Greenmont greenspace: Funds funneled to neighborhood park
Between American Rescue Plan Act dollars already allocated and largely spent, a forthcoming $2 million congressional earmark and some $790,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds, the city has identified more than $3.3 million for the dilapidated section of the city's oldest neighborhood – a relatively small area between Brockway Avenue and Deckers Creek.
Of the $470,309 in CDBG funds the city will receive in the current fiscal year, $236,248 will support the creation of a lower Greenmont neighborhood park.
Further, the city is in the process of redirecting unspent funds from its 2019 ($24,327), 2020 ($4,914), 2023 ($242,860) and 2024 ($281,406) CDBG spending plans into lower Greenmont.
CDBG is a program through which the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development provides direct funding to entitlement communities using a formula based on factors like poverty rate, housing conditions and population.
Morgantown Communications Director Brad Riffee explained how those funds will be used.
'The two new CDBG funded projects include the development of a new public park within the floodplain along Deckers Creek and the reconstruction of Pennsylvania Avenue and Deckers Creek Avenue along the frontage of the proposed park,' he said. 'Both new projects meet the CDBG program's national objective to principally benefit low-to-moderate income residents on an area basis.'
Riffee went on to explain that the $2 million in congressionally directed spending the city was awarded last fall for blight removal, demolition and development in the area is still expected, but not likely to arrive in the near future due to the process required to release those funds. The city initially hoped to have that money available by spring of this year.
'We have been actively planning for the use of these funds. The Morgantown Land Reuse & Preservation Agency has been developing a project plan that includes land acquisition, demolition of dilapidated structures and the creation of green space and accessible housing,' Riffee said.
Half of the $2 million earmark will be used for the production and/or preservation of affordable housing through property acquisition, rehabilitation and/or construction. The other half will be split between the elimination of slum and blighting conditions ($650,000) and property acquisition, clearance and remediation ($350,000).
The money will provide a significant boost to the efforts initiated by the city through the allocation of $600,000 in ARPA money to its Land Reuse and Preservation Agency. The agency has used that money to acquire a number of properties, primarily along Pennsylvania Avenue.
Some of those properties are small, empty parcels; others include dilapidated structures identified by the neighborhood as magnets for unwanted activity.
Earlier this month, Morgantown City Council approved a $60,500 contract with Reclaim Company to raze three of those structures located at 570 and 635 Pennsylvania Avenue and 637 Brockway Avenue.
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