About the Rural Area Revitalization Program

The purpose of the program is to provide financial/technical resources to New York communities for the restoration and improvement of housing, commercial areas and public/community facilities in rural communities. This program will provide grants to not-for-profit community based organizations and charitable organizations that have a direct interest in improving the health, safety and economic viability of a rural area or other aspects of the area environment that are related to community preservation or renewal activities.

Eligible Applicants

Eligible applicants include not-for-profit corporations or charitable organizations, organized for a period of one or more years, which are either incorporated under the not-for-profit corporation law (together with any other applicable law) or, if unincorporated, are not organized for the private profit or benefit of its members and have been engaged primarily in community preservation activities and will serve a population with incomes at 90% or below the median annual income of all residents of the municipality within which they reside, taking family size into account.

Eligible Activities

Projects that are designed to construct, maintain, preserve, repair, renovate, upgrade, improve, modernize, rehabilitate or otherwise prolong the useful life of housing accommodations; to restore abandoned and vacant as well as occupied housing accommodations to habitable and viable condition; to demolish structurally unsound or unsafe or otherwise unsightly or unhealthy residential structures which no longer serve or can economically be made to serve a useful purpose consistent with stabilizing or improving a region; to acquire and renovate buildings which contain housing accommodations; and to conduct similar activities with respect to retail, commercial, cultural, civic and community establishments within a region when carried out in connection with or incidental a to program of housing activities.

The Rural Area Revitalization Projects provides applicants flexibility in determining the exact nature of their revitalization efforts and program priorities.

Eligible Areas

Rural Area of the State shall mean cities, towns and villages having a population of 25,000 or less.