Housing Advisory Committee Meeting   9/29/2021

Right.

All right.

Correct.

The idea behind that is to sort of speed the process.

So all HAC members are welcome.

All can comment.

We've had plenty of discussion of it.

You have been given the remit for this

Subcommittees been given the remit.

So if we're all in consensus, we can just say this is where we sit.

OK. And that sort of accelerates the process unless we get a very strong sense that something is not a consensus, in which case we don't do anything.

But yeah, that's that's the general idea that once it's been through this mill.

We get it out the door.

And we get on.

Yeah, so I think it's 10 after, and I guess we're over our technical difficulties hump, one would hope, and that we've got some folks here.

We do have a quorum per subcommittee rules, that there's more than three voting members of parents.

So I'll call this thing to order.

and start by saying that Dan emailed a bit ago to originalize saying that he has got some sort of dumpster fire he must attend to that sort of popped up.

So his appearance, he is not promising to show up here.

So I'll hand a portion of that stuff he's handed off to me to lead that portion of the conversation.

Before handing off to you, Ridge, I would point out that we have uploaded, just as a formality, the minutes to the prior subcommittee meeting.

And having said all that, let me actually...

I'll second.

Any discussion?

Anyone opposed?

Aye.

Aye.

Great.

That's the reality out of the way.

As I said before, this subcommittee is usually chaired by Dan Rosensweig and Ridge.

Dan is unexpectedly unavailable.

They had divided the material into two chunks.

Dan has handed that chunk off to me, his chunk, having to do with the affordable housing plan implementation priorities.

That'll sort of be our second discussion today.

The first discussion is going to be a continuation of the

It's gonna be a discussion of the rehab and abatement tax ordinance, which is Ridge's Wheelhouse.

Sorry about that.

Weird happened to my video there for a second.

Thank you.

So here we go.

I'm going to quickly recap where I think we are and then open it up for the one

set of decisions that I think are remaining, but you know, you all obviously chime in if you think I'm mistaken.

So there we go.

Just confirm that you all can see my screen.

Yep.

So recommendation, the goal of the program is to create incentives or benefits for, sorry,

for affordable rentals and wealth creation for low income homeowners.

In terms of the incentive and the benefit, one of the questions that was raised last week was, what is the benefit?

Give us a sense of context.

And so I circulated this handy dandy table that shows that if you had an increase in value of $20,000 and all of that was subject to the exemption, you would get a yearly property tax savings of $190.

You know, everyone is free to check my math.

And if you made an improvement of $200,000, your income tax, your excuse me, real property tax abatement would be $1,900.

So, as was mentioned the last meeting, you know, this is not going to induce somebody or cover the gap of a major, you know, renovation or enhancement.

It's basically acknowledgement that, hey, you're, you're adding to our

affordable housing plan by doing this work, and we're going to give you a benefit for doing that.

So that's the sense of scale in terms of the benefit for this program.

The amount of the tax exemption, I think we settled on it would be the greater of an amount equal to the increase in assessed value, or an amount up to 50% of the cost of the rehab, renovation or replacement, subject to proof of what it costs you to do.

So

As long as your property value increased by more than 15%, which is kind of the baseline to show there was an improvement, it could either be the cost of the increase in assessed value or 50% of the cost that you put into the rehab.

Hello?

All right.

I'm going to keep on going.

The age of the existing structure that would be subject to this

Partial tax exemption would be one that is 15 years or older, which is the minimum established by statute.

So the idea is to open this up as wide as possible if it's going to advance our affordable housing plan.

The number of years that the exemption is available is 15 years maximum, which is also the maximum allowed by the statute.

Again, opening the door as wide as possible.

Recommendation is that the exemption be provided to those who are owner, but there's an owner occupied exemption aimed at low income homeowners at the time of the initial application.

So they're low income at the time of initial application and that the exemption lasts as long as the homeowner owns the home.

So if their income goes up, they still get the partial tax exemption because when they initially qualified, they qualified.

For the landlord exemption, the recommendation is that it also be focused on low income tenant.

The exemption lasts as long as the property is being rented to a low income tenant based on initial qualification.

So if a tenant is in there and they qualified as low income when the exemption was first applied for and they remain a tenant, even though that tenant's income goes up, the partial tax exemption would still apply.

This is verified each year, and that's to Lisa Herndon's consistent message that we need to have accountability in this kind of system.

So the exemption would last up to 15 years, but needs to be verified each year that it is being

So there we have it.

That's the big question.

So so here I'm going to this is really, I think, based on where we have all discussed, where the question rests is what constitutes low income and how do we calculate

of the rent that qualifies under the landlord exemption.

That's a tough question.

You understand why I'm asking you this, right?

Because their income is going to be low and we already have issues with them encroaching on affordable housing or sometimes taking up

Affordable Housing Stop.

So I think this is a real concern.

Yep.

No, and I'm open to any kind of thoughts about how you distinguish one low income person from another in a way that weeds out UVA students, but allows other low income residents

So, Ridge, to that point, and this is, I'm regretting Dan's absence here, but, and I'm not offering this as a solution, I'm kind of spit balling, but can we,

throw down an overlay or suggest an overlay that encompasses the main student slash university corridor as some sort of another set of, you know, as another requirement or something.

Because it, you know, largely the student problem is one of geography.

and well, I mean, we still have the second, you know, I mean, the geographical issue is they're close to the university and that has got some special zoning requirements in it anyway.

So can we make use of that?

And I know that's not a perfect solution either.

I mean, S Lisa, you know, that's not a baby Ruth bar she just threw into the punch bowl there.

Yeah, maybe I'm sorry.

I'm just, I was on another call and I'm just joining in, but I want to say that, and maybe this is what y'all are talking about.

If not, y'all can correct me, but I just saw a, um, a table of what the new low income is by, um,

by salary, which just blew me out the water.

I'm like, half of our folks don't, I think I talked to Ridge about, spoke to Ridge about that.

Um,

Yeah, so actually just before you jumped in, the discussion was we said, Frank asked, what are we calling low income?

And we all said, and Rich said, that's really up to how the AHP and how the whole plan comes together and those definitions.

So we're saying low income as a placeholder for this program, we're not sure exactly how that gets defined for now.

I really have to do something about that because that number, it's gonna leave a whole slew of people out.

If we're looking, I don't know if, I don't know how you're gonna define it.

I just wanted to make sure I put that piece in because I'm a little concerned about that because if, you know, most of the folks who I know

and even some of the folks who I know Habitat have as homeowner, they're not making that kind of money.

And those residents are homeowners.

And would that leave them out because their income is not at that threshold?

So Joy, if I understand this correctly, though, it would be anything below an income threshold rather than anything above an income threshold.

Does that make sense?

OK. Because normally, at least the programs that we run at LEAP, it is everything that's below 80% AMI.

