Charlottesville Redevelopment & Housing Authority   2/28/2022

I think we have a- We only have six right now.

Okay, we have a quorum now.

Yep.

Virginia Code Section 2.2 slash 3708.2A3 permits public bodies to meet electronically to discuss business required or necessary to operation of the public body in discharge of its lawful purposes, duties, and responsibility in times of emergencies and to address COVID-19.

Therefore, this meeting is being held electronically

Roll call.

Commissioner Wicks.

Present.

Commissioner Payne.

Here.

We can now call for a moment of silence.

General announcements.

The CRHA

works regular board meeting.

Excuse me, the board work session will be March 10th at 5 p.m. And the CRHA regular meeting will be March 28th at 6 p.m.

The safety meeting is every other Tuesday.

with the next one being March 1st and the other one March 15th and March 29th all at 6 p.m. You can join that by Zoom as well.

The Redevelopment Committee meeting is every other Thursday and that's been, has that one been updated to four o'clock or is it updated to one?

Okay, so at least it hasn't been updated.

I thought it was, okay, gotcha.

Okay, so March 3rd is its next meeting.

The resident services committee meets every other Tuesday of the month, and that'd be at 1 p.m. And it doesn't say what the next meeting is.

So we'll get an announcement anyway before that one.

And then the maintenance committee, it has started meeting and as well, the other ones, they don't have times on here, but personnel and finance.

And

Did any of the commissioners have anything to report about their committee assignments?

Any news coming from any of the committees?

Commissioner Green?

No.

Well, we've just been continuously trying to talk about how to better

communication with the residents.

We're continuously talking about how to make things better for

The residents by including their voices, trying to reach out to them.

We've been talking about continuous talking about the lighting, the safety of the residents.

And we've talked about a couple of personal things that they were reaching out to a couple of residents, the staff, their selves.

So I haven't heard anything back about the stair lift, but

Basically, that's all we've really been talking, excuse me, talking about just getting more resident involvement and just continue trying to push to make housing better.

Okay, thank you.

We have, the personnel committee has not met.

So,

We need to get those meetings going again.

So unfortunately I don't have an update because we did not meet in February.

Commissioner Payne.

Okay.

I received a note that the resident service committee meets on March the 8th.

And that's at one o'clock.

Okay.

So at this point,

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, PHAR, sorry.

Thank you.

Hey y'all, I am not a member of the public anymore.

I am not a member of PHAR, so perhaps there are PHAR folks in the audience.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Shelby Marie Edwards.

I use she, her, and hers, and I'm the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents.

We are the duly recognized and federally mandated housing association.

We are pleased to give a brief update on what our organization has done in collaboration with our residents since the last Board of Commissioners meeting in January of this year.

PHAR has continued to work on redevelopment efforts through both its positive vision workshops and parallel track meetings.

We have hosted seven of them in the past month, and we have more scheduled over the next four weeks, including March 2nd at 4 p.m. at 6th Street, March 9th at 4 p.m. at Mickey Drive, March 10th at 3 p.m. at Madison, March 10th at 4 p.m. at Riverside and March 24th at 4 p.m. at West Haven.

and we will be doing some flyering as a follow-up.

We have received feedback from some residents that the maintenance requests have been acknowledged with increased customer service.

While we still have a lot of work to do and a long way to go, our hope is that this trend will continue and that CRHA will work with PHAR to positively institutionalize the practice of quickly and appropriately responding to resident needs.

It is a priority of mine in particular that we look critically at the systems of maintaining the units we have, especially because given

Later this year, we will have some brand new units.

The resident advisory board has continued to have conversations about the capital fund plan, also known as the CFP.

We plan to submit a formal comment to CRHA no later than March 11th, 2022.

My hope is that the Board of Commissioners tonight will seriously consider the pros and cons of Resolution 1437 in regards to Midway Manor.

I've spoken with two resident leaders at Midway Manor and their desire is to come to an answer as expeditiously as possible about the status of the building.

To be clear, I know CRHA does not own the building.

And if anybody can help them make sure that the units are affordable and that the building is upgraded and becoming of our citizens, they would be grateful for the help.

And they're looking for the answer to the question, what's gonna happen to the residents?

Where are we gonna go?

In conclusion, it is a pleasure for PHAR to help amplify the voices of low-income individuals in the Charlottesville area.

I appreciate the audience of the CRHA board of directors.

Thank you, Shelby.

Okay, so at this point, then I can turn this over to Mr.

Good evening, everyone.

We do have a public hearing for the Midway Manor Bond Issuance.

Good evening and good evening commissioners.

Chair Henry, thank you for having us.

I am pleased today to introduce for you the Midway Manor Bond Resolution, and we have a public hearing to make sure that we hear any members of the public if they have any questions or comments with regard to the Midway Manor Project.

This is a 98 unit elderly affordable housing development on Ridge Street, very close to the Greyhound station.

And the proposal is to issue some bonds to assist with the financing of a comprehensive renovation

of this project, the renovation will not only make the units and the common space better for the residents, but it will also ensure the continued affordability of the units with a project-based voucher contract on these units, again, to maintain the affordability in the long term.

The role of the housing authority in this particular project is as a conduit bond issuer.

And many of you will remember that we talked about the housing authority as a conduit bond issuer in prior training sessions.

So this is a situation where the housing authority issues the bonds, but does not have any ownership interest in the property or in the site.

does not have any management control or really any hold on the operations of the project.

You are simply issuing the bonds for the developer.

You are also not liable for the repayment of the bonds and neither is the city of Charlottesville.

However, these bonds are very beneficial to you in multiple ways.

First, they ensure the continued renovation and redevelopment of affordable units in the city of Charlottesville, which is very complimentary to your own mission.

but it doesn't cost you a dime.

As a matter of fact, it creates some revenue to you because you're receiving a fee for serving as the issuer of these bonds.

And again, you do not have any responsibility with regard to the repayment of the bonds or the operations of the project.

So it's really a win-win situation for the housing authority, for the city of Charlottesville and for the residents of Charlottesville.

Tonight with us we have Mike Graff who is bond counsel and his client who is the developer of this project.

They probably show up on your screen as Delphine Carnes as well and that's because I forwarded to them the zoom link.

And so when they click on it, it appears as if it's me again.

So tonight you have three Delphine Carnes, you're so lucky.

But really you have Mike Graff with Maguire Woods who is bond counsel and his client.

Mike is very well versed in bond financing and we have done many, many transactions together.

So we are very lucky to have him as the counsel for the developer and has the bond counsel on this project.

He will introduce the developer.

I will say to you before I turn it over to him that this project will come back to you one more time for the final approval of the transaction after all the bond documents have been prepared.

Mike and his staff will prepare the documents.

And I will, with my staff, will review the documents and make sure that the interests of the housing authority are protected.

And with that, I will turn it over to Mike and his client.

Thank you, Delphine and Miss Henry, Commissioners, Mr.

Sales.

Thank you for your consideration this evening.

And as usual, Delphine's done a terrific job describing to you their request that's before you.

You've also noted the public hearing that was scheduled for this evening on this matter.

And I'll just note that we

properly notified the public of the public hearing in the newspaper.

