WINOOSKI, Vt., Nov. 17 (UPI) — This city's Community Development Committee has applied for a $55,000 Federal grant to study the feasibility of building a dome over the entire city, or at least parts of it.

“A lot of people think it's a bizarre idea until you sit them down and explain it to them,” Mark Tigan, director of the Winooski Community Development Corporation, said Wednesday. “Once people listen, we haven't found a single negative person.”

He said that the city had become interested in the idea after being told that. plastic domes could theoretically save 90 percent of the cost of heating Winooski's buildings. He said that when he mentioned the idea to officials at the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Devel‐. Dpment, they encouraged the city to apply fora study grant.

Winooski, a city of 850 acres and 7,000 population on the north bank of the river whose name it bears, was once a prosperous mill town. Since mid‐century, it has been struggling to rebuild its economy with the help of millions of dollars in Federal urban renewal money.