Maumee Valley Planning presents CDBG application guidance to county commissioners and local officials

Estee Blair, a planner with Maumee Valley Planning Organization, presented a detailed overview of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) programs, timelines and eligibility criteria during a public hearing held as part of the commissioners’ regular session.

Blair began by reviewing how to determine whether a proposed municipal or township project is eligible under CDBG rules and the importance of defining the project’s service area and matching the national objective to the service area’s income data. “Every single CDBG project must meet what is called a national objective,” Blair said, listing the three: elimination of slum and blight, benefit to low‑to‑moderate income persons, and urgent need (usually disaster‑related).

Service area, income surveys and census data

Blair emphasized that income data must align to the defined service area. A village‑wide project requires village‑level LMI (low‑to‑moderate income) data; a single street project can rely on a survey of that specific block group. She warned that updated census data may change eligibility from one year to the next: “If you qualified last year, you might not qualify this year because the Census data was updated in the summer.”

Blair explained how an income survey works (randomized address sampling, mailed paper surveys, two mailings plus door‑to‑door follow‑up, and HUD household income thresholds for qualifying responses). She said surveys take time and should be started early; survey results are valid for five…