And let me introduce to you, Mr. Steven Kahn from Standard Communities, who's the developer who's acquiring and going to be substantially rehabbing Midway Manor.

And I think he can speak briefly about his firm and its experience, its plans for the

Rehabilitation of Midway Manor, particularly focusing on the tenant relocation or tenant arrangements during the rehab.

And also I'm sure he'll emphasize the preservation of the affordability of the apartments.

Great.

Thank you, Mike and Delphine.

And thank you commissioners and everyone else for being here tonight and giving us a chance to speak about a project we are very excited about.

From I'm part of Standard Communities, we've got about 13,000 units of affordable housing across the country and 19 different states.

This will be our first project in Charlottesville, but hopefully not our last as we see to it that we try to do our business the right way and always get invited back for

Repeat performances and we've done that very successfully across the country.

So give you just a very high level of what we have planned for Midway Manor, which I know is very much in focus in the community and understandably so.

It's a tremendous asset and serves the population very much in need of high quality and affordable housing and the certainty that comes with knowing that housing will remain affordable and high quality for the future.

And that's exactly what we are here to accomplish.

So we focus on creating and preserving affordable housing nationwide and our intentions with Midway Manor are to take the federal rental subsidy contract that does expire in a couple of years and renew that for as long as HUD will allow us to do so, which at present is a 20-year contract.

They won't go any longer than that and in partnership also work with Virginia Housing

to receive an allocation of 4% low income housing tax credits, which will allow us in partnership with these funds to do a very extensive renovation of the property.

So in high level, extending the affordability as well as renovating and not displacing any of the qualified residents from the property.

The renovation itself is going to be pretty expansive.

Now, obviously the unit interiors are things that folks think of first, kitchens and bathrooms and flooring and appliances.

All of those are in scope, but also some of the less in-focus elements of a renovation that contribute to having truly high quality housing, things that you would expect from market rate properties or homes that you would like to live in ourselves by our own choice as opposed to affordable.

So energy efficiency, windows, roofs, building systems, mechanicals, plumbing systems, electric systems,

All things that we look at as well to ensure that it's not just putting some lipstick or cosmetic touches on the building, but also ensuring that it's well-served for decades to come and able to continue fulfilling its mission of providing housing or high quality housing.

So the bonds that would be initially approved tonight, and as I think Delphine and Mike mentioned, we will come back to you once more, once the documents are drafted.

For obviously final approval, those will allow us to receive the allocation of 4% tax credits from Virginia Housing, which would allow us to move forward with this broader plan of an extensive renovation and long-term commitment to affordability for all of the units at the property.

I'm happy to take any and all questions.

Sure.

We've got to nail down the exact specifics with the parties that will be doing the renovation work and as well as our management company.

First and foremost, we want to do everything in a way that is safe for residents and also minimizes any disruption to their lives.

And our hope is to be able to complete this renovation without relocating residents offsite.

So we've got a tremendous amount of experience doing that.

Tens of thousands of units across the country, several thousand units north of 10,000 units completing renovations without displacing residents even during the renovation process.

So we'll figure out exactly which method we hope to deploy at the property, but it is our hope and a reasonable expectation.

Now, as you mentioned, nothing set in stone yet as we're still, plans are still evolving to complete the renovation over the course of roughly 18 months with residents not having to relocate from the property by doing it in kind of phases.

So the building is five stories.

We'd empty one portion of the,

or we'd complete renovations on one portion of a floor at a time and then deliver those units back new and then move on to the next bunch.

Thanks.

On another unit, we kind of ran into some problems with that idea.

where they ended up with a water main break or something like that and everyone ended up having to be relocated.

So I think that looking into the overall safety of the building before you commit to that type of a plan might be important.

And then the second thing that I wanted to ask,

You said you would have initially a contract with HUD.

Area median income is generally the 60% that's referenced.

Yeah.

To your first point about understanding property condition, point well received and well heard.

Anyone who's been through any construction process, knock on wood, knows that as much as you strive to get it perfect, something always goes wrong.

A water main break that would necessitate the entire building to be relocated, I think that would be at the far end of the spectrum, but we'll obviously have contingency plans in place for anything that may come up.

Any project we've done, it doesn't always go perfectly.

And we always managed to get through with always the focus on residents and being as minimally disruptive to them as possible.

To the income question, yes, continuing at 30% of income for residents.

So the Section 8 contract with HUD, that is how that works.

Residents pay 30% of their qualified income.

It's not exactly 30%.

There's some slight adjustments that get made to that, but we'll call it 30% of their income and rent.

The federal government chips in for

The remaining balance, the 60% that you saw referenced comes from the loan come housing tax credit program where it ensures that the property remains affordable to residents who make 60% of area median income.

So roughly that math would be that 30% of their income could go towards rent.

So it's a rent restriction on the property as well as an income restriction, meaning that under the tax credit program, we could not lease to residents who make more than

60% of area median income.

In this case, the section eight contract generally will be more favorable to residents.

So that will trump residents with 30% of their income.

If for whatever reason, say HUD does not continue the section eight program 20 years from now when this contract is up for renewal, even if that subsidy program were to go away, those income and rent restrictions in place through the low income housing tax credit program at 60% AMI would remain.

Sorry, I missed the timeline there.

The HUD requirements is 20 years that it would be project-based.

Yeah, so HUD will only go as long as 20 years.

So we would take longer if they could, but that's as far as they'll go now and then can renew.

Yeah, so one thing that comes to mind when we've done some of these tenant in place renovations is always keeping some additional units vacant throughout the renovation process.

So this doesn't address needing to

remove everybody from the entire building.

But if someone were not able to be back in their unit that evening as part of the renovation or needed a place to stay, as opposed to having them move to a hotel or somewhere else offsite over the months preceding the renovations, as somebody had moved out, we would, as opposed to releasing that unit, keep it as called a hotel unit for the renovation so that if

and their plumbing wasn't back online because we discovered something unforeseen that day during the work.

We could locate them onsite in that hotel unit for the overnight hours until it was fixed the next day, as opposed to having to go somewhere further away where their routine might be disrupted or they wouldn't be near friends or family or whatever their support system is.

I know you went over the funding requirements that would require affordability to be maintained for at least 30 years.

Yeah, so Virginia housing, that Virginia housing restriction is the 30-year affordability period and that attaches to the land, to the building itself.

So that's always going to be there.

At the end of that 30-year period,

There is a process in Virginia where residents are continued to be protected through that you know after that extended compliance period the end of that 30-year that I believe runs for three years.

Mike or Delphine might be able to correct me or please correct me I'm misstating that so there's at the very least a long heads up that this affordability might be coming to an end and allow for our residents to make alternative plans community to get involved whatever the case may be to try to

We are affordable folks.

We work to create and preserve it.

And what Stephen said is correct.

And in addition, so you have two different systems working together, right?

You have the HUD contract for the PBV assistance, which is called a HAP contract.

And then separately, you have the affordability restrictions that go with the low income housing tax credit program.

in Virginia that is managed by the HDA, now known as Virginia Housing.

And those two sort of run hand in hand, except that their terms are staggered, so to speak.

And typically after the maturity of the 20-year HAP contract, subject to funding from Congress, HUD will renew that contract.

