Housing Advisory Committee Meeting   2/18/2026

Rich Ward.

Introduction.

Yeah.

Rich Ward.

Oh, sorry.

Sorry, Rich.

Okay.

I will admit I did not prepare an update for today's meeting.

We've had a lot going on.

If anyone's been watching any city council meetings for the last couple of months, you've probably seen Sunshine or Kelly or Mia, Wanda or all of them.

I've been working with Sunshine to finalize a couple of funding things for some projects PHA is doing as well as with CRHA.

This is time of year that live tech applications are due, so there's a lot of last minute details to be finalized.

We've also continued working on, well Kelly is really managing that, working on student housing and be in lieu study.

Our CAP Committee has been busy at work reviewing all of the CAPS COPS grant applications.

They'll be ready to have their funding recommendations by the end of this month for those.

That is all I can think of at the moment.

I guess you guys talked about, you have had many meetings.

Yes.

You talked about the tax payment program.

No, last night.

Last night.

Yeah.

I mean, I think,

Council was generally supportive of the idea.

There's still a number of details we would have to work out if we thought we did want to implement it.

And as Michael King pointed out at the meeting last night, he's not here today, but we don't really have any additional capacity right now to start a new program immediately.

But we will be working to develop some recommendations for Council.

And I don't know if we'll need

to get more feedback about if we were going to be designing a policy, then there's still a lot of things we would have to make positions about.

But I think the feedback last time was overall positive.

Anything else you want to say about that?

No, I mean, we're just at the point of...

The timeline then, given that, we don't think we have a timeline.

like kind of bled over into the student album study that will work well.

Yeah.

OK, so we have a couple of other people coming in.

I'm hungry.

I'm with Abigail.

I'm with Abigail.

I'm Terry Tyree.

I'm a veteran of 1st Street.

Welcome.

Welcome.

I didn't notice that.

It's all a template.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

If not, all in favor?

Okay, the minutes have been approved.

Number next on the agenda is the presentation on housing program evaluation.

No, no, that was just a little bit of oversight, that's all.

Just trying to move an agenda along.

I don't need to take any time.

Just wanted to thank Sir Friedman for being here.

As you all know, with the housing program moving into new development services last year and the departure of our housing program manager, it seemed like the right moment to do an evaluation, determine, take stock of all of our priorities and our needs, figure out the community and figure out what sort of

resources are needed to support those efforts.

And so I'm very happy to have Mr. Friedman here.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kelly.

OK, so I'm Andy Friedman.

And let's see.

OK.

I have a company called Progressive Housing Solutions, and I've been a consultant for four and a half years.

Previously, I worked for the City of Virginia Beach Department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation for 34 years, and I was director for 28 years, and we did all kinds of housing stuff in Virginia Beach.

There is no housing authority, so we had the housing voucher program, housing development, we did homelessness, code enforcement, housing development.

This is Kelly's RFP asking for someone to do this, which is to do a staffing focused evaluation of the city's housing program, assess current staffing capacity, role alignment and expertise,

to ensure the program is effective, really meaning it's strategic objectives and community needs.

Evaluation plan, which I did.

That was the start.

Organizational assessment report is really the final report that I'm going to do.

And today we're giving you the opportunity to see the preliminary ideas that I have, give feedback to Kelly and I so that we can do a final report.

I can do a final report.

And as part of the process, clearly we wanted to be here and get your feedback before the report was finalized.

So far, I've read a lot of the city documents that Kelly and Madeline have provided.

I've looked at some of the city council minutes from the recent meetings.

I interviewed many of you.

I have 18 people all together.

And I've got a kind of summary.

And let me just say that you have no peer cities.

There is nobody of this size anywhere in the universe of housing affordability effort with Charlottesville.

And this presentation is really intended to give you the preliminary thoughts and get your feedback.

So, as I said, Charlottesville is really a state leader in affordable housing investment.

The only place that I found, so it's not final, but the only place I think comes close to the per capita investment in affordable housing is none other than Fairfax County.

Fairfax County has 20 times the population, but only five times the housing investment.

They've invested this year, they're giving away, not giving away, they're investing $50 million and you guys are investing 10 or more million.

You have a wide ranging and expanding array of programs just in the past few weeks.

You've been talking to council about the tax abatement program, the rental rears program.

and others that you guys have mentioned.

You have programs operated all around the city, multiple city agencies, as well as multiple community organizations.

There's been a big staff change where it's been assigned to neighborhood development services.

And as I said, you're doing some studies of programs and considering new programs as well.

Okay, sorry.

So as far as staffing, this is a staffing-focused report.

The original consultant report that put together that $10 million recommendation, and some of you brought this to my attention, it said it'd be prudent to invest 10% of that $10 million on staffing.

That's really like if you look at federal funding for housing programs, like the minimum, a lot of them will give you 10% for admin.

There was a report last April by the previous housing folks that said there was a critical need for staffing to help manage and implement the housing efforts that the city is doing.

Many of you said to me, both people in the city and outside, yes, we need staff to do this work.

And so, I mean, it's not a hard conclusion to make that we need staff to keep the programs going and make sure we achieve

Andy, do we know if we're at that 10% level?

We are not.

Right.

That's the April 25 meeting.

It was, I think, 400,000 at that time.

Our baseline before the shakeup was like 5%.

And that was for like two and a half folks approximately.

