The Community and Economic Development Committee met 02/09/2022. The meeting was not quite 20 minutes long, but during it they did vote on six action items and receive one information item about Appleton’s American Rescue Plan Act Grants.
The first item was a request to approve taking $42,824.66 in unspent Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding from Appleton Housing Authority’s 2020 program year and reallocate it to Rebuilding Together Fox Valley’s 2021 program year subaward agreement for homeowner rehabilitation.
A female staff member explained to the committee that the 2020 program year went from April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021. During that time, the Appleton Housing Authority saw some significant staff turnover and also received some significant program income which they were required to spend first. The end result was that they were unable to spend a portion of the CDBG allocation. Staff was, therefore, recommending that the unspent money be reallocated to the Rebuilding Together Fox Valley West Appleton Neighborhood Project. Rebuilding Together Fox Valley currently had projects but no money to spend so this was a good way to get that 2020 money spent quickly and correctly while still serving its original purpose of benefitting homeowners.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said it looked like a good idea and he was glad to see that there was a solution that kept the money toward the same purpose.
Alderperson Miyoua Thao (District 7) wanted to know, since the Appleton Housing Authority was not going to spend this money, would they still be able to apply for this grant next year.
The staff member said the Housing Authority also received this money in 2021. Because they are a subsidiary of the City of Appleton, they get an allocation every year. They have an allocation to work with for the 2021 program year and will for 2022 as well assuming the city is awarded funds from the federal government.
The committee members had no further questions and approved the item unanimously.
They then moved onto the request to approve the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)-CV (Coronavirus) Policy as specified in the document attached to the agenda.
The female staffer said that throughout 2020 and 2021, the Community and Economic Development Committee had approved amendments and updates to policies that incorporated Covid-19 funding and additional requirements. Recently, it was brought to the attention of staff that the policies regarding CDBG Covid grants had to be separate from regular CDBG grants; they cannot be included in one overall policy. The attached policy they were asking the committee to approve incorporated the Covid regulations, identified eligible Covid activity, eliminated categorical thresholds per regulation, and identified the purpose of duplication of benefits It was essentially the policy that they had been following thus far, just separated out from the regular CDGB policy.
The committee had no comments or questions and approved the policy unanimously.
The next item the committee took up was Resolution #2022-01 – Support for Amending the Articles of Organization and the By-Laws of East Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission to modify the Board composition for the Commission.
Community and Economic Development Director Karen Harkness said that no one from the East Central Regional Planning Commission had been able to attend the meeting that day due to other commitments, but the memo included with the agenda gave some details. Basically, the planning commission needed to clean up their bylaws and articles of organizations. The major cleanup would be coming into compliance with how many other regional planning commissions are already being run by eliminating the gubernatorial appointment to the commission. She said there are significant delays in getting those appointments done, so the planning commission is always running understaffed.
The rest of the things in the resolution were just cleanup to reflect how the planning commission currently operates or to come more into alignment with how the other planning commissions are run.
Alderperson Kris Alfheim (District 11) asked if the removal of the gubernatorial appointee had been discussed in previous years and they were just now finally taking action on it.
Director Harkness answered that it had been an issue for several years and there had been conversations with the governor’s office about it.
There was no further discussion and the committee approved it unanimously.
The next item the committee took up was a request to proceed with the sale of Lot 3 of Northeast Industrial Park Plat No. 4 to Tetz, LLC per the terms of the Option to Purchase Agreement with Valley Tool, Inc. or its assigns dated August 22, 2019, at a purchase price of $53,850 ($37,395.83 per acre).
A male staffer told the committee that in 2019 Valley Tool had purchased two properties in the Northeast Industrial Park. At the same time, the Common Council approved placing an option on a third adjacent property. That option is still in effect, and the city received notice from Valley Tool that they are interested in purchasing that property under the terms of the option.
The committee had no questions or comments and approved the item unanimously.
They then moved on to the request to amend the Development Agreement with Bela Development LLC located at 513 W. College Avenue in Tax Increment Financing District No. 12 to provide the Developer until January 1, 2023, to meet the minimum $1,700,000 assessed value requirement.
