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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 11/13/2014CITY OF FORT COLLINS AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD BOARD MEETING MINUTES City Clerk’s Large Conference Room, City Hall 300 Laporte Ave Fort Collins, Colorado November 13, 2014 4:00–6:00pm Chair: Troy Jones Staff Liaison: Sue Beck-Ferkiss 970-221-6753 City Council Liaison: Lisa Poppaw Board Members present: Tatiana Martin, Troy Jones, Diane Cohn, Jeffrey Johnson, Curt Lyons Board Members absent: Eloise Emery, Terence Hoaglund Staff present: Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Social Sustainability Specialist; Dianne Tjalkens, Board Support; Bruce Hendee, Chief Sustainability Officer; Beth Sowder, Interim Director of Social Sustainability; Clay Frickey, Associate Planner Council Members present: None Guests: Marilyn Heller, League of Women Voters Meeting called to order by Troy Jones at 4:06pm. AGENDA REVIEW Adding to New Business: Affordable Housing Board work plan for 2015 Adding to Old Business: BFO Offer Reminder PUBLIC COMMENT Marilyn said 6:30pm tonight at the Lyric is a showing of the movie Invisible Americans which was filmed in Fort Collins. Sue said she may be able to arrange a viewing for board members. NEW BUSINESS ITEM 1: INTRODUCE BETH SOWDER, INTERIM DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY DEPARTMENT Beth has been with the City since 1995. Sue added that she brings many years of experience and will visit this board on occasion. ITEM 2: CONSOLIDATED PLAN INTERVIEW WITH CONSULTANTS Jenny Rogers, with Community Strategies Institute in Denver is the consultant, and her background is in affordable housing. She was hired by the Social Sustainability Department to prepare the Five Year Consolidated Plan for HUD, which reports how the City has determined CDBG and HOME funds will be distributed in Fort Collins. The plan is includes a housing needs assessment, housing market assessment, public participation component, etc. There is community survey currently underway. Jenny would like to ask board about perceptions of affordable housing needs in Fort Collins. Discussion/Q & A: • Tatiana said one big issue is for first time homebuyers. They have not had much focus in Fort Collins or Larimer County for assistance, especially for lower wage earners. One of the goals of the board is to bring focus to this issue. There need to be more resources and more realtors knowledgeable about what programs are available and how to use them. Greeley is a good example of how this can be done. • Jeffrey said lack of move up housing directly impacts availability of rentals. Potential owners are less stressed on housing because they are renting below their affordability level; if they could afford to buy they could pay more, and this would open units for rental. • Troy added that it’s not just not having a means to buy, but a lack of availability of starter units. They are hogging the units that others 80-100% AMI could afford. We need more housing stock in 100-120% AMI range. • Tatiana added that the construction defect law must be overturned because they are the perfect first home. This is a statewide issue. • Jeffrey said Lakewood has taken initiative with this and the state may look at this model. • Jenny added that it is a barrier in metro areas. • Diane said we should do better with incentivizing building smaller buildings, so they have the ability to make a product that is more affordable. The profit margins get smaller with smaller units. • Curt added that the fees in Fort Collins must be reduced. You have to build a bigger house to sell for more money to make the numbers work. • Troy added that the fees are the same for small and large buildings so it makes more sense to builders to build large. This issue has come up in HAPS. • Tatiana added that the board monitors codes such as green building codes and sprinkler codes. • Curt said that every time the international codes come out, there are more codes that make building costs increase. • Jenny asked about AMI levels for buyers. • Tatiana clarified and noted that for below 50% AMI ownership is not necessarily a good option. • Jenny asked if adequately zoned land is an issue. • Troy said it is infrastructure that serves that land that is the issue. There is properly zoned land that needs roads, sewers, etc. that make it unaffordable to build on. • Tatiana said we are landlocked with the GMA and there is pushback on “going up.” • Jenny asked if developers have to go through a public process. • Jeffrey said yes. • Sue asked if the board thinks there are zoning issues with redevelopment. • Troy said it’s more like “zone uncertainty.” • Tatiana said, for example, the cold weather shelter has two different zones on the same parcel. • Jeffrey added land use, floor area regulations, historic regulations, GMA, fees, etc., take the core areas and lock them down in terms of adding density. He does not speak against the concepts, but these regulations affect affordability. Roads, utilities, stormwater improvements in the Northeast quadrant…there is land that could be developed, but the cards are stacked against affordability. All the easy land has been built. Unless the City aids with infrastructure instead of development, they will not be affordable. • Sue added that the biggest intersection problem is Lemay and Vine, which is currently in the BOB2.0 initiative, moving it out of BOB2.0 and placing it as a separate tax initiative has been discussed. • Jenny said