(a) Except as provided under §16.38 of this subchapter, if at the close of the application period one or more applications or project areas overlap one or more other applications or project areas, relative to one or more unserved or underserved areas, including census blocks, census tracts, shapefile areas, individual addresses, or portions thereof, the office shall inform the impacted applicants of the project area overlap prior to publishing information regarding the applications as required by §16.36 of this subchapter and provide the impacted applicants with an opportunity to resolve the overlapping unserved or underserved area.
(b) Applicants working to resolve an instance of overlapping applications or project areas shall jointly notify the office of such efforts not later than the 10th business day after the first day of the application protest period.
(c) Applicants who have provided notice under subsection (b) of this section may submit their proposed resolution to the office and may amend their application not later than the last day of the application protest period. The proposed resolution between impacted applicants may not result in the addition of partners to a previously submitted application or project area nor the expansion of an application's project area.
(d) If the impacted applicants do not resolve the overlapping unserved census blocks, census tracts, shapefile areas, individual addresses, or portions thereof, each impacted application shall be evaluated independently; and the office shall:
(1) score each impacted application and the application receiving the highest score shall proceed to grant funding consideration with its project area boundary intact.
(2) remove the overlapping project area from the lower scored applications and provide notice to the impacted applicants that the overlapping project areas have been removed from the application.
(e) If removing overlapping project areas as provided under subsection (d) of this section results in the remaining project area retaining less than 50% of the original project area, the office may remove the application from grant funding consideration. The office may use any reasonable method to calculate the remaining project area.
(f) If the office removes an overlapping project area from an application, an applicant may amend and resubmit an application without the overlapping area if:
(1) The remaining project area is greater than 50% of the original project area; or
(2) The remaining project area is less than 50% of the original project area and the office does not remove the application from grant funding consideration under subsection (e) of this section.
(g) If an amended application without the overlapping areas is not received by the office by the 10th business day after receiving notice under subsection (d)(2) of this section, the office may remove the application from grant funding consideration.
Source Note: The provisions of this §16.37 adopted to be effective February 19, 2023, 48 TexReg 685