From left Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education President Paul Abbott, and Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker Wednesday go over documents. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

An affordable housing project set to be placed on Spring Street, known as the Blooming Gardens Project, has been presented to the city Planning Commission.

The Blooming Gardens project is being done in a collaboration between CODE Inc and Southern Tier Environments for Living. The project comes as an addition to a previous project that was denied state funding in the most recent round from New York State Homes and Community Renewal for a project that involved the rehabilitation of 34 units owned by CODE and the construction of four new units to be owned by STEL. Matt Long, architect with Long Associates who presented the project to the commission, said this new plan for the project is to help obtain that funding this time around.

“We were told we were one point away from getting funded, which is really good given the 15 to 20 applications that went in,” Long said. “So, basically our team has been going through ways of strategizing to make sure we have a really good chance of getting funded next time and don’t leave any points on the table.”

The new plan involves taking the original 38 units and adding to them a new construction of seven different multi-unit houses on Spring Street, on the west side just south of Crossman Street. The parcels, which are currently vacant lots, would have two units each of one-bedroom housing and be managed by STEL for their clients, which were noted to be mainly those with mental health issues. The Planning Casked about a screening process, as the location is close to a school zone, which there will be for anyone looking to live there. Long added that all of the houses would be all electric and meet or exceed energy requirements.

Other areas of the project discussed by Long and the Planning Commission included the project being on a steep portion or hill, storage for garbage bins, the use of backyards behind the houses, storm drains, sewers, any other new construction projects that are similar that CODE may have done, and other concerns and questions that the planning commission had.

“From the standpoint of housing people, it’s not going to be done just to do it,” Long said. “It’s going to be done and it’s going to be top-tier housing for anybody, which is great.”

The next step for the project is the paperwork and approval for a State Environmental Quality Review, to then return to the Planning Commission in June for site plan approval. This will be followed by going to the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance approval and the county Planning Board.