HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 04/05/20181 | Page
MINUTES
CITY OF FORT COLLINS
AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2018
Location: Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Avenue
Time: 4:00–6:00pm
For Reference
Diane Cohn, Chair
Ken Summers, Council Liaison
Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Staff Liaison 970-221-6753
Board Members Present Board Members Absent
Diane Cohn Kristin Fritz
Curt Lyons Eloise Emery
Catherine Costlow
Jeffrey Johnson
Jen Bray
Staff Present
Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Social Policy & Housing Project Manager
Adam Molzer, City Grants & Partnerships Coordinator
Beth Rosen, Grants Compliance & Policy Manager
Brittany Depew, Administrative Assistant/Board Support
Guests
Marilyn Heller
Call to order: 4:03
Agenda Review: No changes
Public Comment: Marilyn Heller—League of Voters Affordable Housing team hosting meeting
Monday, April 9 focused on affordable housing ownership.
Review and Approval of Minutes
AGENDA ITEM 1: Presentations and Discussions
A. Oakridge Crossing Fee Waiver Request
Oakridge Crossing has submitted a fee waiver request for their 30% units, which is 11.8% of
the total development. The request equals about $90K. Council Finance Committee will
review on 4/16, and will decide if any portion of the request will come from the Affordable
Housing Capital Fund. The development is under construction, plan to receive certificate of
occupancy (CO) in May. Under current process, fee waivers can be requested any time before
CO in hand. 110 units of age-restricted housing, mostly 30%, 40% & 50% units.
Curt moved to approve February minutes as amended before the meeting. Jen seconded.
Motion passed unanimously, 5-0-0.
2 | Page
B. Rank Housing Applications
After initial individual rankings, the average scores are as follows:
DMA 5
Housing Catalyst 3.2
Habitat 3
CARE 2.4
Neighbor to Neighbor 1.8
General Discussion
• Curt: I would like to talk about CARE and N2N, and hear feedback from others.
• Jen: Habitat was a challenge for me because it’s coming from a different funding source,
and they’re the only ones that qualify for it. It influenced my ranking for sure.
o Sue: They don’t get the money regardless, we have the option to return it. But
yes, Habitat is the only one eligible.
o Catherine: Could we just take it out of these rankings?
o Diane: We have to give our full rankings to CDBG.
• Jeff: Can we rank based on funding source?
o Sue: It hasn’t been done before, but you can rank however you’d like.
o Beth: Would it be helpful to know how funding would play out?
o Sue: We try not to look at funding and just provide rankings to CDBG. But we
have about $3.5 million total.
o Beth: Which isn’t enough to fully fund all of these applications.
o Diane: Historically, we rank based on merits, not funding request amount.
Habitat for Humanity & Housing Catalyst
• Sue: These projects are really different: Habitat is one home, Poudre Home Build, and
Housing Catalyst is 60 new units for permanent supportive housing (PSH).
• Diane: A couple things push Habitat a little higher for me: It’s the only homeownership
option we give dollars to, which is really important. They are a great organization with a
great track record. Housing Catalyst is a little farther out in time; if they do get partial
funding, it still shows local support.
• Curt: The fact that we do already have one PSH development does influence me. Housing
Catalyst said this is a priority for the city, but it’s such a small percentage of the
population. I’m looking at how other projects are influencing the future, how they house
children and give them a more stable place to live. The funds that are saved by PSH,
based on 911 calls, etc., can be a little misleading.
o Diane: It can also be healthcare, jail, substance abuse, etc. and there are dollars in
all of those as well.
Curt moved to support Oakridge Crossing’s request for a waiver for their 30% units and
to ask Council to grant this request. Jen seconded. Passed unanimously, 5-0-0.
3 | Page
• Jeff: I had Housing Catalyst as number two. I was thinking the leverage is important, and
I had them as number two because I think we should support the concept and need more
of those in our community. If not for DMA, I probably would have put Housing Catalyst
at the top. I think we have a significant need to take care of our true homeless, more so
than the non-resident transients.
o Sue: We just got the point in time count as 265 (sheltered only).
o Jeff: I support PSH and think we need it. Habitat is also a great program, I
support the homeownership and it’s an important part of housing diversity.