she has spoken with developers about infill infrastructure needs and they said paying for the infrastructure themselves makes it unaffordable. • Troy said that the railroad tracks impede the progress of improving the intersections in the northeast quadrant. The lack of one overpass is impeding growth into properly zoned areas. • Jenny asked about infill potential. • Curt said the fees for infill are the same as for green field. The City should incentivize infill. • Tatiana said there is not a lot of available land, so you must go up, but the community is against it. • Sue added that a four story building for Fort Collins is fairly dense. • Jeffrey said those multifamily units in the TOD are still not affordable. • Jenny asked about Land Bank. • Sue said we have five Land Bank properties. If we could sell and acquire more, we would look to Mountain Vista and the TOD for properties. • Tatiana asked if the City would consider acquiring the Kmart building, hypothetically. • Sue said it could be redeveloped. However, if you don’t want to leave the “footprint,” the fees may be more. • Troy said Transfort is making lines to strategically get people to the Max. Some of our properties fit with that and some do not. If we look at more properties, we may want to consider alignment to Max. • Sue said the Land Bank ordinance asks staff to look at proximity to Transit. • Jenny asked about the source of funding. • Sue said general funds. The current ordinance says we may only sell to an affordable housing developer and the revenue would be evergreened into more properties; however, there are reasons to go in another direction. • Curt added that the students in the TOD multifamily units create competition with families and permanent residents for affordable units. • Jenny asked about special needs and elderly housing. • Curt said seniors say they want to downsize and there is nothing available. • Diane said seniors are coming out of bigger family homes, and wanting smaller, but there aren’t enough • Sue said our City Plan says we should look at ADUs. • Tatiana said there needs to be more supportive service housing, not necessarily like Redtail Ponds, but like Accessible Space, that offers housing with services for people with disabilities. • Diane added that funding rental assistance for people with mental illness, and dual diagnosis, is something we wrestled with in the last round of the competitive process. • Tatiana said overall landlords have done a good job due to laws and codes to provide what is needed for people with disabilities. • Jenny said FCHA does not have much issue placing people with disabilities. • Jeffrey said the City’s fee waiver ordinance and the FCHA push toward assisting 0-30% AMI help to cover those with disabilities and substance abuse issues. • Troy said Homeward 2020 does the Point in Time Count annually. The Murphy Center serves that population. Redtail Ponds will serve 40 formerly homeless. That is a big step. • Jenny asked if the City supports these developments. • Diane said we see every winter a request that has to come through Council for a weather related shelter. We could do better on planning ahead for this. • Sue said Faith Family Hospitality does this year round, but can only accommodate four families. • Troy added that the shelter church is part of a coalition of churches. • Sue said they have taken a few turns at this. The City helps fund and get zoning relief. Our partners do the work. This shelter will be for women only, as this was the identified need by our partners. • Diane said there is backlash for homeless people hanging out in Jefferson Park. It’s near downtown and businesses are being affected. • Tatiana said we are a great place to live, we have a major highway, and services; workers and homeless people are going to come in. When you live in a good city, even homeless people are going to want to come. • Diane said the homeless are mostly locals. • Sue said that is changing, but they are still mainly from Northern Colorado. • Tatiana noted that during the summer there are more from outside Fort Collins and in the winter more are locals. • Curt said the fact we are a desirable place to live does hurt us. We have the low paid teachers by cost of living, it keeps wages down, there are more people than jobs, etc. • Jenny said the City Manager said there is very low unemployment, but high underemployment. • Jenny asked about housing needs versus non-housing service needs. • Tatiana said housing has less other funders than public facilities. • Diane said when you look at funding requests from social programs to housing developers, and you see how much they are asking, the housing requests are much higher. It is apples and oranges. • Jenny said she will use information from HAPS and the Gaps Analysis in her work. • Jeffrey said the credit scoring mechanism along with student debt is a huge impediment to first time home buyers. Many people are making enough to afford homes but cannot get loans due to debt. • Jenny said there are education programs to increase credit scores and plan for savings. • Curt said high rent impacts the ability to save for a down payment. • Jenny said public housing tenants are able to save for a down payment, but those at 80% AMI with student loans cannot because they are paying so much for rent. Monthly payments are also cheaper once you can get into housing. • Sue asked Jenny for an overview of the Consolidated Plan. • Jenny said the Consolidated Plan goes to HUD. We must prioritize needs, do an analysis of needs, and collect data on affordability to create a narrative around the market, housing needs and community development needs. There is also a strategic plan section. This is where the City and Social Sustainability Department will lay out a plan for spending and leveraging the funding. There will be priority needs and projects directed to those needs for the first year. Each year there will be an annual plan that addresses new projects. The plan gets submitted to HUD, with a very strict format. There will be public meetings, a questionnaire, public hearings, etc. that will give input into the action plan. If accepted by HUD the City gets CDBG and HOME funding. The draft plan will be available April 20. