HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 06-26-2007-6dORANGE COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT
Meeting Date: June 26, 2007
Action Agenda
Item No.
SUBJECT: Orange County Housing Bond Program Policy Amendment
DEPARTMENT: Housing/Community Dev. PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No
ATTACHMENT(S):
Letter from Robert Dowling, INFORMATION CONTACT:
Orange Community Housing & Land Trust Tara L. Fikes, 245-2490
PURPOSE: To consider a proposed amendment to the Orange County Housing Bond Policy
from the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust organization.
BACKGROUND: The Board of County Commissioners received the attached letter from Robert
Dowling, Executive Director of Orange Community Housing and Land Trust (OCHLT),
requesting a modification in the County Bond Program Policy provision that requires program
beneficiaries to live or work in Orange County for one year prior to receiving public subsidy for
first-time home purchases. OCHLT cited recent difficulty in reselling Land Trust homes to
families that meet this requirement as the reason for the request.
The Orange County Affordable Housing Advisory Board (ARAB) has reviewed and fully
discussed this request, including talking with Robert Dowling, and would like to recommend the
following proposed amendment to the Orange County Housing Bond Program Policy.
Amendment
For resale of Land Trust properties only, the following residency requirements apply.
1. For the first 120 days, buyers must have lived or worked in Orange County for one (1)
year.
2. After 120 days on the market unsold, properties may be sold to buyers that have lived
or worked in Orange County for six months.
3. If the property remains on the market for an additional 120-day period, then consider
utilizing available public funding to provide subsidy at a level that will allow buyers at
lower income levels that have lived or worked in Orange County for six months to
qualify to purchase the home.
Additionally, OCHLT should be encouraged to actively educate local realtors regarding the land
trust model to include discussion of appreciation formula in an effort to increase interest in the
land trust model in the general real estate market. All education efforts should be reported to
the County upon completion.
As additional information, OCHLT also made this request to the HOME Program Review
Committee recently. That committee agreed to the following modification.
For resale of Land Trust properties only, the following residency requirements apply.
1. For the first 90 days buyers must have lived or worked in Orange County for one (1)
year.
2. After 90 days on the market unsold, properties may be sold to buyers that have lived
or worked in Orange County for six months.
FINANCIAL IMPACT: No immediate financial impact is anticipated. However, should these
properties stay on the market for long periods of time, funding will be required to provide subsidy
for potential lower income buyers.
RECOMMENDATION (S): The Manager recommends that the Board approve the Orange
County Housing Bond Policy Amendment proposed by the Affordable Housing Advisory Board
in response to the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust request.
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ORANGE
COMMUNITY
HOUSING &
LAND TRUST
Board of Directors
Maz•ceia Blake
Chair
Gary Giles
Vice Chair
Gordon Merklein
Secretary
Jim Tzrcker
Treasurer
Mmy Bratsch
John Cooper
Laurin Easthom
Sabrina Farrar
Valerie Foushee
Michael Hansen
Dwayne Pinkrzey
Mazy Jean Seyda
Alex Zaffi•on
Robert Dowling
Executive Director
Funding Provided by:
Town of Chapel Hill
Orange Couzzty
Town of Cm•rboro
Town of Hillsborough
PO Box 307
104 Jones Ferry Road
Suite C
Carrboro, NC 27510
919.967.1545
Fax 919.968.4030
www.ochlt.org
Apri124, 2007
Chair Moses Carey and the Board of County Commissioners
Orange County
Re: Modification of Subsidy Guidelines
Dear Chair Carey and Board Members:
I would like to ask the Commissioners to modify the subsidy requirement that
beneficiaries of HOME funds or County bond funds must either live or work in
Orange County for one year prior to being eligible to receive such subsidies. We
make this request because not all Land Trust properties are equally desirable; some
homes sell very quickly while others take many months to sell. If the
Commissioners would allow the County Manager to waive this requirement based
on specific circumstances, it would remove one of the barriers to re-selling Land
Trust properties.
At this time we have two Legion Road properties to re-sell, one of which we have
owned since October 2006. We recently had anincome-eligible individual willing to
purchase one of these units but he has only lived in Orange County since August
2006. We hope to have this home sold long before August 2007 since we are paying
the homeowner association dues, property taxes and utilities. In this instance, where
a home has been on the market for six months, it would be helpful to the success of
the model to allow us to sell it without concern for the live/work requirement.
As the Board knows, the Land Trust faces many challenges, and as our inventory of
homes grows, re-selling Land Trust properties occupies more and more of our
limited staff resources. Allowing us to sell properties after a certain timeframe or
with the Manager's approval, without meeting the live/work requirement, would
allow us to better serve our current homeowners.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
Robert Dowling
Executive Director
cc: Ms. Laura Blackmon, County Manager