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Stimulus Money in Athens:
Catch as Catch Can
Athens-Clarke County will be getting mil
lions of dollars through the federal stimulus
package, but just how much—and for what—
will depend on complex federal and state
bureaucracies. ACC managers told commission
ers in the Government Operations Committee
Mar. 17. And those federal and state bureau
cracies, for once, seem to be in a hurry. Some
money has already been promised under
the "American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act:* about Si million in Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) money, $2 million for new
city buses (four or so buses that were sched
uled for replacement in 2012 and 2013 will
probably be replaced a year or two earlier),
and lesser amounts for
police and transportation
projects.
The HUD money
includes a “consider
able increase* in the
Community Development
Block Grant funds for affordable housing
programs and local nonprofit groups, ACC
Human & Economic Development Director
Keith McNeely says. The rest—$604,000 for
programs to prevent people from becoming
homeless—is *a huge ’mount for us," he says.
Money will be available in other categories,
too, although the county must specifically
apply for it. County managers handed out a
list of 82 different grant programs (mostly to
be administered by state agencies) that range
from energy-efficiency programs to transit,
water-treatment and education projects. But
many county projects don't qualify: because
they aren't far enough along in- planning,
for example, or just don't fit the guidelines.
And in many cases, “at this point, we don't
have a lot of information about these various
programs," Assistant Manager Richard White
told commissioners. White is the county's
point man for the stimulus bill; he unfurled
for commissioners the wall-sized chart he uses
to track all the programs. "Announcements are
being made daily, so we are having to monitor
this on a daily basis," he said.
And when guidelines do become available
for the grant programs, ACC Manager Alan
Reddish added, "we think you're not going to
have a lot of time to respond." He asked com
missioners to review a list of 57 local projects
that the county has tentatively submitted:
maintenance and construction projects that
were already planned,
like expansions of the
library and the Sandy
Creek Nature Center's
main building; purchas
ing hybrid or electric
police cars (or convert
ing others to run on natural gas); constructing
sidewalks; building a "diversion center" for
non-violent jail inmates; energy audits on
county buildings, adding solar panels, replac
ing roofs... but few local road projects (here
or anywhere else in Georgia) appear to be eli
gible, ACC Transportation Director David Clark
said. That's because the Georgia Department
of Transportation (which administers the fed
eral transportation funds) "has set the bar so
incredibly high* for local projects to qualify,
and will mostly apply the money to its own
projects. "They're going to use the stimulus
money to cover some of their state responsi
bilities," he said.
John Huie jphuie@athens net
And those federal and state
bureaucracies, for once,
seem to be in a burry.
S. Milledge and Sidewalks
Get Nod for Alt-Trans $$
In addition to stimulus funds, the ACC
Commission's "Government Ops" Committee
also discussed last week what to do with
$500,000 set aside for alternative-transpor
tation projects: use it to help fund the rail-
trail from downtown to Winterville Road,-or a
nearby "park-and-ride" lot for bus riders? Build
sidewalks, bus shelters
or bike racks? Update
the Bicycle Master Plan,
or build off-road bike
paths? Build a trail for
bicyclists and pedestrians along an unofficial
shortcut that connects South Milledge Avenue
(near the Bypass) with Milledge Extension?
Extend the Greenway trail south along the
river from Dudley Park to College Station
Road? All were discussed by the committee's
five commissioners; in the end, they decided
to recommend the Milledge Extension shortcut
plus building some sidewalks.
Some commissioners'wanted an identifi
able, finished project—a "ribbon-cutting
“...we get a stronger plan if
we wait a little bit longer.”
opportunity" in Manager Alan Reddish's
words—and the money might seem to van
ish if it went into the expensive rail-trail, he
said. And while commissioners seemed eager
to expand the Bicycle Master Plan, "we get a
stronger plan if we wait a little bit longer,"
suggested Commissioner Kelly Girtz. The cur
rent plan could just be
updated, Commissioner
Ed Robinson said—but
"what it's going to miss
is the comprehensive
interconnectivity, the full vision of how we're
going to cover all of Athens, out to neighbor
ing counties."
