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Asheville committee weighs CDBG options, including lead service‑line replacements and shelter funding
Summary
Committee members reviewed four scenarios for allocating roughly $777,000 in CDBG funds, weighing a large award to water for lead service‑line replacement against splitting awards among Helpmate, Habitat for Humanity, Mountain BizWorks and other nonprofits; staff proposed returning April 7 with a hybrid recommendation and possible multi‑year plan for lead line work.
James Shelton, Community Development Division Manager, briefed the Housing & Community Development Committee on the city’s steady‑state CDBG program for the coming year, estimating a $971,000 grant and roughly $777,092 available for awards after a 20% administrative set‑aside. Shelton said staff received more than $4.5 million in requests and presented four funding scenarios to distribute the limited dollars.
Option A would allocate $677,054 to Asheville Water Resources for lead service‑line replacement and $100,038 to Helpmate for case management tied to HOME TBRA. Options B through D progressively redistribute funds to include Mountain BizWorks’ micro‑enterprise coaching, Helpmate emergency shelter staffing, OnTrack financial counseling, and Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity home‑repair activities. Staff emphasized that each additional external subrecipient increases administrative burden and reduces what can be committed to large, city‑led capital needs.
Shelton and Assistant City Manager Ben Woody explained why lead service‑line replacement is on the table: EPA guidance requires utilities to inventory and address lead service lines, and while Asheville Water Resources received a roughly $4 million state grant for work in Shiloh, the city has identified more than 400 potential lead lines across the service area. Shelton said CDBG funding is an allowable mechanism to cover the private homeowner side of service connections that other capital budgets may not reach; the EPA timeline gives the city several years to complete the work.
Councilmembers probed the scale and tradeoffs. "How many homes, how many people are we helping? Each time you reduce that number, what does it mean?" Councilwoman Sage Turner asked, adding that she wants data on household counts by AMI in the housing proposals and cautioned about concentrating projects on Sweeten Creek. Shelton and staff said they would return with a more considered recommendation and discussed a multi‑year funding strategy that could give Water Resources a predictable CDBG contribution over several program years.
Public comment came from Andy Barnett of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and Asheville Habitat for Humanity, who urged the committee to preserve some CDBG funds for repair activities to bridge to a forthcoming bond‑funded repair program and asked HCD to give guidance to the Housing Advisory/HEC policy process so repairs are not left unfunded during the transition.
No final awards were decided on March 17. Staff said it would refine a hybrid funding recommendation that balances administrative capacity and urgent capital needs and return to HCD on April 7.
