Housing Advisory Committee Policy Subcommittee (HAC) and Ad Hoc Work Session   8/11/2021

I will get started, anybody have any introductory comments they would like to make before we kick it off?

So it may be worth sort of breezing through those just to see what we thought we talked about.

Phil, would you mind doing that if you've got them handy?

Y'all have these minutes in front of you?

Let me see if I can share a screen here.

That is now open.

Hey, Joy.

Now, I can just... Everyone see this for some fashion?

Looks good.

Did I miss any sort of substantive points there?

Not that I know of.

So here we go.

Okay.

That was the basics.

So let me share my screen and go to, can you all see my screen slide tax payment work session?

Okay, great.

the replacement or renovation of older housing stock in the community.

Okay, it's not just, we have select one, we can have multiple different requirements, right?

So with that, I'm going to mute myself and open it up to you all.

So those are a couple ideas I would suggest.

And here's the special deal you get for improving that as opposed to...

So, Phil, can I jump in?

Yeah, absolutely.

In other words, can you deed restrict it or put in the rule that allows you, because that, I'll start with that question.

All right, so I guess where I'm at is- As long as it's 15 years or older building.

And I would say that the abatement period should somehow correspond to the length of time that the units stay affordable, whether it's one simply one for one, if it's a seven year abatement period, the unit has to stay affordable, or it's providing a little bit more incentive saying if you get a seven year abatement, you have to keep it affordable for five years or something like that, that provides real actual cash incentives for people to do this.

Does that make sense?

That's just an option to think about.

Correct.

And so that low income homeowner has now built more wealth in their home without having to pay higher property taxes as just one option for that homeowner, owner occupied homeowner part track of this program.

Because you mentioned AHIP specifically.

However, the improvements are made.

I guess there's going to be a higher skew towards people getting significant improvements done through a nonprofit because if you are low income in a house that's got a lot of deferred maintenance that needs updating that is assessed relatively low, then the conclusion for that is you may not have access to the capital you need otherwise, right?

An inherited home that gets a nice upgrade, an older home that gets a nice upgrade and somebody wants to hang on to it until their kids can get it, I would say go to the statutory maximum as long as they're still living in the home so that they can create wealth for themselves and their children.

I think being able to replace a home on certain land should also be a viability.

Yep.

And we're talking about being able to create wealth.

So the investment in improvements can be to replace your, the improved part of your land or to enhance the improvements on your land.

I know that we have seen some say that it's going to remain for a certain amount of time, but nobody's held accountable for that.

Is that what you're suggesting?

Yes.

I mean, like, like we as HAC could make it more complicated, but that makes a lot of sense to me.

The minute it isn't, you lose your tax exemption.

Again, a clear distinction between owner occupancy and rentals, but nonetheless, there are a lot of ways we can tie things together, but yes, Dan, kiss it, keep it simple.

outside of defined neighborhoods?

My two cents.

If we create these two tracks, is there anyone and not do specific zones, who would be negatively impacted that we don't want to be negatively impacted?

Does anybody see about this being worked?

We're not saying that somebody could slide right on through and do totally, but we do not want to happen.

Yeah.

However, this has gotta be reauthorized and reaffirmed by council in 18 months or something for any revisions that may be needed.

So that's just something I just thought about.

We're going to have to, I wholeheartedly agree with you, uh, there.

University community working group that we want to make sure that these programs and things are really for the residents or workers and not that we're against students, but they're part of the reasons why housing is going up so much.

and not to back end and back door facilitate that, which may be how you define affordability, what those leases look like, who signs those leases, what puts you into that qualification.

So those are a couple of things that might ameliorate that concern for the owner occupied track of this abatement program, at least in my mind.

The point is to develop affordable housing for the permanent population here, not facilitate tax abatement for people providing student housing.

So I'll throw it open for more discussion about the kind of the rental side, and then we can revisit the homeowner side after that, but I'd like to start talking a little bit about the rental side and y'all's thoughts on that.

The owner of the home who makes those improvements gets those tax abatements, provided they certify that their renter is low income.

Like if I rent to a low income homeowner, but charge them $1,600 a month and they're paying 80% of their income toward rent, I'm renting to a low income homeowner, but I'm not really helping them out on the affordability side.

Okay.

So it would be the time, the 30% HUD guideline to the AMI of the tenant.

Yes.

Is that okay?

If someone else moves in there after they previously had a tenant in there and they received that incentive, then that goes away.

Yep, so that could be a recertification, just resubmit your lease, resubmit the income qualifications of the tenant, pay your $50 fee, which I think is what is in our current ordinance, and get recertified.

