WESTFIELD – The City of Westfield’s Community Development Department held a public hearing yesterday afternoon to address any questions or comments concerning the city’s Annual Action Plan for FY 2013-2014.
The small meeting was presided over by city grant coordinator Diana McLean, who addressed the current state of the city’s City Development Grant Block (CDBG) funding.
Issued through the the federal government’s Housing and Urban Development program, CDGB funds are given in accordance of need to any city looking to provide programs which benefit low to medium income families, eliminate slums and blights, and provide relief from a natural disaster.
The organization looks to create and sustain viable, livable communities, specifically where there are large populations inhabiting areas designated as “downtowns”.
Many factors play into the amount of funding certain cities receive, and while some western Mass. cities, such as Springfield and Holyoke, demand larger CDGB grants, Westfield has found itself to be doing well enough to receive smaller amounts of funding, according to McLean.
“The heydays of receiving $500,000 a year are over,” she told the small gathering, before informing the group that the city would be receiving a 6 percent increase in funding, with $6,500 and $61,450 being allocated to Westfield Community Education’s GED Program and the Business Improvement District, respectively.
Both Ann Lentini of Westfield Community Education and Maureen Belliveau of the BID attended the hearing and, while the funds being awarded to the BID were less than was requested, it is an amount comparable to that which has been spent in previous fiscal years.
McLean announced that the city is almost done paying off it’s Section 108 loans, with a balloon payment of over $300,000 being made in August. These loans are the direct funding for CGDB-related projects.
During the past year, other CDGB funds have gone to the Samaritan Inn; summer camps for economically disadvantaged children; and economic development activities such as the acquisition of blighted properties and other sites, as well as the Restore Westfield Program, which seeks to aid in job creation, technical assistance and micro-enterprising measures.
Due to factors such as a lack of pre-1940 and public housing and HUD’s use of the 2010 US Census in evaluating need, Westfield’s CDGB funding will be lower in the 2014 fiscal year than other similarly sized western Mass. cities such as Chicopee, Holyoke, and even smaller cities like Northampton. Westfield is, however, set to receive funding on par with similarly-sized Peabody on Boston’s North Shore, according to McLean.