So anybody earning up to

Graham Walken just up there, but I think it's like $80,000 qualifies.

Or as you say, $75,000, $74,995, right?

No, I get it.

I get it.

I think, Joy, let me see if I got what you're what you're pushing for is that if it ends up that this is an 80% AMI program,

that what's going to happen is the majority of the people who end up there are going to be between 70 and 80 percent.

And that doesn't move the ball the way we need it to move the ball.

Is that what you're driving at that that we've got to be?

Yeah.

And I think.

I think I tend to agree with you on that.

But the point I guess we're making is that the program says it needs to be focused on extremely low and very low income the whole overall plan.

and how that fits in and what we do specifically with this program, that question hasn't been answered yet.

So it's sort of a blank placeholder right now.

What goes in that box for this plan for now?

Cause it's, that's one of the things that Rory commented at the last meeting is that a lot of this stuff gets siloed and we need to get coordinated.

So that's exactly right.

And let me just go back to Aslisa's first question.

I think the question of, can we limit this subsidy to landlords who rent to non-UVA students?

I think that's a question for the lawyers.

How do we do it?

And I'm reluctant to do a geographic scope because they're low-income people who would like to live near the university because that's where they work.

And so if you did an overlay that said, well, it's only available outside

The proximity of UVA, then low income workers trying to live close to their jobs would be excluded.

So I think what I would like to do is ask Lisa or some other legal beagle at the city's legal department, is there a legal way for us to say that you can't be a UVA student in order for the landlord to qualify for this exemption?

And I don't know.

You know, I suspended my law license a long time ago.

I agree with you, Rich.

I think that's a great way to handle it and it takes the pressure off of us.

I also, back to Joy's question in terms of the 80% AMI, I understand why we would go up that high, but will we also have priority parameters in there?

Are we going to give the lower income individuals priority?

Would that help address your concern, Joy?

She's on mute.

Yeah, I am.

Yes, it would help some, Lisa.

Yep.

So let me, let me ask, let me ask a fundamental question at this stage, because this, this question about who qualifies as low income, either as a homeowner under the owner occupied exemption or as a, as renting as a tenant in the landlord exemption, the fundamental question and that Rory raised this is, do we need to hold off on setting these parameters

and make sure that it is consistent with whatever the overall affordable housing plan says is low income because here's our challenge.

In the affordable housing plan, all 753 pages of it or whatever, there is a very consistent refrain, which Rory echoed last time, which is that these programs need to be aligned.

These affordable housing programs, whether it's a property tax abatement program,

or a down payment assistance program for low income homeowners or any other owner occupied rehab assistance, which this is a part of.

The affordable housing plan says those things should be aligned and consistent across each other.

And we are ahead of the curve in terms of trying to wrestle with this decision of what constitutes low income for purposes of the affordable housing plan.

I guess you're just much more articulate in saying exactly what I was trying to drive at which is that really isn't, we can't really answer that question in this ordinance right now.

We need to sort of structure the ordinance and then you know what low income is and how that gets defined is a much bigger question that the affordable housing plan as a whole has to has to grapple with to get this everybody pulling in the same direction.

And I think Rory's right about that.

And I think the plan is right about that.

And I didn't, I didn't articulate that worth a damn.

And I apologize.

And I disagree because I understand and I sit on the steering committee.

Um, but I also think that we have been working in this arena for an, an extremely long time.

and we bring a certain expertise to this conversation and that should be considered.

And whether or not they take our recommendation, I think that we should still have a voice in that conversation and make a recommendation and consider some of what Joy is saying about her concerns.

So I do think that we have a voice in that.

I mean, they call on us all the time.

That's why we're here.

We are an advisory body.

I think that they don't have to agree.

We could present a suggestion or recommendation.

I absolutely agree with that.

What I was saying is that that is not something that if we just start sticking them into these individual plans,

it doesn't really give a comprehensive oversight.

So the purpose of the discussion of this ordinance it's just low income, whatever that turns out to be.

And then we will of course be making very strong recommendations.

That's part of the implementation of this thing which is in the second half of this about overall, overall programs.

Here's how we think you need to look at affordability.

And AMI is a sticky problematic issue anyway that has its own problems.

Yeah I just say you know I think and then correct me if I'm wrong here John who's also on here and obviously is dealing with this but we're

By just saying 80% AMI or lower, we're capturing everything that, you know, everyone who would be considered an affordable, at least by some standard metric, including most of your last federal government for Y-Tech funding, for example, right?

And that's all the things I currently use for my CDBG grant.

I believe that the community development block grant, they were implementing on behalf of the city also.

So I don't think we'd go wrong.

The thing to get to Joy's point there is like everybody could still participate, right?

We're not excluding anybody by saying 80%, up to 80% AMI or below.

However, if you want to target a lower income population though, then you have to set another and prioritize them some well, then you have to set another,

create some other types of incentive or limitations on things, right?

So that gets a little bit more complicated.

And I don't know if we want to start going down that pathway we're trying to land today, or again, kind of utilize, I guess, to me, the best, worst existing framework we have.

So my suggestion would be we move forward with below 80% AMI.

I think that covers it.

In the meantime, if that gets adjusted between now and when this gets in front of the council, it can be adjusted and the council can adjust it.

I want you to know that I hear you.

I'm just voicing my concerns of what I'm seeing.

I'm not a homeowner, and I say get.

I don't know if I want to be at 65, but I'm not one yet.

But I see and I hear the struggle.

I have friends who own homes in the Venable neighborhood.

Yeah, so I actually disagree with Chris on this point.

And I think the simpler direct forward motion on this is affordable means what the city is going to tell us, what we ultimately decide affordable means.

And we don't stick 80% in here or anything else.

It's how it aligns with the rest of the plan.

And we just leave it as a placeholder.

and we don't get trapped in oh, 80% or less because again, to Joy's point, that's what people are gonna fix it on.

It's not gonna be 80% or less.

It's gonna be what the affordable housing plan defines as affordable or not affordable and leave it at that.

I mean, I think that's the path forward, because what we have seen with these 80% programs, and Joy is speaking anecdotally about it, but there's data on this, is that if you target the program at 80% or below, what you end up with is everyone between 70 and 80.

And that's what weights it in, and that doesn't help us.

So I would suggest that

This will probably skew a little higher on the homeowner side than very low income just because owning a home does tend to skew you a little bit.

But we just leave it where it sets and say affordable is affordable.

I see Frank has his hand up and I've

Well, yeah, I'll echo what Phil just said.

One, I think you may end up with different standards for homeowners than you have for renters because he's right.

You're not gonna have a lot of homeowners below 50% of AMI, and you're not gonna have the renters that are in the 70 to 80% category can generally afford market rate rents.

Certainly in a lot of places in the county.

So I think, I don't think we should wait and let the city determine what's affordable, because I think that I think it's different depending on what the program is.

