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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 07/07/2020 AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING July 7, 2020, 1:00-3:00pm Remote/Online via Zoom due to COVID-19 7 /7 /2020 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER: 1:02 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present: Jen Bray, Catherine Costlow, Diane Cohn, Bob Pawlikowski, Tatiana Zentner, Kristin Fritz • Board Members Absent: None • Staff Members Present: Lindsay Ex, Victoria Shaw, JC Ward, Ryan Mounce, Yaz Haldeman, Noelle Currell, Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Brittany Depew • Guests: Marilyn Heller, Mark Bishop 3. AGENDA REVIEW 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION - NONE 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Diane moved to approve May minutes. Bob seconded. Approved unanimously 6-0-0. 6. NEW BUSINESS A. Introduce Lindsay Ex, Interim Housing Manager City was in process of hiring a Housing Manager, and Lindsay was appointed when the hiring freeze (due to COVID-19) took effect. Lindsay introduced herself, shared information about her background and experience working for the City for the past 10 years. Former board member for CARE Housing. B. Update on Manufactured Housing Community Livability and Preservation work—Ryan Mounce and JC Ward, Planning and Neighborhood Services Departments Manufactured homes represent a significant portion of Fort Collins’ affordable housing stock. Council initiated a moratorium on development in manufactured housing communities (MHC) to implement mitigation and preservation strategies. In 2019-2020, the team worked on MHC Resident’s Rights Handbook, neighborhood liaisons, neighborhood mini grants, website, and local complaint system. JC reviewed state and municipal legislation relevant to MHC, as well as ways MHC are empowered to organize, build leadership, access resources. Ryan presented on Manufactured Housing (M-H) Zone District, which is meant as preservation measure. Would encourage manufactured housing as primary goal of the zone. Challenging to balance priorities from various perspectives (Council, community, landowners, etc.) • Option A: more limited set of uses, greater preservation potential DocuSign Envelope ID: B0D478E7-7F7C-4C53-96A7-3951D9DFA245 AHB Chair AHB Staff Liaison AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7 /7 /2020 – MINUTES Page 2 • Option B: slightly broader set of uses, greater landowner flexibility. New definitions will update terminology (“manufactured home” preferred over “mobile home,”) define minimum size for community (5 or more), clarify accessory uses Comments/Q&A: • Diane: Current communities can opt-out of the zoning. Is that right? o Ryan: Once the zone district is approved, some of the re-zonings may be involuntary, though some may be able to opt-in. • Diane: For the minimum community size of 5, how does that affect some of the uses? o Ryan: The minimum size is to align with state requirements, and it wouldn’t really impact other uses. It’s just for those wanting to become or remain a MHC. • Kristin: Why is multi-family not an allowable use? o Ryan: This goes back to being preservation focused. Staff’s feeling is that additional uses could compromise that focus. • Kristin: Because affordable is not a land use, is there a way to allow multi-family if they’re affordable? o Ryan: There may be an option there. This came up with Council, and they seemed most concerned about preservation, but there may be some type of compromise option. • Sue: Board members, JC and Ryan are asking if you’d like to make a recommendation about the zone district that is being brought to Council on July 21. It will be harder to transition to multi-family, which can be an important affordable housing strategy. o Diane: I do worry about affordability if we’re replacing with something that’s a single- family home for $400K, that’s not a good substitute for someone in a manufactured home that’s significantly less. We have to think about affordability along with preservation. o Sue: I think there’s some concern about speaking to affordability directly, which could disallow communities from having rent control. o Jen: I would lean toward Option A, unless added parameters and uses speak directly to affordability. o Catherine: I’m not in favor of either option, looking at it as private property and the landowner can do with it what they want. We don’t know their long-term plans for their property and could be unknowingly restricting their future plans. o Bob: I support at least moving forward with what staff is proposing here, with maybe some added words about incentives for adopting the new zone district. • Jen: How restricted are mobile home zonings now? And would this change be forced or incentivized? o Ryan: We have about 10 MHC in the City right now. The new zone district is generally much more restrictive in its uses, with almost no commercial land uses. • Diane: How does the rezoning directly impact preservation? o Ryan: Essentially