Director Harkness told the committee that the Bela Development and 513 W. College Avenue was approved on December 23 of 2019. The development agreement stated that the minimum assessed value that they should have created by doing the project was $1,700,000. As of January 1, 2022, their assessed value was only $1,141,000. The last couple of year have not been standard years. There have been supply chain and labor issues, so the staff recommendation is to give the developer an addition 12 months to hit that value of $1.7 million.
Director Harkness said she had received a call from an alderperson who wanted to know what the negative side of this was to the City of Appleton. She said that there really wasn’t a negative side to the city. This is a PayGo development agreement which means the developer has to create the increment and pay the tax in order to get paid back, so there really is not a negative side to the city extending it for 12 more month. They were not adjusting the assessed value, which would be a whole different story; they were just extending the opportunity. If Bella Development was not able to meet that minimum assessed value in 12 months, then the development agreement goes away and the city is not out anything, but the developer would be.
Alderperson Firkus asked if she knew what actions the developer was taking to get the valuation up.
Director Harkness said that they would need to either find more tenants for the building or do improvements to the building. They were working to add more tenants.
The developer was in the audience and available to answer questions, but the committee did not have any more questions.
They approved the item unanimously without further discussion.
The committee then moved on to the final action item which was a request to approve the Offer to Purchase from Farrell Investments, LLC to purchase Lot 11 of Southpoint Commerce Park Plat No. 1, consisting of approximately 3.25 acres, at a purchase price of $130,000 ($40,000 per acre).
The male staffer said that Farrell Investments currently owned a building in Southpoint Commerce Park. They are planning to do an expansion, hopefully the spring. In order to do that they need more land, so they are hoping to acquire the parcel immediately to their west. The offer to purchase is at the city’s full $40,000 an acre asking price. He noted that they were looking to close no later than May 20th, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up closing sooner than that based on their construction schedule.
The committee had no questions or comments and approved the item unanimously.
After the action items were completed, there was one information item regarding the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) City of Appleton Grants.
Director Harkness said that the Council had voted to allocate $250,000 of ARPA funding for 2 grants—behavioral health and community events that help other businesses. Those were issued right after the holidays and the deadline was 03/03/2022. The city received 13 applications for the behavioral health grant. One of those was submitted after the submittal deadline so only 12 would move on to review. They received 11 applications for community events, one of which was submitted late, so 10 would go on to review. They had to go through them all and make sure they met all of the guidelines.
The review committee was made up on internal staff, Alderperson Alfheim, a community member from a granting organization that deals with grants often, and the behavioral health officer from the Police Department. The review committee’s first meeting will be 02/24/2022S and when they are done reviewing and scoring the grants, their recommendation will come forward to the Community and Economic Development Committee and then to the Common Council in the same process that they use for CDBG grants.
Alderperson Thao asked if there was another round coming after this.
Director Harkness said that the Common Councill approved in the budget tranches of allocations of the ARPA funding in broad categories. There have been no discussions at this point as to how the rest of that funding will be allocated.
Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) said they had received 20 applications and had $250,000. He wondered how they would determine how to allocate that money was the intent to allocate up to that $250,000 amount and then, as they reviewed the application, determine the amount per application based on that maximum allocation? How would they determine what they were going to pay out?
Director Harkness said there was a minimum grant request and a maximum grant request and there had been no conversation about how the $250,000 would be split because they didn’t know what kind of numbers they would get for applications. There is a finite amount of money, and it will be up to the committee to make those decisions on how that allocation will happen. It will come to the committee and then to the Council to approve those.
Alderperson Schultz asked if she could give him a sense of the total amount that was requested in the grant applications that were submitted. Were all the applicants seeking the maximum or was there a broad range?
Director Harkness said the applicants were not all looking for the maximum, but she didn’t go into detail.
There were no further comments or questions, and the committee adjourned after the information item.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=921454&GUID=6CDD406B-C558-4AC8-8F49-CDF5213290B0
Be the first to reply