Fort Walton Beach Resolution — 2025-13 Resolution Adopting the FY 2025-30 CDBG Consolidated Plan & FY 2025-26 Annual Action Plan — reading text

Prepared for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Effective October 1, 2025 – September 30, 2030 For the Consolidate Plan Effective October 1, 2025– September 30, 2026 For the Annual Action Plan Prepared by: Planning Division City of Fort Walton Beach, 105 Miracle Strip Parkway SW Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32548  DRAFT Executive Summary ES-05 Executive Summary - 24 CFR 91.200(c), 91.220(b) 1. Introduction The purpose of the City of Fort Walton Beach’s Consolidated Plan is to develop a viable community by providing decent housing, a suitable living environment and expanded economic opportunities for principally low and moderate-income people and seniors. It also addresses the needs of homeless and near-homeless people. The plan provides a blueprint for meeting milestones needed to improve our community’s lives and needs. To be eligible to receive federal funding through the Community Development Block Grant Program ( CDBG), as regulated by 24 CFR, the City of Fort Walton Beach is required to update its Consolidated Plan every five years. This Plan is part of a larger grants management and planning process that can be divided into six phases: (1) determining needs, (2) setting priorities, (3) determining resources, (4) setting goals, (5) administering the programs, and (6) evaluating performance. The Consolidated plan incorporates the first four phases. The City's Growth Management Department prepares this Plan as part of a collaborative process to establish a unified vision of community development actions. This process creates the opportunity for strategic planning and citizen participation to take place in a comprehensive context at the local level. It also provides a method to measure progress of the various program goals, specific objectives, and annual goals set by the Community through its community outreach program administered through the City's Growth Management Department. The City of Fort Walton Beach’s FY 2025-2030 Consolidated Plan was approved by the City Council on August 12, 2025, along with the FY 2025-26 CDBG Annual Action Plan. The City of Fort Walton Beach receives funding from HUD for community development projects which reduce or reverse evidence of physical, social, or economic decline in low-income neighborhoods. The City is considered an “entitlement community” with a prescribed formula for funding. This formula was developed by HUD using selected City demographic information. The Consolidated Plan is the process whereby a community establishes a strategy to address HUD’s National Objectives and the City’s housing, community development, homeless, and economic development needs. HUD’s National Objectives are: 1. Benefiting low- and moderate-income people, 2. Preventing or eliminating blight, or 3. Meeting other community development needs having a particular urgency because existing conditions pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the community, and other financial resources are not available to meet such needs. Consolidated Plan FORT WALTON BEACH 1 OMB Control No: 2506-0117 (exp. 09/30/2021)  DRAFT 2. Summary of the objectives and outcomes identified in the Plan Needs Assessment Overview The priority needs, goals, and objectives of the City are outlined in the Consolidated Plan and have been defined by HUD as the following: 1. Providing Decent Affordable Housing – relates to a wide range of housing activities to meet individual family or community housing needs. 2. Providing a Suitable Living Environment – relates to activities that are designed to benefit communities, families, or individuals by addressing issues in their living environment. 3. Expanding Economic Opportunity – applies to activities related to economic development, commercial revitalization, or job creation. In addition, HUD has added a standard set of outcomes for the objectives listed above. These outcomes include: 1. Availability/ Accessibility – applies to activities that make services, infrastructure, public services, public facilities, housing, or shelter available or accessible to low- and moderate-income people, including persons with disabilities. 2. Affordability – applies to activities that provide affordability in a variety of ways to low- and moderate- income people. It can include the creation or maintenance of affordable housing, basic infrastructure hook-ups, or services such as transportation or daycare. Affordability is an appropriate objective whenever an activity lowers the cost, improving the quality or increasing the affordability of a product or service to benefit a low-income household. 3. Sustainability – applies to activities that are aimed at improving communities or neighborhoods, helping to make them livable or viable by providing benefit to persons of low- and moderate-income or by removing or eliminating slums or blighted areas through multiple activities or services that sustain communities or neighborhoods. The program goal is to extend and strengthen partnerships among all levels of government and the private sector, including non-profit and for-profit organizations, for the provision of public services, affordable housing, and economic opportunities. Consolidated Plan FORT WALTON BEACH 2 OMB Control No: 2506-0117 (exp. 09/30/2021)  DRAFT 3. Evaluation of past performance As of March 11, 2025, the City’s Annual Community Assessment Performance provided through IDIS indicated that the City of Fort Walton Beach’s overall progress was satisfactory. HUD’s assessment was part of a review of the City’s Consolidated Plan, Annual Action Plan, CAPER, and IDIS entry. 