And so there is an option to renew that contract over and over again.

And then on the LIHTC side, under the extended use agreement, you have to continue the affordability

of the project beyond the 30 years even.

But typically what happens realistically is that in 15 years when the first tax credit compliance period sort of is over and your investor has exited, you do what is called a refresh.

of the project and you recapitalize with another round of tax credit funding to do another round of renovation on the units.

So more likely than not, the periods will be staggered but there will be a new period of affordability most likely.

And that's the case for the vast majority of LIHTC projects in Virginia.

And so you recapitalize by having your initial investor exit and admitting another investor

You do another round of tax credits, either the competitive tax credits, 9%, or the non-competitive 4%, which is the case here with the tax-exempt bonds.

Yeah, I'm happy to.

We are generally a very high touch group when it comes to planning these renovations and making sure that residents are well informed.

Miscommunication or misinformation spreads very quickly through communities and we try to make sure that

It's not something that we are a part of.

We want folks to hear from us early and often.

So they hear it directly from the source and then there's ongoing touch-up points on that as well.

So as things are refined, we let everybody know exactly what is going on.

So once we have some kind of approvals and buy-ins from this group and from HUD on exactly the timeline of this project and what the renovation scope is gonna look like, we'll have a kickoff meeting with all residents.

to the extent it can be done safely in person we certainly will and we'll likely do that at the property and the common spaces there reducing the need for anybody to travel and then we've been doing a lot of online access as well or recording things and making replays available for residents to explain who we are what we're here to do dispel any myths or rumors that might be out there and you know reiterate as many times as we can possibly repeat in whatever you know hour or so that is allowed to us

We're not here to displace folks.

We're going to complete these renovations.

Affordability will be preserved.

And we'll have that kickoff call.

And then as we'll put up finish boards showing what the renovating is going to look like afterwards and continue in regular communication, whether it be through newsletters or meetings or distributions that go out under each resident door so they know the latest and greatest plans for the property.

As the construction itself draws nearer, we actually have somebody on staff at the property

who's role will be the renovation coordinator and they will be working hand in hand with the onsite management staff as well as the residents themselves so that they know exactly what is going on for their units.

I mentioned earlier that we wouldn't necessarily do all 98 units at one time.

So probably go floor by floor or a part of a floor at each time.

So that renovation coordinator would be knocking on doors and have a relationship with each resident saying, you're 30 days out, you're scheduled to start on

Let's say call it March 1st.

So April 1st, 30 days from now, you're gonna start.

Do you have boxes?

Do you need help packing?

Here's how it's gonna work.

And then making sure that we know of, you know, if they have oxygen or they have a hospital type bed that requires some special assistance for moving, we're gonna know that in advance and be able to make those accommodations so that we're not surprised on the day when we show up with the professional movers to move them or to help them out of their apartment and pack things up so we can do the work in that apartment.

So all of that will happen very customized and individual will know of any accommodations.

They will know exactly what's going on from us.

They'll see pictures of

what to expect.

We like to do a open house and a renovated vacant unit if we can do it so everyone can kind of come through and see what's going on and try to get them excited for what we truly believe is a good outcome for the residents.

So they'll hear probably more from us than they would like to the extent that English is not the first language of a subset of the property.

Your intent is to ensure that there's no resident displacement.

I know that there's been a lot of uncertainty from the residents living there for a number of years.

Could you just go over sort of what assurances there are that there will not be any displacement?

Yeah, so a little bit of speculation, but I would suspect that the prior uncertainty tied to the length of the affordability contract with HUD, the HAP contract, and that it's been on some short term renewals recently.

I think it currently expires in October of 2023, and that was a two year renewal from

from last year.

So I would guess that's the source of some of that uncertainty.

And it's not previously been a, the property has not previously received an allocation of tax credits.

So it doesn't have that 30 year Virginia housing overlay on it.

The protections that are in place for residents are, we are here to do exactly as advertised, which is extend the affordability of the property, both through the HAB contract, as well as putting this additional layer of protection in place through Virginia housing with that 30 year regulatory agreement

We have no interest in displacing folks and absolutely nothing to gain by doing so to the extent that any residents are over income at the property, meaning not qualified to live in low-income housing as stipulated by either the federal HAP contract, the subsidy contract, or the Virginia housing tax credit program.

That's something that we would work with those residents on individually because we're

Sorry, the final question I have for now is, could you just go over the timeline in terms of what timeline are you looking at in terms of you being finished with renovations?

Are there some renovations you're looking to make upfront earlier or just sort of

Yeah.

We'd like to move quickly on this, which a big financial construct is not as quick as many of us would like.

But we would hope to close on the bonds that were here for approval tonight, this summer, and begin renovation shortly thereafter.

And I think the renovation would take, again, to be determined as we finalize the scope and exactly how we're going to work our way through the property, number of units at a time, et cetera.

But in about 18 months?

would be the plan.

So if we can close the summer, that would have us completed by the end of 2023.

There are a lot of things that we became aware of during our due diligence of the property that need some attention before then.

And we've put those underway.

Elevator modernization is one of them.

I know there's some concerns with the intercom system at the entryway that had some parts back up as to why that was not repaired.

But we've entered contracts to

I replace all those as soon as we possibly can.

So for now, thank you.

Thank you.

Please hit the raise hand icon.

Hello, thank you, Chair Henry.

So I have a couple of questions, but I will start with a question from a resident at Midway Manor.

The question is, will the company, the company doing the renovations, will they pay for residents to move?

And to be clear, when we say move, I think we're thinking packing and unpacking.

And

We also wanted to note that there are not that many empty apartments for folks to move in and out of, so I'd also be curious to hear a little bit more about renovation.

Yep, thank you.

Yes, the packing supplies and professional moving assistance will be provided.

We often find that folks like packing their own belongings as opposed to having someone else kind of rummage through them.

But if they request assistance and or need assistance in doing so, then yes, that is that will be available to them.

And then when it comes to actually moving furniture and moving boxes to the extent that they're moving to a different unit within the building or even

Moving those things into a different part of the apartment to allow work to be done in one area that will all be done professionally as opposed to asking them to do it themselves.

Yes.

And then to your question about current vacancy and how we will manage the renovation through that.

That's definitely front and center for us.

We don't want to have more units offline than necessary, meaning held vacant.

Thank you.

My next question for y'all is,

Do you anticipate having a written commitment to working with residents?

And if so, how would you outline that?

And when I say, ooh, I see your face.

So let me only qualify that by saying, when I say written agreement, I mean, PHAR helped to pin the resident's right for redevelopment.

So they have a bill of rights where there is a promise that will be kept and that they're being held to a certain standard.

Not opposed to anything, certainly want to understand exactly what would be asked of us.

I stand before you, like what I'm saying is absolutely the truth.

No worries.

Yeah, I can understand that as well.

And I understand that nobody in that building knows me from anyone else who walks in and has no reason to trust me.

So between the protections in place between HUD, Virginia Housing, as well as everyone in Charlottesville, their elected officials, we have many reasons and many folks who will see to it that we deliver on exactly what we say we're going to do.

in terms of engaging with residents and making sure that they understand that and have the comfort that they need as well.