And while $500,000 won't go far build
ing sidewalks, "you'd be able to start filling
in some gaps in places," Commissioner Harry
Sims suggested. "There's more of a public need
for sidewalks," agreed Commissioner Doug
Lowry.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
Committee Makes Progress
Resolving Blighted Housing
"This is a lot harder to resolve than I ever
imagined it would be," said Commissioner
Kathy Hoard at a meeting of the ACC
Commission's Legislative Review Committee
(LRC) Mar. 17. The meeting's sole topic was
blighted and boarded-up housing, and that
has already been the topic of several LRC
meetings in recent months. But this time—in
keeping with a Mayor and Commission goal to
make progress this year on items assigned to
committees—the group of five commissioners
plus county staffers finally achieved concrete
advances on the matter.
They explored the idea of a "land bank"
to keep properties moving to the affordable-
housing market in cases where the city decides
that blighted, abandoned housing needs to
be demolished. They also agreed to look into
revising the current ordinance on so-called
"secured structures," which are abandoned
and boarded up but not deemed by building
inspectors to be a threat to
public safety. Included may
be tweaks to the rules on
building permit costs, assis
tance loans, a maximum time
frame for such structures
to be boarded up, and even
aesthetics—like painting the plywood used to
board up windows, as is required in Augusta,
GA. Augusta has a complex ordinance on
such housing, according to ACC Attorney Bill
Berryman—who's been researching municipal
approaches to the issue across the state—but
parts of the Augusta ordinance might be use
ful if borrowed piecemeal for any potential
revisions to ACC code.
Commissioners were most excited about
possibly creating a "case manager"—perhaps
through a partnership with a local agency
like the Athens Housing Authority, Athens
Land Trust or East Athens Development
Corporation—to give special attention to
complicated cases, usually with confused
titles or multiple heirs sharing ownership,
that tend to move slowly through the city's
pertinent bureaucracy: especially those in
which owners don't know of the financial help
available to them for rehabilitation work, or
(on the other hand) don't know at what point
the city can legally decide that the house they
own should be demolished. And Human and
Economic Development Director Keith McNeely
said he's exploring with local banks their abil
ity to help the city financially with demolition
costs to spur redevelopment in the county's
"most distressed neighborhoods" through the
federal Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.
Still, commissioners want to see the
bureaucratic processes of dealing with aban
doned housing happen faster. Augusta has "a
pretty impressive operation," Berryman said,
and its government successfully deals with
many times more blighted housing units in
a year than Athens does—but it also has a
much larger problem at hand. And in Augusta,
Berryman said, the lots on which the houses
sit are cheaper—more like $2,000 per lot as
a floor, compared to $15,000 here—so own
ers and heirs may have less reason to try to
fix them up and sell them. That can make it
easier for the city to demolish them, when it
seeks to.
ACC staffers have set a "potential demoli
tion benchmark" of 31 identified houses over
the next five years. According to documents
distributed at the meeting, 48 out of 124
"nuisance structures" county
wide have been "classified"
for demolition, "although
eight to 13 of these may be
considered marginally repair
able depending on the final
value/ cost ratio." Seventy-
six of the 124 have been tagged for securing
and eventual repair.
But ff it were as simple as having the num
bers work out better for owners financially, it
would be another story—hence the need for a
"case manager" who can work one-on-one with
property owners and adjust the bureaucracy
to their unique circumstances, financial and
otherwise. "Every single property has a com
plex and tragic history to it," Berryman said.
McNeely told commissioners that some citizens
in difficult situations, financial and otherwise,
need help understanding the process more
often than not: there are "a lot of things
going on," he said, "that you have to work
through to get to the heart of the matter."
Funds for the case manager and perhaps
other initiatives will come out of unspent
reserves from previous Commission attempts
at dealing with blighted, abandoned and
boarded-up housing. Nearly $200,000 is avail
able, and county staff suggested spending
$30,000-$40,000 towards the case manager
position at the outset. Next on the commit
tee's agenda: "discussion of codes/ordinances
related to demolition of historic structures."
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpoie.com
“Every single property
has a complex and
tragic history to it.”
MARCH 25.2009 • FLAGPOLE.COM 5