Okay, so it's really important to go over what's currently being done and Madeline's the Acting Housing Program Manager.

She's doing all of these things.

I won't read them all to you, but point of contact for CRHA and the multiple projects going on with CRHA and for this committee, the CAF committee,

the new programs that are being reviewed and developed as we speak, the data dashboard, and also annually reporting to council, which I think you did just recently, in the fall on the affordable housing plan.

But anyway, all of these are part of the responsibilities that need to be conducted right now, being conducted right now.

And then,

And that's an existing budgeted staff position as the housing programs manager.

That's in the city budget right now.

And this one is also in the city budget, right?

And who's running, who's doing that function currently?

So it's one, you're doing both positions in effect right now?

Yeah.

Something also that's helpful to understand the scale of that grant monitoring administration is that between HOPS and CAFES, but a million dollars, right?

And then SISRAP is... A nine hundred, yeah.

Thank you.

And then also to be determined who's going to do this, but we have the annual note for process and project selection underway now and then continuing.

Yes.

Grant.

No, affordable housing development, I guess.

We have been, we have internal counsel for city attorney office who helps on agreements.

Our city training office is not, you know, they're not specialized in this field.

So we have been working with someone outside the council to specialize in affordable housing development deals.

And so she's been supporting us as well.

Who was doing this before?

And she's no longer here.

Okay.

So that's two bodies.

That's right.

Okay.

Three bodies.

I'm sorry, man.

I'm just counting.

Yeah, we used to have a directorate, you know, in OCS who was focused on a number of items, housing needs, one of them.

And then there was another staff person who knew the Sloan Agreements process, which this was not an area of specialization for her, but

She did what needed to be done.

And then, yes, we had Antfon as Housing Program Manager.

That position will be filled.

We've been working through this evaluation to figure out... What about the other two?

No, Taylor.

I still work with the grants office, but they don't.

I mean, Taylor's grants team was never managing like the administration of the housing grants.

Well, they do a lot of more tracking of money that is coming into the city through grants.

So any department that's applying for grant funding, they're going to the office.

She used to, that was her

and she supported reinvestment in a number of different ways in the city, affordable, not affordable, simple loan agreements.

Do you have, maybe jump in the gun here, but do you have this visually as an org chart?

It's pretty straightforward.

And I think what you're getting is that even a relatively well-informed group like this still has some

It would be nice to have another point of contact with that.

So I wanted to go through some of the things.

So as I discussed with some of you in the interviews, talking about what staffing you need really relates to, revolves around what you're trying to accomplish.

And a lot of you had thoughts on that.

Community needs drive what we're trying to accomplish.

All of these were mentioned in the interviews, need for more one bedroom units, more accessible units,

especially critical affordable rental housing for people, affordable people under 60% median and seniors need for first month's rent to get people into affordable units even when they can't afford the ongoing rent, case managers for people with high barriers,

enhanced access to housing for unhoused individuals who may be qualified for but don't have the connections or any of the things needed to get into it and the connection between an available unit and where they are.

Workforce housing and missing middle housing, navigation of the housing system, who to call for what service that you need.

I'm glad I see a nod on that one.

Production of housing below 50% of median, and then what was recently mentioned, renters in subsidized units still not paying their rent, and also preventing the loss of affordable units, a wide range of community needs out there.

And some policy issues, they kind of cross over with communities, but obviously student housing issues have been an issue here forever and will continue to be.

Don't say,

I'm sorry.

You don't say.

Prevent displacement.

Considering neighborhood tips to help reinvestment in neighborhoods.

Ensure accessibility.

We mentioned that navigation.

Promote better management of rental properties.

People, somebody talked to me about a rental housing inspection program that they wanted to suggest.

Looking at housing policy comprehensively, including production of all types of housing, as well as the affordability supply and coordinating the investment plans for the CIP and CDBG and CAC.

So these are some of the things that you mentioned to me in the interviews.

We also have, next slide.

The program reviews are new programs, which really is a mind-blowing list, but the CSRAP review is already planned, may have started.

The ADE manual update is underway.

The rental rears program, which is just approved.

A rental inspection program that I mentioned.

Sign acquisition, I wrote down systems, we talked about the land bank, but there's other ways to do that with investment funds.

The tax abatement program, which was just briefed to council just recently.

Developer incentives, a bridge loan program is under consideration.

HCV home ownership program is a possibility.

The Landlord Risk Reduction Fund, I know in Virginia Beach, that was something that chapter I left, they've implemented working with landlords to incentivize them to take people with subsidies.

Landlord outreach, recruiting and retention, ensuring you have enough landlords who will accept the vouchers and the subsidies.

Security Deposit Systems for renters.

So all of those are somewhere in the mix of potential or advocated for new programs.

And goals for the overall nature of the program.

Clearly on a critical need, and this is from Kelly, from the city attorney's office, and from several others, protect the city and development deals and contracts for services so we pay for what's needed, we get what's needed, and we make sure it continues over the long term.

Make sure we measure our impact and tell the story really well so that the community and the partners and the advocates understand everything that's being done.

And then when you look at the list of new programs and current programs, it's really important to focus strategically and say, what can we do now that's most important?

And that's a critical need right here.

When you have so many options, a council that really wants to act on these, we have to focus down and say, do this first, do that.