We want them to feel supported and heard.

Amazing.

And I would also add onto that, I think getting resident input as far as designs would go a long way.

just because we will not be the individuals that live there.

Yeah, I agree.

We've got great ideas, but they will know the property often better than us.

It sometimes becomes a little touchy because no one can agree on paint colors.

And under the programs we're participating in, all the units have to be finished similarly, if not the same.

So we can't do certain things for some folks and not for others based on preference.

Everyone's going to get kind of

Okay, wonderful.

Not a problem.

Wonderful, thank you.

It's an answer I don't have for you right now, just because we have not gotten to that level of exploration.

There are relocation protocols if we do have to go off site that would be followed.

So ensuring that it is of suitable quality and size and in reasonably close proximity.

But to give you an address or location, I wish I could tell you I had 98 vacant units in Charlottesville sitting by on standby, but we do not.

So we would have to figure that out.

But I will say it is

Thank you.

And then I just want to say specifically for everybody on this call, when we at PHAR reference affordability, as far as housing, we very specifically mean the people that fall between zero and 30% AMI,

I don't have the specifics of who inhabits that building, but I just want us all to be super cognizant that it could be possible that a lot of folks make between zero and 30% and that if we don't hit that mark, a lot of people will be displaced.

I know that is not the most fun answer, but I definitely want it to be super transparent with y'all up front.

So I'm here definitely advocating for that zero to 30% AMI mark as we're looking at doing the building.

And I also will, I'm sure this will not be the first or last time that

We interact, so I'm really appreciative of the audience.

And then my last question that I have from a resident is if we, and if this isn't a medium, you know, just say so, but if the residents could receive an update about the new intercom system, I think it was put in a month ago, potentially.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Emily Dreyfus and I'm a community organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center and I'm on PHAR's Advisory Council.

And I appreciated Shelby's comments, especially about the zero to 30% AMI.

I didn't

See language in the resolution for the bond that referenced the HAP contract, the section eight contract also called housing assistance program.

And I'm wondering if that language should be included so that the bond funding would not move forward if the section eight contract isn't renewed, but I'm not really clear on the timing for that.

So I just wanted to ask about that.

And I really appreciated everything you said.

This is music to my ears.

There have been many of us very concerned about what is going to happen for the residents at Midway Manor.

And we've been in touch with several folks who are just highly concerned about their futures.

And as you can imagine, most people in the building are, would not be,

having an easy experience of having to move.

So I really appreciate what you said about keeping people in their apartments and having very short term temporary relocation if any relocation has to happen.

And I also really appreciate the overall approach.

I think the building has suffered in the last few years from not getting the kind of attention that you're talking about.

So I hope that you can move as quickly as possible to make these improvements.

I also was told just within the last few days that both the property manager, Heather, and the primary maintenance man who lives in the building are both leaving.

So I think communicating with the residents as soon as possible about what you're doing to fill those positions and whether the maintenance position will continue to be an onsite person, like someone living in one of the units that would be

Very helpful for them to know that you're taking the staffing issues seriously and moving forward on that.

I'm happy to talk briefly about the first aspect of the question, which had to do with the bond resolution language.

This is a specific bond resolution that has to follow the requirements of TEFRA, which is basically the public hearing and public process requirements for the bond inducement.

We do not include anything regarding HAP contracts.

For multiple reasons, one of them being that that's a HUD item that depends on a totally different submission process and approval process that has nothing to do with the Board of Commissioners or the bond issuance.

So we really cannot modify the language in the bond resolution.

That does not mean there is no commitment.

to file the paperwork necessary with HUD to move forward with the HUP contract.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak.

Thank you for the great presentation.

It really does answer a lot of my questions.

I don't necessarily work with an elderly population, but I do work with an unsheltered population and some of those folks do take advantage of some of our subsidized housing.

But one thing I wanted to talk about, you kind of hit on it a little bit more of the human services part of it as you go through this process about how hard change is when you're older and really, really older.

and I'd like to suggest that you look at the possibility of having a social worker on site.

I think to help talk through some of those fears or create trust, cause I think Shelby hit on it, that there's a lot of different people in that building.

They're not only elderly folks, they're younger folks,

Mature adults.

It's kind of hard to be the right descriptor, but they are folks that are on limited income.

And it would probably serve you well, like you said Steve, nobody knows your face, but it would be nice to have someone besides the property manager on site as you gear up.

And amp up the actual revitalization, you know, of this building, because there are some folks that can get easily elevated and it would be nice to have someone other than the property manager just to make it a good experience.

for everybody, because like I said, this is a privately owned subsidized housing unit, which is in of itself, something you don't see every day.

So if we can make this a banner moment for redevelopment in our city, I think that goes a lot to speak, you know, to the commitment of the local government, to the involved agencies and to, you know, your company for coming in and wanting to do this.

I appreciate that comment and your point about social worker is well received and I often find that the renovation coordinator that we have on site serves probably more so in a social work and trust building capacity than they do in the actual logistics element of things just because residents are generally so fearful and have certain conditions that they're not sure will be accommodated.

I could tell you a dozen stories of ways in which that has come true but the number of residents who are I'll say

Scared would probably be an understatement at the beginning who end up sending holiday cards or being the poster child for telling all of their neighbors how great the entire process is going to be.

There are many.

Okay, that was done.

Okay.

We are now moving to consider CRHA Resolution 1437, a resolution of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority authorizing and approving the issuance of up to 23 million multifamily revenue bonds for Midway Manor Apartments.

And any discussion among the board before we vote on this?

I just have a quick question.

I don't know who will answer this, but

From what I understand, this means that as a bond issuer, there's no cost to CRHA.

There's potential revenue.

And like how would that be within the 18 months of the project completion?

Would that be over the 20 years?

Would that be over the 30 years?

So we are working on your fee structure, but basically as the issuer of those bonds, you receive a fee for serving as conduit issuer.

And that fee is calculated and received by the housing authority each year for the duration of the bonds.

If the bonds are paid early, then you no longer receive your fee, but typically you continue to receive the fee

And it is calculated based on the outstanding principal amount of the bonds.

And yes, you are correct in your understanding that this is done at no cost to the housing authority, meaning that you will not pay for any of the costs associated with the project.

You will not pay for the cost of having me as your counsel working on this project and reviewing the documents.

All of those costs are part of the bond issuance costs and paid

by the proceeds of the project financing.

But there's no risk to us if they default.

That is correct.

You are not responsible for the success of the project or its failure.

You are not responsible for the operations of the project or the management of the units.

And you're also not responsible for the repayment of the bonds or any debt associated with the project.

Okay.

Yes, Madam Chair, those revenues are not federal funds.

They are unrestricted income to the housing authority, meaning there are no strings attached, nothing.

You don't owe anybody anything.

That money is free money to the housing authority, which is very rare in the world of housing authorities with all of the HUD funds having strings attached.

I have too many questions.

I'm on the redevelopment committee, so we're doing this all the time.

They're keeping Midway Manor at 98 units.

They're not adding any market rate units.

Thanks.

If there are no other questions or comments,

Commissioner Parker.

Sorry, before we call the roll, can we have a motion and a second, please?

I motion.

