Housing Advisory Committee Special Meeting   4/30/2025

Well, more good timing for her and the baby and just, you know, four weeks.

How was the family?

It was good.

Tell everybody I said hi.

I did.

Okay.

No, no.

I was looking for, did everyone receive the email with Phil's comments on the draft?

Okay, clear.

I didn't print that.

I thought it was attached to this.

We typically work fairly informally and so we're happy to make it an open conversation with people on the committee and other people who want to participate.

Kathleen, for example, you're welcome to participate.

I don't know that we published a formal agenda, although there was a narrative description of the agenda.

I believe the only thing on our agenda today is to review the draft ordinance for the Langley Plan.

I guess put out for comment at the last CAC meeting, and we did receive some comments from Phil, which I intend to, I tried to categorize

Yeah, OK. Don't make comments and now we're running our mouths.

All right.

So I just want to say to the group that staff, speaking on behalf of staff, we really do appreciate your time, your expertise, and your background.

From the hack?

Not from the hack.

I'm speaking very generally.

I don't want to point fingers at anybody.

I'm speaking very general.

I'm saying that it's been brought to the attention that staff does not appreciate when there are direct, disparaging comments.

Right?

Yeah.

So this work is very nuanced, complex on our behalf.

And we have internal and external pressures that we are navigating through.

because we all represent each other in this.

I'm trying to enjoy you okay with that meeting?

I'm okay.

Please schedule the meeting.

Thank you.

So on to the work for the day looking at the land bank ordinance.

Just a little bit of a recap.

This is a multi-year process to get something like a draft ordinance.

A lot of it was short circuited

also the city undertook a really revolutionary and hugely highly highly ranging

update to the zoning ordinance.

And so this got put a little bit backward.

It's now back on the front burner.

My understanding is that HAC agreed on, we came back together as a group as this body was reconstituted, agreed on a proposal or a draft ordinance to go forward.

And then independent council that was, and if I'm getting into this wrong, independent council,

who looked at it on behalf of the city rewrote it.

What did I miss about that?

Nothing missed just to frame it more correctly for context that the reviewing attorney didn't even assemble the ordinance that was done

A collection of them sending us pieces of coordinates from Chesapeake, for example.

The city attorney is also directing us to language that's in the development of the land bank.

Authorities actively had to include, but in terms of assembling the draft that went to the city attorney who reviewed it in whole, staff put, we put it all together.

And things that are included in here are responsive to all of those

communications, meetings, directions that staff received.

That actually, I think, will help with this conversation because if there's something that is different than what had been in the ordinance recommendation that we put forward before, it sounds like you can speak on behalf of the city for why that change was made.

And then you all, if you have a question you want to delve into a little deeper, we can do that.

So the first section you see out the gate was definitions.

We were flagged by that in terms of the attention of staff to make sure we incorporated because it was apparent in a few draft ordinances from other localities, but also attorneys had questions about things that weren't defined that we should define.

So that list grew.

Or can we just move on from that?

Not at first glance.

So are there any additional paper copies?

Very few words were taken out.

I think sometimes there was one instance where another definition explained something else and kind of got merged into one term.

I think, I can't remember which one it was.

So we'll just go back and look at it.

Then the next section you all have, and they're currently unnumbered because it's not, the chapter or article is not numbered until adoption.

So I need to follow along with me.

It's authority.

As much as possible, this language is pretty much carbon copy.

out of the Land Bank Entities Act.

Not much more to add there.

Formation and purpose.

This was something also that was common.

We saw that section in the Chesapeake model.

Only section that you all don't see that was not, it was present in their formation document, but not in their ordinance.

The next section, by the way, I'm sorry.

So where this is being responsive to is communication and meetings about, well, where do we guide or set a starting point for this stuff, whether it be in the ordinance as a regulation or policy preference, or whether we leave it up to post-creation and then the board creates it.

But then there was a viewpoint of,

One of the primary reasons discussed for switching to land bank authority as it was noted to here in some pre-discussion was that essentially to keep it to have a little bit more oversight and direct involvement and then also since staff was going to be involved to some point anyway that it felt like well we should be guiding this discussion at the onset versus afterwards so that council can be presented with

are at least conceptually what vision, mission, values, and what have you of this entity is.

It is meant to be responsive to an affordable housing plan, specifically being asked by the executive leadership and team about, well, how does this authority prioritize projects or prioritize the AMIs?

And if you read it,

Aligned with the affordable housing plan, the high priority really aligns with where we are spending most of our money and effort to focus on policies.

Moderate priority, sort of that middle range, and then standard priority is that 51 to 80%.

Now, there was some conversation about why the range from 31 to 50.

And internally, just based on reports that we've gotten back from projects, we have found that

Development isn't happening like specific amount of 30% AMI, specific amount of 50%.

Really portfolios, performance have a range because they have to make that performer work.

So that's why it's not expressly written like it is in the affordable housing plan.

We're trying to capture a range where folks are already kind of operating within and it might not do it justice here.

So I think there's probably going to be some discussion about some of these things.

One is the change from it being a non-profit, non-stock corporation to an authority.

Phil, you wrote about that.

We'll open up.

Right.

So when this was first presented to the HAC back last October, there wasn't unanimity.

I mean, this was a decision made by city management.

There wasn't unanimity of agreement that was amongst the HAC.

that this was the right way to go.

The explanation given to that that left out first was that the city wanted more oversight in general because it would involve first, tax revenue and second, whatever funding that the city directly provided to it.

And I personally don't find that a sufficient reason in and of itself

but not to get bogged down in that.

Subsequent hack discussions, if you'll recall, is if we're going to do this as an authority and we've used the word pilot program, then we need to sunset the authority and have the actual and have in parallel formed at the same time, which will cost us $100, a Virginia non-stop corporation that will have exactly the same board

that is sort of like a shadow cabinet.

It'll be the same people.

It's not even a shadow cabinet.

