City seeks approval for $1 million flood reimbursements

The city is planning on using $1 million in disaster relief funds to reimburse flood-stricken homeowners, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development will have to approve it first.

At a workshop meeting on Tuesday, council heard proposed changes to Substantial Amendment 8 to the city’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Action Plan. Originally the amendment involved reallocations of funds from some infrastructure projects to others; now, the amendment includes the establishment of a $1 million fund to reimburse homeowners who used their own money to fix their homes after the 2015 floods. The money will come from the city’s rental rehabilitation program and, pending HUD approval, will be available to qualified homeowners. 

City Manager Bert Lumbreras addressed the city staff’s delay in pursuing a program to reimburse homeowners who used their own funds to repair their flood-damaged homes. Staff found out last fall that CDBG-DR funds could be used for reimbursements; city council did not find out until its April 16 meeting, when Substantial Amendment 8 was first brought up for discussion. 

“I think admittedly we should have followed up on the direction that we had previously received from council to come back with a reimbursement program,” Lumbreras said. “This was discussed quite extensively by council in September 2018. … Since then — I believe it was in March — the General Land Office did actually put out a program they adopted which would have been right before we had the work session on Amendment 8. … We should have teed up that discussion at that time with council before we brought forward the amendment.”

Lumbreras said the staff’s intention is to implement a funding strategy to “reallocate at least $1 million to form our rental rehabilitation and reconstruction program, to seek HUD approval for this program, to put this into our action plan and to start this program right away as soon as we get the proper approvals.”

He noted the city will have to notify the public, hold meetings and go through all the necessary steps to get the amendment approved. A community meeting was scheduled for Wednesday night at the Activity Center to discuss the amendments, and a public comment period will begin May 12 and run through May 28. The city will submit Substantial Amendment 8 to HUD for approval on June 5. 

As for the other expenses mentioned in Substantial Amendment 8, Mayor Jane Hughson and Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Prewitt expressed some concerns, especially about potential funding shortfalls and deadlines for the infrastructure projects. The amendment would reallocate $2.3 million from improvements at Clarewood Drive to Blanco Gardens, $3 million of planning funds to Blanco Gardens and Uhland Road, and $1.5 million of Blanco Riverine funds to Uhland Road. There could be shortfalls in paying for some of these projects.

“I understand that we’ve got five projects, and some of them we’ll have completed before other ones,” Prewitt said. “But what worries me is maybe some of these projects are a higher priority project that could get a lot more accomplished.”

“My next question was what’s the biggest bang for the buck for this thing,” Hughson said.

Housing and Community Development Manager Stacy Brown said that all of the infrastructure projects work together.

“If you take one or two of them out you’re not going to get your biggest bang for your buck,” she said. 

Brown added that the city can pay for everything but the Blanco Riverine project, but the city is looking at grant money from the Texas Water Development Board and other funding sources.