City Officials Discuss Annual Action Plan Amendment

City officials discussed an amendment to the 2018 Annual Action Plan during Monday's public hearing that would help first-time home-buyers in the community with gap funding for closing costs and housing purchase expenses.

Only one member of the community attended Monday's public hearing on the amendment to the city's 2018 Annual Action Plan, during which, city officials discussed the potential allocation of funding for a first-time home-buyer program.

During the public hearing, Crystal Surdyk, city director of development, provided background information regarding the 2018 Annual Action plan as well as a proposal for providing funding to the Chautauqua Home Rehabilitation and Improvement Corporation for a first-time home-buyer grant program.

"This is actually an amendment to the 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 Annual Action Plans," she said. "This is for the HOME program, specifically. The reason for this amendment is we have funds that have been allocated on an annual basis that have not been utilized in those specific years that we need to move into another program."

As a result of the extra funding that has not been expended, Surdyk said the city has the opportunity to allocate funding for a first-time home-buyer program with CHRIC.

"This is a great way for us to be able to spend those funds that we certainly don't want to see go to waste, and there's definitely a need," she said. "CHRIC is ready to go and ready to administer those funds immediately, and they do have applicants in their program that are waiting for funding to come through."

Surdyk explained that CHRIC's program is something that the Department of Housing and Urban Development has supported in the past and is something that city officials would like to see supported in Jamestown. Surdyk added that the program is in alignment with the city's housing strategy, annual action plans and five-year consolidated plan.

"Each year, we receive an allocation for HOME funds. Right now, we have close to a million dollars in HOME funds that need to be expended, so this will help us to spend some of those funds down in a way that has a really short-term, immediate, but high impact with this program."

The city administration's proposed amendment would allow CHRIC to provide up to $4,000 in financial assistance to low and moderate income first-time home-buyers. Under the proposal, CHRIC would be reimbursed by the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency. The proposal would also provide $500 to cover CHRIC's administration fees for each grant award.

The total amount of money that would be allocated to JURA for the proposed first-time home-buyer program with CHRIC would be $225,000. The program, which is proposed for the years 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, would include a range for the number of grantees and the total JURA allocation of funding, but would not exceed $225,000.

City officials will hold a special meeting this afternoon at 4 p.m. in the mayor's conference room at City Hall. The meeting will include a discussion between City Council members and a grant manager from the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant.

The special meeting with FEMA is expected to provide City Council members with information pertaining to the various questions council members have had regarding the financial impact of hiring eight additional firefighters in conjunction with the SAFER grant. The public is welcome to attend the special meeting.