Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 01/08/2009CITY OF FORT COLLINS AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD MEETING MINUTES 281 N. College Ave. Fort Collins, Colorado January 8, 2009 Denise Rogers, Chair Ken Waido, Staff Liaison, 970-221-6753 City Council Liaison: Lisa Poppaw Board Members Present: Denise Rogers, Ben Blonder, Dan Byers, Pete Tippett; Marie Edwards, Ashley Monahan, and George Bryan. Board Members Absent: None. Advance Planning Department Staff Present: Ken Waido and Megan Woodman. Council Members Present: None. Board Chair Denise Rogers called meeting to order at 4:02 PM. Welcome New Member George Bryan was welcomed as a new member appointed by the City Council to serve on the Board. Open Public Discussion (Maximum of 10 minutes). Cheryl Distaso, from the Village Earth organization, spoke to the Board about several issues related to affordable housing, including gentrification and the displacement of low income residents who live on Grape Street due to the King Soopers Shopping Center redevelopment project. She indicated one of her organization's goals is for the City to adopt rental licensing with a strong anti -retaliation provision. They are also working with the Buckingham neighborhood in dealing with proposed changes to the City's noise ordinance for the Beet Street project. New Business. Approval of Minutes: September 4, 2008 meeting. Ben Blonder moved to approve minutes from September 4"' meeting and was seconded by Pete Tippett. Vote was 7 — 0 in favor of the motion. The Board conducted a van tour of affordable housing projects in the city in October, the November meeting was canceled due to the lack of agenda items, and the December meeting was canceled due to inclement weather. Update on Relocation Policy Staff indicated that the project has not yet been approved to move forward. There was some general discussion about the federal Uniform Relocation Act, which applies if a project. utilizes any of the City's CDBG and/or HOME program funding. Information was also presented about the City's infill and redevelopment policies and Targeted Redevelopment Areas map. Items Related to the Competitive Process Debriefing on the 2009 Fall. Competitive Process There were no suggested changes to any of the materials or process by the Board. Staff provided information regarding the key dates of the Spring Cycle including: • General Training session will be conducted Monday January 26 from 1 to 4 PM in the Community Room located at 215 N. Mason Street. • In addition the general training session, each applicant is required to have at least one additional 1-on-1 session with a staff member to review their application. • Application deadline in Thursday February 191h at Noon. • Applications will be distributed to the Board on Thursday March 51h. • The Board will need to conduct a special meeting to formulate a priority ranking of proposals for the City Council, and CDBG Commission. • The CDBG Commission will conduct their applicant interviews on March 315�, April 1", and April 2"a Report from the "Point Chart" Subcommittee Denise Rogers provided a summary of the work complete so far by the subcommittee (including Marie Edwards) working with two members of the CDBG Commission (Bob Browning and Kay Rios) to consider revisions to the Point Chart and the ranking criteria. One major goal is to eliminate the subjective criteria from the chart. However, another issue is the usefulness of the chart in the decision making for distributing funds via the competitive process. The sub -committee had a lengthy discussion about the overall usefulness of the chart and whether or not the chart should even be retained. In general discussion, most Board members indicated they do not use the chart and those that do only refer to it after they have reviewed the written proposals and formed an initial opinion or ranking to see if they may have missed something. For the spring cycle, 3 charts will be distributed, and after the cycle is completed, a joint meeting with the CDBG Commission will be conducted to determine the final fate of the use of the Point Chart. Any changes will need to be recommended to the City Council and the Council will make a final decision. One or Two Cycles of the Competitive Process The CDBG Commission has had some discussion about returning to just one cycle of the competitive process. Staff was asked to survey typical applicants for their opinions on the potential change. A letter from all of the major non-profit affordable housing providers in the city was sent to staff in November unanimously supporting the retention of two cycles of the competitive process. Affordable Housing Agreement Staff has been working towards the completion of a formal Affordable Housing Agreement that would be required by all affordable housing projects receiving any City incentives (i.e. Priority Processing, Impact Fee Delay, Density Bonus, etc.). This agreement will bind the developer, upon submission of their materials to Development Review, to uphold their commitment to build affordable units. Although the framework of the Agreement is in place, staff has considered including a provision that would require the developer to pay a (penalty) fee if, for whatever reason, they receive City incentives but are not able to build the affordable units. There are a multitude of methods for calculating said fee, and staff had a general discussion with the Board to seek input regarding this key component of the policy. Staff informed the Board of their intent to discuss the issue with local developers in order to ensure that the fee amount is fair, but large enough to discourage blatant disregard for an affordable housing commitment. No formal action was requested of the Board at this time. Election of Officers The Board unanimously elected Denise Rogers as Chair and Ben Blonder as Vice -Chair for 2009. Old Business. Liaison Reports. There were no liaison reports. Other Business. None. Open Board Discussion. None. Meeting adjourned at 5:45 PM