4. Summary of citizen participation process and consultation process Every year the Growth Management Department advertises in the local newspaper requesting applications for the CDBG programs. Once all applications are received, the city staff consolidates all the requests and presents the applications to the Citizen’s Advisory Committee (CAC.) Staff and the CAC will utilize a scoring sheet to evaluate applications. Once the scoring has been completed, city staff will develop the annual action plan and make it available to the public for review at various locations in the city. Additionally, a public input session is held to accept any in-person public comments. After that session, the recommendations as well as any public comments are presented to city council for their approval at a public hearing. 5. Summary of public comments TBD 6. Summary of comments or views not accepted and the reasons for not accepting them All comments received were considered in the development of the plan. 7. Summary The City of Fort Walton Beach’s 2025-2030 Consolidated Plan and 2025-2026 Annual Action Plan have been prepared and developed to provide our community and principally low to low-moderate-income people with decent housing, suitable living environment, and economic opportunities. These programs and funding enabled by HUD CDBG will also help the City address homeless and near-homeless people’s concerns. An approved Citizen Participation Plan was used to request public comment through public meetings and consultation. The Growth Management Department prepares the Consolidated Plan as part of a collaborative process to establish a unified vision of community development actions. It also provides a method to measure progress of the various program goals, specific objectives, and annual goals set by the Growth Management Department. Consolidated Plan FORT WALTON BEACH 3 OMB Control No: 2506-0117 (exp. 09/30/2021)  DRAFT The Process PR-05 Lead & Responsible Agencies 24 CFR 91.200(b) 1. Describe agency/ entity responsible for preparing the Consolidated Plan and those responsible for administration of each grant program and funding source The following are the agencies/ entities responsible for preparing the Consolidated Plan and those responsible for administration of each grant program and funding source. Agency Role Name Department/ Agency CDBG Administrator FORT WALTON BEACH Growth Management/Planning Table 1 – Responsible Agencies Narrative The City of Fort Walton Beach Growth Management Department Planning Division is the lead entity responsible for the preparation of the Consolidated Plan and administration of the Community Development Block Grant Program. Consolidated Plan Public Contact Information Amie L. Nelson-Wolf, City Planner 105 Miracle Strip Parkway SW, Ft. Walton Beach, FL 32548 anelson-wolf@fwb.org Consolidated Plan FORT WALTON BEACH 4 OMB Control No: 2506-0117 (exp. 09/30/2021)  DRAFT PR-10 Consultation – 91.100, 91.110, 91.200(b), 91.300(b), 91.215(I) and 91.315(I) 1. Introduction The City of Fort Walton Beach’s Growth Management Department prepares the Annual Action Plan as part of a collaborative process to establish a unified vision of community development actions. This process creates the opportunity for strategic planning and citizen participation to take place in a comprehensive context at the local level. It also provides a method to measure progress of the various program goals, specific objectives, and annual goals set by the Growth Management Department. Provide a concise summary of the jurisdiction’s activities to enhance coordination between public and assisted housing providers and private and governmental health, mental health and service agencies (91.215(I)). The City of Fort Walton Beach works with many public and private agencies to administer the CDBG program and achieve the goals and objectives set forth in the plan. Table 2 below identifies the various agencies involved in the City’s consultation process. Describe coordination with the Continuum of Care and efforts to address the needs of homeless persons ( particularly chronically homeless individuals and families, families with children, veterans, and unaccompanied youth) and persons at risk of homelessness The City is a long-standing member of the Okaloosa Walton Homeless CoC and city representatives serve on the Board of Directors and various CoC sub-committees. The City funds projects that support the provision of services to people experiencing homelessness using CDBG. Although the City does not provide direct services to the homeless population the City has made a commitment to support making homelessness, brief, rare, and non-recurring by collaborating with the CoC and other community organizations, analyzing the data for the jurisdiction, providing awareness and advocacy, and funding through CDBG if eligible projects are submitted that meet community needs. The CoC collects data, operates the coordinated entry system, develops a strategic plan, performs gaps analysis, and facilitates the Homeless Management Information System. The CoC and the City have identified the following needs for the jurisdiction, increase access to housing through outreach and coordinated entry; increase affordable housing stock; increase the number