City Council Meeting 6:30PM   3/21/2022

Greetings, everyone.

Hello.

So, Brian, you said we should be finished by 7, 730.

Oh, okay.

I got it through osmosis.

Just one of those days.

I was out trying to catch up on some gardening yesterday.

And I have a dog, so I understand, but you know, that's why we have the backyard fenced for the dog.

How are you, sir?

Good.

We're going to fulfill your time for sure.

I suspect so.

I haven't looked that far ahead.

I'm sure.

Community.

No, I'm just saying the tired part, but we'll make it through.

Oh, good.

May I recommend escape rooms for small groups of preteen teenagers for birthdays?

Yes, I'm, I'm, I'm looking to see, uh, I just got off the, off the phone with some of the staff and they're probably scurrying in to do some assignments before they get on this call.

Um, and we were supposed to have a presentation tonight on, uh, uh, affordable housing, I think from, uh, uh, the consultant.

Um, so I'm looking to see when they come on.

Okay.

Well, we've got everybody here now, so why don't we call a meeting to order?

Yes.

Councilor Magill?

Here.

Vice Mayor Wade?

Okay, is there a motion to approve or to amend the agenda?

Motion to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, any discussion?

I think it's pretty much what we've been expecting.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay, the motion passes.

We have an agenda.

This meeting, as we have been doing all year, will be divided into three main sections.

First will be a work session to hear and to discuss a staff presentation.

Second, we'll have a closed meeting to discuss various items that we're permitted to discuss in closed session.

And third will be the regular city council business meeting, which will begin around 6.30.

The 6.30 meeting includes a public hearing on the real estate tax rate.

as well as a number of development issues and other things.

But for the agenda, for the four o'clock session here, we have simply a report from HR and A advisors on the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund program review and redesign update.

Yes, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and members of the city council.

Tonight, like the mayor said, we'll be bringing you a follow up to December 20th presentation by the consultants.

As the city council may know, following the completion of the affordable housing plan and subsequently the comprehensive plan, which was approved by the city council on November 15th, 2021.

Prior to that, council requested

that the city staff follow up with additional study regarding the performance of Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund to make sure that the money is intended for the purposes for which it was established to make sure that it's been run in a cost effective way and that the city is getting its money's worth from the investment

and the studies also are designed to redesign the program, make it more efficient and then ensure some kind of accountability going forward.

On December 20th, the consultant and staff presented to the city council, task one of the contracts, which essentially entail program review.

And today, what council will be hearing, it's a summary of task one, and then a program design, which essentially is task two, and then thirdly, recommendations and the next steps.

And the consultant is here with us, and he will be making the presentation, and subsequent after the presentation, there will be opportunity for questions and answers.

So with that in mind,

I will ask the consultant to take the platform.

Good afternoon.

Welcome.

I believe last time we were looking to present to many of you, but maybe not all of you.

It was about 1 a.m.

So I'm very excited to be doing this presentation earlier in the day.

We'll try not to repeat too much what we went through last time.

We're going to go through a little bit, as I was just saying, of just a review of how past grants and loans have worked and where they went and how they've been used.

If you have questions on that section, please just ask.

Where we know, we'll tell you.

Where we don't know, we'll go find out and send an email and follow up.

And then we're going to talk a little bit more, be a little bit more forward facing in this part of the presentation now, compared to our last one, on how Charlottesville will be deploying funding going forward.

The second part today we'll spend most of the time going through is really more

Somewhat processy, and I apologize where we get weedy, but we want to be clear because we are working with the city manager to make choices about how money gets deployed and how to make sure we're reporting on that, how to make sure it's getting, achieving all the goals you all have set.

Thank you, Phillip.

Hi, I'm Callie Seltzer.

I'm a principal at HRNA.

I don't have the ability to share my screen, so someone can grant me that or just open the deck, that's great too.

Okay, thank you.

So as Bill mentioned for our agenda today, we're going to review our past investments.

That's task one here in blue.

Task two under our work is the program redesign.

We'll talk you through what we found in task one and how we have begun working with staff to redesign some programs and then separate, but in parallel, not to be discussed today is the inclusionary zoning program design, which I believe you all know is underway as well.

So we'll just move to slide five if we can.

Thank you.

So for our program review, you know we started with an in depth review of your documents so grant agreements in the past, NOPAs, the ways in which the city has solicited

and partners in your affordable housing deployment.

We conducted a lot of interviews and we also verified project information via those interviews and we did follow-up calls with your stakeholders and with your previous grantees.

We also collected information related to product delivery and who owns the property now and who's living there now.

We got a limited amount of demographic analysis, but that's included here.

and Performance as well.

So that's our overall approach.

Happy to explain more, but I think you guys saw this in December.

So we'll just move to the next slide if you will.

So yes, in summary, you've administered 46.7 million in funding.

So this is broken down into operating program, development and city administration.

And when we say development here, we're talking about new construction and rehab.

So

specific hard costs related to construction and rehab of affordable housing.

I will move on.

We've got some slides here just showing how CAF has been concentrated in grants into you know which recipients over time so if you have any anything you want to discuss further here but you'll see this is your set of recipients and then in the next slide you get a little more detail and we have a full kind of a full inventory of all this that city staff has now so you've got

The full amount of detail on we've given money to over the years.

How much was that money?

What was, what did they say they were going to do when they received the grant?

Did they do it?

And you know, what, what did they fund?

And then also some status on, you know, who's who, what's happening at this property now?

Do they still own it?

Are they living there?

So this is just your agencies receiving over $2 million over that time period.

You can see there's six of those and

Certainly CRHA and PHA won't be a surprise because you've had kind of a rather large investment in those groups in the past two years.

Next slide, please.

So your average funding level is about 3.6 million.

And in 2021, as I mentioned, there's that outlier for Piedmont Housing

CRHA.

So this is kind of your your average with CAF in blue here and then also your other funds administered for CDBG and HOME and then the General Fund, all of which are related to housing in this chart.

I believe the data does include the Vibrant Communities Fund here, but we didn't have records on like those grant agreements for Vibrant Communities.

We just looked at the CAF grant agreements, but the dollar amounts here I believe includes the Vibrant Communities Fund as well.

Thank you, okay, so

We've just separated out new construction on the left and your rehab and retrofit on the right.

Just so you can get a sense of who your partners are in this work over the years, how much kind of money and funding was available and drawing your attention to this idea of cost efficiency.

We think it's only one of many important metrics and generally performance in terms of cost efficiency per unit.

From what we see in the industry is very good.

You are getting a good amount of cost efficiency per unit invested via the CAF.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, we

We don't have a full set of demographic data.

It is generally considered pretty onerous to collect that.

It's not something that the city has, frankly, the capacity to be collecting for all investments in the past.

Going forward, one of our recommendations is more data collected around demographics of households and the beneficiaries of these programs.

But it wasn't something that was really collected

for every unit that you've supported over the years.

So we did what we could in terms of the four organizations that did have demographic data available.

That's what you see here.

So PHA, AHIP, Habitat, and then the Down Payment Assistance Program.

So they provided, I'd say, a very kind of simple breakdown between black and non-black households.

In our mind, that is not the full picture of demographic data, but we

did our best to at least give you some data points about how your funds have been invested and who the beneficiaries are of this money over time.

But in going forward, we would like to see demographic data collected that actually breaks down white, black, African-American, you know, depending on sort of like the census divisions there, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian,

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders.

So we want to kind of align that with the federal terminology and make sure you're getting great data there.

And again, just showing you here, some demographic data overlaid with AMI.

So that area median income and who's actually being served by your various programs in terms of income.

I would just recommend going forward.

Thank you.

So just for clarification, I thought I heard that you said we gave an average of, I don't know, $3.2 million.

And then I saw one slide that said in 2021, we gave $10.4 million to PHA and Housing Authority.

So can you just

Just recap, because I think it's really important that I understand that as a newbie where the money is going, you know, because as we do have a goal of 10 million dollars annually.

Sure.

Yes, certainly.

That's an outlier in data terms.

But Piedmont Housing Alliance was successful in receiving, I think, maybe the first competitive allocation of

low-income housing tax credits that Charlottesville has seen in a long time and that happened in 2019 or 2020 and they've actually received I think there were actually two large tax credit projects awarded and so that was that demanded an additional infusion and commitment from the city of soft dollars which you brought a lot of

equity from the state program in.

But there was a big commitment made to support the friendship for its public housing redevelopment.

And that's where that's where that investment was made.

So I wasn't actually involved in this project at that time, but that's my understanding.

And I believe there's, you know, there was a council decision related to that.

Sure.

Okay, great.

So just kind of moving through to, you know, what you learned in this first section and how we're trying to help you redesign and formulate some recommendations here for things like your NOFA process and how do you align your funding with your housing plan priorities, make sure that you have documentation for monitoring and contracting processes that kind of

reflect these bigger commitments to affordability, deeper affordability over time, and just more dollars in affordable housing expenditures.

So we looked at your overall processes, we looked at policy, we looked at the project viability and efficiency.

So a full memo will be forthcoming, but we wanted to give you some of our initial findings and recommendations.

And Philip, I don't know if you want to go through any of the project findings on this section or we can, this is a part we'd love to have discussion around.

So I'll kick us off and just looking at the next slide, please.

starting here with affordability.

So in the past, there's a variety of affordability terms in grant agreements, which is very typical and just kind of project dependent.

But we think there's an opportunity to seek much longer affordability terms, align that with the housing plan.

So really trying to get 99 years of affordability whenever possible.

And we are working to kind of help you get the right set of agreements in place with your grantees.

that get you that longer term of affordability.

20 years at an absolute minimum would be our recommendation there.

Sorry, was someone trying to speak?

Okay.

The other thing we're looking at, city staff expressed desire to kind of recoup some of these funds from CAF when possible.

I think in some cases that will be possible, especially if we are able to structure CAF as a

a subordinate or a soft loan because what that does is you essentially you're buying that affordability and if a developer in 10 or 15 years decides you know they own the property they have a covenant but they're okay to terminate that covenant because they're going to sell the property and make a lot of money when they sell it it brings you back to the table to renegotiate and say well actually this is a loan we papered it as a loan and here you are

needing to basically, within your sale, we are gonna recoup these funds so that we can reinvest in affordable housing in other ways.

We don't have total control over what developers do with the projects that you invest in.

These affordability commitments are not ironclad, but generally we think that's a good protection for you to be able to recoup funds

I think that's one way to think about it.

I think you can attach an interest rate to say, you know, so long as this project is performing as an affordable project available to residents at or below a certain level of income, so long as it is in compliance there, and if

the developer wants to sell it and say the foreclosure and or sale will terminate that covenant.

You recoup an interest, like there's an interest rate that's attached in those original documents and then you're due a bunch of interest.

And that sometimes will bring a developer back to the table and say, well, I don't really want to pay this interest penalty, so let me think if I can sell this to a nonprofit instead, a nonprofit that's going to purchase the property at market.

So it's very typical in affordable housing

transactions when someone wants out and the affordability is at risk.