It's exactly the same board, boards for both, so that when and if the time comes to make the switch, we can make the switch.

And in the meantime, that nonprofit can serve as a much simpler money conduit because you can take direct donations from it.

It's a lot easier for smaller banks to get into the CRA space with a straight up nonprofit

Tax write-offs, tax write-off issues, the ability for it to, and so that its functionality may gradually come into place as we see it.

So that was the, that was the thinking of authority versus a nonstop corporation and sort of where the hack and other people, correct me on this, that was sort of where the hack

I have a question.

Is there a time frame in which you want to make the switch or is it just?

I think we pick, say, three that's I mean, the way I would envision this is that the ordinance would be written is that at any time during the first

The City Council can certainly say, okay, we're done with the authority transfer, but they've at least got to make a vote at year three, let's say, and every X about whether or not they're going to keep it that way or not.

So that we're not sort of stagnant, that there's a, that it will force an evaluation of what it's doing and its level of independence and behavior.

And we've got a tentative sunset date, whatever that is, three years, five years, seven years.

So I don't have any comments about creating that dual structure.

points.

Yeah, that we've got to build that into the ordinance.

That's part of the thing.

It's like, oh, this is a pilot, blah, blah, blah.

What I'm trying to wrap my head around is, I think what I heard you say before around the staff perspective, that the fact that there's property tax revenue and potentially general revenue in the mix, that the cities wants to take the position that they should have more control, more effective oversight of that.

And I think the part that I'm,

Struggling when this gets at what Phil has brought up and others have brought up previously was like, what are the trade offs of that?

And the trade offs right now, as I see it, I agree with Phil, like CRA, leveraging private investment donations, those essentially disappear.

And then depending on how it's structured, the ability, if it's a city entity.

So if it's a corporation, if it's a nonprofit,

It can leverage non-profit, sorry, CRA investments from banks.

It can leverage, it can seek private donations, that sort of thing.

I think there is- Independently borrow more easily.

So those points have been discussed, I think, in terms of,

The point around tax abatement, or excuse me, the taxes and the bonding and considerations of that

That's a virtue in that argument.

The way I'd look at it is this way.

If the land bank conveys half a million dollars in a year, and it gets 50% of the revenue, that's a little less than $2,500 in revenue.

That is not, not to be blunt, it's not really worth city council's attention as to what happens with that $2,500, it pays for stationary, okay.

If in the furtherance of affordable housing, on the other hand,

The land bank is moving $20 million in a year of assessed values.

First, by that transfer, it is increasing the assessed value of that property anyway by definition.

If it's being built from dirt, it's coming up and being improved.

If it's a rehab, it's being improved, whatever.

At the newly adopted tax rate, if it's $20 million with assessment, it's $980,000 a year.

But at that point, what you could

Legitimately turn back to the city management and city manager and a city councilor is already on the board and saying, okay, this is a million dollars that the city revenue would probably not otherwise get.

They're already getting a million dollars for the other half, number one.

And number two, if this 900, do you follow what I'm saying by that?

The $20 million in assessed value that it moves wasn't worth $20 million before they started.

All right, you're making value.

If you're at $20 million, that's $2 million in tax revenue a year, a million of which goes to the land bank, a million of which that the city otherwise probably would have getting much less money to work anyway gets.

And frankly, for a million dollars in tax revenue, for $20 million worth of movement every year, that's a 200 to one leverage ratio.

City council can't do better in deploying that money for affordable housing purposes.

It's impossible.

Mostly, I'll just recap it and just say that I think the question of balancing the trade-offs of what gets gained and lost on one side of the equation versus what gets gained and lost on the other

You know, we went through as a body a pretty extensive process of evaluating what we, our assessment.

Admittedly, it's obviously perfectly appropriate for the city to have its own assessment.

And I think the fundamental question is like, how do we find the middle ground between those two assessments?

And that undergirds like a lot of the changes.

So I have a question.

First off, you all presented, you went through your deliberations, you had a business case for why you went and choked, why you all made the case for not start stand-alone, calling the CDC, forgive me, for corporation.

Process happened, internally, externally, some meetings.

Another business case arose about why it should be a land-based authority that had a prevailing influence on how we got here.

My question is, is it the position you all wish to say, hey, city, we hear you, but we really think the best business case is stand-alone.

Yeah, that's a different meeting and what I'm,

It's a good question.

I would like to understand that as well.

I mean, I think just a little

What has happened is something nobody wants, which is HAC has come forward with the recommendation, staff has their own and then council is given two side-by-side competing recommendations and are asked to make on the dais this choice and you have HAC members and staff members privately lobbying the council members.

I think we'd kind of like to avoid the HAC, but I don't know, it may be possible to put forward something that says, here's what

is recommended by staff and or here are two alternatives, here are the pluses and minuses.

I'd like to go from- But I'm understanding it that this is something that I'm just going to say, I don't know, the city managers

has looked at and has come up with.

Yeah, you're right.

When Sam, the city manager and deputy city manager came to you all, more or less the takeaway was this.

We've heard your business case for a standalone entity.

We're going to take it, consider it, but note that some of it may get adopted, all of it may get adopted, none of it may get adopted.

And I'm not privy to every meeting that Sam and the Deputy City Manager had, but they came back to staff with a business case of, here's why we need to consider land bank authority, have you all looked at other land bank authority?

I'm trying to just lay it out.

We presented that and still the directive and understanding and consensus amongst staff, even amongst some OCS, myself included, I saw the value and why they wanted to pursue the land-based authority.

So I would just add, I think part of the conversations between city council and the city manager and staff about going the authority route was that part of that cost benefit analysis

and maybe some of the legal analysis are wrong.

And I don't know where this would come down in terms of which is better.

But part of the cost benefit analysis for the city in terms of authority was it seemed like that was far more likely that it would have bonding authority.

