Surveys conducted as part of the Downtown Vitalization Study showed that citizens were critical of the state of repair and appearance of many Downtown buildings.  This is also no doubt one of the reasons that many of the apartments above stores remain unoccupied. To help address these issues, Council tonight approved the spending of $136,822 of the 2018 budget of $150,000 on Community Improvement Plan (C.I.P.) grants.  There were seven applications in the 2018 intake – of these, 6 were approved and one deferred pending completion of outstanding work.  Several of the applications indicated that they plan to make apartments available on the second and third floors of their properties.  Critics of Cobourg’s Downtown have said that the addition of… Read complete articleMore CIP Grants and Loans Approved by Council