Barre City delays standing up North End steering committee while pursuing housing-and-flood grant

Councillor Guston told the council on Aug. 4 that the city has announced a North End steering committee but will hold off formally standing it up until the city completes competitive grant applications that combine housing and flood mitigation.

Guston said the intent is to give the committee a concrete application and funding context to start from; she encouraged residents to apply through the committee-application process on the city website. The chair cautioned that meaningful recovery in the North End will likely take decades but said the city should continue incremental actions and not let a year go by without progress. "Decades," the chair said when asked about the timeline for meaningful recovery.

Council staff also reported that after pre-application feedback from ACCD (Agency of Commerce and Community Development), the city would not submit a separate elevation application judged unlikely to be competitive and instead is focusing on applications that include net-new housing units and flood mitigation measures. Councilors asked that steering-committee candidates be vetted through the regular committee approval process and noted the administration hopes to have a committee in place by the end of August following application and council approval.