And for the city that weighed heavily in terms of, you know, with the Carlton Global Home Park example, if that was bondable by the city, it still would have been a challenge to figure out, but it would have been way easier than having to fund it with cash.

And so

Part of the discussion was realistically for the first five years or so.

With that, the additional fiscal room the city has with being in the bond, does that give more flexibility to the land bank than the amount of money it could get through Community Reinvestment Act or private sources or the size of its portfolio?

And genuinely, I don't know which is

the right direction, but that was, I think, one of the arguments as well.

Yeah, unfortunately, this kind of gets to something that we've been stuck on for a while, and I think we'd all like to get past that, and that's org chart.

You know, it comes up, it comes to the question is, who does the hack?

Who does the HAC make recommendations to?

Does the HAC a recommendation by the city council or city manager?

And again, I think everybody here wants to all be on the same team.

But what happens?

Okay, so I was going to recommend a path forward.

Not with detail, but with sort of process, meaning staff, city manager have put forth this.

Clearly, they made ample changes and probably didn't do so lightly.

You know, there was thought that went into that.

The likelihood of us saying, nope, we're going back to this other one.

and this is probably not viable.

Indoor questions, like some of these are like, you know, how would you, like, how would Jessa Pig, for example, you know, engage a CRA or other like, And I just want to speak to my interpretation of the more targeted communication of what I believe is the expectation of executive leadership, my leadership at OCS.

It is my understanding that yes, you all, in terms of your, you're an advisory group to the city, i.e.

the

And I do just want to confirm as well that in this instance, when the HAC made a recommendation, it was not just in public meetings, but private meetings with council, the city manager presented HAC's recommendations and discussed it.

So I just want to confirm like it's not as if that process is being used to try to like

I have one question.

If we take the route of working with the city and doing the authoritative side of it, wouldn't it expedite this land bank because you already have people in place or you can create, you have staff members that could help expedite this?

Rather than if we were to go with a standalone nonprofit, we would have to do all the elections.

Yeah, there's some steps that that involve creating a nonprofit that doesn't look like that.

We still have to have a public hearing.

We still have to go through the statutory requirements and then the attorney has to incorporate it.

Okay, so it's not really much of a difference.

It doesn't say much time.

What does it think where it does reduce some time and is that it should lessen conversation about doing what in terms of staffing.

We've already kind of identified OCS and some members of our team

Long Range Planner, whatever.

Thank you.

OK, we're going to do it that way.

Let's do this shadow.

I think we need to go through this almost line by line and say either this is why we felt this way about this.

Why are we doing it this way?

This seems to be better, you know, and make those edits as we go.

I think that's the way to go, because we just push back and say, no, we don't want you to Sunshine's Point.

It's not going to get us anywhere.

They're going to say, OK, fine.

or Thought.

Thought goes into it, but the draft might answer.

Could I ask Nicole a specific question?

I really want to hear from Nicole.

I do too, but this idea has popped up about naming the sort of the backstop of this non-profit as a so-called shadow entity that could be stood up

who have been stood up concurrently with this.

How do you feel about that being an ordinance?

I know, I was thinking about that.

I don't know, honestly.

In the British Parliamentarian view where shadow means to follow around, not to be in the shadows.

Shadowing at work.

And I just I think that putting it in the ordinance perhaps is an opportunity to highlight like why and the purpose.

And we won't use the word shadow.

I'm not using the word shadow.

As far as like whether it has to be there or not,

I don't think so.

So follow-ups.

Could the land bank entity just as well create it if they wanted?

That's what I'm saying.

So versus them naming that it has to exist at the onset and then dissolving it seems a little bit, I don't know.

What's the downside to doing that?

We'll stay upside.

It's easy to establish and easy to dissolve.

Well, I'm curious as to,

It also carries us to why you didn't call for a shadow organization when you had it as a standalone entity.

There was no recommendation to have a shadow entity created.

I think my understanding is the reason why people want to do this other entity is for the purpose of

You know, private donations can now be tax written off and I guess CRA money.

Like I said, there are additional steps.

But yeah, so the other piece of that was one, the functional utility going out the front door is easier if it's a standalone right then and there because there aren't the steps and all it can do is be a funnel.

But number two is that city management has presented this as a

as a pilot, and they want to do this for a few years and do something else and maybe cut it loose, it seems to me that to make that, to facilitate that and give a basic framework for that, it's very low cost just to say, yes, all of you directors of the authority are also on this board of directors.

Well, you know, I mean, I've started a nonprofit, I've run two nonprofits, started one, starting a nonprofit on paper,

is simple.

You know, running a nonprofit with substance, that's difficult, but the paper of it, and then that gives, just let me finish my thought, and then that gives us a guide post, sorry, we said this was going to be a pilot program, now we have a guide, you know, we've got a marker.

What if it isn't a pilot program?

That's what I'm saying.

That's a presumption that

by James that this was initially we want to do this as an authority.

Initially, we want to do this as a pilot.

And if that's the case and that's still the idea, then what we memorialize in there is that to make sure this doesn't slip or go sideways and stays focused is to have a date where city council has to circle back and say,

I think it's not in there because I believe James and the attorneys will speak to this themselves, but that it will be the counsel decision at that time whenever that conversation comes up, whether to keep it as is or change it to something else.

Well, again, if then I would like to, I guess my idea is that if they're not presenting it as a pilot and there isn't a transitional idea, then let's say so.

So that sounds like a question that you want to say to the executive team.

I still have some concerns.

At the end of the day, I have some concerns about who the land bank is.

Most of the times, most of the organization, there's not enough representative from the low income community

who are on those.

And so that is where I'm stuck.

But if it is a corporation and the city is shadowing it or whatever word you want to use for the next five years, at least there is a chance that there is some participation from the low-income community on that corporation.

It's in there.

It's in there.

Yeah, but why still?

Yeah, I'm going to look at it.