So yes, I think there's also potential for, in your down payment assistance program, we do get into this a little bit more, but to, yes, if there's a certain multiple met via sale and it's no longer being sold to someone who is in the income

the target income range, then some of that could be, the city could be a party to an agreement where you get some of that money back as well in the case of home ownership.

Just because I think that would, one, it's, you know, if we weren't time, this way we are actually getting back on top of our money, just if it's being, if it gets sold in 20 years.

Yeah.

that the investment that we have put in either stops someone to pause, that it wasn't just this free money.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's what you're buying.

That's the public good you're buying.

And if that's going to go away, there should be

a penalty or some way to recoup those dollars.

So we've started to set up some of the grant agreements to look at that.

I'll draw a distinction, and Kelly can hit on it, but it's an important one.

For a multifaceted rental situation, we're going to push for 99 years, we're going to push for the longest period we can, and we're going to make sure, so that's the covenant, and then the loan document, we're going to say this is a loan, and in most cases we would recommend exactly what's left here, that it's deferred interest, that interest is compounding, so as long as it stays affordable, no big deal.

in the affordability, then you have a lot more leverage for negotiation.

Doesn't mean you'll always win the negotiation, but you have a lot more leverage.

I mean, you know what?

This is a detail we can talk about later.

The homeownership piece, though, I think is what we lay down in the housing plan is that for homeownership,

If you all bid down payment assistance for a household and they sold the house and they made a windfall, they would repay the money that the city put in, but they would get the upside because they wouldn't be building wealth for that household.

So we're not splitting on the upside for a homeowner.

Well, that brought me to my question slash perhaps more comment is, you know, to me, it would seem to make sense, a lot of sense for us to look at having it be a greater expectation or goal to use the community land trust model more frequently, because that would seem to both

I think that's a major missed opportunity on the city's end.

You can choose to fund a land trust, but if you're not putting a land trust, it's really, there's a page and I'm going to talk and flip the screens at the same time.

So we'll see how well I can do that.

It's about balancing wealth creation versus long-term affordability.

And so if you limit the resale to the next household, then you limit the wealth creation for that household who you're assisting.

So it's a lower income or extremely low income household.

They're not going to get the same wealth appreciation that a normal homeowner would get.

Now, this is beyond them just repaying the assistance of the city.

They would be sharing a piece of the outside.

So they actually may potentially, depending on how you draw the split, significantly less money.

We don't need to continue because I know this is a love track, but I would just say the way I think about it is

us using it as a middle rung between rental and full home ownership.

And if we use it right, people who could otherwise only afford to rent will now be building wealth that will be passed on.

So I actually think it generates more wealth creation community, not less if we utilize it right.

But I know I'm getting us off track.

I just want to say I agree with Michael on that.

I actually grew up on a land trust.

So I apologize, it's not that you can't fund one, it's just that not everything you fund is one.

Yeah, a land trust, which can be run by the residents who own properties, owns the land, but the person owns the house, so basically it takes the price of land out of the purchase price of a home,

So homeownership becomes a lot more affordable.

And then when they sell it, it can go to another family who can have that opportunity for wealth creation.

And again, I think of it as like a middle rung between renting to full homeownership.

Got it.

Thank you.

And we'll put a plug for the housing plan.

This was something that was talked about a lot.

If you want to read the whole housing plan and you make it to page 137 it lays out the trade-offs between wealth building and affordability just with some examples.

There are absolutely ways to balance these things and I will stop belaboring this because we got lots of pills to cover.

That's page 137 of what document is that of our portable housing plan?

Yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

No, it's a great conversation and a great model.

So take a look at that page.

And I think the trick is to figure out how the city, by just having an open solicitation, plugs into a really effective CLT.

You don't control the nonprofit themselves, right?

So moving forward, we'll just push, actually, if you don't mind, to the Open Policy and Process Questions section.

Thank you.

So here we've laid out for you guys scenarios we think needs some more discussion.

Starting with, you know, just is the is the, you know, when will the city make decisions about the amount of funding that's available for affordable housing?

We want to see consistent and predictable resource for for your nonprofit partners who operate on a pretty, pretty lumpy and lean

development pattern and I won't explain that more here but consistency is really important and then also you know through what process will you allocate funding to various housing programs and you know are you considering actually consolidating all housing funding into a single procurement vehicle so you know from from the housing plan you know we

We note that it calls for $10 million a year over 10 years to get that kind of consistent, predictable resource.

And also a formal commitment to fund through CAF or the vehicle for affordable housing, if there's more than one.

And that there be a clear line in the city's budget for that.

So that's something we just think would

deserve some conversation here.

And then also how will the city monitor and monitor income targeting and the goals that you've set?

That part is easier in terms of publishing metrics and having a lot of transparency about who's being served by these programs.

It definitely demands some additional capacity.

I'd say, you know, housing staff is small for programs of this scale and frankly for, you know,

kind of big bad housing problems that your city is facing, that cities of some size aren't necessarily facing.

So thinking about expansion of that capacity as well.

And we have a little bit of a timeline laid out here.

A big part of this conversation is there's three sets of decisions that have to be made.

How much money?

is being allocated.

And there's $10 million talked about in overall commitment, but not all of that goes into CAP.

So there's how much money is committed, which programs, which housing programs is that being put into?

And then the third decision point is of the grants or projects or programs that come in, which one of those are being funded?

So how much money, which programs,

and then which actual individual applications are being funded.

Those are three and there's several different actors involved in it.

So there's city staff involved in it.

You have the CAF advisory committee involved in it.

And then obviously you as the council have the final say in almost all decisions.

And so we have to strike a little bit of this out, but want to talk through a little bit, make sure we

So I just want to chime in with some newbie questions here.

I can get away with this for a few more meetings, I guess, Mr. Mayor.

Okay.

So what I would like to know is, are the things that we're doing, you know,

looked upon as far as housing and how we're addressing it here, whether it's in a university town, is it looked upon like as innovative, like other cities and localities, like they're doing something special there in Charlottesville, how they're working with Habitat and PHA and housing authority and land trust, they're doing some, or are we doing some kind of wonky here that,

You know, we could really streamline or improve or whatever to get even more efficiencies or even more because

$10 million is a lot, and I understand that's gonna put us in the upper echelon, if not top of the list of cities our size, as far as resources we're putting towards it.

But if we're not doing things efficient or we could do it better, that's what I'm not clear on.

I'll take a first stab, and I think the first thing you said is very important and is right.

Charlottesville is punching above its weight on a per capita basis.

Almost any way you cut the numbers, you all are putting, you are very committed to this public policy priority.

So that's the first side of it.

In terms of how you're running the programs, you're working with your housing authority, you're partnering with nonprofits.

For your side of the city, you're pretty sophisticated.

There might be one or two other programs you could run, but if you have a local,

You have a local voucher program.

You have a specialized tax abatement program.

These are pretty complicated programs that very few cities your size run.

Frankly, very few of our larger cities run some of these programs.

So those are, again, I think above your top of class.

Processes for administering funds have lagged.

Your process is for awarding funds and scoring funds and having sufficient capacity to monitor your awards.

It's probably behind where it needs to be.

It's just why you all ask for this and why staff have appointed many of these things out to us.

Your staff is working hard and aware of this.

It's just a lot that's beyond.

So part of what we're wanting, Charlottesville has a lot of committees and a lot of

Barry and Dave Public, but the processes aren't as clear and as codified as is probably appropriate for this much public money.

Yes, the next slide I think has that timeline.

I would just add to that that you,

You also have a very sophisticated group of affordable housing developers that I've not seen that level of sophistication in the Southeast.

I think in Boston, New York, places where you have strong neighborhood-based CDCs with a 30, 40-year history of neighborhood-based action.

That's kind of how I got into community development.

That exists.

It doesn't exist in the Southeast.

Primarily it's development driven non-profits like PHA.

So you have a really sophisticated set of actors that regionally, you know, bar none.

Yes, I think that that also means you can solve a lot of these housing problems, but you do need the systems on the back end to make sure that when you're putting money into projects that you've got some deeper monitoring and kind of

you know, ticking off these housing goals that you've set for your city.

So we believe that's a matter of additional staff capacity, like true additional FTEs, you know, like actually having people that can monitor long-term because some of these covenants, as we're saying, are going to be 99-year covenants.

Thank you.

Is your name Callahan?

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Thank you.

We didn't get specific about FTEs.

We have a couple of roles laid out that we think are needed on the monitoring and compliance side.

So thank you.

So, and this is kind of leans into the question Sena had that I get a lot when I'm just walking in the neighborhoods that is, you know, I think that a lot of residents are reluctant to speak on this, that they feel that it may come out wrong, but many residents that have been born and bred here in Charlottesville, if you will, that they feel like they,

have been trying to get housing for years and they see others maybe from surrounding counties or new to the community that they will get the houses before they do and sometimes it's because maybe they may not have the credit for it and

you know if you're new here you don't even have credit and you know of course now PHA and other programs they have great programs to work you through that to address those but it takes a long time but I just can tell you for many residents it's really frustrating this is not your issue but I'm telling you that for

A community that's trying to address it and many a particular community of color and low wealth is trying to, has been here working and grinding and to see someone who's been here many, many years less get into a house.

Man, it's very deflating.

So

That's just one of the things that I've heard a lot through the campaign the last 30 years.

I think that the steps you guys have taken to really focus on 30% and below AMI households and in your housing plan, that's part of how you get it.

There are nonprofits that are working with residents to get their credit cleaned up because bad credit in Charlottesville is practically synonymous with racial exclusion.

So there's a lot of

a lot of nonprofits doing that work.

I think you've got some of the tenants of it laid out in your housing plan for sure.

You know, if you want to invest more deeply in an individual household, that's a policy choice versus reach a lot more units, right?

We don't have to,

We'll labor it here.

We will lay the, we will come back to the old set of recommendations, but the basic process we're looking at, and we have, there's a fair amount of detail to work out with staff, is that city staff and the CAT committee go back and forth on production goals, and allocation, and then those end up getting, so production goals, like how many units we're trying to hit here.

We had some goals set in the initial housing plan, but how many units are trying to produce?

and then allocation of cost for different projects to actually types of programs.

So down payment assistance versus new multifamily rental versus single family new construction and how those are going to add up.

And so they really look at those production goals, the allocations, and they look at the budget and they staff and the committee come together that they make recommendations and then staff bring the council and set of recommendations and kind

That's great, but this year we need to, we really need to focus harder on home ownership, so let's move some of that money, like we'd like to see you move some of that money from all family rental over to home ownership, or there's a great chance to leverage more money from the state, let's move more to rental, so you know, maybe council just approves it, but council gets a weigh-in on that.

Then from there, city staff actually write the RFP or NOFA, the competitive process for

Nonprofits and sometimes for-profits, but to respond to funding based on that.

And they put out that it goes to competitive process, applications come in, city staff and CAPS review this scoring.

And we, you know, at Guided, we've changed the CAP structure so it shouldn't be a conflict between anyone submitting funding and on the CAP so they can make recommendations.

