Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency board meeting (March 14, 2023)

The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency board received a report on accomplishments for 2022.

Director of Development Crystal Surdyk presented to the JURA board on the list.

She said there were 1,125 code enforcement and zoning inspections done in 2022 and 327 permits issued. Total fees generated by the department were in the amount of $25,848.

Surdyk said there are three Code Enforcement Officers in the department, “That’s 375 inspections per person for the year. And so, that takes out weekends, although frankly they’re on call 24-7, so it used to be that there may be one, maybe two a week. It’s more like four, five (inspections).”

Surdyk said the total value in permitted improvements is $2,331,561, “That’s way up from the last three years, which is great. It’s a sign of development coming back. Things are moving. Things are happening again which is exactly what we want to see.”

Surdyk said, in 2022, $1.118 million in Community Development Block Grant monies assisted 25 projects with $214,538 of HOME funds assisting 5 properties.

She said $194,000  funding also was allocated toward two Code Blue emergency shelters.

Surdyk added that $3.3 million was received for ten separate awards, including funding for the Chadakoin River Basin Activation plan as well as funding for the Comprehensive Plan.

Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency board meeting (March 14, 2023)

The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency board has approved the creation of a new position focused on housing.

Jamestown Director of Development Crystal Surdyk said the city faces a monumental task when it comes to housing issues, including housing code enforcement and housing conditions.

She said following conversations with City Council members, other housing agencies, and internal staff on how to address this, she came to the conclusion that it doesn’t make sense to split the Department of Development into a department that solely deals with housing development and an economic development department, “I don’t feel that it should be separated. I still think there should be a director of development, not two directors who are working separately from each other and, very possibly, in silos. Economic development and housing and community development are very much intertwined. And so there still needs to be a really cohesive strategy and team around those even though they seem like different things, they’ve not so different.”

Surdyk said the position of Deputy Director of Housing and Community Development Manager will be similar to the Economic Development Coordinator position, but with more responsibilities, “Because housing is so complex and we really want to look at policies, and we’ve been working on some ordinances, and to attack housing and the issues that we have with housing it has to be a multi-pronged approach. And so this position will frankly free me up to do all of the things better.”

Surdyk said while the position was not included in the 2023 JURA budget, there should be enough room to fund it with the upcoming departure of Assistant Corporation Counsel Ben Haskins, other unfilled positions in DOD, as well as more grant funds.

Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency Board meets (December 14, 2022)

The Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency Board has approved the agency’s 2023 budget which includes two additional personnel.

The $1.4 million budget includes the creation of a Compliance Manager position as well as the hiring of an additional Target Area Code Enforcement Officer.

Director of Development Crystal Surdyk said U.S. Housing and Urban Development recommended the creation of the position, “We’re calling it a Compliance Manager because it really is.. we don’t see it as just being HUD. We are looking at it as a position that would manage all of our HUD grants, our Federal grants, any state grants we get. For all of those different types of grants there’s always some level of administration that has to go with them, there’s reporting back. HUD is probably the big example.”

Surdyk said HUD has done several monitorings of the Department of Development over the last couple years as they hadn’t done one in 15 years, “They did a series of monitorings on our financial management, processes and procedures, HOME program, CDBG. They actually monitored us twice for HOME, which was an anomoly, and our CHDOs which is our Community Housing Development Organization program that is sort of a side project out of HOME.”

She added that the HUD monitoring is standard procedure and wasn’t punitive or disciplinary in nature.

Surdyk said the new Code Enforcement Officer will be funded through Community Development Block Grant funds from HUD. She said the current Code Enforcement Officers are over-burdened and struggling to keep up, “We do have some additional grants that we are partnering with other agencies on. And those grants are utilizing our Code Enforcement Officers and their experience and what they do on a daily basis. And in that partnership, one of them in particular is the Healthy Homes Production Grant that’s with the County.”

She said DOD will receive administrative funds from that partnership.

The addition of the position will bring the total number of Code Enforcement Officers in the Department of Development to four.

Surdyk said the over $300,000 increase in the 2023 budget from 2022 can be mainly attributed to increased staffing and staffing costs. Aside from the new positions approved in the budget, JURA also is now contributing to the cost of the shared Grant Writer position and the Associate Corporation Counsel position, the latter which had previously been funded through a