City Council Meeting   2/4/2008

I've been waiting for you for a long time

Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea Lea

Dua Dua Dua

Charles on EMS.

I think so.

They were asking some questions, typical questions, but I think in the end they better understand where their conflicts were.

I think so.

When did you do that, today?

This morning, yeah.

Charles did most of the talking.

I think with the building that you're coming up with today as well.

Well, you know, that's what happened to Kennedy.

He didn't mention this in the meeting, but he said that he didn't know what was going on.

He didn't mention the building of the car.

He said the workshop is right down the road.

Is she here today?

Well, that's good.

Thank you, thank you.

The only way to do this is to publish.

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Thank you.

We're going to begin with some announcements, and I'd like to start by announcing a new initiative that our Economic Development Office has kicked off this week, which is a new interactive guide to starting a business.

They put out CDs that includes all the forms and paperwork and guidelines that anybody would need to start a business here in the city of Charlottesville.

It's a wonderful initiative that they've undertaken.

If anybody would like to get a copy of this CD, it's available free of charge by calling our Office of Economic Development.

at 970-3110, or you can go to our website, which is charlottesville.org slash econ dev, e-c-o-n-d-e-v. And thank you to them for that initiative.

I have some announcements I'd like to make now.

I actually have a couple of announcements, so be patient with me.

After the first city council meeting, someone asked me, what were those boards that you were appointed to

So I wanted to tell you about one of the first board meetings I attended.

I attended the Community Criminal Justice Board, and I got a chance to hear from Ross Carew of OAR, he's the Assistant Director, Linda Hamilton, she's the Director of Adult Services of Region 10, and I met Neil Goodloe, who's the Chief Probation Officer.

And what I learned at that first board meeting is that their staff are being trained in motivational interviews, and they're showing less client violations, less court time, and lower rates of recidivism, which means people are not returning to jail as often as they were.

And this communication process is helping to bring their vision

statement to life.

And the vision statement is every client has the opportunity for success.

A couple of other announcements I have is in honor of National Black HIV AIDS Awareness Day, ASG will be sponsoring free, confidential, oral HIV testing.

We will be

on February 7th and 8th at four different sites.

And that's just a swab test, and you get the results back almost immediately so you don't have to wait too long for the results.

For more information, you can go to the website, AIDSServices.org, or call HURV at 979-7714.

And my last announcement is that I'm going

The Auburn Charlottesville branch of the NAACP is celebrating Expandance Day on Sunday, February 17th at Jackson P. Burley Middle School on Rose Hill Drive.

The event is free and open to the public and starts at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

The Reverend J. Rayful Vines Jr., the newly elected State Conference President, will be the guest speaker.

The public is encouraged to come and join the celebration, so save the date, Sunday, February 17th at 3 o'clock.

Thank you, Miss Edwards.

A couple other items that we'll be considering at the end of the agenda.

One is a resolution regarding state support for wastewater funding.

Second is a discussion about transit route changes.

And third is scheduling a work session on

Downtown Mall Renovations and Martha Jefferson Hospital Relocation.

I do want to note a change in the agenda for tonight.

Some of you who are working from the agenda that was initially published, you'll notice that there's been some changes.

Basically, the gist of the changes are that we've lumped all the affordable housing-related items together so that they'll happen in a row instead of splitting them up throughout the night.

So if it seems a little bit different from what you've seen before, that's why.

We now will be accepting comments from the public and we would ask as always that you please keep your remarks limited to three minutes and a number of members of the public.

This is not the, just for those of you who are here to speak about the Affordable Housing Ordinance, this is not the hearing on the Affordable Housing Ordinance that comes up next.

Good evening, Mayor Norris and members of the council.

My name is Paul Long and I reside at 1410 Grady Avenue here in Charlottesville.

And I've come here tonight to make just a few remarks about the terrible plight of drug addiction.

Though it doesn't receive a lot of attention from the news media and is certainly not a topic of concern to many people's minds, there are hundreds of people here in Charlottesville and the surrounding counties who are suffering from drug addiction.

Our Virginia General Assembly is seriously considering building one new prison here in Virginia at an enormous cost to taxpayers every year to house technical parole violators.

And most of these technical parole violators are drug addicts who have been released from prison and are on parole who have given up a dirty urine but haven't committed any other additional crimes during their parole.

I'm constantly amazed that here in Virginia

We are willing to send non-violent drug addicts and drug users to prison and regional jails.

Drug addiction is a public health problem and should not be treated as a criminal issue.

And unless a drug addict or a drug user has committed a horrendous crime under the influence of drugs, such as murder or assault or robbery, additional crimes of such nature, I don't believe that a drug addict or a drug user

should be jailed simply for using drugs or for buying drugs or for selling drugs solely to support their habits.

This is a position that has been taken over the years by such divergent public figures as Carl Schultz, who was the former mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, and also a former federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice.

And on the opposite political spectrum, William F. Buckley, who is the publisher

of the conservative magazine, National Review.

I am basing this on additional evidence.

I should have been a medical doctor because sometimes I can't read my own handwriting.

But I'm going to read from this.

What I want to say is I believe that even though Region 10 is doing a tremendous job with the resources they have, I don't believe that the facilities for treatment in Charlottesville is what they should be.

I think that we need to have a medically supervised detox here in the city of Charlottesville.

And the reason I'm saying that, the nearest detox we have is in New Hope.

And for anybody who either has worked with drug addicts or had the unfortunate experience of having family members who are addicted, if they agree to treatment, you have to get them in the facilities as soon as possible.

They simply don't have the focus or the patience to wait around for however long it takes the region to get them over there.

I also believe that we need more outpatient facilities, an increase of what we have.

And I would like to say that, and I know it's not the purview of this council, it's being considered by the General Assembly in Richmond,

I just vehemently disagree with the taxpayers spending millions of dollars to build a new prison every year for drug violators, for technical violations, when a fraction of that money could be spent increasing facilities and increasing treatment centers throughout the Commonwealth for people who are suffering from drug addiction.

Thank you, Mr. Long.

My name is Roberta Williamson.

I live at 731 Locust Avenue in the city.

And I'm here with news about the Charlottesville Police Department Foundation.

The foundation came into existence because citizens decided that they wanted to be helpful to the police department.

And that is what we attempt to do.

Our most recent success was the banquet and awards ceremony.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Banquet and Award Ceremony, during which 15 members of the police department were given commendation awards, three members of the police department were given meritorious police awards, and nine members of the police department were given life-saving awards.

And these were all actions that had been taken between October of 2006 and October of 2007.

We had 45 donors for that banquet, 36 of them businesses and 9 individuals who gave a total of $20,000 to honor our members of our police force.

Our most recent partner is the Monticello Media.

They had an event recently honoring Vinnie Keis, one of the long time employees there.

And they donated to CPDF over $1,000 towards the purchase of a new pickup truck for police to use during events and during

to carry lights and things like that for crime scenes.

Thank you.

My name is Elizabeth Kuchon.

I live at 126 Bowlingwood Road.

At the last city council meeting I attended about a month ago, I believe I heard someone refer to the man in a wheelchair who was bumped out of his wheelchair by a vehicle making a left turn, that he was not legally in the crosswalk because the don't walk signal was blinking.

I walk around this city a lot.

I can tell you a lot about the walk, don't walk signals.

I cross Ivy Road many times per week.

It is five lanes wide at Alderman Road.

The walk signal gets me walking at my little old lady pace across one of those five lanes.

Then it switches to blinking don't walk.

That's a warning sign.

I can get all the way across all five lanes of Ivy Road before it changes to a solid don't walk.

I'm amazed that people in this city don't know that if it's blinking don't walk,

It means the pedestrian is in the crosswalk legally.

It's scary to be in a wheelchair and trying to cross the street in this town.

I've been in a wheelchair and I know.

Thank you.

I'm Chris Murray, a city resident and an employee of Java.

We are in the senior housing business at JAMA and we've applied to the housing advisory council for a home sharing and accessory dwelling unit feasibility study.

We believe this is a simple, quick and affordable solution to housing for low income seniors and the disabled.

I know this is not part of the task force recommendation, however the study will cost $20,000 and we've already raised $5,000 of that from a local foundation, so we're asking for $15,000 from the

Housing Fund.

And also affordable housing can take other forms other than building from scratch.

Home sharing uses what could be an underutilized asset already.

Home sharing and accessory dwelling units were enabled by council in 2003.

Why have there been so few applicants?

We want to find out.

Is it a marketing problem and people just don't know about it?

Or is it economics?

Developers won't build them.

Is it a failure of imagination?

We don't know, and we'd like to find out.

UVA, the School of Nursing in Java, are working together.

Nursing students need apartments.

Seniors and disabled sometimes need minor supplementary care.

It's a win-win for both of them to live under the same roof.

We need a formal matching service.

How are compatible roommates determined?

These funds would bring in HomeShare Vermont.

They've been doing it in Burlington for a good while and we want to learn everything we can from them.

We also want to look at equity based home sharing where we provide co-ownership, some form of co-ownership within the same house.

This is another solution that avoids ground up infill development in the city.

Most importantly, Java believes that

What is good for seniors is good for everyone.

The study will target low-income seniors and disabled at 30% of AMI, but it also should increase the stock of affordable housing across the board at the least cost for everyone.

It's a simple, quick and affordable solution that I hope that you'll consider by giving us $15,000 towards this study.

and I should add that we have been, we have talked to Habitat and sharing the funds with them is okay as far as they're concerned.

Thank you, Mr. Murray.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Tse Yang and I live at Fontaine Avenue.

I was born in Tibet in 1962.

My parents fled to itself across the Himalayas.

On behalf of the Tibetans in Charlottesville, I came here to request the city council to fly the Tibetan national flag at the city hall on March 10th.

Tibet was occupied by the Chinese in 1950 and March 10, 1959 was Tibetan popular uprising against the Chinese rule.

Many died in prison and tortured and 100,000 fled to exile following His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

And much time is the day we commemorate since 1959.

Around the world, about 1,500 town and city halls fly to that national flag.

including Prague and Paris, Madison and Berkeley, and some even fly even throughout the year.

And today I request the City Hall of Charlottesville to join these great cities and fly with us by the national flag, not only to pay homage to all those who died, but also to support and respect this noble cause or movement of non-violence led by his Holiness the Dalai Lama.

just for the March 10th.

Thank you very much.

And I'm here just to present how the national flag is.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Rich Felker.

I live at One Valley Circle and I've been a resident of Charlottesville for eight years and involved with the Tibetan cause and Tibetan refugee community in Charlottesville for the entirety of that time.

I'd like to speak in support of City Hall flying the Tibetan national flag.

I believe the issue of Tibet, Tibet's people, their nonviolent struggle is an issue that's dear to American people and to the people of Charlottesville in particular.

In 1989, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his determination to follow a nonviolent path to resolving the Tibetan struggle.

10 years later, at the University of Virginia, there was held the Nobel Peace Laureates Conference at which the Dalai Lama attended.

And this was one of the most highly attended events in UVA history at the point, I believe.

In addition to that, just this fall, October 17th, the Dalai Lama was again awarded, this time by the United States Congress, the Congressional Gold Medal, honoring his determination in seeing through this nonviolent struggle and his commitment to world ideals of peace and mutual understanding.

As far as Charlottesville goes, I believe this issue is especially important to Charlottesville because when the United States government first, in 1991, relocated a thousand Tibetan refugees to America, Charlottesville was one of the first homes for which they resettled people.

At that time, there were 25 Tibetans living in Charlottesville.

As of now, there are at least 66 Tibetan people living in Charlottesville and a large community around that made up of students, scholars, professors, friends, family, all surrounding this community and all who would be deeply moved by the city of Charlottesville expressing its support for Tibet's martyrs and for this day that Tibetans commemorate

their uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959.

So thank you very much.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors, Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

On the agenda, it states public comment will be permitted provided that a public hearing is not planned or has not been previously held on the matter.

At last session we had a public hearing on smart and efficient government.

Citizens of Charlottesville were encouraged to suggest ways government operations, expenditures, expenses could be trimmed or made smarter and more efficient.

For the next two months, we are going to be into what I call the budget sessions of City Council.

I believe passing the budget is the most important thing that City Council does all year.

Why?

Because nine out of ten decisions made in future sessions are predicated on the budget's funding.

Therefore, I ask you to allow the citizen taxpayers the opportunity to comment on smart and efficient government or budget expenses and expenditures at every City Council session.

Yesterday, one of the residents from North Downtown asked me how she could comment on the budget if she could not see line by line how budget monies are allocated.

She had called City Hall and was told a line by line budget was unavailable.

This surprises me.

In the past two years, Leslie Beauregard has said if anyone wants to see the budget line by line, the city will provide him or her with a CD.

Is this option no longer available?

I would appreciate an answer on this so that I can pass the correct information on as how to and where the line by line budget is located.

Thank you.

Thank you, Colette.

You've made a wonderful lead-in for me.

Councillors, Mr. Mayor, I'm John False, 1503 Rugby Road.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the budget too.

I'd like to begin by applauding Mayor Norris and Councillor Taliaferro for their pledge to hold the increase in city spending to less than 5%.

After a relentless sequence of double-digit spending increases, this is absolutely essential.

I hope you other councilors will support them.

Creating a city budget this year with nearly level property assessments is going to be difficult.

It will be likely so for the next several years.

I'd like to offer you a suggestion that I'm afraid won't help you right now, but should be of considerable value next year.

All successful corporations regularly assess the performance of their individual divisions.

The city should do the same.

Every summer, say from May through September, each city department should be required to make a 20-minute presentation to council, which details their budget and staffing over the last five years, and which showcases their achievements over the past year.

How many people use parks and recreation facilities?

Has there been an increase or a decrease in the personnel in the finance department?

How many miles of new sidewalk has been facilitated by Public Works' own concrete mixer?

What is the enrollment, graduation rate, and cost per student in the schools?

This would allow those departments that are exceptionally well run to strut their stuff and those that are not to request maybe additional resources to help them.

