A forgivable loan of up to $25,000 at 0% interest will soon be granted to 15 Lonsdale residents to cover the cost of rehabilitation and any necessary upgrades, provided they fit within a specified income level and live in a house that they own.
The Small Cities Grant Program has been in the works for city staff for about a year, and was revealed at Thursday’s Lonsdale City Council meeting that the grant had been awarded at long last.
The award comes with some stipulations, including a long list of required ordinances the city that receives the grant must have on the books. A nondiscrimination policy and a excessive-force ban for the city police are among the new ordinances passed for the grant funds.
To qualify, homeowners must own the houses they live in and make 80% of the median income in Rice County. If the owner lives alone, they should be making $54,000 a year or less.
The funding can only be used to make necessary upgrades, like removing lead paint or asbestos. It can not be used to “spruce things up” and is meant to revitalize the aging, owner-occupied home.
City Administrator Joel Erickson is hoping to open the application process in early April, but said there is still things needing to be done behind the scenes for the funding to become official.
Other notable changes that came during the council meeting include some changes to a few ordinances. For one, sheds can now be any shade of the color of its owner’s home. In other words, Erickson said “Blue is blue, brown is brown, beige is beige.”
The other big change was to the ordinance regulating food trucks in Lonsdale. After finding himself processing applications and dealing with administration for longer than the truck even planned to be in town, Erickson recommended the council change some things to make this process easier.
The council voted to remove private property from the ordinance, so food trucks on private property will be the responsibility of the owner, not go through the city.
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