Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 15, 2010,
Item 11
Item number 11, consider and take appropriate action on potential projects for the program year 2010 action plan funded through the community development block grant funding from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development mism--misms. Mo if, fe.
>> thank you, last week we came before you to provide information about the public hearings that we had held in february and march. And also wanted to provide some potential projects for you to consider for inclusion into the 2010 action plan. So we are expecting to receive $942,749. In your backup we had detailed the five different projects that we're requesting for funding. Those are $400,000 for the third and final phase of the lava lane street improvement project. $285 for frime--first time home buyer assistance to include gap financing. 65,295 for continued funding of the engs pangs of the social work program into the unincorporated areas. Then finally, $188,454 for administration and planning. Again, as i mentioned last week, this is a combination of typically you see in two different projects, one is the tnr senior engineer who helps us scope out projects, then part of his salary is also paid by project implementation costs. Then as well as a 60 percent of a planner that helps move the action planning process along, as well as costs related to the next consolidated plan and advertising and pricing costs for the grant. In addition to that, we are also requesting that the court consider an alternate project list for program year 2010. This is a new strategy to ensure that should we come up against the situation where a project slows, that there are delays that were unforeseen or if there are project savings or cost savings in any of the funded projects, that we are able to pick one of the alternate projects and fund those without having to go through the substantial amendment process. And those projects that we identified were additional funding up to $300,000 for home buyer assistance, up to $200,000 for home owner rehabilitation, and then up to $125,000 for the design of the nara creek street improvement. We are requesting your approval today of those projects so that we withed include it into the draft action plan for public comment for next week.
>> last week i expressed some concern regarding our ability to spend all of the money being set aside for home buyer assistance. My point basically was that we were a little tardy in spending the amount set aside for the previous year. And here we were adding another amount which would get us up in the 900,000 range when we had had some difficulty spending a little bit more than 500,000. I did meet with ms. Moffet and the housing finance corporation staff and left that meeting with the impression that we really should try to put in place another mechanism to help us expedite these projects. And mr. Davis and mr. Gonzalez were supposed to spend some time sort of running traps to see how we can get that done. I'm not suggesting we hold this up, but i am sort of putting us on notice that i really think we ought to take a good look that the. $900,000 can do a whole lot of good for home buyers, prospective home buyers. Plus if we don't spend this money, we really get in trouble with the feds.
>> right.
>> it's best to try to spend the money if we can.
>> yes.
>> and too, we don't want to jeopardize future funding. Since it's the home buyer assistance matter, i think we ought to try to figure out what the housing finance corporation can do to assist. The other thing, this really gets to be kind of complicated when you bring in state and federal standards. And ms. Moffet is sort of doing the work of two or three because we have had some resignations. I hate to, she is kind of overwhelmed, plus this is an area where if you are in the housing area and used to dealing with hud, cdbg, et cetera, these are probably pretty simple but if you don't have a history of doing that, it gets to be complicated. I think that our housing finance corporation staff agree. So as soon as they can put together hopefully some sort of initiative that the corporation can assist ms. Moffet with, then we ought to bring it to the court as well as the board of the housing finance corporation and try to get that done. You know, $900,000 is a lot of money but if we don't spend it it's almost like not having it. With that i do move that we approve this list of projects for public hearings, basically, and public meetings to get public input.
>> yeah, i'll bring the draft back next yeek for y'all to approve and start public comment june 23.
>> and judge, i agree with, whole heartedly with your statements. And it's nice to see the housing corporation and health and human services coordinating on this. And my understanding is that there's also an attempt to reach out beyond hour internal working groups on affordable housing, some of the other entities in the region so that we can get a better handle on all of the housing needs and difficulties in achieving affordability in single family as well as multifamily. And if the federal, with this federal bump, it's very nice to have. Let's utilize to its greatest potential.
>> uh-huh. The motion covers the list of potential projects as well as the alternate list. Anymore discussion? All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote. Commissioner gomez absence today. Commissioner davis temporarily off the dias.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 2:35 PM