Policy process and procedure is something that internally there really needs to be more of that to make things happen more smoothly and to be able to have the paper trail to justify why we've done what we've done and the comprehensive approach to the housing system.

So all of these are goals that would be really important to achieve and staff are needed to figure out how to do all of this.

So here are my initial, it says initial draft staffing recommendations.

We're here to talk to you because we want your feedback about that.

We will prepare that short that you said, past, current and future.

Put these on the future side.

The housing programs manager,

However, they're titled in the neighborhood development services chart, but that is a budgeted function, the person who leads all of the NDS housing programs.

A key thing would be for them to provide strategic focus.

We talked about high level communication, be it spokesperson for housing in the city and coordinate with all partners.

And that is a big job, talking to everyone,

making sure we're moving or rowing in the same direction.

The housing finance administrator is something we were just talking about.

And here, the high-level development finance expertise, a very specialized field, can hire a new person just out of school to do this.

You have to hire someone who's actually done deals.

You have to get someone who knows the intricacies of that low-income tax credit and development financing to make sure the city's doing the right thing, doing it the right way.

That's not a funded position.

That's one we're recommending to be put in place.

The Housing Grants Compliance and Metrics Administrator, which is a currently funded position that Madeline's doing along with being the acting manager.

And that pretty much speaks for itself.

We're funding stuff all over the place with multiple organizations and keeping track

making sure when you give a grant it happens, making sure the money is spent and spent correctly, all of that.

And then giving the facts so we can report out and say, talk about our successes and what's left to do.

Another new position recommended is the housing policy analyst.

slash planner to coordinate, review and evaluation of the new and existing program.

So basically a program evaluation function, both for the current ones we're doing, as well as the new ones that are either about to be implemented or under consideration.

Everything we do should fit into a system so that this program does that piece and this program does the other piece.

They fit together and they get the result you want.

It's really, when you're talking about development subsidies and inclusionary zoning and tax abatement on the same project, that is a really complex set of things that need to be looked at and considered to make sure we understand what's actually happening and what the net result on the ground will be.

And then finally, another new recommended position is a resource development

slash fund development person.

Um,

In Virginia Beach, we found that there were opportunities to go after non-local taxpayer funds.

And by that, I mean charitable funds, state funds, federal funds.

It takes effort to get money.

There is not just, oh, there's that grant.

We'll just write a piece of paper and get it.

It takes effort.

And then when you get it, you have to administer that money.

and you have to use it for the purposes, you have to report on it.

If you don't devote effort to getting new money in, you're just not gonna get it and it's easy not to do that.

But in the context of this city doing massive local funding effort, I suggest it would be very valuable to look outside.

I know there's been very successful charitable donations toward affordable housing development here, pretty unique.

But there could be others, and especially with the incredible community support that's here for affordable housing, I think that there's possibilities for charitable e-giving.

And Kelly and I have already been talking about

administrative support grants from Virginia Housing that may be applied for, that may be helpful to carry out, in fact, some of these tasks that we've identified.

So this person, this position, if it was a full-time person, maybe you could pilot it for two years and see if they bring in more revenue than the cost.

And if they did, it's a no-brainer.

So I think it worked with the compliance coordinator because compliance coordinator is the person who's supposed to look at the projects and make sure they did what they said.

This person is supposed to look at new projects and then kind of take a broader view overall how is the program operating and how the program works with other programs.

So I think they would work together on that.

This one is more focused on higher level on new stuff, whereas the compliance person continues to monitor everything that's in place over time and produces that.

Well, I was just thinking like the SISREP program evaluation, for example, this is something like that's an ongoing program that we want to periodically be able to evaluate.

So, yeah, I think that would fit in there.

And then in addition to... Or the tax evasion program.

Right.

We have findings from a consultant that indicate, you know, that it could be a tool that has some value.

Right.

But there's a lot of questions about

just how it should be used here in the city.

It should be used for big projects, for little projects, for this geography, for that geography, for this percent of the day in my life, that percent of the day in my life.

There is a specialization in that affordable housing professional field of folks who focus on the development of those kinds of policies.

And right now we don't have anybody that can do that for us.

It absolutely makes sense.

Yes, you want somebody who can develop those options and the pros and cons and what it would take to be able to present those.

those recommendations as options to council, get council feedback, figure out, and planning commission too, let's not forget about all the other stakeholders that should be involved.

That is what a policy analyst slash planner can do to help a community really have a more robust program and a program where different parts of the system are really speaking to one another as well.

This may be a bit of a leading question.

It probably is.

But so one of the things, we talked about this in our, one of the places where the city has been most successful in translating the vision of council to action was in the realm of historic preservation planning.

And I attribute that largely to having a historic preservation

A very effective historic preservation planning czar, Mary Joyce Scala, who when there was money to be found, found other people's money.

When there were resources available that may be not monetary or otherwise, nationally she connected with applicants and helped them.

And most importantly, she was a shepherd of any project that had a historic

Preservation component, she ran her with it and she had the authority to do so.

Her word, she showed up at the planning commission along with the neighborhood planners, but kind of had the final word.

I mean, obviously, council does, but had sort of final staff authority.

Where you responded, I kind of just want to build on that for a second.

The thought that I was having, which is I think parallel is around, and we've talked about this several times, like a housing ombudsman, you know, like someone, because as we're talking about an array of different staffing structures, which we all agree, fundamentally, we need additional staffing support, for I think, what you've laid out, generally speaking, makes sense to me.

