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DEPART MENT O FFI C E O F T H E A SSI S T ANT S ECRET A R Y FOR M ODEL CI TIES A ND G O V ERN M ENT A L RELATIONS Honorable Ivan Allen, Jr. Mayor of Atlanta Atlanta, Georgia 30303 I N RE P L Y R EFE R TO : JUN 1 1 1969 Dear Mayor Allen: In his press conference of April 28, 1969, Secretary Romney made the following statement: "The 10% population restriction on the size of the target neighborhoods will be dropped . • . . [T]his . . . does not mean that the program will be expanded city wide within ea ch city. Its purpose will remain t hat of focusing resources on par ticularly poor and blight ed ne i ghborhoods, but local officials will be given grea ter l a t i t ude in dr awing progr am boundar ies that confo rm to l ocal condit i ons. " The Secretary ' s comments have been given wi dely dif fer i ng inter pretations in news papers and periodicals around t he country. I n order to avoid a ny confusion I would like to expand a bit on t he Secretary ' s remarks. Cities are certainly not requ ired t o expand their model nei ghb orhood boundaries . They will be permitted to do s o in or der t o remove arbitrary geographic limitation s tha t prevent logical and effective program development. For example, in one city a small geographic area was eliminated from the model neighborho od in order to meet the population limitation. This area is contiguous to the model neighborhood, is a blighted area, with essentially the same kind of population mix as the model neighborhood, and contains only a few thousand residents. Expansion to include this contiguous area would not materially affect the capacity of this city to mount a program that will have substantial impact on the neighborhood problems. This represents an artificial constraint which may be removed, if the city seeks to initiate such a change. �2 Any addition to the model neighborhood must still meet all statutory requirements. The additional area must be a blighted one. The program for the expanded area must meet all the statutory criteria, including the requirement that the program achieve a substantial impact on the neighborhood's problems. No additional supplemental funds will be available for the expanded areas. For most first round cities, this means that new projects or extended projects in the new areas would depend on funds from other than Model Cities supplemental grant funds. All cities may find it difficult to assure the program impact required by the statute if the model neighborhood is greatly expanded unless substantial additional resources are available. In most situations, however, as CDA's develop their capabilities to plan, coordinate, and evaluate the program in their first target area, much benefit could be derived from expanding these activities of the CDA to those resources and programs presently going into poverty areas of the city other than the present model neighborhood. This expanding role of the CDA as the program continues would enable the cities to be in a position to better utilize additional resources in the future as they may become available. Any request for area expansion should set forth the reasons therefore and demonstrate that the city has the capacity to administer the program in the expanded areas in accordance with the foregoing considerations. Very truly yours, ~-~ · ~kFloyd H. Hyde �