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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 01/03/2019AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING January 3, 2019, 4:00-6:00pm Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Avenue 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER: 4:05 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present: Curt Lyons, Jen Bray, Catherine Costlow, Jeffrey Johnson, Kristin Fritz, Diane Cohn, Jeff Johnson • Board Members Absent: Rachel Auldridge, • Staff Members Present: Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Ginny Sawyer, Brittany Depew • Guests: Ron Lautzenneiser, Luke McFetridge, Emily Gorgol 3. AGENDA REVIEW • No changes 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION • Ron—Wants to discuss ways the citizen advisory group can work with AHB. North College Business Association—60 small businesses. Mobile home parks particular interest. • Luke—From Northern Colorado, more involved in North Fort Collins recently. Sees opportunity and potential. • Sue will work with them to get schedule for larger discussion/presentation. 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES • Curt moved to approve December 1 minutes. Kristin seconded. Approved 5-0-0. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS • None 7. NEW BUSINESS A. Ginny Sawyer, City Manager’s Office, Keep Fort Collins Great tax renewal • Current tax rate structure: Base rate 2.25% not changed in 36 years, 0.85% KFCG will sunset in 2020. Three chances to put this to voters: April 2019, November 2019, November 2020. Taxes do not include operation and maintenance, that comes out of base rate. • This fund has allowed City and Council to be responsive to emerging trends and needs in the community. Spending reports show increase in funds going toward affordable AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 2 housing, homelessness, emerald ash borer, etc. • Direction from Council: no additional tax to groceries, don’t go more than 0.85% since that’s where KFCG is now • New options after last night’s council meeting: o 0.85% added to base rate (one-time vote, not renewable, permanent) or o Base & Dedicated: increase base rate by 0.60% (.60 covers police, streets, fire and parks and rec), leaves 0.25% dedicated tax to be voted on separately • Timeline: January 10 open house, January 22 work session, February 5 last day to refer ballot language, April 2 election Comments/Q&A: • Sue: We would decide fresh how to spend this money? o Ginny: Yes, that would be done through the budgeting process. • Diane: What are you hoping to get from us today? o Ginny: To make sure everyone is informed, and because it’s a TABER issue, that ballot issue might say “by raising taxes” even though that’s not really the case. As a board, I’ll answer questions. If you want to make a recommendation to Council, that’s up to you. • Jen: Does Option B require two ballot questions? o Ginny: Our attorneys believe they could do it as one, but I feel like they should be separate to honor the difference. o Catherine: And the dedicated tax doesn’t have specificity? o Ginny: It does. o Catherine: Just those two broad categories? o Ginny: I don’t think Council has even settled on those being the two. • Diane: When I hear “core services,” that language makes me nervous, because affordable housing is a core service and I worry it wouldn’t be included. The language should be written carefully. o Ginny: If you look at what is being funded under “other community priorities” right now, it is economic health and social health projects. • Kristin: I think for us to be good advocates, we have to understand the impacts of this tax on affordable housing. o Sue: I believe it was $200k/year put into the affordable housing fund from KFCG o Kristin: So, without this, we would have less competitive funds to leverage for affordable units. I just want to be sure we’re all clear on the impact and the importance of local money in affordable housing development. • Ginny: All of the KFCG requests went through the normal BFO process. • Kristin: Was it ever on the table to discuss increasing it? AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 3 o Ginny: We would all like to decrease taxes, but then something would have to go away. We’ve heard this same question from other boards; I don’t think Council wants to ask that of voters at this point. o Kristin: I think .85 is great either way, and the choice between the two options seems nuanced. • Jen: Is there a way to monetize what this is for the average consumer? o Ginny: It’s 85 cents on every $100 purchase. o Jen: But that doesn’t include online purchases, groceries or gas, right? o Ginny: If we added groceries, we could knock it down to .75%. It’s a good point, I’ll go back and ask that of the committee; that would be interesting information. • Sue: Has Council made a definitive decision to put it on the ballot? o Ginny: Those who want to delay are in the minority. It seems highly likely to go on in April. We have to pay more to put on a County ballot in November, this would save some funds. • Sue: As a board, the statement to Council could be general support to put on ballot in April, not a specific choice between A and B. o Ginny: I’ve been taking this to Council for over 18 months. It would be really helpful for them to understand A or B. If there could be guidance, even from my gut perspective, I do think that would be helpful. o Diane: Even with option B, it’s ongoing? o Ginny: That dedicated .25% would be on a time frame, probably 10 years. o Kristin: That’s why I might favor option A. • Sue: If they separated it option B into two ballot measures, would there be a conflict if one passed and the other didn’t? o Ginny: It wouldn’t be a conflict, and we would likely have to go back and ask again in November. The .25% brings in about $8 million/year. B. Emily Gorgol, The Family Center: Preservation and Protection of Mobile Home Communities La Familia is working on a new project “Mi Voz” (My Voice) through the CDPHE grant program. Preservation and protection of mobile home communities within development areas. Approaching through: • Community advocacy and organizing – to identify issues w/ in mobile home communities. • Mental health support system/resiliency training • Policy. Mobile home communities