§ 1002. Definitions. As used in this article, the following terms shall have the following meanings:

1. "Commissioner" shall mean the commissioner of the state division of housing and community renewal.

2. "Division" shall mean the state division of housing and community renewal.

3. "Rural area of the state" shall mean cities, towns and villages having a population of less than twenty-five thousand.

4. "Region" shall mean those portions of the rural area of the state, as specified in the contract entered into pursuant to this article, within which housing and community renewal activities funded in part pursuant to this article are to be carried out.

5. "Housing preservation and community renewal activities" include (a) the new construction or the acquisition, maintenance, preservation, repair, rehabilitation or other improvement of vacant or occupied housing accommodations; demolition or sealing of vacant structures where necessary or appropriate; disposition of housing accommodations to present or potential occupants or co-operative organizations; training or other forms of assistance to occupants of housing accommodations; and management of housing accommodations as agent for the owners, receivers, administrators or municipalities; (b) activities, similar to those specified in paragraph (a) of this subdivision, aimed at accomplishing similar purposes and meeting similar needs with respect to retail and service establishments within a region when carried out in connection with and incidental to a program of housing related activities.

6. "Persons of low income" shall mean individuals and families whose annual incomes do not exceed ninety per cent of the median annual income for all residents of the region within which they reside or a larger area encompassing such region for which median annual income can be determined.

7. "Merged corporation" shall mean a not-for-profit corporation maintaining a contract pursuant to section one thousand three of this article that has undergone a merger with one or more other not-for-profit corporation, which is also maintaining a contract pursuant to section one thousand three of this article, that has led the merged corporations to reduce the number of contracts being maintained with the division pursuant to section one thousand three of this article to a total of one.

8. "Unmerged corporation" shall mean a not-for-profit corporation that is not a merged corporation.