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Hendersonville council authorizes CDBG application for Howard Gap Road water upgrades to support Project Vert
Summary
The council authorized submitting a Community Development Block Grant economic development application to fund Howard Gap Road water improvements tied to Project Vert (Project Energize Phase 2 / Fort Warner). The grant request is about $1.8 million; remaining funding is expected from Golden Leaf and a state SRF award.
Mayor Pro Tem Hensley and council opened a public hearing on a CDBG Economic Development grant request and, after staff answers, adopted a resolution authorizing submittal of the grant application.
City Attorney Angie Beaker explained CDBG-ED rules the council must follow, including that projects must benefit low-to-moderate-income individuals and that 60% of created jobs must be filled by persons qualifying as low-to-moderate income at hire; 51% of those jobs must be maintained with LMI employees. She cautioned that if those thresholds are not met the company — not the city — could be liable to repay CDBG funds and described program-income requirements to return a portion to the state for other CDBG projects.
Devin Owen, the city’s utilities engineer, described the Howard Gap Road segment of the city’s water-system resiliency looping project: extending roughly 20,000 linear feet of 12-inch main to connect Sugarloaf Road and Upward Road. Owen said the city’s water system currently can’t provide the fire suppression flows the Fort Warner site would require and that the single-feed configuration exposes customers east of I-26 to outage risk. He confirmed the CDBG request is approximately $1.8 million; Golden Leaf intends to provide about $1.7 million and the state SRF award was described around $3 million. Owen said the total resiliency program is roughly $18 million but the CDBG-eligible Howard Gap segment is about $6 million; the project could be ready by about 2028, with timing adjusted to Fort Warner’s schedule.
With no public speakers signed up, the council closed the hearing and approved a resolution authorizing the submittal of the CDBG application for Howard Gap Road water improvements to support Project Vert.
Next steps: staff will prepare the full CDBG application and return to council for the second required public hearing and additional detail before submitting the grant application.