But still, I just feel like we're wasting, not wasting time, but we're dragging on about whether it's a corporation or whether it's a, what I'm hearing from what you're looking at, the other counties, you can start it and you can still do some of the basic things that you're saying that a nonprofit can do.

So why not just

So that's kind of where I'm at.

Chesapeake, I mean.

Yeah, not exactly the same concern as yours, but it was generally, it seemed like that's what they were trying to do.

So those are the things that I was just stuck on.

It's like, OK, I would prefer

We're working in partnership with redevelopment with,

So I'm wondering if that's sort of the rub here, and I don't know that we have the exact language, but that could go forward with the recommendation that we include in the language.

So Dana, to answer your question, I don't think you need to put it in the ordinance.

I would ask your legal opinion here.

I know that you're not on here as a lawyer, but is it muddy up the ordinance if it's in there?

Yeah, because then it becomes limiting and restricting and you have to go to council to change it.

CRAJ has to come to council to create a foundation whenever they decide to do it, because they've come to us to create a city, to create entities.

Here, I agree with Nicole that it kind of complicates things, but

That's in the land bank, goodness.

It's not, it doesn't need to be in the statement.

Okay, so I think we may be circling around consensus on this one.

I mean, yeah, problems with that.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with it, but I think underlying that supposition is that we want it to be as effective as possible of leveraging all the tools.

If there's a way to do it, if Chesapeake Land Bank

has demonstrated a mechanism for doing it that we don't fully understand.

It's fine for the land bank to be on its own if it can actually take advantage of all those tools.

So it's the more, for me, it's not about setting up a separate entity.

It's about just ensuring that we're tapping into all the tools.

So whether that's a new entity, a side-by-side entity, or a structure that mirrors an already effective land bank, that's fine too.

What's the type of activity do we need to make sure, do we need to follow up on?

Which people get tax payoffs?

Tax write-offs.

C-R-A.

Independent borrowings, Independent borrowings.

Either one.

The authority can borrow money, though.

But let me go back to second just to clarify borrowing money.

Yes, if it's an authority, it can bond.

But we're talking about something different, which is going to

Yeah, thanks for clarifying.

All right, then there's the formation of third-party partnerships.

What do you mean by that?

Sunshine comes to the land bank, whatever it is, and say, let's do X, Y, and Z.

And the most efficient way to do that is to form

That's going to be the gene code that boxes that in.

All entities that get created, whether it be

It's going to have to come back to council for permission.

So it can't happen.

But can an authority participate as a member in an LLC?

I have no idea.

Yeah, me neither.

Or a joint venture.

If it's vested, like if it's listed as, the same thing as, like it is what

Call me if I'm wrong, but like CRJ has a certain percentage in the LLC, but it's not 100%, right?

Yes.

So even that, as little as 0.1 or 1%, whatever it is, they had to come back to the city for permission.

To form an LLC.

But that's because it's an authority.

That's because the COVID says it.

Right.

But if that authority is signatory or a part of that entity.

Yeah, I guess you're saying.

Well, I was just going to talk about really quickly, just might help to get out of the weeds, talking about nonprofit formation just under the section.

Financing and Operations just to insert something saying revenue stream could be a partnership or creation of a non-profit.

It's on the second to last page.

Page seven.

I mean, that makes sense because if I'm hearing right, this would be the purpose for having that kind of relationship, right?

That'd be a partnership or creation of a nonprofit.

So we usually partner with someone, like someone's little partner.

Like during COVID, there was a lot of masks donated for our residents.

So we partnered with FAR so that, you know, FAR could help with that.

Just to clarify one thing, like in here under financing of operations A3

It says philanthropic contributions and private investments, meaning the authority may receive funding through that.

What it doesn't clarify in that statement is that, unfortunately, those philanthropic contributions, if they came in, would not benefit from the tax write-off.

So they're not going to get them.

So they're not going to get them, which means it's going to minimize.

That's our current understanding.

There may be a deeper level of understanding that through Chesapeake, maybe they have some way around it.

I don't know.

Maybe what we can do to summarize this, because we do have some other issues that we need to talk about and we are now in already, is summarize that we have concerns about this movement.

We're not against it, but what we want to do is formalize in a structure or notes to the entity the intent that this entity needs to be created in a way

I have to find out how they're doing it, the other ones, because I don't know if it's like something in

I didn't see that in their language that they

That is kind of hard to do on a flow basis, though, meaning that the money comes in and the money goes out.

So I can say, Sam, James, your concerns attached right off,

and here's potential solution or frameworks used by others, XYZ, here you go.

I would express this as a significant concern of HAC, right?

I just want to say there are some also some inherent advantages of being an authority that we do work with foundations and also there's you know funds you can access that aren't traditionally available to non-profits you know there could be tax revenue there could be different things you know business rates things that could be tied in so

Yeah.

I was just going to say, I think that would be useful for counselors to just outline the powers everyone would like it to have.

And then for each one, if it's an authority versus nonprofit, like it's hack absolutely certain it can't do that.

Is that a problem or is it, we don't know.

So it needs further investigation to get a final answer.

And I think we're beyond kind of setting up this binary authority versus, versus nonprofit.

It could be that,

So the Chesapeake, can you find out these things, how they were doing it?

I can't.

OK. Small scale.

But they're still doing it, though.

They're still doing it.

Yeah, I think this parallel organization or whatever could, that was my original intent with it, that it would be sitting there so you could just turn to it and say, hey, go get the money.

Thank you for coming full circle.

So when I heard parallel organization, initially I was thinking kind of like, because we were talking about oversight at one point.

When I meant same board, I meant same human beings on both boards, because it really is a parallel board.

I think we have comfortable having the language to do it for you.

Now we're going to move on to section vision, mission and values, which is

I think the biggest loss on this is that there were really only two guiding priorities and the initial one was prioritize affordable housing and then make sure that there's fairness and avoiding self-dealing.

