FEDERAL GRANTS

An advance of $17,000 for preliminary planning for the construction of storm relief sewer facilities to serve Aurora, Kane County, Illinois, was approved today by Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration. Total cost of the proposed project is estimated at $3,700,000.

Aurora is an industrial city 38 miles west of Chicago and it had a population of 50,576 in 1950. The growth of the community has outdistanced the capacities of existing storm sewer installations with flood conditions resulting after heavy rains.

Preliminary planning for the project will include topography investigation, engineering surveys, test borings, a watershed study in line with a general plan and design to supplement existing storm and combined sewers, and an engineering report including cost estimates and a finance plan. The city states that the start of construction is dependent on an October 1958 referendum.

This project is being assisted under the Program of Advances for Public Works Planning, authorized by the Housing Act of 1954, as amended. This program provides interest-free advances for planning essential public works and community facilities. Advances are repayable on start of construction.

Murphysboro, seat of Jackson County, Illinois, hit by a tornado in December 1957 which damaged or destroyed 426 dwellings, today received from Housing Administrator Albert M. Cole approval of its workable program for the elimination of slums and blight.

To provide relocation homes for the low-income families displaced by the tornado, the Jackson County Housing Authority has received a reservation from the Public Housing Administration for 90 units of low-rent housing.

Murphysboro has building, plumbing and electrical codes of fairly recent adoption, and with the assistance of the Department of Community Development of Southern Illinois University it plans a survey of housing directed towards the development of a minimum housing code, adjusted to local conditions, within a year.

A Planning Commission, possibly with assistance from the university, will initiate work on land use, thoroughfare and community facilities plans, a capital improvements program, a zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. It will prepare base maps with flood plain delineation and regulation, and an economic base and central business district reports.

The city also proposes to initiate in 1958 a city-wide housing survey, which with the land use plan, railroads, waterways, thoroughfares and arterial streets, will be used to delineate neighborhood or planning units.

The extensive news coverage of the December tornado stimulated widespread public interest and support for the proposed public housing program. The Housing Authority will be responsible for planning, execution and administration of urban renewal projects in this community of 10,300 (1950) persons, 37 miles north of Cairo.

New commercial and light industrial installations will replace 46 acres of blight in Chicago's west side "Roosevelt-Clinton" urban renewal project, approved today for a $4,949,986 Federal loan and a $1,530,547 capital grant by Urban Renewal Commissioner Richard L. Steiner.

The project, about one and one-half miles from the Illinois city's central business district, will be carried out under a special section of Title I of the Housing Act of 1949, as amended, which permits a limited amount of Federal funds to be used in predominantly non-residential areas to be redeveloped for non-residential purposes.

The area, along with run-down non-residential structures, also contains 560 dwelling units, all of which are substandard. The 360 families living there will be offered relocation in decent, safe, and sanitary quarters, as required by law.

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FEDERAL GRANTS

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Net cost of the project is estimated at $2,150,231. This represents the difference between the cost of acquiring, clearing, and preparing the land for its new uses and the return from its resale at fair value. The $1,530,547 Federal grant covers two-thirds of this deficit and includes an amount for aiding in the relocation of site occupants. State and local funds will cover the remaining one-third of the loss.

Commissioner John C. Hazeltine of the Community Facilities Administration today approved a loan of $83,000 to the village of Dalton City, Moultrie County, Illinois, to be used, with $27,000 of other funds for the construction of a complete waterworks system. The loan is contingent on the inability of the applicant to obtain private financing at reasonable terms.

Dalton City is in a prosperous agricultural area about 15 miles southeast of Decatur where many of its 400 citizens are employed. The village is now dependent on individual wells and cisterns, some of which dry up in the summer.

The new project will include a supply well with deep well pumping equipment, treatment facilities for iron removal, chlorination equipment, a distribution system with fire hydrants, valves and meters and a 50,000-gallon elevated steel tank. The proposed facilities are to provide an adequate supply of safe water and fire protection.

Page 91 / Illinois Municipal Review / April 1958