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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 03/07/2019AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING March 7, 2019, 3:30-6:00pm Colorado River Room, 222 Laporte Avenue 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER: 3:37 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present: Jen Bray, Curt Lyons, Kristin Fritz, Diane Cohn, Rachel Auldridge, Jeffrey Johnson • Board Members Absent: Catherine Costlow • Staff Members Present: Ingrid Decker, Ryan Mounce, Victoria Shaw, Josh Birks, Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Brittany Depew • Guests: Tanner Gillis, Ashton Mabry, Kristen Long, Jordan Rigg, Sam Martin, Adam Eggleston, Dale Adamy, Daniel Mckelvy, Mary Swing, Liscenia Jimenez, Victoria Clarke, Miguel Ojeda 3. AGENDA REVIEW Will move Affordable Housing Board code update from second to first presentation 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION • Adam Eggelston—candidate for district 2, Board of Realtors 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Curt moved to approve February 2019 minutes as amended. Kristin seconded. Approved 4-0-0. 6. PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS A. Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Social Sustainability—Affordable Housing Board Code update Affordable Housing Board is a product of municipal code, and it hasn’t changed much since the original code was created. CDBG Commission had some substantive updates to do, so it was decided to look at AHB code as well. Diane thought this might be a good opportunity to look at membership section; make change prioritizing that at least one member has current or prior experience living in affordable housing. Ingrid shared language from the proposed updated municipal code. Comments/Q&A: • Ingrid: I looked at other boards and commissions’ membership requirements. Most do not have specific membership requirements, but some do. The updated version AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 2 includes language that encourages the prioritization of a member who lives or has lived in affordable housing. o Jen: I think that’s reasonable. o Kristin: I think the update is a better reflection of reality; if we required one member to have personal experience in affordable housing, it might be hard to fill the board. o Jen: It’s good to encourage people who want to get involved, even without that experience or background. I would vote in favor of softening the language and adding encouragement to include a member with history in affordable housing. o Sue: Diane suggested these changes, originally, and her language was a little stronger. She was suggesting changing to require a member who does or has lived in affordable housing, and we’ve adjusted that to a strong encouragement rather than requirement. • Sue: The CDBG Commission will be getting a new name, Social Investment Commission, so that change was also made in the code. • Diane: When they are looking at replacement candidates, my goal is—if we don’t already have a consumer of affordable housing on that board—to prioritize that. o Ingrid: I see this as not so much a legal requirement, but an opportunity to be proactive about who is on the board. o Diane: We had the survey about diversity on boards, and that’s an important conversation about inclusion that needs to be had. • Curt: Is there any way to get someone from the board in the room with Council as they’re selecting new board members? o Sue: Is there a specific reason you would want that? o Curt: We’ve had poor participation from liaisons, and I think a board member being present would have a better grasp on what skills and background would be most beneficial on the board. o Jen: I have some concerns with board members being too involved with the member selection process. o Sue: But I do agree we could make some process improvements in how board vacancies are advertised. o Ingrid: You could make it part of your work plan to focus on promotion when it’s time to select new members. • Rachel: Is it clear that we’re not looking for all board members to have these characteristics? We would like at least one member to be a consumer of affordable housing, not all members. o Ingrid: I could add another bullet to make that point more clear. