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Council approves handbook change to let local facade grants combine with state/federal downtown funds
Summary
The City Council approved an amendment to the Sydney Historic Preservation Handbook allowing building owners to combine city facade enhancement incentives with state or federal downtown-revitalization funds for the same project; the change is intended to reduce owners' out-of-pocket costs for facades within the designated downtown footprint.
The Sydney City Council voted April 22 to approve a proposed amendment to the Historic Preservation Handbook allowing building owners to use the city's facade-enhancement incentive together with state or federal funds awarded for downtown revitalization.
Vicki, presenting on behalf of the Historic Preservation Board, said the board reviewed the handbook and recommended adding language to Appendix C so a requesting entity may seek facade enhancement, signage incentive, or emergency stabilization grants to cover eligible project costs not paid by state or federal incentive programs. "When there are available funds through a state or federal incentive program that does not pay the full amount for the eligible project, the requesting entity can submit to the Historic Preservation Board for facade enhancement grant program, signage incentive grant, and or emergency stabilization grant incentives to cover all or some of the funds that were not covered for the project," she said.
Vicki told the council she checked with the state CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) program and found no prohibition on combining local incentives with CDBG downtown revitalization funds. She explained both programs are reimbursement grants: building owners spend funds upfront and are reimbursed after work is complete. The board's mapping and review aimed to clarify how multiple grants would function together within a single project.
Per the explanation offered at the meeting, the downtown revitalization program can cover up to 75% of eligible facade or internal code costs, with a $100,000 cap per project; the building owner would be responsible for the remaining 25% of the project cost. Under the proposed handbook amendment, building owners could apply to the city's facade-enhancement fund to offset a portion of that owner share (the board said the facade-enhancement grant could cover up to 75% of the owner's 25% match for the local incentive portion).
The council approved the handbook change after a motion and second; the motion passed on voice vote.
The amendment is intended to lower the barrier for building owners inside the designated downtown footprint to restore building exteriors by allowing stacked reimbursement incentives when eligible and properly documented.
