The city is looking to buy out a third West Grand Avenue residential property near the Rahway River that is prone to flooding.
City Council passed a resolution (AR-96-13) at its May meeting to submit an application for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) disaster recovery funds in the amount of $409,985 to carry out two projects that resulted from Hurricane Irene flooding in August 2011.
The majority of the funding, $344,985, would be for the acquisition of 194 W. Grand Ave., where “due to repetitive flooding, the owner has requested that the city purchase the property for demolition and creation of permanent open space.”
The 90-year-old home (Block 161, Lot 35) last changed hands in March 2006 for $365,000, just 18 months after it was bought for $240,000, according to property records. It’s assessed at $127,200 for a property tax bill of $7,430 last year.
Another $65,000 would go toward rehabilitation of the first floor Senior Citizen Apartment Complex units at 224 W. Grand Ave., where asbestos remediation is required.
The city last year submitted Blue Acres funding requests for the acquisition of 182 and 188 W. Grand Ave. at an estimated cost of about $580,000.
Pretty sweet deal for the homeowner. Gets out of a underwater mortgage (no pun intended) courtesy of the city of rahway.
Well, it's only an application for CDBG grants — which are federal dollars, so not directly from City of Rahway via property taxes, but federal taxes.