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Voters overwhelmingly approve ‘slum and blight’ designation for grant funding

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Wilton residents vote to approve a slum and blight designation for an area downtown in order to be eligible for federal grant funding at a special town meeting held Tuesday night.
Wilton residents vote to approve a slum and blight designation for an area downtown in order to be eligible for federal grant funding at a special town meeting held Tuesday night.

WILTON – Although some said they didn’t like the sound of it, an overwhelming majority of those attending the special town meeting Tuesday night voted for the “slum and blight” designation for an area of downtown.

About 35 residents attended the public hearing for a discussion before declaring the slum and blight designation in a town meeting vote that now allows the town to apply for federal funds to make infrastructure improvements.

The nearly unanimous vote, which designates the downtown area along Main Street from Academy Hill School to Wilson Lake and from Rt. 2 along Depot Street to the school comes following a change in how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates the percentage of low- to moderate-income households in towns.

A 51 percentage gives a town eligibility to apply for Community Development Block Grant funding. The switch to the American Community Survey from the formerly-used U.S. Census has meant that Wilton falls short by 2 percent or is at 49 percent for low- to moderate income households in qualifying for the federal funding, Town Manager Rhonda Irish explained Tuesday night.

After completing a comprehensive downtown plan and recently hiring a specialist in community development, Darryl Sterling, town officials had planned to leverage CDBG funding in order to make infrastructure improvements in the downtown area.

One option to bypass the American Community Survey results is for the town to conduct an income survey, but that time-consuming and expensive effort would put Wilton out of the next year’s grant funding cycle.

The only other option was to declare a section of town as “slum and blight” by voters at a town meeting in order to qualify for CDBG funding. Irish said besides the vacant buildings along Main Street, safety concerns such as deteriorating or non-contiguous sidewalks, uneven steps, old street lights in need of replacement, the rusting pipe railing leading to the library and the area around the monument at village center that is considered a hazard to pedestrians, are among the standards that fall under the slum and blight designation.

“No one likes the term slum and blight, but everyone knows it’s true,” said resident Nancy Merrow, who owns a building downtown. “It’s important to accept it and then we can move forward.”

In 1988 the town applied for and received a $500,000 federal grant using the same lower income standards that fall under slum and blight. A new parking lot was built downtown, street lights updated, varied paving work and some dilapidated buildings were torn down, Irish said.

Sterling asked those attending, “How do we jazz things us?” He said in order to spark economic development here, “there has to be an investment in the community” through a combination of grants and private initiative.

After 40 minutes of discussion, residents voted to approve the designation.

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4 Comments

  1. Hey planet, this money will be spent….whether it is in Wilton or east Overshoe, Alabama. Which do you prefer? And the money will make for jobs now, and with improvements, maybe the town and area might attract businesses and home construction — as in more commerce, more jobs etc.

    And that defecit — do you actually see it effecting you, or me, day to day? The economics of it mean the wealthy who buy the bonds and notes to support this defecit make money off it, so those who think like you, despite their verbiage, quietly love it because they profit from it.

    So why shouldn’t Wilton see some benefit?

  2. Chief,
    Your comment doesn’t surprise me, most people think these grants are just free money. It is exactly what is killing this country. Seems everyone feels entitled, just make sure it is at someone else’s expense.

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