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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 12/06/2018AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING December 6, 2018, 4:00-6:00pm Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Avenue 10/11/2018 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER 4:06 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present: Curt Lyons, Jen Bray, Rachel Auldridge, Catherine Costlow, Jeffrey Johnson, Kristin Fritz, Diane Cohn • Board Members Absent: None • Staff Members Present: Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Clay Frickey, Ryan Mounce, Brittany Depew • Guests: Marilyn Heller 3. AGENDA REVIEW • No changes 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION • Marilyn Heller—Women League of Voters’ April panel topic will be “housing for victims of domestic violence” 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Jen moved to approve November 1 minutes. Curt seconded. Approved 5-0-2. Diane and Kristin abstained due to absence. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • None 7. NEW BUSINESS A. Ryan Mounce and Clay Frickey, Planning Department—City Plan Update Recap of City Plan scenarios: There has been a lot of support for making moderate to large changes, including to housing. This has to be taken to current Council, so there is a hard deadline of April. May not be able to do as much continued outreach as planned. Went to Council a few weeks ago to get feedback on appropriate amount of change to neighborhoods. Some of the big ideas: • Community and Neighborhood Livability: increase stock of attainable housing, AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 12/1/2018 – MINUTES Page 2 strategically add density (specifically looking for Council’s feedback on best way to do this), vacant land use, more housing and mixed-use along transit corridors, outdoor spaces convenient to residents. • The housing story: Most housing stock already built and was built for different trends, existing policy support, desire for housing options and some neighborhood change, can learn from regional communities (Windsor’s ADU policy). • Housing Deficiency and Future Demand: Estimate need 30k-35k additional units by 2040, looking at where those units could be added (vacant land, commercial corridor infill, established neighborhoods). • Options in established neighborhoods: Internal accessory unit (in most residential districts this is not currently allowed), detached accessory unit (carriage house, permitted on very small percentage of largest lots in Old Town), duplex (not allowed/ impractical in most residential zones). • Implementation: Conduct in-depth engagement process (community wide and neighborhood meetings) and amend Land Use Code. • Other criteria to explore: Site planning and design, ownership requirements, private covenants, short-term rentals, impacts on infrastructure, proportionality of fees. Comments/Q&A: • Sue: I know some communities, like Durango, allow ADUs neighborhood-by- neighborhood. Have we considered something like that? o Ryan: We’ve talked about that, but Durango is so much smaller than it’s easier to look on neighborhoods separately. • Diane: It’s important to get community feedback, but how do you also balance that with your professional knowledge? o Kristin: I think it’s one of the hardest things about the profession. o Diane: Why do you have to stay neutral? You’re a subject matter expert and your opinion does matter. o Kristin: You have to be careful about backlash. The community feels like this is a top-down plan, which is not what the plan is supposed to be doing. o Diane: I get that, but it seems to minimize the information and opinions that should come out of professions that exist for this very reason. o Curt: You are professionally looking at the needs of the community, and most of the feedback is from a smaller perspective, not the larger needs of the community as a whole. o Clay: We have been demonstrating that tension by showing trade-offs. If housing is a priority, the trade-offs are x, y, and z, and we are getting feedback on the community’s wishes and desires based on that. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 12/1/2018 – MINUTES Page 3 o Ryan: Especially when I’m out at events, I feel like a keeper of the process, and we want to be sure we’re being neutral. If people hear me saying what I think actually needs to happen, their opinions feel minimized. • Diane: It would be great to see photos of duplexes that already exist in neighborhoods, with different styles and various types of surrounding houses. o Ryan: We do want to show that many duplexes are very similar scale to what’s already in the neighborhood. o Sue: With design, we can make a duplex look very similar to surrounding homes. • Curt: Last time you presented, you had a mileage average. I just read an article about comparing mobility vs accessibility. Wyoming has high mobility, but access is much lower. Manhattan has low mobility but huge amounts of accessibility. Is that part of the conversation? How many miles you can travel is one thing, but what you can actually access is a different story. o Ryan: The mileage consideration was mostly looking at carbon emission, not focused on what can be accessed in that mileage. • Jeff: If there’s not a discussion about what it may take in specific regulations, it seems to me that Council could say yes, but without showing what has to disappear, it’s not the whole picture. o Ryan: We