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Tatiana moved to approve the October 2, 2014 minutes as presented. Curt seconded. Motion passed unanimously, 5-0-0. ITEM 3: AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD WORK PLAN The challenge this year is to align the work plan to the seven key outcome areas. Discussion/Q & A: • Troy suggested mentioning that the board’s strategic plan is under development and the work plan can say that the priorities of the board will be the ones identified in the plan. We have talked a lot in the last year about changing the priorities. • Sue introduced Clay Frickey as the project manager for the five-year Affordable Housing Strategic Plan. This plan goes into the Consolidated Plan, but it is our purview. The priorities do not actually need to be included in the work plan. It says what the board’s goals are for the year. • Troy suggested the number one item be working through the five year strategic plan. And the work plant could talk about reanalyzing the four goals as part of that work. • Diane suggested adding providing guidance to Council regarding HAPS as the second item. • Tatiana suggested changing affordable housing to housing affordability since the board deals with more than just affordable housing. She would like to see the board’s name changed. • Sue added considering changing the board name to the work plan. • Diane would like to have our liaison attend the board meeting more than once per year. • Sue said in January we will get a new liaison, so the board has decided to move toward that goal next year. • Diane said a lot of good conversation happens here that never gets heard at the Council level. She suggested quarterly visits. Housing affects everything in the City and our conversations are important to hear. • Tatiana added we should make an effort to include all City Council members. • Troy said we would want to have a special agenda item to discuss if we are inviting all Council. • Tatiana said when the five year strategic plan is completed would be a good time. • Curt said we have little opportunity to dialogue because our agendas are packed. • Sue said if Council is attending, that would be our whole meeting. • Jeffrey suggested that board members attend Council meetings more frequently and speak at public comment, as it is more realistic than expecting Council to come to us. He suggested members taking turns attending and speaking as a work plan goal. • Tatiana asked if it would be too much to ask Lisa to attend before her tenure is up to discuss how the board can work with the next liaison, as a sort of exit interview. • Sue made suggested edits to the work plan language and asked board members to email additional comments. She will complete a draft that aligns with the key outcome areas. ITEM 6: CHANGES TO THE COMPETITIVE PROCESS—BRUCE HENDEE Bruce said he realized when working with the consultant that we were moving a little too fast on this process. The process will be slowed down to ensure all bases are covered and all stakeholders are heard. He asked the board what has worked and what has not. Discussion/Q & A: • Troy said every cycle the board is told not to factor in the budget, and just to rank them, but it is incorrect to ignore the funding. • Jeffrey said that is because we are ranking and not allocating. • Troy said the board should be able to advise the CDBG Commission on how much is allocated as well. • Tatiana said the board has discussed desiring meeting with the applicants to ask questions and have a dialogue. Watching the interviews or getting emails answered is not the same as having a dialogue. • Jeffrey said he attended the CDBG Commission meeting, but could not ask questions and the commission members didn’t ask questions of the housing applicants. The commission would benefit from the board’s questions. • Troy suggested being invited to the presentations and being part of the panel for the housing applicants. • Curt said the board takes the process seriously and it is disheartening to know that the commission may not go with the AHB recommendations. The board has long, difficult discussions about the projects. • Diane said she is concerned when the commission does not ask the reasonable and appropriate questions of the housing applicants. • Jeffrey said he is confused on how the funding for the social piece intersects with housing. How do we best align the funding to the projects? Are we sticks and bricks, or deciding about how to deliver social services? • Sue clarified that there was a request for funding for housing related social services in the housing applications this year. Beth Rosen will come speak to the board on how the funds can be distributed. • Curt said the board needs to determine where we stand on bricks and sticks versus human services. • Sue said