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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 03/05/2009CITY OF FORT COLLINS AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD MEETING MINUTES 281 N. College Ave. Fort Collins, Colorado March 5, 2009 Denise Rogers, Chair Ken Waido, Staff Liaison, 970-221-6753 City Council Liaison: Lisa Poppaw Board Members Present: Denise Rogers, Ben Blonder, Dan Byers, Pete Tippett, George Bryan, Marie Edwards, and Ashley Monahan. Board Members Absent: None. Advance Planning Department Staff Present: Ken Waido Council Members Present: None. Board Vice -Chair Ben Blonder called meeting to order at 4:05 PM. Open Public Discussion (Maximum of 10 minutes). Eric Sutherland addressed the Board concerning potential funding available to the City through HB 08-1350 for energy improvements to affordable housing and requested that the Board formulate a recommendation to the City Council. See attachment to these minutes for details. The Board requested an item be placed on their April meeting agenda for further discussion. New Business. Approval of Minutes: February 5, 2009 meeting. Dan Byers moved to approve minutes from February 51h meeting and was seconded by Ben Blonder. Vote was 5 — 0 in favor of the motion. Pathways Past.Poverty Nicolle Gregg, Community Investment Associate & Pathways Past Poverty Coordinator, from United Way of Larimer County (UWLC), addressed the Board regarding the Pathways Past Poverty (PPP) project. Mike Salza from the Fort Collins Housing Authority also attended to meeting to assist Nicolle. Data from the 2007 American Community Survey indicated an increase in the poverty levels of Larimer County and that the growth rate of the county was outpacing the state and national increases. UWLC decided to take a leadership role in addressing poverty. Other organizations, such as the Northern Colorado Economic Development Council joined the effort recognizing that poverty elimination is an economic development issue. Over 150 volunteers worked between 6 — 8 months in 8 different areas to develop approaches to solve poverty issues in the county. These groups discussed barriers, roadblocks, and best practices to poverty elimination/prevention and each came up with -3 community goals, which were in turn reviewed at broad based public meetings. The goals look at systemic changes and community based solutions. UWLC is seeking collaboration with existing efforts, such as the Board, and the Affordable Housing Coalition of Larimer County (AHLC). The AHCLC set a goal to focus work in 2009 on the PPP effort. Affordable housing is a key consideration along with transportation and health care in moving people towards self-sufficiency. UWLC will be re -shifting its funding into 2 basic pools: 1) solid foundational fimding, and 2) funding PPP priorities. See attachments for detailed information on the PPP project. Update on the Affordable Housing Needs and Strategies Re o�rt Staff indicated at the last meeting, the City can no longer wait for State funding and is starting on its own to do the project in order to fit into the BFO process and the need to update the Consolidate Plan. However, staff was contacted by the State and the possibility of funding from another State source is being investigated. Update on the Mountain Vista Subarea Plan Pete Wray, Senior Planner from the Advance Planning Department presented an overview of the Mountain Vista Subarea Plan update. The original Plan was adopted in 1999, and staff has been working on potential refinements to the land use, streets, drainage ways, parks, open lands and trails since March 2008. Draft Framework Plan Options have been developed, which include land uses that accommodate a mix of housing types that have been coordinated with fixture transit and commercial elements. (See attachments). The Board expressed support of the Medium Density Mixed Use Neighborhood land use designations as these areas are the most likely areas to see the development of affordable housing. Completion of the Plan is anticipated in early June 2009. State Housing Board's Competitive Process Application Cycle Policy Staff briefly discussed the new State Housing Board's Competitive Process Application Cycle Policy. The State, which previously had an open application process, is becoming more strategic by only accepting applications for certain types of housing projects a limited amount of time during the year and having the proposals more involved in a competitive process for limited funding. Update on the Affordable Housing Agreement Staff is in the process of completing the Agreement which will be used to bind developers at the time of plan submission to fulfill their affordable housing commitment. Staff is setting up a meeting with local developers to discuss an appropriate financial "penalty" for breaking the agreement. Staff will bring those results to the Affordable Housing Board for further discussion. Finally, the Agreement will be drafted by the City Attorney, reviewed by staff, and brought back to the Board for final recommendation to the City Council, since any penalties would likely need to be adopted by ordinance. Undate on the Relocation Plan The Relocation Plan that was previously described to the Board has been put on hold for the next 6 months due to the loss of staff resources and increases in staff workloads. Update on the Three -Unrelated Occupancy Regulations Based on information from Felix lee, Chief Building Official, the Council will be conducting a Work Session on October 27th on the overall Occupancy Limit and 2-year assessment. This may involve revising the Land Use Code regarding clarification on intended number of occupants, definitions of "family", and occupy. An item will be placed on the Board's September meeting agenda for an update, and, if needed, a follow- up at the October meeting. Staff will be conducting extensive public outreach with all stakeholders in the meantime. Distribution of Competitive Process Affordable Housing Proposals Staff distributed copies of the five affordable housing applications received by the City requesting funding during the spring cycle of the competitive process. Staff also distributed supporting materials, e.g. staff project summaries and comments, point chart scoring sheets, etc. The Board set March 26 at 4:30 PM as a special meeting date to prepare their listing of priority projects to be presented to the CDBG Commission and the City Council. Old Business. Liaison Reports. There were no liaison reports. Other Business. None. Open Board Discussion. None. Other Business None. Meeting adjourned at 6:10 PM