• Sue: I do think this was a hard round because these are all compelling projects.
• Jeff: I think they were all appropriate and feasible in regards to capacity.
• Jen: Both Habitat and Housing Catalyst, I think, belong in positions 2 and 3 but could be
either. Being new projects is great. For Housing Catalyst, the most at-risk in our
community being housed is an asset. Habitat wasn’t ranked higher because I did rank it
separately based on funding sources.
o Jeff: And it’s a good use of CHDO (Community Housing Development
Organization) funds, and it’s great Habitat has positioned themselves to be
eligible.
• Sue: One thing I would point out is the scale difference between Housing Catalyst and
Habitat. 60 units vs. one.
o Diane: But there is also a difference in request amount.
CARE & Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N)
• Curt: I ranked CARE high because of their ADA compliance, but I struggled with CARE
and N2N the most.
• Sue: They are both rehabs. CARE funds are to get them to total ADA compliance and
N2N is eight units. Do we know how many CARE units are involved?
o Jen: 202 exterior and 11 interior. I ranked it higher than N2N because of the
higher number of units being affected.
• Diane: I think it’s important to get it addressed. The only reason CARE fell lower is
because others just filtered up higher. It felt like people weren’t going to be impacted as
much from exterior upgrades as they would be from more interior changes.
• Jeff: I worry if CARE has the capacity to do this project. They have had leadership
problems in the past, and this issue came up five years ago. They haven’t really taken a
lot of initiative to take care of the problem. N2N, by contrast, has listened to critiques in
the past.
• Diane: There’s nothing in the CARE housing project that falls outside of the funding
qualifications?
o Beth: Correct. It only aligns with CDBG funds, not eligible for HOME because of
underwriting requirements. We have used CDBG funds for parking lots in the
past, so it’s absolutely eligible.
• Curt: They are asking for roughly the same amount of money, and it’s not as much as
other applicants are requesting. If they get this money, is this a game-changer for CARE
or N2N?
o Beth: CARE is interesting because it’s not what you’ve typically seen. Using
federal money to get into compliance is looking back in time, getting to where
they should have been years ago, not necessarily moving them forward.
4 | Page
o Curt: Once these units are ADA compliant, CARE wouldn’t come back for this
funding again. This is a one-time fix.
• Sue: Overall, it think CARE has about twice as many units at N2N.
• Beth: The CARE housing project meets issues in Affordable Housing Strategic Plan, and
other issues related to Fair Housing and analysis to impediments. Not enough accessible
units for those who need them. If they bring these to fully accessible standards, they can
create space for people who need them.
o Diane: You’re talking about the interior fixes?
o Beth: Yes, the 11 units.
o Sue: But the external issues are compliance issues as well.
Wrap-Up
• Sue: How do we feel about these rankings now? Are they any changes we could make?
DMA at 1, Housing Catalyst at 2, Habitat at 3, CARE at 4, N2N at 5. We would give
these rankings to CDBG with the information about CHDO funds for Habitat and that
CARE is higher than N2N because of the importance of compliance.
• Jen: I think all of these deserve to be funded to some level. It’s hard knowing some of
these don’t have other resources.
• Catherine: The challenge is if you vote for the big ones, they will likely receive all of the
available money and these smaller projects don’t get any.
•
•
AGENDA ITEM 2: Board Business
A. Council Comments—not discussed
B. Review 2017 Work Plan—not discussed
C. Open Board Discussion—not discussed
D. Liaison Reports—not discussed
AGENDA ITEM 3: Fee Work Group & City Plan Housing Group Discussion—Diane
City Plan “Housing & Economy” work group has met once. The main goal was introductory. Talked
through where we are in the big process, largely still visioning. Decided it would be better to meet
after first round of public input in order to look at that information as a group. Provided input into the
importance of structure for getting the necessary data. Will be reading Trends and Forces report.
