A few Union County villages could soon get more funding for needed infrastructure projects if applications get approved.
Representatives from Community Development Consultants (CDC) of Ohio, Access Engineering and Choice One Engineering visited the Union County Commissioners Wednesday for a public hearing and discussion over funding options.
John Cleek, a partner at CDC, told the commissioners that while his firm is looking at possible funding options for towns that qualify for the low-to-moderate income (LMI) projects, Union County’s villages fluctuate with regard to eligibility.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, Union County does not have a whole lot of low income areas. We’ve got a few. It changes based on the census data, which we’re waiting on the new ACS (American Community Survey) data any day now,” he said. “Traditionally, Richwood has been considered low-to-moderate income on a yearly basis. Unionville Center comes in and out. Magnetic Springs, historically, has always been LMI, so we’ve done a fair number of projects over there.”
To qualify for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, an area has to have 51% of the population considered as LMI.
Another challenge is that while the City of Marysville receives its own CDBG money, the rest of the county all has to draw from the same pool of allocated funds.
“Union County receives about $150,000, but after administrative costs and fair-housing costs, it’s more like $120,000 for projects,” said Thomas Perry, a planner at CDC. “That can be used, basically, for any eligible CDBG activity.”
Whether it’s Richwood or Unionville Center, Magnetic Springs or Milford Center, communities all vying for a piece or pieces of the same CDBG money can be difficult to manage, Perry added.
He said trying to get projects accomplished with those funds can require multiple submissions year after year to ensure as many needs get addressed as possible.
There are a number of CDBG programs and Perry said villages can apply for those specific funds to have a better shot at receiving them.
There are a half a dozen program options that offer hundreds of thousands of dollars for projects, but they can be competitive. Two programs in particular, Neighborhood Revitalization, which offers up $750,000 in funding for LMI neighborhoods and Critical Infrastructure, which has up to $500,000 for projects, could be particularly beneficial to Union County villages, Perry said.
Currently, Richwood is using Critical Infrastructure funds to work on the third phase in the Franklin Street reconstruction project.
“We just had our pre-construction conference last week, so we’re looking to start that project the First of May,” Cleek said. “They’re looking to submit a phase four for this year.”
Craig Mescher with Access Engineering said the company has been working steadily with the village to finish work on Route 37 through CDBG and Ohio Public Works Commission funds.
“We were in front of you guys about a month and a half ago where we opened bids for phase three. That’s going to go to construction this year,” he said. “Phase four will be the one that will actually, finally, get us to the downtown area.”
He said the village has been tackling the work in about $1 million or $1.7 million sections. The next project to consider would be to get Pearl Street reconstructed at an estimated cost of $122,000.
Additionally, CDC is working with Choice One Engineering to help finish drainage work in Unionville Center. The village applied for funding two years ago to replace all the drainage in town and while the village did receive some money in 2022, the full scope of the project didn’t get funded.
Luke Hemmelgarn, an engineer with Choice One, said the village set out to tackle drainage in 1997 but only about half of the project was complete. The plan now is to do fixes to major flooding areas first and then, eventually, try to finish the rest of the village.
“For the allocation for this year, we just finished up plans, what we’re getting ready to bid out here in the next month or so. Basically, we’re just addressing the major drainage areas where there’s currently flooding and what funds we had available to complete,” Hemmelgarn said. “Moving forward, the idea would be to finish that original 1997 project, get all the rest of the drainage in town finished and redo all the streets, resurface what needs done and make repairs on all the streets.”
The current project has an estimated cost of about $130,000, he added, but to do the entire project with all drains and streets, would likely be around $1 million.
Perry said CDC would likely look at the Critical Infrastructure program rather than Neighborhood Revitalization as that program requires “a lot of citizen participation” and that can be difficult to have in smaller villages.
“Unionville Center has about 200-225 folks. So, I think a Critical would be easier because that can address issues without as much citizen participation. It just seems like an easier pot of funds,” he said. “We’re happy if we can get 10% participation with surveys and with citizen input and 10% of 225 people is just not enough to get any data from.”
Hemmelgarn said it is the plan to submit for one of the funding programs this year.
The next round of applications for these projects are due in June.