(9/23) On September 13, the City Council approved an application for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) pending the city attorney’s review and public comment.
CDBGs began in 1974 and is one of the most flexible federal programs available to the city, according to Economic development director Jay Meashey.
The city has received CGBD funding four times before in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 2002, he said.
The CDB grant funding is administered nationally by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to benefit those who have low to moderate income (LMI), he said,
The funding of the CDB grant must be applied to activities that benefit low- and moderate-income people particularly "housing and water related infrastructure," eliminating slums, and addressing urgent issues to health and safety, Meashey said.
No matter what objective a project aims to achieve, "overall, CDBG has to benefit low- and moderate-income individuals," he said.
While CDB funding is typically aimed toward entitlement communities, such as the principal city in a metropolitan area, or major urban county, this year, HUD gave about 8 million dollars to Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development to give to non-entitlement communities like Taneytown.
The maximum grant the state of Maryland will provide an applicant is $800,000, Meashey said.
The federal government collects annual income data including household size to calculate LMI, he said. Taneytown is part of the Baltimore metropolitan statistical area, which is to the city’s benefit when calculating LMI, according to Meashey.
The threshold for low and moderate income varies by location, but typically low income is measured as earning less than 50% of an area’s median income, while moderate income is between 50% and 80%, he said.
Citywide, Taneytown is not fifty percent LMI, according to Meashey, "Which speaks well for our residents," he said.
While there is no definitive project the funding will go toward, if the grant is approved, activities eligible within Taneytown include developing a storm water management area plan, installation of storm drain inlets, and addressing standing water issues in individual neighborhoods, Meashey said.
The city is in a crunch for the grant’s specific application deadline of Oct. 8., but even if city can not get the application submitted by the deadline the city would still qualify for a five-year window to apply again, according to City Manager James Wieprecht.
