Niagara Falls exterior home renovation program announced

The Niagara Falls Community Development Department (NFCD) is announcing an exterior renovation program based on the participatory budgeting process.

“Residents voted on exterior renovations, in the city’s south end, and today we are excited to make this new program available,” said Seth Piccirillo, director of NFCD. “Our goal is to expand the program citywide in the near future.”

The program’s guidelines can be found at https://nf-cd.org/news/seerp All renovations will be funded with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant funds rather than local taxpayer dollars.

NFCD has a well-established deferred loan program for housing renovations, focused on larger-scale repairs, renovations and code compliance. The exterior renovation program is designed for smaller-scale renovations that will help preserve and add value to homes while visibly enhancing the surrounding neighborhood.

Residents voted for this exterior renovation as part of the 2018 participatory budget (PB360) project. PB is a democratic decision-making process of direct citizen engagement to manage public money. With funds from HUD’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Niagara Falls has allocated $360,000 on annual action plan funds to the process since 2018.