And in this case, we're offering tax breaks to homeowners for making improvements.

And I think we should have, I think we should be fairly direct about

what the intent and who the intended beneficiaries of that are.

And I think Joy's right.

I don't know what the statistical data would show, but my guess is at the lower end of the scale, we have a more acute problem.

So why not target the lower end of the scale in terms of these tax benefits?

Yeah, but I don't think we can deal with that issue in this ordinance.

That's a larger issue of coordinating all of these programs and the various streams of what's affordable, what qualifies and what isn't, and a relook at that whole thing on a much larger scale than whatever we plug into this.

So, I mean, I guess we can make a recommendation that this be pointed in certain directions, but in terms of putting actual numbers in it, I think that's premature for us to be doing.

So it looks like there are two approaches on the table.

And I'd like to just have us decide on one or the other.

Because if we do decide to go with an AMI calculation, there's another question that we have to ask ourselves, which is whether or not we have to look at the rent that is charged to that low income tenant.

And so let's just first decide

Do we just have a placeholder that says that this should be aimed at low-income homeowners and low-income tenants as defined by the affordable housing plan and make sure that Phil sets up a separate meeting where we go into what is the housing advisory committee's approach?

And I think that may be what we're going to talk about in the next tranche here.

you know, having a discussion sooner rather than later about what constitutes affordable for all of these programs, this one and all the others.

And we should just put a placeholder in this ordinance and say, let's have that discussion as a broader group.

And then come back and plug it in to this ordinance and every other program that we're advocating for.

So that's option A, wait for a more clearly defined affordable, you know, low income

for the purpose of the entire affordable housing plan.

That's option A.

Option B would be to pick an AMI now and say, this is what we think.

We also think it ought to be consistent with the affordable housing plan as developed, but this is where we think this ought to be headed.

So I cannot see the whole group.

So I'm just going to have us vote.

Do you want to go with option A

Let's have a fuller discussion about low-income affordable housing as a discussion, which Phil will tee up next.

Or do we want to go ahead and put a AMI amount in this draft recommendation to, or in this, excuse me, in this recommendation to city council, subject to their view about whether or not they want to, that the council wants to wait on the affordable housing plan.

Yep.

Yeah, I hate to throw another,

Yep.

I mean, the only challenge I see with that is that the amount of money we're talking about is so minimal that, you know, I mean, as we could certainly do it, you could certainly have a tiered approach, but when you're talking about, you know, a $200,000 improvement that generates a $1,900 benefit,

and then you further scale that and say, well, it's 1900 if you rent to 30% AMI, it's 1500 if you rent to 60% AMI, it gets really complicated for a small amount of money.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's how affordability gets defined and implemented under the AHP.

It's a subcategory of that.

Frank's suggestion of a sliding scale.

Yeah, so I don't know, again,

When we're trying to define this in the affordable housing plan, but at least the version that's in our Google doc shared on page 55, it says this is why we should be targeting it.

And what I just read there was only 20% of the funding is supposed to go towards 80% and below AMI.

So let's say 70 to 80% folks.

60% is supposed to go for below 60% AMI is supposed to get 30% of the budget that we are allocating out or where it gets allocated out.

So again, that's

40, 50, 60% are supposed to get 30% of the total budget and then below 30% AMBI is supposed to get half the benefits basically that we're spending.

Now, Rich and Phil, I don't know, and everybody else, if that's what you're talking about here when we're talking about the definition of affordable or not, but that's at least is what the targeting that was included in the affordable housing plan.

Again, Page 55.

So is that answering our question or is that not answering our question?

I don't think it's answering the question.

The real issue here is in the midst of this ordinance rewrite,

Are we prepared to make assertive statements about how the entire city's affordability calculations should be run for all the programs?

And my answer to that is no, because we need to do that work

In a larger, broader context, how are we defining affordability, how, you know, the targeting of percentage of the money as recommended by the plan is fine.

But what we need to do is come up with a consistent guideline for how we're going to do the whole schmear.

and this is a relatively small piece of it and for now just to say and that's I mean I'm on the a variety of for now is in alignment with how the affordable housing plan puts this out and we don't know what we don't know I mean by the time this gets organized fully and implemented we may have an entirely different way of looking at those particular numbers so I think we're really jumping the gun

We're just doing sort of the workman-like portion of this and the rest of it we can take a deeper dive in and apply it more broadly.

But I mean, I think that statement on the AHP has to do with how much money is directed in different directions.

And I don't even see how that really helps us in that there isn't really any money going into this.

This is a small,

That's what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that how we define affordability and coming up with a common set of definitions for that

based on AMI and other measures and what we want to target and how

We need to all have a common vocabulary for that.

And at this present, we don't.

Defining what affordability is is still a large question.

And we all default to AMI because we default to AMI, but we need to, I think, have a broader conversation about what fits where, why, and how, and trying to do that in this ordinance

I disagree.

I think it's going to be a question.

Oh, no.

but I think those are gonna be different.

To Lisa's point, different programs are gonna carry different AMI.

So why are we waiting for that?

I think we need to determine who it is that we're trying to benefit, who needs to be incentivized and at what AMI does that incentive really need to kick in?

And I think we should make a recommendation about where that threshold is and then they can figure out whether that fits well within the overall program or not.

I'm going to call the question.

So option A is wait for a larger discussion about affordability in terms of the affordable housing plan.

That's option A.

Option B is we go ahead today and as a recommendation to city council, pick an AMI level that we are comfortable with.

And so all those in favor of option A waiting, raise your hand so I can see you.

That's Phil and Joy.

Okay.

And then all those in favor of going ahead and picking an AMI now, raise your hand.

That's Chris, Lisa, John and Frank.

So let's go ahead and Phil, how much time do we have left?

Oh, you know, 10, 15 minutes.

Okay.

I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to go to the AMI table and see if, if this is, um, if this illustrates enough, um, you'll see in the middle, um, you know, a family of four, uh, is kind of the default that most programs kind of look at, which is what is the area median income, you know, for that family of four.

and then you can see the percentages along the left side.

And so, you know, do we have, oops, John, are you still voting or did you have something to say?

Sorry, I never put my hand down.

Okay.

I just want to make sure I wasn't missing something.

So trying to land this part of the plane, when we're talking about, let's start with the homeowner.

For a homeowner,

That was John.

I'm on the fence between 60 and 80.

John, can you give me your thoughts on 80?

I think when we're looking at a homeowner, it should be 80.

Because we're looking at families that may just barely be able to afford to purchase a home, and they're looking to make these renovations to that home.

and they're still considered low income if we're looking at any HUD scales.

I think when it becomes a renter is a little bit different because we need to incentivize units being available for lower AMI families.

Yeah, I mean, I see that point, and I actually, to a large point, agree with it.

