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  • City of Charlottesville
  • Housing Advisory Committee Meeting 10/15/2025
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Housing Advisory Committee Meeting   10/15/2025

Attachments
  • HAC Agenda_10-15-2025
  • Attachment 1- September 17, 2025, Regular HAC Meeting Minutes Draft
  • HAC Meeting Minutes_10-15-25
  • HAC Presentation_Land Bank Update_October 2025
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:00:00
      Welcome and good to see everybody.
    • 00:00:05
      Thank you for the opportunity.
    • 00:00:08
      I was going to talk to you.
    • 00:00:11
      I was trying to be there last night, but we have a new baby in the house.
    • 00:00:18
      Ooh, exciting.
    • 00:00:21
      I'm Joy Johnson.
    • 00:00:22
      I'm here and I'm going to go to my right.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:00:26
      Dan Rosensweig, nonprofit.
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 00:00:30
      Kirsten Ingle, City of Charlottesville, Office of Economic Development, David Brown, Neighborhood Development Services, Robert Rucker, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second, I'll be here in a second
    • SPEAKER_01
    • 00:01:00
      Alan Puris, City Manager's Office, Kathleen Glenn-Matthews, Shorropsville Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:01:08
      Thank you.
    • 00:01:10
      Are there any staff updates?
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:01:14
      There are and we also are down for staff updates.
    • 00:01:19
      I don't know if anyone is able to just do some
    • 00:01:27
      three minutes.
    • 00:01:27
      I don't have to be super detailed.
    • 00:01:30
      OK.
    • 00:01:44
      Thank you.
    • 00:01:45
      Thank you.
    • 00:01:45
      Appreciate it.
    • 00:01:46
      Mike appreciates it as well.
    • 00:01:48
      And I want to thank the communications team.
    • 00:01:51
      They provided some support for us and we'll continue to do that.
    • 00:01:55
      Oh yeah, that's great.
    • 00:01:57
      Thank you with our two webinars.
    • 00:02:01
      Some other updates.
    • 00:02:02
      Our Hopson half-grant application period.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:02:07
      Almost underway.
    • 00:02:08
      The HOPS one opens September 19th and will close next Monday the 20th.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:02:13
      And then the CAT grant application grade opens on the 20th and it's also open for the month.
    • 00:02:19
      We have got about 15 applications that are in process so far.
    • 00:02:23
      We had a workshop on August 1st and we got some good feedback that those are helpful for people so we'll continue to hold those.
    • 00:02:32
      We have a UVA Public Policy student who is working.
    • 00:02:36
      She wanted to work on a project relating to housing in Charlottesville and she reached out to me.
    • 00:02:41
      So she's going to be doing a policy analysis about the language reproduction fund idea that's going to come out of CAT.
    • 00:02:50
      And that analysis goes to, you know, analysis of the problem at hand and then some policy alternatives, one of which would include, you know, what would it look like to work with that program or a potential alternative program that might solve that problem.
    • 00:03:05
      Usually one of your alternatives is what happens if you do nothing, so I imagine that would be one as well.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:03:11
      We are also engaging with 3TP, the same consultants who were at the last meeting, but some different folks in their office will be working on our ADU manual, Affordable Well Unit Manual, specifically the fees, the calculation, those are supposed to be reviewed regularly, and as well as some of the more questions that have come up in the last
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:03:36
      or not by two years, right?
    • 00:03:39
      About how those feet are applied.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:03:43
      and there's also the regional housing study that's going on.
    • 00:03:47
      I think a lot of you may be aware of that.
    • 00:03:50
      That is being administered by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and they are working with the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech to work with localities to collect data and then the Virginia Tech folks will be doing a lot of that, most of that data analysis.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:04:07
      By the end of October, they will be
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:04:11
      coming out with some of their introductory qualitative outcomes, a literature review, and kind of an inventory of existing housing resources in all of the communities that are a part of the strategic team.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:04:24
      So if you're interested in learning more about that, we could have Laurie G. come in and give a little update on that.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:04:33
      Happy to schedule that if that's something you would all be interested in.
    • 00:04:39
      And the only other thing I wanted to note is there are a couple of committee members and terms that are ending at the end of this calendar year, so you will need to reapply.
    • 00:04:48
      And I'll just reach out to you all and make sure you're all set.
    • 00:04:52
      But if you don't already know, there's some sort of focus.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:04:55
      And that's it for me?
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 00:04:58
      Kelly?
    • 00:04:58
      Yes, any questions?
    • 00:05:00
      Well, what is the status of the opening?
    • 00:05:05
      Kelly's going to talk about that.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:05:08
      I have one update.
    • 00:05:11
      As you all know, the housing program transitioned from OCS closure this summer to nuclear development services this summer.
    • 00:05:21
      At the same time, or essentially at the same time, Insan Williams is a housing program manager.
    • 00:05:26
      He resigned from the city.
    • 00:05:28
      So we are left with Madeline, our Star Acting Housing Program Manager.
    • 00:05:36
      It has
    • 00:05:40
      In trying to figure out how to move forward, it has occurred to me that this is really an opportunity to take a step back and evaluate what are the needs of the housing program within the city of Charlottesville to meet the goals of the affordable housing plan.
    • 00:06:00
      to steward the expectations of the development code.
    • 00:06:06
      So I am happy to report that I've sent out an expression for proposals to a number of consulting firms.
    • 00:06:16
      It's a list of consulting firms that was recommended to me by Virginia Housing, a list that they used for their capacity grants.
    • 00:06:24
      and received a couple of expressions of interest that they will be submitting responses and we can get that part of the evaluation in a way.
    • 00:06:35
      I view it as an opportunity to
    • 00:06:40
      from stakeholders, so from you all, on what you view as the opportunities, issues, and ultimately really kind of provide us with a fresh outside perspective on, you know, how from a staffing perspective, this can really mean the needs of the city.
    • 00:06:59
      in this space.
    • 00:07:00
      So that's an update on the housing program from a staff perspective.
    • 00:07:06
      Looking forward to getting those results to really then be able to kind of be in the best, strongest position possible to recruit for a new housing program manager.
    • 00:07:14
      I think the caliber depends on who you want and that role is someone who would want to know that we have an understanding of what the program really needs to be successful.
    • 00:07:27
      So
    • 00:07:29
      Madeline and I are continuing to show forces and divide and conquer to keep the wheels on this bus moving forward and prioritizing items that we can address.
    • 00:07:44
      But certainly, I think we're all looking forward to being able to step back up
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:07:56
      So I have asked for this to be approximately a 10 to 12 week timeframe.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:08:07
      So I'm hoping that by the time I get responses and he brings somebody on board, that would be wrapping up for the end of the year, first part of next year.
    • 00:08:19
      And then with that, I can move into, just start to dig around the steps.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:08:29
      Any other questions?
    • 00:08:30
      Okay, all right.
    • 00:08:34
      Next thing on the agenda is the approval of the September 17th half minutes.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:08:41
      And the approval of the minutes.
    • 00:08:46
      Give me a second.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:08:50
      Any discussion on anything?
    • 00:09:03
      and I don't have my glasses, so if I miss something, I'm about to say something.
    • 00:09:12
      But I see the Land Bank, but isn't Chris supposed to be doing a presentation?
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:09:18
      Chris, I think Kelly is going to speak first a little bit about the Land Bank, and then that will lead us into Chris's.
    • 00:09:22
      And then we'll leave it, okay, because I was looking at it.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:09:26
      Okay, so the Land Bank, and so I need to show this bill, status review and discussion.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 00:09:43
      talk down there.
    • 00:09:44
      I can ju
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:09:49
      Okay, so the Land Bank Authority of Charlottesville.
    • 00:09:57
      This is an item that was certainly outstanding.
    • 00:10:01
      It was unresolved when OCS closed and housing transitioned to NDS.
    • 00:10:09
      And so this this summer and fall, I have been working with the team.
    • 00:10:13
      to try to gain an understanding of the work, all the work that's been completed to date and consideration for how to realize creation of a land right here in Charlottesville.
    • 00:10:23
      So today what I'd like to do is share
    • 00:10:29
      My understanding is of the history of where we are, some of the background.
    • 00:10:34
      Again, my understanding of what the city's recommendations have been to this point and the rationale for creating a land bank.
    • 00:10:42
      That's within the context of what the HAC has also recommended.
    • 00:10:49
      What seemed to be some of the most critical implementation considerations to move this forward.
    • 00:10:55
      and then finally kind of our staff reflections are kind of key takeaways now that we've I've been able to get up to speed what I think everything I've learned means for Hutton and forward.
    • 00:11:07
      and this is, I'm happy to be able to do this in this time frame.
    • 00:11:12
      I think this conversation really dovetails well with the conversation about the table.
    • 00:11:18
      And so certainly we could have discussion on the information I present after I share these slides.
    • 00:11:26
      I would recommend that perhaps we wait until Chris also has an opportunity to share his information and so we can kind of have a conversation thinking about the whole information.
    • 00:11:39
      All right, so where we are today, this should all be familiar information.
    • 00:11:44
      Starting in 2023, we had a resumed discussion of our land bank ordinance, strategy identified for consideration in the 2021 affordable housing plan.
    • 00:11:55
      In 2024, there were discussions with the city manager's office, council,
    • 00:12:00
      That consideration was eliminated in a HAC draft of the ordinance and then to the city manager and deputy city manager at HAC meeting in August 2024.
    • 00:12:08
      There were different perspectives shared on the best way forward, operational challenges.
    • 00:12:13
      That draft was also presented to council in October of that year and council charged staff for conducting a due diligence review and to come back with an updated version for council review.
    • 00:12:26
      So in 2025, staff did that work and dropped the ordinance.
    • 00:12:32
      Staff prepared an updated and revised ordinance and presented that to council in April of this year.
    • 00:12:39
      And the staff ordinance does diverge from the HAC draft in these several ways.
    • 00:12:44
      So I will say, go ahead and advance.
    • 00:12:47
      I'm very grateful to Alan, Shura, and Madeline in helping students understand
    • 00:12:56
      where the points of divergence exist.
    • 00:13:00
      What was the staff rationale for moving in a different direction?
    • 00:13:03
      So I tried to distill what the staff recommendations are here, the rationale, hoping that that kind of helps provide a better understanding of where we are in terms of staff recommendations.
