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Home My WebLink AboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 05/07/2015MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD Date: Monday, May 7, 2015 Location: Sister Mary Alice Murphy Center for Hope, 242 Conifer St, Fort Collins Time: 4:00–6:00pm For Reference Troy Jones, Chair Ray Martinez, Council Liaison Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Staff Liaison 970-221-6753 Board Members Present Board Members Absent Troy Jones, chair Jeffrey Johnson Diane Cohn Tatiana Martin Curt Lyons Eloise Emery Terence Hoaglund Staff Present Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Social Sustainability Specialist Heidi Phelps, Grants Program Administrator Councilmembers Present Guests Call to order: Troy Jones called to order at 4:00pm. Agenda Review: Consolidated Plan moved to beginning of meeting. Impact Fee Rebalancing moved to June agenda. Public Comment: None. Member Comments: None. Review and Approval of Minutes Curt moved to approve the April 2 minutes as presented. Terrance seconded. Motion passed unanimously, 4-0-0. Members would prefer future minutes contain names of speakers. AGENDA ITEM 1: Tour of Murphy Center for Hope Board members were provided a tour of the Murphy Center Facility. Mike Walker gave a history of the program. Serve 6.8 took over operation July 2013. There has been a rise in the working poor. For this population they provide prevention and restoration services. The current focus is on the chronic homeless: providing day services and emergency winter shelter. In the future they would like to focus more on those experiencing the cliff effect and the working poor, providing coordinated access. They would also like to make the programming more accessible and provide additional medical services. The Murphy Center is a resource center model. There are also many churches in the community providing benevolence and preventative services including Timberline, Vineyard, Summit View, Genesis, and Emanuel. AGENDA ITEM 2: HUD Consolidated Plan—Heidi Phelps, Grants Program Administrator The City receives $1.5M annually from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in CDBG and HOME funds for housing and human services. The five year consolidated Plan is the big picture plan. There will also be annual plans and performance evaluation reviews. The Affordable Housing Strategic Plan will be dropped into the Consolidated Plan as an update. Together they inform City Plan. Pages 96–98 describe barriers to affordable housing and pages 112–117 describe the six priority needs. The Plan uses updated data that shows housing gaps along the spectrum and how dynamic the housing market is. The Consolidated Plan addresses all Federal pass-through dollars. The Consolidated Plan also focuses on human services and facilities. City funding is often used for the same purposes and goes to the same partners. Draft is available online for comments at fcgov.com/socialsustainability. Plan goes to Council July 7. Comments/Q&A • No comments. AGENDA ITEM 3: Private Activity Bond Allocation to FCHA Annually the state awards PABs to municipalities. It is the ability to borrow money. There are limited purposes and affordable housing and rehabilitation are approved uses. FCHA is an eligible entity to issue bonds. Investors buy them. It is part of funding layers and there are tax credits and losses that provide benefit to the investors. 4% tax credit financing requires bonds. FCHA is requesting the entire allocation Fort Collins received for their Redwood and Cunningham projects. The City has not received any other requests for PABs. Must be allocated by September 15, or goes back to the state. FCHA seeks AHB support. Comments/Q&A • Terence: FCHA only entity requesting PABs for a number of years? o Sue: Yes. Third year in a row allocating to FCHA. Previous eight years it was returned to the state. Staying local and being used. o Curt: Who else could potentially use this?  Sue: Anyone using 4% tax credit, such as CARE Housing. City is not the only place to get PABs. Last one to use PABs was Custom Blending. They went through Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) for bonds. The County can also allocate PABs, but prefers not to. • Troy: Do banks become the lenders? o Sue: Often banks purchase the bonds. o Troy: One investor?  Sue: Sometimes. One bank bought all bonds for Redtail Ponds.  Troy: The bank benefits from tax credits and rate on bonds? • Sue: And community reinvestment—counts toward their obligations. • Sue: Can give members more education on bonds at a later date. Bond priority will be discussed in Affordable Housing Strategic Plan. Diane moved to recommend allocation of the City’s 2015 Private Activity Bonds to the Fort Collins Housing Authority. Terrance seconded. Motion passed unanimously, 4-0-0. AGENDA ITEM 4: 5-Year Affordable Housing Strategic Plan (AHSP) Rough draft to stakeholder Tuesday; following Tuesday is Public Open House. Work Session was moved up by two weeks. Will have time between Work Session and adoption to make changes. High level strategic plan. Comments/Q&A • Troy: Replacement subcommittee member from CDBG Commission? o Sue: Send letter directly to their chair. Would be good to have someone from the commission helping with the process. Send to Kristen Stevens as well. • Sue: New liaison to AHB is Ray Martinez. Subcommittee may lose Tatiana if she moves. AGENDA ITEM 5: Other Business Council Comments Scheduling • Curt: Will present on ADUs, fee rebalancing, and/or infill redevelopment June 2; will organize via email. o Troy: Good timing for this discussion with new Downtown Plan being developed. Fee rebalancing should include fees for schools as downtown schools have capacity. Also sewer fees should be less in downtown than for greenfield development. Council should have latitude on certain fees, based on reality of impact. o Sue: Development community would appreciate fees being looked at as well. Open Board Discussion • Curt: Was rejected from Downtown Plan team. o Sue: Beth Sowder is on tech team, so the board will be kept in the loop, and Sue is on Old Town Plan, so AHB messages can be relayed to planners. • Curt: ADUs coming up a lot. o Diane: Seniors are very interested. o Curt: City has been anti-ADU.  Terence: It was 20 years ago.  Sue: Have discussed with planners; in much of the city ADUs are permissible but financially infeasible. Have to buy full tap feel. Can get exceptions/modifications.  Terence: Minimum lot size and floor ratios basically prohibited ADUs in downtown.  Troy: Can build a second single family detached home on property. • Curt: Single family detached has more requirements and minimum house size. ADUs should have maximum sizes. • Sue: City Plan has always stated that ADUs good for affordability, put policy has not supported. Attached, detached, and over-garage all have same issues currently. • Troy: Clarify difference between single family detached and ADU. Clearly subordinate, fraction of size of main house. • Curt: Many more requirements for single family home, such as driveway, street frontage, etc.  Diane: City Council is lagging on seeing the importance of these issues. • Curt: Was Murphy Center involved in trying to build a tiny home community? Told they needed $1M of street work. o Terence: Neighbor 2 Neighbor. Site needed 2 streets and alley improvement for a 1 acre site.  Sue: No longer looking at that site.  Terence: The person leading that has left; the concept is not moving forward at this time.  Diane: When surveyed affordable housing providers/developers for a recent presentation there were comments that N2N had tried to develop a tiny home community.  Terence: Was going to be a long-term land lease so did not make sense to make the infrastructure investment. o Sue: Tiny houses seeing boom as next iteration of mobile homes parks and in places where infrastructure already exists. Seniors and millennials want same things: smaller units, walkability.  Diane: Tiny homes for temporary shelter, transition from homelessness, ADUs, but most of population would not want to live in a tiny home permanently. Liaison Reports • None. Future Meeting Agendas • June 4: Redtail Ponds tour and meeting • Invite liaison and organize Meet and Greet with CDBG Commission Review of City Council 6 Month Agenda Planning Calendar • Not discussed. Meeting Adjourned: 6:00pm Next Meeting: June 4, Redtail Ponds Permanent Supportive Housing