the reduction and restriction of uses. Fort Collins has lost 5 MHC due to redevelopment, some residential and some commercial, and the new zone district would ideally restrict that. o Diane: How do we incentivize property owners to accept this new zone? Are we offering any services like infrastructure improvements? o Ryan: There has been discussion about incentivizing. DocuSign Envelope ID: B0D478E7-7F7C-4C53-96A7-3951D9DFA245 AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7 /7 /2020 – MINUTES Page 3 • Sue: What are you hearing from property owners? o Ryan: Not all the property owners are local. Some are private, some are part of corporations, and we haven’t spoken directly with everyone. There is recognition what the City is trying to do but they also recognize the restrictions it places on them. • Jen: It sounds like there is support for this, though we recognize property owners’ rights and have concerns about affordability not being directly addressed. Diane moved to recommend manufactured housing preservation through a new zone district. Tatiana seconded. Motion passed 5-1 Diane moved to support the staff’s recommendation on livability issues. Bob seconded. Motion passed 6-0 C. Process Improvement for Affordable Housing Fee Waivers—Victoria Shaw, Sustainability Services Area Fee waivers are the only development incentive at the 30% AMI level, so they are critically important for affordable housing. Victoria spoke about current fee waiver process (% of project) and specific benefits to making change to flat fee waiver amount. Proposed new structure: Grant a lump sum amount per unit, deposit that amount into trust account held with the City which the developer may draw from. Amount per unit would be updated every 4 years and would require code updates to implement. Recommend flat fee amount of $13,500 per new development unit and $5,500 per re- development unit. Comments/Q&A: • Diane: What happens when the fees rise? o Victoria: We revisit the amount with the same cadence as other fees. o Diane: Is that language built into this change? o Victoria: We haven’t begun writing the code change, but that language will be in there. • Kristin: This is a great process improvement. Is there a different process for applying for fee waivers? o Victoria: Approval at Council would still happen on an individual development basis, but the amount will be predictable ahead of time. o Kristin: Will the backfill be budgeted? o Victoria: Council could direct the funds come from the same places they have in the past (general fund, affordable housing capital fund, etc.). It would be a case- by-case basis. Kristin moved to support process improvements and the board would also welcome specific budget allocation as the next step in the process. Diane seconded. Motion passed 6-0. DocuSign Envelope ID: B0D478E7-7F7C-4C53-96A7-3951D9DFA245 AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7 /7 /2020 – MINUTES Page 4 D. Board Discussion on Housing Strategic Plan The Interim Housing Manager role is envisioned to bring many pieces together. Want to create clear goals, targets, roles, terms and internal structures, and update housing plan. Will work on vision with community related to the entire housing spectrum, creation of Council Ad Hoc Committee, alignment with community goals. Ad Hoc Committee: deep dive, bring in experts, create action plan, proposed start in August. Comments/Q&A: • Diane: Thinking about the impact of COVID economically on our community with potential evictions and loss of income, and I’m wondering if that will be realistically incorporated into what we’re looking at. o Lindsay: Yes and there’s a lot of uncertainty. We’ve been talking about how to design a plan that is nimble. • Kristin: Happy to see the plan now inclusive of all housing, not just affordable. o Tatiana: I’ll echo that, I agree. o Diane: My concern related to that would be watering down our focus on affordable housing. I want to make sure that those at the very lowest end of the economic spectrum can still live here. o Tatiana: With COVID, there have been more people with higher AMI than lower AMI out of jobs overall, and they’re not able to go back to work as easily. That’s another piece in the importance of looking at all housing types. • Sue: This is definitely the beginning of this conversation. I sent out notice of the upcoming affordable housing workshops (July 8 and 9). 7. BUSINESS a) City Council Six-Month Planning Calendar—not discussed b) Council Comments—not discussed c) Review 2020 Work Plan—not discussed d) Open Board Discussion—none e) Update on Affordable Housing Projects • Certified 140 Oak St as an affordable housing project, formerly known as Spark and being developed by Housing Catalyst f) Future AHB Meetings Agenda—not discussed 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS a) Liaison Reports—not discussed b) Board Meeting Logistics • Permission from City Clerk’s office to continue meeting regularly, either hybrid or in-person 10. ADJOURNMENT: 2:52 DocuSign Envelope ID: B0D478E7-7F7C-4C53-96A7-3951D9DFA245