By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — Members of the Northern Maine Development Commission’s Executive Board of Directors unanimously gave the go-ahead to NMDC employees to apply for a HUD Community Challenge Grant in the amount of $662,756 during their last meeting on Oct. 13.
According to the HUD Web page, the Community Challenge Planning Grant Program “fosters reform and reduces barriers to achieve affordable, economically vital and sustainable communities.”
The proposed project aims to regionalize planning activities in Aroostook and Washington counties by focusing planning around five employment centers — Madawaska, Presque Isle, Houlton, Baileyville and Millbridge, as explained by Denis Berube, director of planning and transportation at NMDC.
These five proposed employment centers were selected as they represent a larger than average percentage of employment in their specific regions, but the project also aims to strength the areas surrounding the selected centers.
“This could take place of the planning element municipalities need to create economic development,” Berube said.
Both counties population is showing a decline, decrease in income and an increase in unemployment; these numbers combined have meant increased concerns for communities and municipalities.
“[These factors] lead to communities trying to maintain as many services as possible with decreased funding,” Berube said. “We have to come up with something that’s more useful for our towns.”
According to Berube, officials with the State Planning Office like the proposed idea, as it aims to address the needs of employment centers with a more regional outlook while taking into account the neighboring communities.
The idea was first discussed by the board during their annual meeting in June, and the total project comes with an anticipated price tag of $1,154,697.
Berube said that community involvement will be crucial in going forward in the development of this project. With over 25 northern Maine towns represented on the executive board and only three slated as employment epicenters, a question regarding the possibility of tax-sharing was presented by Caribou City Manager Steve Buck.
Should a more regional planning emphasis come to fruition, Buck would like to see legislative action to accommodate regional gleaning of tax revenues.
“We don’t share in the broad-based taxation as the state, thus we don’t get the benefits of our own productivity,” he said. Buck also added that in a community where an emphasis is placed on economic development, 70 to 80 percent of the benefits that come from having new businesses take root in the community go back to the state.
The HUD Community Challenge Grant wasn’t the only application the executive board approved; as presented by Connie Akerson, environmental planner for NMDC, the board also authorized the application for an EPA brownfield environmental site grant in the amount of $400,000.
NMDC has received funding in the past to clean up brownfields in Aroostook County and this grant, if received, is slated to be a boon for communities with properties contaminated with things like petroleum.
“This project really helps move some economic development initiatives along in some small communities,” Akerson said. “Once the work is done and we’ve finalized the assessment, the property value goes up.”
Should NMDC be awarded the funding, efforts to identify and clean brownfields would begin in about a year.
