Overview of American Rescue Plan Funding Areas

A brief overview of how the funding within each of these areas is as follows:

• Community Foundation of the Lowcountry Pandemic Impact Grants
  One of the primary focuses of the American Rescue Plan is to provide funding that directly responds to needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic particularly within communities and populations that have been hardest hit by the national health crisis. The Town would provide this funding to the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry thereby allowing them to administer a grant award program to local groups and organizations that were directly impacted. These funds could be utilized to support housing assistance, childcare and education, rent and utility assistance, and food insecurities among other pandemic related impacts.

• Home Repair-Structural Safety/Removal of Unsafe and Uninhabited Structures Program
  For households located on Hilton Head Island whose income qualifications would be at 60% or less of the Area Median Income (AMI), this program would allow them to apply for grant funding to used towards leaking roofs, unstable or unsafe floors, failing septic tanks, inaccessible private roads, removing broken or unwanted items from a resident's property, removing unsafe and unoccupied structures from a resident's property, ensuring local emergency services have an official address to a resident's property, and providing assisting in obtaining proper paperwork for heirs' property.

• Town Hall Security and Technology Improvements
  Funding under this item would be utilized to secure the Town Council chambers through the use of electronic locks, magnetometers, security cameras and other safety/security related infrastructure. Other areas of Town Hall to include public entrances and common hallways would also be improved utilizing this same technology in order to provide a uniform system of security throughout the entire facility. Additionally, new technology within the Town Council chambers would be installed and existing technology upgraded in order to enhance live streaming capabilities of Town Council meetings and meetings of other public bodies.

• Patterson Tract Development/Infrastructure
  The Town owns a 3.27 acre tract of land located at 23 Marshland Road. Funding under this item would be utilized to install public recreational amenities consistent with a neighborhood park and infrastructure necessary to support a neighborhood park. Additionally, the Town may consider a public-private partnership to develop workforce housing on portion of this property. Funding under item could therefore also be used to support the road, water, sewer and/or utility infrastructure necessary to facilitate the creation of such workforce housing development on this property.

• Public Infrastructure
  Funding under this section would be utilized to accomplish various capital improvement projects that are not otherwise funded within the Town's adopted Capital Improvement Plan or could otherwise be used to supplement already identified funding to facilitate project enhancement. Additionally, funding under this section could be utilized to satisfy the Town's potential participation in regional workforce housing initiatives should the Town Council ultimately decide to participate in such a program.

• Lateral Sanitary Sewer Connection Grants
  The funding under this section would facilitate the creation of a grant program whereby those property owners living on the Island who have not yet connected to existing sanitary sewer systems due to financial limitations or otherwise would be eligible to receive funding that would facilitate such connection.Existing programs such as Project Safe could also be further supported financially in their efforts to connect all Hilton Head Island residents to an existing sewer system. Funding under this program could also be used to potentially pay for some or all of the costs that might not otherwise be covered under the existing Project Safe grant funding. Examples of these services could include plumbing connection services, inspections costs and new connection fees that may represent a financial barrier to establishing a new sewer connection.

Resources

Questions?

Contact our Finance Director, John Troyer, at JohnTr@hiltonheadislandsc.gov or 843-341-4650.