The risk is that it becomes, you know, over bureaucratic, overly bureaucratic to some extent.

And what we need in this day and time when it's hard to navigate federal and state resources to have local partnership.

and whatever sort of process we're moving forward with.

I think the ombudsman is a very, very important

There is a distrust out there about, you know, working with the planning department.

I know that one of the things I applaud you all doing is having

Keep Messing Your Name Up was a come in the community and she's sitting there, right?

Hopefully the goal is that people will know her, build a relationship with her to be able to gain that trust, but that trust is just not there, right?

So having an ombudsman who based on, you have to tell me if I'm wrong, an ombudsman is like,

in the middle, they're not either for the right or the left, but it's trying to find the media.

Right.

And that's needed.

And then I have one more question after that, but I would just piggyback in on what Dan was saying.

I love Joyce when she was here, but I haven't found another Joyce in here yet, but yeah.

Ombudsman.

I think what I'm hearing you say is that you're looking for someone who is really dedicated to promoting the community's vision and goals for housing in the city.

And

I don't really see how any city staff member could be that position then.

I mean, they would always be a city employee.

That's what I'm saying.

Can I maybe articulate?

So there are places within city policy is plunked, right?

It's not sharp and they don't, policies don't all connect together.

That's something I've been talking about here for a while, is that there are lots of times in the sausage making of putting a project together, bringing it from inception to completion,

where there are fundamental choices that have to be made.

We want wider roads and more housing.

And then you have multiple departments or multiple people who are in their lanes doing their thing with good intention, but they don't add up to more better affordable housing.

And what we had, again, what we had years ago when

When this was a clear mandate from council that historic preservation is our highest value, or at least that's the way it was interpreted, we had somebody who broke ties.

who said, look, engineer, you might want something, fire marshal, you want something, but the city has said we want historic preservation.

And so she kind of had the, she had the hammer, she had the, and that's what I'm wondering is, does that function exist somewhere in this structure?

So I think the housing program manager is the position that is envisioned as the person who can speak for housing and bring the conversation that's necessary to do those things you're talking about.

It's not necessarily the hammer, but it is the conversation directly to see how you can thread down the middle of all the things that are involved, including

Someone talked about the density and inclusionary zoning, the stormwater requirements.

Someone mentioned that as a limitation.

All the safety codes, those all have to be addressed, but sometimes there are middle roads that can be taken.

And having someone who's, and this is how I see it, someone whose job it is to wake up in the morning and move affordable housing forward.

however that translates to this meeting with planning, meeting with the fire marshal, meeting in the community, all of those things necessary to have the conversations that could push it forward.

And that's why I think this staffing recommendation is so important.

There has to be someone who that's their whole job is here's the city's housing programs agenda and I'm in charge of

helping make that happen, whether that is X, Y, or Z.

I have a question.

I've noticed this void in meetings.

I think that's important points to add.

Previously, was that like a political result, her having that power?

That's a good question.

I don't know that we can completely look back to what we had with Mary Joy and replicate that because we were a different city.

And it was one of the challenges the city faced as the city grew.

It needed to be more process-oriented and more

I wouldn't say regulated, but more process oriented.

Whereas before we had the people with the loudest, strongest voices in City Hall would kind of get together and solve problems.

And so I'm not suggesting that we replicate that, but we figure out what was good about that function that allowed things to move forward.

And so

Yeah, so it's the person who, when we look at standards and design manual, most of the housing perspective came from volunteers.

I volunteered, I think Nicole, you were probably part of that, Condrey was part of that, Charlie Armstrong from Southern Development, and we stepped in and we gave as much feedback as we could, but we weren't part of the city.

There was no housing person.

who understood the engineering requirements, fire requirements, et cetera, and their impact on density.

So I guess I would say a couple of things.

I love the idea of motion to deputy director, if not, frankly, even a city manager position for this.

But as high as the

the city manager's office and Kelly thinks that that position should go.

Right, but whoever it is, that person should have the authority to make some decisions even when there are contradictory opinions about what the public benefit is.

And two, we need to be prepared to pay that person because that person needs to have experience and expertise in lots of different things, development, development finance, utility, infrastructure, fire suppression.

all of that stuff.

Just for awareness, the housing program manager position that currently exists is on par with our building code official.

Yeah, and I just see strongly, strongly support.

The two things on here, I mean, all of this I think is great.

The two things that I think are really, really exciting here are number one and number five.

We have somebody searching for OPM, other people's money, as the county calls it.

We're always going to be robbing Peter to pay Paul, especially with a city like Charlottesville that is trying to out punch its weight and doing more than any other comparable municipality.

We can't do it alone.

And so it shouldn't be a zero-sum game.

So I really like that.

But I really want to make sure that that program manager, whether it's a deputy director or whatever, has the highest possible ranking so that I don't see that person, I don't think it's

want this to be

other needs that the city has to balance and that is compliance with state regulations and you know the questions about utility lines into the back of lots, fire safety.

Those will continue to be things that we have to balance and try to navigate and find a middle path.

I hope I'm being clear that I'm not talking about non-compliance and health and safety problems.

What I'm saying is that housing, if it's equal,

It is always going to be secondary.