We wanna form a motion to accept the resolution of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority authorizing the approval

Commissioner Wicks.

Yes.

Commissioner Payne.

Yes.

Chair Henry.

Yes.

Commissioner Green.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mike and Steven.

And if that's agreeable with Chair Henry, we can perhaps let Mr. Graf and Steven leave the meeting.

You guys are welcome to leave.

Thank you commissioners.

Thank you, Mr.

Good evening.

Thank you, everybody.

Thanks for coming.

I hope this public hearing is just as exciting as the last one.

I would like to have screen sharing abilities if that's okay.

Okay, great.

I think we're good then.

All right, so we're here to talk about the five-year capital fund action plan.

And I'm really excited about it.

We're doing things much more in line with what our vision for the future was going to be.

And I think you'll be equally as excited about how we're gonna approach this.

So the first thing we'll look at what the capital fund plan is, how we've gotten the information to build the plan,

and then look at what's in the plan and quickly what the next steps are and any questions and then your public hearing.

So what is the capital fund plan?

It's the annual distribution of funds from HUD for capital projects.

The way I typically describe it is in public housing you basically have two piles of money.

You have one for operations and one for capital.

It comes

as a grant, they call it a grant, but it's something that you are eligible for and you expect to get that money.

This plan looking ahead is for 2022 through 2026.

Among the HUD requirements is you have to have this plan in order to get the funds.

There's a 45 day comment period.

We have to consult with the resident advisory board, which is PHAR.

We have to provide written response to the resident advisory board's comments, have to have a public hearing and this board of commissioners has to approve it.

What we've done to anticipate, we don't know exactly what we'll be getting just yet, but we're anticipating about a million dollars per year for the capital fund.

So $5 million

over five years.

It could be that we get more capital funds due to legislation, Build Back Better and infrastructure package from the federal government.

We'll have to wait and see.

It could be a really big boost to this effort.

And of course, if John and Kathleen keep moving this agency along with their team towards being a high performer, they can get even more capital funds.

Some of the things in this plan can be bolstered by other funding sources.

So career opportunities, right now we're looking at playgrounds using existing capital funds.

We could find some additional funding to make that pop a little bit better.

You can always try to go after CDBG, other grant funding and various things.

So

Our process this go around involves kind of an ongoing communication with residents and with PHAR actually spanning a number of years.

Ongoing meetings, gaining information that way, getting input from the maintenance staff and identifying the needs of the housing authority, doing official parallel track outreach, having onsite virtually

Capital Fund meetings.

We had a meeting with the Resident Advisory Board, which is PHAR, and we take the comments and make adjustments to the plan.

And so what are those things?

So in the past, we've had a lot of conversations through Redevelopment Committee, through the staff, through one-on-one conversations with residents, with PHAR, our partners.

You know, a variety of meetings, we get information about what is needed and expected, including in our official meetings, like the Redevelopment Committee.

So back in 2016, the Housing Authority, as they voted to pursue redevelopment of Crescent Halls, they also passed the resolution calling for a parallel track of

basically maintenance improvements and renovations for those sites that aren't going to experience wholesale redevelopment for quite a while.

We did a lot of talking about that for a long period of time.

And a lot of that talk has actually turned into action.

You'll see this plan gives it the funding mechanism to actually do the parallel track that we've all been working towards.

It's important if we're going to do meaningful renovation for these sites that we have a dedicated funding stream.

And because we're doing redevelopment at Crescent Hall, South First Street, Sixth Street and West Haven, all that capital money we've been dumping into those sites as they fall apart, now we don't have to use them on their sites because that redevelopment is funded through a different funding stream.

So now we've freed up all of our capital funds to do much more meaningful renovation.

And that's super exciting.

And I think a really smart way of moving things forward so that all residents on all sites have some type of renovation or redevelop.

So we kind of officially began this process getting information for parallel track and also looking at the current CFP

and how to prioritize spending, but that of course gave us information as well.

So we had one-on-ones and meetings and outreach and got a lot of information about what was needed out there.

We also carried out a priorities survey, again, kind of looking at current funds and how to spend them to get priorities, but it also informed how to move forward with the five-year action plan.

A lot of that is focused around the playgrounds, which we can do some of that with existing funds, basketball courts.

But we also heard about bathrooms, cabinets, and countertops, and doors and windows.

And you can see we got this lovely little graph that I'd be happy to share with you, identifying priorities from Riverside, Madison, and Nikki Drive.

and that's where we had our capital fund meetings.

Mickey turned into more of an outreach effort.

Didn't really have attendance at the meeting but PHAR did some outreach.

This is kind of a screenshot of an easier way of looking at the plan where we've got the different items for things and then a space to compile comments.

So we've got a column for each

meeting, whether it's the resident advisory board, the onsite meetings, we'll add a column for tonight's discussion and all of that will potentially add to some changes to the proposed draft.

Here's a whole bunch of information and we can go through some of that if you like.

The main things that we've done, the resident advisory board, we met with PHAR on the 4th.

provided the materials that they requested in the formats they requested.

And we modified the draft that we were working with based on that and the resident meetings into the draft that you're looking at today.

So similar screenshot there of how we have that put together.

All right, so what's in the plan?

So like I said, this is a new approach for the capital fund in the past

We've identified things and tried to stretch the money to meet basically things that were falling apart.

Now we have the opportunity to spend bigger chunks of money on bigger projects.

We can do some of that using current funds or the current CFP.

We're working with residents to pull that off in a resident directed process.

But with this five years looking ahead, part of the idea is to pool some of the funds that come in because a chunk of money will come in.

We can't use all of that on one particular project.

And the projects we're talking about are costly.

So the idea is we pool funds for a number of years in order to pull off bigger and better projects.

Along with this, it's our vision to work with residents in a resident-directed process similar to how we do redevelopment.

CFP is really just about getting the money, identifying the projects, but pulling it off is gonna require working with residents hand in hand at those sites.

So there's kind of five main categories, if you will.

For the plan, you have one that's authority-wide and that's

for spending on things that benefit the housing authority throughout the public housing portfolio.

And then you've got your different properties divided up into the different amps.

Amp one is West Haven.

Amp two is Crescent Halls.

Amp three is Sixth Street and South First Street.

And amp four is our scattered sites and single family homes.

And those are the ones we generally refer to as the parallel track.

So what is in the authority wide?

Capital Fund.

You can see the different years was identified authority-wide for everything that falls under this, the different years and the different amounts of monies that are allocated per year.

And then we break those down further into, in this instance, three categories.

One is the management fee.

use your capital fund to basically manage the capital fund.

And that's an important piece of making sure we're paying the staff to do the work.

One of the big things because we freed up this money is we can really look at career training opportunities.

Joy and Kathleen have been working really hard on section three and other

training opportunities and employment opportunities.

So we have the opportunity to put some of this money away and we're gonna do our best to also find additional grant funding to bolster these programs, some of which are already underway.

So that's super exciting and I hope you all are equally as excited as I am.

staff training.

As we look at how the housing authority can be better, everybody is always gonna need more training and we can use this capital fund for some of that training.

West Haven is next, AMP one.

So West Haven, we are embarking on a multi-year resident planning process for redevelopment.

