(Washington, DC) Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil O. Albert on Monday announced that the District is making available almost $9 million in development grants for neighborhood projects through the Neighborhood Investment Fund, or NIF.

“Our charge is to ensure that every section of our city enjoys real economic development opportunities,” Albert said. “This is seed money. We expect qualified organizations will put these funds to work – leveraging our initial investment to create some real community benefits.”

The District’s NIF program, which is operated by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, will make $6.9 million available through its Land Acquisition and Predevelopment Loan Fund (LAPD) to provide low interest loans for land acquisition or predevelopment activities to non-profit and LSDBE organizations for the development of affordable housing, mixed-use and community facilities. The fund manager is the nonprofit The Reinvestment Fund.

The second pool of grant funding – about $2 million -- is being made available through the NIF Predevelopment Grant and Project Grant Fund (PDG). Like the Land Acquisition program, the Project Grant program is designed to provide grants to support the predevelopment and project financing activity for the construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing, mixed-use and community-based facility projects. This fund is being managed by the Local Initiatives Support Corp., or LISC.

Eligible projects must be located in one of the 12 NIF target areas in the Anacostia, Bellevue, Bloomingdale/Eckington, Brightwood/Upper Georgia Avenue, Brookland/Edgewood, Columbia Heights, Congress Heights, Deanwood Heights, H Street, NE, Logan Circle, Shaw and Washington Highlands neighborhoods.

Applications for both grant programs will be accepted on a rolling basis until July 31, 2008, or until the grant funds have been expended. For more information about NIF and the grant programs, please visit dcbiz.dc.gov.