It is because determinations about like if someone says we need 10 feet of separation between these two lines, it's a health and safety issue, well then everyone else runs for it.

If the fire marshal says we need 25 feet of clear and no parking over here and we need to be able to see 150 feet down the street over here, because it's a health and safety issue.

If there's nobody who can say you have to think differently about health, you have to take a broader perspective about health and safety, housing is always going to get short shrift.

You need somebody who really is pushing this, not making the city unsafe.

I guess, like how there's been a bunch of like, deputy

Just as like a city councilor perspective, from my perspective, whatever level of seniority it's given, I think if I'm understanding you correctly, I think part of it will be beyond whatever the determination of the seniority level is or the wording of the position.

It will have to involve the city manager on their own or the city manager at the direction of city council saying,

I think that solution, just to kind of sum a little bit of it up too, is

That this idea of a housing program manager is not envisioning the same role that existed before, I think, because that role you have to do so many

In my head, I was counting that you all already, even before these new positions, you need three more people.

Or two and a half more people.

Even before this.

Even before this.

I mean, maybe I wasn't understanding it, so y'all help me out.

I think it captures what you're trying to say.

Yeah, we do.

Because in my head, I'm counting and I'm counting on my finger as you're talking.

And then, and Sunshine is talking about that ombudsman

or I don't know if that's what you're saying too, Diane.

But that's needed.

I'm telling you that is needed because of how the climate is right now in the city of Charlottesville.

Something is needed where we can, I'm sorry, where we can go to someone that we feel like you could be totally honest with and that they

and the last thing I would say is that preservation of neighborhood has just gone out the window.

And I think for me, that's where I saw Joyce being so helpful in getting you to understand why you need to preserve this and how you can preserve this and maybe this is what we can do.

So, and then the fifth thing there, can I just ask another question?

I know you say you like it then,

Does this mean that the non-profits such as PHA, CRHA, and Habitat, who is trying their best to provide the affordable housing, the city would then be competing to

Oh, and worded differently then.

Yes, ma'am.

As you were reading that, I'm like, oh, so now you're going to compete, you know, all of your supporters that you, who contributes to, the philanthropists who will contribute to the housing funds to try to help them make

It's deeply affordable.

Now you're going to have the city going to them.

You've got to be really clear that the idea is to grow the pie.

That's why I'm asking.

For example, like in the county, there are a lot of funds that we could use itself, but we're not eligible for.

So basically it's fund development to expand the availability of non-local taxpayer funds without competing, but as Sunshine said,

Yeah, are you, sorry, we're interrupting your... No, no, that's just why we're here.

So, since there are three flow charts, what about a fourth one?

I just kept thinking about all the other, as you listed, all the programs that the city wants to do, and I keep thinking, like, how does this one fit in, and how does that one fit in?

Yeah.

And I know city council, obviously, they have to finish up their processes, but that might be an interesting

Andy and Mel and I were talking about this a few weeks ago.

The evaluation, the scope of it was intended to focus on what is needed for the housing program within NDS.

But the truth is that the city is delivering supportive housing services across the organization.

Home to Hope, Pathways, these are all programs that are administered through the Department of Human Services through the city manager's office.

Those are just two examples.

I mean, I'm hoping what Human Services

does is trying to get people into housing.

Whereas from where I'm looking at it from is about how this portion of it is, how do we build these housing and what we have to do

So I see them as human services is doing what they're supposed to do.

It's about working with people to get them into housing or to provide the services.

That's true.

However, NDS actually is, through CAPS and HOPS, doing a lot more than just providing grants for building housing.

A lot of the grants are for the entire SISRAP program.

SISRAP is for rental supplemental rental assistance.

To go back to that 10% figure that we were talking about earlier, does this approach that?

Five positions?

So I haven't put numbers up there.

5 positions probably might not get you to a million.

And there's other things that go into admin, not just paying the employees.

Consultant studies, external counsel.

I think there's two components to that.

One is, does it come up to that 10% figure?

And the other one is, what is the source of the funding used for those positions?

Is it city general funds, or is it carved out of the $10 million, which is whole

Question that I am not in a consult role to talk about.

Yeah.

So you can carry on.

Okay.

So, um, yeah, basically in summary, I would say the four are essential.

Number one, two, three, four are essential to continue, revise and enhance them as we've talked about, expand as planned, monitoring, reporting results and support and coordinate the whole network.

So I think one through four, you couldn't, you,

It would be hard for me to say what you could do without in that.

Five is potentially optional, but I think there's real, as Sunshine has pointed out, there's definite opportunity to bring resources in without raising taxes on Charlottesville citizens.

And it would be really good to try that, see how it worked.

And if it doesn't work, then stop trying it.

But it could be very beneficial.

And just something about what's really involved here.

I mean, Kelly's really kind of creating from the ground up a new housing programs department.

She's going to have to hire and train at least three, if not four people.

You guys will be a part of that training and orientation because she will have to meet with you, learn about the community, learn about your programs.

But that's a job.

And I want to emphasize this.

Cross-training and cross-functional support.

The resource development person really could be a backup to the compliance and monitoring person.

Work doesn't come all at the same flow.

There's cycles where the grant thing is very heavy and intense and it slacks off.

The funding applications are heavy and intense.

So having people be able to back each other, one of the things that programs lacked for the last couple of years is stability and continuity in both staff and capability.

So doing this cross-training,

It's really important.