And city staff take those recommendations back to council and council

That's kind of the process where largely it's city staff working with TAP that are bringing these to your project priorities and production and then on actual selections.

I was really trying.

Yeah, I'll just summarize what I think he was trying to say.

I think it's important.

I'll try to summarize.

This proposed timeline is trying to align your processes with those larger federal and state resources that your grantees rely on to leverage these dollars, your local dollars.

So you look at the end here, February City issues letter of support to grantees.

That's really to

get a letter in the hands of your nonprofits who are trying to go after the low-income housing tax credit.

And that cycle starts in March for Virginia.

So we're kind of backing into a schedule that helps them best leverage your local dollars with state and federal money.

Well, this is a question to city staff then is,

Yeah, it's always been our intention to work with the recommendations that came in.

And if we needed to ramp up, we would be able to do that.

So it looks like a very definite activity, September through

February to be prepared for issuing letters of support in February.

We're staffed to do that.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So there you have your answer, Mr. Mayor.

It's a captain counselor.

Thank you.

The question I have looking at this is it seems to me that most of the applications for LIHTC programs in the last few years have not come with any assistance from the CAF, but rather from the Capital Improvement Program.

In the past, Mayor Snook, you are right, absolutely right.

In the past, a lot of investment the city undertook.

We had direct discussion with the city council and the city manager.

It never really came through the CAF program.

You know, so the essence of implementation of the affordable housing plan and the recommendation they are in, you know, is to ensure that going forward, that those funds will come through the CAFRA, you know, I think you raise an important point.

And I would like to ask the city council,

You know, to ensure that if you get a letter from a developer regarding funding, you know, I think it would be appropriate for the city council to direct that developer or that letter to the staff so the staff can coordinate that with the DeKalb committee.

And if, in the wisdom of the city council, the council is looking at funding that,

Then we can discuss with the developer the conditions of the funding because developer will need a commitment letter.

The letter the city council is just discussing to be issued in February.

It's a commitment letter.

And under that commitment letter, staff can provide to the city attorney who we have to draft the commitment letter

All the requirements, the city will be looking at in terms of affordability periods, all the other elements of the commitment letter.

I would like to have that channel

of considering a request for funding.

And I think the consultant made it pretty clear that it will be better.

And the deputy city manager, Mr. Sanders, has indicated that several times that it will be appropriate to channel all funding requests through the affordable housing fund.

So that is an important point that you raise.

So if we're doing so is it simply for their advice or is it because we will have given them some money that they can in essence recommend the spending of?

I mean so far I don't know enough about the way that CAF has actually worked to know whether any of these LIHTC projects have involved money that has come through CAF

OK. Staff will come to the city council.

We haven't set up the CAF committee yet.

We are coming to the city council with recommendations in terms of restructuring of HAC and the creation of the

The CAF Committee, I believe it's April 4th.

What's going to happen is staff is going to discuss with the CAF Committee because one of the roles or responsibility of the CAF Committee is twofold.

One is setting priorities and then in consultation with the city council.

And secondly, distribution of fund.

So is that priority setting that will coordinate with the city council so the city council can provide direction in terms of, are we gonna be funding multi-family development like that project this year?

exclusively, or are we gonna do it in addition to funding, maybe home improvement or home renovation, down payment assistance.

So that's part of the priority setting.

Then after that, staff will work with the CAF Committee to prepare NOFA.

responding to those priority directions that the council provided.

Phil, get your hand up.

Is that on purpose?

I think

I think the point is well taken that running the tax credit related investments and us through the same process is a change.

And we're suggesting this timeline and that those high level priorities and production goals across all your programs get set.

with city staff in the CAF Committee, which is a new committee you're lifting up, and that there's a proposed budget that goes with that.

And then if there's enough money to actually designate different program-specific RFPs, like we really want to run a program focused on down payment assistance, or we want to entertain all these proposals for down payment assistance or innovations in land trusts, whatever it might be, that you have the opportunity to do that in the one overarching NOFA solicitation, if that makes sense.

I think it depends on how much money you're investing.

Because if it's just your typical $2 to $3 million a year, a single RFP will get you enough proposals to fill that bucket.

And certainly tax credit projects will come your way.

Because if those nonprofits know that there's a resource available that they can get a letter essentially for soft subsidy in their hands, they're going to apply for city funds and at least take a crack at it.

I have a question please for Mr. Sanders and Councilor Payne.

Maybe this is along the lines of what Mayor Snook was asking.

Could you, because I'm new to all this, could you sort of help me understand

how this has worked over the last several years.

So I know we have a hack that makes recommendations.

And my understanding is that the hack has basically put forward a number of projects over time.

It's really driven by volunteers and also by folks in the development community.

And it sounds like from what I'm hearing tonight is we've made a lot of progress using that.

We've gotten a lot of good work done.

It's been successful.

But what we want to do now is elevate this and maybe perhaps the words professionalize it, make it a more ongoing sort of program that we're calling a CAF committee.

Yes, sir.

I mean, it's to also eliminate the various conflicts that have existed over time as well, because when you've had one committee that's been evaluating the actual proposals, then that in itself leads to various confusion.

So the establishment of the CAP committee is an intent to pull the developers out of the conversation where they may have a direct benefit so that there are others that are fully vetting out those proposals and making the recommendation separate and apart from.

then the HAC itself can participate in policymaking, analysis, review, recommendations, and at any point really become a conflict of any kind.

And as Alex was describing, this is also a part of a process designed to just try to really put us on a path that all housing related activities are coming to one single portal.

Anyone making a request for a housing investment to the city of Charlottesville should come through one door.

That request should be factored against everything else that is being considered and then it gives us a better ability to track it.

and meet the compliance variations that Callie and Phillip has both identified.

I mean, that's part of what I've uncovered in my time here as well.

And I also just want to point out that we do have another work session on the fourth focused on affordable housing, where I'm going to bring to light more of the various issues, concerns, conflicts, so that you'll be able to process this series of recommendations that you're receiving today and how we plan to operationalize those and where there are decision

One thing that I would be grateful for is a flow chart or an org chart or something that shows how these things fit together.

Is the proposal for the CAF Committee, would it belong directly in the city manager's office?

Would it belong under NDS?

Technically, it already is.

The Office of Community Solutions is directly in the city manager's office, and this responsibility will be there.

And so for this coming budget season, I'm trying to recall from looking through this very thick book that Ms. Hamel has given us, are you going to have, with this next budget,

There is only one position that's currently allocated that is not funded.

It is the housing coordinator position.

I've actually been reluctant to fill that position because I actually feel as though it needs to be elevated to a housing manager so we get someone with a higher skill set.

That's still to be worked out how to go about doing it.

And ideally, we wanted to get this result from HRNA to give us a full picture of the analysis that was in front of us.

One of the key takeaways for me as I've looked at the budget since I've come on board is

Sure.

I can share with you that the original concept of pulling housing, um, neighborhood services and redevelopment into one house and labeling it as the office of community solutions.

The thought is that there is way more to go along with that.

I have a FTE plan for how we can build that out over time.

The choice was not to rush, to do it, to focus on housing because that's our crisis.

That's where a lot of our money is going.

Let's write that part of the ship first.

Yeah.

So I have a quick follow up.

You know, I did my senior thesis way back when I was at Norfolk State with the Norfolk Housing Authority.

And we have one here and it may have changed, but then they were essentially the Affordable

for the city of Norfolk.

And I'm sure they had other organizations.

And so I just want to, when we have the work session on April the 4th, I'd like to know a little bit more about our housing authority role in the whole affordable housing scheme and programs that we have here.

Absolutely.

One of the things that I have been hoping that someone would explain or would research and then be able to answer for me, we were promised this by staff, but I don't know whether HR&A ever realized that staff was promising that they were going to answer these questions for us.

So if the answer is, hey, that wasn't what we were actually trying to do,

That's fine.

But what I'm curious about and have been curious about all along is the question of whether our efforts to designate a certain number of units to be affordable in a particular apartment complex, is that actually happening?

Are those units actually getting built and rented?

How are we tracking them?

Are we tracking them?

How does that compare to the folks who say, oh, I'll put X number of dollars into the affordable housing fund, rather than have affordable units in my apartment complex?

How is that whole program working?

Is that something that you all are able to answer for us?

I was gonna say generally, and I think our memo lays this out, we did not find, we looked at every grant agreement, we looked at every project in the past 10 years, we did not find examples where a thing just didn't get built and nothing was, you know, corrected, like the city did recoup

I believe a loan for one piece of property where the project fell through over the years.

Yeah, just for context, that total number of units over the past 10 years is something like three until Dairy Central came online.

Yeah, I just want to add a great point, Councillor Payne.

Historically, the developers, they haven't been keen in terms of providing the units, actual units.

they prefer to make contribution to the affordable housing fund because it's cheaper for them.

And the amount of money that they're contributing in lieu of actual units, it's not enough for the city to actually construct the units.

So historically, there hasn't been production of units through the SUP or rezoning.

until I believe a few years ago, 600 West May provided two units and then the recent one also provided about 15 to 20 units.

I think they will start leasing pretty soon.

However, the major challenge the city is having at this point is that

the regulation says 80% of AMI.

And it's pretty difficult for those folks that are looking for affordable housing to meet, their income is inadequate to actually meet that income guideline.

A lot of them are below 60% AMI.

I think that's part of the discussion the Deputy City Manager, Mr. Sanders, will be having with the City Council sometime next month.

I would be curious to know that number too.

I mean, I have never felt that I really understood how this, I mean, we end up arguing and sort of sweating blood over things that don't seem to actually happen.

when we start talking about so many affordable units per, as the density bonus, as the cost of the density bonus, so to speak.

And I've always wondered, is this actually happening?

Are these units being built?

Are we getting money instead?

How much money are we getting?

And I just don't know.

And I was told that this was the kind of thing

that was going to be answered in the process of this further evaluation from HRNA.

We would like, oh sorry, we would like to know the answers for that because it would inform the incentive structure that we're trying to set up RISE, but we were not, we were not scope for that, but definitely

can work with you to figure out those numbers.

Well, the money is supposed to go into the CAF.

Yeah, we have that information.

We can provide that to the city council, including the number of actual units viewed by developers in recent times.

In terms of CAF, I think since 2010,

Some of the letter, I don't know, several years ago, but in the past,

Three to four years, yeah.

But I guess for my clarity, the CAF just is a fund, right?

The OCS, Office of Community Solutions, is overseeing it right now.

And once we create the CAF Committee, they will be coordinating that with staff in the past hard.

has been responsible for the review and recommendations related to the Cal Fund.

And it's, yeah, just to add on to that, it's obviously a hack subcommittee that doesn't include beneficiaries of it.

And it was many years ago at this point, but they were asked to perform that function.

And I think they are,

Yeah.

Mr. Pinkston asked for a flow chart on all of these actors in this.

And Sam and Alex, I look to you to complete that task for us so we know where the flow of activity is and who's doing what to whom and for what reason, OK?

Mr. Rogers, if we could add to that flow chart also where the money for the CAF comes from.

I had a note about an earlier slide.