So at some point within this five years, redevelopment will be underway at West Haven.

It's not gonna happen overnight.

So HUD does allow you to transfer some of your capital funds into operations.

And what we've done is put enough money there in operations to make sure that a quality of life

and West Haven can be adequately maintained and improved, but through our general operations as we're planning out redevelopment.

With one exception, we're putting aside $77,000 for a basketball court upgrade, much needed and much supported by residents.

Crescent Halls is amp two.

Well, Crescent Halls is,

Out of the capital fund game, we could, if we wanted to, once public housing units come back online, spend capital fund on just those public housing units.

But we already have that covered for Crescent Halls.

It'll be a brand new renovation and the operations and maintenance of that building are gonna be covered under their own sort of banner.

So we don't have any CFP funds

for Crescent Halls in this five-year plan.

Doesn't mean they're not gonna get maintenance, doesn't mean they're not gonna get what they need, just means that those things aren't going to come from the capital fund plan.

Amp three is Sixth Street and South First Street combined, both of which are undergoing redevelopment.

As you know, South First Street is deep in it with phase one,

coming around the mountain and getting near completion and phase two getting close to a point where we will start construction.

Sixth Street, there's LIHTC application going in in a matter of days and we think it's competitive and we are looking forward to the total redevelopment of Sixth Street.

So part of what's going to happen at Sixth Street is it,

will be happening in phases.

And so playground and basketball courts are gonna be there serving the community for a good chunk of time before the rest of the community is redeveloped.

So similar to West Haven, we've got money in there for playground replacements.

All right, so then parallel track and it's this

is super exciting to me.

So basically if you add up the rest of the money that we have set aside for this five years, we've got about $3 million.

You can do a lot of renovations for $3 million.

You can't do everything.

And we do think we can bolster some of this money with some other funds, but $3 million because of the way we put this together and pooling things is giving us the opportunity to do some really meaningful things.

On the first end of the capital plan, we'll be looking to do window and door replacement, including canopies and awnings, as well as playground improvements.

That's on the very front side of this effort.

On the end side of it, you'll see some sort of more almost routine things, hot water tank replacement,

parking improvement, site lighting improvements.

But the bulk of what we're gonna do is cool funds, $162,000 of which will be for a very brief relocation of residents on those sites so that we can complete as much renovation work as possible all at once.

So what is that?

HVAC.

cooling and healing, heating.

This is something that's been desired from residents forever and is always the first thing out of people's mouths when they talk about what they wanna see in their buildings.

So we're really excited to be able to begin this work.

There's a side effect for doing this, which is it's gonna alleviate the

stress on the electricity to these homes.

And so this longstanding issue that we hear from residents about their outlets not working, that will no longer be an issue because the cooling and heating, the stress from window units and other things won't be there.

So we're hoping to kill two birds with one stone with that.

In addition to the HVAC kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel,

as well as replacing tiles with luxury vinyl plank similar to what's going into our redevelopment efforts, the inside doors of apartments and of course paint.

So those are the big renovations.

And again, the idea is we're gonna pool the money.

We're gonna be able to move people out probably for about a week

Go in and knock it all out, HVAC, kitchen, bathroom, floors, tiles, interior doors, and paint.

Almost like having a brand new apartment.

And so here you can see the dollar amounts.

You can see up top, if you look under the different years, 2022 through 2026, it's a little more than half a million each year.

and that's not enough to do what we wanna do if we just do things year by year.

So this yellow space here on the chart is your big chunk of work, includes your relocation money and all the money for HVAC, bathrooms, kitchens, doors, interior paint and the floor.

So that is how the parallel track stacks up

money wise and sort of our approach and strategy to making this as meaningful as possible really for the first time ever.

So what comes next?

We posted the proposed plan on February 11th.

We're in the middle of a 45 day comment period.

Tonight you have your required public hearing in just a few moments.

We're expecting written comments from PHAR by March 11th.

And then we're going to have a second meeting with PHAR on the 14th.

We'll have additional resident meetings as well as some parallel track meetings with PHAR.

And we hope to have your approval on March 28th at your next regular board meeting.

And then it gets submitted to HUD.

One,

Sort of quick note, kind of our motto is if we're doing it right, the comments from PHAR we hope will be of general support because we do want back and forth and to make sure this is the best plan that meets everybody's needs.

So we hope to continue a conversation with PHAR and residents and make tweaks as we go along.

But so far this approach has been pretty well supported.

With that, we can do questions.

I can try to answer.

John can try to answer.

And then after that, Dr. Henry can open it up for the public hearing.

So I'm going to minimize the screen in case we need to go back to anything.

Okay, so

Let me open it up to the public first and then I'll ask those for questions.

How about that?

If you have a comment or question, please hit the raise hand icon on your screen.

I don't see any hands being raised.

and that is in regard to energy efficiency and improvements.

And I'm one of those people who had problems with their heat going out and still do to some extent.

And maintenance came and fixed it and structurally tore into the back of the, through the brick or something, which was amazing to me.

And it looks really bad.

And so I know that the, what is it?

The Virginia Housing and Community Development, they have funds that are called, I guess, HIE, and I know that you're using some of those for some of your newer developments.

And I'm just curious as to whether some of those funds might seriously be used towards something like solar.

I know that's way crazy, but it's something that might be,

So we will commit to look into other funding sources for solar.

There are some concerns now that the HIE money will go away with the new governor taking over.

There have already been some comments about the funding not being available as of next year for future LIHTC applications.

So we've submitted an application and we are putting in our budget some money at 6th Street for that.

So that may be a gap that we have to fill somewhere else come this time and maybe a few months after we've heard if we're gonna get funded or not.

But we will commit to looking into other sources to fund it, like at Crescent Halls.

That site itself is not sufficient enough to warrant solar panels because it's not going to produce enough sunlight to generate a savings compared to what the cost is.

But we had a partnership that

Donated the cost to us.

They provided the system to the housing authority completely free.

So we'll be able to generate some funds off of that and some savings.

So that is not outside of the window or out of the box idea.

And that will also be addressed in the comments portion of the plan.

Even though it didn't come from far, it was part of our resident meeting.

And so

And a second thing that seemed not to be addressed, and I know it was an issue that I brought up because I think it's extremely important, is that one of curve of pill, which is something that HUD kept throwing around in the various trainings that I've been in with them.

So we do have a couple of items in the budget to address that.

In previous years, we had money in there for siding upgrades.

So we are gonna replace the stucco siding on the second story of all the public housing communities.

And we're also gonna convert the room roofs from metal roofs to single roof.

So it looks similar to the units in the community.

I think those are a couple items that

automatically jump out to you when you visit those sites, which makes you know, I mean, it tells you that those sites are different than the sites around them based upon those couple items.

But we also have things in there for landscaping, and we're going to have a landscaping contract that's going to also assist us with making sure the site

has a nice appearance because unlike public housing communities, most communities, largest is landscaping and gardens because it's all about what you see on the outside before you even get to the unit or inside.

Most people, if the outside doesn't look good, you never venture into the inside of the unit.

I think it sounded really great, Brandon.

I know the parallel track has been a priority for a long time.

Thank you.