    • 00:13:19
      So the key elements of the staff recommendations were first to establish a land bank authority
    • 00:13:26
      and the goal there or the driving factor in that is to ensure transparency and accountability required for the handling of public tax revenues in general funds.
    • 00:13:37
      So the intent here is really to prioritize transparency, accountability, recognizing however that this may potentially limit a quick action that could be possible in an independent nonprofit model that they have.
    • 00:13:57
      We have been able to affirm, however, that the authority model can accept tax deductible contributions in CRA funds.
    • 00:14:05
      So that does somewhat, I think, offset some of the concerns that were raised about the potential downsides of an authority.
    • 00:14:14
      Staff also recommended to identify affordable housing as a stated purpose.
    • 00:14:20
      This allows future discretion by the Land Bank Board within a clearly stated mission and avoids locking in a pathway of the established affordable housing plan.
    • 00:14:32
      That was something that the HAC draft proposed.
    • 00:14:34
      This might be a detail.
    • 00:14:38
      I'm just responding to facial expressions.
    • 00:14:47
      Staff recommendations are to enable the city manager to appoint any staff to serve in their said.
    • 00:14:52
      I'm going to allow interim board appointments.
    • 00:14:54
      The rationale here is to enable flexibility in appointments to prevent potential delays versus what the HAC was requesting was that the leadership be with the department head or higher level.
    • 00:15:08
      Moving on.
    • 00:15:11
      And this is the last slide.
    • 00:15:16
      The staff recommendation was to restrict the authority to issue bonds, discharge liens, which is not allowed by statute, nor be exempt from municipal fees and charges.
    • 00:15:27
      And the concern here was really that the land bank issuing bonds could infringe upon the city's bonding authority.
    • 00:15:35
      It really requires a greater level of authority than an independent nonprofit could.
    • 00:15:41
      the city than the city would be comfortable with.
    • 00:15:45
      There is some use of that cute language that Alan could perhaps speak to better than I about the ability to convey tax delinquent properties to the land bank, which may help address some of these concerns.
    • 00:15:58
      And then these last few bullets, these were just additional key elements of the staff recommendations, not necessarily points of divergence from HAC, but just I think important to help
    • 00:16:10
      round out an understanding of what the staff was recommending.
    • 00:16:14
      The land bank would rely on an RFP process for property dispositions.
    • 00:16:20
      This would be a Charlottesville specific entity, not a regional entity.
    • 00:16:25
      It would rely upon the Virginia statute on fairness and avoidance of self-dealing rather than having specific language to that effect.
    • 00:16:35
      The land bank would be allowed to receive up to 50% of tax revenue from collections
    • 00:16:40
      and it remains silent on whether the land bank could be dissolved in order to reform as a non-profit entity.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:16:46
      Can I ask a clarification question?
    • 00:16:49
      Yeah.
    • 00:16:51
      Under the top section, under the staff recommendations, like it concerns the land bank issuing bonds with our, you know, contingent on the city's bonding authority.
    • 00:17:01
      Did we, I think we all assumed that that's an accurate assessment, but that we can confirm that by, if it were an authority and issued bonds, that it would impact city funding capacity.
    • 00:17:13
      Did we confirm that?
    • SPEAKER_09
    • 00:17:21
      I don't know that we asked for a legal opinion on that.
    • 00:17:25
      It was discussed in the city manager's office that that's concerned, but we didn't ask for a legal opinion.
    • 00:17:34
      So I can't say that I've got legal analysis on that.
    • 00:17:57
      Yes, it was.
    • 00:18:09
      It was our impression.
    • 00:18:11
      If you recall, we had a UVA intern, a graduate student intern who was doing some research for us, and he actually was starting to attend land bank consortium meetings.
    • 00:18:23
      There's a consortium of the X number of land banks in Virginia.
    • 00:18:27
      And that was something that was being discussed was that
    • 00:18:31
      there was limited ability, unlike other states that have wide authority for land banks to discharge liens, Virginia's is fairly limited and that has constrained the ability of some of the land banks in Virginia to operate as much as they had hoped to.
    • 00:18:51
      There was discussions by that consortium about looking into some legislative changes to make the Virginia
    • 00:18:59
      Land Bank entities law resemble the more liberal ones in Michigan, Ohio, et cetera.
    • 00:19:06
      I don't know the details of all of that.
    • 00:19:08
      I just know that that was the discussion that Stephen and I were a part of when we attended a couple of those meetings with the Land Bank Consortium.
    • 00:19:17
      Was there concerns that the ability to discharge liens was not as easy to do in Virginia because of the way the statute was written versus other states?
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:19:29
      Without sidetracking, I think both of those questions, it would be helpful to whether maybe not in this meeting, but in a future meeting, just to have some personal clarity on.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:19:43
      So as Alan alluded to, something else that happened over the summer was some work to try to understand if we were to move forward with the land bank, what would it take?
    • 00:19:56
      What would be the next steps in implementation?
    • 00:20:00
      and we need an intern, a graduate student that came on board and did some research on what would be required and the basic steps are laid out here.
    • 00:20:13
      So the public hearing and ordinance, I think that that's something that we certainly already discussed.
    • 00:20:19
      A board of directors would need to be appointed.
    • 00:20:22
      We would need to develop and adopt bylaws.
    • 00:20:27
      policies, financial guidelines, determined priority properties, requisition, and then a funding and operational plan, which would need to be.
    • 00:20:47
      Having documented, I think, the history to date, where we are as a city, what we'd be comfortable moving forward, our understanding of what we require to stand up this May night.
    • 00:21:00
      There's a couple of key takeaways thinking about how to move forward.
    • 00:21:05
      So first, in our assessment, the specific cost impacts of creating a land bank are significant.
    • 00:21:13
      The staff that would be required would be at least a half to one full-time equivalent, so one staff person would really need to be dedicated to this.
    • 00:21:25
      over the next six to 12 months.
    • 00:21:28
      Long term, once Land Bank is established, we would need one and a half to two positions created by the director, administrative staff, likely requiring indefinite commitment of resources to support the needs of the Land Bank.
    • 00:21:53
      and the new FTEs required to run the land bank, those don't exist.
    • 00:22:04
      There's also questions of new operating budget costs, which is needed for other administrative startup needs.
    • 00:22:11
      So the legal counsel, document operation, office space, that's setting aside the consideration for cost of acquiring more than one.
    • 00:22:22
      I think another key takeaway for us has been an acknowledgement that the authority model simply may not meet the needs and interests for quick action.
    • 00:22:35
      It would be part of the city bureaucracy, the way the city is comfortable standing one up.
    • 00:22:44
      However, there may be some other tools available to achieve that.
    • 00:22:50
      and this is really where we kind of segue to talking about the cable program.
    • 00:22:57
      There may be ways to create a financing mechanism to support affordable housing development different from the tools that are already in our toolbox.
    • 00:23:07
      A quick strike fund would be kind of a layman's term.
    • 00:23:13
      And if resources were available, the city could hold land at a lower cost.
    • 00:23:19
      or a non-profit entity could do so until affordable housing is only implemented.
    • 00:23:23
      So that's another potential strategy that doesn't require a land bank.
    • 00:23:28
      So I think that the takeaway for staff is that
    • 00:23:35
      It would take a lot of work to stand up the land bank.
    • 00:23:38
      We actually don't have the resources we need to really even make that happen if we were to divert our existing resources to do that.
    • 00:23:45
      But there seems to be some potential to work on other program components that can achieve some of our goals.
    • 00:23:54
      So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Chris, unless there are any additional clarifying questions on what I've shared so far.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:24:06
      Okay, thanks, Kelly.
    • 00:24:09
      So I'll try and fill in some gaps here and answer some questions.
    • 00:24:12
      I think we shared a document with you in advance, so you probably have a sense of a little bit of what we're talking about here.
    • 00:24:19
      Kelly referred to the cable fund, Charlottesville Affordable Cruise Line.
    • 00:24:23
      Before I get into that, I'll back up a second and just tell you a little bit about CETA and a little bit about how we got to this point in time.
    • 00:24:34
      CETA is the Charlottesville Economic Development Authority.
    • 00:24:39
      I have the ability to have economic development authorities.
    • 00:24:45
      Most of them do.
    • 00:24:46
      Most of them also have housing authorities.
    • 00:24:48
      They are similar in a lot of ways.
    • 00:24:50
      They're all created
    • 00:24:53
      through the state code.
    • 00:24:55
      There's a whole statue about economic development authorities and industrial development authorities.
    • 00:24:59
      And then there's a whole housing authority side.
    • 00:25:00
      So they're similar in many ways.
    • 00:25:03
      Communities that don't have housing authorities but do have economic development authorities have the ability for the economic development authority to act as if it were the housing authority.
    • 00:25:12
      In communities that have one of each, they kind of have their own swim lights.
    • 00:25:16
      We have had an Economic Development Authority that started in 1976 as the Industrial Development Authority.
    • 00:25:23
      We changed the name in about 2007 to better reflect what is actually happening in the city of Charlottesville, which was not a lot of industrial, as you might imagine.
    • 00:25:32
      And we were kind of transitioning to
    • 00:25:35
      and less industrial, more just basic economic development type support.
    • 00:25:39
      So in any case, if you want to read about authorities and their powers, it's all in the state code.
    • 00:25:46
      And then there's a city ordinance that reflects the state code and establishes the body.
    • 00:25:53
      The body is seven members appointed by council for your terms.
    • 00:25:57
      And
    • 00:26:01
      They are the entity that help make the decisions related to anything the authority does.
    • 00:26:07
      In general terms, the authority has the ability to buy and sell land, remediate land, manage land on behalf of a city.
    • 00:26:17
      They do have bonding.
    • 00:26:19
      I don't want to say authority because to the question that Sunshine asked a bit ago,
    • 00:26:26
      I think the answer for land banks and authorities are it's very similar so that the Economic Development Authority can serve as a conduit issuer for bonds for industrial or nonprofits.
    • 00:26:42
      If we were to issue our own bonds, it would impact the city's ability to issue.
    • 00:26:47
      I know that for the authority, I'm guessing it's the same for land banks.
    • 00:26:50
      The way these things function in Virginia is a little different than the way they function in other states.