There was a timeframe of 24 months I saw at one point, which was the recommendation for sort of, I guess, how long a project should stay in process in terms of its, I guess, proposal development kind of funding timeline.

I don't know if you can go back to that slide, but

Just wondering specifically, I mean two years in some ways seems like a long time in other ways particularly if you're building if you're not sort of renovating but in fact we're building new

buildings, new construction, either Habitat or PHA.

I don't expect that would be enough time.

And I guess a major limitation has been the capacity of our review unit, I guess, within NDS to actually get projects reviewed and approved in what people would call a timely manner.

Could you speak a little to that?

Sure.

So the recommendation here is that you're making investments in projects that are going to deliver, if you will, that means lease up within 24 months.

And for a tax, for a LIHTC program, there is for especially larger scale multifamily, there is often an 18 month construction period.

certainly a smaller scale 10 units can be built faster but because of kind of the light tech structure and needing to secure credits bring investors in there's a long but predictable on-ramp for that project delivery and a lot of certifications including like IRS certifications along the way to make sure that the investors are also you know cleared with

their tax credit.

That all hinges on their tax credit.

So yes, I think that that's what this 24 months is.

And this is really just speaking to, you know, you want to entertain projects that are real and going to create units within two years.

There can be exceptions to that, certainly like early acquisition funding or

you know, funding you do for like land trusts.

There's a lot of holding costs associated with acquisition and holding land if you don't have kind of a development plan.

And so we're trying here to kind of discourage project funding of what where there's no development plan.

So if you're within that kind of 24 months, and you have kind of these predictable resources, like tax credits,

We kind of know what it's going to look like for that project to deliver and you can count on those units within two years.

I'm not sure I'm answering the question.

Yeah, what you're saying is helpful to me.

So thank you for that.

I just know that for that sort of timeframe to be doable.

I think our review capacity within the city needs to be predictable for developers.

I know we're making strides to make that happen and I'm grateful for that, but I think it's something to keep in mind.

Perhaps, you know, I don't know this space like Councilor Payne does.

He's an expert and a newbie.

But I don't know, for instance, the difference between say Habitat for Humanity, which is working on longer timeframes, I would think, than other developers.

I would want to

I would hope that whenever we get to the point of brass tacks of laying out what we want our plan to be, we'll be thoughtful and say, well,

I would just second Pinkston's point and add, you know, a lot of our major, most transformative investments in projects like Friendship Court, public housing development in the county,

Yeah, absolutely.

And yes, familiar with the social impact protocol that PHA is using, I think

There's a way to encourage resident-led design and a real community engagement process and also discourage developers, particularly for-profit developers, from using your money to speculate on land for a project that they say they're going to make affordable three, four years from now.

I think that's what we're trying to distill here.

But yeah, we absolutely hear you that early resources are critical for some of your nonprofits because they don't have

I should note Rory Stoltenberg on an email provided a link to talk about that shows contributions over time from developers into the CAF.

This takes us up through 2017 or 2018, I guess.

shows roughly $2.1 million from those kinds of sources.

I don't know, the last one was 2018.

I don't know whether there have been any updates since 2019, 2020, 2021.

The largest contributors by far were the two big projects on West Main Street, the Flats at West Village,

I'm sorry, the idea that is the money goes into the calf and then it's reinvested, I guess that would be ideally what would be happening with that money.

Okay.

And I guess though, what this leads to is if we've had $47 million go out of the calf, so to speak, and only $2 million, let's say it's half

half the size of where I'm not saying it's $4 million.

That's still over $40 million that presumably has come from the city's CIP or the city's general fund or something else.

And that to me raises real questions about what the role of the CAF has been

because my sense of things is that when the city decides that it's going to redevelop South First Street, that few million dollars that went into that project came from initiatives at a level higher up than simply the housing, simply the calf committee.

for Friendship Court.

I don't know what CAF or the HAC or any other group will have, what role they will have had.

I'm just aware of the fact that ultimately the decisions just sort of come to us and they don't come to us from the CAF, they just come to us from staff.

And I don't know whether the staff has run everything through

And I can speak to that is actually the observation that I've had myself as I pose questions to staff as to how do we do all these different things because they haven't necessarily checked my box on being clear.

And Sam, you have told us that at our next meeting, we will be having a work session where you will make everything clear.

We hear you, Flair.

All right.

I do think that it's always going to be something we have to keep in mind to Vice Mayor Wade's point earlier about are we doing enough?

How does what we do compare to the cohort cities?

How does what we do compare within the regional southeast as Cal hadn't mentioned a minute ago?

I think that's important.

I don't know that it would ever be a right answer.

It really speaks to our values.

There's lots of other things we have commitments to, including the schools.

But the one thing that I would just state, the affordable housing plan that was endorsed by the prior council called for $10 million a year.

basically said $7 million, Mr. Payne, you can help me if I'm getting this wrong, but roughly $7 million to direct subsidy, $2 million to, $7 million for projects basically, $2 million for subsidies, and then, or rent relief and things like that, and a million to staff, yeah.

And when I posed that to folks in the development community, they were like, oh, well, we think that the actual amount we invest in projects should be greater than seven.

It should be more like nine or something, which is not surprising.

But I think it does speak to the fact that people use these numbers in different ways.

And I think it's important to be

clear on what we're spending our money on and what part of affordable housing.

It's good for me as a person who's elected on one of the things that I spoke about when I was running was the need for housing.

And I want to be able to say, yeah, we've met these commitments.

On the other hand, there's more work to be done.

And I think that there will always be appetite in this community

Thank you.

I would just add in the conversation about the CAF, I would see the ideal role is it just being a more flexible pool of money that is both the pool of money we can use for low-income housing tax credit development in the city as well as potentially for any

strategic opportunities that we didn't anticipate that we could take quicker action on.

And the final thought, I definitely agree we need to move towards a more systemic and strategic approach to implementing housing.

And I think really the critical piece of that is us being more strategic and planning long-term about land acquisition.

I think because we have limited land and the housing market is so hot,

Every time we miss an opportunity for land acquisition is potentially a permanent missed opportunity.

And I think if we can be strategic about that, we could start to really make a bigger difference, even if affordable housing couldn't immediately be built.

We know that that land could be used for that purpose down the road.

And so I just hope we're able to be

I noticed that we just recently got page 20 of the presentation up.

I think the other pages were prompts for exactly a discussion we just had.

So we're good.

We will just point you to the last slide, which is our next steps.

If we can move it.

There we go.

So some of the items we're working through are revising your overall NOFA program like RFP structure specifically.

So if you

want to be opportunistic about acquisitions, that you can have a slightly, you know, a more bespoke set of criteria for looking at acquisitions, that you're not just gauging that against LIHTC, which is gonna, apples and oranges, and rewriting guidelines and evaluation criteria, application forms that all kind of sync up your housing plan and that overall structure.

So we're also, you know, seeking,

City Council's confirmation on this kind of revision and approach, certainly working with Deputy City Manager on that.

And then we intend to host, or City will host some updates to convene interested applicants, help them understand new processes of the NOFA and funding allocations going forward.

and then also issuance of these kind of compliance and technical assistance guidelines so that your program applicants at the time that they actually apply for these dollars know that it comes with some requirements to track data like demographic data.

So you guys actually have a longitudinal set of information about who programs are supporting.

So those are just some of what we're working through with staff.

And I won't take up any more of your time, but we

I sincerely appreciate all of your feedback and questions today and look forward to further refining.

Yeah, thank you.

It was very helpful.

Absolutely.

Great, thank you.

Okay, that's our agenda for the first part of our meeting.

All right, so the next portion is our closed session.

Do we have a motion to go into closed session?

I have it.

Hold on, let me pull it up.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

OK, that motion passes.

We will now go into closed session.

We will be coming back to a separate Zoom link for the open meeting at 6.30.

Kena sent it out.

Right.

You should see it in your calendar.

I see it.

OK, great.

All right.

Thanks for watching

Thanks for watching

you

I'm

I'm

Music playing

you

For those who are waiting, my apologies that we're running a little behind.

We had a little extended closed session.

We will be starting the meeting in just a minute or two.

Okay, looks like we've got all of our counselors here.

All right, let me read us back in.

Is there a second?

Second.

Councilor Magill?

Yes.

Councilor Pinkston?

Yes.

Yes.

So we will, now we've established that we have a quorum.

Let's start with a moment of silence.

I have one, Mayor Snook.

The Human Rights Commission would like to hear from the public on emergency housing access and the quality of affordable public and subsidized housing.

They will be holding a town hall meeting via Zoom on Thursday, March 24th at 6.30 PM and are looking to hear from the public again about the issues of emergency housing and the quality of affordable public and subsidized housing.

And you can find a meeting link for that or register for it

if you Google Charlottesville Zoom and go to that webpage.

Any other announcements?

Any items for recognition, proclamations?

I think we shot our water on proclamations last month.

Mayor Snook, I would like to move to appoint the following people to the following boards and commissions.

Charlottesville Economic Development Authority, Denise Herndon.

Okay, that's what I thought.

I just wanted to make sure.

Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board, Judy Sandridge, Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee, Ethan Heil, Gregory Weaver, Historic Resources Committee, John Mason,

Jefferson Area Board for Aging Advisory Council, L.D.

Perry, Christina Reese, Jefferson Area Board for Aging Board of Directors, Richard Brew, John Durth, Elaine Phillips, Personnel Appeals Board, Robert Black,

Social Services Advisory Board, Sarah Flores, Patricia Jones-Turner, Tree Commission, Donna Shaughnessy, Makshaia Tolbert, Tim Padolino, and Holly Lafferty, Charlottesville Youth Council,

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

Councilor Magill?

Yes.

Councilor Pinkston?

Yes.

Yes.

Consent Agenda item number two minutes February 3rd budget work session February 7th and February 22nd meetings number three resolution appropriating funds for the Seville plans together comp plan project from the small area plans account within the city's capital projects fund $188,810 second reading

4.

Resolution.

Appropriating funds from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to Charlottesville Area Transit.

$980,599.

Second reading.

5.

Resolution.

Approving appropriation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation

Family Engagement Support Stipend Grant, $15,000, first of two readings.

Sixth Resolution, Approving an Appropriation for COVID Homelessness Emergency Response Program Funding, CHRP, $200,000, first of two readings.

7, Resolution, appropriating funds from the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center for the CATEC Kitchen Floor Repair, $75,000, first of two readings 8, Resolution, appropriating grant funding of $94,276 from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation

for development of a flood resilience plan and authorizing the city manager to execute a grant agreement.

Thank you.

So we will now take public comment regarding only items on the consent agenda that were just read by the clerk.

This is not the time to talk about taxes.

This is not the time to talk about Stripling Avenue or some of the other issues that will come up later on.

This is only the consent agenda.

If you want to speak on one of those matters, you will have up to three minutes.

In the Zoom webinar, you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you have joined by phone and wish to speak on the consent agenda, you may press star nine.

Are there any speakers?

Mayor Snook, I see one raised hand at the moment.

Good evening.

My name is Kaysha Edwards, and I'm from the seventh grade from Beaufort Middle School.