I couldn't tell from your note, but I think that- Yeah, well, yeah, because I didn't realize that it was going just to the top of the page.

So under the core values piece, we need to be clear that transparency and accountability, yeah, that's nice for an organization, but this thing is going to be doing real estate deals.

Therefore, transparency and public forward decision-making, it can't be that forward looking in decision-making.

It can't be discussing transaction by transaction if you're trying to

Yeah.

I think that's a given if you want to.

Phil's suggestion, adding language, up or down, thumbs up, anyone?

I'm good with that.

Yeah.

Well, that's true.

But in the next paragraph, they go way down into the weeds of the operation in a way.

So it seems like the narrow majority of people are OK adding some sort of qualifying language to that.

Perfect.

And then I did have a question I wanted to throw out there.

We did spend quite a bit of time, it was a core value from 2017 when we first started looking at this all the way now to not put multiple uses or dispositions of land on equal footing, because typically land banks do that.

They're created to

provide room for affordable housing or do economic development or clean up a watershed or something like that.

And all along, we were very, very clear that we wanted strong language that prioritized first affordable housing.

And I think we even had language that said, any and all uses for affordable housing have to be looked at first before it's given over to another use.

This one, it does talk about being a priority, but then there's another place where

it simply says disposition can be for these three things.

But these are the disposition priorities, and it doesn't actually create a hierarchy of priorities.

It's a section, chapter two, section three, disposition of property, part B, properties position.

The disposition shall prioritize.

And I think in

I don't know if this would be welcome or not, but there might be a simple change there, which is property distribution should prioritize in order of, or in order of preference.

Well, I think this tiering, the whole tiering process in and of itself, I think is, I have heartburn on that itself.

If I really think that the land bank, authority, corporation, or whatever,

needs to further the city's policies.

If the city's policies shift, it shifts.

Can we bracket that conversation and first talk about the prioritization of affordable housing over other uses first?

So we do have language.

This is from page six.

It is page six, but that doesn't help.

But from what we had sent forward originally, the language,

for the prioritization policy reads as such.

The board shall first prioritize the creation and preservation of affordable housing in alignment with the Charlottesville affordable housing plan and other local planning documents.

If use and or disposition of property owned by the land bank entails other uses such as market rate housing and or commercial retail, the land bank shall document the justifications

for such other uses in publicly available materials and shall only act upon approval of two-thirds of the available voting members of the board of the Land Bank at a duly authorized meeting of the board.

And I hear a recommendation on how to include that into this.

I think you were getting to that.

Without looking at it, there's like a couple of documents that track changes and change.

My guess is that, and I was speaking for Sam, I wish Sam were here, is that the city manager probably wants a little bit more freedom to identify priorities in the city.

That's an important unit.

Maybe there's language that is right when he has that freedom.

And our concern was, I mean, and the reason why the HAC was the one who inaugurated conversations on the land bank was that we wanted to prioritize underutilized land for housing, given the priority of housing in the comprehensive plan, in the

And so we were pretty intentionally deliberate about this because most land banks and most disposition of land in most cities goes to urban blight or creating parks or things other than affordable housing.

And we wanted, we were very, very strong about this.

Yeah, or rather it,

can be rewritten.

But yeah, that's the intent is that it's for housing.

This is created for affordable housing, period.

But there may be some circumstances where it's better used for something else.

That's rather than saying, let's look at each one of these parcels and let's put affordable housing up there with commercial and park and all that.

But Sam, the city manager has a part of the government.

I think there's some.

There's a middle ground for that, for sure.

Well, that's my opinion, but I want to make sure I'm not speaking for the whole thing.

We want to incorporate that language.

And I think that's- And I think that may then satisfy your second concern, which was naming some of the priorities, where instead what we said is that priorities for affordable housing are going to change.

Correct.

via the housing policy, the housing policy, which is a living document.

Well, and also to not to, to again, get back to this idea of it being a facilitator, not a provider, and facilitating housing may involve it

putting in, you know, if it's working with a Habitat or an AGIP or a PHA, that the authorities actions or the land banks actions are designed to help them do better at the deeply affordable.

So maybe it's, yeah, well, it may be 60 to 80 housing, but it makes the 30 and below that it's connected with work.

And let's not get confused by saying,

You know, let's facilitate that instead of having the land bank itself have to make these priorities because then it gets muddy as to what the priority is.

We're going to further the plan, you know, and it's going to act with its partners in that way.

It's handcuffing.

Can you frame this in a clear numeration for me so I can go back to your minutes and see if Antoine carried forward everything I was supposed to?

I think the one issue is I think I carry unanimity on the part of this committee that the chapter two, section 3B, in some way, shape or form, we'd like to see that replaced with

the original 3A from the original ordinance, which prioritized full-stop affordable housing.

And then you're telling me when you're ready.

I'm ready.

And then I think the second issue is, I think people, Phil had this issue, and I joined with him in having this issue, the creating the tiers.

I want to support

30% and below.

We're finding that the policy, we have families who come into our program at 26%.

Can I interrupt for one second?

Sorry.

What I'm missing is it lays out the priorities, but it doesn't, it's not specifying

which priorities take precedent over other priorities.

It's just saying these are priorities.

Sure it is.

High priority, moderate priority.

That's creating high priority.

That language.

You're right, it does.

Sorry, I'm totally missed that.

Which is why is it in there at all?

I know where the tiers are in there, because that's what the city, through its current housing strategy, is what we want to prioritize.

So maybe the chairs, I mean, I don't have a problem with the chairs being in this.

Maybe it's just a way of just reminding you

So Joy, I'll push back on that just a little bit.

Sure you can.

Those tiers are already in the housing policy.

I got you.

But there's a lot of other stuff that's really good in the housing policy as well.

And I'm glad we're having the conversation because

For me, even though there's a housing policy and we talk about, you know, 30% and below, a lot of 30% and below is not being met.