    • 00:26:55
      Probably not surprised to hear that.
    • 00:26:57
      And it may take a legal expert on authorities, land banks, etc.
    • 00:27:01
      to kind of give you that.
    • 00:27:02
      Real clarity, but my guess is that it would impact the city's ability to issue debt and which we kind of bump up against every year already.
    • 00:27:12
      So in any case, a little bit of a sidebar there, but we do issue bonds on behalf of entities.
    • 00:27:20
      And I want to just kind of clarify because there's
    • 00:27:22
      often misunderstanding that a bond is this magical thing where money disappears.
    • 00:27:26
      It's really just a loan.
    • 00:27:28
      It's an agreement between two parties.
    • 00:27:30
      And when the EDA gets involved, we confer tax exempt status on that bond, which makes it more advantageous to the
    • 00:27:39
      to both parties, but specifically the borrower that's seeking to build something.
    • 00:27:44
      They don't have to pay federal tax on those bonds.
    • 00:27:48
      So it makes it allows them better financing.
    • 00:27:51
      The most recent one the authority did was the UVA Alumni Association building a new building, and they're a nonprofit.
    • 00:27:58
      They qualify them in statute.
    • 00:28:00
      They came and saw it.
    • 00:28:01
      Conduit Financing through the authority.
    • 00:28:03
      We've done a number of others in and around for non-profits.
    • 00:28:08
      Live Arts is another good example here on the mall.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:28:12
      Just like my first previous question, clarification around how like a third party like the media you're talking about.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:28:25
      was not at all.
    • 00:28:27
      Why is that different?
    • 00:28:28
      Because of the ability for the authorities to confer that tax exempt status.
    • 00:28:33
      There's no liability from the city.
    • 00:28:35
      There's no funds from the city.
    • 00:28:36
      There's no funds from the EDA.
    • 00:28:39
      We're just simply allow it's all tax code kind of stuff that goes back to the 1986 tax code when that changed and allowed allowed this to happen.
    • 00:28:50
      I'm not an expert on that.
    • 00:28:52
      I won't pretend to be, but when we do conduit issuances, there's no impact on the city.
    • 00:28:59
      for its borrowing or its debt at all.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:29:01
      So in that scenario, the UVA or the entity that you were lending to, they were carrying the risk and the loan.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:29:09
      Yeah.
    • 00:29:10
      So there's a bank and there's a borrowing party and the EDA just sits on the top and says, we can confer this because you do qualify and you have to meet the statute that says you qualify.
    • 00:29:18
      You have to be a legitimate 501c3 and it has to, there's some other things.
    • 00:29:23
      and there's a whole stack of documents that go with each of those transactions, which means that the cost of issuance is significant.
    • 00:29:30
      So that typically anything below like three or four million dollars wouldn't even venture into that space because the cost of issuance, the attorneys and the accounts and all that kind of drive that up a little bit.
    • 00:29:43
      So that's why you tend to see bigger projects and not smaller ones.
    • 00:29:46
      But anyway.
    • 00:29:48
      That's a little bit about CETA and then how we kind of got here to considering an affordable bridge loan.
    • 00:29:55
      I'm looking at Sunshine and he was involved in this conversation some some years ago.
    • 00:30:00
      So the Economic Development Authority also serves to kind of convey performance agreements that the city wishes to enter into.
    • 00:30:10
      Tenderwood has a performance agreement.
    • 00:30:13
      It was the first one we did of this type for phase one.
    • 00:30:15
      We also don't want to phase two.
    • 00:30:17
      and that essentially allows the tax revenue that's generated from that project to be returned in the form of a grant.
    • 00:30:23
      Once again, this is a Virginia work around.
    • 00:30:26
      You can't abate taxes in Virginia, but you can grant back an equivalent amount equal to the taxes that would have been paid to help a project succeed.
    • 00:30:35
      We did that for kinderwood, and that was somewhat groundbreaking in that it had not been done, certainly locally and I don't think really in the state.
    • 00:30:43
      The laws around the authorities ability to do that have since been tweaked and the type of situation we engaged in with the nonprofit housing organization is now included in the state code for Can you give us an example of what it was and what got tweaked?
    • 00:31:06
      in the state code just simply added a line that said housing.
    • 00:31:10
      What was it before?
    • 00:31:12
      It just didn't, it was silent.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:31:13
      It was most like industrial, you know, infrastructure related and then they added housing.
    • 00:31:18
      Gotcha, gotcha.
    • 00:31:20
      Yeah.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:31:20
      So in any case, we were helping PHA in that effort, engaged in that, in those conversations
    • 00:31:30
      Kind of a side conversation was, well, it would be nice to have available funds for purchasing not something like kindlewood, but something like a single family home that might be about ready to be sold if you transition to potentially not affordable status and PHA and the land trust that's associated with PHA are in that business.
    • 00:31:49
      And so this conversation about would there be any possibility that EDA plays a role in that?
    • 00:31:56
      At about that same time, and I have our strategic plan document, the Economic Development Office had a plan done in late 23.
    • 00:32:04
      It was adopted in 24.
    • 00:32:06
      One of the elements in there, as you might not be surprised,
    • 00:32:10
      relates to housing and the fact that housing and economic development and jobs are intertwined.
    • 00:32:17
      Our swim lane is the jobs and the workforce and entrepreneurship and whatnot.
    • 00:32:21
      Kelly and others, nonprofits and others have a swim lane that's affordable housing and housing in general.
    • 00:32:28
      But our plan did allude to the fact that to be successful in our work, we need to at least acknowledge there's a challenge with housing in and around Charlottesville.
    • 00:32:40
      Our third third section in the plan references that it just simply says support the activities related to housing plan, the affordable housing plan, et cetera.
    • 00:32:50
      So our board members, our seven members, as we went through the plan and kind of dug in on each of the items,
    • 00:32:57
      So what can we do in this space?
    • 00:32:59
      And that was kind of at the time we were having conversations around, is there a loan fund idea?
    • 00:33:05
      And so that's kind of those two things came together and we started to explore that a bit more.
    • 00:33:10
      And
    • 00:33:13
      Then it got a little bit bigger in which there was a meeting in this room of a number of kind of potential funders and nonprofits to maybe create something that's much bigger than what you see on paper today.
    • 00:33:25
      That conversation sputtered for a couple of months.
    • 00:33:28
      And then I think we finally decided that it wasn't ready.
    • 00:33:31
      It was too complicated to to pool funds from multiple sources to try and create something that would support
    • 00:33:39
      So that could happen at a future date, and it may be happening somewhere else that I'm not aware of, but the local effort for that was kind of sunset for a moment.
    • 00:33:48
      media still had an interest in supporting as our plan suggests.
    • 00:33:53
      And so we kind of engaged on a much smaller, simpler effort.
    • 00:34:00
      And we've come up with this Affordable Bridge loan, which is exactly what it says, a short term loan, 12 to 24 months, low interest rate, fairly simple terms and requirements, we hope and think.
    • 00:34:17
      to specifically city-based nonprofits that are in the housing business that want to buy a piece of property that is in danger of potentially becoming unaffordable and keep it in the affordable space.
    • 00:34:32
      So that's in a nutshell what it seeks to do.
    • 00:34:36
      I wouldn't classify it as a quick strike fund in the classical sense that it might have been talked about.
    • 00:34:43
      It's currently funding level is minimal, $500,000 that could be used in, you know, one or two loans that would then be repaid and it would revolve.
    • 00:34:53
      So these are loans, not grants.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:34:57
      If somebody, if a nonprofit came to you, what's the turnaround time to try to, what's the strike time?
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:35:04
      It's very quick.
    • 00:35:05
      We're trying to kind of keep it simple and keep it quick because that was another kind of pain point that was expressed to us is that, you know, we can go to a bank and we can take six months to do all this.
    • 00:35:14
      So we were trying to shrink that down.
    • 00:35:16
      So this has been embraced and conceptually supported by the Lord.
    • 00:35:21
      with the caveat of working out the details.
    • 00:35:23
      That's the kind of phase we're in right now is to work out the details.
    • 00:35:26
      One of the most significant of which is the collateral requirements that we would want to put in place to protect the funds.
    • 00:35:34
      And as soon as you do that, it starts to get, to go from simple and easy to very complicated.
    • 00:35:40
      But the goal is like,
    • 00:35:45
      Thank you so much.
    • 00:36:06
      and I think BHA and Land Trust have had that happen to them over time and potentially others have too.
    • 00:36:16
      So in any case, the goal would be to make it as short as possible.
    • 00:36:19
      I don't know that we can reach 30 days, but if we can iron out as many of the kinks in advance, then maybe that is possible.
    • 00:36:28
      And I will say that this is
    • 00:36:30
      A bit of a shot in the dark, a trial could work.
    • 00:36:34
      It might not work.
    • 00:36:37
      But it was a way that the authority could kind of dig in and address that one item that we didn't really have any meat behind at this point.
    • 00:36:46
      So maybe I'll pause there and see if there are specific questions.
    • 00:36:51
      I've kind of glossed over the actual
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 00:36:59
      It's moving in a great direction and it's a really needed tool.
    • 00:37:03
      I'm seeing a couple of internal contradictions here, largely having to do with what you just spoke about in terms of speed.
    • 00:37:10
      So when you limit it to half a million dollars in the term to two years, you're really talking about is being able to get something under control.
    • 00:37:21
      So you're talking about a deposit.
    • 00:37:25
      We don't have 30 to 60 days to
    • 00:37:29
      The thing that's going to make this cumbersome is requiring land as collateral because you're going to need an appraisal, which takes time.
    • 00:37:39
      And oftentimes our biggest challenge, we can get bank loans anytime we want.
    • 00:37:44
      But we don't often have unencumbered.
    • 00:37:47
      Because we try to leverage what we do to do the most work, we often don't have simply unencumbered land.
    • 00:37:53
      So I would ask you to push yourselves as far as you can in terms of your collateral requirements.
    • 00:38:00
      Maybe there's other things, balance sheet.
    • 00:38:04
      pledges of deliverables.
    • 00:38:06
      You know, a lot of us operate on a receivable model, so we have a ton of money coming over the next few years, but it's reimbursable.
    • 00:38:13
      And so anyway, if you could get more creative around that, you'll differentiate yourself from the land from a normal bank and be able to decrease that timeline.