And just even putting together the work plan, the strategic focus, here's what we're going to do first.

Here's what all those.

So that's a really big step.

And we're talking about the hiring process, the onboarding process.

And still, we never get to just plan.

We always work and plan that we'll be doing.

And so really what we're trying to do is do the most we can with what we already have, all of the programs in place.

It's really important to communicate effectively a top priority of the city manager, strategically consider what new things are top priorities, and then find other sources to help do what we're doing.

So, I'm now obsessed with work charts, now I keep thinking about them.

I'm curious, what plays like Fairfax's work chart?

Yeah, it's not comparable.

I know, I was thinking that I was going to offer that half of it.

I can tell you, Garland took a sassy touch on the chartless stuff.

Not that that's the only measure, but...

It might be, the last, don't hold it to it, it's like $14 or $15 million in housing, direct housing investments.

They have an array of housing things they do just like you guys do here.

And Google AI tells me their tax budget is $6 billion, and Arlington's is $1.6 billion, which goes to your point when you compare what we're doing to the size of our budget.

So yeah, that's even a bigger disparity.

Kelly, how can we best support your violence?

Ultimately, this is staffing.

Ultimately, I can argue all I want, but when you say this is the staffing I need, I'm going to support that.

Well, thank you for asking.

And thank you, by the way, for those who participated in disabled learning.

I appreciate your time to build this.

So the next steps are to develop this report, finalize it, share it with the city manager's office.

plans for broader distribution or sharing of the information if it really was intended to be internal for our own planning and kind of awareness of what the needs are.

Obviously in our discussion, there's areas we're finding things, but I would say to me, even these recommended positions are still kind of a bare minimum.

Go for what we're doing.

Obviously our budget cycle is underway currently.

I mean, do you feel like it's at a point where council just engaging in conversations with the city manager of like,

So certainly I think there's opportunities for discussion through that process.

Something that Andy and I have talked about is that given the budget climate that we're in, the thought of adding new positions is somewhat

daunting, actually.

And I will say Sam and James are familiar with the recommendations of this report, just so you're aware.

So this might need to be something that's phased over time.

So thinking about, you know, what are the biggest, greatest priorities that we can provide of our staff recommendations in that space.

I think so.

I think it would obviously just be, Howard's done it would be great to at least get a start

These are just necessary to turn our intentions into reality.

Okay, any other questions?

I'd just like to get a copy of this.

Oh, you can even have those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OK, I'm going to leave in about five minutes, so we'll let Sunshine take over.

So the last I'll try and then so we had some offline conversation around when to schedule a time to get together.

to and be sent over some preliminary description of it and background and that sort of thing.

I think what we decided was that we were waiting for the new Chief Strategy Officer to

up.

But that would be the ideal person to sort of hold this and take with it.

But we just haven't scheduled since then.

So we should spend in place about two weeks.

So if you ever come home, you can reach out to her.

It's just for an introductory meeting before anything.

But then I would really like to use this as anything of the love, you know, where there's interest in data monitoring, using it to kind of

Positioning, right?

Yeah.

Or Jen at first.

and Alan Pura now reports to her, and Steve King too, or no?

No, Steve King is the assistant to the state.

Oh, that's right, that's right.

I don't remember where on the priority chart the landlord risk reduction fund landed in terms of our evaluation for this year, this year, next year.

But either way, I would lift it up as an emergent, not like imminent priority, but a priority for this year, specifically, just as a quick

Quick recap, I participated in, and there are a number of other folks, primarily from the city, but included representation across the Blue Cherry Coalition for the Homeless and Potomac and others in an emergent initiative called Direct to Housing, which is funded by and supported by a consultancy engagement that BRAC has for addressing homelessness.

not only long term, but sort of in the short to medium term.

And I'm not going to go, there was a perfect planning meeting yesterday.

So there's, there's, there's ways to go in this work.

But one of the tools that I think would be fantastic to have in place when that starts is that tool.

And I think the general thought is if you would start look for a target of like,

towards the latter end of this year.

So that's probably the runway we have to get to that point.

But I think as we look at trying to do a surge response to get people who are on the street housed, having a tool for landlords, both nonprofits and for-profits, that would give them comfort in accepting them, I think would be crucial.

So we don't need to deal with it right now.

One way to think about our priorities is like so much of them

require getting this in place first?

Like getting staff in place first?

So what can be done before that?

One thing I can say is that we will be putting together our departmental work plan for fiscal year 27 and fiscal year 20.

We'll be working on that over the next couple months.

The decisions that are made about the budget will heavily inform that.

You know, what we can do with the resources we have or are given.

So I think that this is helpful for us to hear what your priorities are because we can think about how that lands on our work plan.

Is that enough?

That helps?

Yeah.

And there might even be some choices made, right?

Maybe not the easiest.

Nothing means like, ever easy.

Yeah, yeah.

There's actually a lot of things that make these things just happen.

I was going to say, maybe next time, because we...

Maybe next time we can have the discussion about priorities 2.0, but let it get real this time.

We had four priorities, and now we have a restructuring of the staff and need to hire onboard, all that stuff.

Then we need to pick one.

or be realistic about what we're going to do.

Maybe we need to revisit that one more time.

And so it's because I keep thinking every time we come back to this, unrealistically, I know that like, oh, well, we keep having, oh, let's check in on our priorities again.

