PADUCAH, KENTUCKY (WSIL) -- The City of Paducah wants to improve its southside neighborhoods. It's looking into grants for businesses and homeowners.
Planning Director Nic Hutchison and Business Development Specialist Melanie Reason outlined those during Tuesday night's meeting.
One program would be for businesses with 50 or fewer workers. Business owners could apply for financial reimbursement for improvements to their roof and outside of their building.
When it comes to housing, two grants are being proposed. One is a 50/50 match with the city investing a max of $5,000 to each applicant.
The person making the improvements would have to invest at least $500.
"It is here to fund small exterior projects for residential homes," Melanie Reason explains. "This looks like repairing windows, updating porches, could be driveways, could be siding, could be gutters."
The other housing program is for new construction and home rehabilitations with investments of at least $50,000.
The city would award a max of $27,000 dollars. Those funds would be dispersed as a forgivable 0% interest loan over a five-year period.
Paducah Mayor George Bray weighed in on what he though about these proposals.
"I just want to say this, I think the key is to get people talking," Bray says. I think it's to get people down here to talk with us. Calling, wanting information. Because I think that we want to help them. We want to incentivize them to make repairs."
If approved, the hope is to run these programs for three years then revaluate.
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