It would allow you as the council to keep more easily abreast of these diverse activities and it would allow us, the public, to take pride in the management of our city.

For example, you had before you a proposal to allocate a specific proportion of our tax dollar to affordable housing.

Mayor Norris, I can't at this point support the proposal simply because I have no idea how effective spending in the past has been.

How many new units have been made available?

What has been the cost to the city per unit?

Had a public presentation been made last summer, you might have had a slam dunk.

but without a comparison with the other key city initiatives such as infrastructure replacement, fire and police protection, education, why should some taxes be earmarked for just one activity?

We often boast of the openness with which our city operates.

An annual review of departmental performance would be just one more way of keeping the public informed.

When we return to a two-party government with Republicans on council, we can expect more such initiatives to keep our government open.

Thank you, Mr. Foltz.

Good evening, my name is Gloria Beare and I live at 1116 Page Street and I have a very, very big concern.

When the new housing, I know y'all are familiar with, that was built on Page and 10th, well at the entrance where that is, that's caution light, when you try to turn into Page, that's where I live, on the left-hand side.

Well, sometimes I have to stop in the middle of the road because cars all of a sudden would be coming out and I can't get through because they got all this parking on your right hand side where these new houses are and you can't get through and I'm so afraid there's going to be an accident sooner or later there unless they really, you know, make that caution line into a stop light and also if there's a dead end sign like on 13th Street further up

but at the entrance there is none and twice that one time some students came up they think they can go through there to get to 14th Street they hit one of the guy one of the neighbors fences on the left hand side almost tore it down because they got lost and many people get lost there and they have to turn and try to find a way to turn around and it's very congestive because the houses were built but there's no parking spaces

and one night a band came up to my yard, a long band, and got stuck in the mud in my yard.

He tore my yard up.

The guy could not back out because the mud was sinking into my yard and he couldn't get out so he had to get a tow truck to get himself out because he got lost.

So I hope y'all consider that because it's getting worse.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

My name is Ridge Schuyler and I'm the director of the Piedmont Program for the Nature Conservancy in Virginia and I'm a proud resident of the city of Charlottesville.

Like some of you here tonight and many of us out in the audience I have small kids so I don't come to every city council meeting so when I do show up it's usually to address a pressing environmental issue and I try to cram 20 minutes of information into three minutes I have allotted which is not terribly effective but in fact I've had somebody tell me after one of these meetings that listening to me at a public hearing was like drinking out of a fire hose.

So I actually had a judge once say that I argued like a chainsaw.

So what I thought I would do is instead of coming and trying to cram 20 minutes of information into three minutes, I would come over the next several city council meetings and talk in matters of the public just about the Nature Conservancy, why we're working in the Rivanna, and what it is that we're trying to achieve.

So I thought I would start those serial installments tonight with these three minutes.

I grew up just outside of Charlottesville and began working for the Nature Conservancy in September of 2001.

Our state offices by some quirk of history are located right on Route 29 here in Charlottesville rather than in Richmond.

There I have 45 colleagues to help me with my work here in Virginia.

It's always interesting to tell people where the Nature Conservancy's office is.

I say you go past the Walmart.

and the McDonald's and the Waffle House and there's the Nature Conservancy, protecting nature.

But we are a global conservation organization.

We work in all 50 states and 39 countries around the world.

In addition to the 45 colleagues I have working here in Charlottesville with me, there are 3,000 colleagues across the globe who help inform the work that we do here in the Charlottesville area.

The Nature Conservancy is a membership organization.

We have 34,000 members in the Commonwealth of Virginia, over a million members nationwide.

The Nature Conservancy, our mission is to protect the diversity of life on Earth and we've been at that mission for over 60 years.

We use science to determine where we work and we try as best as we can to find non-confrontational solutions to vexing environmental problems.

and while environmental protection is not directly the theme that you all have laid out for this evening which I know is affordable housing, I do think it shares with that theme a common thread which is trying to improve the quality of life and tonight we're going to talk about improving the quality of life by trying to improve the affordability of housing

What the Nature Conservancy tries to do is improve the quality of life by protecting the environment we all share.

And over the course of the next several city council meetings, I'll be talking about how we propose to do that and how we propose to address the issues faced by the Rivanna watershed.

Thank you, Mr. Fallon.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and council members.

I got my assessment this week and I know some assessments didn't go up any, but mine went up $11,000.

And in checking with the other little boxes on the street that I live on, those went up considerably also, anywhere from nine, nine on up.

I would like you council members to come down and look at my little street.

I am two, I am two blocks

of undeveloped area from the 1100 block of St. Clair and River Road to the 10-hundred block.

My area is taking that area into consideration as to how my assessments go up because I came today with the assessor's office and I'm going to appeal it.

So this, I think the system stinks because it does not take into consideration that unkept houses next door in areas and particularly in the street because it's become mostly rental and with the changes of ownership they have not kept their houses up.

My house is brick?

Yeah, because I'm married to a bricklayer and that's why it's brick.

So I'm very upset about it, and you know, you request more money in the budget each year, and you increase programs, such as a program, I know I hear it all the time about the EMS program at the fire department, with six additional employees, and who's going to do the insurance collections on this?

You know, you have to learn about Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, so you're going to have to hire somebody to do that too.

Also, I will touch on affordable housing later.

And I might touch on the police department.

They're one of my favorites because I've worked for them for 33 years.

And I don't know why you really need a committee because I think they're pretty good in governing themselves.

They have a chief that governs them.

And I'm sure that, and I know they have the best police officers

They're very professional and they're the best in the city of Charlottesville and I'm sure Albemarle County does as well.

It's not an easy job, but some citizens think negative toward them and are always ready to make complaints against them.

And I just wish that they would just be a police officer for one day just like the recruitment video is because it's a great video and it tells you what they do and what they have to go through with.

So, my hats are off to them.

Thank you, Ms. Roberts.

That concludes matters by the public.

Before we move to council responses to matters by the public, there are a number of empty seats in the room and there's a lot of people standing in the back.

If you are sitting next to an empty seat, could you raise your hand and anybody in the back that would like to fill in, please feel free to do so.

Or not.

Okay, we're going to now move to council responses to matters by the public and I'd like to just start with a quick comment in response to Ms. Hall's, where's Ms. Hall?

There she is.

Not only are public comments from here through the budget development process allowed in terms of efficiencies and savings in government, they're actively encouraged, so I want to make that very clear and I imagine the reason, I'll ask Mr. O'Connell to comment on your second question, I imagine the reason

The CD wasn't made available yet.

It's because it's not ready yet.

We haven't seen it yet, but I imagine once it's ready, then it'll be made available as in previous years.

The proposed budget, February 15th.

The current budget is on our website.

So as of February 15th next year's budget will be available as well.

Thank you.

Yes.

I would like to support the flag, the typical flag to the city hall on March 10th.

I don't know how that needs to be done but I would support it in every way to use all of them in many ways.

I have already answered the question of Colette Hall, I think it will be.

As to the 5% John Ford's comment, I think the whole council supports that 5% limit.

and I would like to, I guess Mr. McConnell and his staff to look at the 13th Street and traffic issues we brought up just for information.

I'd just like to respond to Mr. Cross and I certainly applaud his suggestion of having the departments really report on their performance and what they're doing and what they're achieving

and I think we're moving in that direction.

I think we're trying to do some performance indicators with the International City Management Association, but I think it is important to do that and also to benchmark what we're doing in Charlottesville against some other cities.

Mr. Long's comments on the need for a detox, Senator, I think is an excellent suggestion and I think we probably have a tremendous need in Charlottesville and I'm sure it's really difficult to get people a new hope.

particularly when you have someone that needs the service right away and then you have to figure out how to get them over there and do that so hopefully somehow or another we can take a look at that because I think it would be a real asset to our community because we certainly have a problem with that in the community so I would certainly support doing something with that.

Also the wheelchair incident was mentioned in

I think we have a committee that's put together to take a look at all the intersections now because it is a big issue and I will admit that it's pretty scary across some intersections in Charlottesville sometimes, even if you can move fastly sometimes it is.

And the other issue with them too is I guess is the fact that there's really not any uniform marking at the intersections.

And I think as I mentioned earlier, and I don't know what we'll be able to do,

I personally like the system where they tell you how many seconds left to tell you how long you have to get across the intersection before it's going to change because I think that's helpful.

Congratulations.

Oh, and if that being the case, I think that Gloria Beard had good points about the 10th and Page area, so maybe she would be a good candidate for that committee too.

There were so many comments about quality of life issues that I just don't even know where to begin.

I'm still spinning from it's scary to be in a wheelchair, because it is.

It's scary to be a drug addict, because it is.

It's scary not to be able to afford a house, because it is.

It's scary to have to live alone because there's nobody to take care of you because it is.

It's scary to wonder what's happening with the city budget because you really just wonder what's going on with the city budget.

And it's scary because it is.

It's scary that we want our children to be accountable for the grades that they make, but we need to have the same accountability for our employees and the quality of services we want.

And it's all very scary.

And public comment is scary because you never know what's going to happen next.

Thank you.

We're now going to move on to appointments.

I'd like to move that City Council make the following appointments and reappointments to the Citizen Committee on Environmental Sustainability,

Second.

Any discussion?

If not, please indicate your vote.

Motion carries.

Thank you very much.

We now will move to the consent agenda.

We have five items on the consent agenda tonight.

One is the item A is the minutes of January 7th, 10th, 14th, and 22nd.

Item B is a resolution to the amendment to the North Downtown Neighborhood Plan.

It's the first of one reading.

Item C is an appropriation of $750,000.

Stormwater improvements from the 2007 surplus, second of two readings.

Item D is an appropriation of $31,495.

for a domestic violence coordinator grant, the first of two readings.

And item E is an ordinance, amendments to the signed ordinance, the first of two readings.

Second.

Any discussion?

All in favor?

Thank you very much.

Motion carries.

We now move into the regular business portion of our agenda.

Tonight we have before us an affordable housing ordinance, which I know a lot of you are here to hear about and speak about.

And I'm going to introduce the ordinance.

before we open it up for public comment.

We will have plenty of opportunities.

We have a number of people that have signed up for the public hearing.

And if you haven't signed up, you're still encouraged and welcome to speak.

We will allow everybody to speak that would like to speak on this subject.

About a year ago, this council considered an affordable housing proposal that was brought forward by our Housing Advisory Committee.

and it was, I'll be frank, it was a very detailed, almost too detailed proposal that involved specific allocations of funding for specific purposes I think it got a little bit lost in the details and the money was approved by council in fact we've approved a significant sum of money in this current year's budget for affordable housing but the idea of a dedicated fund which was a centerpiece of that proposal was not approved

This year we are bringing forward a much simpler proposal which has built into it a lot of flexibility and I think avoids some of the complicatedness of last year's proposal.

And basically the gist of this proposal is that this would be an ordinance that calls for the equivalent of two cents on the real estate property tax dollar and 25% of lodging taxes to be automatically dedicated each year for the city's affordable housing fund

and I say equivalent of 2 cents and 25% because one-time money such as surplus dollars, economic incentive funds, etc.

can be used to offset the actual tax revenues.

Again, towards this goal of allowing more flexibility.

Each year, based on feedback from our Housing Advisory Committee and the Community Development Block Grant Task Force, Council itself would decide priorities for the use of these dollars.

In the coming fiscal year, to the disappointment I know of some of you in this room, the formula set forth by this ordinance would actually result in a 20% decrease in housing funds from the current fiscal year.

But as city revenues grow in the years ahead, the idea is that a small percentage of those revenues would be set aside for housing.

If the economy goes south and revenues decrease or flatline, so too would the size of this fund.

The way it's structured, it will not eat up a greater and greater proportion of the city budget each year.

I want to show you a chart which shows the fiscal impact of the proposed ordinance.

What you see on the right, and I know you can't really see this very well, but what you see on the right is the equivalent.

This is the city's budget for FY09.

It'll be roughly $140 million in the budget.

Now, if you get out your magnifying glass, you can see

On the column to the left is the size of the allocation that this ordinance would result in which would be for this coming year 1.734 million dollars or about 1.2 percent of the city's budget.

I wanted to give you an idea because I think there are some who are worried that it might be too big of a

too big of a hit on the budget or forces to make cuts in essential city services.

And I think, well, I just disagree with that.

I think, now the other thing to keep in mind is that this 1.2% is the total amount of revenue that would be dedicated to this fund, not additional revenue beyond which is already proposed in the budget.

This next chart shows

the amount of new or additional revenue that would be needed to fulfill the goals of this ordinance in next year's budget, which is, as you can see, zero.

There is already enough funds in this proposed budget to meet the goal of this ordinance.

And I say that to reassure anybody that, again, this is not an ordinance that's going to bust our city's budget.

Now, will it elevate the priority of affordable housing as a line item in future budgets?

Undoubtedly yes, this is precisely the point.

Will it be a budget buster?

And again, I would refer you to this, which is

It's proportionally about what it's going to look like in terms of the impact from year to year.

However, if at any point in the future council decides that it is too big of a piece of the pie, or if someday we meet our goal of ensuring that all city residents have access to safe, decent and affordable housing, any future council can change the funding formula at any time or repeal the ordinance outright.

Now why is it so important, why do some of us feel that it's so important that we take action on this issue?

I'm not going to read all the studies and talk about all the surveys that have been done, but I do want to mention a couple of them.

Within the past year, the Commission on Children and Families here in Charlottesville conducted a comprehensive study of human services

needs in our community.

It involved many people and many organizations that conducted 25 focus groups involving hundreds of people in our community.

They looked at a whole broad range of studies in our community, invested a lot of money and time in this study.

and I think it's notable that if you look at the summary of their findings, the number one recommendation that this committee came up with after doing all this work and talking to hundreds of people and surveying the work that's been done in our community, the number one recommendation from this committee is expand affordable housing options both rental and owner occupied in Charlottesville and Albemarle.

I don't think it's coincidental that some of you are here with the Impact Group, which also conducted probably hundreds of conversations with people throughout this community and also came up with the same finding.

