Dec. 22—GRAND FORKS — The latest version of the consolidated plan the city will submit to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will likely be broader than ever.
That’s because the city will likely be allocated less funding than it currently is, and the relationship between the city and HUD will change as the city moves further away from the 1997 flood. After the flood, more than $100 million in funding came for community development within. Grand Forks and radically changed the way the city engaged in housing and economic development initiatives.
“The impact of that funding has certainly been felt over the last 20 years,” said Collin Hanson, community development manager for Grand Forks. “We have moved firmly from recovery to an era of growth.”
The strategic plan is updated every five years and creates a
primer for housing, community development and supportive services needs in
the Grand Forks community. It typically provides a broad overview of housing data, community input, and ideas about how the community plans to use the funds.
Although housing data is included, it is not a comprehensive housing survey. Regionally, the city supports a housing study conducted by
Residential development in the Red River community
– looking broadly into northeastern North Dakota. The city hasn’t completed its own comprehensive housing survey in years. The city has discussed creating an updated housing study and has pursued code changes that a study would likely reveal, according to Ryan Brooks, director of community development and planning.
According to the needs assessment brief from Root Policy Research, the consultants used to create and ultimately submit the plan, costs have increased overall for renters, especially for those making between $20,000 and $50,000. Grand Forks also tends to have higher costs for renters across income levels compared to comparable cities in North Dakota.
In Grand Forks, HUD funds are allocated strictly not only to housing projects, but also to adjacent projects, such as supporting organizations like Spectra Health and Northlands Rescue Mission. Through the city’s Community Development Block Grant program, organizations can apply for capital improvement funding grants. The city also has a community services grant program, funded by sales tax revenue, and organizations can apply for operating grants through the city.
There are other ways the city could allocate those HUD funds. While the city typically provides this through a competitive grant pool, the city can also allocate funds directly, such as
That happened in 2023 for the expansion of the Grand Forks Senior Center.
The city has required project completion in recent years so it can meet HUD’s timely spending needs. The city’s sale of the Corporate Center, built after the flood using HUD dollars, provided the city with
back those dollars and had an influx of money.
That influx, combined with the pandemic, led to the city missing the on-time spending requirement. Missing that repeatedly could mean losing HUD money in the future.
“While in the past our strategic plan may have been more specific in terms of what we want to achieve because we had so little funding, we don’t know exactly how much impact we can have,” Hanson said. “We expect this plan to be a little broader.”
Hanson said keeping the plan broad will also help the city address the multifaceted housing issues in Grand Forks.
“We don’t just have a shortage of single-family homes and we don’t just have a shortage of four-plexes. We can use any type of home,” Hanson said. “We want to see this strategic plan, just as it is a tool for us to understand our needs, and hopefully the broader community.”
The plan will likely be submitted sometime in late summer, with the Grand Forks City Council then reviewing the plan in the spring.