there is staff work to be done around what public service projects are related enough to housing to keep in the housing section. • Bruce said he is hearing there is lack of clarity around the whole process. Each board should have clarity around funding sources and how they can be used. • Troy said he learned a lot from seeing how the commission allocated funds from different sources. • Tatiana said the commission could take full funding recommendations from the board and take it or leave it. • Troy discussed the board’s presentation to the commission and how he and Tatiana wanted to explain the rankings. • Sue said this must be concise and show consensus. • Jeffrey is okay with the commission having sole responsibility for allocating funding as they have the whole picture of housing and public service. He would like the ability to give better advice based on the numbers. • Troy said he would welcome having the authority to allocate housing funds. • Beth suggested a joint dialoging session between the Affordable Housing Board and the CDBG Commission. • Diane said the commission seemed a little overwhelmed. They have all of the public service applications as well. • Bruce said to send additional thoughts on the process through Sue. It may take a few months to get through the discussion, but he or Beth Sowder will return to the board before changes are made. ITEM 4: AFFORDABLE HOUSING STRATEGIC PLAN 2015-2020 Sue said Clay Frickey will project manage. We are aiming for the first Council Session in June. Sue believes there were subcommittees of both the commission and board last time. The board may want to have some offline time and “work session” type time alone or with the CDBG Commission, as well as subcommittee meetings. The board will continue to do rankings this year for at least one round of the competitive process, and must complete this project. Sue requested volunteers for the subcommittee. Discussion/Q & A: • Diane asked how the CDBG Commission ties into the board’s strategic plan. • Sue said the commission has clear jurisdiction on public facility and services, but the board and commission have joint jurisdiction on housing priorities. The board has the most responsibility for the document, but can get input from the commission. Once the plan is complete, it will be presented to other boards and commissions. • Troy, Tatiana, and Diane volunteered for the subcommittee. • Curt said he was unaware the commission was so involved in the board’s strategic plan. • Troy said their input would be helpful as this board is out of the loop on human services. • Sue will check in with Eloise, as she is absent, to see if she would like to participate on the subcommittee. Terrence already gave feedback that he cannot. • Clay said he has looked at affordable housing strategic plans for peer cities in Colorado and across the country. However, many peer cities are not landlocked. He has also looked at bigger cities to see what they have done. • Curt said the GMA border has a lot of empty checkerboard. If land is so finite, what is the City doing annexation wise? • Clay said annexation comes from the general fund. We are trying to buy land to create an enclave on Mulberry so that a swath can be annexed. However, there are some Councilmembers who would like to shrink the GMA to remove the Mountain Vista area. The Planning department is looking at planning for the Mountain Vista area in their 2015 work plan. Many codes also refer to affordable housing, and we need to understand the parameters of AMI, etc. • Sue said she sent the Denver Housing Plan that came out of economic health. They identified a spectrum of critical needs and workforce housing based on AMI. Looking at these plans is a good place to start. Sue is also looking at what we are funding that does not really fit into the four goals. For example, there is a company that would like to apply for CDBG funds to put solar on low income housing. • Curt suggested adding a goal of sustainability. • Sue said this is why we want to look at projects we want to fund and prioritize accordingly. The competitive process is changing. Staff will be driving applicants to look at the priorities. • Troy said those bullet item priorities really condense a lot of information and we must get them right. We must also consider whether or not the bullet items are prioritized or not. • Sue added it must be somewhat flexible as a five year plan. ITEM 5: HOUSING AFFORDABILITY POLICY STUDY DRAFT BOARD FEEDBACK Not discussed. OTHER BUSINESS ITEM 1: OPEN BOARD DISCUSSION • January meeting moved to January 8. • Fort Collins is the 19th least affordable city in Colorado. • Tatiana asked where we are on the homelessness action plan. It is going to Council February 24. • Sue said there will be an offsite Council work session December 6. Staff has also agreed to come up with a long term cold weather plan. She will look into the homelessness action plan. • Sue said HAPS is getting a Housing Heroes Award from the Board of Realtors. She thanked the board for their help. Going to work session on November 25. Board members are welcome to join. ITEM 2: LIAISON REPORTS • Curt will discuss Air B&B at the next meeting. ITEM 3: FUTURE MEETINGS AGENDA • Not discussed. ITEM 4: CITY COUNCIL SIX-MONTH PLANNING CALENDAR REVIEW • Not discussed. – Meeting adjourned at 6:20pm by Troy Jones – The next meeting of the Affordable Housing Board is scheduled for: December 4 at 4:00pm Participants will meet at: Fort Collins City Hall Council Information Center 300 Laporte Ave