Our own city, we did a survey of citizens in 2006.

which found that no other issue between the year 2000 and the year 2006, no other issue rose higher in priority among citizens who are surveyed than the need to invest in affordable housing and no service rose higher in citizen dissatisfaction between 2000 and 2006 than the city's efforts to provide for affordable housing.

A couple of years ago the Chamber of Commerce put out a report

The title is Housing, the number one issue in the number one community.

Now the irony of course is we are no longer ranked number one.

We are now ranked number 17 and I say irony because one of the main reasons that we got knocked down in the ratings is because our housing is too expensive.

Again, another study that was conducted recently, the State of Housing Report by the Planning District Commission found a huge gap in the availability

of affordable rental and home ownership housing for our residents.

I could go on.

Many groups have come to the same conclusion that we have to make a higher priority of affordable housing, investing in affordable housing.

For lack of affordable housing, our citizens have to make very difficult choices, and I'm not going to go through them all because I suspect we'll be hearing about some of them in the public hearing.

I think there's some legitimate concerns that have been raised about the ordinance that we'll be considering tonight.

I don't want to dismiss those out of hand.

One of the concerns is, you know, people will say, I like the idea of supporting affordable housing, but I'm not comfortable with the idea of dedicating revenues in the budget for this purpose, or for any purpose for that matter.

And I think it's important

to note that there are quite a few dedicated revenue streams in this budget already.

This is not a novel idea to dedicate resources to a specific need.

For instance, off the top in any year, and some of these are official policies and some of these are more traditions, off the top

Forty percent of new property tax revenues go to our schools.

Twenty-five percent of lodging taxes are dedicated to our convention and tourism bureau.

Three percent of general fund revenues are dedicated for capital improvements.

There's a one percent for ARC allocation in the capital improvement budget.

One cent on the meals tax is dedicated every year to debt service.

There are any number of user fees in the budget, such as golf course rental fees, which are dedicated to specific purposes.

In that case, golf course maintenance.

We've talked about implementing a new EMS service and one of the conversations that we're having now is about implementing billing as a way of paying for that service and the proceeds from billing, if it does pass, would be dedicated to paying for, helping to pay for an EMS service.

There's been talk about creating a dedicated revenue source for stormwater.

Why a dedicated fund?

Over 300 localities around the country have established dedicated funds for affordable housing and they found this to be the best and most effective way of preserving and promoting affordable housing in their communities.

The idea being that a sustained commitment of funding makes it easier to plan housing initiatives and leverage matching funds from state, federal, and private sources.

And many of these communities are seeing a multiplier effect of six or seven times or more for every local dollar that goes into their fund.

It's really a situation that requires, in my opinion and a lot of people's opinion, a concerted long-term commitment to address the situation.

Another concern that's been raised, I think a very legitimate concern is, is this just the city of Charlottesville going it alone?

And are we taking on the burden of the affordable housing problem for the whole region?

And I think there's legitimate concerns about that.

And I think we've also, to this council credit, just in the last year or two, really have taken steps to engage the broader region in a productive conversation about how do we create regional solutions to this regional problem.

We are now engaged in a task force with the University and with Albemarle County to look at regional solutions.

We've worked through the Planning District Commission on things like the State of Housing report and through our home allocation to come up with regional solutions.

and those are all very positive things but I still feel and a lot of us feel that we owe it to our current city residents who are struggling with high housing costs to make a sustained commitment of city resources as one small piece of the overall puzzle that's necessary.

And then lastly in terms of concerns that have been raised is why aren't we asking the development community to do more?

Why aren't we putting more pressure on developers to contribute

affordable units or affordable funds?

And the answer is we are.

With the leadership of some of our city staff and the Planning Commission, we've been actively working with developers to come up with a proper policy.

We have a bill before the General Assembly right now which would allow us to implement stronger incentives for developers to contribute affordable housing units.

I want to publicly thank our local home builders and our local development community for being very cooperative.

They see this as a real win-win opportunity.

I'm pleased to say at its meeting last week, our Housing Advisory Committee, which we have charged with responsibility for advising city council on housing issues, unanimously endorsed

The proposal that we have before us today with some relatively minor wording changes that we can get into later.

And then I'll conclude by saying that I understand that there are several counselors who are hesitant

at this time to commit to a dedication of housing funds without knowing specifically how it's going to impact other fiscal priorities in this upcoming budget.

And if it will reassure those counselors that we can make this work in the confines of our fiscal year 09 budget, I'm willing to suggest that we postpone the second reading, i.e.

final passage of this ordinance

and schedule that vote to occur simultaneously with adoption of our FY09 budget so that it can be incorporated as part of our discussions about the budget for next year.

That's all I'm going to say for now.

I guess questions come.

You'll have a copy of this.

as we go through this program tonight.

We also have this electronically so we can show people at home, but it's just the current dollars that we're spending both in the last budget year, the year we're in, what we'll be proposing as a city staff in the budget that comes to council in March.

This chart that I just gave in council

looks at dollars that we've committed to housing already, what we have in the current budget and then what is proposed next year and then it calculates what this proposal's dollar amounts are.

I guess the one direct comment I might just add

I agree with Mayor Norris that there's not an issue I think in the proposed budget.

I think we're awfully close to what this is talking about.

Probably the issue from my perspective is the future.

Everybody knows the real estate economy has dramatically slowed down.

and that slowing down means any revenues that are available for this program or other programs.

I think we're going to see a dramatic difference in a year.

We're already seeing that with local governments in the region.

And so as we consider a proposal like this, I think you need to look at what the long term implications of that are.

This chart begins still a little bit of that for next year.

Thank you, Mr. O'Connell.

Last year, in response, I think, to the impact group and in response to the

the CHIP proposals we adopted in the CIP essentially a $5 million, five-year plan to put money into affordable housing, is that correct?

And that was a big, I mean, that was on top of everything else we had already been doing, so that was a lot of new money, is that correct?

What I've heard in, I've got a lot of emails you might imagine, is a lot of emails say they're especially concerned that we were decreasing our funding for affordable housing.

So I guess my question is from Mr. O'Connell, are we backing away from that commitment?

We're following that commitment in the five year plan.

It's what's proposed in the budget.

Where I think people are talking about, Council's had the opportunity this year with surplus monies that are available because of a good economy to make two decisions to put indicative.

One is one and a half million dollars and another is that we'll see come up in next year's budget of five hundred thousand dollars.

So that's two million dollars on top of the five year program that Council approved last spring when the budget was approved.

My second question is, since I've been on council, there are a number of programs that we've had

For example, giving assistance to the elderly to help them pay their real estate taxes if they're low income, or for people who are disabled to help them pay their taxes if they're low income.

We've been giving money to help with down payment assistance.

The tax relief initiatives you're referring to are separate, separate line item in the budget.

And my third question is, you made a point that there are a number of other dedicated funds.

Okay, so for example, when we dedicate 40% of new revenues to the schools,

That's not based on an ordinance directing us to do that.

That's correct.

We've established a tradition to do a policy or maybe a formal policy.

I don't know, although I never voted on policy to do that.

That's correct.

I should have noted the ordinance specifically says that the allocation of resources is subject to annual appropriations, which makes it by definition part of each year's annual budget development process.

Unless there's no other questions, we're going to open up.

There's a lot of people here that have signed up to speak.

And again, if you haven't signed up, you will be given a chance to speak.

As with our matters from the public, please keep your remarks to three minutes.

And if somebody has said something substantially similar to what you were going to say, feel free to say ditto.

And I would ask in the interest of time, I know there's a lot of enthusiasm in the room, I'll allow you one round of applause after, but please try to abstain from applause after every single speaker just to keep us moving forward.

Thank you very much.

Hey, Campbell.

I've lived in the city since 99, and I've been in the area since 74.

I've worked at the University of Virginia Medical Center since 76, and I cannot comment on the fiscal accountability of

The proposal for funding for affordable housing, but I can say that I've worked with many people over the years who had a great deal of difficulty affording housing in the area, many people that had to live far away

and drive to the city back and forth, which of course cut down on family time and affected the overall productivity.

So I believe the city should pass the Affordable Housing Fund.

If a city values beauty, peace and fairness, it should not bring forth a debate of whether to fund the organizations that help promote these values.

My concerns are based on what can happen in a city where the average person is not valued.

So please do make these decisions to support the citizens who support this city.

Thank you.

My name is Elizabeth Kuchon.

I live at 126 Bowlingwood Road.

I've lived in the city for 35 years.

This is the first I heard of this ordinance.

Mayor pushes housing fund.

Norris wants portion of real estate levy, lodging tax set aside.

I don't doubt the need for affordable housing.

I do not think that

and Earmark specifying an ordinance specifying a revenue stream specifically for this is the way to go.

Affordable housing is just one of many needs competing for the city's tax dollars.

With limited revenues and a limited tolerance for taxation on the part of the citizens who pay taxes

Our elected officials must make value judgments in every single budget cycle, weighing the need for subsidized housing with the needs of our schools, our transportation system, our crumbling sewer pipes, and so on.

These needs should compete every year on a level playing field.

The problem is regional.

I just heard Mayor Norris say, well at some future time if we've met all the needs for affordable housing, let me tell you that will never happen.

If you build it, they will come.

I don't think I as a taxpayer in Charlottesville should meet the needs of the poor in Albemarle County, Fluvanna, Green, Buckingham, Nelson, and so on.

This is a regional problem.

It needs a regional solution.

I think we should keep pressure on the university to pay a living wage.

That would certainly go a long way towards

making the people who work at the hospital, for example, making their lives better.

I'd like to ask each of the counselors who support the idea of earmarking tax dollars in perpetuity for one purpose, what other programs they're willing to cut in perpetuity or willing to ignore what other needs of our city they're willing to ignore.

Setting budget priorities involves making difficult choices.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Rosa Kinney and I do reside here in the city of Charlottesville.

What bothers me is about the affordable housing.

Because if you speak about affordable housing, what is it about the people that make somewhere around about $15,000 or $20,000 a year?

They can't compete with people that makes $45,000 or $50,000 and up a year.

So my thing is how do you all judge

and make the decisions of affordable housing.

You know, on what the people are placing, people that just, you know, make the minimum wage.

They can't buy a house like somebody to go in here and make $50,000 a year.

And I'm sure we're all seeing pretty much the same thing, but

The organization here that I know about is Piedmont Housing and I would say to anyone that is working with that and you all as counselors, please try to keep this program going.

It is a good program and you do have one wonderful lady there and I worked with her.

Now you're not going out and get a house overnight or in two or three weeks or months, but stick with them and look.

You have to go ahead and look for yourself and try to find something in your price range.

And I really hope that you all will try hard to keep Piedmont Housing going.

It is a good program.

Thank you, Ms. Kennedy.

My name is Lynn Weiber and I live in a homeless shelter.

I urge you all, please, to dedicate this money.

I'm sorry, I just saw that slogan.

A great place to live for all our residents.

25% of the residents of this city live below the poverty line.

All of us need rental housing.

We're not looking at buying a house.

We just want a place to live.

I can't pay $600 a month.

It's going to take all of us living in our shelter, working full-time, if we can get $8 an hour, about four to six months to come off the money to get into an apartment.

And that's if we get a blow-up bed and can find a landlord.

We don't just need money.

We need subsidies.

We might even need a few programs, because programs out there don't have much money.

And we need protection from city council from unscrupulous people that run non-profits like Mary Washington and the hopefully now defunct Compass.

Which, as I recall, still owes city council about 12,000, or the city, $12,000.

We need some dedicated money.

We need some people to make sure that the 25% of Charlottesville that can't get affordable housing, the couch hops that sleeps in the city streets, which I understand region 10 is actually collecting tents and sleeping bags so that part of their population, when the shelter season is over in March, gets shelter from the rain.

I mean, that's how bleak things are in Charlottesville now for 25% of the population.

There are four shelters in Charlottesville now, two illegal ones and two legal ones.

And one of those legal shelters, the Salvation Army, is collapsing.

They've closed their medical assistance program.

We need that money, and I hope that all of you will take that into consideration.

Yeah, I know, some people have to pay taxes for that.

But most of us in those shelters, we pay taxes too in our day.

In my case, I got run over by a student, and I was on the sidewalk when that happened.

And I didn't plan to have that happen that day.

And a lot of people in those shelters, they have disability checks, but those disability checks do not pay for housing in this city.

And there's not enough public housing, and there's no disability housing unless you're so sick that somebody else has to take care of you.

And Mr. Taliaferro's right.

If you have a substance abuse problem,

and you're a female in this area, you don't get to go to New Hope, you have to go to Boxwood.

And if you're drunk in public, you go to jail.

If you're a man and you're drunk in public, you get to go to a sobering up shelter and you don't get charged.

So yeah, we need something in Charlottesville.

Thank you, Ms. Weier.

Mr. Tom Leland.

I don't feel that reverent tonight.

Mr. Mayor, council members, Tom Leland, I'm pastor of University Baptist Church, 1223 West Main Street here in the city, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak.

As a middle class citizen, I have an idea as to how many middle class citizens think in relation to social needs and social problems.

Some people look around, they say the problems are enormous,

There is really nothing that can be done.

They throw up their hands, they walk off having convinced themselves that there is really nothing they can do to solve the problems.

Some people work and see the same problems and say the problems are enormous.

But because they have a small social conscience, they cannot bring themselves to completely walk off from the problems.

And so they'll make a donation or they'll write a check when it's convenient or if they have the money.

And then

they'll at least convince themselves they've done something.

But then there are a group of people, I believe, who look at the problems and they say, yes, the problems are enormous, but they are worth trying to fix, worth trying to tackle.

And so they give their finest effort, sustainable efforts, into trying to make a difference, and they do make a difference.

For many years, I think the Charlottesville city government was in the first category of people when it came to issues of affordable housing.

The problems were great and the problems got greater as property values have gone out of sight here.

Last year, I believe the city government made a step in the right direction by budgeting $2.1 million toward affordable housing.

