Right Column

Eligible Activities—Planning and Technical Assistance

Community Development Block Grant Program

1. General allocation P/TA grants may be used for planning and work preliminary to project implementation including such activities as: affordable housing needs studies; housing condition surveys; affordable housing development feasibility studies; infrastructure needs analyses and cost estimates; community center development feasibility studies; preliminary engineering, architectural, or design costs; and preparation of funding applications.
   General P/TA grant activities must be directed towards the planning of a project which, if brought to completion, would be a CDBG-eligible activity in which at least 51 percent of the beneficiaries would be TIG households.
   Examples of ineligible general P/TA activities include housing element preparation except the costs incurred for that portion in which housing affordable to TIG households is addressed; and working engineering specifications or architectural drawings. General studies which provide a community-wide service or data base will not be considered to meet program objectives unless the community as a whole is 51 percent TIG, and the work, if completed, would principally benefit TIG households.
2. Economic development P/TA grants may be used for such projects as: feasibility studies of specific business development projects; commercial area infrastructure needs analyses and costs estimates; incubator development feasibility studies; and application preparation for economic development projects.
   All economic development (ED) P/TA activities must meet one of the three national objectives and must be reasonably related to potential business expansion or retention projects that will result in the creation or retention of jobs. For example, a planning study that will result in preliminary design and engineering work for an interchange that will serve the needs of a community's residents and businesses is not in itself sufficiently related to potential job creation or retention activities and so would not be eligible. However, if that planning study was to result in preliminary design and engineering work for an interchange needed to serve identified commercially-zoned highway frontage acreage, it might be an eligible activity if it is reasonable to project that if the interchange is constructed, a specific number of jobs could be created in the near-term in the targeted area.
   Some examples of ineligible ED P/TA activities include: staff costs related to implementing a marketing plan or business expansion and retention program; costs of printing a brochure to be used to market a local industrial park; or any planning activity that does not relate to an activity that will result in the creation or retention of jobs.