Thank you so much for letting me speak at this meeting.

I would like to give my thoughts on recreating the building at Beaufort.

First, let's start off with a question and answer.

How will the new building impact student learning?

Well, a lot of students feel really cramped in the class.

When students are cramped, it makes them feel as if they cannot focus or learn.

So,

They depend on having to have different resources to get out of class, which makes kids not be able to learn.

Some classrooms don't have good AC and heat, which can make it kind of difficult to focus because you're either too hot or too cold to pay attention.

When the AC is running, you can hear the pipes rattling in different classrooms, and that's not good.

You want some kids to be able to focus on class and do their work.

To add to this subject, there needs to be more insulation between rooms so you don't hear as much from other classes.

Right now, it feels like you can hear other people just talking from the classrooms or hallways.

It is hard to pay attention if the class next door is being loud or doing a loud activity.

You need to focus on the test or anything in that nature.

It's hard.

So you need to focus and do more.

Now for bathrooms.

I could go on a long time about the girls' bathrooms, but let's break it down.

There's only one girls' bathroom in the B building, and the stalls are extremely small.

And when it's that time of the month for ladies, they need to have their space to bring their backpack in the bathroom with them.

So I think there should be feminine products in every bathroom because some kids don't have enough money to afford and do all that different things.

So we need to provide and make the students comfortable at school.

Okay.

Now the stalls.

The stalls are extremely small.

We need to have them open.

Say we have more than two people that need to go to the bathroom.

They have to walk or wait.

They have to wait or walk to go to another restroom.

And they have to worry about being in trouble for being out of class for too long.

Lastly, there should be more gender neutral bathrooms.

Sometimes people need or want more, they want more privacy.

And you students need to feel comfortable no matter where they are in the school.

Now onto safety concerns.

This falls in line with different buildings, buildings open, campus, et cetera.

There are some big safety concerns around having an open campus.

It's very easy for students to leave the school or go anywhere, and that's very dangerous, without anyone knowing that they could get kidnapped or anything in that nature.

There should be more cameras outside

or being more along hallways, like to connect the buildings.

With that being said, thank you guys for listening to my presentation.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

Just so folks will understand, although that was not related to the consent agenda, I figured anytime a seventh grader wants to call us up and tell us about what's going on at Buford, we should listen.

Our next speaker will be Annie Lopez.

Hi, my name is Annie Lopez.

Thank you.

All right.

My name is Annie Lopez.

I live right outside city limits near Fashion Square Mall and work in downtown Charlottesville.

I'm a member of the Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America, speaking on behalf of myself.

in relation to the budget.

This is my first time speaking at a city council meeting and I'm moved to speak now because it's been two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began and so many in Charlottesville are still struggling and still need assistance and believe that some budget changes can really help a lot of folks out.

First, I strongly urge the council to keep the labor relations analyst position outlined in the draft budget and to keep that in the final budget because it's so important for the city

to fulfill their stated commitment to collective bargaining and hire the staff member to do so.

I also strongly urge follow through to fund the affordable housing plan, which was endorsed by the council last year.

And the Charlottesville Low Income Housing Coalition recommends an increase in funding for the Charlottesville Supplemental Rental Assistance Program, specifically increasing payment standards to 150% of fair market rent

and increasing the rental assistant program allocation to match that.

Additionally, I think it's so important that Charlottesville meets the climate goals that we've set out to achieve when it comes to walking, biking and mass transit.

I often bike to work from where I live to downtown and think that in dedicated bike lanes should be a top priority here.

as well as a bus system that runs more frequently on the order of 15 minute service compared to one hour.

And personally, that's something that has led me to avoid taking the bus so far and would really remove barriers for folks to use the bus system and get around.

And lastly, encourage to further reduce emissions would really encourage moving towards an electric bus system versus

One that's running on fossil fuels because that will really put us into the future in terms of electric vehicle infrastructure and where things are going in terms of that.

So thank you so much.

Let me reiterate, this is for the consent agenda.

I didn't want to interrupt Ms. Lopez, but I will interrupt the next person who goes off on something that is not on the consent agenda.

If you have a topic on the consent agenda, this is the time to talk.

If not, there will be another time in a few minutes.

Ang Khan has her hand raised.

Thank you.

I just want to clarify that if I were to speak on COVID funding for homelessness, would that be at this time before I use my minutes?

It may come under the category

Of the COVID homelessness emergency response program?

I suspect not.

Thank you.

I didn't want to interrupt.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay.

All right.

OK.

I have a motion.

I'll second.

OK. Motion and a second.

Councilor Magill?

Yes.

Yes.

Is there a report from the city manager's office?

We will start giving you a written report from the agencies at our next meeting.

But ask Sam and Ashley if they have anything that's time sensitive that they need to add tonight.

Is there Ashley, Sam?

All right, very good.

Mr. Mayor, we'd like to take the rest of our time tonight to discuss the various budget scenarios with respect to school reconfiguration that we discussed in our last meeting.

Several of you asked that we dig a little deeper and come back with several scenarios as we try to get to some resolution on how to deal with this issue.

I've asked Chrissy to put together a presentation and I'll speak on it as we go through.

And then we also have our financial advisor who will add some comments as well.

Yes, sir.

So try sharing my screen.

Okay, so we'll get started.

There you go.

So on this slide here, we wanted to take it just a few minutes.

As Mr. Rogers indicated, we are gonna walk through a couple of scenarios that you asked us for a couple of work sessions ago on the school scenarios.

I wanted to start by just with this slide here to talk about our current outstanding debt.

We have approximately $85 million that's currently outstanding.

And if we issued no further debt at all, this slide just indicates

what our current annual debt service payments are.

And over time, we're at about $11 million now.

If we issued no more debt, that would continue to fall off.

We continue to stay within our policy limits.

And if we maintained our same general fund transfer, we would continue to accumulate a pretty healthy debt service balance.

Of this outstanding net, about 28% of that is for school related projects that have already been completed.

So as we move along, I wanted to just talk about a few assumptions we're gonna make.

We're gonna go through three scenarios and the assumptions are pretty much the same in each one.

So I'll spend some time here and then we'll just go through pretty quickly the next ones.

First of all, the scenario, the next scenario I'm gonna show you, the first one in each case assumes no tax increase.

It assumes that we will issue about $15 million of debt for general city government projects.

That also includes other school things that are not a reconfiguration project.

We know that that's based on a historical average.

We know that currently we have about $66 million of projects that are on the authorized but not issued list, as well as about another $47 million of projects that are identified in this current five-year plan.

So, you know, assuming the $15 million issue won't be a problem.

We're looking at annual borrowing rates starting at 2.5 and 22, moving to 3 and 23, 3.5 and 24 and 4% in FY24 and beyond.

As purposes for these projections, we're also assuming that the general fund will have new growth of about 1.5% each year and that there will be about a 2% meals tax growth in years 2024 through 27.

The debt service fund balance will also be used in each of these scenarios to mitigate the impact on the general fund and level off the general fund transfers.

One cent on the real estate tax rate for purposes of this we're assuming is $927,577.

And we assume that the bonds will be sold on a cash needed basis and that they probably will not all be sold at once.

So with that, the first scenario I'm gonna show you is the current five-year plan that's before you without the school reconfiguration project.

So that's roughly 82.4 million total over the four years with about $47 million of bonds.

We take a look at this.

You'll see, here's the 15 million a year, excuse me, the 15 million a year assumption that I made.

The debt service moves from 11 million

to $16.7 million.

We're staying well within our policy, our 9% target and 10% policy.

And in addition, each year in order to keep up and use the debt service fund balance,

We are going to be required to put in on average about $420,000 additional each year just to cover that debt service.

So, you know, part of the question is, why don't we talk about a tax increase with that?

And the reason we don't or haven't is because generally

With the other projects that are on the CIP list, they are of amounts such that we can manage our CIP within our affordability.

So if we get to a point where we couldn't afford this $400,000 additional debt service payment each year, we could have the option of deferring that project, re-scoping that project or moving it around.

But again, this is sort of where we are with no school project.

So the next scenario we're gonna look at is basically that exact same scenario, the $15 million a year, but this time, I'm sorry, I've gotten this out of, no, I went backwards, I'm sorry.

So the next scenario that we're gonna talk about is the exact same thing, but this time we're gonna layer in the $75 million project.

Again, the borrowing rates are the same, the general fund growth and the meals tax are assumed to be the same.

And we're also gonna use a draw schedule that was provided by VMDO to sort of spread out the 75 million over from 23 to 26.

everything else remaining the same.

So when we do that, we pop in here, you'll see the 15 million that I referred to earlier.

We've now layered in on top of that the draw schedules beginning in 23 and moving to 26.

Our annual debt service payment is moving from the 11.4 that we've been talking about up to about 22 million in 2032.

Again, we're still within our 10% target policy, but we do start reaching our 9% target in about 2027.

and you'll see here that if we plan accordingly, this is roughly equivalent to about two cents tax increase over the next four years if we were gonna do that incrementally.

Ms. Hamwell, I'm sorry to interrupt.

So that's two cents one time.

In other words, that would be raising effectively the tax rate from 95 cents to 97 cents and keeping it level pegged.

No, that would actually be going from 95 to 97 in 23, 97 to 99 in 24, 99 to $1.01 and so on.

Yeah, incremental.

So a total of an eight cent tax increase, but again, spread out over four years.

And you'll see here that even doing that, you are running a little bit of a negative debt service fund balance.

And that is sort of representative here of when we get down to sort of 27, 28, we've got annual debt service payments that are roughly $21 million.

We're basically transferring in 18 or 19 million from the general fund.

Thank you.

Christy, I hate to interrupt.

I just want to kind of come back to this 15 million a year here.

And is this, what are we thinking that 15 million a year is?

Is that like sidewalks?

So that is basically just based on a historical average.

That is, we're just assuming that we're going to issue about $15 million a year.

Again, we have roughly $66 million of projects that are on the authorized but not issued list that have been defined.

that have been previously approved and then we also in this current five-year plan we have about 47 million dollars of other projects that have been planned and so it would be those plus a little extra

for projects that would be related to the city.

Again, say this all the time, all of this is subject to change.

So if we were to issue more than 15 million, then that's gonna move everything up.

So conversely, we've also been talking about what if you did the tax increase all at one time.

And this is what this scenario is showing you essentially, is that this would be the same scenario $15 million a year, looking at the 75 million draw over from 23 to 26.

Still our percentages are fine but this time we're doing the about a seven cent increase all at once and then the only increases that we're putting in is just the meals tax growth essentially and again we still maintain a little bit of a debt service fund balance and we still are able to maintain these debt service payments.

So again we're looking at you know roughly in the previous slide about eight cents you know two cents over four years versus seven if we did it all at once.

So one of the things the schools came back with was using their ARPA dollars

to try to take care of some other school projects that we have had on the books.

It would be.

So any questions about those two different scenarios?

Because I'm basically going to walk you through two more that are exactly the same logic, but just a different project amount for the schools.

Any questions before we move on?

OK.

Caring none.