While this was a good first step, if we are to truly be a great city, we must make a sustained effort each year to ensure that affordable housing is a priority for our less fortunate citizens.

This I believe will happen when we make a commitment to ensure that affordable housing is dealt with equitably each year.

It will not happen when we budget the money only when we happen to think we have the money, but when we make this need a priority and a percentage of our annual budget.

I strongly urge you to pass this ordinance to create a sustained and dedicated source of revenue for affordable housing in the city of Charlottesville.

I also encourage you to keep as a priority

Families that earn under 30% of the area median income in their housing needs.

If we do this, we'll make a significant difference in the lives of our less fortunate citizens.

Thank you.

Good evening city councilors.

My name is Latita Owens and I am a resident in one of Charlottesville's housing units.

I attended Living Water Christian Center where I became a part of Impact.

I'm a single mother with goals, dreams and aspirations.

I'm inspired to become a self-employed business owner in the near future.

I dream to one day be able to come home to my own owned home

in the community that is affordable to me.

A home where I would be able to pay my mortgage and still be able to manage financially with monies left over from my paycheck to pay my utility, car note, insurances, daycare and personal items as well.

Affordable housing to me is important because I am one who was a victim of homelessness due to affordable housing at age 14.

Though mom recovered a stable home environment for us to live in, it was hard for us to manage mom being a single parent herself.

We lived from check to check, Rob and Peter to pay pole, sometimes home to pay electric, but not the phone, leaving no way for us to contact mom.

Sometimes we had to pay the water but not pay other things like gas.

Either way, we were affected in the lack of monies after mortgage payments.

Currently what's considered affordable housing in Charlottesville isn't financially attainable

to a single parent with one income.

We need both truly affordable rental housing and home ownership in our community, giving us a chance to prove to ourselves first and you all that if given a chance, we are fully capable of maintaining a lifelong residence we can call home, but it has to be affordable.

If you city councilors will not just consider but act

In all efforts to accommodate myself and others who have the same interests, we can make sure that myself and others of the community do not become a part of the rising statistic rate of homelessness families because there is no affordable housing.

I believe that this will alleviate as well a lot of us who have to work two jobs to maintain a home leaving homes and children neglected until parents are able to return home or individuals without children experiencing burnout or even working hard and honest all their lives but have to live two to three families in one household to afford mortgage payments.

Please pass this ordinance for dedicated revenue streams so that this year and in the future years we will be able to accommodate thousands of families who need affordable housing.

Again, I know there's a lot of enthusiasm in the room, but we do want to keep things moving forward.

Melinda Whitehurst, please.

Hello and thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I'm Melinda Whitehurst and I support the proposal to increase affordable housing in the city.

I urge you to adopt a sustainable funding stream in order to decrease the burden of finding an affordable place to live for the people of Charlottesville.

I ask that you make a real commitment to affordable housing, not just a one year allocation of funds.

I work with families in the area who have children under four years of age.

Many of these families struggle with finding a safe, affordable place to raise their children.

This is such a difficult task for families that it often forces them to be transient.

One family I visit is in their third home since July.

It's a home filled with many adults, some related and some not.

Their oldest child has been to four different schools and he's not completed his kindergarten year yet.

The purpose of my program is to make sure that children are developmentally on target and to promote school readiness skills.

This is very difficult if families are constantly worried about their housing.

These worries include where to find housing they can afford, how to pay for it, that the house is clean and in good repair, and that it's in a safe neighborhood.

One of the goals of our community is that all children start kindergarten ready to learn.

If families are constantly worried about finding affordable housing,

It makes it more difficult for them to promote learning and to develop secure bonds with their children.

In order to do these things, they need a stable home, especially for this period of their lives when their brain is developing faster than any other time.

This past week, I polled the families I visit and coworkers about affordable housing.

The responses were eye-opening about what a need there is.

A co-worker said it's terrible.

She went on to say that it's especially difficult for families living paycheck to paycheck that are just trying to make it.

In her family, both parents work full time, yet they were homeless for five months this fall when they lost their housing due to the landlord's parents moving to town.

They looked for seven months before they could find an affordable place to live.

During this time, they paid numerous application fees to different landlords,

none of which was refundable.

According to statistics from Charlottesville city schools becoming homeless is not unusual.

The city of Charlottesville had 240 children last year become homeless.

This number is the number that became homeless not the children that started the year homeless or children that were living with other families or relatives for long periods of time.

Another parent I spoke with who's a single working parent of two young children

so that the prices are difficult and if you try to get help the list is so long you have to wait forever.

She just wants her own home where she can raise her children according to her standards and goals.

I want to end by reminding you that children raised in this world-class city deserve at the very least a safe place to live in a safe house and neighborhood.

I urge you to adopt this policy for the families and children of Charlottesville.

Thank you.

I was just trying to put it in context.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Justin Connor.

My name is Justin Connor.

I work at the

I live at the Buchenwald dining hall and someday I want to live in the city and I can answer number five and then number seven, two word.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you Mr. Conner.

Hi, I'm Tom Toomey.

Most of what I was going to say, much of it is already covered by Mayor Norris, so I will make my comments brief.

You know one of the things that we keep doing is pointing the finger at somebody else or at something else and you know that just doesn't address the problem.

The comment was made about well if we just increase wages, well it's true if we gave a sustainable wage to everybody we wouldn't have a housing problem but that's not what we do in this nation and that's really unfortunate.

We talk about the county should do this and the county says the city should do this and IMPACT is working with both to try and pull them together and both are working to address this problem.

So it's really important to just take care of your part of it and do it sincerely.

We talk about having a sustainable fund and that putting potential burden on the future.

Well, you can't build and develop housing without having a reliable hunt funding source.

Developers just don't work that way.

This is a major structural problem and it needs to be dealt with with a sustainable fund and that has been documented nationwide.

Why start blaming something else from doing this?

It's going to come away from that or it's going to come away from this.

What's happened is that this is really needed.

I'm going to quote the city council's vision statement with respect to housing.

It says, quality housing opportunities for all.

Our neighborhoods retain

a core of historic fabric while offering housing that is affordable and attainable to people of all income levels, lifestyles, and abilities.

If you, after this hearing, you'll hear much more than this during the hearing, but after this hearing here tonight,

If you vote against this proposal, I hope you will fully explain your vote and how it is consistent with the city vision that you, the city council, claim to be supporting.

Thank you.

Travis Harris.

Good evening, council.

My name is Travis Harris.

I'm representing CMFBC.

and Impact.

Impact, an organization representing 28 congregations, more than 1,600 people that we can gather in one moment and 7,000 people within our congregation.

Impact wants to see a dedicated revenue stream and bold and sustainable funding for affordable housing.

You all are already aware

of the Thomas Jefferson State of Housing report.

There are so many statistics that are out there.

I actually have them all here.

But I actually plan to share something different.

And I was reflecting on the comments that have already been made.

And one comment has already been made that 240 churches became homeless.

Well, actually, one study has shown that children who live with families with income below $15,000 are 22 times more likely to be abused than those with annual incomes of $30,000 or more.

I can actually personally testify to that statement, because I'm an individual who grew up with one mother in the inner city.

and constantly, I went to five different elementary schools, three different middle schools.

We moved from city to city, neighborhood to neighborhood, house to house.

And everywhere I went, I tried to create friends.

I created friends, they would move.

I'd go into a school because we didn't have enough money.

Constantly, I was teased, picked on.

Social abuse.

At times, societal neglect.

I know it's hard, I know it could be a hard decision to make.

I know there's many other priorities within the budget.

But think about my story, and think about the many other stories that you do here.

A child, that even to this day, sometimes I have to remind myself that no, I'm not less than average, not a less than average citizen, that I am a full human being, that I do have a heart, I do have rights.

That too should be considered to be helpful.

Mr. Mayor, Councillors, my name is Greg Witchallens.

I live in Fry's Springs and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

The topic of affordable housing brings me here.

I come, however, to speak of poverty.

Poverty has a self-generating condition.

I believe the true cost of poverty cannot be shown on balance sheets or city budgets.

The true cost of poverty is loaded onto the shoulders of children of lesser opportunity and carried into the future, their future, your future.

They become the products of poverty of circumstance, low income, unstable living conditions,

job instability.

Poverty often is just that, circumstance.

The way it seems to me is the weightiness of circumstance loaded on these small shoulders weighs down the spirit, unravels the self-esteem, erodes the dignity.

This, I believe, is what children of lesser opportunity are asked to carry into their future

and into the future of this city.

The losses in terms of human potential may well never be known.

What is needed is open doors for these children.

The first open door, stability at home.

I believe making housing more affordable for the parents of these children, a stability can be fostered that gives these children a baseline security.

This is a good first step on the stairway to new opportunities.

Counselors, you and you alone as determinants of the city budget have the opportunity to choose.

Choose between business as usual and a new future for these children.

You can seize the higher ground.

and decide what the future of Charlottesville will be about by dedicating funding for affordable housing.

There will be detractors, many comments about such an action, but I doubt these comments will come from these children as adults.

They will be in a better position to realize their own potential and that may be the best investment any of you can ever make in the future of this city.

Thank you, Mr. Hutchins.

Peter Loach.

Good evening.

Peter Loach, 1620 Rose Hill Drive.

I'm also an employee of Piedmont Housing Alliance, but I'm not an employee at PHA.

I'm here, I work at PHA because I'm interested in housing and community development, not here as a PHA employee.

And I've spent many years in Charlottesville and many years overseas working on this housing issue.

And I think there are a few key issues that we have to look at as we make this decision.

It's not an easy one.

One is the fact that statewide and in looking at our federal budget we're seeing fewer and fewer resources for housing that come into the Charlottesville area and as those budgets are cut and as those resources diminish at the same time we have a higher demand for affordable housing in Charlottesville.

Localities across the country are having to fill that gap.

and they don't do it by year by year decisions.

They have to make substantial and dedicated budgetary decisions so that planning can occur and so that those resources that are so limited here can leverage other resources that are coming in from the federal and state level.

I think it's also important to point out that

Capital investments in housing are very different from other priorities that you might be looking at.

Housing from the social side touches on educational achievement, touches on public health, touches on social and human capital that's developed by individuals and by families.

If you talk to any social worker in the Charlottesville area, they'll tell you that a lack of affordable housing is a core element to the problems facing the families that come through their doors.

It's also an economic issue.

There's a reason why when economists in Wall Street look at how the U.S. economy is doing and look at how our housing starts.

Housing as infrastructure, housing as investment is one of the core elements of our economy.

and to think that spending a dollar on housing will not have an economic impact is to look at it wrong.

I think somebody mentioned that maybe we should see exactly what the economic rate of return is on city dollars being spent on affordable housing.

I think that's a great idea.

I spent many years at the World Bank working with economists on that throughout the world.

But let me tell you, in the end, housing is one of the most lucrative public investments that you can make.

and we're in an emergency now.

It's not the time to say the house is burning down, which hose is going to have the greater rate of spraying water and which retardant is going to have a greater rate of retarding a fire.

It's really time to step up

leverage the funds that we have at the state and federal level and recognize that through these investments our kids will have better achievement and our families will have better public health as well.

Thank you, Mr. Loesch.

Thank you.

Good evening, Councillors.

My name is Ian Soler.

I live in the county

I'm also a businessman of about 30 years and I work for some very large companies and I'm afraid to tell you that your budget is no different from any other company budget.

There is never enough money and I mean that quite seriously and I think that gets to the crux of this particular issue.

I don't think there are many people in this room that will argue with the need that we're here to discuss this evening.

The question, and I've heard it many times this evening, is a question of priority and a question of choice.

and so I'm here to take a slightly different approach and I offer you with the greatest respect a model that you may want to consider when deliberating on this particular issue.

The model is a world renowned and time tested model and I'm sure you're very familiar with it.

It is called Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and I'm sure you've all seen the pyramid.

You all know

The theory, the model, and it does work.

And for those of you at the back, that's what it looks like.

At the base of this pyramid, at the base of this model, are the most funder mental needs of the human being.

It includes food, water, and shelter.

And as Maslow discusses, and any businessman will tell you,

The human being has to go through the steps one step at a time.

Unless they have those basic fundamental needs, they cannot progress through the other four stages of development.

To security, to love, and a sense of belonging, yet alone self-esteem and final self-awareness.

This isn't an issue of increasing the quality of life.

This is an issue of providing access to the most basic fundamentals of life.

I ask you to support Mayor Norris's proposal and do everything you can to support making more affordable housing in this city and in this county.

Thank you very much.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Council members, thank you very much for this time.

I'm Robert Johnson, I'm the Executive Director of Region 10 Community Services Board and quite simply we're here to say that we believe that the idea of a designated revenue stream for affordable housing is a grand idea, it's an excellent idea and we completely support it.

Here's why.

Region 10 Community Services Board is a public agency charged with serving the needs of persons experiencing mental illness, substance use disorders, and intellectual disabilities.

The many challenges of our work include, as a treatment agency, that these citizens must contend with extreme poverty at times.

We also know that persons served by Region 10 on supplemental security income typically live at less than $8,000 annually.

This is very problematic and it creates a two-tiered population living in our city.

We're very proud that this affordable housing is going to also target the workforce that we so badly need, the police officers, firefighters, and also many of our staff.

There are 600 staff at Region 10, many of whom cannot get into the city to live because of their incomes.

But there is a sub-sub-class, sub-sub-group that I want to talk about tonight, and that is the consumers.

We have 6,000 consumers who come through our doors each year.

Did you know that it takes 102% of an SSI recipient's entire monthly check to pay for the average cost of a one-bedroom unit in Virginia?

Recognizing this, we have expanded our mission beyond treatment to quality of life issues, employment needs, transportation needs, and especially to housing needs.

We're an agent of the VHDA for housing choice voucher programs, and we assist consumers with housing subsidies.

We currently have 191 subsidy certificates, yet our wait list for these subsidy vouchers is consistently above 150.

We continue to form positive relationships with 30 or more landlords in the city and we've encouraged the establishment of two independent non-profit housing developers of which we are proud to help focus on the preservation and expansion of housing affordability to the people we serve.

