Every five years, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates funds to cities in the form of a Community Development Block Grant.
The city of Auburn must come up with an action plan relating to the allocation of funds every year.
Two projects totaling $48,000 are being added to the 2010 plan.
Sharon Tolbert, director of community development, has led two community hearings concerning the additional projects, as well as an amendment to an existing project.
The Nov. 8 hearing at the Boykin Community Center began with an overview of the two proposed additional projects.
The first is a $43,000 drainage improvement project proposed for Darden Avenue to reduce the possibility of flooding.
Tolbert said the project is necessary, but it comes with certain repercussions.
"We're adding that as a new activity, but what we have to do is reduce funding in another project, which is project administration and housing rehabilitation," she said.
The second proposed addition, estimated at $5,000, is a stream mitigation project at Sam Harris Park.
Mitigation is a process that counters potentially environmentally destructive actions.
In this case, a mitigation plan was developed to offset construction on the Northwest Village subdivision.
"We have to plant additional trees to complete that mitigation," Tolbert said.
In this case, funding will go toward the planting of approximately 50 trees in the park.
The third item on the agenda was a proposed amendment to an existing project scheduled to install streetlights in various locations around the city.
Although the project was already listed on the 2010 Action Plan, Tolbert said a change in location constitutes an amendment to the project, which must then be reviewed for final approval.
It has been proposed that three additional streets be added to the streetlight project: Westview Drive, Dunford Avenue and the intersection of Donahue and Martin Luther King drives.
"In the original plan, we had to identify where we're going to put the streetlights," Tolbert said. "They were not originally identified."
Tolbert said there have been no objections related to any of the proposed projects or amendments.
Residents who couldn't be present at the meetings have until Nov. 17 to submit written comments to the city of Auburn regarding the proposed changes to the action plan.
The comments will be reviewed, and the final plan will be submitted to HUD Dec. 8.
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