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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAffordable Housing Board - Minutes - 07/11/2019AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING July 11, 2019, 4:00-6:00pm Civic Center Conference Room, 117 N Mason 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 1 1. CALL TO ORDER: 4:06 2. ROLL CALL • Board Members Present: Jen Bray, Catherine Costlow, Jeff Johnson, Kristin Fritz, Rachel Auldridge, Diane Cohn, Curt Lyons • Board Members Absent: None • Staff Members Present: Ginny Sawyer, Sue Beck-Ferkiss, Brittany Depew • Guests: Councilmember Emily Gorgol, Nick Francis, Sue McFadden, Mark Teplitsky, Tatiana Zentner, Bob Pawlikowski 3. AGENDA REVIEW A) No changes 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION A) Nick Francis—from PiCA, Partners in Climate Action, have policy recommendations concerning metro districts. Used previously only for commercial, now being used for residential. PICCA wants to set minimum standards around key priority areas, including energy efficiency and affordable housing components. Ask developers to have 20% of all units as affordable (5% for families at 60% Area Median Income [AMI] or under, 5% for workforce housing 80-120% AMI, and 10% homeownership option for attached or detached housing at 80% AMI). B) Sue McFadden—also with PiCA, wants to see metro districts with mixed-income housing, collaboration between developers, nonprofits and City. • Kristin: As developers, flexibility is always appreciated. I like the idea, but when the numbers are this specific, it can be an issue. Maybe focus more on averages. • Curt: I’m skeptical of the $2,000 price increase to meet the DOE Zero standards • Jen: What’s the timeline? O Emily: Council just asked that staff look at this and provide feedback to us. AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 2 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Jeff moved to approve June minutes. Diane seconded. Approved 6-0. 6. PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS A. U+2 Occupancy Rule, Board Discussion with Ginny Sawyer, Senior Project Manager, City Manager’s Office Went to Council in January, did not get concrete direction. Some ideas and interest to better utilize housing. Staff has been tasked with reaching out to areas where additional occupancy is possible. Interested in creating an inventory of these areas to map how many have extra occupancy permits, ratio of owner occupied and rental, and gather data on capacity and occupancy. Homeshare Program, administered through Neighbor to Neighbor, matches homeowners with tenants, idea to exempt people in this program from occupancy requirements. Questions/Q&A: • Diane: Any comment on the data in the report that 80% of people don’t feel like this ordinance has any impact on their neighborhood? o Ginny: There is very high awareness of the occupancy, and the majority of housing stock around campus is 3-bedroom. So who might be impacted if the occupancy changes? • Jen: Remind me, the data about violators was extrapolated? o Ginny: Yes. People were asked to think about the 4 homes nearest them. • Sue: The pattern showed that violations went down and, in 2015, went back up to the original amount. And the violator household demographic did change. o Jen: And it was about half-and-half renters and owner occupied. o Sue: Much of this data is on page 14 of the report. • Jen: Sue, you mentioned they are seeing more extra occupancy applications. Do you know if they’re also getting approved? o Sue: I don’t think there’s a reason they wouldn’t be. • Ginny: Through the short-term rental process, it’s amazing how many “illegal dwelling units” we’ve found (due to cooking equipment, including microwaves). I’m wondering how many houses have basements or other spaces available for rental if these requirements were different. • Jeff: On the extra occupancy permit, does being up to code include energy efficiency and windows and all that? o Ginny: I think it would go by what we have on our rental housing list, like screens, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. o Jeff: That’s not that onerous of a list, in my opinion. • Sue: What is everyone’s main goal in this conversation? What are we hoping to get out of it? AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 3 o Diane: I think it’s overly restrictive given our current population climate. o Kristin: I’m unclear, through an affordable housing lens, what this ordinance means for costs and affordability. o Emily: Is the rent the same per bedroom? I always think about how rent increases with additional people in the space. o Jen: As a landlord, I don’t base my rent amount on number of people, it’s based on how much I need to cover my mortgage and expenses. o Rachel: I’m the same. o