Marble Falls, Granite Shoals awarded $275,000 CDBG infrastructure grants

The cities of Marble Falls and Granite Shoals each has been awarded a Community Development Block Grant of $275,000 to fund critical infrastructure improvements, according to an announcement from the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA).

Marble Falls will make wastewater system improvements and Granite Shoals will make water system improvements.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said $2 million in block grants had been awarded to seven Central Texas communities for infrastructure improvement and $42 million in all across the state. Other area cities receiving grants include Blanco, Florence, Luling, Martindale and Uhland.

“Rural communities work hard every day to provide a great place for people to live, work and raise their families,” Miller said. “Ye, some smaller Texas communities can't financially support the kind of large public works projects that will improve and strengthen their local quality of life. That's where the TDA helps by making sure that rural Texas communities have equal access to federal funding available for these kinds of improvement.”

The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is a flexible program that provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs. Begun in 1974, the CDBG program has been one of the longest continuously run programs of U.S. Housing & Urban Development (HUD). Also known as the Small Cities CDBG program, States award grants to smaller units of general local government that carry out community development activities. Annually, each State develops funding priorities and criteria for selecting projects.