Williamsport City Council approved a revised land development plan for a to-be-built restaurant at Mulberry Street and Via Bella in the Central Business District.

The revised land development was requested by Allan Emerson and presented by Bill Scott, city engineer.

The revision is to the parking lot design and it added a crosswalk section following input from Councilwoman Liz Miele.

The identity of the restaurant, which has been confirmed as a chain, has not been disclosed by the developer or the city.

Certain mortgages satisfied and released

Council passed an ordinance authorizing the release and satisfaction of certain mortgages held by the city in connection with HOME and Community Development Block Grant program funded, low-income homeowner rehabilitation projects. This was done in first reading. The ordinance is related to the city homeowners who successfully completed one of the city’s HOME rehab programs, according to Valerie Fessler, director, city Department of Community and Economic Development and Planning.

The ordinance removed any unnecessary encumbrances of the low-income homeowners and also reduces the administrative burden on city staff, she added.

The Committee of the Whole discussed it prior to the vote, where it was listed as $1.5 million worth of mortgage satisfaction.

Contract with quasi-governmental organization

Council approved a resolution authorizing a contract for professional consulting services with SEDA-Council of Governments.

In attendance was Jamie Shrawder who does extensive work with the city and county for SEDA-COG.

Shrawder has been instrumental in keeping the city CDBG moving, and getting a significant amount of funds spent for the city over the past two years, Fessler said.

Shrawder told Fessler that she has at least 17 people working behind the scenes in her office, working on the multiple layers of compliance that the city is required to do.

It is not just Shrawder that the city is contracting with but it is a team of people who are critical to making sure the city is spending this money in a way that it is compliant and the city is avoiding repayments. Any repayments to these types of grants can’t be paid out of the grant but rather paid out of the city’s emergency and reserve funds.

With SEDA-COG, the city has been able to do many wonderful projects, she said.

Since Shrawder has been on board the city has met all of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) timeliness goals, spending the money exactly in the manner the HUD officials ask to be done, and meeting the timeline that HUD requires the city to have it spent by, Fessler said.

She then, to a question, outlined for the public why the city was currently dealing with the 2025 fiscal year.

The city received the allocation of funds in January (this year).

The city typically received HUD allocation in September or October of 2025, but because of the various shutdowns that was pushed further down the road.

“We are just now going under contract for the projects and utilizing the 2025 money,” Fessler said.

In fact, the document showed how the city was authorized to use the 2025 money in the fall of 2024 but the government issues delayed many of these projects being funded.

The contracted amount is around the same for several years, and the city’s funding has remained relatively steady for the last few years.

“To what extent, if the city loses HUD’s funding moving forward would we be able to spend less money on the obligations through SEDA-COG?” Miele asked.

The city does not anticipate any cuts through the compliance, Fessler said.

The city has a rehab program, street reconstruction projects, a bike lane under development, and a plan to narrow focus on what is being done so that one or two big projects will be the goal as a way of potentially experiencing any cuts in federal program funding.

However, Fessler said she did not foresee any cuts happening based on communication with the federal legislators on that end.

“That’s good to know,” Miele said. “For most of the time I have been on council we have seen that funding gradually dropping,” she said.