So we have some successes and we have sought and received competitive housing grants through HUD and yet there remains a severe deficit of rental housing for low-income renters

in the city.

This is documented in great detail in the housing needs assessment and market analysis conducted by the Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech.

This report identified a deficit of 3900 affordable units for persons with incomes below the 30% of area median income.

Despite the obvious need, federal housing resources to assure decent, safe, affordable and accessible housing has been declining.

It seems to us that it is imperative that you continue to find ways to ensure that our local citizens are able to live in their home community.

So we applaud this initiative.

We want to lend all of the support that we can.

Hello Mayor and Councillors.

My name is Sayuka White.

I'm a resident in Charlottesville and many of the points that I was going to bring up have been brought up by other people.

But I did want to speak from my perspective as a housing counselor at the Salvation Army for a year and a half.

And this is the housing assistance program which

is a program to help people with rent and mortgage during a crisis that's beyond their control.

And it's targeted for people up to 80% of the area median income.

A lot of people have been speaking about some of the most vulnerable people down at the 30% AMI, but I was seeing people up to 80% and even over.

Some of those people were not eligible for our program.

These are people who had to demonstrate, the requirements of the program were that they had to demonstrate stable work histories, credit histories.

They had to be able to demonstrate that their crisis was beyond their control.

So we're not talking about people who had gotten themselves fired from a job or had managed their money poorly, but because of a sudden illness or

We also required in this program that people would be able to show a balanced budget once we assisted them and so I actually had to turn away a woman

because, and her crisis was the death of her husband, and we couldn't prove that within a six month period she would be able to balance her budget.

She had her house on the market, given the housing market being what it was, we couldn't guarantee that within six months she would be able to get back on her feet, so I had to turn her away.

And that's just one example of someone

who didn't fit the guidelines of our program, which are very strict.

Even among people who did fit the guidelines of our program, I typically ran out of the, this program is ultimately federally funded monies from HUD for preventing homelessness.

And so we would get a yearly allotment, but typically I would run out of monies within a few months of

the beginning of the fiscal year and so then I'd have to go to work for week after week just sitting with people who are about to be evicted or foreclosed and I had no money to help them.

and you might be saying that these persons should have been saving money for such emergencies but typically the budgets that I was working on were talking about 40% to 50% and it probably would have been higher but 50% was kind of my cutoff as far as

just sort of a guideline for somebody being able to balance their budget.

So at least 40 to 50% of our applicants' budgets were going towards rent or mortgage and that doesn't even include utilities.

So when you're working with those kinds of numbers, it's very hard to set aside savings.

So that's why I just really strongly urge you to vote for this ordinance because there's going to be

It's an extensive problem and requires sustained commitment and planning.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor and Councillors, Colette Hall, 101 Robertson Lane.

Yes, affordable housing is an issue in Charlottesville.

In 10 years, my real estate tax has risen 500%.

As a Charlottesville taxpayer, I would prefer council not dedicate by ordinance a revenue stream unless it is an item that would benefit all Charlottesville equally as water and sewer.

Are we going to dedicate revenue streams to them?

Do we already?

It is the word ordinance that scares me, Counselor Edwards.

Thank you, Ms. Hall.

Good evening.

I'm Joe Sakis and my family and I live at 1132 Otter Street here in the city.

and we're lucky to be able to own a modest home in Charlottesville because of the creativity of a lot of people who came before us.

When the bypass was about to be expanded near Birmingham Moran Elementary School, Dr. Hurt and his colleagues at Virginia Land Company decided that they were going to try to save some houses from being torn down.

So they picked them up and moved them across the bypass and put them back down and remodeled them and put them up for sale.

But even in 1994, with a modest price, the only way my family was able to move into that house and buy it was because Central Fidelity had a program where first time home buyers could put 5% down and become homeowners.

Since your bank was on trust, maybe you can encourage them to do something like that these days.

but a lot of other people aren't as lucky and including my colleagues at the Virginia Organizing Project and we do pay more than the living wage but they can't afford to live in the city and every day I'm wondering what my colleagues are doing we fight like crazy on environmental issues and we're ruining the carbon imprint as they're driving back and forth to their apartment because they can't afford to live in the city

We've already heard lots of stories tonight and it seems like we're going to hear lots more about people who need affordable housing and I want us to make sure that we don't focus just on low income housing because I think a lot of times people think that affordable housing means low income.

We have a lot of people from the disability community.

We have police officers, firefighters, teachers, my colleagues in the nonprofit community who cannot afford to live

in Charlottesville, and we need to change that.

While we need to acknowledge that Albemarle County and the University of Virginia need to be part of the solution, we also need to look at the lack of creativity of the city manager and his staff in trying to find solutions to this problem.

Besides dealing with the budget matters in front of you tonight and in the next few months, I hope that you'll strongly consider some personnel changes so that people can have that creativity that allowed my family to live in Charlottesville.

Thank you, Mr. Sakels.

Naomi Roberts, 747 Calavity.

I think one of the reasons we have a problem with unaffordable housing today is because of greed.

We have outsiders and we have investors coming into the city and Belmont is an example where they buy these houses for little or nothing and then build them up, renovate them and then sell them for high prices.

So that goes on all over the city.

Unfortunately, it's not on my street.

And I am against 2% of my tax dollars going toward affordable housing.

I'm not against affordable housing, but I don't think that my tax dollars should go toward it.

For instance, if I only pay my taxes, my house would be put up on the block.

And where would my affordable taxes, where would I get money for affordable housing?

I asked you that tonight.

I've heard some very sad stories and I can understand where they're coming from because my daughter works for Region 10.

She works with these people and I know what they go through.

But there should be other ways that money could be raised for these people without taking them from my tax dollars.

I'm a senior citizen and there are other citizens in the city that are in the same boat that I am living from month to month.

If my husband died today, I have to sell my house because I couldn't pay the taxes.

I might get a retirement from the city and I might get Social Security, but it would not cover, it would not help me sustain my living standards as I'm living today and it certainly is not above and beyond.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council.

I just want to say that I'm an individual whose primary source of income is social security, disability, and I know what it's like to

have most of your money used for housing and not have money for anything else.

I know what it's like to be evicted because you can't afford the housing that you're living in even when you were living with roommates.

I was fortunate to get a housing subsidy from Region 10, which put me in a better situation.

But there are many more people that I talk to day in and day out who are like me.

And I think that if you were to pass this ordinance, you would be sending a very strong message.

And the message is this.

Charlottesville would be a great place to live for all residents, disabled residents, low income residents, all residents.

and I think that

It's very important to do this because of the simple fact that not everyone falls into the low-income category.

A lot of people are disabled or they have different things, but we all deserve a right to simple, decent housing.

And if you pass this ordinance, that's what you're saying, that we are just like every other citizen and that's what we deserve.

Thank you very much.

My name is Paul Patrick and I'd like to speak on behalf of this ordinance because I helped start an organization which dealt with homeless for many years and I worked for it for 10 years.

and the problem is out there.

I believe that with this ordinance you can also obtain federal money as block grant money to level off with this ordinance.

There's funding sources to show the federal government that this city is willing to work on the issue.

and being able to obtain federal funds to offset, you know, the taxes.

Thank you, Mr. Patrick.

Good evening, Mayor Norris, city councilors.

I'm co-chair of the Charlottesville Housing Advisory Committee, a group created by Council, and I'm here tonight in abdication of the ordinance in front of Council.

I expect that everyone on Council believes that affordable housing is important.

It's low income housing in particular and it's a pressing issue in Charlottesville and the region.

Past city councils have allocated funds to various degrees towards this need on a year to year basis.

The problem is acute.

Housing issues are acknowledged to be of high priority by the council and the community is painfully aware of these problems.

I can put on my Charlottesville PTO President hat and state that teachers can't afford housing in this town, and it's a sad reality.

And it's also significantly impacting recruitment of teachers to our city schools.

So why is there opposition to the ordinance?

I understand that one major reason is making the allocation a fixture in the budget, not something that is decided on a yearly basis.

Council would rather take it a year at a time and not include it as a line item of budget.

First, I would argue that this is a matter of counsel taking a real stand on this issue and putting some teeth and commitment behind the words of concern.

I am involved in our city schools where SOLs, AYP, annual yearly progress testing, metrics and accountability are buzz words in reality.

Student learning is deemed locally and nationally to be very important and there are therefore teeth behind this educational system.

I strongly argue that you all put some teeth behind your support for affordable housing by supporting this ordinance.

Consider it AYH, Annual Yearly Housing.

The worries about how this may tie the hands of future councils are simply unfounded.

Certainly it will make it more public, a more public act to change the formula.

or even to remove it as a line item.

But that's the point, isn't it?

Second, look at our funding of education.

Something else we as a city believe is very important.

Historically, it's a foregone conclusion that education in this town will be funded.

I can't remember a budget where education has been decreased in its previous years.

Much of the school funding historically is essentially a light item in the budget.

The remainder is de facto.

We need to elevate housing, funding of housing, to this level of awareness and emotional commitment.

Third, there are also concerns about the county taking a ride on our hotels.

I've heard this argument often.

I know it's a reality that presses in, but I would argue that the cooperation with the city is improving, and particularly on housing.

There's currently a joint task force on this issue between the county and the city.

However, the bottom line really is, this is the right thing to do.

Are we going to spite our nose just to salve our angst with accounting?

One can say this needs a regional solution and that we should wait for one and wait and wait and wait as a problem gets worse.

This is not what leaders do.

And finally, fourth, it is important that nonprofits and developers have better than a year to year idea of what the funding reality is for housing projects in order to plan and realize projects more efficiently.

Come on counselors, do your homework.

Make it just a little harder to define low-income housing by supporting the proposal.

It needs your commitment.

I agree with many people who are here.

I've lived in this area since 1978.

I'm 35 years old and it hit me that only three months of my life have I been able to afford to live on my own without a roommate, without multiple roommates.

And that was in a cabin in Nelson County with no running water or electricity.

I was doing just a very quick calculation of approximately how much it costs just to move into an apartment.

It's close to $3,000 and most of that is deposits, 300 to 350 to the city for gas and water, of which there is little to no help that you can access anywhere for.

First, last month's rent and one month's security deposit.

Electric deposit of $60 to $180.

Boom.

$35.

Now that's also not including hookups.

So who has three grand lying around waiting just to go and then you say goodbye to that for a couple of years.

Because even though landlords are supposed to give you your deposit back after two years, most of them don't until you move out.

And a lot of the landlords in this town tend to find a way to keep most of your deposit unless you take them to court.

I've had plenty of experience with that as well as many of my friends have.

So you pretty much kiss $3,000 goodbye just to move.

Many people end up moving once a year, once every two years.

It's just the rents get raised, something comes up, and you get stuck in this position where you have to get, you have to agree to more and more substandard housing.

You have to agree to a landlord who you ask repeatedly to please do something about the ivy crawling through your window, that your toilet has been stopped up for three months and you can barely get it to work.

And you're forced to deal with that and you're forced to accept it because there's no other recourse if you want a roof over your head.

This has been a crisis in the United States in general.

And Charlottesville, I've seen it get worse and worse and worse over the years.

It's much worse than it was in the early 80s or the mid 80s when I was looking for a house for the first time and moving out.

It's gotten harder.

Most of my friends cannot afford to buy a home unless they have someone in their family die, which no one wants to hope for.

I do work at Region 10 and I see on a daily basis people struggling to find a home that's a decent home.

And that means so much to wellness overall is if you are allowed to live in a house that has sunlight coming in and that is a decent house that's not falling apart around you because it's the only thing you get stuck with.

And four year waiting lists on Section 8.

What are people supposed to do until then?

So I really do urge the city to seriously take a stand and say we're going to do something about this permanently.

Thank you.

I'm Oberton McGee from Habitat for Humanity.

I'm very aware tonight that we are preaching to the choir.

The three of you who've been on council a while have proven your commitment to affordable housing, and the two of you who have just joined council have proved your commitment to affordable housing in your life before council.

I know that also that you have many demands on you.

The city has many priorities and we certainly respect those.

I know that the public is ready for some paid EMTs in the city and that council views that as a priority.

Of course, we wonder where will those EMTs be able to afford to live.

We're justly proud of our fine police and fire departments.

but can those police officers and firefighters afford to live in Charlottesville?

The public wants more public transit and the city is responding to that but where will the bus drivers live?

We have excellent schools but our teachers' aides and our bus drivers and our cafeteria workers and our janitors cannot afford to live in Charlottesville.

We are very proud of our hospitals and nursing homes, but when we go to them, the certified nursing assistants who take care of us are commuting from Buckingham and Nelson and Green.

The Charlottesville Business Innovation Council has asked a very provocative question.

Do we want to be like Austin, where people can afford to live?

Or do we want to be like Aspen, where everyone who works there has to commute more than 50 miles?

Do we want to be Austin or do we want to be Aspen?

I hope you will view this as an investment.

As you know, most of the funds that you allocate in housing go out in the form of interest-free loans and come back, so this will function as a true trust fund.

Many of us remember the sad story of the Virginia Housing Partnership Fund, a state source for affordable housing.

The state put money into it for several years and then the first time the budget was tight they stopped.

No money has been put in the Virginia Housing Partnership Fund for seven years because there was no dedicated source.

Your actions last year took real political courage.

What we're asking you to do tonight takes even more political courage, and I recognize that.

But I also know that this is one of the reasons why each of you came on council.

So we appreciate your careful thought about this.

If this council does not dedicate a funding source for affordable housing, if you five folks who are dedicated to housing don't do it, I don't know who's going to do it, and I don't know whether it's ever going to happen.

So if not now, when?

Well, I really don't know what to say.

My heart goes out to all the people who can't afford to live in Charlottesville.

You know, when I first came here in 1956, I'm sure it was the number one place to live in the world or in the United States.

And now it's getting so crowded and the traffic's so high

I just wondered, everybody wants to live in Charlottesville.

Where are you going to put them?

