Submit your York Road corridor ideas by May 15 for FY28(!) State Revitalization Funds

[York Road Partnership]

Dear York Road Partners, 

This is our corridor's annual call for ideas so York Road can submit the best revitalization funding requests possible to the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) for their Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative (BRNI) program in June. There are two changes to this year's process:

• While York Road Partnership will continue to take the lead on this, the MOU between YRP, York Road Improvement District (YRID) and Invest York Road from last year creating the York Road Collaborative makes this more of a Collaborative effort among our organizations, since our 2019 BRNI plan covers many broad aspects of our corridor. 
• Whereas previous DHCD rounds have been for the BRNI funds just approved by that year's General Assembly, this 2026 round will be for BRNI funding in Maryland's fiscal year 2028, which starts July 1, 2027! In other words, requests we make to DHCD this summer, if approved by DHCD, will be included in the governor's capital budget submitted to the 2027 General Assembly. That BRNI budget amount will then need to be approved by the 2027 General Assembly (un-earmarked) in order for those awards to become real money available for grantees to start using July 1, 2027. Ordinarily there was a delay in receiving the BRNI award funds to early the following calendar year (i.e. to early 2027), but this will result in somewhat more of a delay (to at least July 1, 2027).

One-Sentence Summary of this email: If you have a capital project (purchase, construction, rehabilitation) on the York Road corridor that fits with our 2019 plan, please fill out this Google Form by May 15 at 5:00 pm. YRP's Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee and the York Road Collaborative will consider these ideas in May so GEDCO and other partners can submit the best ones in June.

Here is the context: In 2019, York Road Partnership developed a revitalization plan in order to participate in the Baltimore Regional Neighborhoods Initiative (BRNI) program run by the Maryland Department of . You can see that full (24-page) plan here. 

We have done remarkably well on fulfilling that plan in just the last seven years, and we will want to update it after this round of requests. (Really, we'll do it this time with the Collaborative!) You can see a 3-page summary of that plan and our progress so far here. We and our partners and elected officials have won more than $2 million in these BRNI funds alone toward implementation of that plan. Those funds have enabled substantial senior home repair in our neighborhoods by Rebuilding Together, Habitat for Humanity rehabbing vacant homes for affordable homeownership in Woodbourne-McCabe, York Road Improvement District commercial facade improvements and tenant space upgrades on the corridor, GEDCO's new headquarters on Woodbourne Ave., Govans Presbyterian Church's new Community Farm (which had its grand opening this past Sunday), renovations to GEDCO's Micah House on York Road, and upcoming improvements to the Bellona Triangle green space by the new York Road Improvement District. 

BRNI funding is overwhelmingly "capital" funds -- one-time funds to build, buy, or fix up something, not "operating" funds like staff costs that will continue year after year. There may be a small amount of operating funds to help an entity carry out a big capital project, but that's it. You can see the program guidelines and additional information about State Revitalization Programs like BRNI here. 

If you are interested in seeking funds to implement a project within York Road communities, please fill out this Google Form by Friday May 15, at 5:00 pm. YRP and the Collaborative will review the proposals (and may want to talk with you more) that following week. We will then likely use the May 26, 7:00 pm YRP Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization Committee to review a slate of requests that can then be shared with the full YRP membership at our June 3 General Membership Meeting. Following that meeting, we will work with applicants and GEDCO to get the more elaborate narratives together for the formal applications to Maryland DHCD by what will likely be the late June deadline.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you, and we look forward to any ideas you may have!

________

 

Dan Pontious, President

York Road Partnership

In community,

York Road Partnership

401 Woodbourne Ave

Baltimore MD 21212

(443) 593-4240

yorkroadp...@gmail.com

York Road Partnership is a membership network of 30+ neighborhoods and affiliates promoting the vitality of Baltimore City’s York Road community as a great place to live, shop, work and worship. 

Join us. Meetings every first Wednesday of the month at 7:15pm.  Free & Open to all. 

[York Road Partnership]

York Road Neighbors,

This is a quick reminder of our internal deadline of this Friday, May 15, to submit ideas for York Road Partnership and the full York Road Collaborative to submit to the Maryland Dept. of Housing & Community Development (DHCD) this summer for State revitalization funds. More detail and the link to the Google Form in the email below. Please reach out with any questions to this email address or to me at dan.po...@icloud.com. 

Dan Pontious

President