FARMINGTON — A $250,000 housing assistance grant to rehabilitate and weatherize 17 aging homes at a mobile home park in Farmington is all but approved pending final documentation, according to a recent letter to the town from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.

Construction on the first unit will begin by July. The project is expected to be completed by the spring of 2012, according to officials.

The venture is a collaboration between the town, which will administer the funds; Western Maine Community Action, which will coordinate the work; and the nonprofit, community-owned 82 High Street Inc.

From 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, and Tuesday, June 15, two community energy forums will be hosted by WMCA to explain the project to the public and get ideas on how best to tackle the mobile home rehab work. Speakers from Efficiency Maine, Manufactured Housing Association, MaineHousing, and private energy specialists will be at both sessions that will be held at the Fairbanks School Meetinghouse at 508A Fairbanks Road, also known as Route 4. For information, call 645-3764, ext. 5105.

“We will be taking all the ideas we can and come up with a plan for the pilot project. We will try them out and if they work, we can use them for all the units,” said Community Action’s Director Fenwick Fowler on Wednesday.

MaineHousing has also awarded the project an additional $52,000 grant to buy a new manufactured home that will meet all “Energy Star” energy-efficiency standards set by the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection.

The 14-by-66-foot, three bedroom, one bathroom, single-wide home is being purchased from Ames Home Center of Canaan and Wilton, a MaineHousing approved vendor. The unit is manufactured at a plant in Pennsylvania, according to owner Timothy Ames.

The plan is to move a current mobile home tenant into the new unit and use the vacant unit for the pilot project for the weatherization and upgrade work, Fowler said.

The development in downtown Farmington has 13 apartments and 17 mobile homes that house a total of 30 families. The mobile homes were purchased new when the park was bought by a community group two decades ago and are all the same age, model and made by the same manufacturer, according to the grant application. There are a variety of problems with roofing, windows, siding, doors, heating, insulation, skirting, flooring and electrical systems that create high fuel costs for tenants.

“We feel very fortunate to have gotten this funding because it was very competitive,” said Farmington Code Enforcement Officer Steve Kaiser, who has been involved in the planning and who was responsible for submitting the grant application.

“The basic, structural integrity of the mobile homes is sound, which makes the rehabilitation approach possible,” he said.

“The board of 82 High Street has really carried the ball on this,” he said.

The mobile home park’s board is made up of tenants, representatives from WMCA, the town, area churches and include an architect, a builder, a banker and a local resident.

While most of the rehab will be done by low-bid contractors, a significant amount of work will be done by volunteers, similar to the community effort that took place 22 years ago, organizers say.

“This project will demonstrate to the community the potential for rehabilitating older mobile homes through a comprehensive and cooperative approach,” Kaiser wrote in the application.

WMCA’s weatherization and housing programs have already completed energy audits on each unit to determine what needs to be done to reduce utility and heating costs.

In addition, the agency has received a $110,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to weatherize the mobile homes with the goal of improving fuel savings by an estimated 40 percent, according to the application. Ninety percent of the weatherization work will be funded with money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with the labor of volunteers, residents and community action used as the local match, officials said.