I thought you were putting houses in every vacant lot in Charlottesville because you wanted more money to run the city.

But think of all the people living out in Buckingham and all these other counties that can't afford to live here.

How many more houses can you put in Charlottesville?

But anyway, that's just something I thought of.

I was worried about the precedence, the precedence of having an earmarked fund.

I know that you put two cents of our real estate money into a dedicated fund.

I know you're going to forget all about it and you're going to keep raising the rest of the real estate tax.

I'm a little bit upset about the real estate tax because I came here in 56 and I bought my house for $13,500.

I worked for the state.

I had too many children.

Four children.

That's outstanding for these ones about all they can afford now.

But anyway, I retired.

I started on $2,740 a year.

I retired at $35,000 a year.

I'm 80 years old in July, and you're taxing me out of my home.

Of course, I can always sell the home.

My house is worth a lot of money, thanks to

in a world because our population is overexpanding and we don't have enough, I didn't have enough sense not to have so many children.

But anyway, here's one of my points.

What was the budget surplus from 2006 and 2007 used for?

Was any of this money used for affordable housing?

If not, then why not?

Do we know where that, how many?

It started out in 2007 you had $9 million left over because you didn't reduce real estate tax two cents, what some of the counselors wanted to do.

What is this?

And then somehow it got down, what is it, $6 million?

You had $6 million surplus last year?

Was it 2007?

What about $6 million go to?

Why didn't it get affordable housing?

I want a list for the surplus of 2007 and 2008.

I want a list of 2006 and 2000.

I want a list to where that money went to.

Is there a list?

Good.

And I can come see you and get it.

Yes sir.

Alright.

That's good.

I said there wasn't putting

For the housing, I believe the public should know how to be good in accounting because it's our money.

And then I've got something else that I'll probably get to you later on.

My mother was, I was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska and my mother was a single mother and she had two children and she made $60 a month back in those days and

When I went to school, and I didn't like school, and I'd rather do anything but go to school, but I finally went to college, and that's about the first time I really enjoyed schools in college.

I think our high schools and our lower schools are terrible.

But anyway, that's getting on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dan Rosenzweig.

I don't see Dan in the room.

The next speaker is Tom Vandiver.

Sorry.

Took the old guard there.

Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, my name is Tom Vandiver.

I reside at 916 Druid Avenue.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.

I'd first like to commend you, as so many have tonight, for your attention to the problem of affordable housing in the city.

As someone who's grappled with the problem of affordable housing and also accessible housing in our community for a number of years,

I want to applaud you for your very meaningful and substantial actions in recent months to address this difficult issue and I hope these efforts will result in very positive benefits for our citizens.

But as a long time observer and student of our city government I feel compelled to tell you that while I embrace this very laudable objective

I have to express my serious concern about the mechanism that's being proposed tonight to achieve it.

Frankly, I feel that the use of an ordinance as an attempt to dictate budget allocations is very bad procedure and in fact is very bad government.

I understand that you want to make a very strong statement about your commitment to affordable housing and I think that you should.

and the proposed housing development fund that's been proposed that accrues contributed money from multiple sources including funds that this council and future councils may see fit to contribute is a very good idea.

But an ordinance which attempts to earmark specific tax revenues for a very restrictive purpose is extremely worrisome to me

and especially this ordinance which only creates really a false public appearance that future councils are bound to abide by it or that significant funds proposed for it will actually be allocated.

Ultimately, it's your vision, your judgment and your political will that determine the funds that will be appropriated to resolve our affordable housing needs and I urge you to allocate

the resources that you feel are necessary to address that goal.

Good evening Mr. Mayor and Councillors.

I'm here to encourage you very strongly to in fact create the structure that you all have proposed, to structurally facilitate

Two cents out of every dollar I pay for my property taxes at 760 Lexington Avenue.

I'm enthusiastic about the chance to write a check for my taxes and two cents on every dollar is going to go dedicated, totally committed to affordable housing.

That feels really great to me as a taxpayer.

And now why are we in this jam with

one out of every four of our neighbors living in poverty in Charlottesville we've got structural problems and unbelievably low wages in this area insultingly low wages as everyone has mentioned previously which make it impossible for people to be self-supporting through their own contributions through their own contributions to our society so we need to structurally address

this this problem and thank you very much for everyone who's been involved in writing this legislation because

it structurally addresses the issue.

Finally, from the very beginning of creation, we were encouraged that we are our sisters and our brother's keeper.

I honor about how you can't change all the structural things in our economy and the low wages that we have, but you can, each of you, you can weigh in on that board with a yes to this ordinance.

Thank you Ms. Peck.

My name is Carol Johnston.

I live at 413 Altamont Circle and I'm your appointee to the Region 10 board and I'm here to express our gratitude for this ordinance.

It's extremely important for our planning purposes and to get matching federal and state funds

for housing for our consumers, that we know that we can count on a certain amount each year.

It's vital.

We have, as Robert told you, over 150 people on our waiting list, and many of them have been on the list for many years.

What that means is these people are living in substandard housing.

or they're waiting in a hospital over in Stanton for housing to be available before they can be released into the community.

Our consumers have tremendous potential for growth.

but they have to be given the services and the basic needs so that they can acquire that growth.

I've seen phenomenal things happen when people are given the proper services at the proper time supported by other needs, basic needs, having needs that they, what they can accomplish.

It's just amazing what these people can do.

So I encourage you to consider making this a permanent commitment that the City Council is willing to make to supply housing for not only our consumers but for other people that need their housing support so desperately.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

That was the last person that had signed up to speak.

However, if there's anybody else that would like to come forward, you may do so at this time.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of council.

My name is George Johnson and I'm here tonight in support of the ordinance.

I live at 823 D. Hardy Drive and on behalf of the Public Housing Association of Residents Farr, Quality Community Council, Legal Aid MACRA, and the National Low Income Housing Coalition that I serve on, I encourage you to support the affordable housing ordinance.

As a member of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, I hear how often public housing is supposed to be transitional, and that we expect residents to be able to move up and out of public housing.

But when you factor in low wages, and the ever-increasing cost of rent, food, gas, and medical bills, let alone on home ownership, the question remains, where are we supposed to go?

I served on the CBGG task force and spent many hours trying to prioritize proposals put forward by our housing providers working to decide which way the project will not be funded.

Many seniors in their community have faithfully paid their property taxes year after year but cannot afford to make necessary repairs on their homes due to the rise in assessment.

The council's strategic plan calls for quality housing opportunity for all and I quote, our neighborhood remain a core historic fabric while offering housing that is affordable and attainable for people of all income level, life stages and abilities.

We have revitalized public housing neighborhoods that include a mixture of income and housing type and enhanced community amenities.

That is just not going to happen if we are forced to have the same conversation

year after year after year.

Even migraine babies know food, water, and shelter are basic needs.

This ordinance will commit just over 1% of the city budget to create dedicated funding stream to support our growing need for low-income housing, special need housing, transitional housing, workforce housing, and home ownership, making it possible to plan and prioritize how we will address our community needs.

If we leave it up to the market and developers,

This will soon become a city that very few of us can afford to live in.

We elected City Council because we believe it is not enough just to make strategic plans and not dedicate the funding necessary to carry them out.

That's the end of my statement.

The other thing that I just wanted to reiterate is that the fundamentals does not change.

The fundamental does not change.

Just like balancing your check and book, the bottom line does not change.

And I believe that if the city is receiving federal subsidies,

There are certain class of people that you must address in your strategic plan, that you must address in your budget.

And those are the low, extremely low, and homelessness.

And so often when I sit on boards, folks who sits on those boards that you all appoint don't get it.

and I have to fight to get them to look at me so they understand that I am one of those people who are bringing a message to the table.

Good evening Mr. Mayor, Members of Council, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Brown, Ms. Kochis, nice to be here again.

I'm a little nervous from the bright lights and standing down in the well and particularly following such an august group of citizens.

I too want to applaud City Council, the last two councils, this and the one before, for the very aggressive way in which you have confronted the issue that has been building up, I know, for 28 years since I've been working on affordable housing.

The moves that were taken at the last council, both from money in a programmatical sense, as the moves that are proposed here tonight are very good.

However, I cannot urge council not to support an ordinance.

Now, I'm not going to repeat what Tom Vandiver and Liz Kuchai said in that regard, but I think it's not only bad government, but is essentially smokes and mirrors.

Most, if not all of the programs in our city, and I speak of schools that have just the same deep problems even though we spend close to 60% of our budget on faith every year, year after year, and constantly raise it, are doing a fantastic job.

And next year, more money will go forward and they will do an even better job.

We have an internationally renowned fire department because year after year city councils before you came forward with the monies necessary to build that department.

Now there's no doubt we need to pay our firefighters as we've heard from many people more money so they can better afford to live in Charlottesville.

Chief Longo, the same thing, an award-winning top-notch police department.

Year after year, the funding increases.

When there are issues in crime, I can remember five or six years ago, community policing, which helped to solve some of the problems we had, didn't happen by ordinance.

It happened by the courageousness of the city council to step forward with the necessary funds and commit those funds over time.

So I would ask that you take a close, real close look.

I was encouraged to hear the mayor say that

The second reading wouldn't happen until April.

More time, I think.

I don't know that this idea, since it was only proposed this past Tuesday, is ready for prime time with an ordinance since.

I think what makes Charlottesville a number one city, whether we're ranked number one or not, certainly we attain that, is not its political leadership, but its political will.

and the cooperation of its citizens and the diversity of its citizens.

I have no doubt because of this council and the previous councils and the ones before you that the will to fund and attack the problem of affordable housing in all its range is here to stay just as in

achieving an award-winning educational system, an internationally renowned fire department, or a great police department.

So with great trepidation, I do not like to be on this side of the fence.

Acting almost as if I'm against affordable housing, but I'm not.

I'm just in the way that you've done it.

I think you can make commitments tonight of political will for this council for two years, not one, and the next council will not get elected unless they do the same.

The need for an ordinance is not a good way to approach it.

No other department in the city of Charlottesville or program in the city of Charlottesville gains its revenues from that except for the capital improvement program.

And in fact, nationwide it is very unusual.

It is very unusual.

One has to look at New Jersey in attacking this problem about 35 years ago and the way that they've done it

and it has helped, but it is not the only way to do it.

The best way to do it is political will that comes from the heart of the people of Charlottesville to the leaders of Charlottesville and then enforced in the methods that we spend our resources, not just financial, but our political resources as well.

Thank you, Mr. Caravaggio.

But as it's not uncommon, I'm going to disagree with Mr. Caravati.

One of my fondest recollections as a former city council is some of the first investments that the city made in affordable housing in partnership with the Piedmont Housing Alliance.

We began with the neighborhood of 6th and Brown Street and then we progressed to Hinton Avenue and then to the 10th and Page neighborhood and I know Mr. Huja will remember all of this very well because he was our strategic planner and he helped us fund many of these projects.

For each project, the Piedmont Housing Alliance came to council with a proposal that seemed to be a one-stop shop for affordable housing.

The PHA would purchase and rehabilitate whole blocks of housing.

They'd add additional houses on the street.

Then they'd offer them for sale to low-income residents, many of whom had already been prepared for home ownership by Piedmont Housing Alliance through their counseling program.

and then PHA would offer assistance to low income mortgages or low interest mortgages and down payments and closing costs.

Prior to this our housing initiatives had primarily involved a little paint here and a new roof there in scattershot fashion and this was the first concerted effort to work with whole neighborhoods and whole blocks.

and what today is most vividly evident from these successful projects is that while they effectively work to the benefit of the new homeowners who purchase the properties, these public private investments also worked to regenerate whole neighborhoods and entire areas of our community.

And we should remember that when we invest in affordable housing, we are also investing in neighborhood revitalization to the benefit of the entire city.

I've read the ordinance that you're considering tonight and I want to congratulate you for having this discussion of making a long-term commitment to affordable housing.

First-class cities get that way through sustained commitment to priorities and to providing the resources to back them up, both of which this ordinance clearly establishes.

But these are not enough.

They must be combined with visionary goals and a strategic plan for the future.

And if there is a weakness in this ordinance, it is that it does not go far enough.

It does not plan towards the future for affordable housing.

The process of setting priorities and goals for expanding the affordable housing investment fund should serve to maximize the benefits to be received from this public investment.

Making annual recommendations about spending the fund and waiting for proposals to surface every year is not the best strategy for making the best use of these funds.

These recommendations and proposals should be informed by a visionary plan.

A long-term sustained commitment of this magnitude should be wedded to a long-range plan for affordable housing.

A plan would address the important questions such as what do we want to accomplish with our public investments in affordable housing?

What percentage of the city's housing stock should be affordable by, say, the year 2020?

And how should it be distributed geographically?

How much can we expect these investments to improve the city's economy and the health and welfare of its citizens?

How should affordable housing responsibilities be shared between city and county, and is there a long-term agreement that can be reached and incorporated into a regional plan?

How can we use the best models that are working in other cities with similar profiles to Charlottesville's, for example, Burlington, Vermont, to guarantee the best outcomes?

A long range plan sets long and short term goals, establishes objectives, timetables and measurable outcomes and sets up a mechanism for periodic review of achievements.

A publicly vetted plan will also assure the public that their investment will have tangible and predictable outcomes for the entire city.

But a plan is not a static thing.

It demands updating and adjusting over time.

Are we keeping up with our goals?

What is working?

What needs improving?

And for those who are concerned about tying the hands of future councils by dedicating a so-called permanent fund to affordable housing, a bi-annual review of an affordable housing plan would give future councils the discretion to make adjustments and corrections as they see fit.

Congratulations to the council and city staff for engaging in this discussion and making a long-range sustained commitment to affordable housing in the city.

I would say, however, that this is just the beginning of your work.

Hi, I'm Tammy Laundrie and I live at 813 Locust Avenue, Apartment C. I am on disability and so I know exactly how much my money goes to.

It doesn't go anywhere.

I'm lucky to have $5 a month each time.

I did get an increase this year with my SSI of like $15.