The question circles back to Joy, which is, do we end up with everybody at the applicant pool?

Is everybody from 70 to 80% AMI for that?

But on the other hand, you know, I mean,

The threshold really is 57,000, you know, 57 to 74, that difference between 60.

And you're right, even a relatively inexpensive, yeah.

I mean, yeah, I'm persuadable on that.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you feel.

But I mean, my way to look at that is, okay, well, if we go to 60, that means somebody, that means a family making $60,000 a year is out.

To do it.

I mean, again, Phil, you're the mortgage broker.

How much can the 60K

That's yeah, that's my point.

It's not much the new purchase.

It's, it's the, it's, you know, the, the, so, so the, the, the folks who can afford to buy a house in the city of Charlottesville who have make $60,000 a year, um,

That's a real stretch for any sort of single family detached house.

But it's certainly possible.

I think I'm talking myself into the 80% every time I open my mouth here.

I agree.

I mean, there's no problem statutorily with having them be different.

So let's go to that.

So it sounds like we had consensus from the majority that 80% or less AMI for homeowners would qualify for the partial tax exemption

And then now let's focus on what is the AMI of the tenant to qualify the landlord for the partial tax exemption if they rent to a low income tenant.

And I will once again throw the chart back up there.

And then we have one more question after that.

And then I think we're done with with, you know, the ability to make a recommendation.

So here's, again, the chart of AMI.

When you're talking about

incentivizing rentals to low-income tenants.

I don't think it should be over 50.

50 equates at 30% to $1,171 a month in rent.

That's tough to find.

Yeah, I think I agree with Frank on that.

I think 50 is, you look at the family of three, that's say two children and an adult total income $3,500 a month.

I'm going to always be in my heart.

I don't know.

This is to say knock them out from also having use of subsidies, correct?

Absolutely.

They're probably gonna have to have it at that.

Yeah.

I can't recall.

Well, I said 60%, but I'm fine with 50%.

My only concern is I worry if you add some of these restrictions, less individuals will want to do it.

That's always my concern of making sure that it's still enough on the plate for the owner, but we're also still making sure that

There's a benefit that transfer is over.

I know 80% doesn't do it because everyone would only do 80.

We're seeing that in the SGP process.

All of the units are being built out at 80% and they don't even qualify for a voucher.

So we're looking at Dairy Central and all of the units that they're saying are affordable.

We can't place a voucher on them.

So I know 60% we can do that.

But let's keep in mind and you know that if we put it at 50, that's the tenant's income.

That's not, that has nothing to do with the market rent that gets charged.

So actually we could in a backwards way drive landlords

You know, this is one of the carrots of several and say, hey, if you do this, that's at the 50% level, you're getting the subsidized rent and full market rent.

I'm fine with that.

OK.

I mean, it seems like we have a consensus with 50 with Joy giving her strong no.

And I think I think this will be further addressed in the affordable housing plan.

But in order to put some numbers in this particular ordinance, I think we got 80 for homeowners, 50 percent for tenants.

And then there's one last question, which goes to what Phil was just asking about, which is, do we also need to say that the landlord is not just renting to a low income tenant, but is charging unaffordable rent either

A flat rate like no more than $400 a month per room.

So, you know, two bedroom apartment would be $800 or a percentage of that low income residents actual income using the statutory definition of affordability as modified by Sunshine last time, which was 25%.

So we're going to rent to low income tenants.

Now, do we establish a rental amount that the landlord is the maximum they can charge

The downside of doing that, as Phil just mentioned, is if they charge market rates, then a Section 8-type program could make up the difference so that landlord is still incentivized to make that rental to that low-income individual.

But that's the last question.

Do we also look at the income of the tenant in order to establish an amount of the rent

that the landlord can charge.

I think that's the only way you can do it.

If you don't do it that way, then you're going to have a lot of families that can really only afford $600 in rent with $13, $14 more monthly rent payments.

And we can't guarantee a voucher can be attached to it, which is why you have to have that 25%, which is a good number.

Because what a lot of people don't understand is the amount that HUD says you can charge for a four-bibber might be 1961, but that doesn't take into account the utilities.

Right.

Paul looks at all of that.

And so when a landlord sets their price, they're only looking at that large amount number now, taking anything out of it.

Yeah, so we would say that the provision to follow this along would be to look something like the rent directly charged to the tenant could not exceed 25, 28, 30, whatever number we're using, directly charged to that tenant.

Yeah, is that sort of what we're driving at?

And if so, I mean, I think that I agree with John that that's the, I don't know if it's the only way to do it, but it's the only way that leaps to mind to do it.

Because if we do it by start putting dollar amounts in for size or whatever, that's a back door to rent control and that ain't happening.

Not in this ordinance.

John's point.

of income.

I think that's a straightforward approach.

To John's point, I think we need to be careful that we're not creating an unintentional disincentive.

So the tax break we're giving them doesn't amount to that much money.

If you're the landlord and you're now deciding, gee, should I make the $100,000 improvement,

And I think the discussion last time was that there is this particular tool in the toolbox

is not going to be the deciding factor about whether somebody builds and rents affordable.

That's why I change it from incentive to benefit.

I mean, it rewards people who are willing to rent to low income homeowners and cap the amount of rent they can charge.

It is not going to fill the gap.

This particular tool in the toolbox is not going to fill the gap between what they could charge and what market rate would allow and is not going to finance

the improvement.

You know, so it's just something else to add to say, you know, good job.

And we recognize what you're doing and we appreciate it.

And we're going to give you a partial tax break as a result.

And I'll also add the housing plan called out for rental rehabs.

So

Also being able to potentially tie dollars from a rental rehab to this is also a solution that gets us there.

Because if you look at that 950 over 12 months, it's only 80 bucks.

But if you can tie in a 20 or $30,000 loan that's converted into a grant over a certain amount of time based upon affordability at a certain rate for certain years, that may get us there for some people.

And I think that's a good segue to Phil's part of our discussion about how this and all the other pieces of the affordable housing plan come together.

What I've heard is that in order to qualify for the landlord exemption, you have to rent to a tenant who makes no more than 50% of AMI, and you can charge them no more than 25% of their income in rent.

and then Joy, that'll be subject to further discussion as the whole housing plan starts to come together, but at least gives us something to move forward with here and then we can continue our advocacy to say deeper affordability, more incentives, et cetera, and see how all the different pieces fit together.

So that's what I've heard and that's what I'm gonna write up and circulate.

And I think that what we'll do is we'll

Take all of this, and I did a markup of the actual ordinance, but we'll actually convert it into a narrative discussion that we will forward to city council as a recommendation.

And a markup can just be an indicator of how you could do it within the context of the current ordinance, which has other bells and whistles that are important for this kind of program.

Yeah, sorry, just Rich, that process always sounds fine to me.

I would just say, please note this last point on limiting what the landlord can charge is not a consensus-based consensus.