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 3 Diane moved to approve the changes in the code be brought to City Council. Curt seconded. Passed 6-0-0. B. Ryan Mounce, Planning, Development & Transportation—City Plan, Status Report and Next Steps Council is getting ready to consider adoption of City Plan, tentatively scheduled for April 16. One of the big changes is combining the Transportation Master Plan with City Plan. The last time City Plan was updated, the City didn’t have a strategic plan, so that’s a change in this update. The Strategic Plan looks at short- and mid-term goals and City Plan will be long-term goals. Heard through outreach that people like the general direction of the plan. The main changes are being made to 5 focus areas: • Growth Management Area (GMA) buildout: o renewed focus on areas for infill and redevelopment, look at changes to development standards near transit investments, growth shifting to N/NE • Employment lands: o excess employment zoning, shift towards residential or mixed-use focus in NE o look at E. Mulberry corridor, additional small user industrial space • Housing choices: o explore different housing options and choices in the community • Expanded transportation options: o transit expansion, mobility as a service, layered networks (defines a prioritized mode for each street) o high frequency focus: currently 23% of residents have access to high-frequency, 58% have access to all transit—this would double • Climate action: o first time climate action and City Plan have aligned at this level There is a bit of a change to the structure of the plan. Place-type approach—gives more flexibility to how an area might change over time. There are a couple priority place types, one of those is called a “Mixed Neighborhood,” which is where we’re talking about increasing housing choices. Would need to update the Land Use Code to require or incentivize diverse housing types at new developments. Comments/Q&A: • Kristin: Will it be the full document brought to Council, or just parts? o Ryan: They’ve only seen pieces so far, but they’d like more time to view the final document, which is partly why it was pushed back to April. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 4 • Kristin: Are any of the transportation pieces a shift from what we’ve heard from you previously? o Ryan: Overall it’s the same direction, but it’s more specific about where we’d like to see bus rapid transit (BRT), etc. • Diane: Do the place types connect with zoning changes? o Ryan: This would be used to help inform that process. • Curt: Would City Plan have any tangible changes to RL zone? In the drafts I’ve seen, there’s language like “incentivize” and “encourage,” but you could cynically say that doesn’t mean change. o Ryan: You’re right. If City Plan is adopted as is, it doesn’t mean any immediate changes. We would still need to make code changes. • Diane: How about HOAs in terms of overriding some of the strategic plans? Yesterday at conversations with the new City Council candidates, HOAs overriding occupancy ordinances came up. o Ryan: In a lot of communities where they have changes to things like ADU requirements, there is language that says HOAs may override these. But that language doesn’t have to go in there. • Kristin: Are there height recommendations in mixed neighborhoods? o Ryan: There are, in the more detailed section on mixed-use districts. o Kristin: Do you think there’s opportunity for those suburban districts to be more mixed? I think this is the place to push the envelope. • Curt: I would like to know what the process would look like for up-zoning. o Kristin: The first thing is it would have to be allowed in policy in the City Plan, and then changed in the Land Use Code. That’s why City Plan needs to be the most generous in language and density allowance. o Curt: I was hearing it’s only for new development and existing neighborhoods are off the table. o Ryan: It does get away from the one-for-one zoning, these are general suggestions for neighborhood types. o Diane: Kristin’s point about this needing to be as broad as possible is key. • Kristin: If we focus on the implementation section, there’s opportunity for our board to suggest strengthening language. It is very neutral on some things. o Sue: You could really target where you think those changes would be helpful. We might want to create two documents: One to Ryan and one to Council. If there was a motion to propose strengthened language, somebody could actually go in and do the work. We won’t have a good opportunity to come together again. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 5 • Kristin: I would be happy to mark up a PDF, but I could use support turning those mark-ups into a cohesive memo. o Jen: If you mark it up, I can do the memo. o Diane: Can we all have feedback into the final memo? o Sue: We can circulate and decide before the final version is sent to Ryan. o Ryan: Our Council packets would be due the first week of April. Diane moved to delegate the mark up of the City Plan PDF to Kristin. Rachel seconded. Passed unanimously 6-0-0. C. Victoria, Sustainability Service Area—Triple Bottom Line Scan (TBL-S) Kickoff event for joint board meeting will be April 11. The scan is an internal tool, a standard way of looking at the triple bottom line. It has 10 questions in each of our areas in sustainability, meant to identify potential impacts and the scale of those