• Sue: I did hear they were going to use the group to vet things before going public.
o Jeff: Consultants or staff?
Jen motioned to submit rankings along with comments to the CDBG Commission as
decided. Catherine seconded. Motion passed 4-0-1. Curt abstained.
5 | Page
o Sue: This is staff-led, although there are consultants helping as well.
o Diane: I wish I could tell you better who was in the room.
o Sue: There are developers, the Chamber, and a few others. We could get a list of
people if anyone is interested.
• Sue: They’re trying to be engaging on a lot of different levels with a lot of outreach. The
work groups are stakeholder groups to help the staff and consultants. At the kickoff meeting
there were 500 people; we think the community is really ready to help with this process. This
work group will also help inform my internal task force, working to move the needle on
affordable housing. What’s nice about having it be housing and economy is that it’s making
that connection. We are seeing housing escalate so quickly and income is virtually
unchanged. The HUD number for a family of 4 for 2017 was $76,800, in 2011 it was
$76,000. It’s only gone up $800 during that six-year period.
o Diane: And housing prices have gone up quickly.
o Sue: 10% every year. We can’t just look at housing, so I’m glad they paired this with
economy.
• Jeff: When the first City Plan came out, from a development perspective, it changed a lot of
the Land Use Code. Will this City Plan be getting after that piece?
o Diane: I think you might be a bit ahead of the process.
o Sue: When you look at City Plan, that’s a lot in there that wasn’t implemented, and
that may include code changes. The first step is to look at what we got right and
wrong, and what we got right but haven’t implemented.
o Jeff: I remember the first version in 1996 was revolutionary. I thought it was a really
big deal. Will this one be as well?
o Sue: The original plan for this update was to do a much bigger overhaul. Now we are
more focused on a rework/upgrade due to budgetary restrictions.
• Sue: The Trends and Forces report shows that nowhere in Northern Colorado is there enough
affordable housing inventory.
o Catherine: But other places have the land they need, and we don’t.
o Sue: That’s right. Loveland, Windsor and Greeley have more available land. I think
density is going to be a huge question in City Plan, as well as housing types and how
to maximize existing inventory.
• Sue: There are currently a lot of ideas and we’ll have to wait and see which ones rise to the
top.
o Jeff: What about historic preservation?
o Sue: Did you see the Spradley Barr historic preservation appeal?
o Jeff: I missed it.
o Sue: The preservation review did find it historically significant in some ways. The
way it was oriented on the lot, the glass façade, and some other features. But that was
overturned by Council and will not impact the redevelopment plan for that area.
o Jeff: There is tremendous tension between affordability/density and historic
preservation.
• Sue: This is the year for ideas and discussion. I do worry about public fatigue with meetings.
o Diane: Me too. We can’t vision forever. We have already received pretty significant
input, and it starts to feel repetitive.
o Jeff: If there’s going to be fatigue, is there anything our board can cherry pick?
6 | Page
o Diane: I think we should take a chunk of a future meeting to talk about this. Through
all this, what are we prioritizing as a board? What is our voice pushing for through
this process?
o Jeff: Density.
o Diane: I think a look at what constitutes historic preservation would be an interesting
part of this process.
o Sue: We have City Plan planners coming to our May meeting, so that may provide
helpful grounding to have this conversation in June.
o Diane: Let’s talk with them about the things we are seeing and provide direct input. I
would prefer a conversation over a presentation.
o Sue: I don’t think we have anything else scheduled, so we can ask them to join for the
whole time. And then have a follow-up conversation in June.
• Sue: Community Issues Forum on May 2 is about two subjects: outdoor burning and
affordable housing. During affordable housing portion, planning to use the time to ask,
“What do we mean by this?” and “When we say affordable housing is the biggest problem in
our community, what does this mean to you?”
AGENDA ITEM 4: Future AHB Meetings Agenda
May – City Plan planners
June – follow up conversation about AHB position/priorities during City Plan process
AGENDA ITEM 5: City Council Six-Month Planning Calendar—not discussed
Meeting Adjourned: 6:03
Next Meeting: May 3