The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency discussed housing and development updates during a recent board meeting, featuring an annual report by Crystal Surdyk, city director of development. Pictured are members of the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency during a recent meeting at City Hall.

The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency discussed housing and development during a recent meeting, highlighting increased development in 2022 and positive community impacts through grant funding.

Last month, Crystal Surdyk, city director of development, presented an annual report to the JURA board. Surdyk shared that the total number of code enforcement and zoning inspections was 1,125 during 2022. Based on the city’s current staffing of three code enforcement officers, Surdyk said the number of inspections per officer for the year was 375.

“Frankly, they’re on call 24/7,” she said. “It used to be that there might be one, maybe two a week. It’s more like four or five, and that might be on the weekend, it might be in the evening, it might be the middle of the night.

It might be for code enforcement, or it might be for something like a fire or building collapse. They’re very, very busy. There’s a huge need for enforcement and us to make some big moves and big changes.”

In addition to code enforcement inspections, Surdyk said 327 permits were issued during 2022 by Larry Scalise, chief zoning code enforcement officer and building inspector. From the total value of $2,331,561 in permitted improvements, Surdyk said the city generated $25,848 in fees.

“That’s way up from the last three years, which is great,” she said. “It’s a sign of development coming back. Things are moving, things are happening again, which is exactly what we want to see.”

Asked about the process of obtaining a permit, Surdyk said each applicant is required to provide a plan for the proposed improvements to Scalise, along with an estimate for the cost of the project. After providing the plan and the cost estimate, the information is shared with the city assessor’s office so the assessor can evaluate the properties as well.

As an entitlement community, Surdyk told JURA board members the city receives an annual allocation of Community Development Block Grant funds. During the past year, the city deployed $1,118,413 for 25 projects.

Surdyk said the city spent $214,538 in HOME funds, assisting five properties with rehabilitation. Additionally, the city allocated $194,000 in funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to launch two emergency homeless shelters in Jamestown this winter.

The city has also received $3,359,076 in additional state and federal grants that Surdyk said are in “various stages of implementation.” The $3,359,076 in state and federal grant funding is the combination of 10 different grant awards. Of the 10 grant awards, Surdyk said two state grants totaling almost $1.5 million were awarded for Jamestown’s Chadakoin River Basin Activation Plan. Also included in the grant total is an award for the city’s “comprehensive plan update,” which the city plans to heavily focus on over the next couple years.

“This number, I think, is an indicator that we are busy, and we will continue to be very busy over the next year,” Surdyk said.

Surdyk also provided JURA board members with an overview of American Rescue Plan Act funding that has been administered by the Jamestown Local Development Corporation, since the JLDC staff is technically JURA staff as well. Surdyk explained that while the JLDC has distributed a considerable amount of money for various grant programs, additional funding has yet to be distributed.

“As you can see, there’s still a long way to go,” she said. “There’s still lots of money to get deployed, and our team is very frantically working to get that money out in the community.”

Surdyk said that once the remaining ARPA funding is allocated, the city will have until the end of 2026 to spend the allocated funds. Mayor Eddie Sundquist said the funding is going “directly to the community” for various recovery purposes.

“It’s going where it needs to go,” Surdyk said. “It will be fun over this next year because now that we are really at the end of having it all allocated, now we can see what it’s going to do, and we are going to start to be able to witness and that I think we should be excited about that.”

Surdyk explained that the city will be “tracking” all of the progress on the various ARPA grants and programs, especially the local businesses that have received ARPA grants. She said the grant programs that have provided funding for local businesses involve a “long-term” relationship and commitment between the awarded businesses and the city. Surdyk added that the city will soon be able to see the impact of the grant awards as businesses are able to create new jobs, product lines and revenue streams.

“When you get past the stress of it and you think about the good that it’s doing, I think our focus will be able to start to shift over the next probably four months or so to what is this money going toward and how is it really helping these businesses.” she said. “I’m kind of excited about that.”