[Council Communication]  [Attachments]

Council Communication

Title:	Modification of the 1995, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 Annual Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Action Plans for reallocation of unexpended CDBG funds.
Dept:	Community Development
Date:	November 4, 2003
Submitted By:	Brandon Goldman, Assistant Planner John McLaughlin, Director of Community Development
Approved By: ...........................	Gino Grimaldi, City Administrator

Synopsis:	In September, the City initiated the process of reallocating past CDBG awards that have gone unexpended. The reallocation of past awards requires modification of past years CDBG Action Plans through a public hearing process. There is concern that should the same delays in property acquisition persist in the coming years that have occurred in the past, the city will be subject to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's sanctions policy for exceeding the 1.5x cap on accumulated carryover. If no projects are completed prior to November 2004 the amount of potential reduction of future CDBG allocations will be approximately $465,000. Thus it is imperative that the City of Ashland find expeditious ways to expend the current carryover as well as future allocations. Reallocation of previously unexpended CDBG awards addresses this purpose.
Recommendation:	Staff recommends approval of the Modification of prior years CDBG Action Plans in accordance with Table 1 provided on page 3 of this communication.
Fiscal Impact:	No fiscal impact. Involves the reallocation of previously awarded CDBG funds.
Background:	The City Council reviewed the CDBG program and the issue of accumulated carry-over on September 3rd, 2003 at a study session. The Housing Commission held a special meeting on September 10th, 2003 to address the accumulated CDBG funds and to receive project updates from the subrecipients, the Ashland Community Land Trust and the Rogue Valley Community Development Corporation. The Housing Commission recommended modifying the past CDBG Action Plans to provide the Rogue Valley Community Development Corporation to combine the 2002 and 2003 CDBG awards to be applied to the purchase of the property located at 2001 Siskiyou Blvd for the construction of 8-11 affordable housing units. The Commission further recommended that RVCDC have until January 30th 2004 to expend the funds or they be recaptured and made available through a new request for proposals. The Housing Commission recommended that the Ashland Community Land Trust (ACLT) retain their $120,000 given confidence that their project to develop 3 affordable housing units has made sufficient progress in recent months. Lastly the Commission recommended that all other carryover and unprogrammed funds should be reallocated through the 2004 Request for Proposals process. On September 16,2003 the City Council reviewed these recommendations and directed Staff to propose the modification of past Action Plans accordingly. RVCDC was awarded $21,000 toward pre-development expenses in 2002 related to the affordable housing project proposed at the Lower Pines site. Of this $21,000 RVCDC expended $7200 on the development of a Relocation Plan for the residents of the trailer park. Although this activity was not completed, the plan development was paid out of the CDBG program. RVCDC requested the remaining $13,800 be applied toward predevelopment expenses on the Siskiyou site. However as this project is no longer a tax-credit project, pre-development costs are no longer an eligible use of CDBG funds. Therefore Staff has proposed that these funds ($13,800) now be applied toward public facility improvements at the Siskiyou site, as this would be an eligible use of CDBG funds. The Public Works Department has begun soliciting bids for the accessibility improvements to the Pioneer Hall Restrooms originally identified in the 2002 and 2003 Action Plans. This work will be undertaken during this program year at a cost of approximately $15,000. A table is provided (next page) that quantifies the amount of unexpended funds from each Program Year and their proposed reallocation use. Note the use of those funds identified to contribute to the 2004 CDBG Award is to be determined by the City Council in review of proposals for use the 2004 CDBG Competitive Award. The selected use will be identified in the 2004 Annual Action Plan.
Attachments:

TABLE 1

Unexpended CDBG Funds to be reallocated
Proposed use to be final at adoption of 2004 Action Plan

Program Year	Project	Unspent Funds	Reallocated Amount	Proposed use
95-96	Unprogrammed	$21,000	$21,000	2004 CDBG Award
99-00	Accessibility	$4,041	$4,041	2004 CDBG Award
2000-2001	Accessibility	$11,050	$11,050	2004 CDBG Award
2001-2002	ACLT	$120,000	0	ACLT Hersey Project (This modification has been approved)
	Accessibility	$11,500	$11,050	2004 CDBG Award
2002-2003	RVCDC (Lower Pines)	$168,750	$168,750	RVCDC (Siskiyou Property Acquisition)
	Accessibility	$11,250	$11,250	Pioneer Hall Restrooms-ADA
2003	RVCDC (Siskiyou Property)	$193,000	0	RVCDC (Siskiyou Property Acquisition)
	RVCDC (Predevelopment costs)	$13,800	$13,800	RVCDC (Siskiyou Property Public Facilities)
	admin (6 mos overlap)	$25,605	$25,605	2004 CDBG Award
	accessibility	$12,800	$3,750	Pioneer Hall Restrooms-ADA
	accessibility		$9050	2004 CDBG Award

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