    • 00:38:24
      And we're talking this thing to be successful needs to be turned around.
    • 00:38:27
      If a piece of property goes for sale, we get it under contract right away.
    • 00:38:31
      We know that we can pull down this money to put a large down deposit down.
    • 00:38:36
      So I would suggest that.
    • 00:38:39
      And then the other thing is that I know the details have to be worked out, but I get scared by bullet point number two under applications must include a comprehensive plan for the acquisition and a renovation, at least the occupancy can include financial plan renovation.
    • 00:38:51
      That's due diligence that you do after you get something under contract.
    • 00:38:55
      or under your control, then you start to invest some money in a land plan.
    • 00:39:00
      That's when you start to think through the pro forma and that takes a little time to generate.
    • 00:39:06
      That won't happen before you have to get this land under control.
    • 00:39:09
      So if that could be streamlined, something a little bit more general, a general description of what you intend to do would probably be best.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:39:17
      Yeah, I think we kind of want to be somewhere in between there.
    • 00:39:20
      The comprehensive work probably gets some folks, but we feel like we need some indication of what the plan is and that there is a reasonable plan and what affordability levels you intend to embrace.
    • 00:39:32
      I think that's the
    • 00:39:33
      It's not intended to be lots of documents, but a basic kind of application.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 00:39:39
      Generally speaking, we imagine doing multi-family under 80%.
    • 00:39:44
      If you could accept that, that would be better than, this is fine.
    • 00:39:50
      It's written here anyway.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:39:53
      Fair enough.
    • 00:39:56
      I don't want to get too much into the weeds.
    • 00:39:57
      So as a preface, let me say that I own a mortgage bank and we do bridge lending and super fast leverage buying all the time.
    • 00:40:04
      I have programs for that.
    • 00:40:06
      I have policies for that.
    • 00:40:07
      I've got my competitors' policies for that.
    • 00:40:10
      I've got the people I sell these things or borrow the money from policies for that.
    • 00:40:14
      And I agree with Dan, 30 days might as well be 90 in a lot of these circumstances.
    • 00:40:21
      But getting a fast turnaround to at least to a point
    • 00:40:27
      You know, with some work, and I'm happy to discuss with you, you can get that down to a couple of days in funding.
    • 00:40:33
      I typically can commit in a day or two with a fund in two weeks.
    • 00:40:41
      And a lot of that has to do with evaluating the collateral.
    • 00:40:46
      There's a whole bunch that goes to it.
    • 00:40:48
      But to me, I think, considering the relatively limited funds we're dealing with,
    • 00:40:54
      Speed is key because you've got to turn it.
    • 00:40:56
      In a two-year term, if you've got two loans out there for a two-year term, you don't have a revolving fund anymore.
    • 00:41:02
      You've got two two-year loans out.
    • 00:41:04
      So there's got to be some, this might be a way to say, to use this would be, this is the initial grab and then follow on money from somewhere else can come relatively quickly.
    • 00:41:17
      but not in two years unless you've got a lot more money to play with or you come up with sort of a steady product, I think.
    • 00:41:26
      But I'd be happy to chat with you about that because this is, you know, I make my
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:41:32
      That would be helpful.
    • 00:41:33
      One thing I should say that this has evolved a little bit as the group's been thinking about it.
    • 00:41:39
      And it wasn't originally set up as a line of credit slash law to the speed issue for a line of credit and to the collateral issue about unencumbered.
    • 00:41:48
      And we did field test this a little bit specifically with the Land Trust and PHA.
    • 00:41:53
      And they indicated that it would be easier to
    • 00:41:57
      provide collateral, unencumbered collateral on something they already own that they're not leveraging in advance of maybe we're going to come to you in a month or two, let's get this squared away first.
    • 00:42:10
      And if it's a line of credit, then it becomes it can kind of be set up in advance.
    • 00:42:15
      The EDA board got a little uncomfortable with that.
    • 00:42:18
      So we've backed off that and kind of made it more into let's just do a straight line and see if that works.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:42:24
      But I'm hearing what you all are saying in terms of speed, and it's difficult to split that baby where you have a piece of collateral that's going to stand for a good bit of it.
    • 00:42:31
      And that way, the evaluation of the fine, the lead on both, you don't have that concern and your equity is better.
    • 00:42:39
      I mean, yeah, good thought.
    • 00:42:41
      Happy to share.
    • 00:42:43
      I am.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:42:46
      Actually, I thought about this when Chris was talking about it for, you know, nonprofits that are kind of not as established, like, you know, New Hill Development Corporation.
    • 00:42:58
      And I know there's a group of black and Hispanic mothers that want to find like a co-housing community.
    • 00:43:06
      and because they don't have the established relationships with banks or, you know, steady funds coming in from private lender or private donations, this would be great for them.
    • 00:43:17
      I know Newhill lost property this year because they couldn't act quickly.
    • 00:43:21
      And for them getting property under contract and having like 45 days, you know, $500,000 for like a lot in Belmont or, you know,
    • 00:43:31
      I think this would be really beneficial for those startup non-profits that are looking for something, you know, like a smaller project.
    • 00:43:40
      I don't know, that's what I thought of, but those are also fascinating perspectives.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:43:45
      Yep, exactly.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:43:47
      That would, yeah.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:43:48
      Part of the property owner buys the sunlight.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:43:57
      Yeah, I know if this were in place, I think Newhill would have a project moving forward.
    • 00:44:03
      And even just having this option and the certainty of this option would have made the seller feel more comfortable that there was certainty happening, right?
    • 00:44:14
      Because there's a lot of people in the community that own land that are trying to pass it to
    • 00:44:21
      or organizations like New Hill.
    • 00:44:23
      So there's some level of patience, but having something like this would be great.
    • 00:44:28
      That being said, I do want to go back to the land bank.
    • 00:44:34
      And are we talking about this almost like replacing the land bank as a function?
    • 00:44:39
      Because I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this, but
    • 00:44:43
      I think this is great, the capital program, but the land bank I almost see as filling the role of there are so many properties in Charlottesville and areas in Charlottesville that, you know, wrongs have been done to minority communities, right?
    • 00:44:59
      And I think of like the West Haven project, the West Main Street project and the city and the land bank taking control of these
    • 00:45:10
      properties and taking the time to do and develop them right is something that I saw this, you know, the land bank doing.
    • 00:45:19
      And that's not something that this capital fund will do, even though it is awesome.
    • 00:45:23
      I'm glad it's happening.
    • 00:45:24
      And so I guess I mean, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I thought that the land bank idea was, you know, we're opening up density and that's great.
    • 00:45:35
      We need more housing in our community.
    • 00:45:38
      but there are definitely areas of our community where we want the city and our community to take control of and develop them in a collective way that we all want and mindfully and intentionally.
    • 00:45:53
      And so I think we're losing that with the loss of the land bank.
    • 00:45:58
      And I don't know if you guys agree with that, but.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:46:02
      I mean, Sunshine had his hand up and then Peppy
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:46:09
      I'll just keep that thread, I'll bring mine back up.
    • 00:46:12
      Okay, Peppy.
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 00:46:14
      It seems to me that critical to what Kelly presented is the results of the feasibility study that 3TP is going to do, which might make a land bank moot, not functional for the city.
    • 00:46:31
      And I don't remember when we're going to get that information about the 3TP feasibility study.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:46:39
      So there was a presentation in September to have providing a status update on the tax payment study.
    • 00:46:52
      That was really to provide an update and try to get some feedback on the feasibility numbers that they have put together so far.
    • 00:46:59
      They are working on their final report on the schedule if that would come forward to many commissions in the next few years.
    • 00:47:09
      But that's a tax abatement program.
    • 00:47:11
      Right, and so that's really focused more on the idea of creating a tax abatement tool that would support larger scale development by abating the taxes on the affordable units that would be created.
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 00:47:27
      What I was just thinking that was a critical aspect of the land bank, but it's not.
    • 00:47:33
      Okay, my fault.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:47:37
      To answer part of your question, this was developed wholly exclusively of any land bank conversation.
    • 00:47:43
      As I suggested was trying to address the strategic plan that referenced housing.
    • 00:47:48
      And so it's not intended from our perspective to be a replacement or anything.
    • 00:47:53
      It does kind of connect to some of the work that a land bank could do if one were to be formed.
    • 00:47:58
      But it's not.
    • 00:47:59
      It was not.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 00:47:59
      I'm sorry, I couldn't see back there.
    • 00:48:02
      Kathleen?
    • SPEAKER_01
    • 00:48:03
      Yeah, just in the same vein, I was also curious about
    • 00:48:09
      just how the tie-in would be with community planning to economic development.
    • 00:48:15
      I think economic development helping increase revenue in the community, but also on the planner side, this conversation of translating what the community wants and shaping what can be built and how it can be used.
    • 00:48:32
      I'm just wondering how that's all going to get tied together with this
    • 00:48:38
      different element versus a landing.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:48:42
      Yeah, I mean, I think maybe that's a good segue to share before because one of the pieces that does feel like it's significantly disjunction between the, and even though they were developed separately, but like the idea of the
    • 00:49:03
      being one proxy tool instead of a land bank.
    • 00:49:07
      One significant disconnection of the land bank, part of that role and a lot of work that we did as a body was to ensure sort of community oversight, where if the cable tool, which I think we all in general support, if that's the only tool that's at play, it doesn't have that aspect embedded within its structure.
    • 00:49:30
      So anyway, that's just one point of clarity there.
    • 00:49:36
      In the back, Chris, back to where this question of a loan versus a line of credit, and I did want to resurface, and sort of that question on the end, but around the idea of sort of like prequalifying, you know, even if it is not a true line of credit, maybe it's still a loan situation, just like you might prequalify for a loan for a house as an individual, you go through the diligence process ahead of time,
    • 00:50:04
      so that when it is time to move, you can move quickly.
    • 00:50:08
      And then related to that, this builds on Dan's comments around a specific site that you want to pursue.
    • 00:50:18
      I would advocate strongly that the prequalification process needs to include financials, but maybe it's also just like organizations
    • 00:50:33
      If you know that Habitat or CRHA or ourselves or whoever, we are in the business of doing this work.
    • 00:50:40
      We may not have absolute clarity on what that plan is for that site at that moment in time, but having a little bit of trust and faith that we'll figure it out.