Why do people have to pay a fee for that?

Well, I'm just- As part of administrative costs?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just looking at, our current ordinance does have a fee, we don't have to have a fee.

But why would creating any disincentive for people, we want people to do this.

I was trying to find out why they haven't.

But as part of the housing fund.

I'm sure it's arbitrary, the numbers are.

but if we're carving out a million dollars, 10% of the funding that's going towards affordable housing, we better be able to administer something like this out of those funds.

I don't think it hurts to ask the question.

Yeah.

I think we do more harm when we assume.

Chris, do you have something on this?

In addition, they could go get a rental voucher to help make up the difference.

There is a long waiting list to get vouchers today.

So where would this money come from, especially if we're limiting it to 80% AMI folks?

And then, I mean, maybe that's sort of a next step here is, okay, let's start rewriting this ordinance with the treasurer and figure out where we are.

That would be the implication of what Dan's suggestion is, I think.

We shouldn't be analyzing how, what nonprofit is gonna step in and help them out.

You're not paying him as his day job as a carpenter.

Are there other ideas?

Here's the form, here are the documents we need, here's how you fill it out.

And that seems pretty straightforward.

So that's just under a thousand total that we would already have income information for.

And, and Jason, and I take it, there's a form that people fill out to show what their income level is, right?

Right.

Yes.

Mention with also mentioning the time period of affordability.

then your period of affordability is as long as you're doing that.

It needs to be one of the criteria's in there that they know.

I wonder if there's some enforcement mechanism that if you catch somebody, you can retroactively smack them.

And I think I know the answer already, but I just wanted to make sure that I raised it before we moved on to the next thing.

Are you questioning about whether or not we should consider doing this in particular areas?

And I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't something we were interested in doing before we leave the topic of what is the goal of the program.

If we can create and maintain affordable rentals in upper income neighborhoods, I think that's consistent with where housing policy, where the city wants us to go.

So.

I just want to throw that out to see that we're not missing something by just focusing on the income versus the value of the property.

The folks who've been left behind in our economy as our focus rather than looking at the value of the property.

I'm just wondering, are we going to leave somebody out that we want to bring along?

It doesn't make any sense.

So while it's unlikely to occur, the fact that it occurs wouldn't be a problem, I don't think.

But again, I think that's once we start circulating things around.

I like the program we've outlined here, so I'm not inclined to just scrap it, but I just wanted to raise the idea.

in the grand scheme of things, sorry, Jason, negligible.

I think we want to really kind of have all the tools in our tool belt, see what works and then reassess.

I see you unmuted.

It would be a great problem to have as far as I'm concerned.

Now would be a good time to open it up to other folks to get comments or suggestions.

I do not see any raised hands.

And now that Jason's on the call, maybe he can address that now.

It's just more to cover the staff time associated with the application.

Keep it simple as Dan says.

Does it make sense to take the existing ordinance and start doing a line edit?

My intention would be in my spare time to redline the current ordinance to capture these ideas and then circulate it to the whole hack for further comment.

Tighten that up in terms of the administrative practicalities of it all and getting the city's buy-in on that too.

Phil, when is our next HAC meeting?

Next Wednesday.

Okay.

I will not have the time this weekend.

based on Aslisa's comments that the review should include what are we missing or what are some possible unintended consequences or games that people could play with the statute once or with the ordinance once revised.

I move that we do what Rich just said.

And one more screen of the public to make sure there aren't any comments from there.

Let me make sure.

This has been very productive as far as I'm concerned and I appreciate all the perspectives and I will get something turned around that I hope reflects what we've discussed as quickly as I can.

So we're adjourning the meeting and then we're going to chat to see if we have to actually have a full-fledged work session here.

I move to adjourn.

Second.

Okay, and then, Phil, I'm leaving, but you're staying on, is that right?

That's correct, although we'll see how long we're actually here, but yes, indeed.

All right.

Thank you.

How's everyone going?

That makes sense?

So I don't know if that's meant for this document or if that's something else.

And if we get really ambitious, we can try to integrate it with the IAT.

And as long as we can make it dynamic to change as we maybe find that we need to measure this or that, I think it's fine.

Imagine that.

I really didn't realize it was going to be a meeting, but I have a few minutes, so.

And then we'll come back to the hack and say, all right, now that we've got this tool, what do we do about stepping forward and filling in the boxes on it?

That sounds good to me.

Joy, are you good?

Yep, one is good.

Joy, are you good?

There you are.

Good, I have some questions, but I will, I'll just shoot it to you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Take care.