Proposed development

continued from page 18 highlighted spaces for a farmer’s market and pickleball courts.

Wooden expressed confidence about attracting restaurants and other neighborhood businesses to the property, citing both a deficit of retail services in the area and his company’s experience developing similar centers in areas like Haymarket and Cascades.

He said plans for assisted living services, especially the one-level cottage homes, were rooted in his own experience caring for his aging parents.

Some Commissioners expressed concerns over the proposed layout of the property, the architectural design of the buildings and the traffic pattern. Wooden said the design presented at the meeting was preliminary.

“This is a master concept plan,” he said. “So, it’s just showing illustrative for you all.”

Commissioner Frank Etro proposed

Utility assistance

continued from page 19 the difference. A four-person household has an income limit of $99,650 and they would be eligible for $202.80 of credit.

The program also is intended to help businesses and nonprofits that meet the eligibility requirements.

With the amended plan, eligible applicants would receive three times as much utility credit making the award for a single person household $152.10 and for a four-person household $608.40.

Council member Brandon Davis asked if the town needed the program at all if so little of the funds had been allocated.

“How many are lagging behind on their utility payments to a point where this actually makes since?” he asked. “It’s from a perspective that I think we’re too far tentatively removed from COVID having any rational impact that if somebody still hasn’t paid their utility bill based on COVID harm, we have several different other assistances we need to render those residents because things are dire.”

Cournoyer said that the intent of the program was not to help residents who had delinquent accounts.

“This is an income-based need grant,” he said. “So, it’s for those of our residents that are in financial distress.”

He said that most Lovettsville residents paid their utility bills consistently even if organizing a work session with members of the Planning Commission, Town Council and possibly the public to sit down with Meladon representatives to make suggestions and give feedback on the plan.

“I’m not envisioning eliminating anything, there isn’t reason to,” he said, adding that he thought it needed some reorganizing.

“I do think this is a really cool plan,” Town Representative Michael Hummel said. “… I am very fearful that when you get into the finalizing area, this site is going to look completely different than this because of constraints. And that’s what worries me, that we approve this preliminary plan and then it doesn’t work when you get into it.”

Town Administrator Melissa Hynes said she would coordinate with Wooden to organize a work session.

The commission is expected to hear from the Meladon Group again in further detail after the work session at its next meeting. n they were under financial distress, which made unpaid bills an unreliable indicator of financial need.

He also noted the grant funding needs to be spent by the end of 2024.

“The whole platform and discussion philosophy of the program is at the council’s discretion,” Cournoyer said. “I just think that the program as it’s put in place has not been effective.”

Council member Tom Budnar, who worked with Cournoyer to update the program, agreed that unpaid utility bills are not the only indicator of someone that is struggling financially.

“I think if we improve the communication of the program, and the program itself, which is Jason’s recommendation. In terms of what that looked like for each individual, we’re not talking about a significant amount of money, but we are talking about money that would help people that are in a bad situation.”

“I have, ostensibly, no real objections,” Davis said. “But it really just comes down to a question of are we simply hanging on to it just to say that we feel good about making it available when nobody is going to use it?”

Budnar said that if the program did not gain any more traction after amending it, the council could vote to move the funds elsewhere.

The change was unanimously approved. n