Vidor city officials were successful in pleading their case to get more money from one of the Hurricane Harvey federal recovery funds. The city will get almost $1.6 million more than originally allocated.
The Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission this week approved the regional allocations from the Community Development Block Grant program under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The planning commission last month held a public hearing on the allocations of a total of $156.7 million for the region. Vidor City Manager Mike Kunst and Mayor Robert Viator protested the commission’s data on the amount of flooding in the city. The allocations were then adjusted.
The regional grants include a total of $105 million for infrastructure like roads and water-sewer services. The block grants require at least 70 percent of the infrastructure grants be spent in areas with moderate-to-low-income populations.
Also the grants have a total of $51.7 million for buyouts and acquisitions of property that has continual flooding problems.
The allocations for cities in Orange County are:
Bridge City: $3.6 million total with $1.56 million for buyouts and $2.03 million for infrastructure.
Orange: $11.13 million total with $3.2 million for buyouts and $7.92 million for infrastructure.
Pinehurst: $9.8 million total with $2.9 million for buyouts and $6.9 million for infrastructure.
Vidor: $8.22 million total wtih $2.57 million for buyouts and $5.65 million for infrastructure.
West Orange: $10.4 milllion total with $3 million for buyouts and $7.4 million for infrastructure.
Rose City and Pine Forest will each get a total of $4 million with $2 million each for buyouts and $2 million each for infrastructure.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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