    • 00:50:48
      And if it doesn't work, well, then we let it go.
    • 00:50:51
      So, you know, or we resell or whatever.
    • 00:50:53
      That rarely happens.
    • 00:50:54
      We typically know generally what we're trying to aim for, but not going through like any sort of
    • 00:51:02
      Having faith that we know how to do what we do.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:51:04
      So to piggyback on that, back into my wheelhouse, on bridge lending and mass term money, the exit strategy is the second question you ask.
    • 00:51:17
      First question is, what are we buying?
    • 00:51:18
      Second one is, how are we getting out of the deal?
    • 00:51:21
      And one of the things to do in structuring this is having the set of scenarios
    • 00:51:30
      will lend this type of lending in general and then to know relatively quickly even if
    • 00:51:38
      Even if Sunshine News organization happens to face plant in this way, we still get out with this, and we've still got a way to go.
    • 00:51:46
      So that at least nominally, so that the risk of the capital really isn't that much of a risk, that there's a quick and dirty way to extract CETA from the deal if that's necessary.
    • 00:51:59
      And I think that once there's some assurance on that,
    • 00:52:04
      and the sort of capacity to generalize risk goes up.
    • 00:52:08
      I mean, worst case scenario, here's what we do and we claw our money back this way.
    • 00:52:13
      Not ideal, but we're out.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 00:52:16
      There are a whole series of... You got a guarantee from the city, for example, or we use unspent funds and the funds that are sitting in the housing fund.
    • 00:52:28
      Something like that.
    • 00:52:33
      And there are other ways to do it.
    • 00:52:34
      I think requiring, I'm just telling you because someone who chases after loans all the time to acquire land that most of us are leveraged to the hill.
    • 00:52:46
      We should be because we're trying to do more.
    • 00:52:48
      So there's nothing that the city can do to hedge that risk.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:52:57
      So I can just respond, Nicole, to your question about replacing the land bank.
    • 00:53:02
      Echoing, is there anything in a different way?
    • 00:53:03
      What Chris said, that's not the intention.
    • 00:53:06
      I think the intention is that the land bank, the way the city is comfortable creating one, wouldn't accomplish the goals that could happen if it articulated a specific action for
    • 00:53:19
      potentially providing financing tools.
    • 00:53:25
      So there's also just a capacity issue and what are the right priorities for the city to be focusing on right now to stand up new programs.
    • 00:53:35
      And so I think the thought is that we could focus on the CABL program.
    • 00:53:46
      could be the focus in this space for now.
    • 00:53:50
      And we can return to the idea of the landing at another time.
    • 00:53:55
      And we should talk about it every three years.
    • 00:53:57
      OK.
    • 00:53:57
      No, it's just funny.
    • 00:53:59
      Four, three years, every three years.
    • 00:54:00
      Exactly.
    • 00:54:00
      It's a perpetual conversation.
    • 00:54:02
      So
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:54:14
      Recognizing that the recommendation coming from staff around the structure of a land bank wouldn't necessarily achieve all that we've talked about trying to get to.
    • 00:54:24
      Let's cast, as a thought experiment, cast forward in time two years.
    • 00:54:28
      Let's say a land bank is operating.
    • 00:54:30
      Let's say the shelter conversation hadn't happened yet.
    • 00:54:32
      And then 2600 Holiday Drive came up.
    • 00:54:37
      And there was this 30 day window to walk it down below
    • 00:54:40
      Would the land bank be the appropriate authority in that moment in time as you conceive of the staff conception of it to go through that transaction or is it still not operating in that way?
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:54:53
      Sorry about the homeless shelter.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:54:58
      You're talking about holiday drive?
    • 00:55:02
      Yeah.
    • 00:55:02
      Would the land bank be the functional entity instead of the city purchasing holiday drive if the land bank had been in place for a couple of years?
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:55:11
      I don't know, but I doubt it.
    • 00:55:12
      My sense is I doubt it.
    • 00:55:13
      Housing authority can own land, the economic development can own land, but the city's going to buy.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 00:55:20
      I think that it's a real, sorry, the city can also, just to make sure I understand, the city can also purchase property.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:55:25
      You don't need the land back to purchase property.
    • 00:55:26
      No, the city's under contract to purchase 2,000 Holiday Drive right now.
    • 00:55:32
      So, like, I mean, I guess in theory, it could if it were formed and it were, you know, stood up and, you know, everybody was happy with how it was working.
    • 00:55:42
      But the money would come from the city to the land bank and then the land bank would own it.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 00:55:47
      So it could, but... Yeah, nobody would like want to spot it as a city councilor.
    • 00:55:52
      What would your perspective be in that?
    • Michael Payne
    • 00:55:54
      So, I mean, I think it's a good theoretical example of, let's say that
    • 00:56:03
      The opportunity came up and we did not have a urine surplus left to allocate to it.
    • 00:56:08
      I don't think anyone is under the impression that issuing bonds is free money.
    • 00:56:14
      Everyone understands that it has to be paid.
    • 00:56:16
      It's more expensive than paying in cash.
    • 00:56:19
      But as a practical reality,
    • 00:56:23
      Most affordable housing purchases we can't bond.
    • 00:56:26
      And as a practical reality, a lot more things can happen if something becomes eligible to be bondable as opposed to in cash.
    • 00:56:35
      The Beaufort Middle School project can happen if it's bondable.
    • 00:56:39
      It can't happen if it has to be paid with cash.
    • 00:56:41
      So for these larger acquisitions of a portfolio of 100 units or several hundred units of multifamily,
    • 00:56:49
      The land bank I think would play a role, all of which is to say in a world where we did not have a urine surplus to allocate and pay for holiday drive and cash, I could see a land bank being an entity if it was deemed that's the best way to make it bondable.
    • 00:57:04
      And if that urine surplus did not exist, I would guess that the city would not have made that purchase if it couldn't have been bondable, because the concern would have been the immediate fiscal capacity is not there to do it.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:57:16
      And then the question about is a land bank able to do bonding that doesn't impact the city would play in there if it was not cash available.
    • Michael Payne
    • 00:57:23
      But I'll just I'll just add my side.
    • 00:57:25
      I think the power of it is you could make more affordable housing related purchases bond eligible than is currently the case right now.
    • Chris Engel
    • 00:57:33
      Still have to pay the debt service, which would have to come from.
    • Michael Payne
    • 00:57:41
      And I hear you, but let's yeah.
    • 00:57:44
      If a urine surplus didn't exist, there could be a $10-$15 million purchase of 150 units that would not happen if it could only be done with cash in that moment.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 00:57:57
      It's all free money.
    • 00:57:59
      I do want to echo, it's frustrating.
    • 00:58:01
      I think that it's been talked about for a very long time and I don't know if it needs to be a land bank, but I think having somebody at the city focus on trying to buy city property and have community engaged development is something that is really critical as part of a successful zoning ordinance change too.
    • 00:58:26
      I mean it's, I think it's really important and if anything I just think it should have been already been in place at this point and I don't know.
    • 00:58:39
      I mean I know that it's hard to get all the things done but I'm disappointed that we're here.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 00:58:44
      To address that directly and
    • 00:58:48
      or capacity issue, we started talking about a revolver strike fund and development fund in NDS in 2017.
    • 00:59:00
      in 2018.
    • 00:59:02
      And we might have made progress with that in a significant way if John Sales did not have his head on fire trying to do all the jobs that, you know, because he was on the spot at that point to do all of that.
    • 00:59:17
      There were not the people to organize.
    • 00:59:19
      And one of the things is we're now down
    • 00:59:23
      from Madeline, and every time we get a task out there at any time, I've just got flashbacks from scanners or something that her head's gonna explode as much as she can do.
    • 00:59:32
      You know, and I think that might be, and to your point, the issue is we can talk about standing up a land bank with money we don't have, and people we don't have the money, you know, and at this point, we really need to figure out to have the
    • 00:59:50
      I think to be able to manage the larger scale that we've got.
    • 00:59:53
      I mean, we've got $10 million flowing up.
    • 00:59:57
      We've also got this commitment.
    • 01:00:01
      This came from Sunshine.
    • 01:00:04
      Outside of that $10 million, can we get a million dollar commitment for administrative costs for all of this?
    • 01:00:09
      And we got sort of a soft yes.
    • 01:00:13
      Yeah, sort of a soft yes, but we don't have that.
    • 01:00:18
      And I think at that, I mean, at a larger strategic level is, if we're going to be spending these millions of dollars making these acquisitions, you know, human cloning is beyond our reach.
    • 01:00:33
      and my name.
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 01:00:36
      And I share Nicole's frustration when I saw the FY, you know, two years from now budget and essentially my condensation of that document is it's going to take too many people and too much money to move ahead on it.
    • 01:00:57
      And it's so it's something we will consider
    • 01:01:00
      Yeah, and one I also think is an important priority.
    • Michael Payne
    • 01:01:03
      I think part of the interesting things in this moment, and I agree with everything Nicole said earlier and others have said as well, is in this most recent iteration,
    • 01:01:21
      The original recommendation from the HAC was to have it be an independent nonprofit entity or attached to an existing nonprofit.
    • 01:01:28
      Staff said it should be an authority, and then staff led us down this road to establishing it as an authority, and now we're being told that's not feasible.
    • 01:01:38
      So we're kind of back to square one where we might as well, at this point,
    • 01:01:43
      Open up the conversation of should it just be an independent nonprofit or attached to an existing nonprofit if this is the direction.
    • 01:01:50
      But it was not hacker the community saying
    • 01:01:53
      We really want this to be definitely a city authority.
    • 01:01:57
      That was originally coming from OCS staff.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:02:00
      Well, not necessarily OCS staff.
    • 01:02:01
      That's correct.
    • 01:02:02
      I'm sorry.
    • 01:02:03
      Staff at some level.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:02:04
      The city position is that, given that we're talking about tax dollars, the level of convert is that this entity exists as a city.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:02:30
      So yes, that's very clear, right, that we are, as a city, not comfortable with the idea of an independent nonprofit.