It's only certain organization who's trying to meet that by doing the things that they're doing.

It's just a small amount of, so that's what I'm looking at.

I hear that.

It's to keep that there so that people understand that, yes, we need to be doing something about that.

Because you just gave an analogy about some people come in with 25 and you increase their, you know, their income and they raise it.

But there's still a population where because of whatever, they can't get their

I'm absolutely not arguing against you on that one.

The spirit of this, I want us to push as much of our subsidy and our resources below 30 percent.

Joy, I'm not disagreeing with you at all.

In fact, I'm agreeing with you wholeheartedly.

All I'm saying is that this is already in the housing policy and there are other elements of the housing policy.

It's a longer, more nuanced thing that has this in it, as well as some other things like looking to create opportunities in high income areas so that kids from a lower performing school may have an opportunity to go to a higher performing school.

and I use that as one of like a hundred different examples of things that are in there.

And that's something that evolves and it changes every year.

And so to me, just referring to that, to the policy is saying that this is an operating independent of it doing whatever it wants to do on its own.

And I could say, you know, I like number one and take out number two and three, but because you're already doing it, but I'm not, because I believe everybody in all tiers should have the opportunity to have housing and we should be looking at it.

I don't have a problem with this as a policy at the core.

It's trying to be more in sync with the city.

And it's also recognizing where the city was out of sync, even with itself.

Part of the 25, the report I did a couple of weeks ago,

Can I grant it?

I did say, highlight that this is pipeline oriented.

So a lot of this 30% AMI unit or units that address that market is in the works.

It's not materialized yet.

But if you are associating this strictly with the Affordable Housing Plan, for example, it says 30% AMI, 50%, and 80% in terms of the funding target mechanisms.

If you're aligning it with the CDU program, for example, or the new development code, this is going to cap it at 60%.

So where does that leave the folks who are going up to 80% to make their land transactions work, right?

So that's why it goes 51 to 80 is trying to capture what's already happening.

And then here's piece 31 to 50 to say that it's...

I understand.

The piece that is missing in the affordable housing plan, I think is also sort of missing here is the recognition that when you, even though, you know, the need assessment is very clear, the highest priority is in that 30% and below, it is also the most expensive to do.

And

If you make high priority, if you make that in the Affordable Housing Plan and here, there's a trade-off, like everything, everything's a trade-off.

If you make that a priority, it means there are less units that are getting built because you're putting more subsidy into those specific units, as opposed to like a different set of priorities where you are choosing to put subsidy across.

And that's the approach that we've taken.

But like, if we would be willing and interested, for example,

doing more 40 and 30% AMI units, but we need another $100,000 per unit from the city or whatever the threshold is.

So I don't want to get into the details here, but the point I want to make is that I think it's fine.

I think we were

Calling some of the conversation.

There is alignment with recognizing that the 30% below is most expensive, which is why it also came up that then if any folks who are seeking a leverage, that should be seeking a leverage land break activities, it should be folks that have any component of percentage of 30% in their portfolio.

Like we don't want it to where

I still don't think it belongs in the ordinance.

I think this is a bylaws issue, a policy issue, and that changing the ordinance, well, you can always go and change the ordinance.

Yeah, but you can, but you don't.

And I don't see that it serves a purpose in the ordinance.

I think as a guiding principle, it's absolutely right.

It sounds like just including some reference to the affordable housing plan without completely taking them out because if I'm understanding some of the concern like an example would be let's say there's 30% AMI project but it's home ownership or it's in Greenbrier and that's advancing wealth creation or desegregating the income segregation Charlottesville

There's something the board could look to say, even though that was 35%, technically not 29%, we can say it's high priority.

I think the plan has this in it, but it's more robust.

But I think what I heard Antoine say is that there's really not much in the plan for 51 to 80.

And so this is trying to go above and beyond the plan and say there's some circumstances.

Did I hear you right?

So we have a few options here, and again, we don't have an unlimited amount of time.

Joy has suggested we keep this language in here.

I think Phil has suggested we take it out.

I don't know if just including reference to what the housing plan addresses.

Yeah, some of this stuff

for 31 to 50.

It starts to be a little prescriptive in this ordinance.

But I wouldn't mind saying something like pointing towards the affordable housing plan with a

while maintaining a focus on producing units for underserved people below 30% and also inclusive of circumstances where people end up at 80% or something like that.

So it's kind of building on the, it's emphasizing the most important part of the plan.

I'm with Joy, I think under 30 is the most important part of the plan.

And I'm also with Antoine that there are circumstances where the plan in its present form

The prescriptive language that is in these one, two, and three sections really starts to take more shape after the authority shall and the authority shall first prioritize and the authority will.

If that becomes a matter of discussion for SOPs later, but in terms of just defining

Bridging, really, the Affordable Housing Plan is trying to, like, for example, it talks about what the household category classifications are.

That's HUD language.

Yeah, so you just delete the last sentence of each one of these.

Yeah, so it's to be the last sentence of each.

It's like make good effort or something like that.

Okay.

Yeah, the downgrade shall.

Going forward with that.

I still don't love it, I still think.

But I think it's a compromise as well.

I would suggest that the introductory paragraph that the authority shall, should refer to the housing strategy.

Somewhat of an internal debate, but

What is the housing strategy for the city?

Some believe that it's now the affordable housing plan.

I would say use the term affordable housing plan, because that is the only thing that we can clearly define.

But yes, affordable housing plan.

You guys know that there are algorithms that are looking for specific words that are eliminating programs and specific grants to entities that have DEI language in their charter.

I just don't think, I don't think it's something hack.

I hate saying that.

That's true.

Words like female.

Before we move on, just to flag Antoine, can you and I, if we have time afterwards, sit down and go through the affordable housing plan to talk about that 60-80% thing, because I just was going through it and I'm not seeing the disconnect.

So we stopped, you would sort of describe the reason for changes up until the section

Just so Joy knows, the board of directors is the same that we had recommended.

