's making us a little bit just hesitant as we navigate, or not hesitant, I'd say more careful as we're making our decision making, is that this no vote really is so much different from last year. There are far more requirements or perhaps different requirements that we've seen in the past. And so I think that caught us a little bit off guard and just looking through the alignment between the nofo and then our scope of what we could actually do making sure we're being realistic um with what a proposal may look like so um i think that's if i were to sum it up that's that's what we're here to talk about

Point of clarification, Sydney and Joanna, this is specifically for the leftover funds from the pro-housing grant. Is this a different thing?

It's different funding.

So it's a different part of federal funds. It's the same program.

It's round three from HUD. that they have another set of funds that they've reallocated in this last budget season that they're looking to give out.

Oh, got it. Okay. Sorry.

Any other questions from staff? I would point out that I was confused, too, because we've got the pro-housing that we've already approved, pro-housing application that was approved last year that's being worked on now, and then this is round three of pro-housing. So, yes, not confusing at all. So any other questions for staff? All right. Based on what Joanna just said, I make a motion then to give staff the authority to explore the opportunity to pursue the CDBG pro housing application round three.

I second, Kathy Campbell.

All right, any other discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? None motion.

Yep. Lorene is abstaining.

Okay, thank you. And then so one abstention from this. All right. So then to talk about future meeting items and dates. So if staff were to move ahead with the round three of the application, we would need to have the public hearing on July 28th. So that would be the next thing to have on our calendars. And then our regular scheduled meeting is October 4th, or not October, August. Let's not move ahead. August 4th. Is that correct, staff? That's correct. All right. All right. And then is there anybody for public comment on items not on the agenda? I do not.

So there's only one person in the room and no comments. All right.

Then I will look for a motion to adjourn at 5.23. So move. Second.

All right.

I think Engelberger and Johnson. All right. For a second. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed? None. Motion carries.