SOUTHWICK – The Board of Selectmen gave its approval this week to move forward with a regional development grant for Southwick and Granville.
The communities are asking for $900,000, including $90,000 for a mobile food pantry and $479,000 for housing rehabilitation
Selectman Joseph Deedy headed a committee to work on the application with Pioner Valley Planning Commission’s James Mazik. The town was denied the same grant during the last round of awards because it did not receive enough comments from residents of Veteran Street, where a development project is proposed, and a lack of documented participation in meetings, among other items.
“The cutoff was 76 points and you were eight points below that,” said Mazik when he last met with the board to talk about re-applying.
Mazik said he believed another application showing improvements to areas such as Veteran Street would earn approval. He said that category scored an average of 53 points, due in part to lack of resident participation in advisory committee meetings and a lack of residential input.
“Points were knocked off because there was no sign-in sheet,” Mazik offered as an example of why there was such a low score.
One area of excellence on the original application was the mobile food pantry, which serves the town of Granville in addition to Southwick.
“The mobile food pantry scored 67 points, which is really high,” he said.
Mazik added that social service programs are not included as a category but count toward the average score.
Housing and Rehab scored well, but Mazik said they could easily improve the score.
“There wasn’t additional outreach to target areas, and we can do that,” he said, using letters as an example.
Mazik said Monday letters were sent to target neighborhoods.
“We sent a survey to those on the housing rehab list, including 43 people in Southwick and 15 in Granville.”
Mazik told the board he believed the town could raise their scores into the high 60s, plus receive an additional 10 points for its regional services. He added that the PPC had a good success rate with grants.
Deedy and the committee worked to improve the towns’ chances by hosting a public forum right on Veteran Street and documenting attendance at the public hearing Monday night.
“We also sent out a survey to all residents of (Veteran) street and we’re already getting responses,” Mazik said.
Selectmen Deedy and Russell Fox approved the application and set a public haring on the final application for Jan. 5 at 5:40 p.m. during a Board of Selectmen meeting at Town Hall. Selectwoman Tracy Cesan was absent Monday night.