don’t know what that looks like yet, but we do know we need to look at it. If we want to encourage ADUs, we need to consider things like utility fees. o Kristin: What we talked about last time was that this step had to happen before we can even talk about next steps. o Jen: There’s verbal encouragement, allowing, and actually incentivizing. o Ryan: I’m glad we can look to Windsor and their policy, because that’s a lot easier to compare to Fort Collins. o Sue: At a recent presentation, Windsor staff said they had middle-income options and it wasn’t working, so they shifted toward ADUs. o Clay: We know this won’t solve our housing crisis, but it could help. • Sue: Is this basically all you’re bringing to Council next week? o Ryan: Yes, we are planning to focus solely on housing and density options. • Kristin: It’s interesting to hear about Windsor, and it’s helpful to have a local lesson- learned example. With the MAX, they rebranded it as an economic health project, not a transit project. Maybe housing density needs a rebranding. • Sue: How does this board feel about adding density to existing neighborhoods? o Curt: It’s one of the necessary tools in the toolbox. o Kristin: I agree, but I don’t think the messaging should be that we’re adding density to existing neighborhoods. o Diane: How would you word that? AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 12/1/2018 – MINUTES Page 4 o Kristin: I think we would write support for calling it something different. o Clay: How about “local investment in housing stock”? o Sue: It’s also local control. o Clay: We call Fort Collins the Choice City and people don’t have a lot of choices in housing. People have to decide if they are actually able to live here. Increasing choice would help us live up to this moniker. • Sue: When would the board need to make a statement by? o Ryan: If it’s specifically to bring to Council, it would need to be before Tuesday. o Diane: I don’t think it has to be before Tuesday, it could add to the City Plan conversation at any point. o Kristin: And it’s not just ADUs, we’re talking about density in general. • Diane: I would vote to provide that input from the board, maybe a couple days after Tuesday’s work session, since they would have already heard the presentation and conversation. o Kristin: Would it be a follow-up memo? How do we comment on a work session item? o Sue: Ideally it comes before a work session so they can consider it during their conversation, but they will have to make a decision on City Plan. You could reference this conversation without it getting into Council before work session. o Jeff: We could go to public comment at a Council meeting and submit a letter. • Diane: Before we work up a draft, I’d like to hear from everyone if there are specific thoughts or concerns. o Kristin: I think the maps are compelling, to see how limited it is when you leave out existing neighborhood land. o Curt: I think it’s critical to point out that Fort Collins is not going backwards. If you don’t increase density, we’re still growing. Keeping everything how it is does not stop growth from happening. o Diane: If we look at scenario 1, what are we going to see? More internal, illegal ADUs, which is a missed opportunity economically for the City. o Clay: One of the questions is “does Fort Collins accommodate the growth or do we outsource it to surrounding communities?” o Sue: It may be the most important to look at infill. o Curt: It’s going to take all options. o Sue: But in terms of where we have streets and sewers and services. o Diane: It sounds like we want to do a memo to City Leaders and follow up during public comment on December 18. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 12/1/2018 – MINUTES Page 5 Kristin made a motion to “provide support for the idea that City Plan should include recommendation to increase housing choices in existing neighborhoods to meet our overall housing need.” Catherine seconded. All in favor, 5-0-0. B. Affordable Housing Board Officers—Nominations for Board Officer Every year, this board elects two officers: Chair and Vice-Chair. The chair facilitates meetings and gets first dibs at joining other meetings and events. Elections are supposed to take place no later than January. Jen has indicated an interest in being chair, although she does have some conflicts and may need to leave meetings early. We would need a strong vice-chair who is at most meetings and could take over if Jen has to leave early. Comments/Q&A: • Diane: Can we just nominate Jen right now? o Sue: Yes, she’s comfortable with that. We will need a strong vice-chair. o Catherine: I would be happy to try it. I make it to most of the meetings. o Sue: Often, the vice chair does evolve into the chair, but it’s not mandatory. • Diane: Do we need a formal vote? o Sue: In January. We can just do nominations today. C. Gear up for 2018 Annual Report and 2019 Work Plan Sue: We have to come up with a 2018 annual report by February, and the 2019 work plan was due in September. Sent out a draft of the 2018 annual report—went through old agendas and memos and consolidated into one document. Diane will look at work plan for next year Diane: A couple modifications to work plan: Adding “participation in creation of the AH strategic plan.” And do we want to take out the education component? It feels like something we’re not really working on and there’s enough on our plate. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS None 9. OTHER BUSINESS None 10. ADJOURNMENT 6:05