    • 01:02:39
      All of that is, you know, what the desire of the hack has been.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:02:44
      And since that is clear,
    • 01:02:47
      Then, you know, there has to be a conversation with Sam in the room or whomever that there has to be some commitment to fund, to pay a person to be able to do this if they're truly committed to one land bank and that it should be a part of the city.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:03:11
      I just think that I am
    • 01:03:15
      I think we are hearing what you are saying.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:03:18
      Yeah, but I would like for Sam to be in the room so we can talk it out, not keep sending messages through you all to him.
    • 01:03:26
      Can I ask a clarifying question?
    • 01:03:30
      How do you all feel about it before you go to your question?
    • 01:03:33
      Sorry.
    • 01:03:35
      We should have Sam in the room.
    • 01:03:38
      I think that'd be great.
    • 01:03:39
      To say, okay, okay, you know, we hear you.
    • 01:03:44
      and we're gonna ride with you down the lane, but here's what- Step up and do it.
    • 01:03:52
      Yeah, we're gonna have to put something, we have to put money into it to be able to hire that one and a half person or two.
    • 01:04:03
      So they're focusing on it.
    • 01:04:06
      I think there has to be some kind of commitment in the budget to be able to do this.
    • 01:04:10
      We're not disagreeing.
    • 01:04:12
      I'm not disagreeing.
    • 01:04:13
      I don't remember missing my colleague that it should start out being a part of the city because that's what we talked about, right?
    • 01:04:19
      It could start being a part of the city and then
    • 01:04:23
      transfer on its own, right?
    • 01:04:26
      That's not in this recommendation now.
    • 01:04:29
      I know, but I'm just saying that's the conversation I know that I've been a part of is that let's start out with it being a part of the city and then see how it goes and then transfer it over.
    • 01:04:40
      Either way we go, it's going to need capital to be able to pay someone to be keeping their eyes on it and doing the work.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:04:51
      If I could just offer, I think one observation I'm making about this conversation is that we're having a conversation about a specific tool to accomplish a specific goal.
    • 01:05:03
      without talking about maybe the other priorities that we have to achieve affordable housing goals in the city and they are numerous.
    • 01:05:13
      So far, they are only on this piece of paper, but I'm very much looking forward to.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:05:18
      You might add one for me is that we need to define affordability and for all.
    • 01:05:23
      Yes, exactly.
    • 01:05:25
      That has been mine from day one.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:05:27
      And so when I hear about very specific recommendations to add
    • 01:05:32
      More staff to accomplish a very specific goal, I get a little, I'm just being honest, I get a little uncomfortable because I know that there's a lot of things that we want to be accomplishing and a lot of reasons for bringing in new staff.
    • 01:05:46
      So what I think would be good is if we could
    • 01:05:49
      kind of zoom back out and maybe it's at a very, and then maybe this is a segue to your next item, you know, at a meeting soon, we talk about what is everything on the list and how do we want to prioritize this and what is really the best, what are the best strategies to achieve our goals, recognizing that, yes, a land bank is a great tool, but you also need money to fund the purchases that you want to make.
    • 01:06:13
      And so there's a lot of different pieces to this puzzle.
    • 01:06:20
      And are we trying to stand up a land bank so we can make multi-million dollar purchases for homeless shelter or is it more for, right, so what is it actually that we're trying to achieve?
    • 01:06:33
      So I definitely recognize the frustration and I have certainly just from listening to many of you in conversations understand how much work has gone into this.
    • 01:06:45
      I really think we have an opportunity to hone in on one particular strategy here
    • 01:06:50
      You can go to your question now.
    • 01:06:52
      I'm sorry I derailed you.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:07:10
      First of all, I want to acknowledge and appreciate that this body has historically operated through a strategic lens, not just getting caught up in a singular myopic thing, but ultimately wanting to create a range of tools, recognizing there's no single tool to address it.
    • 01:07:28
      You know this as well as anybody, and then we need every tool in that tool belt.
    • 01:07:33
      but not necessarily every tool at the compromising tools we know we want to have over here.
    • 01:07:38
      So I think there is value in a little bit of a step back and being comprehensive and thoughtful around what tools we want to prioritize and what the actual costs and benefits of each of those tools are.
    • 01:07:49
      I think that would be helpful.
    • 01:07:51
      What I was going to say earlier is
    • 01:07:56
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but the pain or the risk that the city saw in the nonprofit centered model of the land bank was the use of bonding authority on behalf of the city without real city control.
    • 01:08:13
      Is that the singular risk point or is there an additional risk point beyond that?
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 01:08:19
      They did specifically mention it.
    • 01:08:22
      Tax revenue.
    • 01:08:23
      That was the specific.
    • 01:08:24
      I think that we sort of looped away from the bond issue as being less central for any conversation, but there was anxiety about the tax revenue.
    • 01:08:34
      Meaning the 50% that comes back.
    • 01:08:36
      Yeah, which I did not understand, because that's 50% of, you know, that's an improved property that would presumably be at a higher level, you're getting the money that you would have gotten
    • 01:08:46
      and the other 50% goes to housing.
    • 01:08:49
      So I wasn't, I didn't understand the logic of that.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:08:51
      So I mean, okay, and there's another, since I recognize your questions here, I mean, there is another, I guess, path we can take here.
    • 01:09:01
      Alan alluded to there being a land bank consortium that we have become familiar with.
    • 01:09:06
      I mean, if you would like, we could continue these conversations.
    • 01:09:10
      There are some experts in this field of land banks
    • 01:09:14
      that could come in and talk to us a little bit more about the questions that you're raising, potentially help find some sort of middle ground.
    • 01:09:25
      We could do that.
    • 01:09:26
      We could continue to try to find a solution that works for everybody.
    • 01:09:35
      Again, I think it takes time away from us being able to focus on other things.
    • 01:09:42
      But if that is something you would like to pursue, that is another option here at this point.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:09:47
      I think it may be worth conversing about that.
    • 01:09:53
      The flip side of my question
    • 01:09:55
      was more for the hack, myself included, if the pain point of it having been nonprofit centric is, I'm just going to say for a moment, it is just a bonding authority.
    • 01:10:05
      I know that's actually a piece here too, but would we still want to see a land bank move forward even if we relatively let go of the bonding authority piece?
    • 01:10:17
      We sort of did not utilize that.
    • 01:10:20
      Would it still have value in our eyes?
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 01:10:25
      Well, I thought that it would.
    • 01:10:27
      I think we really turned away from the bonding issue.
    • 01:10:30
      Really, the funding source was thought to be CRA funds and other ability to make money, and there would be a city investment.
    • 01:10:39
      to stand it up, but the idea would ideally not to have to go back to the city for serious money.
    • 01:10:47
      That was the idea that if you were in the business of disposing of property, you were selling it, therefore you had money coming in, and you just needed revolving funds from some source to keep going.
    • 01:10:58
      And the CRA was one suggestion for how to get there.
    • 01:11:00
      As soon as, provided we still have a CRA that means anything,
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:11:08
      Okay, so maybe this ties back to what you're essentially suggesting, Kelly, which is, all right, last thing, which is if we do want to continue moving forward in partnership with some, you know, consortium that might provide additional outside guidance,
    • 01:11:24
      Is there a path forward we can navigate, which maybe if it happens in the city, we can figure out the bonding thing, or maybe it lives outside the city.
    • 01:11:33
      Still, there's still an ordinance that constitutes it, but you know, sets aside the bonding authority piece, you have to navigate through the tax revenue piece, but in a way that still allows us to use that as a tool.
    • 01:11:47
      And the holder of ideally, which is long term strike funds in some way.
    • 01:11:53
      I think that was really the core we're trying to get.
    • 01:11:55
      It's like a strike fund, so we get a lot of things done.
    • 01:12:00
      That's the essence of it.
    • 01:12:01
      And the land bank was a mechanism for doing that.
    • 01:12:03
      And cable is a starting point, but it's not the scale it needs to be, nor is it
    • 01:12:12
      So I think that's still what we're trying to solve.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:12:14
      Nicole, do you want to jump in front of you because I wanted to address that in particular?
    • 01:12:18
      I think maybe.
    • 01:12:19
      So Kelly started by saying that they're prepared to do an overarching study of what the staffing means that would be done in order to meet not only the tactics, but the goals.
    • 01:12:34
      which are a reconciliation of supply and demand for affordable housing in the community.
    • 01:12:42
      So I'm supportive of that.
    • 01:12:46
      One of the things that I might suggest as an incremental step, because it won't require going out and appropriating money for new FTEs, finding those FTEs, training those FTEs, finding a place to put them, is the CAF or the city making a larger contribution to cable so it's not restricted to half a million dollars, set it up to three million or something like that, and
    • 01:13:13
      or three million just throughout, but and or actually backing, making cable actually work the way it's supposed to work, which is a strike fund backing those loans.
    • 01:13:25
      So there's no need for a land based collateral and appraisal.
    • 01:13:30
      So there's actually money set aside to hedge the risk for cable.
    • 01:13:34
      So let's make in the interim while we're figuring out what staffing needs we have to fulfill everything on here.
    • 01:13:40
      I'm interested to see a piece of paper there.
    • 01:13:43
      Let's give that time to germinate and get that right while we fund properly this thing that actually will start to deliver what we want, which is the ability to lock up land quickly.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:14:01
      Would you be in support of that if it meant you wouldn't fund another affordable housing project through the budget next year?
    • 01:14:08
      I'm just thinking of what our affordable housing budget proposals are right now, and we're over our $10 million.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:14:13
      So if we want to have another $2 million to go into cable,
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:14:21
      That's just one project that's not going to get funded is all I see it.
    • 01:14:24
      So then that's also resulting in a potential loss of affordable housing.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:14:29
      So I guess I guess my perspective, my perspective on that is that it's, you know, it's council and the city manager to figure out how to fund it, whether it's through a CAF specific appropriation.
    • 01:14:41
      This is one time money.
    • 01:14:42
      Like if you if you feed this thing once,
    • 01:14:46
      or you set aside one chunk of money as collateral, as cash-based collateral wants, you don't need to keep doing it because it's a revolving loan fund.
    • 01:14:54
      And so maybe it is, you know, maybe that's something that counsel, give it within the context of trying
    • 01:15:00
      Everybody knows we need more staffing.
    • 01:15:02
      We need staffing that's consistent with the goals and strategies.
    • 01:15:06
      It's going to take a little time to get there, but maybe it's maybe looking at the totality of funding needs.
