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<\/a>Screenshot via Microsoft Teams.<\/p>\nBy John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n
The council approved the first reading of an ordinance to acquire the property for $1.2 million on September 9th, though an accompanying resolution to utilize $1 from Community Development Block Grant-Public Facilities (CDBD-PF) funds was withdrawn, as HCV first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf this resolution is voted down, what are the options to fund this, 128 Glenwood?\u201d Councilman at-Large Michael Griffin asked Acting Community Development Director Saulo Diaz.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ordinance provides that the funding would come from this grant. If the one million dollars was voted down by the council and the resolution, then the administration would have to find alternate funding,\u201d explained First Assistant Corporation Counsel Lisa Scorsalini.<\/p>\n Griffin asked if alternatives might include the Hudson County Open Space Trust Fund \u201cor something like that,\u201d to which Business Administrator Ruby Choi broadly said other sources of capital funding would need to be identified.<\/p>\n Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Keshav Poddar sought to provide more clarity on the matter.<\/p>\n \u201cCouncilman, if the resolution would be voted down, as the corp. counsel and the business administrator said, the only alternative would be to find other sources of funding. I can say from my conversations from the developer and their team, is that it\u2019s unlikely they would proceed with the sale with further delay,\u201d he expressed.<\/p>\n Ward C Councilman Tom Zuppa, who has spoken in favor of the project previously, asked for the timeline of uses for CDBG funding in general and how they got to the current point to where $1 million is being proposed to go towards the purchase of 128 Glenwood Ave.<\/p>\n He specified that he wanted to know generally what the funds are used for, how they got to the use of these funds, and why they could not be used for anything else.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the public facilities part of CDBG funding, these can pretty much be used for community improvements, that includes acquisition, street paving \u2013 anything that is considered an improvement along our LMI Census Tract,\u201d noted Diaz.<\/p>\n Zuppa than noted that it was suggested to the governing body that the funds are set to expire, therefore it\u2019s important they are utilized now.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of January, HUD [U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] conducts what\u2019s called a timeliness test to ensure that municipalities aren\u2019t holding on 1.5 times their annual award, if we are holding more than that, then we fail timeliness,\u201d Diaz stated.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the past three years, Jersey City has failed timeliness, we\u2019re on our way to fail it a fourth time at the end of this January unless we include in this one million dollars because the rest has already been awarded out. If that happens, if we fail timeliness at the end of January, what they do then is going forward, they cut us down 50 percent of our annual award.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, Zuppa wanted to be clear that a project has to be ready to go before the council assigns any funding to it.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter we assign a project with money, we have to do environmental reviews, there\u2019s procurement laws and bids we have to go through at the end of January at this point \u2013 an environmental review takes at least 60 days \u2013 that already puts us in December, that\u2019s no time for any procurement or bidding,\u201d replied Diaz.<\/p>\n Zuppa continued by asking if the city was in a position to use those CDBG funds if they weren\u2019t used on 128 Glenwood Ave.<\/p>\n \u201cCorrect, so those funds haven\u2019t been awarded out, they\u2019re what we call \u2018unallocated.\u2019 When it comes time, and if we do fail timeliness, they\u2019ll see those unallocated funds and there\u2019s a pretty good chance they\u2019re gonna recapture it because it\u2019s just sitting there,\u201d Diaz answered.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n