So I believe I would be held by this and yet I hear so many other people that have come here today saying that

Well, they should be able to put away for savings.

They should be able to plan for this.

Well, unfortunately, when you're on social services or you have SSI and Regent Henn takes care of my money, I don't get any extra money.

So if I don't have money for toilet paper, I have to go without.

And so I don't know that these people that say we, it's like a blaming thing.

that it's our fault that we're so indigent.

And unfortunately, you can't really do that much.

I mean, I have mental illness, so it makes me more depressed.

So I can't even imagine if somebody had a car accident and lost the use of their legs or anything else and they're suddenly on disability and they need help like this.

Are some of those people that have been saying, no, I don't agree with this tonight, are they going to look at them and say, I'm sorry.

You don't deserve the money.

This is your fault.

It's just ridiculous.

I can't believe that there are people here in this town that feel that way.

Another thing that I want to bring up that this is about home ownership.

Well, affordable renting is hard too.

I know that a person living near me

their landlord did not fix the plumbing for over two months.

She and her kid had to take a bath in the sink because the bathtub would not release the water.

That's disgusting.

And so that might be another thing y'all need to look at another time.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm Peter Kleeman, I live at 407 Head Street in the city and as a part of the campaign for city council I know the issue of affordable housing was discussed at various venues and I know that there was a strong support from the community and in fact leadership from the community and we see many people here who are leading in this through IMPACT and other groups in

trying to make affordable housing a reality in our community and I know there have been commitments by people who are now sitting on council and leadership from council in this area so and many compelling statements by members of the audience about the need for some action to ensure that we are investing in our community and ensuring that we can have a diverse population

that we all benefit.

I don't mind at all, as some others have said, paying a few cents on my tax rate.

Although my taxes are a challenge for me as much as they are for other people, I feel like it's an investment that I would be making anyway.

I would give money to people who are homeless as I know they need them and I befriended many of them in my council campaign as well as just in being a downtown resident.

So I think there is leadership in this area.

And I think the question is not whether we should take some bold action toward meeting the needs of our housing, the housing needs in our community.

It's just what is the best way to do it and how to make a lasting commitment.

And I think there have been many good points made as well.

I'm at the end here.

Most of the strong points have been made.

But I think what we need to do is, whatever the mechanism,

I'm not afraid of council being bold and taking a leadership role and saying it's not important if other cities do not take action by ordinance.

We're Charlottesville.

We don't mind being in the front.

We can be a leader.

We can say that this is a good mechanism to do it.

We make a commitment

It becomes part of the discussion.

If we want to change it, then there will be a public discussion and there will be more public hearings about whether this is still a high priority issue for our community.

And if turning back our commitment on that is going to be detrimental to the well-being of our community as a whole.

So I encourage members of the Council to find whatever that mechanism is that they feel will commit them

and future councils to taking this issue seriously and to actually committing themselves on a percentage basis I think is a very good idea.

We in the community can then not worry about what is a million and a half dollars by?

What is 2.7 million dollars by?

We did 2% one year and now we're going to do 2.5 and we can look at

whether we're moving in the right direction, whether we're being successful, whether we can invest lower levels and have as good an improvement in our housing situation.

So to wrap up, I feel that the question is not what to do, it's just how to do it.

And I encourage you to be as bold and

and generous in this at the start because you can always back off and as many people have said in the past this problem is not going away anytime soon.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council and Mr. O'Connell.

My name is Karen Waters.

I rent a home at 1014 St. Charles Avenue here in the city.

I'm the Executive Director of the Quality Community Council and I am presently a member of the City-County UVA Task Force, the Housing Advisory Committee, the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and the Board of Directors of the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program.

I'm a former board member of the Pavemont Housing Alliance

and I've also sat on the Albemarle Housing, the Albemarle County Housing Committee, as well as the Family Housing Association at the University of Virginia.

I have spent many years, and I've also been appointed to the Housing Policy Task Force, where I serve proudly here in the city.

I have spent many years studying the issue of housing here in the city of Charlottesville.

and want to applaud you on your bold move with respect to dedicated funding for affordable housing.

I just want to point out to the community that affordable housing is more than just low-income housing.

We're also talking about special needs housing.

We're talking about rehabilitation of housing for seniors who can't afford it.

I understand the concern about smoke and mirrors.

It's very, very hard for the layperson citizen to understand all of the moving parts of the city budget.

The figures that Mr. O'Connell put up had many, many different categories.

Former Mayor Brown talked about former commitments.

One of the wonderful things about making

A dedicated source is that it simplifies where the money is coming from and where it's going.

That's what I want to see as a citizen and I think we just need to decide what are our priorities and make it very clear.

I'm tired of smoking mirrors.

I know this community has a commitment to affordable housing.

We just need to figure out what's the shortest way to get from point A to point B and so I encourage you

I came from my house from Harper's Middle Road.

Can you give us your name?

So I came from Harper's Middle Road, saw you on TV.

So I tried to stay interested in what's going on, right, this housing issue.

I'm not an authority, but I just bought a house two years ago in August.

I'm a teacher.

I teach outside the area.

I've lived all my life, so I know 39 years exactly what everyone is saying, even those that are against it, whatever.

This is a big step for you if you do this.

If you don't, you know, you hope you find an idea, whatever.

And I voted for you two.

The main issue was housing, by the way.

Doesn't mean you have to do it the way someone tells you to do it.

But I'm glad you all put this to the forefront.

I have a motorcycle, right?

I have one bad link on my chain.

If that link goes bad, it's done.

You're done, right?

So, I know it's simply here, right?

I don't know, maybe you're living in, you know, good standards, whatever.

I'm okay, you know, I'm all right, you know.

Hit my ups and downs, but I'm okay, but I'm no good unless the rest of the group is good.

And I'm sure you all know that.

So, if it's not this ordinance, hope it's something that has some meat, you'll actually do it.

I'll be glad to pay my two cents worth to do whatever.

I'm no good unless everyone's good.

I'm not saying it's the best answer, but do it anyway, because how about slavery, right?

Someone said, hey, why don't you stop owning slaves, right?

No, I'm not going to do it.

Why don't you do it?

I'm not going to do it.

So they had an ordinance.

So they only made a law or whatever.

And finally, things got changed.

Sometimes you have to make a bold change.

What's the worst that can happen?

You're going to help folks out?

I mean, come on.

So I appreciate what you're doing.

I'm going to start making beans now.

I feel like Charlottesville is getting more juvenile, I honestly feel like Charlottesville is hearing the people's voice.

I've been out for the person, but my uncle was the first black mayor of Charlottesville.

So I keep track of what's going on with Mr. Barber.

So I try to keep track of what's going on.

I'm not ready to run yet, but I really think there's a good group here, and I know some people think there's always yes, yes, yes, whatever.

But if you say no,

Hope you have an alternative plan because, you know, what are you saying then, really?

Because I see it every day.

You know, I used to teach in my county schools, but went to Torrey P. Mott's, you know, I've had a few instances, you know, with the law.

I've been all around, you know, National Guard here, everything.

I'm really Mr. Charlottesville Jr.

So I applaud you and I appreciate your effort in trying to make a change.

And like I said, I hope there's more than spoken mirrors.

Thank you.

Ms. Snitsky Hi, my name is Natasha Snitsky and I live at 741 Nall Street and I'm here to speak in support of a dedicated fund.

That was a tough act to follow but I'll try and just make a few quick points that haven't been made because I mostly agree with people who have spoken in favor.

Investment in housing, that's going into the local community, it's rejuvenating our neighborhoods, it's creating jobs for people, and it's creating upward mobility.

It helps for non-profits for certainty for planning purposes, knowing what funding will be available, what kind of projects they'll be able to execute in the future.

Local dollars are also more flexible.

There are less requirements.

and it makes it so that those dollars are actually going towards supporting housing instead of admin.

And I think it creates an important precedent.

It shows that Charlottesville is committed to housing and if we just waited for everyone else to go and take the first step, then we'd be waiting a long time.

Someone needs to take the first step and set a precedent.

I did have one more point that I wanted to make.

Oh, yeah.

Also, local funds, dedicating local funds will give nonprofits in our community the ability to leverage funds from other sources.

And I think that's a really important point.

I think that for every dollar, for communities that do have local funds, for every dollar that the local community dedicates, there's about six or seven dollars that they're able to leverage from outside sources.

But you can look that information up.

Thank you, Ms. Zuniski.

Anyone else?

OK. Well, I'm going to close the public hearing.

I want to thank everybody that came out to speak tonight.

And at least in my term on council, we haven't had this many people turn out for a public hearing.

Obviously, it's an issue that captivates a lot of people in our community.

And I appreciate all the insights that you all have shared with us tonight.

I'd like to start.

Dr. Brown.

It seems to me there's four issues, the way I think about this, that are raised by this ordinance by the comments tonight.

What's not an issue is whether we have a problem with affordable housing.

I mean, I think that we knew that going in.

Certainly we've heard lots of compelling stories here tonight and just to, some of the comments that particularly stuck with me were for example on the effect it has on kids trying to succeed in schools when they move frequently.

or the fact that public housing is designed to be a transitional experience, but if there's nowhere to transition to, it becomes a permanent experience.

And I'd certainly agree that if we leave it up to the market and if we leave it up to developers, well, low and low to moderate income is not really where the money is, and it's not likely that the private sector is going to solve this problem for us.

I strongly agree, I don't know if it was said, it might have been said by Mr. Norris, but that solving affordable housing problems would solve an awful lot of other problems.

I'm not in agreement on how easy it is to solve affordable housing.

I mean, even if you look at some of the things we've tied as successes, you know, Hinton Avenue, for example, where families were assisted into homes,

An awful lot of those homes have now turned over and are market raised rate not affordable homes anymore.

I think that's true of most of the places that we've invested in affordable housing.

It certainly creates wealth in an individual, but it doesn't necessarily create a neighborhood that remains affordable.

In fact, it often has the opposite effect.

It often has the effect of

of disrupting what was an affordable neighborhood.

That's just a comment.

It's not to say we shouldn't stop trying, but I'm just to say it's not an easy problem to solve.

But here's what I view as the issues.

One issue is the creation of an affordable housing fund, and I think that one's an easy issue.

I think it's a great idea, and I think it's a necessary idea, and it surprises me we didn't do this sooner, to create a fund

where we can think of all the different ways we can get revenue from city sources, from private sources, from leveraged sources, from state, from grants, and then have that fund be available to be programmed by a bunch of smart people who spend a lot of time involved in affordable housing, and certainly Karen Waters probably comes to mind as one of those smart people who's been involved a lot.

So I certainly support the creation of a fund.

Second issue that's been raised, I think it's an important issue, is a general category of city-county issues.

I will disagree, I think it's Mr. Toomey who made the comment that we shouldn't worry about that because Impact is working with both the city and the county on affordable housing.

Well, that's news to me because last year, Impact asked the city of Charlottesville to put an additional $2 million in our budget on affordable housing, which we did.

They asked the county of Albemarle to put

nothing for affordable housing.

And so hopefully that's going to be rectified but I don't think that's exactly what has been going on.

You know, city taxpayers do pay a much larger, we have the largest share of the burden of poverty and of low income housing.

There's not much low income housing in the county.

It's mostly in the city.

City taxes, city real estate taxes are about 50% higher, almost 50% higher than county real estate taxes.

So, you know, it's not just for that.

We also get our trash picked up.

There's lots of other services.

But I do have a concern that comes out of that, that the more aggressive the action is that we take, the less incentive there is for the county to roll up their sleeves and work with us.

In other words, if we're solving the region's problems, why do they have to bother?

And I think we have to be careful, we have to engage the county to be part of the solution and not just rely on us to continue to solve it.

The third question, and I think in some ways the most fundamental question is, should we increase the amount that we're spending this year and in future years for affordable housing?

You know, last year, I think from the leadership of Mayor Norris and from the people who worked hard and impact, and I don't really mean to disparage impact, I mean I think there's a lot of great people coming together on that, resulted in a five year, five million dollar commitment from the city, as evidenced by our

our planning in our capital improvement program that over the next five years we would spend a total of $5 million.

This proposal would double that almost.

It was $1.75 million per year over five years would be closer to $9 million.

I think that's a discussion we should have.

It might be that's exactly what we need to do, but we should have that discussion.

We should have discussion on what will we get with the five million, what will we get with the nine million.

I'm not in any ways negative about the odds for doing that.

Prior to the fact that we did the five million last year, it sounded to me, talking with Mr. O'Connell, that we're already committed to doing more than that five million over five years.

It's more like seven million at this point.

But I think we should have, before I would say right now, tonight, today, that I want to double that commitment.

I want to know what I'm choosing.

Are there anything I'm choosing not to do?

So for example, one of the big issues we hear a lot about is how do we keep police?

We can't fully staff our police department.

Well, certainly affordable housing would fit into that.

But what fits into it more, I believe, would be to make ourselves more competitive with salaries.

Last year we made choices to support the police department with technology, to support them with some salary issues, and I'm really glad we did.

But if we have trade-offs to make, I wouldn't be able to think about what those trade-offs are.

I think that's what kind of our job is.

And that brings me to the last issue, which is should we dedicate funds?

And I'm not in favor of dedicating funds for that very issue.

I feel like what is our job is to think about what are the priorities, you know, and this

may well be the top priority for the city.

I think if you were to poll the councilors and certainly the people in the audience, the people would say, yes it is, it's our top priority.

But nonetheless, we need to put it in the context of what will we be choosing and what will we not be choosing.

I think we can make those choices and have a long enough window like we did last year with a five year, five million dollar commitment that allows the community to plan and expect what's going to happen.

You would say, well we have to reauthorize that every year.

Well that's pretty much what I've learned about this ordinance would require reauthorization every year as well.

So I'd like to see us

I'm not interested in the dedication of funds.

Mr. Brady said, well, do we have an alternative plan?

If we're not going to do this, what is our plan?

I think our plan should be kind of like what we did last year, which is we should have a plan

that we put down on paper that you can look and see what are we planning to spend this year, what are we planning to spend next year, what are we planning to spend a year after that, and we can go out five years.

