By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The City of Hutchinson has accepted a Community Development Block Grant to help improve homes in the Creekside neighborhood.
"The project area is 6th to 8th and the alley between Main and Washington over to Adams," said Director of Planning & Development with the City of Hutchinson, Ryan Hvitlok. "In there, there's about 80 homes and we had about 20 pre-applications."
Ten houses will be rehabilitated, five owner-occupied and five renter occupied, but they must meet income guidelines.
"For a family of four, it's just over $49,000 a year," Hvitlok said. "We think that this is something that will be able to be utilized by a large sector of the community in the Creekside area."
Hvitlok isn't terribly concerned that anyone will need to be turned away, even though there are twice as many pre-applicants as there is money available.
"There's a more stringent application process with the homeowners," Hvitlok said. "It's a partnership. Some homeowners will just realize that they probably don't want to go through the process, because it can be some fairly major work that's done, especially if there's lead paint abatement. There's some temporary relocation funds that are also in the grant that are eligible for reimbursement. We'll be working with the homeowners over the next couple of weeks to hopefully really narrow it down to who really wants to do it."
The goal is to finish the first batch of homes by the end of 2020 or early 2021. The grant was for $256,500 with $75,130 in local matching funds.