So the next scenario that we're going to do is instead of 75, what if we bonded 50?

And what does that do?

Again, all these assumptions are the same.

The only exception here, and I apologize, I should have corrected this.

This is draw schedule per VMDO.

It's actually not.

This was an estimate.

And I will

I will update that.

But I basically took the same percentages that were from the first draw schedule and just applied it to $50,000.

So in this case, again, we have the $15 million every year.

We have the equivalent of 50 million being issued from 23 to 26.

And that is about a two cent annual increase, but this time it's over three years.

Again, we stay within our 10% ratio.

We are actually not really even hitting the 9% target.

And we are maintaining, but still buying down a large portion of our debt service fund balance.

If we were to look at that, if we were to do the tax increase all at once, again at about five and a quarter cents.

Same thing, still not hitting our 9% target.

We're still just assuming the tax increase one time, that stays in our base for the annual transfers.

The only additional debt service increase we're putting in at that point is just the meals tax change.

Councilman Pinkston, you have a question?

No, sir, not yet.

Okay, your hand's still up.

So the third scenario that we ran was the exact same thing, but this time it's with if we were to bond $33 million.

That was another scenario that was requested.

So in this case, we're

You know, again, staying within our policy, our debt service goes from 11 to 19.

We are doing a two cents annual tax increase over the first two years and a penny in year three.

And then the only thing is the meals tax.

But again, you'll see that our debt service fund balance is negative here.

It's just a dollar amount.

That was one of the ones without assigning this to an option.

If we were to bond $33 million, that's what your debt service portion would look like.

Understood.

And so if we looked at that annually with one sort of tax increase, again, that's equivalent to about four and a quarter cents.

And you'll see that we're staying within our policy.

Still, we've essentially drawn down our entire debt service fund balance.

So if we were to summarize all of these, then we have a table that we're gonna do.

Thanks, Chrissy.

I just had a couple comments here because I know there's been some discussion on the timing of this.

And our advice to you would be,

Just have a funding plan identified when the city executes a construction contract.

I know there'll be a lot of planning and back and forth on that.

Whether you have the tax rate completely in place or you have a plan outlined as Chrissy has indicated here, that's what we'd want to be communicating.

to the rating agencies in the market because the funds will likely be borrowed over multiple years and so that's why we wanted to show the staggering of multiple increases if that's something you wanted to do.

Certainly if you wanted to implement one larger tax increase all up at front and even before you started doing some of those additional borrowings, that's certainly a way to

you know, be able to save some money and be able to contribute that to the deal for an upfront cash contribution which would lower the borrowing amount and lower, ultimately lower your debt service.

So that's certainly an option you could consider.

In terms of potential funding sources, Chrissy walked you through, you're fortunate in that you have some money already in the bank and she's showing you how you can use that

to mitigate future debt service increases and kind of soften the blow for that.

I just talked about the prefunded cash contribution.

Certainly, Chrissy's pointed out the increased revenue sources, whether it be through real estate tax or some other sort of tax.

Of course, other option is to decrease expenses.

And then we put on here other sources.

There's a couple bills in the General Assembly right now

talking about school construction.

Certainly the city is not unique in having some school needs here, and so there are a couple bills in the General Assembly that they're trying to reconcile.

We're closely watching those.

Hopefully that will be some good news to either potentially be some grant funding or subsidize the interest rate.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done on this.

So a question about that actually.

I know one of the things the state was looking at is with that 500 million they were thinking of giving out to various localities for school projects that part of that might be in the form of a loan.

that isn't in our bonding capacity, but does that still factor into our debt, I mean, that would still factor into our debt services though, right?

Yeah, there's a couple things that I've seen.

The 500 million, I think they're trying to do that in the form of grants, but with

which is like the cost of one school for y'all.

You can tell across the state that 500 million's probably not particularly gonna go very far.

They've gotta decide how they allocate that out.

In terms of the, you know, borrowing programs that they're considering, they're larger borrowing programs and they may be at a subsidized borrowing cause, but yes, that debt would count against us.

But certainly if it could lower our interest rate, it saves us money and debt service, which is ultimately good.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Kevin before we move on?

Okay, so this slide attempts to kind of draw this together and address Councilor Magill, your question about the money from the schools and some other things that we've talked about.

So what we're seeing here is the first scenario is if we

Just maintain the status quo.

We did not have the reconfiguration project either in the CIP or if we decided to do some work like we did with West Main and some other projects and we weren't going to bond fund the reconfiguration at all, then obviously everything is zero all the way down.

If we, council decides to move forward and we're gonna bond the entire $75 million, we know that that's the equivalent of roughly 7 cents on the tax rate.

Again, there's no need for any additional cash funding for that project and so that gets us to 75 million.

If on the other hand Council decided we were only going to bond $50 million, we know that that's roughly a nickel and a quarter on the tax rate.

We've also talked about some potential cash sources, $6.7 from the year-end surplus.

The 7.5 that the schools have mentioned in their presentations, that gives us another $14.2 million, which gets us to a $64 million project.

And then third, the third scenario, same thing, if we were decided to bond 33 million with the four and a quarter cents on the tax rate, the additional cash, that gets us to about a 47.2 million project.

And of course, any other cash funds that we were able to apply to this

helps increase the bottom line.

A few things to consider is that with this tax increase, all of these assumptions assume that the entire tax increase goes to the school reconfiguration project, which means there's no 40% formula for the school contribution, annual contribution.

There are also additional funds in the CIP contingency that we've talked about more than the 6.7 that would be at the discretion of council to decide how much to apply there.

The city also has a pot of unallocated ARP dollars to date.

I'll let you finish.

It's very helpful, but I have a couple of questions, but go ahead.

No, you go ahead.

So we certainly could.

That would just be a different dollar amount here on the bonding.

So it would be whatever the difference is between whatever cash we want to put in.

It just gets a little bit tedious to run the multitude of scenarios, but we certainly could take whatever, you know, we could take this cash and back into a different bonding amount.

This was just meant to be a gauge.

That's correct.

Yeah, I'll have some comments in a second.

Any other questions you wanna talk about here?

I mean, we're just gonna sum up.

Well, would you mind just going through your last two slides very quickly?

So this slide here was just meant to provide some awareness.

You've seen this graph before.

It is a visual and also the numbers behind the annual dollar change over an extended period of time from the General Fund.

So in some years,

In 2007, we had an $8.3 million change from 2006 to 2007.

2007 to 2008, we had a $14.5 million change.

But look at 2011.

From 2010 to 2011, the general fund budget actually went down.

So when you look at all of this in total, and as we have talked to you about this sort of pie and the pieces of the pie that come out, as those pieces of pie constrict or grow, this is the dollar amount with which we are working with.

So whether we're putting more towards operations or more towards debt service or more towards the CIP, it all comes out of the same pot.

and so on an overall of this extended period of time you know the average annual change and again this just an average because you see it varies with the tax increase is about 6.1 million dollars

Without the tax increase, that average, annual average is about $5.6 million.

And so, as we talk about, you know, debt service will be the first bill we pay every year, regardless of what this does.

And when we talk about debt service going from $11 to $22 million, this is just meant to be an awareness and why the additional revenue enhancements and our funding plan before we go forward is so important.

Okay.

So thank you, Chrissy.

We've done as you ask.

and come back with various scenarios and showing you the impact of each scenario on both the school configuration project and the operations of the city.

We keep saying that the increase in debt service for a $75 million project will have tremendous impact.

We show that our debt service will go from $11 million today to $22 million in 32 and actually starts ticking up a few years before that.

That's not to imply that all of that increase is as a result of the school configuration financing.

but as we showed in an earlier slide, even without the school reconfiguration project, our debt services is 16 million, we'll go to 16 million.

So we're talking about the difference between 16 million and 22 million with the school construction reconfiguration project.

We have to keep in mind too, operationally there are some

Some unknowns out there for us.

Well, the SAFER grant is not unknown.

We know what our obligation is there.

It's 15 firefighters that were funded that we are going to have to find a way to finance into the future.

And transit, there are some big opportunities in transit and opportunities to

make progress on our climate plan there, but we've got to add money to match the funds that are available from the feds and the state.

Collected bargaining.

Don't know how much it's going to cost, but having bargained with the employees before, I know it usually costs you something.

and so we have to think about that as well.

And we talked about affordable housing initiatives a little earlier.

There's a desire to be more consistent in terms of our investment there.

You've had a presentation from climate action planning.

There's a desire that we invest more there.

So we've got all of these challenges that we have to

have to work through.

So in addition, the school operating needs and CIP needs, at a minimum, as we said at the last meeting, there's a $2.1 million known increase that we're gonna have to address in their FY 23 budget.

though from conversation I understand it might be double that.

And so we have to think about that as well.

Also the scenario assumes all real estate growth is applied to the reconfiguration project.

Now we have a 40% policy of an increase in real estate taxes

going to school operations, not capital.

So in order to make this work, we have to face a decision of whether you're going to back off of that 40% policy for operations and do the school configuration project.

And then there's the question of overall school infrastructure needs.

There's much more to do.

And

So I think that while this is a very good presentation, we've got to start focusing on how we can get to an answer on this.

And I'd like to, working with staff, I came up with a brief statement that I would like to share with council, if you can find it.

Okay, the city manager's recommendation regarding funding for school capital projects in FY 23 proposed budget.

In conclusion, as city manager, I have the following observations and recommendations.

The proposed school reconfiguration has not been integrated into the city's capital improvements program in a manner that will allow city council

to make a coordinated funding plan.

Council and staff are both attempting to set a dollar amount as a cap for the school configuration project in an attempt to figure out how configuration will affect that service.

However, it is important that the city's existing debt and future debt are properly

factored into any proposal along with the fact that the city will also need to provide continued support for school capital projects and other city capital projects other than reconfiguration.

For the FY 23 budget, I recommend that council should enact a two cent real estate tax

and set the money aside within the capital projects fund earmarked as the beginning of an annual funding program to generate funds for school configuration.

Postpone any drawdowns for reconfiguration costs until a later date to give city council and staff and the city's financial advisor

an opportunity to work on a five to 10 year funding plan.

I also recommend that the city manager's office began to work to retool the city's capital improvements program to make adequate plans for necessary projects for both schools and city government.

And this retooling should begin immediately so that the work

will be reflected in the capital improvements plan for next year in 2024.

Yes.

The drill down on the capital plan begins in the fall of the next budget year.

So it would begin in the fall that we would, and we'll need some time to really

really dig into those projects, each and every one of them to understand their status.

A lot of them are authorized and not funded.

Then you got to raise the question, are the circumstances that cause the approval of those funds, do they still exist?

Is there an alternative that we can look at for those funds?

So a complete, if you will, stripping of the capital fund and come back to you with a

more realistic plan and so we understand where the money is.

Frankly, if I could have found a way to fund the school reconfiguration project without raising taxes, I would have.

The only way to do that is to stare down the capital improvements plan and begin a reprioritization.

And that's gonna take a little longer

than this process allows.

So that's why we said, let's move forward, but not too fast.

And let's take a pause and start putting away some money for this project and see if we can get it done.

