FARMINGTON – A public hearing on an application to help fund a third of the next phase of the low- to moderate-income 82 High Street housing development project will be held Tuesday night at the selectmen’s meeting. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Farmington Municipal Building.
Voters at the annual town meeting in March will be asked to approve a federal Community Development Block Grant application totaling up to $500,000 towards the installation of new apartment buildings that will replace the aging rental complex currently at the site. The application comes at no cost to the partnering municipality.
A $500,000 federal Home Loan Bank grant has been secured for the project, along with a $540,000 loan for the project last year.
The up to $500,000 more of the $1.54 million total project applied for through the CDBG program will raze the existing complex and purchase and install three, two-story, modular four-unit buildings near the High Street entrance on Sawtelle Lane.
The town of Farmington and 82 High Street Corporation are partnering applicants for the grant. The CDBG program through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is administered through the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development Community Development.
Last fall, CDBG program funded $312,007 for new sewer and water lines to the residences on Sawtelle Lane that connected the three apartment buildings and 17 mobile homes to the new system.
The 82 High Street development was established in 1987 when local churches, Western Maine Community Action and Maine Housing Authority got the funding necessary to purchase the privately-owned development that was overcrowded with substandard trailers and scheduled for demolition.
Those pitching in saw the need for affordable housing located within easy walking distance of downtown’s services. It was nearly 30 years ago when the then-new mobile homes were installed and upgrades to the three apartment buildings on site were completed.
The development is managed by a nonprofit corporation board of directors that include Sawtelle Lane residents. In the interim years through grant funding, local agencies’ and volunteer help, the development has undergone renovations to the development’s mobile homes.
In 2010, funding through the CDBG program totaling $268,000 provided for the renovation of the 16 mobile homes and for a new, 17th mobile home to be installed. The work was completed in 2012 at a total cost of $365,000, with various funding through agency and private sources and in-kind volunteer work supporting the project.
Steve Kaiser, Farmington code enforcement officer, said Monday the replacement of the apartment buildings is the final step of the neighborhood project.
