ABOUT COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
The Community Development Department is responsible for providing assistance, primarily, to the District’s counties and municipalities. The department provides grant writing and administration assistance to our local units of government for a variety of grant programs. The department, additionally, provides technical assistance, census data, grant research and some types of planning assistance. The Community Development Department is also responsible, with input from each county, for the development of the district-wide Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy every five years.
Our Mission
To improve the infrastructure, quality of place, capacity and competitiveness of each community and county to allow for and promote new industrial, commercial and residential development.
The DRA is a federal-state partnership created by Congress in 2000 to help create jobs, build communities, and improve lives through strategic investments in economic development in 252 counties and parishes across eight states. South Delta Planning and Development District is one of 44 local development districts that works as a front-line project manager for the DRA and supports the agency’s project and investmen development and management. Through the past fourteen investment cycles of the DRA’s States Economic Development Assistance Program, DRA investments have leveraged $2.9 billion in other public and private investment into projects that helped to create and retain 26,000 jobs, train 7,200 for a 21st century workforce, and provide nearly 65,000 families access to clean water and sewer services.
