The City Council’s Housing Committee discussed an award that has been applied for to help renovate local vacant rental homes in the city. Crystal Surdyk, city development director, discusses the Vacant Rental Improvement Program grant application as Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5 and Housing Committee chairman, Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and Finance Committee chairman, and Jennifer Williams, city clerk, look on. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

City Council members are poised to give formal approval to apply for $2.9 million to help renovate local vacant rental homes in the city.

The Vacant Rental Improvement Program Award or V-RIP was applied for by the City of Jamestown and Department of Development. Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5 and Housing Committee chairman said during the Monday housing committee meeting that the city has prepared the application for the New York State Homes and Community Renewal Grant application for a total of $2,913,750. The application is something that is set to be considered at the upcoming voting session.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, said the application was submitted last week, so talking about it now was more for information on the fact that it has been applied for and that they do not yet know if they will be awarded the grant. The application process is something that Surdyk said took her team three days to do, and she credited the work to her team. She reemphasized that they have not been awarded the grant yet and will be looking at the next voting session for approval to accept it if awarded.

“This staff report and resolution is requesting that should we be awarded the grant that we can accept the grant,” Surdyk said. “There is no matching requirement, and there is some opportunity for some administrative fee, so that will be helpful in order for us to administer the grant.”

Surdyk added that administrative fees can often be sticking points for grants such as this, with many not allowing for administration to be taken. The city is requesting $2.9 million to partner with CODE Inc.

“They have some vacant units, so this will allow us to work with them to get their vacant units back up and into the mix,” Surdyk said. “We estimated this will allow us to do between 25 and 35 units, depending on the cost.”

CODE will be a partner, Surdyk added, but the main target will be unaffiliated small, local landlords, or landlords that own 20 units or less. She said the idea is to help the landlords that have been around for a long time and to invest into the community.

“It gives us the opportunity to target a lot of those empty rental units,” Surdyk said. “They may be condemned or they may just be vacant by virtue of the landlord has not wanted to or been able to financially bring them back up to code. This will allow us to assist with that.”

The committee discussed that focusing on 25 to 35 units would make the project about $100,000 per unit. Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and Finance Committee chairman, asked if it would be possible to make renovations for each unit any cheaper so that the money, if awarded, can be used on more properties. Surdyk said it was a possibility, but aiming for that many units gives the most flexibility with the overall costs of improvements that they have been seeing. Sheldon added that many of the houses are not worth $100,000 originally, something that Surdyk said is often the case.

“That’s always going to be the case with everything that we’ve seen,” Surdyk said. “I think that’s been part of the hardship for our local landlords and property owners. We’ve heard for the past several years that their properties are not worth the money that it will cost them to bring them back up to code. So, it’s almost more beneficial for them to sit with them uninhabited, which is obviously we have a problem with not having enough units locally. So this will help to start to turn that tide.”