Yeah, no.

But I disagree with that.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So I don't think we got unanimity on either one of these points.

I think we got a majority view that this is the way to go.

Well, not to argue with this example, but I don't think we're saying you can't charge rent of more than X dollars, that you cannot charge the tenant directly X dollars.

This still leaves the opening for other subsidies.

I mean, that's the whole point to coordinate.

So you can theoretically charge a market rent.

And the incentive there is that you get your full market rent

with a 50% AMI person, you get this additional break.

That was my understanding of what we were saying.

Not that the total rent charged must be below X dollars.

It's just that the tenant can't be charged more than X dollars directly.

Having said that, I mean, if we've got, you know, we don't have to have unanimity on this.

So, you know, if we've got a majority of the voting members saying X, that's what we're moving forward with.

So there's already an income verification process in the city that we thought we would just, um, you know, uh, adopt for this purpose.

Um, um,

Anyway, so that was the thought.

I mean, Jason and Jeff Davis from the city who've been wonderful in all this process are willing to talk through with us where there are other income verification requirements in the city and use the forms that they use for this purpose.

So there's a lot of administrative stuff that needs to support this that will need to be spelled out when the staff gets a hold of this and there's a staff memo that says,

You know, how do we verify the cost of the improvements if people want to go that route rather than the value increase?

I mean, there are some details that I think are beyond the scope of the hack that we will address.

And Chris, I think for Chris and Joy, I will go ahead and make a note in the recommendations that there were other views.

For Joy, it was more deeply affordable for, I think it was specifically on the renters.

And for Chris, it was not limiting the amount of money that could be charged as rent.

Mine was both for renters and homeowners.

Mine was both for renters and homeowners.

Okay.

All right, I'll make those notes and write this up as a narrative.

And then we'll move it on to the next phase of the process.

So I thank you all for your help and attention.

And I am now done with this, almost done with this task.

This is the narrative.

This is not the document because you redlined through some of the documents where I do have questions.

We don't need to address it right now, but I do have questions on the specific language in the document.

So we can move forward because you're talking about creating a narrative.

Yep, yep.

And you know, the redlining was really just for me to try to conceptualize.

It's just easier for me to figure it out with the redline.

But I think the attorneys and others are going to have, you know,

We've used this red line method before and have presented the revised ordinance or rule to the city attorney's office who, and they probably sort of chuckle to themselves and rewrite it more eloquently.

I understand that, I understand that, but you're taking out language that can have a different interpretation of this policy.

I know we're having the narrative,

and did we even vote on whether or not to remove the $50 fee?

Because that's redlined out there too.

Not just about what the attorney can reinterpret.

When you take specific language out, you're altering the meaning of the ordinance.

So I think we sort of came around to a conclusion on the fee, which was if we're pumping $10 million a year into affordable housing programs, does this fee belong there or not?

Because I don't remember that.

I remember having a discussion.

I don't remember we actually voted on it.

And also, if we're going to go down this road, I had a question about, so if an owner moves, they lose the exemption, right?

But if the owner decides to become a landlord, will they have to go through the whole process again?

Oh, so they, they improved their home, but now they're going to turn their, they used to be owner occupied, but now they're going to rent.

They could upgrade into a market value home, but they still want to have the benefits of adding affordability home ownership stock to the rental market.

So are they allowed to move out?

Is there a great- Let's say Person X redoes their house for 70 grand worth of- They meet all the criteria.

Right, they meet all the criteria as a homeowner.

And then they say, after some period of time, say, you know what?

I want to make this a rental.

What happens?

It says that it will expire, their qualification will expire.

Right.

And I think that there isn't a grace period that there isn't a process to restart if I think the direct line on this would seem to me, and this is where staff would jump in, right?

Where you'd say, all right, if you're moving out,

and whatever exact time period to be determined or whatever.

If there is a tenant that comes, that if you get a tenant in at 50%, that continues, I would assume that there would be a, that we, I mean, just practically, there has to be a grace period.

So you've got some- Well, I think we would, I think the language would have to be fairly explicit because you've already done the improvement and now, so you're no longer the owner occupied

and so now the thing that you're renting, you haven't invested an improvement in that rental, you invest an improvement in your home ownership.

So we would have to make it explicit that if you qualified as a homeowner, you could then transfer over to the landlord as long as you met the landlord exemption.

And unless anybody here has an objection, I mean, it seems to be consistent with the thought is that we're trying to encourage affordability in both the home ownership and rentals.

I don't see any reason why we couldn't say

If you qualified as a homeowner, moved out, but are now renting to a low income tenant and charging no more than 25% of that tenant's income for rent, you would still qualify for that exemption to continue.

Can I ask another question?

I mean, up above there is a thing that says it has to be used for residential use.

It's just this definition of residential use that I struck was too narrow.

I assumed that you were doing it to allow for landlords, but I didn't see any additional language in there.

So I was wondering why was that taken out?

because it seemed to be more specific to make sure it needed to be owner occupied.

I guess that just removing it does that job because it takes that, because if residential use, if you define it as this narrow thing, then you're stuck with just this narrow thing throughout the entire document.

And we're saying residential use does not mean one unit occupied by the family who did the work.

It doesn't mean that.

I think that's the strike that he did, right?

I mean, is that what you were doing?

Just saying that that's not what residential use means.

Okay.

Also, will there not be a limit to the assessed value of the property?

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's deal with those issues first.

Let's draw that one up.

Here's your $2 million house, right?

There was a limit in there before, and then you took it out.

So I was just wondering why.

And these are, that's, this stuff is not discussed in the narrative, which is why, and you said, we're just going to send a narrative, but the document is what they're going to point to, not the narrative.

So what was the expectation for that?

So the idea is you are, your grandmother handed you down a house that now happens to be in the tiniest section of town, but you're still low income.

You're still working as a, you know, as a stiff in a, in a job, you're a low income person that happened to inherit from your grandmother who happened to buy in a

or own a place in what is now a very popular neighborhood.

You see why I was asking that, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Because if your home is at a certain,

Assessed value up to a million dollars.

You might be in a whole different class, but I understand what you're saying concerning assessed value.

I have one other question then I'm gonna let y'all go.

Let's see if I can find it.

while they do the renovation or after they do the renovation.

So they're trying to get the landlord exemption.

So if they're continuing to own the property, but they're renting to a low income tenant and charging no more than 25% of that tenants, I mean, I think they're a landlord like any other.

I mean, we didn't carve out different types of landlords.

So

The answer would be yes, they would qualify.

Oh, no, no, I don't think we should either.

So this program would not kick anybody out from benefiting from grants, other additional grants, correct?

Okay.

That was all I had highlighted.

That's good.

All right.

That's right.

There was some scrapage as we hit the tarmac, but I think we got there.

We're not going to just rubber stamp it.

