Brown County will receive almost $1.5 million for blighted properties, with more funding likely on the way.
About $1.1 million will go to villages throughout the county to demolish 33 total vacant structures. The money is from the state budget and has been awarded to the County Land Reutilization Corporation.
"We have very rural villages — they do not have large general funds," said Secretary and Treasurer Hannah Birchfield. "The funding from the state is just imperative and really unheard of for our small villages."
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The state program set aside $500,000 for each Ohio county, with additional funding available through a competitive application process.
"We had never applied for competitive funds with the demolition program, so we were really not sure," Birchfield said. "We're a small county, so we are competing with the Cuyahoga and the Montgomery counties ... but we are just really thankful that [the state] saw our strong application and granted us those competitive funds."
See the full list of properties that will be demolished here.
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Another $300,000 is for contamination remediation on the lot that previously held a poultry hatchery and the Sardinia Creamery. When the building was torn down a few years ago, the county discovered unregistered underground storage tanks. The project will assess the property for potential petroleum contamination.
Birchfield says they have an application in to the state for more than half a million dollars for remediation at another contaminated site: the former Higginsport School. Each county is allowed up to a million dollars through this program; Birchfield says they are eagerly awaiting confirmation.