At the same time, while looking at resources, how we can better allocate our resources to support long-term objectives

I personally want to thank you and Chrissy and your whole team for the really excellent work and working through these scenarios.

I'm very grateful.

And I appreciate your summary comments just now too.

That's very helpful.

I completely agree about going into the CIP and really making sure that we know what those projects are and that they're really what the city residents still want.

Is there one we could go back to the presentation and the one that had the various scenarios, the sort of, I think it was three slides from the end.

There you go.

Perfect.

So I'm just sort of riffing on what you've got here, Ms. Hamel.

So you tell me if I'm, if I'm off base.

So if I look at the 33 million, one to the far right, that's basically that that level of project, a $33 million project, and that would be absent this other cash at the bottom, is what the consultant is telling us it would take

to just renovate Buford to not do any programmatic changes, not knock any buildings down.

So that's what we're looking like on the right.

and you've got a four cent tax increase there.

The option that I keep coming back to, the one in the middle, which I think we're within spitting distance of the option two is what VMDO called it in their spreadsheet.

The one that would let us do Buford and put a pause on building B until either through philanthropy or through some

for the grant in the future or whatever, but it would let us get the core part of Buford Dunn.

That is calling for the equivalent of a five and a quarter cent increase.

And then the larger one, the whole building, the whole project that's been envisioned in the 75 would call for a seven cent increase.

Although as Mr. Wade said earlier,

If we took some of these potential savings or potential additional cash, that number might come down too.

So yeah, this is very helpful.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Recognizing that this is not the time for us to be making decisions about any of this, but simply that Mr. Rogers wanted to get this out there for our attention and for the public's attention, might I suggest that we not have extended discussion of it at this time, because we've got a lot of stuff on our docket already that is going to involve extended discussion.

So if that's okay with other counselors,

I would like to suggest we move on having heard the city manager's report.

Yes, yes.

Great.

And thank you, Kevin, for joining us.

I know this is a you're not officially a city employee, though we appreciate your assistance.

Always a pleasure.

Yeah, you're right.

Community Matters is next on the agenda.

We have six pre-registered speakers, leaving 10 slots for additional speakers on Community Matters.

Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak.

Please note that there is a designated space immediately following the real estate tax rate public hearing to speak about items related to the city budget.

There will be additional public comment section at the end of the meeting.

So that's sort of a suggestion that if you really want to be talking about the city budget, there is a time a little bit down the road when that time will come.

We'll now open the floor to the pre-registered speakers.

Others wishing to speak may select the raise hand option in the Zoom webinar to be placed in the speaker queue.

If you have joined by phone and wish to speak during the community matters section, you may press star nine.

Yes, Jason Halbert will be first.

Thank you, councilors.

All right.

Jason Halbert, Co-President of the Fry's Springs Neighborhood Association.

I live at 2633 Jefferson Park Circle.

First, I want to say that Mr. Rogers, what you just said is music to my ears.

For the last eight years, I've been harping on

The need for a reprioritized and really transparent CIP and this relates to the matter of 240 Stribling which doesn't have a public hearing tonight so I'm speaking during the community matters.

We've sent you a letter.

We've sent several letters over the years, but we sent you a letter last night as a neighborhood board association.

Not everyone in the neighborhood agrees, but we've had enough meetings and discussions about this development that I think it's clear that most of the neighborhood understands that this property will be developed

um we never as a board never said no NIMBY we didn't take that position we took a position of trying to advance what we've always been trying to advance which is improved safety of Stribling Avenue and the intersection of Stribling and JPA it's just not

wise or feasible or prudent to put a dense development like this which I think personally I would like to see.

I would like to see more affordable housing.

It's just not wise to do it without the safety improvements on Stripling Avenue.

I agree with the staff's recommendation.

The second one, the first one I don't agree with.

The second one I agree with

that the agreement as it was written is not a wise agreement and the city should not enter into it.

I will point out that the initial offering of Southern Development was $500,000 in cash donation, not a loan, a donation.

And I actually had a call from Southern Development that said they would up that to $2 million.

I don't know how that changed to a loan at some point along the lines, but it did.

I think that it's clear at this point that if we want to work with developers to get more density in the city and really do this new zoning ordinance in a proper way, the city's CIP and the infrastructure has to keep pace.

If it can't keep pace, you're going to create serious problems on city streets, city intersections, and you're going to have more and more consternation from neighborhoods.

So I think it's time that we put the funding in the CIP.

I mean, several counselors told me and told the public that jumping the line in the CIP is not going to happen, that there's no money.

And I agree, you can't get blood from a stone.

So circling back to where I started, I think what Mr. Rogers said is wise and prudent, and you should follow that.

And I think to do so, in order to do so, you have to put a hold on this development.

I know it's coming, we know it's coming, but I think you need to put a hold on it so you can find the money to do the things you need to do.

Our next speaker is John Marshall.

Hey, good evening, counselors.

I'm John Marshall and am a resident of and speaking about Stribling Avenue.

This is a particularly important decision that will greatly affect pedestrian and also vehicle safety on Stribling and its intersection with Jefferson Park Avenue and also Robertson Avenue.

Stribling already has a lot of pedestrian traffic and it is already very dangerous for its pedestrians because of blind curves and lack of sidewalks.

For this reason, the Neighborhood Association and the Planning Commission and even the developer himself have all agreed that the street needs sidewalks before the development can happen.

This development would add at least 1,200 more car trips per day and 170 apartments of more people that would walk on Stripling.

But there are not yet any sidewalks, and sidewalks are not on the city's CIP list, and there's no guarantee that the sidewalks will ever be built.

Because of this, it is very premature and very risky to vote on this development before we have sidewalks.

The sidewalks have got to come first.

If you allow the development to move forward without guaranteed sidewalks, you are gambling with human safety and our lives.

It seems that the Planning Commission and the developer are hoping that the development would then force the city to build the sidewalks because of the imminent danger that their development would have created.

This is completely backwards.

We should not have to jeopardize human safety to then get the city to protect us.

The sidewalks should come first and then the development once it is safe.

That is a very reasonable request.

Another problem is that we don't actually know that sidewalks ever can be built on stripling.

Even with all the money in the world,

Because of the topography of that street and where people's houses and driveways are, it simply might not be possible to ever build sidewalks.

Now, remember that new streetscapes have to be built to B.code, which includes widening the road, adding curb and gutter, building water drainage, and then adding sidewalks.

That street is so narrow and the houses are so close to the street.

Again, we don't know that all of that is even possible yet.

The city engineer only produced a rough draft and said that there are challenges that he is not 100% possible we can overcome.

You can't just move people's houses backwards.

also the city engineer and the developer disagree on how much sidewalks would cost so we don't know that yet either we don't we also don't know anything about the intersection with jpa because of all of this i ask that you postpone this vote until there is a complete plan for the sidewalks and the intersection and they have gone through the cip process and been fully funded

so that we know that they will be built and ideally actually wait until after they have been built so that pedestrians are not run over by the tree loggers and construction trucks and the earth movers that this development will bring.

And if you cannot postpone the vote, then please simply vote no on it because it is just not worth jeopardizing human safety and human lives for the profit of a big developer.

Thank you.

Cabell-Romer is the next speaker, but I do not see Cabell in the attendees list.

We'll go to William Abrahamson.

All right, thank you for your time and your attention this evening, counselors.

William Abrahamson at 123 Stripling, also co-president of the Fry's Springs Neighborhood Association.

I also wanted to echo something Mr. Rogers established here today, which is the importance of just understanding the timeline for any project and getting your ducks in a row ahead of time.

Not everything is a

burning down the house crisis that we are facing right now.

Everything is urgent, everything is important, but we can still make good priorities as communities to put our values and our finances.

One question I'd like to ask you tonight is,

Just in the agenda, the fact that the funding agreement was up for consideration after the approval of the funding application.

If the proposed funding agreement is not acceptable, it automatically removes, from my understanding, the initial proffer that was on the table from the developer.

So just from a purely selfish point of view, that's leaving money on the table at the city that was offered to the city.

That alone in the process would be enough to

Consider sending this back to the Planning Commission for further review and take another bite at that apple between the developer and the Planning Commission.

I understand that might take a year, but we can take that time.

The residents of the neighborhood, you've heard it all before, safety, safety, safety.

And I'd like to take my last bit of time to talk a little bit more about the qualitative aspect of that.

None of this has talked about the treescape, the budget, the 2.9 million explicitly excluded tree plantings, explicitly excluded how to address the JPA extended intersection.

The residents who have been paying property taxes on this street for 25, 30, 40, 50 plus years, they deserve some input on how that they've been paying into the city pool, how those funds build up their street.

They don't want a highway, whether that's sidewalks or not on either side, that increases the speed from one end to the other.

So we deserve an opportunity to work with the city and the professionals within the city to build our neighborhood and to continue the community and continuity that we've already built here.

Please respect that, and so we can welcome more people into it when the time is right.

Next up is Myra Anderson.

Thank you.

I just wanted to speak briefly on a few issues.

The first one is I was part of a group that spent a significant amount of time last year as an informal group looking at the Marcus Alert.

The recommendation was made to form an official group

but council to my knowledge has not moved forward with that even though there were two councilors still on council on that group.

So my first thing I wanna do is strongly encourage you to form that group so that we can begin the work.

Second, I call down to city office

to find out about the process, the policy for having an honorary street name.

And I was told that that was put on hold back in the fall and that no policy had come forward since then.

So I wanted to know when exactly the new policy is gonna come forward because I think at this point it's been about six months.

and the third thing I wanted to talk about was I was watching a bit of the budget meeting the other day and it was my first time actually watching a meeting but I was a bit bothered by the fact that I believe it was The Haven that received a lower score and that that would equal a lower amount of money to them and my problem with that is that that's a very marginalized group that is very much in need of services so my question, well finances, so my question is if

If you get a report back and they have a lower score, does council have the authority to overrule that and award them money anyway?

That's my question.

And if the answer is no, I think you should seriously consider having a rule in there to that effect that could be considered

in circumstances such as these, because I mean, the services that they provide are to some of the most marginalized people in our community.

And I don't understand your grading process or who even is involved in that, but I find it a bit troublesome.

And the answer that was given didn't even make sense as to why their score changed significantly to that amount of money.

So if you don't have the power to overrule, I think you should.

and in my last 20 seconds, I wanna strongly, strongly encourage you to support the rent for Jefferson School.

I'm sure you've already received so many emails about it, but they do good work in this community with teachers and educating.

And I think at a bare minimum, since there are other places that the city supports with rent like McGuffey, they should also consider that for Jefferson School.

The last name in the pre-registered list is Nancy Carpenter, but I do not see her in the attendees list.

So we will go to our first raised hand.

Oh, thank you so much, city mayor, city councilors, Mr. Rogers, as I'm sure some of you can imagine the comments that I had prepared or switched.

I've had to shift gears a little bit based on what I've heard tonight.

With all due respect, and I realized that it was your recommendation, Mr. Rogers, to ask

You know, to put the school or the reconfiguration project on pause and to not move too fast.