    • 01:15:12
      That's for, I think, council and city manager to say, yeah, it is worth it.
    • 01:15:17
      But I think that this could have some legs and accomplish in the interim until we stand up a land bank, until we have the staff to stand up a land bank.
    • 01:15:28
      It could accomplish a lot of what the land bank was trying to do.
    • 01:15:32
      And here we are in 2025.
    • 01:15:33
      We could have this by the end of this fiscal or by the beginning of next fiscal year, whereas the land bank is going to happen.
    • 01:15:41
      It's just a flaw.
    • 01:15:42
      So I know that's a namby-pamby non-answer, but
    • 01:15:49
      But I would trust the city manager's office and council to make that decision.
    • 01:15:54
      I would put forward this as a proposed alternative that might get us where we want to go eventually.
    • SPEAKER_13
    • 01:16:07
      Yeah, I mean, I think you've all said it well, where we were trying to accomplish a lot with the land bank.
    • 01:16:15
      And that was, you know, A, have a quick fund for nonprofits, B, do community organizing and write the raw, you know, like there were a lot of things that were baked into what the land bank wanted to accomplish.
    • 01:16:31
      And I appreciate that staff has a bazillion things they want to do and things have gotten so much better over the past
    • 01:16:37
      I just want to be grateful for that.
    • 01:16:42
      I would be interested in having a bird's eye view of the priorities and goals.
    • 01:16:51
      Maybe it's just a council discussion.
    • 01:16:55
      I just want to emphasize, I think
    • 01:16:59
      In order for the zoning ordinance to be successful, having somehow, I don't know if it's a land bank or whatever, but somehow have resources and energy and attention directed to community-based development of new properties.
    • 01:17:16
      I just think that's really important for the zoning ordinance to be successful.
    • 01:17:21
      I know there's a million things.
    • Michael Payne
    • 01:17:22
      I definitely agree with that.
    • 01:17:24
      I think that is my, certainly my priority.
    • 01:17:27
      I think it's council's priorities.
    • 01:17:29
      The land bank is something that we got close to maybe, well, I guess we weren't actually that close.
    • 01:17:36
      We felt like maybe we were close.
    • 01:17:38
      It was something to accomplish the goal.
    • 01:17:40
      But the fundamental goal is how to get the city more able to get involved in property acquisition, including substantial property acquisitions for community development,
    • 01:17:55
      and the community has control over, as you said, nonprofit development and also community wealth building.
    • 01:18:00
      So people in these neighborhoods have businesses that connect with a price point that's affordable to them, job opportunities, ownership opportunities as well.
    • 01:18:10
      And that to me is not like a tangential goal.
    • 01:18:12
      I think the zoning code doesn't work without that.
    • 01:18:15
      Otherwise, we're going to have a zoning that works somewhat well for young professionals at 120% AMI.
    • 01:18:20
      Doesn't really do a whole lot for people at 30 to 50% AMI.
    • 01:18:26
      And in some areas for a renter and making $15 an hour less might actually make their life worse.
    • SPEAKER_03
    • 01:18:37
      I think I don't want to feel like I'm beating up any department in the city.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:18:42
      But sometimes I have to beat it up to kind of figure it out.
    • 01:18:58
      But I visited Greensville, South Carolina, and their planning department does things totally, totally different from what this planning department does.
    • 01:19:09
      They're invested.
    • 01:19:10
      They have people who are invested in a community.
    • 01:19:13
      We used to have them where, I forgot what the other person named, probably back in the day, they used to have
    • 01:19:20
      Workers, and that was their neighborhood planners.
    • 01:19:30
      And I think we have just got away from that.
    • 01:19:35
      And I just wanted to plug that because when I was just amazed, grandchildren in South Carolina have more land than we have.
    • 01:19:46
      Okay.
    • 01:19:47
      However, they knew the folks in the neighborhood who had their home
    • 01:19:54
      who have been living there for years, who kids have moved away, who they want to really develop and develop around them.
    • 01:20:01
      And what they did was, you know, they would work with Nicole and say, Nicole, let's do a land swap, right?
    • 01:20:08
      Because we have some land over there, keep you in the neighborhood, we'll help to figure out how we build your new home, just so that she can move from where she is to there so they can redevelop.
    • 01:20:22
      to me that is invested in your neighbor and in the community.
    • 01:20:26
      And I don't see it here.
    • 01:20:28
      I haven't seen it for a while.
    • 01:20:30
      It was here for a minute when I was green where preservation of neighborhoods and just being involved in it.
    • 01:20:38
      But I don't see that anymore.
    • 01:20:41
      And then to hear you all say, we don't have enough people to do all the things that needs to be done.
    • 01:20:47
      probably do need to back up and look at how we serve in the Charlottesville community.
    • 01:20:56
      So that's just my, just wanted to share that with you.
    • 01:20:59
      I see it work, I've seen it work.
    • 01:21:03
      And I'm asking, how do you do this?
    • 01:21:06
      And they're saying, this is what we do.
    • 01:21:09
      You know, this person, this is what this person do.
    • 01:21:11
      Anything that is going to be built or going to be sold or whatever in this neighborhood, then Dan is the person that's Dan's job and he work with that community.
    • 01:21:24
      But we don't have that here.
    • 01:21:26
      We've moved away from that.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:21:27
      And so... Our developer review planners are assigned different persons to stay in those kind of neighborhoods, right?
    • 01:21:37
      But their responsibility is reviewing applications for development that come in.
    • 01:21:44
      They try to keep the communities aware of what's happening, but because their development code is now essentially by rights, there's not that same sort of opportunity for the negotiation and the
    • 01:22:00
      It seems to me like this planning department is more on the developer side than they are on the community side.
    • 01:22:12
      So we'll put in a plug for our long-range planning department, or division, that we created.
    • 01:22:18
      And I came on board, Osia Kimletan, she's just right over there.
    • 01:22:22
      Yeah, she's gone.
    • 01:22:23
      Tori on her team.
    • 01:22:25
      There's two of them though, right?
    • 01:22:27
      And I don't know how large Greenville is, what their resources look like.
    • 01:22:34
      At the end of the day, we are a small community, right?
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:22:37
      It was a small community then.
    • 01:22:40
      We were smaller than what it is now.
    • 01:22:42
      I hear what you're saying.
    • 01:22:43
      That's all I'm saying.
    • 01:22:45
      It's just that
    • 01:22:49
      there is a piece that's missing.
    • 01:22:52
      And that's why you always see us waving our flag and say, wait a minute, you missed something because of the community involvement piece of it.
    • 01:23:03
      It's okay to be involved in a community with just your neighbors, but there's a much bigger piece of it is what the city code said and what this says, where we have to understand it, embrace it, and maybe need to change,
    • 01:23:18
      That doesn't happen here.
    • 01:23:20
      But anyway, you get one more so we can move to the next.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:23:26
      Yeah, I was going to build on what you were saying, because I don't remember, I don't know if Sam or James brought this up in your sort of onboarding and discussion of various things, but as part of the final sort of rezoning, not negotiations, but discussions
    • 01:23:49
      and specifically around the poor neighborhoods.
    • 01:23:52
      That was a central part of our conversation, obviously, for lots of important reasons.
    • 01:23:58
      So one of the concepts is that we ultimately decided to have this differentiation in the residential code between poor neighborhoods and non-poor neighborhoods as not a temporary measure, because code is
    • 01:24:14
      to say it that way, but the goal was for it to be a placeholder of sorts to then move into and dedicate resources to small area planning work similar to what had happened at Fightville.
    • 01:24:26
      That resulted in some really important work that has become critical to them.
    • 01:24:31
      advocating for what they want, but have the tents and pages and the other neighborhoods have the time and resources spent to work with them to develop those small area plans to evaluate whether the code that's there now is what they actually want to see and make suggestions for potential changes.
    • 01:24:50
      And then the scene that I planted with Sam on the dais of a meeting, and he didn't shoot me right offhand,
    • 01:24:59
      That was that one of the opportunities is in the new zoning if we apply essentially neighborhood-wide tips over those neighborhoods so that when those neighborhood plans were established and it was the voice of the community, then there was actually a growing pot of money based on incremental increase in revenue.
    • 01:25:19
      Not all of it, but a portion of it that would then go to support the specific initiatives involved those neighborhoods had.
    • 01:25:27
      which implies that you have a connection point between staff and the neighborhoods in a way that's more robust than it currently is.
    • SPEAKER_02
    • 01:25:35
      So I'm very familiar with the history of the creation of the RNA zone, the idea that small area plans should be created.
    • 01:25:44
      I mean, that was exactly why I created the long range planning division separate from our development review team to really be able to focus on small area planning.
    • 01:25:55
      And OSEI and Torrey, like crazy, you know, they are working on the Tempin page in Roseville small area plan as we speak, you know, planning for
    • 01:26:05
      Peacock, a community meeting.
    • 01:26:06
      They've been to multiple community meetings.
    • 01:26:08
      Right now she's recruiting for members of a technical panel actually to support that planning process.
    • 01:26:15
      So please spread the word that she is actively looking for partners in the community to collaborate with her on that effort.
    • 01:26:22
      And this will be just as I felt, we created a plan.
    • 01:26:29
      10th and Page, Rose Hill, they will have a plan, other neighborhoods will follow.
    • 01:26:35
      So that is definitely the intent.
    • 01:26:37
      And we have a small area plan implementation program.
    • 01:26:41
      There are funds that are intended to be used for the recommendations of those plans.
    • 01:26:50
      And that is very much
    • 01:26:53
      That is a responsibility of OSA's team.
    • 01:26:57
      It was formerly actually a responsibility of OCS and something that transferred over to OSA when OCS closed.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:27:07
      And I know that you are the new person in charge there, but
    • 01:27:20
      We don't have a good trust with the planning department.
    • 01:27:24
      People have not had a good
    • 01:27:27
      Trust working relationship with the planning department because we feel like, have felt like, they're more around, they're more support the developers.
    • 01:27:38
      And so there's a trust piece there too, that is going to be something that you have to overcome.
    • 01:27:46
      Your department got to overcome.
    • 01:27:47
      Joy, when you say we don't have trust, who you talking to?
    • 01:27:50
      The neighbors, the community.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:27:53
      So different neighborhoods, your neighborhood?