And I'll just say, you know, John and Kathleen have really provided the vision to turn this into reality.

It's pretty exciting.

I gotta say having watched this housing authority and this capital fund for a long time, it's pretty exciting.

It is a new day for housing authority and it really is a way to fund this parallel track and make a difference in people's lives.

Well, I'd throw one thing out I've been thinking about.

It's not so much support, but it's something to keep in mind as the city is putting money into our redevelopment efforts.

In a sense, you're kind of doubling up that money by freeing up our capital fund.

So if we can do redevelopment correctly and to the benefit of residents on those sites that are getting wholesale redevelopment, we're freeing up these capital funds to do major renovations

So any money from the city towards redevelopment is also allowing more money to go towards renovation and revitalization at our scattered site properties.

So I think that's something that's a message to carry.

Yes, there are a number of ways the city could assist with this effort.

We are looking at a five-year redevelopment schedule.

That's a long time.

We're seeing residents now, and unfortunately, that started Crescent Hall's redevelopment even before I got here, that are no longer with us now.

But they were in the planning phase.

They were planners, they were really involved, they spearheaded the efforts to get redevelopment started.

And so I don't want

The parallel track to become a victim to that because it takes us so long to get the work done and we're dependent on HUD to continue funding us at a million dollars a year when two years ago

We were getting half a million dollars a year.

So we are projecting level funding from last year, but history shows us a couple of years ago, that was not the case.

So if that changes, that could push this five year redevelopment to a seven or 10 year redevelopment, where then you're just replacing the things that you replaced five to 10 years ago, because it's met its end of life cycle.

So there may be a commitment and need from the city to speed this effort up.

Because we do know as we continue through this cycle, the land in Charlottesville is becoming more viable and so are the units on that land.

So we are going to hit pressures where those once affordable units are no longer affordable or the once natural affordable units that are

Voucher units are no longer there and those individuals are pushed to some of these other units that we have because maybe that's the only assistance that's available.

So we have to be mindful of that.

At some of the sites there are efforts or there could be efforts to add additional units.

while also doing a parallel track.

So addressing what's there now but giving residents the option to move to new units if new units are developed on their site to potentially redevelop that site or could keep it as it is and make those units home ownership units.

So we have ways of

of adding additional units without running into a fair cloth issue but all those things will require additional funding if we're adding additional units on that land.

If we want to speed up the redevelopment process, that's going to require additional funding.

And if HUD

cuts our funding like it was a couple years ago.

That's also going to require the city to step up and match the capital fund, which Virginia Housing is doing for the first time this year.

They're making a grant available to all housing authorities, redevelopment and housing authorities in the state.

to get a match of whatever their CFP dollars were for 2021.

So that's a million dollars that's going to be available to the housing authority.

Other localities could do the same thing.

There's nothing stopping the city from creating a program similar or attaching a dollar amount to every leased public housing unit.

That's a proposal that I sent around.

It can be as simple as $25 a unit per month, per year.

Or, I mean, it could be something a little more robust and

and let me say CATCHE, maybe $150 per unit.

You gotta think we're on average collecting about $280 per public housing unit.

That does not give you an opportunity to do a lot of redevelopment in large scale projects.

In that 280, we also have to pay all utilities.

And so if you look through our budget, our utility lines are the largest.

So Dr. Henry, you're right.

We have to address the energy efficiency in the units, because then we can have a savings that we can reinvest into the community.

But you have to have the money to make that initial investment.

And so the city has to step up

potentially on the parallel track side as well because the state is already showing that they're willing to step up.

We're receiving a lot of money from the state for redevelopment.

The Virginia housing money was pushed through by the state like a love tap, hey, you have a bunch of reach money there.

Once you do something about it.

And so maybe it's time for the city to also step up in the capital fund area as well.

Any other comments?

I just want to say I work for CRHA.

I'm a public housing resident and I work for CRHA as the section three coordinators and resident services.

I, for one, are very, very excited about the parallel track because once we wrapped our brain around, and I'm the chair of PHAR also, so once PHAR wrapped their brain around density and what density looked like,

and how we would accept density and what kind of density we would not accept.

And we came up with a positive vision.

We realized that

We could not just talk about one side and not look at the other side and so parallel track was something that we always kept front and center and to see it coming together now I am really really excited and I do support

That idea and I think just once this board approve it, we just need to do a due diligence to make absolutely sure residents recognize what are the things that is going to be changed and to still have a voice in it.

So again, I just want to applaud

You know, everyone who have worked together and stand the course of making sure that we're not leaving the other sites out.

Miss Henry, I've been listening to you, making sure

that we don't leave anyone out and so I'm just delighted to see that this is coming together but just because the board approved this doesn't mean we don't have more work to do and so my thing is that all residents need to be a part of this and we can only

You know, we do our best and do our due diligence to COVID to make sure that we are trying to reach residents through virtual.

But as things open up, each and every one of us, even board members, the CRHA board members also, staff and our residents, we have got to hit the road making sure that

All of our residents understand all of the multiple things that we're doing such as redevelopment in the parallel track and Michael

I do.

I will be depending on you, Michael.

And I'll have your back at city council to carry some of the messages that we, for CRHA that is needed.

We do need some help.

I've been needing help for a long, long time.

Thank you.

Hello, sorry.

Hopefully my internet's holding out here and you all can hear me.

So just to talk a little bit about the financials for January, there was actually nothing very remarkable about it.

It was a fairly typical month.

I will say with the year end, we were scrambling a little bit, having had the auditors there and then trying to

get them all the information that they needed because there was some calendar year and things that they needed with Crescent Halls that we were previously unaware of.

So it was a regular month.

There were only two payrolls.

We did have down here shortfall funds that were released to us.

That actually was from a request that we made in November, but we had completed

I don't know, one, I can't remember the terminology, John, that there's certain levels, it's not a level, I can't remember what it's called, but there's a certain level of funding that they'll make available to us.

So they approved us forever.

And I think actually they forgot about us over the holidays.

So we were able to finally draw that.

That was really, we've really only been drawing shortfall funds to cover maintenance salaries and benefits throughout the fiscal year.

Other than that, actually I was scrolling here while I was waiting to get on, I did notice we had addressed this a little bit internally.

There was a cleanup done with that,

Security Deposits at West Haven and there was a mistake in our software.

And so down here, there is one area that we've got to look into.

This is a negative bed expense.

So actually that is reducing our expenses and that really shouldn't be the case.

It really needs to go the other way.

The tenant ARs have increased again.

So that's gonna be a focus really

for this entire next year.

I really didn't have anything remarkable to say.

I think each area is performing as expected.

We do know that without the shortfall funds and PPP money, we probably would be in a deficit for this fiscal year.

But I do think we've done a lot of things because of those funds being available.

So if it were a different situation, we would have operated differently.

We're currently working.

I am feverishly on the budget for this coming fiscal year.

Yeah, overall, let me get to the, this is where we are year to date.

Again, when you add up the shortfall in PPP money, it's probably slightly less than 800,000, but this number, it's decreasing.

You know, we have two months left of the fiscal year to account for.

So this, I couldn't guess, but once all adjustments are made, I would imagine it's going to be like in the three quarters of a million range, which really goes to the amount that we took over from

It was, I want to say the shortfall funds are now between six and $700,000.