Diane: But I do think it’s different for college students. • Curt: It seems like if it’s illegal, and you can get away with it, you can have a more affordable rental. If people could afford housing, they wouldn’t be trying to cram more people into a house. o Jen: If someone is a homeowner, trying to rent extra space in their house, it’s very easy to break the ordinance. o Curt: Two married couples can’t even live together. It just doesn’t make sense. o Sue: I do think “family” is defined pretty broadly. • Diane: Do you think anything will be happening soon with the ordinance? o Ginny: No. I’m sure I’ll be hearing from CSU soon, and they might do some data digging, but otherwise no. • Rachel: Has there been a marketing push in the neighborhoods that are eligible for extra occupancy permits? o Ginny: I’m not sure, I need to check with Neighborhood Services about that. o Jeff: The fear factor of having the City come through your house to do an inspection, and the pandora’s box that could open… I would never do it. 7. BUSINESS a) Council Comments—not discussed b) Review 2018 Work Plan—not discussed c) Open Board Discussion • Jeff: On the Metro District piece, I don’t know what to think about it. I can feel their frustration, and now I’m more confused and have questions about the process and timing. I would love to have Josh come back and speak to this at an appropriate time. o Kristin: I feel similarly. I thought there was a strong affordable housing component already in Metro Districts. And having this proposed by an outside group, I don’t know how that process works. o Sue: I don’t want to speak for Josh, but I know they’re hesitant to set standards too quickly. o Curt: It sounds like the City is waiting for developers to tell them what is AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 4 feasible before wanting to set more specific standards. o Sue: Once they make a promise, they are held accountable to that. This is what’s in the documents that have to be approved by Council. First is the service agreement, second is the development agreement. o Emily: My impression is it’s a plan that’s not adopted, but I could be wrong. o Sue: If we make a mutual agreement to change parts of the plan, they could of course change them. But I don’t think the City could change what was previously agreed on. d) Liaison Reports – conversation with Councilmember Gorgol • Emily: After Tuesday’s work session, I’m excited by the list of things we’re moving forward with. We talked a lot about mobile homes, preservation and protection of mobile home park residents. A new house bill passed that allows us to go into IGAs with the County, to better support housing parks in the GMA. o Sue: Council was very supportive and said yes to all of our ideas. Now we’re working on what resources it will require to move forward with all of these. o Emily: It was recommended that some previous BFO (budgeting for outcome) offers are brought back. And hopefully the new grant will bring some new ideas forward. • Curt: I’m involved with tiny houses and people often ask about tiny house RV parks. I am under the impression that mobile home parks would not pencil out today. o Emily: I think with the water and the land, it can be cost prohibitive. I think the City is open to new mobile home parks, but we’re really focusing on protecting the ones that already exist. • Diane: Do we have hard numbers for how many mobile homes we actually have? o Sue: In our mitigation strategies document, it shows there are 1,336 mobile homes in the City, 935 inside the GMA, and contiguous to the City limits, and 510 inside the GMA but not contiguous to the City limits. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS a) Development Fee Updates Group Discussion—not discussed 9. OTHER BUSINESS a) Update on Affordable Housing Projects—not discussed b) Future AHB Meetings Agenda • Curt: I would like to schedule a few minutes to discuss U+2 again in September, after Jen talks to Neighbor to Neighbor. • Sue: We have been invited to tour DMA Plaza’s newest project. We could set up a tour as part of our September meeting, on a different day, or we don’t have to tour. We can’t have our meeting there because they’re not ready to invite public into the AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 5 space. o Kristin: Can we tour and then meet at the library? o Jeff: Let’s do a tour and try to have it coincide with our meeting. o Sue: I will reach out to them to confirm the date and then we’ll look at meeting space. • Sue: Let’s tentatively plan to have Josh come back in October to answer our questions about Metro Districts. c) City Council Six-Month Planning Calendar—not discussed 10. ADJOURNMENT: 6:07 AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOARD REGULAR MEETING 7/11/2019 – MINUTES Page 6