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Tuscaloosa officials approve submission of 2025–2029 consolidated plan, amend HOME‑ARP funding
Summary
City officials authorized submission of the 2025–2029 consolidated plan, set a July 24 public hearing and Aug. 6 comment deadline, approved a local amendment to the HOME‑ARP allocation plan to accept additional HUD funds, and tentatively selected a consultant to perform required environmental assessments.
Tuscaloosa City Council on May 20 authorized submission of the city’s 2025–2029 consolidated plan for community planning and development programs and approved related local amendments to the HOME‑ARP allocation plan that staff said will allow the city to accept additional U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding.
City staff told the council that the citizen comment period on the consolidated plan ends Aug. 6 at 5 p.m. and that a public hearing is scheduled for July 24. “This will allow us to adopt that plan, pending the citizen comment period ending on August 6 at 5PM,” a staff member said during the meeting.
The council also approved a local amendment to the city’s HOME‑ARP allocation plan, part of the city’s 2021 action plan and the 2020–2024 consolidated plan. According to staff remarks in the meeting, HUD provided an additional allocation that staff read as $1,956; staff said the city’s previous HOME‑ARP allocation was $1,719,375 and said the total would increase, but the transcript contained inconsistent figures for the resulting total. The council passed a motion to accept the amendment and then voted to request the mayor execute an amended agreement with HUD to accept the additional funds.
Separately, the council gave tentative approval to select a firm identified in the meeting as TTL (listed in the record as TTAL/TTL) as the top-ranked responder to an RFP. Staff said the city received five proposals and that TTL had the highest score; the council authorized staff to negotiate scope and fee with the firm and to proceed with federally required environmental assessments. “We put an RFP. We got 5 responses, and we had staff vote on them, and TTL was a little bit ahead,” a staff member said.
All motions on these items carried after procedural votes. Specific movers and seconders were not identified on the record, and individual vote tallies were not provided; council members responded “Aye” on the recorded voice vote for each motion.
Why it matters: the consolidated plan and HOME‑ARP allocations set priorities for federal community development and homelessness‑related funding and trigger environmental review and procurement steps required by HUD. The public hearing and comment period provide statutorily required opportunities for public input before the city adopts the plan.
Under the council’s actions, staff will proceed with the public hearing on July 24, continue the citizen comment period through Aug. 6 at 5 p.m., negotiate with the tentatively selected consultant on scope and fee, and seek mayoral signature on the HUD amendment request. The council did not set additional specific program allocations or project-level approvals in the recorded discussion.