impacts. Impacts are either positive, neutral or negative. Trying to determine if the scale of impact is direct or indirect. The scan helps flag concerns early in the process and helps to promote transparency and address tensions. Scans are completed by staff and generate summary visual and one-page document. Comments/Q&A: • Sue: This was just an introduction to the tool, and we’re hoping to get a good turnout at the kickoff event on April 11. • Jen: We could use this in the future of bigger items to provide strength to our recommendations. • Diane: The lists being numbered 1-10 makes me think they are in priority order. o Victoria: They aren’t at all, but we’ll take that feedback moving forward. D. Josh Birks, Economic Health—Metro Districts 101 and Q&A Metro Districts are special districts authorized by Colorado statutes. Unique in that they may perform multiple functions, rather than just one. Often used by greenfield developers to fund critical, lacking infrastructure like potable water systems, enhanced facilities or amenities, and they can provide ongoing operations and maintenance. Starting to see preference for metro districts over HOAs because they are governmental entities subject to transparency and notice that HOAS are not. Before August 2018, we did not allow residential metro districts in Fort Collins—in August, City adopted to allow residential metro districts if stretch goals are achieved: environmental sustainability, critical public infrastructure, smart growth management, and strategic priorities. It’s still unclear on the application of this—is going far on one stretch goal enough? Or does it have to achieve goals in all four areas? We’ve seen a lot of proposed projects with significant energy efficient upgrades, and we’re trying to AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 6 decide how much benefit is enough. The first 4 metro districts coming through will provide over 650 affordable units. We have a two-step process for considering these: 1) Letter of intent and 2) service plan. Metro districts website is live: https://www.fcgov.com/business/metro-districts. Comments/Q&A: • Kristin: Is there a pattern of affordable housing or lack of affordable housing in metro districts? o Josh: I don’t have specifics on that, but I would say many of these communities have affordable housing programs. • Kristin: We’ve talked about one of the big costs to Housing Catalyst is providing on- site amenities; building in a community like Montava, that burden is removed from us. o Josh: An example of this is the Stapleton neighborhood in Denver. They built a number of pools and parks with metro district funding. o Kristin: And there’s a premium for the high number of amenities. • Jen: What do you mean when you say “time”? How long are we talking? o Josh: Montava is slated to take 20 years, but it’s also a 4,000 unit project. • Kristin: The number of units that would need to be deed-restricted is a huge burden on the City. o Sue: We are very cognizant that we don’t have the capacity for this, so it’s not possible without a change in process. o Josh: Operations and maintenance costs are rolled into metro district fees, and we could require they use these fees to also cover the cost of certifying buyers for affordable units. • Josh: The City does have some questions to answer about its role in metro districts, largely: What role does the City want to have around compliance? • Jen: What can the board’s position be in providing feedback to metro district proposals? o Josh: I can make it part of the process to bring service plans to this board for review. o Kristin: I don’t know about this board weighing in on specific proposals, but more on the broader metro district policies. o Jen: I would agree we don’t need to get too deep into the details. 7. BUSINESS AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 3/7/2019 – MINUTES Page 7 a) Council Comments—not discussed b) Review 2018 Work Plan—not discussed c) Open Board Discussion—not discussed d) Liaison Reports—not discussed 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS • Placeholder—City Plan Housing group discussion – Diane (no current update) 9. OTHER BUSINESS a) Update on Affordable Housing Projects—not discussed b) Future AHB Meetings Agenda— • Sue: The board has ranking to do next month, only 3 housing applicants. We discussed doing that for the second part of the meeting so we could have everyone for the first half of the meeting to discuss Occupancy Ordinance. Water conservation also wants to come, but that’s currently scheduled for May. Do we want to host City Plan again in April? o Diane: Circling back to City Plan is the most pressing thing. o Jen: Allow 20 minutes for that? o Sue: We won’t have Ryan here, but we’ll just our own conversation on City Plan. c) City Council Six-Month Planning Calendar—not discussed 10. ADJOURNMENT: 6:10