one of the last remaining affordable housing options (rents range from $450-$750 depending on ownership of the mobile home). Focusing on Poudre Valley, Hickory, and Park Lane communities because they’re owned AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 4 locally. Poudre Valley, for example, has 330 units and about 1600 people living there. The 2.3 per household estimate is very conservative. Don’t have same rights as renters. Exposed to things like retaliation, rent hikes, eviction without cause. One of the issues at Poudre Valley is water quality. The county would like residents to report water quality issues, but the manager could raise rents out of retaliation for these complaints. Not protected against eviction; can be kicked out, nowhere to move mobile home. Most are rented month-to-month, can technically increase rent every 60 days. Some examples of policy solutions: • Preservation actions: Based on right of first refusal policy (community asked if they want to buy before it goes out widely) – gives residents an option to purchase mobile home community if it’s going to be sold. Current state law requires residents given notice that the park has been sold; doesn’t require notice that it is for sale. • Preservation techniques also include annexation and zoning. Fort Collins used to have mobile home zoning and that’s been taking away, some felt it was too restrictive. Comments/Q&A: • Diane: Is there a reason many of these fall outside City limits? o Emily: Mobile home communities can be expensive to maintain. Being outside the City allows for less regulation and code compliance. People own the homes but not the land. No one is held accountable for some of the regulations. • Diane: Can parks create different standards for each community? o Emily: Yes, they could do that with the leases they sign. But when that’s violated, no one is going to complain. o Sue: And it can change with each owner. • Diane: If they’ve been noticed it’s sold, can they raise rents immediately? o Emily: I think they have to give 60 days’ notice and it depends on the lease. • Sue: The disposition strategy does suggest specific mobile home zones. Planning and Zoning was against that because so many zones do allow it, and it does restrict use of that property. o Kristin: It prevents redevelopment. o Sue: Redevelopment that we want and don’t want. • Jen: Are there any resident-owned communities on your list? o Emily: The closest resident-owned community is in Longmont and that just happened. • Ron: The citizen advisory group finally began to get our mind around what a big problem this is. o Emily: There are 859 units, and we estimate that is 3k-4k people. • Sue: Our city has declared mobile homes as an important type of housing, and not all places do that. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 5 o Jen: Do we include that in our affordable housing unit count? o Sue: We don’t because they aren’t income-restricted. • Jeff: Anything in Colorado that’s an imposed right of first refusal? o Emily: No, not that I know of. Boulder is the most progressive with their mobile home communities, but no one has done a required right of first refusal. o Jeff: Where has? o Emily: A lot of east coast communities. o Jeff: In my opinion, right of first refusal significantly reduces property values. o Diane: Give me an example o Jeff: Any commercial property. Right of first refusal requires that a buyer go in and negotiate their best price and their best terms, and put all the time and money into the negotiation, and they might not get the contract. A lot of people won’t even pursue it. • Sue: What would you recommend the City adopt? o Emily: I would really like to start with the notice of sale. With a reasonable amount of time. o Diane: Are you formally putting that forth? o Emily: Not yet. I’m mainly getting feedback. I think just talking about mobile homes and how many people they’re housing, and who, has brought attention to the issue. o Catherine: Are mobile home park sales not listed the way other properties are? o Jen: No, it’s done very differently. o Emily: It’s often in a private sales pitch, not really listed anywhere. • Kristin: Are there examples of people who have done successful on-site redevelopment? o Sue: In Boulder, Red Oaks took a mobile home park and converted it to stick- built. They were hoping it would be the same residents, but the length of the process didn’t really allow for that. o Kristin: There’s a lot of pride in owning, so moving into a five-story apartment building doesn’t maintain that culture. • Kristin: This is a great thing to bring to this board. These are huge numbers; more units and people than our dedicated affordable housing units. • Curt: Have you talked to any park owners? o Emily: It’s a tricky thing to approach someone about. I’ve spoken with the owner of Poudre Valley. I mainly build a relationship with the manager; they’re just as important in my mind as the owner. o Sue: They can really set the culture. o Emily: I know resident-owned communities have been brought up at Poudre Valley before. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 1/3/2019 – MINUTES Page 6 • Emily: Right now we are focused on teaching residents to take care of problems as they arise, what to do, who to call, what their rights are, etc. A lot of these residents are undocumented, so it’s sensitive. C. Affordable Housing Board Officers – Election of Board Officers • Diane called for a motion to support the slate: Jen as Chair, Catherine as Vice-chair • Jeff moved to support the slate, Curt seconded. Passed unanimously 6-0-0. D. 2018 Annual Report and 2019 Work Plan Annual Report • Diane suggested adding most recent memo to City Council about increasing options for housing density. Curt also noted one spelling error. • Jen moved to pass as amended, Catherine seconded. Passed unanimously 6-0-0 2019 Work Plan • Took 2018 work plan, removed education plan, added City Plan and Affordable Housing Strategic Plan. • Want to add sustainability-focused boards and commissions collaboration experiment under “Liaisons” • Kristin moved to approve 2019 work plan as amended, Jen seconded. Passed unanimously 6-0-0. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS • Pilot experiment working on integrating TBL-S tool (Jen) 9. OTHER BUSINESS • None 10. ADJOURNMENT: 6:14