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FEMA rejects city request

Funds sought to buy out homes on flood-prone Browning Ave.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation Program has rejected the city’s application for money to buy out two families that live on flood-prone Browning Avenue, then demolish the homes they leave behind.

The application for money allocated after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and a snowstorm last year will remain in place, in case of the set-aside of additional funding based on another disaster, said Public Works Director Nate Kissell.

The program rejected the application in favor of higher-priority projects, Kissell said.

One of the families asked for the buyout in August, after learning its property qualified for hazard mitigation money, and the other family signed on after the city notified owners in the area of the potential opportunity, according to a document made available at a City Council meeting in November.

One of the families had rejected the opportunity to join a group of seven Browning and Maryland avenue property owners in a hazard-mitigation buyout executed in 2007, according to Kissell.

The other family has moved to its house since then, he said.

The Browning Avenue houses are along Mill Run, between Coleridge and Wordsworth avenues.

Previously, the city used hazard-mitigation money to relocate 11 families from Kentucky Avenue, also along Mill Run.

FEMA provides 75 percent of the hazard-mitigation money, while the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency provides the rest. No local match is required.

Buyout payments are based on appraisal.

The program is designed to relieve the federal government of the pressure to repair or replace homes damaged in natural disasters when they’re located in areas where those disasters are likely to be repeated.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.

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