Hot Springs sets block grant spending plan
HOT SPRINGS — The Hot Springs Board of Directors adopted a spending plan last week for the city’s $415,849 fiscal year 2023 Community Development Block Grant, the smallest annual allocation the city has received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program since 2016.
This year’s allocation will fully fund eight of the nine projects that applied for funding. HUD designated Hot Springs as an entitlement city in 2003, making the city eligible for Community Development Block Grant funding.
According to the annual action plan the board adopted, projects in the Gateway Neighborhood will receive more than a third of the funding, the largest percentage for any of the six low-to-moderate income areas that were awarded funds.
The $80,000 for interior rehabilitation of the John Lee Webb House accounts for the largest percentage of this year’s allocation. It anchors the Pleasant Street Historic District, which is part of the upper Malvern Avenue Gateway Neighborhood.
According to the application the nonprofit People Helping Others Excel by Example submitted, the money will pay for the removal of hazardous materials and select demolition that will allow the Victorian home where Webb and his family lived to be rewired and get new insulation.
The total project cost is $242,788.
The $50,973 in 2016 Community Development Block Grant funding the Webb House received matched a $90,000 Arkansas Historic Preservation Roof Replacement grant. The $76,000 in 2018 funding matched a $30,000 Arkansas Historic Preservation Program Grant. The money rebuilt the porch/porte cochere and stabilized the foundation.
This year’s allocation will fund $9,937 of $39,244 in improvements to the parking lot at the Malvern-Church Street intersection the city and Gateway Neighborhood Association applied for. The Community Development Advisory Committee, which recommends projects for Community Development Block Grant funding, ranked the parking lot improvements last among the nine projects that applied for funding.
“You have the most difficult decision of all to make in that all of these projects are excellent,” Planning and Development Director Kathy Sellman told the board. “All of them are eligible activities, and we do not quite have the amount of money we need to fund all nine projects.
“As the year progresses, we’ll assess where we are with available Community Development Block Grant funds and make every effort available to fund project number nine.”
According to the action plan, the full amount of requested funds would provide for the purchase and installation of industrial picnic tables, concrete pads for picnic tables, industrial trash cans, picnic table covers and excavation and grading for a retaining wall.
According to the funding application, the parking lot project is a continuation of improvements the Community Development Block Grant program has funded along the upper Malvern approach to downtown. Community Development Block Grant funds have paid for sidewalk improvements from Gulpha Street to East Grand Avenue, a bus shelter and other streetscape projects
The Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission donated the parking lot to the city last year, according to the minutes from the commission’s Sept. 12 meeting. The following month the city board adopted a resolution accepting the donation. According to property records, no deed or other instrument memorializing the donation has been recorded.