But I understand we just don't have the resources.

Well, there's another part of that, which is and it wasn't really brought up in the conversation and it's something

There's a question of like how much lives within the city as a city function and how much gets contracted out that could bring capacity more rapidly if there's existing capacity to tap into, whether that's a local nonprofit doing something or some other third party agency.

And I think that when we contemplated the Landlord Risk Reduction Fund, it was at a time when there was very limited staff capacity.

We knew there was no way the staff was going to be able to run it.

So we contemplated the idea that there would be an RFP for an outside administrator of that function.

So it wouldn't fall on the city to actually do the work.

So I'm not saying that is the right solution in this case, but we contemplated that.

And how does that, you know, even coming up with those options, evaluating the pros and cons, developing an RFP, issuing it, figuring out how to manage the agreement.

But I agree with Dan, taking the time to be thoughtful around what our priorities are,

What's the capacity?

What does the work plan look like?

Kelly, if I could just talk about this, the capacity thing, which I think is really important.

Um, I did start by saying that it's not always an FTE that you need.

Um, and in my, in my work, a lot of times,

and I'm not suggesting this in this case.

Sorry, FTE means a full time city employee.

So I'll put this in.

I think about as a city manager, which I was not a city manager, but in a position of city manager or city council, when you create a new FTE, you are making a very big, very long term commitment of funding, benefits and obligation.

If you're doing something new that you haven't done before, that you're not sure how it's going to work out, there may be a shorter, temporary pilot solution that would be a better step.

And also, the other side of that is some things are not the best thing for cities to do.

Cities working directly with landlords, not always the best thing to do unless there's some other option.

A lot of you as nonprofits have direct relationships with landlords and potentially could do a landlord risk reduction program.

It still involves all things Kelly said.

So there's those two questions at least.

What's the best type of organization to do this?

And is this, or are we definitely making a long-term commitment

or should we pilot it, see how it goes and then make that.

I think that's maybe a simpler lift is just

I mean, the budget is under development.

I don't know if that's... Maybe that's what hacked up, or you just make a... Yeah, like, what's so crazy, ladies, is it's not realistic for this budget cycle?

How do we make that daunting?

You said it might be daunting for Council to take it on?

Well, what's the plan?

We're not planning to take this to Council.

I always view this and build it as an internal assessment.

So what's your ideal timeframe for hiring all this is today, but like, like realistically, when are you looking for funding to fund these positions?

So, I mean, I have requested one position already that was the feedback I received was

Even that would be hard to calculate.

When you said feedback, where's that feedback coming from?

The manager's office.

Given what, you know, the gap.

I understand there's like a $13 million gap.

I'm not sure what sort of initial information we've been shared.

So it's hard to have new positions when you've got a $5 million gap anywhere in the organization.

So I mean some of this is just I think to understand over time what might what we might need to be planning for and how our capacity to take things on is really going to be limited unless and until we can you know meet these needs.

When you said the one, sorry just a quick clarification, when you said one position that's outside of

Right, so you have the housing program manager and the compliance coordinator that are funded, and I requested, and what I requested was that that be someone who can, you know, meet our critical needs of housing finance, development, specialization, and someone to support housing policy.

Mr. Vice Chair, I'd like to make a motion.

I move that HAC supports an addition of one more staff member in the housing department as prerogative of the NDS director in this year's budget.

Second.

So open up for discussion, and I'll start.

Because I thought that actually before we get into the meat of that,

I know myself and many others in this committee, at least at the time, advocated strongly that the $10 million a year commitment be in addition to any staffing related expenses, that the staffing would be outside that $10 million.

The original consultants suggested that the $10 million include staffing, that a million of that would be dedicated to staffing.

So we are committed, actually, at above $10 million through fiscal year 2030.

So there's no way to really make the argument that you guys are some of them.

When you say the best we can do,

I mean, the best we can do given the fact that we've already allocated so much to...

I see.

I see.

I see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, CAP is... That makes sense.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well, what actually comes out to the RFP is... 825,000 for CAP and 575,000.

So I want to circle back.

There is a motion on the table.

I like Dan's motion and I was thinking, you know, it does seem like a lot of this, and we've all kind of talked about this, kind of the filter through the city manager's office has kind of hit a bit of a roadblock a little.

I mean, I know Sam's done a million things and blah, blah, blah.

He's doing great.

But it has kind of stopped at, you know, and I do think council, like Dan has said before, champions as housing being the main

focus of the city, so just kind of reminding council of that and pushing back against this filter, I think is a worthwhile, like just notifying council that these conversations in HAC, we've had all these priorities, but we've hit a roadblock because they need staff capacity.

In order to get X, Y, and Z done, we really do need to hire, like making that statement more, like a more robust picture of what's been happening, I think.

Anyway, I think that's worthwhile.

So.

Yeah, but I agree with that.

You're up there.

Right.

I mean, this, this presentation is posted on the HAC webpage.

We'll probably post it on our...

It's not a HAC webpage right now.

HAC will be posted through the minutes of the meeting and it will post it on our webpage.

Michael, how does this filter out to you all if you're not sitting at this table?

It's basically up to you as individuals to like zoom in or check the minutes.

That's not actually true.

That's like the first time present.

I mean, the real answer is the first step would be, I think, me communicating with other city councilors the existence of this presentation and what it's recommending.

