| (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.
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