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:27:56
      Mine, yeah.
    • 01:27:57
      South First Street, Tenton Page, Riverside.
    • 01:28:02
      No, no.
    • 01:28:04
      I mean, because when things are happening, if FAR is not, and Legal Aid is not looking at what's getting built in their neighborhood, the residents don't know until they see it happening.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:28:18
      Yeah.
    • 01:28:19
      I mean, I think this is,
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:28:23
      So I hear about it.
    • 01:28:25
      I'm pointing that out to you about finding people to serve on those.
    • 01:28:31
      It's very, very difficult for people.
    • 01:28:37
      Because I was in the meeting with her when she was asking, you don't have Peppy's no more.
    • 01:28:42
      Peppy used to come to my house.
    • 01:28:44
      and Hunt Me Down, wherever, and said, I will work with you to get you involved in the community.
    • 01:28:51
      We don't have much of that anymore.
    • 01:28:53
      Right?
    • 01:28:55
      And so what I'm saying to you is, is that we can find people, but it's probably the same person who is already doing something else is nobody else knew because they feel like nothing is going to change.
    • 01:29:07
      And you're going to do what you're doing.
    • 01:29:08
      I'm only saying that to you
    • 01:29:10
      As someone new, that's an obstacle that you have to like overcome.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:29:19
      I feel for Kelly because there's these competing forces that you're hurting.
    • 01:29:25
      Right, right, right, right.
    • 01:29:28
      From going back, well, I could go back 250 years, but I won't.
    • 01:29:35
      But one of the reasons why
    • 01:29:39
      neighborhood planners were kind of phased out.
    • 01:29:45
      Not that they are, I mean, they still have zones, but we became so balkanized that neighborhood planning became a tool of white supremacy because where was the power centers in Charlottesville?
    • 01:29:58
      It was in mostly the white organized neighborhoods with strong
    • 01:30:04
      So there was never any ability to think citywide so like when neighborhood planners were the locus of planning and power in the city something like a comprehensive zoning code was impossible and I just want to be really
    • 01:30:20
      Careful that we articulate that we want to go back to that.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:30:24
      I hear what you're saying, but it is still necessary.
    • 01:30:29
      They just have to be redrained.
    • 01:30:31
      It's still necessary that you have a relationship.
    • 01:30:35
      with a community that you are going to continue to gentrify or regrow or whatever.
    • 01:30:42
      I know Charlottesville has to grow, right?
    • 01:30:44
      We can't sprawl because of the hundred year and whatever that thing.
    • 01:30:50
      But so we know we have to grow and we might have to go up, but at least work with the neighborhood.
    • 01:30:56
      That is not happening.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:30:58
      No, and I think that to Sunshine's point, that was the compromise of core neighborhoods than RN was let's treat them differently.
    • 01:31:05
      Let's give them some of the privileges that those neighborhoods had been had stripped from them at the expense of the neighborhoods that the R1 neighborhoods that made all the decisions that was really about nimbyism and keep poor people out of my neighborhoods.
    • 01:31:20
      Let's invert that.
    • 01:31:21
      And that's what our zoning code kind of did.
    • 01:31:22
      It put special protections over our
    • 01:31:26
      or Anne.
    • 01:31:27
      And again, this idea that what we'll do is come forward with small area plans and a TIF, a specialized hyper local TIF in that neighborhood so that the decision making could be part could be done by the families in those neighborhoods.
    • 01:31:40
      I'm not sure that I really want to extend that citywide, but I mean, I think what we're talking about is a zoning code that is that is reparative of things that have been done over the course of the last
    • 01:31:52
      that have century or so in the name of good zoning practice, good zoning practice that have been exclusionary.
    • 01:31:59
      And so I guess what I'm saying, Joy, is I'm very, very supportive of this in our neighborhoods.
    • 01:32:06
      I'm not supportive of this citywide in my neighborhood.
    • 01:32:11
      I don't want my neighborhood association to
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:32:15
      I'm talking about our low income community.
    • SPEAKER_12
    • 01:32:18
      And to be honest, Freitfield is beginning to feel something.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:32:33
      Crunch about what's going up in their neighborhood too, right?
    • 01:32:37
      But anyway, that was just my piece that I wanted you to know.
    • 01:32:42
      I'm feeling, yes, I'm working on trying to find someone for her because she did come to our meetings and she did talk.
    • 01:32:50
      and we are supportive of that.
    • 01:32:52
      It's just that it takes time to find folks who, one, would show up at the meeting committed and to have someone who can help them through understanding what all of this means.
    • 01:33:04
      What is a small airplane?
    • 01:33:05
      What goes into it?
    • 01:33:06
      You know, that kind of stuff.
    • 01:33:08
      But anyway, I'm going to move on so we can get up out of here.
    • 01:33:11
      Is there anything else Sunshine or
    • 01:33:16
      Okay, so now we're going to go to the, thank you, Chris.
    • 01:33:20
      Sure.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:33:23
      The HAC annual plan work coming up.
    • 01:33:29
      I just brought up exactly what was left.
    • 01:33:32
      Like this has not been updated from the last time the HAC visited it because
    • 01:33:39
      Well, we can see a lot of the things we've done some work on.
    • 01:33:45
      So I'm not sure, Joy, do you just want to go through?
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:33:50
      So we might not have time to go through it.
    • 01:33:54
      Are we meeting next month?
    • 01:33:55
      We are.
    • 01:33:56
      And maybe what we can do is work on this.
    • 01:33:58
      Is everybody okay with that?
    • 01:34:00
      where we can go through it, see what we have done and then set a thing for going forward for the calendar year 2026.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 01:34:08
      You maybe send it out because I think maybe somebody just needs to go through this in the life of the last few months and strike things out that are obvious.
    • 01:34:22
      So I can send this around.
    • SPEAKER_05
    • 01:34:26
      Can I make a suggestion, which is what I heard Kelly talk about earlier around having the consultants going to do an evaluation of the program overall and what the opportunities are.
    • 01:34:36
      That seems very dovetailed with this question of what we focus on in partnership with the city staff around.
    • 01:34:44
      And in some ways, I hesitate to jump into this
    • 01:34:48
      But I just, for me, for me being that I'm the chair
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:34:59
      Since we did this, because I hate to do work plans and then we don't ever look at it again.
    • 01:35:03
      It's to look at what we have done and then we don't have what we have done and what still need to be done and maybe that's part of what can be.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:35:15
      Some of the items that are on there that still have to be done too are really less about our housing program and more about like
    • 01:35:22
      It might not be entirely useless for the consultants to say
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 01:35:54
      My problem with being involved with the consortium is whether or not that's a good use of our time knowing that so many best practices would require changes in legislation.
    • 01:36:07
      I mean, just like Alan was saying, well, so-and-so's do it, but Virginia regulations won't allow us to do that.
    • 01:36:14
      Well, you know, that's not how I want.
    • 01:36:15
      I want to spend a lot of our time.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 01:36:18
      So then we all right.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:36:19
      So the next thing is public comment.
    • 01:36:21
      Do we have anybody?
    • 01:36:23
      I have one.
    • SPEAKER_10
    • 01:36:31
      Hi, I'm a really, really fast one.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:36:32
      I know that y'all want to get out of here, but my name is Wendy Gao.
    • 01:36:36
      I'm an organizer at FAR.
    • SPEAKER_07
    • 01:36:48
      Some of you, as you all may have heard, Ms.
    • 01:36:50
      Joy has talked about it at this body too.
    • 01:36:52
      But far 10th and Page, West Haven, Fifeville residents, we've been organizing and fighting against two large ones, an 11 story.
    • 01:37:01
      The other is a seven story student luxury housing buildings on West Main Street above West Haven, 10th and Page and Fifeville.
    • 01:37:10
      So we're fighting these development by development.
    • 01:37:12
      But we are also trying to get a fast tracked zoning amendment
    • 01:37:17
      passed through the Planning Commission and City Council, specifically around how the zoning affects these massive by-right developments around the edges of low-income historically black communities.
    • 01:37:30
      So I just wanted to ask this body to do whatever you all can to help support residents and community concerns.
    • 01:37:36
      I don't know if that would be like a resolution or a recommendation of some sort, but just wanted to urge and encourage that.
    • 01:37:43
      Thank you.
    • SPEAKER_04
    • 01:37:45
      Not to give reply to public comment as a general rule, but the Planning Commission has received that message loud and clear, and now we're not, we haven't said we're doing anything, but if there is something to be done, how do we go about that?
    • 01:38:01
      And I think that was floated.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:38:07
      And I definitely would like to have a conversation with us about
    • 01:38:12
      You were heard.
    • 01:38:14
      So because for me, even though I was involved with, you know, with the code, helping to voice our opinion about the code, I don't, I think it was a miss for me about the impact that it will have when you
    • 01:38:31
      on the edge of the low-income communities, and that you only have one chance to voice your opinion, which is before the BAR.
    • 01:38:41
      It's not giving you any other opportunity to be able to say, nail, yeah, or work with us.
    • 01:38:46
      And so, yeah.
    • 01:38:49
      Okay, all right, so can,
    • 01:38:55
      No more comments.
    • 01:38:56
      Can I have a motion?
    • 01:38:58
      Our next meeting is scheduled for November 12.
    • 01:39:02
      and I think I might be here at Sunshine.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:39:03
      It's the second Wednesday instead of the third Wednesday, but that's because the third Wednesday is closer to the holidays.
    • 01:39:09
      Yes, closer to the holiday.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:39:10
      All right, and I might not be here at Sunshine, so I think I might be at a conference.
    • 01:39:16
      I'm not sure.
    • 01:39:17
      No, wait.
    • 01:39:18
      No, I'm not.
    • SPEAKER_14
    • 01:39:18
      Oh, you won't be too at that conference?
    • 01:39:20
      Actually, that's why we moved it.
    • 01:39:22
      We moved it to not be the GHC.
    • SPEAKER_00
    • 01:39:25
      Oh, my dear.
    • 01:39:27
      If there's nothing else, you have a motion to adjourn.
    • 01:39:30
      We do.
    • 01:39:31
      Second.
    • 01:39:31
      Second?
    • 01:39:32
      Okay, all in favor?
    • 01:39:34
      Aye.
    • 01:39:34
      Okay, thank you.