And that was $125,000 of PPP grants in this fiscal year.

So the majority of that, it is clearly due to those one-time fees, but you know, at year end, there's some catch up to do.

And we did, and John, you can speak to it, the information that you sent me just this morning about the,

Repositioning, do I have that right?

Yes, so there are a couple big items that are out.

We have a little more than half a million dollars in new shortfall money that's available to us.

And we'll start drawing that after the new year, so sometime between April and May, we'll make our first draw on that.

So that's a half a million dollars that we're going to have additional budgeted.

And then we also have about a half a million dollars, a little more than a half a million dollars as an asset repositioning fee.

It's split up over two years.

The first year started in January and we're available, I think it's about $300,000.

And then next year there's another $200,000 available.

So that's additional money that is above what we anticipate with leasing up additional units in the public housing program, which grows the admin fee key pool like West Haven.

Perfect.

So West Haven, we budgeted, as you can see, we budgeted to make about $35,000

a month in rent.

So we're actually outgrossing that now due to leasing up.

We've been able to lease up more units than we actually projected because we hired more staff and they've been able to turn the units faster and it's a better quality of a turn as well.

So that has allowed us to lease up additional units which is going to produce more income for the housing authority.

Unfortunately, it's coming towards the end of the fiscal year.

But we'll be able to start the new year with the higher lease rate.

And so just today we leased up two additional units at West Haven, and we have one scheduled to lease up tomorrow.

So that's three new lease ups just this week.

and we have some units that are finishing through the maintenance process now through the term process so we'll have those leased up as well.

So our current goal is to have all of the available units leased at West Haven which will leave only about four open units and those are the units that we really need to get in the specialists and to assist us with the unit.

and it's gonna be a big cost.

So the goal is to lease up all of our current units.

I will add the thing that I was encouraged about going down towards to Crescent Halls here.

The last tenant moved out in January

So we're starting February, and I may have some cleanup to do on here too, but we're not going to really be allocating, like for the most part, a lot of the maintenance expenses, you know, HUD approved a formulation, I believe, based on the number of units.

across all of our public housing sites.

So a lot of maintenance primarily, which is the bulk of the costs along with the individual asset managers and staffing assigned to the particular properties, but it comes from maintenance.

And starting in February, we're trying to catch it.

We're not gonna allocate anything to that anymore.

So the costs really aren't changing.

but they're gonna get spread out to the other areas.

So there is gonna be more of a burden on the other properties.

I didn't think that there would be any revenue really coming in for Crescent House but the repositioning fee, this is the year to date budget that we had for tenant rental income

plus the HUD subsidy.

But yeah, the first year, John, I think it was around $350,000.

So it's not much less than the subsidy that they're providing now.

So that'll help us.

It wasn't revenue that I was expecting to see and it's much needed when we're trying to get the budget balanced for next year.

You mentioned in your notes that CRHA is going through a major audit.

And also it goes to the financial institutions and lenders.

And it goes into more detail than just the financial position, but also how the programs are managed.

Thank you.

Okay, Ms. Hoffman, I guess you're off the hook.

Appreciate that.

Okay.

Except mine.

I did not put anything on the agenda just because it slipped my mind and I was rushing.

So I do want to take the time, if it's okay with the chair, please say it's okay.

Always.

So I did receive two notices of resignations from high level staff members.

Sad to see them go.

One was Melinda Hite, the housing manager.

She is not on with us tonight, but Brono Popovic, our director of facilities and modernization is on tonight.

And so I want to take this time to thank him for his service.

You've been here a little over two years now.

And we've come a long way.

I know since you've been here, since you joined two years ago and when I joined August of 2020, we've had a lot of change and you've been able to spearhead a lot of those efforts in the maintenance department.

We have a new work order process in place.

where we're looking at improving the customer service and our service and efficiency to residents.

So we have a work order clerk that's now calling all work orders that are entered into the system daily and weekly to ensure that we're not missing anything and that if any resident has an issue with the service or the technician themselves, that we are able to address those concerns and hear directly from every resident

that has a work order in.

And so Brauno has been championing that and we've been able to put that in place and I think it's been in place now for almost a month.

And I receive weekly logs of all the comments that come in from residents.

And he's also been able to increase staffing capacity.

When he got here, he had four

And now we have over 13 maintenance staff members.

We have two support staff and the rest are technicians.

And so we've been able to do a lot of work.

We had 70 vacant units.

We're down to, as of today, 21 with several of them being under MOD, which means they are offline and we're receiving a subsidy form.

We have five that are at South First Street, which are going to be demolished.

So they're left vacant intentional.

So Brauno's team has done a really,

A really good job, a lot of work.

And he has been the one to spearhead those efforts on a day-to-day basis.

Thank you very much, John.

I want to thank you, not just you, but everybody who was on our side trying to help us out with maintenance department.

So yes, John, we had hard times together trying to change lots of things in a maintenance department.

But on the end, we see results.

Results are very bright, I think.

I would like to celebrate after we pass react inspection.

So thank you one more time.

Thank you for everything and I hope

Thank you.

I will add, we have hired a replacement for Brauno.

His name is Wesley Lewis.

He is scheduled to start with us on March the 14th.

So Brauno and

The replacement, Mr. Lewis, will be able to work together for at least a week.

So there is a little transition and onboarding with the new individual, a new candidate.

He comes to us with a lot of experience.

He's owned his own business the last 20 years at Seville Air.

Heating and Cooling.

And he also spent some time at UVA as a project manager and a master technician.

And so he comes with a lot of experience and we're happy to have him.

Brono, as soon as he saw the application was like, that's the guy that you need to replace me.

He may even be better than me.

And so when he said that, I knew we had someone that I needed to speak with.

And so we did have a couple interview panels.

I had the initial interview, we had a staff interview panel, and then we had a stakeholder resident interview panel last Friday.

Just a reminder that on March 10th at 5pm will be our CRHA board work session.

Yes, it is.

That will be our initial budget work session with the board.

I move that we adjourn.

I have something to say real quick, please.

Oh, sorry, sorry.

This is Commissioner Parker.

There comes a time when silence is betrayal.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

I'm concerned about justice.

I'm concerned about brotherhood.

I'm concerned about truth.

And when one is concerned about injustice anywhere, it's a threat to justice everywhere.

The time is always right to do the right thing.

Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.

I am always comfortable and at peace knowing I have a pure heart.

I have always learned and evolving.

I am a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.

So I act with courage and confidence.

Even if I know tomorrow the world will go to pieces, I will still plant my apple tree.

Change does not roll in the wheels of inedible, but comes through continuous struggle.

That old law about an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

The time is always right to do the right thing.

So I must accept finite disappointment, but I must never lose infinite hope.

When I swore to take an oath as a resident commissioner, I chose to put my residents first and to make their voices heard.

So with my belief in truth, my integrity, my dignity and respect, I will be resigning my position effective as commissioner tonight.

Not everybody can be famous, but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.

So my service is done.

I thank y'all on the board for having me.

Commissioner Green?

Yes.

Chair Henry?

Yes.

Commissioner Wicks?

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.