OSWEGO – At Monday night’s Administrative Services Committee, the Office of Economic Development requested permission to prepare and submit a grant application for the second round of Zombie and Vacant Properties Remediation and Preservation Initiative.
The Local Iniative Support Corporation is administering the $9 million grant to help municipal leaders to support programs addressing housing vacancy remediation and prevention and homeowner retention and enforcement of the Abandoned Property Neighborhood Relief Act of 2016 (the Zombie Law), according to Justin Rudgick, community development director.
Oswego is eligible to apply for up to $150,000.
“Really, we’re just asking for continuation of the programs that we started back in 2016,” Mayor Billy Barlow explained.
What the city spent the funds on the first time was hiring two part-time people in the Code Office to help with documenting neighborhoods and then go research … go around to every single street in the city and log every propertry that appeared to be vacant and then they’d find the owners and try to bring them into code compliance, he added.
Some of the funds from the first round were also used to buy new software, the mayor said.
The committee sent the request to the full council for consideration.
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