City officials are considering a program that would speed the renovation and resale of vacant homes using Community Development Block Grant money available through the $787 billion stimulus package.

Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said the city learned Friday the city would receive $482,390 in block grant funds from the U.S. Housing & Urban Development Department.

Lancaster County is slated to receive $903,494 under that program.

Gray has been awaiting word on how much of the stimulus money would trickle down to Lancaster since the bill was signed two weeks ago. Nearly all of it is going to the state, which will pass the funds to the local level.

The Community Development Block Grant and funds for emergency homeless shelters are the exception. That money is being allocated directly to the city and county.

How soon the city will get the funds and what exactly the city will be permitted to do with the money remain unclear, but Gray directed his department directors to prepare preliminary plans that address city needs.

"We want to make sure we don't let the funding drive us," the mayor said.

The plan to address vacant housing is one of those preliminary plans. It would use all or part of the CDBG money to hire construction companies to renovate houses that are taken through eminent domain. Those houses would be resold to owners who agreed to occupy them.

The city's Redevelopment Authority would likely serve as the developer in the process, said Randy Patterson, director of the city's Economic Development & Community Revitalization Department.

The city's Redevelopment Authority has long served as a conduit for the taking and resale of condemned houses.

The difference with the new effort, Patterson said, is that instead of waiting for a developer to offer to buy a property, the Redevelopment Authority would seek bids, pay a company to do the work, and then sell the property itself. The proceeds would likely go into a revolving fund to pay for other houses.

Gray said such a program would speed the process of getting condemned housing renovated and occupied, thereby helping to stabilize a neighborhood. It would get money into the economy by paying construction workers. It would improve the city's housing stock and increase homeownership.

"It would be a win all around if we could do something like that," Gray said.

Patterson said the available money will likely mean a small-scale program. Some properties may need $40,000 in renovations, he said. That would mean only 10 to 15 properties could be done citywide.

Yet, he said, converting even a few boarded up rental houses into owner-occupied units can have an impact.

"One owner-occupied property on the block starts to stabilize the block," said Patterson.