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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20091013APPROVED 11/17/2009 Joint Work Session Orange County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) Orange County Affordable Housing Advisory Board (AHAB) Tuesday, October 13, 2009 6:00 pm COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Valerie P. Foushee, and Commissioners Pam Hemminger, Barry Jacobs, Bernadette Pelissier, and Steve Yuhasz COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Commissioner Mike Nelson and Commissioner Alice Gordon COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: Annette Moore COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager Frank Clifton and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately AHAB BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:, Vice-Chair Patsy Barbee, and members Lynda Baker, Gary Gaddy, Vivian Herndon-Latta, Barbara Mull, Rashii Purefoy, Nannie Richmond, Jabrina Robinson AHAB BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT: Chair Artie Franklin HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STAFF: Tara Fikes I. Introductions and Opening Comments Introductions were made. Chair Foushee said that Mr. Artie Franklin is sick and Jabrina Robinson would Chair in his absence. Chair Foushee introduced Robert Dowling, Executive Director of Community Home Trust. II. Recent Accomplishments/Activity Housing and Community Development Director Tara Fikes reviewed the accomplishments of the Affordable Housing Advisory Board. Home Foreclosure Prevention Workshop -March 28, 2009- the AHAB held this workshop last year from 9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. There were four speakers lined up to talk to homeowners about foreclosure, but only about 10-15 people showed up. Congressman David Price attended part of the workshop. • Affordable Housing Project Updates Chrysalis Property Transfers to CASA, Inc. and XDS, Inc. did actually happen in late August. Seventeen of the units went to CASA and three of the units went to XDS. These organizations are prepared to continue managing the properties and making sure that the properties are available to those of low-income. • Affordable Rentals/EmPOWERment, Inc. Possible Property Transfers Tara Fikes said that the County received a letter from Affordable Rentals indicating an interest in transferring their properties for low-income families to EmPOWERment, Inc. EmPOWERment actually manages these properties now and the County has given some bond money and HOME money to purchase these properties. Affordable Rentals is a totally volunteer organization and there is no paid staff. There will be a proposal for the Board of County Commissioners. 2 • Pritchard Place Apartments- Chapel Hill -Open House on October 26th at 11:30 a. m. Tara Fikes said that these units are completed and nine are occupied by low-income citizens with special needs. The County provided $632,000 in Housing Bond money to CASA to purchase this a couple of years ago and used an additional $400,000 in HOME money to rehabilitate the units. Upcoming Tax Credit Projects: ^ Eno Haven Apartments- Hillsborough - 76-unit complex planned for Hillsborough Tara Fikes said that the County committed $1 million in Housing Bond funds last year for this project. The developer has purchased this property and has the financing in place. Construction will begin in the next couple of months. Chair Foushee asked Tara Fikes to tell about the County's involvement with this project. Tara Fikes said that this complex is very close to the Triangle Sportsplex. The developer made application to the County for Housing Bond funds in the amount of $1 million to help in the financing of this project and the Board approved the request. The housing is predominantly for persons who are 62 or older or disabled. This will be the largest tax credit complex in Hillsborough. Most of the units are one-bedroom with a few that are two-bedroom. ^ Griffith's/Camellia Landing at Winmore -Carrboro Tara Fikes said that the Community Home Trust is partnering with afor-profit company for this project. This development would be 58 affordable rental units in Carrboro. Phoenix Place Habitat for Humanity: This project is in Chapel Hill and is in full swing. Bond money and HOME money is being spent for this project. Housing Authority Board Update: Tara Fikes said that the Chair is James Anderson and the Vice-Chair is Martha Hoyleman. The first order of business is getting them acquainted with the bylaws of Section 8 housing. Commissioner Jacobs asked about the Habitat project in Hillsborough and that it keeps growing. Tara Fikes said that this project is just about built out. III. IDA Program Analysis Ann Gerhardt from the Women's Center said that she and Tara Fikes gave the final report for the IDA Program and Tara Fikes had sent the report out on Friday. She said that the Women's Center was offered an opportunity for 20 participants to purchase homes, but the program only closed on four homes. This fact would make the program not a success. She said that the bad economy did not help. Also, some people were unable to purchase homes because of bad credit. She made reference to the chart on page 4 that summarizes all of the people that were touched by this program. She said that 54 applications were mailed, eight people were enrolled, and 46 applicants were declined. Program Success and Challenges: Although, tremendous effort was made by the Program Administrator to recruit eligible participants, the program fell short of the projected 20 individuals provided for in the grant. In addition to the mortgage industry suffering a major collapse and the subsequent tightening of lending guidelines, key reasons for a small number of eligible applicants include: - Income guidelines not met o Month budget deficiencies o Exceeded 80% AMI o Unearned income - Poor credit o High debt balances o Low or very low credit scores - Residency guidelines not met o Lived and/or