Adopted by Borough Council · February 14, 2022
The Borough will use $26,496 in unspent federal grant money to clear the property at 822-824 Washington Avenue, after Council adopted Resolution No. 2022-01 on February 14, 2022. The resolution moves that money out of the Borough’s FY2020 Community Development Block Grant program and into its Demolition and Clearance Fund, where it pays for taking down the structure and clearing the site.
Adopted unanimously
In favor: all members present — Robert Dollar, Sarah Hunter, Rob Poust, Ken Patterson, William Wiser, David Snyder. Absent: Charles Mills.
The change was first aired at a public hearing on the budget modification held earlier the same evening. No members of the public attended. The reallocation was presented by Trina Illig, the CDBG Grant Coordinator working through Blair County, which administers the grant program on the Borough’s behalf.
Tyrone receives an annual allocation through HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, a long-running federal program that funds local projects benefiting low- and moderate-income communities — among them housing rehabilitation, public improvements, and the demolition of blighted buildings. In Pennsylvania the program is run through Pennsylvania DCED’s CDBG program, and smaller boroughs like Tyrone typically draw their funds through a county administrator — here, Blair County.
Grant dollars are committed to specific activities by program year. When money set aside for one eligible activity goes unused, a municipality can formally redirect it to another eligible use — but only after a public hearing and a vote, which is the step Council took here. Demolition and clearance of a deteriorated structure is an eligible CDBG activity, which is why the FY2020 balance could be moved to that purpose.
Removing a derelict building takes a safety hazard and a source of blight off the block and returns the lot to a cleared, maintainable state. For neighbors on Washington Avenue, the practical result is the demolition of the structure at 822-824 and the clearing of the site, paid for with money the Borough had already been awarded rather than with local tax dollars.
On record: Resolution No. 2022-01 and the related budget-modification hearing are part of the public meeting record at the Borough Office, 1100 Logan Avenue. Learn more about the program from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program and Pennsylvania DCED’s CDBG program.
Browse every Borough Council ordinance and resolution, plus updates from across Tyrone’s departments.
