Harmar cuts sewer line rehab to only 2 streets after grant standards change

Harmar officials planned on rehabilitating sewer lines along five township streets, but now will do only two.

Township Engineer Matt Pitsch of Senate Engineering told supervisors that a change in federal Community Block Development Grant (CDBG) eligibility standards was the reason.

“Harmar no longer meets countywide income guidelines,” Pitsch said.

The project, using a CDBG grant of $78,000, has been in the planning stage for several months. It originally included relining worn or damaged sanitary sewer lines along Wilson Avenue, Cherry Alley, Orchard Avenue, Meadow Street and Elizabeth Street.

Now, he said, only the sewers along Wilson Avenue and Cherry Alley will be done.

The CDBG program is designed to support activities that benefit a community’s low-to-moderate income population.

The program’s benchmark of low-to-moderate income is 51% of the population.

In the past, Pitsch said the Allegheny County-wide CDBG program was given an exception, requiring municipalities to show low-to-moderate income residents comprised only 45% of the population.

“We qualified, all of Harmar, with the 45%,” Pitsch said. “But, then, the county lost its special exception, so it went back to 51% and (all of) Harmar doesn’t qualify.

“We tried qualifying it as all one project, but the county looked at it and said, ‘You have to go per street.’”

He said just from the census data used in the CDBG application, it was evident that Orchard Avenue, Meadow Street and Elizabeth Street would not qualify.

Pitsch said an income survey of residents along Cherry Alley and Wilson Avenue was conducted and confirmed that those streets would be eligible because they have at least a 51% low-to-moderate income population.

The CDBG money requires a match of 35% of the project cost, which — with the grant money — was $42,000, making the original project cost $120,000.

With the program being reduced in scale, there is a good possibility that cost will decline, depending on the bid proposals that come in, Pitsch said.

The township is hoping that, even if the cost declines, it will be able to retain the full $78,000 grant because it has already been awarded, thereby reducing the match the township will have to come up with.

“It’s been something that the county has done in the past,” Pitsch said.