Let me see if I can get into my sharing of screens business here.

but meanwhile, all right, so let me sort of give a, before I start pushing buttons.

So DCM Sanders asked from the hack to have a very broad list of implementation order

The idea behind this was to properly position staff resources such as they are, city resources such as they are, and try to stage this implementation of the affordable housing plan.

There are recommendations for implementation in the plan, but of course those are always moving targets anyway and

are sort of pitched to in an ideal world we should.

So the idea here is we were looking to provide a series of recommendations on implementation on items in the affordable housing plan that can and should be done immediately, which means by the end of the calendar year, we've taken some sort of step on it.

The second category is by the end of the fiscal year next summer, and the third category being after that.

And it does not have to be a very detailed list, but that is in advance of once that task is accomplished, we will then return to the Affordable Home Housing Plan and

sort of start looking more closely at each one of these programs and what they need for implementation.

So this process here is designed to be a preface to that process in which the HAT will also be involved.

And I guess we'll have to talk about how we'll stand that up.

But in the meantime, what we're looking for is ranks of essentially number one, number two, and number three, three buckets.

and in the, why am I having, there we go, let's share a screen here.

In the, that's right, let's get to where we need to get to.

and nope, that's the wrong thing.

Let's close that out.

And then we'll close this.

Pull this up.

And there, sorry.

All right, everybody see this?

Okay, good.

So this is the outgrowth of the last meeting on the 10th, where we started through this process.

And we took a look at the subsidy and funding pieces of this funding.

There are topics of the plan is divided into some general groups, funding, governance, land use, tenants rights subsidy.

We kind of covered the subsidy piece.

but the homework was to look at that, look at the AHP and its whole look at the recommendations found on pages 48, 62, 77, 99 as it's delineated towards the bottom of this thing here and provide a list.

of what we think makes sense in what order to go in.

And what I would like to do is sort of go through each of those sections and sort of get a sense of the one, two and three for everybody.

And then sort of take it from there.

Does that make sense?

Just to go through each one of these major categories?

Okay, so that's what I'm gonna attempt to do.

And then, boom, share.

Everybody read this?

So,

So some of this doesn't really fit into the category, right?

I mean, some of this, we can't really call one, two or three, it is what it is.

But to look at this, for example, to dedicate 10 million per year, well, that's as soon as we, I mean, we make that commitment now, but that's really kind of three, right?

because we don't have the 10 million, for example.

So anyone wanna give any thoughts on priorities here as to what goes first, what goes second?

I don't think we have to assign a number to all of these items.

Some of them don't really fit.

I agree.

All right.

Then I'm not sure if consistency and targeting will even rank.

I've got a, I've got a question for you guys.

The IAT, where does it fit in?

You know, under these funding recommendations,

Right, so at the meeting on the 10th, we actually suggested to enhance the transparency that the HAT committee presents an updated IAT for formal adoption prior to next year's budget.

So I guess that's sort of a two.

but that it does fit in and that our deadline was to get it done before we get too deeply into next year's budget.

So I'm not sure whether we call that a one or a two based on the timeline.

Does that have to get done by the end of this calendar year or does it need to be done by the spring?

Well, if it's going to do with the budget,

It's going to be included right now if it's going to be for the 2023 budget.

However, I think I'm not sure whether adoption of IAT by the city council is necessary since we have these recommendations already that says that the city needs to commit $10 million, whichever way,

every year for the next five years, it's already spelled out.

So I'm not sure whether requiring council to adopt the IAT is necessary.

I would ask then, I mean, I think that the idea of having council formally adopt it and the idea I think is that we need a transparency framework and platform that everyone agrees is the hymnal that we all need to be singing from.

So the idea being that the IAT

would be part of that transparency piece.

And it would be a formal acknowledgement that this is how we're being transparent.

This is how we're tracking.

I think that- In terms of scale, the housing plan is already approved by the planning commission and does by the city council through a resolution.

And that money is already there.

you know, I mean, or that at least good faith or action of the city council rather, you know, it's already done that the proposed $10 million by year over the next five years is under consideration.

And of course, that depends on the resources, you know, going forward.

At the end of the day, when the city reports how the affordable housing plan is being implemented, we're going to be including the extent of funding.

In other words, if it's $10 million every year, council puts down $5 million.

We're going to indicate on our performance report or whether it's six months annual to the city council that 50% of that objective was accomplished because $5 million was appropriated.

My comment basically is that I don't think council needs to take action on the IAT in order to be transparent or in order to be accountable because this will be reported

Okay, I see your point.

I really have this pointed more at sort of a constant moving thing about the transparency throughout the entire community and how everything is working almost on a week to week or month to month basis, but noted.

But, all right.

So,

but for this page here as we're looking at it now, getting some sort of transparency measure and figuring out and defining that seems to be a consensus of a one, the targeting and consistency, I don't really think that fits into a priority of implementation necessarily.

Then the dedicating of the 10 million that really what we're deciding there is what do we mean by dedicating?

We're saying we're dedicating it, we're dedicated to it, but the money's not actually gonna happen until the next fiscal year.

Right?

Do I have that right?

Thanks, yeah.

Chair, on this, you know, I think these are all just givens and these are

These scale consistency targeting transparency are parts of the activities we should be prioritizing and telling the city to do as far as my understanding and reading of what our homework was.

So in that, considering all that for what we should be trying to do by the end of the calendar year, LEAP was, or at least myself and saying, you should definitely try to get the staff in place, which I think is pretty important to do kind of again, like you mentioned,

Transporting and targeting, etc.

Right.

So get your hiring done and organizing reorganizing done if that is what's needed.

And two, I will just say from an activity perspective, and obviously this is something that LEAP does, but we should be prioritizing rehab energy efficiency, which gets money out the door quickly and addresses, I think, some immediate quality of life and reducing housing costs almost immediately for some folks.

Obviously, not all the money should be dedicated to that, but a portion of that should be

Yeah, I think you're going down a path that's on another page as far as the staffing.

What I want to do is just sort of do it sort of organizationally to give city management what they asked for.

But I mean, I think staffing is important, but I just want to sort of deal with it in some sort of consistent way and what we've got here so that we can go through it.

Right?

Although I agree with you, there are certain things that are absolutely a number one crash priority, but I just wanna sort of get organized on it.

So considering the funding recommendations on this page, it seems to me that where are we in a quick sort of assessment?

All these priorities equally?

Didn't we approve them all as kind of equal priorities?

So it's not that.

It's a matter of as engineering and launching this, knowing what we know now, what do we need to get done by the end of the calendar year?

What are things that need to get done in the spring?

And then what are things that are going to come after that?

So that's sort of the chunks that we were asked to provide.

I'm sorry, go ahead Ridge.

Well, I was just going to say, I agree that transparency is a top priority, but I don't want to just focus on whether we're shoveling money out the door.

