ALBANY, GA -- Albany’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) held a public hearing to discuss 2010 results from their five-year development plan.

The Consolidated Plan for Community and Economic Development listed economic development, public facilities and public services improvements as top priorities for the 2006-10 plan.

Five loans for small businesses were distributed during 2010 according to the results report, Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Review (CAPER). Also according to the report, 100 jobs were created and retained through the Microbusiness Enterprise Center in 2010.

The 2006-10 Consolidated Plan also included a goal to rehab 50 homes with energy efficiency improvements over the five years; according to the CAPER, they made the improvements in 65 homes.

As for their 2011-15 Consolidated Plan, the DCED has the following goals:
- Stabilization and improvement of neighborhoods
- Maintain and improve existing housing stock
- Support programs for homeless (prevention and transitioning)
- Support services to individuals and groups with special needs, i.e., senior citizens
- Support key public service programs
- Implementation of economic development initiatives
- Anti-poverty efforts, i.e., job training and placement, welfare to work initiatives, improving opportunities for economic self-sufficiency

Officials with the DCED say it will take all neighborhoods to help with their 2011-2015 goals.

“When we plan we should be planning more on a neighborhood level and we’d like to reach out to our neighborhood institutions -- churches, schools, other nonprofit organizations -- to kind of engage the community and figure out what's most important to the community and its neighbors on a neighborhood level,” says Community Development Planner Jonathan Tomko.

Tomko says he wants to restore blighted areas of town. He says he wants to focus resources on one neighborhood in order to turn it around and improve city perception.

The DCED is continuing to look for public input. Tomko says citizens have until Monday, Sept. 26 to submit written statements and that they can submit them to the Microbusiness Enterprise Center on Jackson Avenue, the Government Center or the Dougherty County Library.