The board of directors, right?

I think, which is under referencing the city manager.

It says city manager or an employee.

So I don't have any power back at that.

Okay.

We may have said it, but it's not in the script.

Well, I remember that there was a discussion where Alex was pushing back against the hack pretty strong, that he felt that the city manager really should have wider discretion in that.

And I'm not sure what the objection is to it.

I think ordered employees in here because it was

In some instances, the city manager was able to appoint somebody not employed by the city.

In some example we saw.

And I think that came up in some internal conversation.

If I'm remembering right, I think that we were like, yeah, we, we really think it needs to be a deputy city manager.

Or, and again, the idea behind that was also on the independent side, which is if the board needs to really act independently, it needs to be somebody who can represent the city.

Right.

So this is Sam or James or Eaton or Ash, you know, I mean like deputy level.

Yeah.

Good catch.

Do they define designee in the definition section?

Because they put designee in quotes.

If you're putting designee in quotes, you mean something.

It's just because it refers to Designee again in the next sentence instead of saying his or her representative.

It defines it right here.

It's who he sent.

It's still him.

It's his seat, but he may not be at a meeting.

This, no, but it says this member's term.

It's not the city manager.

This, the two services that this member's term.

But what I hear you all saying is that you want it to be an appointee or the city manager.

Yes.

I think your word clarifies it.

An appointee or the city manager.

It's an appointee.

It should be a city manager and his appointee.

Out of respect.

All right.

Anything else on that section before we let Anton tell us about financial operations and oversight?

There's one catch.

I know we just made a recommendation around reframing the mission vision values, but under general powers,

1B.

It defines moderate priority as 0 to 60%, but I think that's.

So general powers under property acquisition, disposition, general powers.

Does it really need to be there?

just affordable dwelling units and just...

I think we can carry over the same, whatever language we come up with.

Yeah, and I just think the leading, particularly the critical needed market priority or earning, you could say, units in accordance with City Council's endorsed housing priorities.

You just take out that bit, which some others think unnecessarily.

Does that make sense?

So you're just prioritizing the acquisition and development of affordable housing, affordable dwelling units in accordance with city houses' endorsed housing priorities.

Because we're already covering respecified, and you don't have to respecify again.

Yes.

So under acquisition of property, I just want to make sure that I understand this.

This is more of a clarification question.

So A, under acquisition property, how I read that paragraph to mean, and I just want to make sure we're all on the same page, that if

The land bank is acquiring any property inside the city's jurisdiction, but it does not require city council vote.

But if it is acquiring property outside of the city's jurisdiction, it does require city council vote.

Anything else?

I'll ask the question again.

So if you're in a transaction of buying it, part of the

The purpose of an authority is to be able to act, right?

So if you bring city council's vote into it, then you have to schedule the meeting.

It's got to get on.

It's got to get voted.

It's got to get done.

If the council wants to, you could have a special meeting the next day if council wants to do that.

So if council wants to make something of a priority

In my mind, though, this acquisition transaction or land banking activity, that's not like you could be in negotiation without city council necessarily being there.

Yeah, it's just like the final transactional piece that would require.

Yeah, I still I still have heartburn on a particularly got the city manager and a city council are sitting there and they say this is a stupid idea of order directors.

We don't want to do it.

I think.

Yeah, I think I think we can move on.

But I think I mean, I think the tension doesn't apply for city limits and the tension is just the city winning oversight.

This is our money.

All right, any other questions or comments before we get to financial operations and oversight?

You're inbound.

All right, we're going to start.

So I was just thinking, here's your example.

Do you have the original?

and more pages.

So the general internal conversation, if I remember right, was that how closely, because cities are doing a code that we have to follow with regards to property disposition and then acquisitions or what have you, and then also we have a housing authority.

So it was an internal conversation about

That's what we ended up with, particularly as you get into the last two sections of this really is where this comes into play.

But the annual reporting came about with

We've already touched on that.

We didn't change anything.

That's a straight line problem to COVID.

I think where you all may really want to kind of elevate questions or ideas would be A and B for the financial operations.

But to the point that our colleague here from the housing authority has made regarding partnerships, I do feel like this would be an appropriate section or inclusion to offer some general regulatory

I don't know.

The 185, is there, can we slash up to?

Slash up to.

Up to 50%.

50%.

You're taking us on a tangent for now, but one that I'd rather deal with when we get into the minutiae of this.

I was going to suggest something like a

Not much you said, which would be better, but I was going to say like 1A6 and any other sources.

So what you're saying might be more efficient.

Because what I'd hate to do is there'd be something that, you know, we skipped inadvertently.

Yes.

That's what I was looking for there.

Keep it flat.

I was in contrast from

This adds language about philanthropic state and federal grants and city appropriations designated specifically for that.

I think that's really given that maybe some CIP planning.

I'll go ahead and read this.

6A in our draft we sent forward financing of operations, 6A says the Charlottesville Land Bank Corporation may receive funding and they receive and retain payments in accordance with the provisions of Virginia Code 15.52-7509.

So basically points to the statute.

I guess that's the statute that creates the land bank, is that right?

Yep.

And your concern is that it says up to rather than... Well, what you're driving at is just take this financing of operations and drop it back in in toto.

you know, can we revert to this language?

I think that would be my recommendation to the group.

We already have this language in here.

It captures all of this stuff.

And I think that's probably the flag for council.

I think we just swap it.

Okay.

General agreement around that?

Joy, are you okay with that?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

I think it may be something that would be key about standard best practices.

which would be financing of operations 1B.

The only thing I'm pushing is A, dedicated fund.

To me, that sounds a little oddly prescriptive in a weird way.

I think this is an internal, so you know we have the CAT fund.

The CAT fund is actually an account on SAP.

Yeah, but I think we're all driving it the same, but we get clarity on what a dedicated fund

So that may be true.