And in transparency, it talks about impacts

and impacts are related to the scale and the targeting.

Like, are we actually achieving the objectives that we set out to achieve with the money that we're spending?

I mean, obviously you want to keep track of the money we're spending, but I want to know, did it actually help one of Joy's low income or extremely low income residents get stable, affordable housing?

And so it really does go to what is required and it's hinted at in the scale, but not with the level of detail that I think

Agreed.

I was just reading it just to be able to give you my opinions.

I'll come back.

All right.

So

Is there anything else we need to discuss on this page?

Again, I think that there's a consensus that we need some sort of transparency action tool thinking about that to have that stood up from the beginning so that when this starts to happen, we've got it.

And obviously we're spending 10 million bucks

I guess on the consistency it identifies sustainable and reliable source of dedicated funding.

Scaling transparency is what I'm looking at if you wanna say prioritize it.

Consistency is important to me also.

Okay, so we wanna make sure measurement tool, all right.

Any other thoughts on this page?

All right.

Is John Sales still on here?

I gave my opinion on transparency being number one.

I still question how far we are away with the city finding $10 million, but we'll get there when we get there.

The next section of recommendations is the funding, sorry, the government's recommendation piece

and I think that I'll channel Chris and say that, I mean, obviously getting a handle on city staff capacity is a number one priority.

And it sounds like we're already making moves in that direction with this three person department that's not a department yet.

that Alex has.

But I'm going to be presumptuous and assume that that's really a one, that we really need to sort of get a sense of how many people we need to do this and stand that up.

Anybody disagree with that?

I didn't think so.

A standardized and competitive funding process

My, I don't know if anybody has strong thoughts on that, but I think that's kind of a classic too, that the money really isn't gonna be there until next year.

So we do need to do it, but it doesn't have to be done this calendar year.

Well, I'll just say, Phil, with that, there is the cap that still needs to happen and was prioritized in the original notes, right?

So I don't want any recommendation

Yeah, I don't think I'm saying that.

I think that this is sort of a long range clear to award grants and loans for affordable housing.

So I think that's bigger than just the calf.

OK, that makes sense to me.

That was my read of that, that it's not just the calf.

and then that leaves the other two pieces of the CAF Committee and the HAC and I would submit that in the present environment that both of those sort of default to a three.

because we have a process for under the calf for allocations now that actually works quite well that can be used for this year.

And that's one of our priorities, right?

Get the 850 out there as quick as we can.

And then reorganizing the hack.

Well, once we've got a department that's fully up and running, once it's got its housing thing, once we've got plans run,

What is the role of the hack at that point?

That's the time to ask that question.

Not at this second.

I mean, I think.

Anybody have any thoughts on that?

I'm okay with one, two, and three.

All right.

Yeah, well, I guess my question is, I know I think at the last meeting there was discussion about the CAF being on hold.

How long is it on hold?

Because I mean, we're talking about a long hold.

Right.

I think at the last meeting, to go back to that, was

to immediately, no, that asks you, we're not gonna wait on the process, immediately issue an RFP or NOFA for the current balance of CAF funds, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 to $850,000 to fund initiatives that have already sort of been trailing, going on hold.

Yeah.

Anybody else got a hand?

Ridge, I see you got a hand.

It looked like Alex was about to respond.

Well, I think the city manager is considering that

that particular line item, you know, clear, transparent and competitive process.

So assistant city manager, probably in consultation with the city manager, you know, so that process is now ongoing.

And then I'm not sure how soon, you know, that they will complete their evaluation.

You know, I move forward with publishing the

the Arrow FP for the 800 or $850,000 that the relook of the transparency and competitive process is currently underway.

Well, I mean, I guess,

if that's our feeling of that's an overarching priority to get done this calendar year.

My sense is, is that they may be looking at it, but, and I'm sort of, once again, this is, I don't wanna wait on redesigning that process that holds up for any significant period of time pushing out CAF funds because we have not had a, I mean, you know, I don't,

I think that we've got the money that's sitting there now.

And part of this is what money do we have to do that's available for which to do things.

But I mean, the city management can take it or leave it for where we're sitting on that.

I mean, they can say, well, we've actually jumped ahead on this, great.

But I mean, I don't think we drop everything and prioritize.

What are you saying?

So what I'm saying, a city staff capacity would be number one.

and then the standardized and competitive funding process.

That's, that's a 90 day turn to come to it, to get that done by the end of the calendar year.

That's my own, that's my own assumption that, but they might.

but what I'm saying is certainly that that is something to me that that is a priority and it needs to be done before the real money starts flowing through.

And that starts happening later next year.

So that's, I mean, it's a priority.

I just don't think that the impact of it and its need happens right now.

I think it happens next year.

So we've got to have it done early next year, not in the next 90 days.

That's all I'm saying.

John, do you still have your, is that a new hand up or is that your old hand up?

Yeah, we can.

I think that for the purpose of this discussion,

In general, if we're gonna give recommendations, I think the general recommendation is we got $850,000 to spend on affordable housing, let's spend it.

I think, but I agree with you.

The person on the phone at the moment who can provide that clarity?

Yeah, it's a good question.

Okay, I mean, this was one of our immediate suggestions from 910, right?

So three weeks ago.

Right.

That was written in the wake of that first meeting.

The date on it, ignore it.

I mean, we're going to have a finalized memo.

This was starting it because we were just getting the process started.

Sorry, Phil, but this is, I don't know about John, but again, the leap here is this process normally happens, it starts like a month ago and we're still sitting here waiting and in theory,

This is, you know, housing is a priority issue for the city and that's why they're engaging in all this.

And then, you know, they're not utilizing the funds that they have.

Anyways, I'm starting to look frustrated on this.

Right.

So you agree that that's a priority to get it out the door as fast as possible.

Can I say something just as a, um,

And actually we've been having some chats about that.

It is tough, but on the point of the affordable housing fund, I think all of the stakeholders are going to generally be of the opinion of

Go now, go hard, go immediately.

And I'm not, you know, is that an advocacy position?

Probably, but I don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's an attack on interest.

Not that I disagree with you.

I agree with you.

I agree with you on that.

It is slippery.

And we should.

Right.

Just very quickly, I agree with your timing on the Housing Advisory Committee reformation, but I agree very strongly with the idea that there needs to be a broader range of viewpoints.

I have valued my service here on the HAC, but I think if there are people out there that want to serve that have a viewpoint that's different than mine,

that I would be happy to step back from the hack and let that seat be filled by somebody who can bring a different viewpoint to the thing while we're waiting for the governance to be changed.

And so I do think we ought to be on the lookout for people of broader viewpoint.

And then I would resign my seat and make it available to somebody so that there's a broader view as we head into this critical piece of getting the housing plan done.

Agreed.

Slightly outside the scope of this exact conversation, but I don't disagree with you on it.

