Village might expand eligibility for loans
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. » The village is considering expanding eligibility for a little-used revolving loan fund to include the needs of businesses being hit hard by the COVIDrelated economic slowdown.
Mayor Tim Rogers said Tuesday that the $500,000 loan fund could be used to help businesses with more than just the purchase of personal protective equipment allowed under state and federal programs.
“We’re trying to piggyback off of the existing language for the revolving loan fund,” he said. “We just wanted to make it somewhat broad in terms of recognizing COVID impacts.”
One thing the village is considering is eliminating the rule that prohibits the use of the fund for emergency situations or business operations.
“Here we are flipping it and saying that you can,” Rogers said.
Guidelines for the loan program, which was established with funding from the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, were last updated in 2013. The loan fund’s current interest rate is 3%.
Rogers said the fund has received only two loan applications over the past six years, and one of those was rejected.
“There’s only been one that we awarded and one that we straight up denied,” he said, noting that the rejection was because of the applicant’s bad credit history.
Rogers said the COVID-19 pandemic has created something of an economic irony in the village: decreased foot traffic in the business district but a significant increase in applications for building permits.
“[Village Safety Inspector] Cory Wirthmann believes our busy Building Department is partially a function of people traveling or vacationing less,” the mayor said. “Money they would have spent is now going to home improvement wish list projects or just deferred maintenance, like finally choosing to replace the old roof.”
Comments about expanding the revolving loan fund should be emailed to assistant@villageofnewpaltz.org. A loan application and information about the process can be found online at bit.ly/ npaltz-loans.