May 1—VALDOSTA — Valdosta City Council approved a resolution to file a grant application with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Historic Preservation Division for the city's Southside Historic Resources Survey.

The DCA is offering competitive matching grants for surveys of historic resources through the Georgia Historic Preservation Division to financially assist local governments to survey its historic resource properties.

During the past three years, the city has been the recipient of these grant funds and completed both Phase 1 and Phase 2 of a multi-year and multi-phase project to survey all of the historic resource properties in and around the central areas of the city.

Phase 3 is proposed to study and survey the area in and around the Southside National Register Historic District. City staff estimates that this survey area will encompass about 1,400 parcels of land. According to City Manager Richard Hardy's report, the state will review the applications and announce the 2023 recipients this summer. If awarded, the term of the grant will begin this fall and straddle both Fiscal Year 2024 and FY2025 budgets.

As with the previous phases, a consultant will be hired to individually survey the properties in the Phase 3 area. City staff proposes $40,000 in the FY2024 budget to be used as a match for the grant, with any remaining funding costs to be carried over to FY-2025.

"A major uncertainty in all of this is the actual amount of grant funding from the state, which is based on federal funding and has varied widely from year to year," he said.