And then if a majority of council

He's interested in discussing it.

We meet with the city manager on a weekly basis and raise things at those meetings.

And in those meetings, as part of the budget conversation, council just communicating to the city manager, this is a priority for us, this budget cycle.

And I think he would, if a majority of city council gives that direction, I think he would adjust.

But obviously, he's operating and trying to understand what a majority of council is telling him more priorities in a constrained budget and

I think it can't hurt.

Well, I guess one comment or question is, if we passed a motion to say that we wanted to do this, we don't really have a draft of a letter as of yet.

Is your thought that the motion would just like we would have a small two person working group or three person working group actually work on drafting that letter?

Or are you anticipating we would create that language now?

Do we need the letter?

Yeah, I don't know whether the, yeah, you know, I don't know.

So like when on the planning commission, I don't know whether there's still this

And it was nice for me as the HAC Rep on the Planning Commission to have a formal motion that I can say, on this day, the HAC passed this formal motion.

So it's not me editorializing, it's just me bringing forward a fact to the Planning Commissioners to consider.

But I'm not against us passing a motion and then delegating

I think, and you mentioned this, too, I mean, an example is like transit, a communicated priority to city managers.

The transit service requires hiring lots of bus drivers.

In the initial draft, there would be an increase, but it wasn't possible to get all the way to the service level we want.

So along with that initial increase in drivers, there is a clear plan being developed trying to phase it with a specific number of years.

So there's one or two positions, I think, also

having clarity, whenever we can or can't do this budget cycle, at least three years, we actually are like, planning is happening to phase it in.

Do you want to restate your motion in full?

I move that we support

In this fiscal year's budget, funding for another staff position in housing

And I want to pause for a second, basically at the direction or discretion of Kelly or whatever that position is, it should be Kelly's, we're supporting Kelly's ability to recommend whatever that position description is.

Yeah, but I also don't want to make it clear that this isn't Kelly, like, subordinate us to make this recommendation.

She didn't ask for this, but I want to do this.

but I also want to give her an opportunity to digest Andrew's, this is not all of them, but as to be requested or in consultation with the director of NDS or something like that.

Well, Clem might or might not know, but what I'm trying to get is a nuance that it's not like, Kelly didn't say, hey, support my recommendation.

What I want to say is that I want to give Kelly the space to bring forward whatever position she thinks is the most necessary at this time.

And that's why that background is helpful.

We can say, like, HAC has created several initiatives of its own accord and spent several blah blah amount of time and has faced trouble getting those implemented because blah blah.

And having seen the most recent RACs report or RACs set of recommendations, I should try.

I mean, I think we should have it recorded.

If we're going to make a formal motion, we need to know what that language specifically says.

I'm going to re-move.

Are you taking notes on this?

I have a sentence.

I can read it if you want.

Are you also saying that you generally support increasing capacity for staff capacity?

As a first step towards building on staff that will be necessary to implement the vision of council around affordable housing, necessary first step we recommend.

I move that half big informal statement in recognition of the difficulty

and the difficulty of implementing the city's stated housing goals and related programs such as blah, blah, blah due to its staffing capacity.

Therefore, HAC recommends that City Council adopt NDS's request for an additional staff member, at least for

At least one additional staff member to be more, which such, I say such too much, which such member shall be at Kelly's discretion.

The hack points to the preliminary findings of Andy and notes that two additional, that at least two additional, that even further, at least two additional staff members will be necessary

in the coming fiscal years.

I move that half make a formal statement in recognition of the difficulty

I'm already thinking about better.

The difficulty of implementing the city's stated housing goals and related programs, such as blah, blah, blah, due to its staffing capacity.

Due to its limited staffing capacity.

Therefore, Hackerman recommends that city council adopt NDS's requests for at least one additional staff member, which such members shall be at Kelly's discretion.

That could be me in better language.

But the hack points to the preliminary findings of Andy and notes that even further,

So you would draw your original motion?

She's making that sure.

In casual conversation, she mentioned that she's asked the city manager for initial staff member.

That's a good question.

I think what I'm hearing through all this conversation is that you are really, you affirm the need for additional staff resources as identified in the 2026 MDS housing program evaluation.

Is that what I hear you saying?

That is a motion that I would like to make.

I think that's a great point.

And adopt that motion.

Is there a second?

You're saying so moved.

Yeah, what is it?

Oh, she was writing it.

I move that the HAC affirm the needs for additional

Beautiful, okay.

Do we need to insert the outside of the 10 million?

Let's try that part then.

Yeah, the first and second.

Again, I do want to talk about how

Sorry.

Like, this is necessary to do all the things we want to do.

We can write a letter.

I mean, you can write a letter that's independent of the motion.

Want to do that?

Yeah.

Okay.

Any opposed or abstained?

That's us.

All this reminds me of a fun fact.

The city spent a million dollars to support some work.

Albemarle gives a three million rendition and it doesn't host events.

So before we end public comment, the next public meeting is March 18th.

We're going to be in City Space, not here.

I went to City Space today.

Sorry, it's not your fault.

So City Space next time.

Alright, open up to public comments.

There's no one I like.

The hack and hopefully constructed said letter, being able to represent at least from our perspective, because we can believe in understanding that affordable housing is a necessity and we want to make sure that we are in support of that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

With that, I will adjourn the meeting.

Thank you.