John, is your hand back up or is this old or is this new?

Thank you.

All right, we've just got a few minutes here.

So I just want to and I think before we get down to the last minute, I want to get through as much of this as I can.

And then what I'd like from everybody is to go back to these things.

And I'm taking notes, but shoot me your own one, two and three for each of these pages.

And if you feel you need to explain,

one, two, you know, where you got to, where you got to, fine.

And then I'll try to pull it together.

So, anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just wanna, I just wanna just put this out there.

I think Brenda may have mentioned it at one of the HAC meetings, you know, today is the deadline

for departments to submit their CIP requests.

So I know things that are related to housing, some of them usually automatic submittals like rental assistance and what have you, all the commitments.

So you guys keep it in mind as you compile this so that

Okay, thank you, sir.

Turning to land use, this is sort of a fuzzy one to sort of rank this way.

I guess in the largest sense and piggybacking on a meeting from 9-10, the consensus was, yes, let's get a map approved this year.

Everyone sort of

and then obviously the zoning piece that falls behind that.

Well, that's not happening this year.

So that's just sort of a presumably that's supposed to start next year, right?

So what was the suggestion Phil?

My suggestion was that for land use and purpose, these are not really organized as specific.

These are recommendations for policy, but they're not specific program standups, but that to the extent that we have recommendations on it, number one is get a land use map approved by the end of the calendar year, which my understanding is the planning commission also sincerely wants, and then the zoning starts next year.

I think just to add, I think Don, Don Rosensweig and Sunshine, they've been pretty much engaged

Yeah, I mean, they essentially provided a revised map

based on Sunshine's presentation to the HAC a couple of months back and said this is what we think this and it was and it was it was sort of a recommendation for change so I think we're doing that but I think in terms of advising the city as to what the priorities are I think of it for this purpose of this meeting and what our goal is

I think we're on the same.

I think it's the land use map approved by the end of the calendar year, if you can.

And then we got to start on zoning next year.

And the rest of it is all of the results that follow from that.

No, I think they are sending

Is there anything additional that is going on?

Because it sounds like Alex may be saying that they're continuing to engage.

Yeah, I think that they provided comments to the Planning Commission as part of the comment

Public comment period before the last Planning Commission meeting on 21st.

Yeah, I mean, they presented the overlay map to the HAC.

The HAC agreed that it needed to be presented and advocated for the Planning Commission and they have done that.

and there's been some back and forth on how it looks, but that's basically what they have done.

But again, that's from the scale of this particular meeting, which is city, what do we think you should do in what order?

I would like to push back a little bit and follow up with what Alex said.

If there's a continuous engagement and there's no conversation back to the hack, and I didn't agree that they're going to continuously unanimously represent the hack.

We had a conversation and we agreed, we had conversation and we did agree to the last point.

But if there's continuous going back and forth, why wouldn't the hack be aware of that?

to see if there's different views that are being presented than what we initially agreed on.

On continuous going back and forth.

Alex, is there anything additional other than you were here, been here for the HAC meeting?

Yeah, I just want to respond.

I was responding to a reach in terms of staying engaged.

I assume that the HAC, based on their recommendation regarding overlay, affordable housing overlay, there has been an engagement between Dan and Sunshine with the consultant and staff.

So my assumption is, okay,

because it's basically back and forth, back and forth, like clarifications and stuff like that and comments.

And let me provide a little, neither of them are here and we're running out of time, but to be very brief about it, the consultants asked, hey, can you explain this map to us?

And they said, sure.

and then they held a conference to explain our policies so that the consultants understood, okay, this is the changes you want, this is what we're doing.

But neither one of them are here.

They can sort of go into the details of those conversations because of open meeting rules.

I did not participate in that particular meeting because that would have been three HAC members discussing HAC stuff.

So we would add to publicize, make it public.

That's why transparency is vital.

I do not disagree with you one bit.

Sorry, we're out of time here.

So tenants rights recommendations is the last thing.

I think that we're already sort of halfway through most of this.

Some of this particular rent control, we have to get a legislative authority from the state legislature, you know, so you guys keep it in mind so that I think around December or November,

That's when the city usually requests departments to provide suggestions on their legislative priorities.

So you guys may want to add this.

Any legislative grant of state that we need to enable implementation of these tenant rights, you may want to add that as something that we go beyond.

And then,

Yeah, you can put it in now.

Then we keep it in mind when we compile it at the end of the year to the city attorney, you know, because the city has a lobbyist.

OK. And then the right to counsel, I think we've established.

So then and then the developments receiving city assistance, I think that is in conjunction with the money actually going out the door.

So that's a two or three, right?

OK. And then the subsidy.

So just cause eviction and rent control, you're saying those are one and two?

No, I'm saying right to counsel.

Haven't we established that?

Haven't we funded for that?

What's a right to council versus having the authority, having the resources?

Alex?

Yeah, I think council acted on it by providing funding to the Legal Aid Center.

No council?

I think that's done.

So then developments for City of City, that's a two or a three.

That happens as the money comes out the door anyway.

Okay.

So the idea here is that if we're going to look at a rent control law and we need one, right, if we're going to do that, if we're even going to attempt it, leaving alone whether it's a good policy or not, if we're going to try to get the authority for rent control, that has to get into the legislative packet now, because that's happening now.

So these are things that if we're going to advocate for enabling legislation,

Now to this piece.

Then you're starting to get into limiting owner's rights.

So what did you say, Lisa?

You are opposed to rent control?

Yeah, I am.

Because then you're starting to get into the area of limiting homeowner's rights

the landlord's rights.

And I'm on the other side of that coin.

I think there needs to be some kind of rent control because of just how the affordability of rent is in the city of Charlottesville right now for people who are making a certain income.

And so for me, trying to see what you can win, just because we present it doesn't mean we're going to win it in the general assembly.

And if we work on issues, I think that the winnability of an issue should be effective.

I don't.

Well, and I mean, maybe that's the way we parse this is that if there's any enabling legislation that you all really want to get in there now, now's the time.

But they know that, too.

I mean, the city knows that.

We're not telling them anything.

OK, look, we are out of time.

We are overtime.

So what I would like from all of you is that

Just take a look at those pages again and rank them up as best you can and send them to me.

If you've got any specific comments, send them to me directly.

I will try to synthesize it into a bucket one, bucket two, bucket three with comments on each and circulate it back around to this committee to get everyone sort of to get a consensus that we're basically right.

Yes, ma'am.

OK.

Absolutely.

I need to reconnect with him on that, too.

OK.

So very quickly.

since we're running out of bodies here too.

Okay, having heard nothing from the public, I thought I'd give them 10 seconds.

Okie dokie, is there any objection?

Having heard no objection, we stand adjourned.

Homework by Friday, please, by Friday midnight.

One, two, and three from those pages.