Under Title I of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, as amended and the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990, the City of Battle Creek is required to prepare a plan that describes how the City will allocate Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership funds to meet the needs of low and moderate income persons of Battle Creek. To that end, a Consolidated Plan is completed every five (5) years and an Annual Action Plan is completed annually to describe the activities that will be undertaken to address the needs identified in the current 5-Year Consolidated Plan.
The Annual Action Plan also serves as an application for Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership funds. During the past several months, City Community Development Staff have been working to develop the 2017-18 Annual Action Plan. During the past several months, public hearings have been held for the purpose of identifying housing and community development needs and gathering feedback on the draft Annual Action Plan. Notices of the formal public hearing were published in the Battle Creek Shopper News and a notice was also published in the Spanish newspaper, New Opinion. The City has accepted, considered and included all citizen/public comments in the final Plan.
It should be noted that we have not incurred the expense of creating hard copies of the Final Plan for each Commissioner, as each Commissioner had previously been informed of the availability of the draft plans on the City's web-site and were also provided digital copies. The Final Annual Action Plan will be available on the City’s web site and copies will be available for reference in the Community Development Department. A copy of the Plan will also be supplied to the City Manager’s Office.
The 2017-18 Annual Action Plan is now ready for adoption by the City Commission so it may be submitted to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for approval. Upon approval of the 2017-18 Annual Action Plan, Funding Approval/Agreements for both the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnership Programs will be executed by the City Manager and HUD.
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