Greensburg is preparing to apply for $269,000 in state and federal grants through the Community Development Block Grant program to pay for street improvements and blight removal.

The city has yet to spend most of the more than $500,000 in CDBG money it was awarded over the past two years. Instead, it has focused on a three-year plan , identifying a slew of street repair projects with the intention of beginning work on them in 2018, combining three years' worth of grant money, according to city Planning Director Barbara Ciampini.

The money that has been spent so far has gone to demolishing blighted properties around the city.

City council is expected to vote Monday to submit the Greensburg application for 2018.

As in the past two years, the city hired consultant Urban Design Ventures of Homestead to help with the application process.

This will be the city's third year applying for CDBG money on its own. Greensburg used to belong to a consortium of communities that apply through Westmore­land County.

In their first year going solo, Greensburg officials hoped to focus repair efforts on the Health Care District near Excela Health Westmoreland Hospital, in the city's 5th and 6th wards. However, block grant funds can be spent only in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods, and data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey showed those areas are too wealthy to qualify.

The city opted to apply for funds to improve streets and downtown and the in the Academy Hill Neighborhood, which the survey found was eligible.

Jacob Tierney is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6646, jtierney@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Soolseem.

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