Grant funds appear to have been approved to build homes for 10 low-income families in Warren County.

An e-mail from Jackson-based Rayburn & Associates to county supervisors shared word from the Mississippi Development Authority detailing more than $7.2 million for 24 communities in the state as part of the 2008 Home Investment Partnerships Program, or HOME program.

Full funding of the program would ensure $250,000 for Warren County, acting as a conduit for $25,000 in down payment assistance for potential buyers. Terms also stipulate successful new homebuyers must stay in the home 10 years to avoid paying back any portion of the down-payment grants. Those amounts vary depending on at what point during the 10 years they decide to sell, if at all. 

Applicants are not limited in how much their income may go up after winning grant money for a house, but if the house is sold before 10 years has passed, they must sell the house to someone who falls within low- income brackets, or $39,600 annually.

Specific sites for the new construction are undetermined. Vicksburg-based We Care Community Center is to act as developer and selection committee and provide financial education to applicants, who must attend homebuyer education classes and be deemed credit-worthy. Rayburn & Associates is to fill consulting and administrative roles.

During the initial pitch to supervisors, officials said applicants are limited to one homebuyer grant award per funding cycle to avoid duplications from other programs, such as a similar affordable housing program run by the City of Vicksburg.

Twenty cities and counties are listed with individual grant awards up to $500,000, with the cities of Purvis, Sumrall and Laurel receiving the top allocations. Four community housing development organizations, or CHDOs, received more than $2 million of the total HOME program awards for 2008.

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On the agenda

Meeting Thursday, Warren County supervisors:

• Heard a request from Midcontinent Express Pipeline to use LeTourneau Road in advance of placing a temporary supply station to the north at Glass Road. Such a move would involve putting big rigs on the road heavier than the posted weight limits on the two county-maintained roads. LeTourneau Road, a stretch of which remains under re-construction after last spring’s Mississippi River flooding, has a limit of 80,000 pounds. Big rig traffic on Glass Road is posted at 57,600 pounds. 

Construction officials with the company agreed Thursday to have the project bonded due to loads of pipeline segments and related equipment reaching 130,000 pounds. The station would be built on the south end of Glass Road, on which access has been hindered for years by an unused, low-clearance rail trestle.

Proposed by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, LP and Energy Partners, LP, the $1.27 billion natural gas transmission line will span approximately 507 miles from southeast Oklahoma to west-central Alabama. The entire project is expected to be in service by Aug. 1.

• Began discussions on a request by Gavilon Fertilizer, a holding company for property occupied by ConAgra International Fertilizer plant at the Port of Vicksburg, for an inventory tax exemption totaling 63.1 percent of its stock.

The levy, from which supervisors have shied away in favor of improvement-based tax breaks, is the subject of Senate Bill 3272 before the chamber’s Ways and Means Committee. It would create a 50 percent tax credit on inventory, dependent on growth in the state’s general fund.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com