Community Development

Planning Grants

Planning Grants is funded by Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) dollars from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The program encourages communities to plan for long-term development. Community leaders are able to apply for projects including infrastructure, broadband, downtown revitalization, and community facilities.


Planning Grants allow a community to identify what the most prevalent issues are for them or the things they want to address and how to address them. Communities can do a comprehensive plan with a broad scope project identifying utility projects, road projects and/or land use. Alternatively, projects can be as specific as a utility study, for example. 

The planning process is a collaborative effort that brings the community together in order to come to a consensus on the priorities for the community. Depending on the type of project, there’s up to $50,000 in funding available. We help procure professional services to develop plans, and submit the application to OCRA. If projects are funded, we handle the administrative side of the planning grants.

Experience


Region 3A has achieved $673,339.81 in funding for Planning Grants projects since 2000.

Seeking assistance with a new initiative or project? We would love to hear about it.