Concept Plan
This concept plan has been drafted to guide how the City of Urbana spends its allocation of American Rescue Plan (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). The sections of the Concept Plan can be found in the links below, or in the Concept Plan dropdown in the menu at the top of this page.
Introduction
ARPA Management for the City of Urbana This concept plan was drafted to guide how the City of Urbana spends its allocation of American Rescue Plan (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). Urbana was allocated $12,974,560 from the ARPA SLFRF program. Of this total, $415,180 have been allocated to Champaign County Regional Planning Commission (RPC) to administer the ARPA funds. The city also allocated $2.5 million of these funds for Revenue Replacement.
Urbana ARPA - Funding Goals
Over the course of the ARPA research and public outreach process, RPC staff developed—and council approved—five ARPA Priority Areas and eight ARPA Funding Goals (AFGs) for the City of Urbana. These AFGs are listed below and sorted by their overarching Priority Areas – Public Health and Safety Improve accessibility of public recreation space and youth programming. Increase support for community violence interventions. Adequate and Affordable Housing
Urbana ARPA - Public Engagement and Feedback
Clear communication and engagement between staff, elected officials, and the public is an essential part of the ARPA allocation process. This page provides information on this communication and engagment, including - Presentations to Urbana City Council Explanations of all of the public engagement approaches used for this process The qualitative and quantitative results of this public engagement The demographics of respondents to the engagement process Council Presentations All ARPA-related presentations of RPC staff to the Urbana City Council can be found below.
Learn more about Urbana ARPA - Public Engagement and Feedback
Federal ARPA Regulations
The summary of ARPA regulations below is based on the ARPA SLFRF Final Rule, which was released by the federal Treasury Department in January of 2022 and took effect on April 1, 2022. These regulations guide the types of spending that are eligible for ARPA funds nationwide; however, the City of Urbana has worked to further focus its funds, as described in the Urbana ARPA Funding Goals section on the previous page.
Existing Urbana Data and Demographics
In line with Urbana’s and the Treasury Department’s focus on equity and direct impacts, the following section will present information on demographic and geographic conditions in the city of Urbana. This will help guide the areas and communities where ARPA spending may be most appropriate. Unless otherwise specified, data is from the 2015-2019 American Community Survey. Poverty Urbana has a higher family poverty rate—at 11.8%—than both the state of Illinois and the country at large.
Existing City Priorities
In developing a list of city priorities, a range of officially adopted documents from several decades of Urbana history were consulted, looking both at long-term goals and more immediate needs reflected in the recent Mayor-Council goals and city budget. As evident in their name, recovery is a central theme for the ARPA State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF). Helping local governments recover from the pandemic is a primary goal of this program.