The one exception though is if after this exploration around whether a parallel entity needs to coexist with us or not, it's possible that that entity would also control funds outside of the city's coffers.

There's an internal mechanism that this is a fund that's set up like the CAT fund, and it's that dedicated fund, yet this entity will require access and manipulation of its own funds.

Are you saying that it needs its own bank account separate from its own?

I don't know.

I'll give you an example.

So we have multiple budgets internal because we have multiple

We bought Carlton Mobile Home Park.

We created its own budget that has its own sources and uses of money.

Its own bank accounts.

And it rolls up into our 990, but it's its own separate thing.

The way I read this is that you have to have one fund that pays for overheads, whether it's Carlton overheads or Habitat itself with overheads.

So it was more of a, I think it's more of an internal thing.

So for example, if we determine that this parallel entity needs to, if it needs to exist because we want to enable donors to get write-offs,

Yeah, I think I think it's the definite article is the issue there.

I mean, let's make sure that all you do is remind.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Well, it's segregated.

You should be able to segregate funds.

So, for example, the money that comes in, like the rent that is paid by Carlton tenants, I cannot touch that for

for Habitat Operations.

I can't build a house over there.

That money is segregated.

It requires a mechanism for us to be able to do things differently with city funds in an account versus like general fund dollars.

So this might have to be in there.

I don't know for sure, but I'm going to ask.

Is this where we want to put the pilot thing again?

I'm not saying we should or not, but.

Perhaps under two under dissolution will revert to the city or.

If you're going to close out the, if you're going to end land bank authority and not turn it into something else.

But again, if you're transferring it, you could have to solve it.

That would involve a desolation process, but also I'm thinking of shall revert to the cities that if you have assets and properties, city council may say, you know what, these are 19 mortgages.

This is a dissolution process.

Once you incorporate this as an authority, it's an authority.

What I'm saying is,

Perhaps just, and again, I'm not even saying we should do this, but if we want to force counsel or force the authority to check in on itself, to say, you know, every three years a memo shall be written to city council to evaluate whether it should remain an authority or not, or convert to a,

Well, I think we do the parallel thing.

I mean, there might be eight or nine different changes to make that work right inside here, for example, and including the dissolution portion where we just be fleshed out.

There were a case where after this is happening annually, a decision to be discussed about where the dissolution is warranted.

It's just whether or not we want to memorialize the intent of the pilot and say, and again, maybe we shouldn't.

Doesn't three cover that?

No, I mean, I'm sorry I meant that in the exact reverse.

There are mortgages owed to the authority that the city doesn't want to particularly collect.

They just want to sell them.

That could be a part of that transition plan

Yeah, it could be like 3C.

Do you want to be prescriptive to say what that plan is?

Because right now, that transition plan can be anything.

It could be selling the debt.

Well, maybe I'll over up a second and revert to the city.

I mean, because it does kind of revert to the city.

What does everybody think about putting language in the ordinance about

I guess the pros are that it reminds everybody about this discussion because you can notice how we forget discussion.

So it reminds us to check in on having counsel evaluate the same sort of things you've been talking about, whether the pros and cons with the authority versus the nonprofit.

And if the parallel nonprofit thing is working, then

Maybe we don't do anything.

So the pro is just to just memorialize the intent to check in on itself about whether this was the appropriate structure.

I like the I like the idea of having some mechanism in there that's stronger than the annual reporting that sort of so that you don't get into a position where the authority gradually sort of becomes this

Don't you have to define that?

Defining that in this section, okay.

I was going to ask Michael if, has city council weighed in on whether, like the idea of making it a pilot, has city council weighed in on that with SAM or is that being driven by SAM?

I'm just curious if city council has a position one way or the other about it being a pilot or not.

Part of the discussion was,

Maybe this is a pilot, it's just kind of like, part of the discussion was does an authority provide starting, does it make it easier to start up and start building a portfolio versus a nonprofit?

So the discussion of whether it may always be an authority I think is still ongoing.

So maybe that should go in the language that we're sending to Sam to say, look, we, let's see if I can remember what we were talking about two hours ago, but that we're very concerned that some of the elements of a nonprofit are not allowable under the authority given to an authority.

And so it may be that we look at this thing as an authority for a period of time to come back intentionally

You want to go back.

I think I will feel much more comfortable hearing to the questions and all the things that feel brought up, what Chester Peak is doing, how they're doing it, to see and then send out, you know, from that, send something to Sam about still what our concerns are.

Like I said, I'm going to take what you all send it to Sam.

I imagine they're going to have some maybe input and come back about questions or ideas or clarification or some engagement or can request that they come talk to you guys or however you want to manage it.

There will be another process.

They're asking you to set the work plan after this,

Do you think we made a lot of changes?

Made some recommendations, but I don't think it adds time to the process.

It's just a matter of, hey, when you all want to hear back from the city manager's office and the city attorney on these, if these are adopted or changed, incorporated, I imagine you want that version to see what it looks like.

No, let's proceed as it is.

I'll send that back.

To your point, Nicole, under annual reporting and oversight, item number four, community impact assessment, evaluating the effectiveness of the authorities' activities and addressing the housing needs.

It could be easy to just include in there specific language about like outlining that includes like analysis of the authorities' legal structure and legal power.

I don't know if that covers it, but

Because it could make sense to return to it.

We did it with the police facility oversight board in terms of them returning, evaluating whether they need an additional staff position for an auditor position, I think.

say at that time you all, the council decides or the recommendation is that you know what, this would really function better as a standalone corporation.

We'll run out of time.

I want to try to adjourn us for two o'clock.

Anything else in the proposal that people want to talk about?

There's all that's left are miscellaneous provisions.

Pronounce those adjourned.

I'm not sure how interesting that story is going to be, but she actually stayed for kind of a while.

And then at one point we did kind of really start going back and forth about things.

I saw that, that was huge.

Yeah, no.