The Charleston City Council will host a public hearing to consider Charleston’s participation in HOME Single-Family Owner-Occupied Rehabilitation Program at 7 p.m. before tonight’s meeting at City Hall.

The council will open the floor to consider moving forward in Charleston’s application to the state program, which helps renovate homes with repairs that improve the quality of life in the home.

Mayor John Inyart said that since the program’s start in 1994 it has aided the renovation of more than 84 single-family homes in Charleston.

“These are homes that otherwise wouldn’t be able to finance the repairs they desperately need,” he said. “Roofs that need fixing, old electrical wiring that is now a hazard to the people living within these homes, these are the things that HOME helps the city of Charleston fix.”

In 2007, five houses were renovated in Charleston’s districts amounting to $40,000 funded for each home’s repairs.

The Coles County Regional Planning Committee sorts through applicants in Charleston and distributes the funds for those best matching the criteria set forth by the state.

“They look for people who can’t afford the huge repairs but would still have the means to maintain the home after the larger repairs are taken care of,” Inyart said.

After the half-hour HOME session for the public, the council will move to approve the application for the program funds during its regular meeting.

The council will also discuss the new concept plan for the Whispering Pines Planned Unit Development.

What was originally supposed to be a new subdivision along Lincoln Highway Road has been adapted to accommodate the University Baptist Church’s new facility.

Developer Reggie Phillips has sold the land to the church, which currently resides on Seventh Street.

At the Board of Zoning and Planning Committee meetings on June 26 and July 10, several citizens voiced concerns over the church’s installment of a parking lot originally 10 feet from surrounding subdivision property lines.

Concerns about the proximity, the lighting of the lot, the removal of oak trees from the area and the disruption of the drainage area were all addressed.

Phillips’ re-plat, which will go before city council, has reduced the number of spaces in the parking lot to create a 35-foot buffer from the surrounding subdivision.

Issues with the drainage area were solved at the BZAP meeting on July 10.

“Because BZAP opened to the floor to the public at both of their meetings, we will not be opening the floor at the city council meeting to this subject,” Inyart said.

Both the concept plan of developing that section of land and the concept plan’s re-plat to include the church are up for approval at the city council meeting.

Also, the city council will move to approve a loan from First Neighbor Bank for $126,560 at 3.87 percent interest for a new ambulance.

The purchase is a maintenance purchase, Inyart said.

“This has been budgeted in the yearly budget and this ambulance is a replacement for the wear and tear on one of the others,” he said.

The city owns four ambulances that serve Charleston as well as other surrounding cities in advanced life support.

They bring in more than $1 million in revenue to the Charleston Fire Department.

Krystal Moya can be reached at 581-7945 or at [email protected].