Nov 21, 2005 By Amy Karpinsky 5 min read

Although at least two members of the Fayette County Housing Authority are against submitting a third application for a $20 million federal HOPE VI grant to help renovate the Bierer Wood Acres public housing project, they may be in the minority. FCHA Chairwoman Angela M. Zimmerlink and member Beverly Beal, two of the five FCHA board members, each said recently that they are opposed to an attempt to go after the federal grant funds for the South Union Township site for a third time.

Zimmerlink said she thinks it would be “useless” to reapply and the authority should redirect its efforts in other areas. Beal said the authority should use money to fix up the places it has instead of building new sites. “I just can’t see it. We’ve been there and done that and I can’t see any progress,” Beal said.

A third board member, James V. Bitonti, said he believes the project is worth pursuing and would definitely be in favor of resubmitting the grant. “It would be an asset to clean up Bierer Wood Acres,” Bitonti said.

The other two board members who could provide the majority vote to continue to seek the funding, attorney William “Trip” Radcliffe and public housing resident Nancy Sutton, have supported the Bierer Wood Acres renovation project in the past. They did not return calls seeking comment last week.

Zimmerlink said she believes that “most likely” the majority of the board will vote to resubmit the application.

Both Zimmerlink and Beal mentioned the vacancies within the authority’s sites as a reason to not pursue the HOPE VI money. There is currently a 14 percent vacancy rate in the authority’s public housing units, with 181 out of 1,278 units vacant, according to information provided by Fayette County Housing Authority Executive Director Thomas L. Harkless.

The authority received word earlier this month from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that the project was not selected for funding. The proposed development includes construction of 152 new rental units, including 86 elderly units and 66 family units at the site as well as 16 duplex-style homes for private ownership. In addition to the grant, plans are to match the federal funds with $18.5 million in state-issued tax credits.

The rejection marked the second time the grant was declined. A total of 29 requests for funding from throughout the country were received, and HUD selected seven to receive $136,895,528 in funding.

Ralph Falbo of the Falbo-Pennrose consulting firm submitted the authority’s application. The first submission cost the authority $65,000, but Falbo resubmitted the grant at no additional cost to the authority. Harkless said after the rejection that he would like to meet to discuss resubmitting the grant, but said he didn’t know if Falbo would charge for additional submissions or not.

After the rejection letter was received, Harkless said it is not uncommon for applications to take three to five attempts at funding before they are successful. Zimmerlink disagreed with that assessment, saying the rating form speaks for itself. The authority received 98 out of 129 possible points on the application. Zimmerlink said the three areas where the authority received the lowest scores; leveraging, soundness of approach and regulatory barrier removal, likely cannot be altered. She said there are only so many funding sources, the approach could probably not be made any more sound and obviously the authority did not meet the criteria necessary for the regulatory barrier removal since it scored 0 out of 2 on that section.

“I would have thought we would have gotten it right the first time,” Zimmerlink said.

However, Bitonti said he has also heard that projects such as the one slated for Bierer Wood Acres, take several attempts before they are approved. He said he isn’t in favor of paying to resubmit the application, and optimistically added that he doesn’t think the authority will have to pay to resubmit the grant.

Bitonti said Fayette County “could use that kind of money,” adding that it is not just a loan, but also a way to leverage other funds. Bitonti said he has been in favor of the project and went to the visited the governor to ask for help. The Belle Vernon mayor said he to use whatever influence he had in obtaining the funding.

“I am for cleaning up Fayette County. I want to see Fayette County prosper,” he said.

Bitonti said he thinks if and when the project is completed it will really be an asset, adding that it will have playgrounds for the children. He said he would like to see more construction.

Beal said she predicted the application would be denied, and she doesn’t believe in shelling out any more funds to resubmit the grant.

“We need to take the money and fix up the places we have,” Beal said. “I don’t think I want to go through it again,” she said of submitting the grant application.

Other alternatives should be putting up security gates and investing in security for the current sites, Beal said.

Zimmerlink said she believes the high vacancy rate proves the need for low-income housing is on the decrease in the county. She said the authority should take care of its existing housing stock and “get back to resolving tenant related issues such as security, drugs, crime and other issues.” Zimmerlink added that the authority has changed some units to “elderly and near elderly,” which should lead to fewer evictions because elderly tenant tend to pay their rent and normally are not involved in criminal activity.

Zimmerlink hypothesized that there are several reasons for the high vacancy rate including a decrease in need, and stricter lease enforcement. While she doesn’t advocate demolishing more housing units, Zimmerlink said she would like the board to sit back and re-evaluate. “We shouldn’t be just applying for federal funds so we can get while the getting is good,” she said.

The authority has a meeting at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, when the issue may come up for discussion.