I think five years is a pretty good length of time to be planning something like this.

I also think that we can demonstrate our commitment to affordable housing without resorting to an ordinance in the same way that this commitment

Policy has been made for the schools.

I think we can do something along those lines.

I was looking forward to the idea of the ordinance because of the commitment that it requires.

I think that the struggle with affordable housing within the city started with urban renewal.

And I think that if there may be more low income issues or low income housing within the city,

The city has a public housing stock and I was looking forward to hearing more conversations about the ordinance because the people that were disproportionately affected with urban renewal had been consistently disproportionately affected by housing issues in the city.

And I think that each council struggles

to make good decisions.

And I think that each council struggles to make the right decisions with everything that's available at that time.

And I believe that the idea of the ordinance gives this council an opportunity to address affordable housing.

And the other thing is that

I guess I need to start using the term affordable because there really is no affordable housing.

There really isn't and that's the bottom line.

The issue is that we have to create a city in which people can live comfortably and live with the quality of life so that

We can all feel good about where we live.

And I guess I was looking forward to the ordinance because I'm not feeling real good about where we live.

In the music, it's the greatest turn.

I'm no good unless everyone is good.

And that's the bottom line.

And if the ordinance is not the answer,

If we do what we've always done, we'll get what we've always got.

So what will the answer be?

The ordinance provided a way to have money committed and some of the feedback that I got was concern about the fiscal accountability of future budgets and future councils with dedicating the funds.

and I can honor that concern and I can still hear Colette Hall say ordinance was kind of scary for her so I can honor that.

But given the opportunity that this council has right now with the needs that are before us, what will our political will be?

What judgment will we use as we move forward with this?

And you think about at the convention, I don't think I ever told Mr. Huja this, but he had the best speech at the convention.

And I think that your slight Virginia accent probably added to the charm of the message.

But he talked about being able to visit his neighbors and going to someone's house and seeing African Americans there and people from other countries and everybody's talking and laughing and everybody's having a good time.

But the reality is if we do what we've always done to get what we've always got,

Our community is going to lack the culture and the diversity that it really needs to become a vibrant community.

And as far as ordinance, I believe that we're in the, well first of all, I think that many of our residents have been the underdog for too long.

for absolutely too long.

And the New York Giants reminded me, even the last two minutes of the game, it's possible that the underdog can prevail.

So we really believe that with the right judgment and political will, we will prevail.

And the other point is that affordable, providing housing that people can afford, that lifestyle that they find,

important to them.

This is just one long war, and each council will have its battle within that war.

Thank you, Ms. Edwards.

I guess where I am in the process, and I'm certainly not against affordable housing, I really think that we should discuss this in context with the entire budget when we go through the entire budget process rather than doing it ahead of time.

I also feel that this is a regional issue.

and I think we need to somehow encourage the county to participate because it's not just a city problem, it's a regional problem even beyond the county and we need to figure out a way to address it.

And I don't think we're going to do what we've always done.

We didn't do what we've always done last year.

We made a sizable commitment.

And my best guess is that we'll increase our commitment this year.

And I certainly support doing that.

I guess I just don't support doing it by doing it by ordinance.

And, I mean, you don't have to convince me of the need in the community, because I'm well aware of that.

Mr. Morris, I want to start off with just a second with some of the people who are coming up today.

to express their ideas and thoughts and I really appreciate that.

I think we can learn a lot from that.

I know I can learn some a lot from that.

Secondly, I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for making this whole house an issue in full front and not in dark benches.

So I am really pleased that you put the initiative to do that and I think it is going to bear some fruit and I hope that I will be part of this, that process of bearing fruit.

I also want to give some disclosures so that we are sure that everybody understands.

I have a lot of business and commissions representing the city of Charlottesville.

For example, Peter and Halsey Alliance, JAMA, University of California Board of Regents.

I also have been part of the impact process.

I think you may have seen me at the meetings.

But I do not get paid for any of those organizations, so I don't have contract interest.

like he will end up paying in return.

So, there are a lot of disclosure of that because people may say, well he is a reporter, thanks for these agencies and these people and he is in the board, so I want you to know that up front.

Anybody who needs to know.

I am going to take a few minutes today so I hope you will bear with me.

I have a long history of supporting affordable housing

It is not since recent and it is a commitment.

I don't know if you have heard the story of chicken and pig about breakfast.

Have you heard that story?

The chicken says, you know, I am going to have a lot of breakfast, I can give you an egg every morning.

The pig says, yes it is easy for you to do it, but I am the pig, I have to give you the bacon, my full commitment.

It's a big stage of whole housing.

There's a lot of young commitment, but I hope to continue that commitment for at least 40 years on this council.

And I hope that it will show in many ways.

You know, when I spoke in

Furgenhausen, as Julian said, I don't think there is anybody in this council who is opposed to Furgenhausen.

I would refer to whatever he actually supports, or would support, in the dark of my mind, because of their own records, their behavior, their actions, and what they have said over the years.

Three of you have been in the council for a while, and you have done a great deal in housing, and I think the two of us have just come on board, and we promised to do something in this housing, so we definitely hope to do so.

and I also agree that city is part of a larger region as you may or may not know that city is about 20% of the region's population and about 40-50% of the affordable housing in the city.

So it is really, we do have affordable housing but not enough to meet all our needs.

We know that there are lots of needs recorded out today.

We need to follow those needs and try to meet those needs.

I also agree with Julian that we need to say that if it is part of the context of budget, the main priorities, we need to make sure that we give fair shake to all those priorities.

We also need to engage our work, our university of Virginia, every part of the sector.

That is very old and we should not do ourselves anything.

We should do a lot more than we can.

But in general, we should engage them also in this process.

As the budget started, there was a question of timing.

As I mentioned to Mr. Norris earlier, there is not the sale of allocation of money, but there is a question of timing, what time we do that.

And I think it is, and we're talking about timing maybe for the next 10 years, or the next 20 years, but I'm talking about to maybe even 3 months, to April.

when we can make these decisions thoughtfully.

I heard about this proposal for the first time in writing on Tuesday, which is about six days before this meeting.

It is a very serious decision, but I think there ought to be serious discussion and thought process before we can jump into conclusions and decisions.

And I'm ready to make decisions, but not that quick.

I think there is going to be discussion by the council in relation to other priorities also.

and also related to the Fermi, a lot of Fermi, where you are talking for example, but instead of is that there is a 5 million dollar commitment by the city council

in the curriculum for the program, which is important to have a roleful commitment for four, five years is a good time commitment so that people can know who are playing and doing the housing because it takes three to five years to get things done.

When I worked on millions of housing projects, for example, 10th and Page, it took approximately five years.

We saw it being done in two years, it took five.

So you need to have some predictability in certain

Plan on Affection, some resources which you can set about which are available to you where you can plan on those resources.

For example, so having a capital budget for four or five years, I think it will show us that there is some kind of sustainable availability of resources around databases.

That would be in favor of having this five-year commitment in some fashion through CIP, also with a resolution that will make sure that it happens in some positive way.

We can adopt a policy for affordable housing funding through some kind of resolution without an ordinance.

The ordinance implies, as far as I am aware, that many things we commit to many things.

For example, Mr. Prime mentioned schools.

Every year we get a certain percentage of money to schools.

This is not done by ordinance.

I think in this case we need a written policy in terms of we can pass a policy that we are going to commit to house against on a continual basis for a certain number of years or a certain number of years and I will be really ready to do that 20 days from now

I understand that last year discussions were for 1% real estate tax and 25% real lodging tax.

Now I understand for this ordinance it is 2% real estate tax and 25% real lodging tax.

Maybe there is a right amount, I do not know, but I think I am going to explore that possibility.

If it leads to more, there are more needs in the deal and more money.

The last few comments I wanted to make is that we need sustainable funds for housing for long term and I think there is a reasonable request by people who are going to provide housing.

We need a long-range plan as Mrs. Richards said.

We need to have vision.

What we can't happen.

If you don't have vision and you have money, you're going to just waste the money.

If you have long-term vision of the housing, what kind of affordable housing you want to have, how many units you want to build,

I think it could be done or should be done.

So I would, without contradicting too much with the Mr. Laws, I think we can make a commitment, we can make a commitment tonight by some kind of resolution saying that this council will resolve to give some expert of Donald's, I don't know whether that might be, and if you want to discuss I would be happy to discuss that tonight or some other time, release to some kind of moral commitment.

Mr. Mayor, if it's your desire, I did get some thought, I talked to Mr. Huja earlier today about this, because I have not been in favor of dedicated through ordinance this whole time, but nonetheless I would not want for people to think that this council does not support affordable housing.

I've written, for your consideration, a resolution that we could consider.

This resolution would say, whereas the council vision statement calls for housing that is affordable and attainable for people of all income levels, life stages and abilities,

and whereas the City of Charlottesville has demonstrated its commitment to affordable housing by increasing its investment in affordable housing from $375,000 two years ago to over $2 million this fiscal year.

And whereas the City of Charlottesville provides significant additional funding for affordable housing through programs such as tax abatement and tax assistance for the elderly and disabled.

And whereas the City of Charlottesville has committed to a five-year, $5 million increase in funding for affordable housing.

and whereas despite these efforts, affordable housing remains a critical issue for too many residents of our community.

Therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City Council continue its commitment to affordable housing by making this issue a top priority.

Consider increasing funding for affordable housing beyond the five year, five million dollar in all upcoming budgets, taking into account economic conditions and council priorities.

call upon the County of Albemarle to likewise contribute to addressing this regional problem by increasing funding for affordable housing, especially for low-income housing, and that the City of Charlottesville establish an Affordable Housing Fund to receive public and private monies, including council appropriations, private contributions, and cash proffers, and with the City's Housing Advisory Committee to make recommendations to council regarding the disbursement of this fund, including eligibility criteria, programmatic priorities, goals, and objectives.

Can I just make one more comment?

I have not seen this resolution so it's the first time I'm hearing it so I agree with most of the intent of it.

I would be also want to include the University because they are part of the

Thank you, Dr. Brown.

Obviously, the main intent of the ordinance was to move us beyond a year-to-year mindset to a more long-term, sustained commitment, and I don't see anything in

your resolution which conflicts with that goal.

Obviously I think my preference would be to tie it, to have a dedicated funding source that we can plan on and rely on but it's clear from the discussion tonight that there's not majority support on council for an ordinance that would establish a dedicated funding stream and short of that

I think your resolution is a big step in the right direction and I'm happy to support it.

Well, I support the resolution.

I think it will address the issue.

I think it does rather than doing it by an ordinance, which I know you prefer to have an ordinance and I understand that.

But as I said earlier, I think we've got a strong commitment to dealing with this issue and historically the last few years we've put a lot of money in it and I think we'll put more money in it and I also like about it the part where we talk about trying to get the county

and other people to participate in the process because I think it's important to get other people to the table because if we could really make this a real community effort, obviously we could generate even more money which would help a lot of people that are in dire straits in terms of housing because we all know the problem a lot of folks have.

I would include that as part of the resolution without saying the exact number so that we can decide on what the type.

for two or three reasons.

One, because I think we know there is no more need.

So, if we

resolved that we would increase funding in the upcoming 2009 budget beyond the five-year, $5 million commitment and strongly consider increasing funding for affordable housing in all upcoming budgets.

Well, I have a question then.

I guess it was my understanding that some of the concern was about having an ordinance outside of the usual budget process and looking at the ordinance without looking more closely at some of the other expenditures.

We are selling a wireless system of policy, not actual dollars.

That we are selling a policy of term that we are going to put more money for affordable housing.

We are going to do that.

Would it make sense to establish that as a goal?

I mean, not a binding ordinance, but a goal to match what was in the ordinance, which is the equivalent of two cents in the property tax dollar and 25%.

I think just to say that we will commit to putting more money into what's currently proposed both this year and in upcoming years.

and that, you know, I mean I think it's going to be, I mean you probably have more discussions than I have.

I'm actually scheduled to meet with the city manager tomorrow to hear the details of the budget so I think I'm a little in the dark in terms of

What are we putting into the budget for other capital improvements?

Are there things we're putting off in order to do that?

That's fine.

All right, so we have a resolution that's been motioned and seconded.

I would like to say that I also noted that we would, based on Mr. Huja's desire, that we would also add in here that we would work with the University of Virginia to ensure adequate student and workforce housing associated with the university.

Can I ask another, is this discussion?

Can I ask another question?

Please.

I feel like this is like a, almost like a resolution drive-by.

So can you read it to me just one more time?

Whereas the council vision statement calls for housing that is affordable and attainable for people of all income levels, life stages, and abilities.

And whereas the city of Charlottesville has demonstrated its commitment to affordable housing by increasing its investment in affordable housing from $375,000 two years ago to over $2 million this fiscal year.

And whereas the city of Charlottesville provides significant additional funding for affordable housing through programs such as tax abatement and tax assistance for the elderly and disabled.

and whereas the city of Charlottesville has committed to a five year, five million dollar increase in funding for affordable housing and whereas despite these efforts, affordable housing remains a critical issue for too many residents of our community and whereas affordable housing is a critical issue not just for the city of Charlottesville but for the entire region, therefore be it resolved that the city of, that the Charlottesville city council continues its commitment to affordable housing by making this issue a top priority.

Increase funding in the upcoming 2009 budget beyond the five year, five million dollar commitment and strongly consider increasing funding in all upcoming budgets, taking into account economic conditions and council priorities.

Call upon the City, call upon the County of Albemarle to likewise contribute to addressing this regional problem by increasing funding for affordable housing, especially for low income housing.

worked with the University of Virginia to ensure adequate student and workforce housing associated with the university, and that the city of Charlottesville establish an affordable housing fund to receive public and private monies, including council appropriations, private contributions, and cash proffers, and with the city's Housing Advisory Committee to make recommendations to council regarding the disbursement of this fund, including eligibility criteria, programmatic priorities, goals, and objectives.

There's some kind of plan of action where we can actually deal with the housings issue.