The City Council’s Housing Committee discussed an award that has been applied for to help renovate local vacant rental homes in the city. Crystal Surdyk, city development director, discusses the Vacant Rental Improvement Program grant application as Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5 and Housing Committee chairman, Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and Finance Committee chairman, and Jennifer Williams, city clerk, look on. P-J file photo by Sara Holthouse

Jamestown will receive $2 million from the state through the Vacant Rental Improvement program.

The city;’s grant application for the program came together quickly, according to Crystal Surdyk, city development director. The grant application was submitted in early October. The city requested $2.9 million, but was approved for $2 million.

“Everyone deserves a safe place to call home, and with the Vacant Rental Improvement Program, we’re breathing new life into dormant properties by turning them into high-quality homes for those in need,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul. “We must use every tool in our toolbox to address the housing crisis in New York, including preserving and improving the assets we have. These investments will revitalize neighborhoods, provide much-needed affordable housing and help ensure long-term housing stability for New Yorkers.”

The Vacant Rental Improvement Program supports projects that will serve low- and moderate-income tenants, with all assisted units subject to a 10-year regulatory period to ensure affordability and rent limits. The Vacant Rental Improvement Program is the agency’s first program specifically dedicated to getting vacant and distressed rental units back into the market at affordable prices. The $40 million in awards will help owners of one to five-unit residential properties or mixed-use buildings with up to five housing units transform them into high-quality, affordable apartments. The program offers up to $50,000 in subsidy to small landlords to renovate vacant rental apartments with a household income limit of 80 percent AMI and up to $75,000 for apartments with a household income limit of 60 percent AMI.

Improvements the program can pay for include health and safety upgrades, correction of code violations, accessibility modifications, environmental remediation and general repairs that restore properties to livable conditions.

CODE will be a partner, Surdyk told City Council members in October, but the main target will be unaffiliated small, local landlords, or landlords that own 20 units or less. She said the idea is to help the landlords that have been around for a long time and to invest into the community.

The committee discussed that focusing on 25 to 35 units would make the project about $100,000 per unit. Councilman Brent Sheldon, R-Ward 1 and Finance Committee chairman, asked if it would be possible to make renovations for each unit any cheaper so that the money, if awarded, can be used on more properties. Surdyk said it was a possibility, but aiming for that many units gives the most flexibility with the overall costs of improvements that they have been seeing. Sheldon added that many of the houses are not worth $100,000 originally, something that Surdyk said is often the case.

“That’s always going to be the case with everything that we’ve seen,” Surdyk said. “I think that’s been part of the hardship for our local landlords and property owners. We’ve heard for the past several years that their properties are not worth the money that it will cost them to bring them back up to code. So, it’s almost more beneficial for them to sit with them uninhabited, which is obviously, we have a problem with not having enough units locally. So this will help to start to turn that tide.”