You know, historically, we've been moving not too fast for decades.

The schools have have waited.

This has come up multiple times.

And as far as the guarantee or if there's a two cent tax increase and you're saying we guarantee or designate it or save it for schools, is that truly going to happen?

These are just questions and comments I have.

I believe historically there have been taxes or percentages of taxes in the past that were to be set aside and designated for schools.

And I do not think that happened.

So I'm really struggling a little bit here with the recommendation that you've made.

You know, the Blue Ribbon Commission study years ago formalized their findings stating what the schools would require each year to maintain our operations.

to support and be able to offer salary increases that our teachers deserve, to continue to offer the programs that our families and our community prioritizes.

This is the first time that I've seen or heard in that presentation that you and Ms. Hamill provided tonight.

that all of the real estate growth or the 40% formula that has been used and has been part of what is calculated as far as what the schools get is now going to go specifically towards paying off reconfiguration.

I mean, it's very concerning to me because we have not been part of that process.

That's not been part of the discussion at all.

So basically what you're saying, you're going to cut funding from the schools.

We're going to cut funding from our teachers and our students to pay for a project.

I don't understand how that makes sense or how any of the counselors and anybody in this community would be okay with something like that.

Now, it's not to say that I disagree with the fact that maybe it's time to sit and look at the budget process and how it is gonna happen, but we cannot wait on this, not to mention the escalation of a project.

So if we put this on hold for a year or two,

I mean, right now we are hoping and wanting and the board unanimously is asking for the 74.9 million a year, two years down the road, how many more million will be, you know, will that project be?

Have a lot more to say, but I see I've run out of my time and I'm sure we'll be speaking some more.

So thank you.

Next up is Josh Karp.

Hey, good evening.

Can y'all hear me?

Great.

I apologize, but I'm calling partly to do some arithmetic with you all, so bear with me.

So the proposal on Stroubling Avenue includes, I think, 26 homes affordable to families who are making at or below 60% of the area median income.

On Grove Street, you have another proposal before you with four homes available at 65% AMI and then four more at 80%.

And I want to talk for a minute about what those numbers actually translate to in terms of rent.

So I've checked the HUD site.

Every median income for a family of two is $75,000.

So if you're at 80% of that, you're looking at, assuming costs for utilities, about $1350 a month in rent.

65% AMI, you're looking at about $1070 a month in rent.

60% AMI, it's $975 a month in rent.

This is, I know most do on your homes, but I can tell you, these are low rents.

There aren't a lot of homes at those price points in town.

And I checked Craigslist tonight.

I saw about a dozen rentals available at 80% of AMI.

They look kind of small, kind of old.

I don't know if you'd want to live there.

At the 60% AMI level, I saw two rentals.

One is 300 square feet in efficiency and one is 600 square feet.

That is not a lot of homes available and they are not the nicest homes.

So I don't think we're in a position to turn down 34 affordable homes across these two projects.

And an earlier commenter called in to say that the lack of affordable housing is not a burn down the house level crisis.

I think for the families who are cost burdened, of whom there are thousands in this community, I think it is a crisis.

And I think waiting until the moment is right means waiting a long time that these families frankly don't have.

One comment about traffic, particularly on Valley Road, I know people are concerned that traffic is going to move slower if the proposal there goes through.

And frankly, they're right.

I think with more apartments on that street, the cars will drive slower.

But I think that's OK. And I think that's because I spent about five years living in a lower department complex, 60 some homes at the end of North First Street on a narrow road where two cars couldn't pass side by side.

And what it meant was sometimes on your way to or from work, you would pull aside to let your neighbor pass by you or they pull aside to let you pass by.

It took a minute or two of my commute every day at most.

And I really actually appreciated that the cars didn't because they couldn't drive too fast.

We have a young child.

He is kind of impetuous as kids tend to be.

And I frankly really appreciate when there's traffic coming in whatever form such that people can't run him over.

Anyway, I think that waiting until the moment is right means waiting too long for people who can't afford to live here.

Next up is Andrew Shelton.

Good evening, Council.

Thank you.

I am speaking to you in support of the rezoning on Stripling Avenue.

And this is actually particularly meaningful to me because I have been a resident of Stripling Avenue and just Fry's Spring for about five years now.

I actually live directly across from the parcel that's under consideration for a number of years until we were kicked out after the building sold so that the new landlord could flip the apartment and jack up the rent by about $400.

I'm getting ready to leave our current residence right along the railroad tracks because we have found that rent is simply not sustainable for us.

Ironically, the only reason that I know about this rezoning request is that our landlord actually reached out to us trying to get us to contact you in opposition of the rezoning.

But I don't believe that's where my interests lie.

Ironically enough, that landlord is not actually a city resident, to my knowledge, and has a number of properties in the area that would presumably be impacted by an increased housing supply.

We're getting ready to leave the city because it's just not sustainable to stay here because the housing prices are through the roof.

Rent is unaffordable.

Saying that it's not a burning crisis is incredibly unbelievable to me.

It speaks to me of someone who is pretty okay with where they're at and doesn't really see what's happening to their fellow residents around them.

I have been raised in this city and I am very upset now.

I'm only going to be moving just over the county line, but it is very disappointing to me that we've decided that that's what we have to do because of the lack of the housing supply in the area.

And I would also like to note that I will not be taking any fewer car trips.

I will be still working here and spending most of my time here.

It will actually add car trips because I'm not able to walk and bike to work.

Our next speaker is Kelsey Jones.

I'm a community organizer focusing on redevelopment for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

Since starting at FAR, I've personally done outreach and engaged with residents at all seven public housing sites, and that work has directly impacted the resident-led redevelopment process.

I've been running programming that educates, informs, and assists residents with their rights to protect and improve the communities they live in.

While I appreciate the current funding proposed by the City of Charlottesville, decreasing our funding by half is a disservice to the community and it undermines FAR's efforts to address racial inequities in the systems that produce them.

The federal mandated representation of public housing residents is having their funding cut by basically half.

Each month, FAR publishes a newsletter for residents.

In roll, I host redevelopment workshops at least once a week.

We are doing the on the ground work.

I also want to share that one of the only other groups advocating on behalf of racial and equity issues specifically is the LAJC, and they too are having their funding cut.

Having the courage to amplify your voice, knowing that you have someone to support you, far as making sure residents are being listened to.

The last thing we all should want is to take away any resources that have produced positive outcomes, such as the program that FAR provides.

Next up is Jane Smith.

Jane, you're on with council.

Sorry about that.

Thank you.

I think everyone on the city council surely already understands the importance of the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

But I'm seeing that there's some question about whether the city will be allocating the needed funds to support the center this year.

So I feel like I should ask you,

Do you need to hear from citizens about how central and how important the Jefferson School is to this community?

I hope you don't.

I hope my call is superfluous.

I hope we can just count on you to do whatever you need to do to make sure that the center can rely on the city for the funding support it needs this year and in future years.

Our next speaker is Kendall Dix.

Hello, my name is Kendall Dix.

I'm the National Policy Director for Climate Organization and I live out in Albemarle County near the Scottsville-Esmont border.

When my wife and I decided to move to Charlottesville in 2020, we moved outside of town because the surrounding counties are where all the affordable housing in our region is.

My wife now commutes by car every day, 35 minutes, each way to her job in Charlottesville because she needs her car for work.

And public transportation options are fairly limited out here.

There are a lot of people like us in the surrounding counties who might live in Charlottesville if the housing were more affordable.

We all know there's a housing crisis in Charlottesville, which is displacing poor people, including many native Black residents, like my former roommate who grew up in Charlottesville but could no longer live there.

Without more affordable housing,

and the place that makes sense, which is Charlottesville.

Developers will continue to look to build in places like Scottsville, which is currently in the middle of a lively fight over a new housing development, which could be decided tonight.

If this housing in Scottsville is built, it will attract more people like me, probably, who are likely to commute by car to town.

It's going to increase greenhouse gas emissions and increase deadly traffic accidents on Highway 20, which are all too common.

So what you all do with your budget has big impacts on communities in the surrounding counties and displacement in turn affects your budget by causing the city to lose out on a denser and robust tax base.

So in order to make our area more livable, equitable, and sustainable, we must invest in affordable housing and public transportation while balancing the need for modern schools.

I know that you all have somewhat limited tools at your disposal.

But it's my opinion that taxation, as long as it's being spent equitably in a way that prioritizes low-income residents, that more taxes will not ultimately have a devastating, regressive effect.

But I trust you all to be able to find the money.

And I've submitted lengthier comments to each of your email addresses.

Next up, we have Paul Akova-Rubias.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, City Council members.

My name is Paula Corovias, a community organizer with FAR, and tonight I am here to endorse the increase in funds towards the Public Housing Association of Residents.

Although I've been working with FAR for a few months, I have seen the immense work the board and staff do for public housing in Charlottesville.

I have both lived and worked in low-income communities my whole life.

and FAR is one of the few organizations proven to be for the people, by the people through their ongoing efforts in redevelopment, maintenance, safety and programming.

I've had the honor of working with a team of women that are dedicated not only towards FAR's mission to protect and improve the lives of the most vulnerable in our communities, but the city's mission to make Charlottesville a great place for all of our citizens.

The city prides itself on social and economic justice, health-race relations, progressiveness in responding to the needs of our citizens, and a united community that treasures diversity.

Unfortunately, cutting forest funding by 48% does not advance any of the above, but rather diminishes funding toward the communities that need it the most.

Public housing is the home of many families that have had negatively impacted by structural racism within zoning, redlining, and racial covenants that for many years have been actively working in this city to impede people of color, but especially black families from home ownership.

Already in the US, we have seen many that aren't able to make it into public housing end up homeless.

Black families who represent 13% of the general population account for 39% of those experiencing homelessness and more than 50% of homeless families with children.

We are not asking you to fund just any organization.

We're asking you to support us to impede what happened in the thriving Black communities of Vinegar Hill and Churchill from happening again.

Next up is Paul Josse.

Thank you, Council, for your time this evening.

And I want to just second a lot of the comments tonight.

One supporting Jefferson School for funding, but also for the need for density in Charlottesville and the importance of that.

So we're not moving into the counties, but one element on stribbling, 240 stribbling.

I purchased my home there at 126 stribbling and

2005.

And the development is at the end of Stribbling Avenue.

And if you've been there, if you've walked that street, you know it's a very pedestrian street already.

There are no sidewalks, there is no stormwater infrastructure, there's no bike infrastructure.

It is a narrow street with blind curves and it is a very unsafe street already for walking.

And this development is adding

is doubling the trips from 2,000 to 4,000 a day and having seen the entire Huntley development, endless construction trucks coming in and out all the time, faster than sort of safe speeds.

If you don't live on that street, you're going fast all the way to the end of it.

And Stribling is

is 80% rental.

And those are rental homes are 180 to 200 people that are low to middle income households.

So by building this before building infrastructure for people to safely, you know, navigate the street by doubling the volume on the street, it is irresponsible to do that before to those residents before you actually can build the infrastructure first.

So I encourage you to

Our next speaker is Benjamin Heller.