Mayor Bill McIntosh and Moultrie City Council accept a $449,928 Community Development Block Grant check from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. The grant will be used to help eliminate blight and dilapidated structures in a target area of northwest Moultrie. Front row, from left are Councilwoman Lisa Clarke Hill, Councilman Cecil Barber, Mayor McIntosh, Councilwoman Susie Magwood-Thomas and Councilwoman Angela Castellow; and, back row, Councilman Ronald D. Wilson Sr. and Councilman Daniel Dunn.

The City of Moultrie is receiving a grant that will let it do something it’s wanted to do for a long time: Clean up dilapidated houses.

Announced in early September, the grant totals more than $449,000. The Moultrie City Council held a public hearing Tuesday to discuss how the money will be used. About 10 people showed up to hear the plans.

The target area is bounded by First Street, Second Avenue, Third Street, and Seventh Avenue Northwest. Within that 10-block area, the city has identified 18 unoccupied residences that need to be cleaned up, City Manager Mike Scott said. Most of the owners live out of town, and most of the lots aren’t worth what it would cost to fix up or demolish the structures.

Except for one parcel valued at $5,000, most of the lots are valued around $500 for tax purposes, Scott said. By contrast, the average demolition, including waste removal, runs about $7,500. The landowner could pay to tear down the structure, sell the land and still take a loss of thousands of dollars. That’s why most just let it sit.

The city has worked through the court system to get permission to tear down some of the structures, Scott said, but even when it gets that authorization it doesn’t have the money to follow through. Each year the city budgets about $30,000 for demolitions.

“That’s only four houses,” he said.

Without the grant, the landowner had three options:

• Fix the structure so that it’s usable.

• Demolish the structure.

• Let the city demolish the property and put a lien on it so that the city is reimbursed for the demolition expense when the land is sold.

The first two options generally cost more than they benefit the landowner, and the third option is hampered by the city’s finances. So, in effect, there’s a fourth choice: Do nothing.

The grant sets up the opportunity for the city to resolve the dilapidated housing with just a little help from the landowner.

First, it supplies money so the city can actually tear down the structures. If the landowner won’t clear off the lot, the city will be able to follow through on the threat to do it for him and put a lien on the property to recoup demolition expenses.

But the grant also offers the landowner a way out — a way to cut his losses, even if he doesn’t turn a profit. The landowner can donate the property to the city — property taxes and the city’s lien go away — and the city is free to tear down the dilapidated structure without going through the courts.

Then the city can give the newly-vacant lot to the Moultrie-Colquitt County Land Bank Authority. The authority was established by the city and county governments in March 2012 specifically for this purpose: to return property that’s not generating revenue or taxes to an effective use.

The land bank authority will partner with a private, non-profit group, Community Ventures, that will build a house on the lot then sell it. Money in the grant will be set aside to help pay the down-payment, Scott said.

Some grant money may also be used to buy adjacent property if the dilapidated structure sits on a “substandard lot,” Scott said. Many of these houses were built years ago on small lots that may not meet size or other requirements that were passed into law since then. By purchasing a vacant lot next to such a lot with a dilapidated structure, the city could “assemble” a lot of the necessary size for Community Ventures to build on after the structure is torn down.

“We hope to get started pretty soon,” Scott said.

The public hearing on this grant was one of two held Tuesday night. In the other, the city closed out a previous Community Development Block Grant whose work was finished in another area of Northwest Moultrie.

That grant funded street and drainage improvements on Second Avenue Northwest, benefiting 111 residents, the city said. The project came in $5,697.71 under-budget and that sum was returned to the Department of Community Affairs by a council vote after the hearing.

In other action, the council on Tuesday:

• Authorized the City of Moultrie to hedge natural gas through the Municipal Gas Authority of Georgia. Scott pointed out that the vote was authorization, not obligation, leaving it to the staff’s discretion whether and when to take advantage of the opportunity.

• Approved the purchase of equipment to expand CNS into Norman Park. Cost was $39, 124.42.

• Approved the only bid  for trash grinding at $13 per ton from Langdale Forest Products of Valdosta.

In addition, the council heard from three women with complaints.

• Nadine Burberry, Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at Joe Louis Avenue, urged council to improve police activity in her neighborhood, citing the trash and noise from a business in her neighborhood. She was so bothered by police response to repeated calls over the years that she filed a complaint with Moultrie police leadership Tuesday morning, she said, implying to the council that an unidentified officer might be accepting bribes in connection with the establishment.

• Ernestine Williams complained about a hole in the street in front of her house on Elliott Brown Street and about drainage that leaves her yard flooded every time it rains.

• Marjorie Jackson, a member of Grant Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, who said the church’s $600 utility bill is too high for a building that’s only used three or four times a week.