worked outside of Orange County o Lived and/or worked in Orange County less than 1 year - Application o Never returned o Incomplete o Withdrawn - Enrolled participants completed all requirements except purchase o Decreased income due to marital separation o Decreased income due to medical disability o Unable to secure loan o Unable to find a suitable home Although the program did not reach the anticipated number of clients, the following was achieved: - 50% of active participants purchased a home - 100% of active participants completed requisite hours of financial literacy and homebuyer education training - For the life of the grant, participants saved a total of $10,896 in a local bank - 7 out of 8 participants exceeded the minimum $1,000 savings requirement. The remaining client was on track (>$900) until a financial emergency and marital separation occurred. Commissioner Yuhasz asked if this program would be repeated and what was learned from this time. Ann Gerhardt said that the Women's Center has decided that it would not go forward with an RFP for next year for the IDA program. The recommendation is to wait a year and see if the economy improves. Ann Gerhardt said that there was a great benefit to all of the education that took place. She said that there is a huge need for financial literacy education. She said that the Women's Center will continue to do the classes. IV. Mobile Home Initiatives Draft -Manufactured Homes Survey Report Mobile Home Parks List 2007 Jabrina Robinson reviewed this item. She said that back in January the County contracted with the Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina to conduct a survey of the condition and location of manufactured housing throughout the County. This was an on- site assessment. The survey encompasses 94 parks in the County. She highlighted some of the findings. There are high occupancy rates in these parks and there are a higher percentage of residents that live in the lower quality parks. The higher quality parks have a very low 4 vacancy rate. There are only 53 vacant mobile home units throughout the County and very few parks have amenities. Commissioner Jacobs said that this report is great and a real improvement in the County Commissioners' knowledge of mobile home parks. He suggested that they might want to get a copy from 20 years ago of mobile home park standards. He said that the occupants are suspicious of the Commissioners asking about their parks and he wants to look at the old report, see how much things have changed, and see if some changes can come voluntarily. He made reference to the abandoned mobile homes and suggested talking to Solid Waste about the possibility of recycling these. Commissioner Jacobs pointed out that some of this report sounded like a difference between the rural ambiance and the urban ambiance. He wonders if the people who did the report were from the city. Frank Clifton said that he worked in a county that had over 3,000 abandoned mobile homes. He is familiar with the state program and there may be about $2,000 of salvageable materials from an abandoned mobile home program, but you have to be careful about asbestos. Commissioner Yuhasz said that he suspects that there is a correlation between the quality of the park and the age of the park. Also, he said that he did not see in the report whether they should be encouraging more parks or not. He would like to address this. Commissioner Hemminger agreed with Commissioner Jacobs about having mobile home standards. She said that getting rid of abandoned homes should be a priority. Commissioner Pelissier agreed with Commissioner Hemminger and said that she has some of the same concerns with the 288 occupied homes in the worst mobile home parks. She asked if there were any funds to help with the low-quality mobile home parks. Commissioner Pelissier also echoed Commissioner Yuhasz's comments about the role of mobile home parks in housing. She said that when the Comprehensive Plan was discussed, the conclusion was that there is probably a need for parks. She said that the County Commissioners need to address whether or not they support the idea of getting rid of mobile home parks in high-end land areas. Commissioner Jacobs said that in the 80's there was a Low and Moderate Income Housing Task Force that asserted that mobile homes were an important component of the housing stock and they should be encouraged as affordable housing. This has been the policy of Orange County ever since. He said that he would fight anyone that tried to change it so that there were no mobile home parks. He said that he was hoping to figure out how to engage the community and the municipalities to help keep this housing stock in the high-end areas, even though the land might be more valuable for something else. He would be interested in knowing what the County has adopted as standards and whether they are being enforced. He would also be interested in talking about an incentive-based removal program for abandoned mobile homes. Frank Clifton said that there are three different types of homes -owners with lots, those that rent space on private property, and those owned by landlords and rent them out. Whatever programs are put in place, some of the issues will be very complicated. Nannie Richmond said that she agreed with Frank Clifton and most people cannot even afford a mobile home in Orange County. She said that if they put more pressure on park owners to get these occupants to do a better job of keeping up their homes, then that might help. Barbara Mull said that when the advisory board first started looking at these homes, they thought about the high use value on these parks, and they did talk about having homeowners becoming joint owners in the park. V. Closing Comments Chair Foushee said that the County Commissioners will take the report and comments under advisement. VI. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 7:03 p.m. Valerie Foushee, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board