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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAHAB minutes 041117Affordable Housing Advisory Board 300 West Tryon Street Room 250 Hillsborough, NC 27278 Minutes of Tuesday, April 11, 2017 Members Present: Patsy Barbee, Chair; Arthur Sprinczeles, Vice Chair, Noah Oswald, Ellie Kinnaird, Nannie Richmond Excused Absence: N.V. Parlikad, Josh Brown, Tammy Jacobs Unexcused Absence: Adrian Moreno, Alex Nickodem, Daniel Bullock, Staff Present: Annette Moore, Interim Director, Renee Holmes, Housing Program Coordinator and Angela Rockett, Administrative Assistant Welcome/Introduction Patsy Barbee, Chair, called the meeting to order at 6:18 p.m. Approval of Minutes Minutes tabled due to lack of quorum. Departmental/County Reports Annette Moore shared information from her budget meeting she had with the County Manager on April 7, 2017. Ms. Moore is requesting another Housing Rehabilitation Specialist and a Housing Resource Coordinator position. The Housing Resource Coordinator position will work with our community partners on coordinating the rehab work in the county, working with landlords and tenants to increase the number of rentals units available for Affordable Housing. Ms. Moore is asking for $100,000 in displacement funds. These funds will augment the rapid rehousing program to help people who are homeless or almost homeless to get into some kind of housing. Those needs could include down payment assistance, rental assistance, utility payments, and all the things necessary to stabilize them until they can enter the Section 8 program. Also we will be asking for $10,000 for Individual Development Accounts. These funds will help people who are moving from Section 8 to home ownership and we will match their funds up to $1,000. Also the Centre for Homeownership and Economic Development will ask for funds from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to match that. This will give the recipient a total of $3,000 towards home ownership. Ms. Moore shared that we will be coordinating with Rebuilding Together of the Triangle and Habitat to leverage funds. Ms. Moore stated they have asked the Board for $200,000 to supplement what they have. They are creating a pool of money to do rehab and critical repairs. They also have $175,000 from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency to do Essential Single Family Rehabilitation. This budget year DSS is getting two transitional houses. The Housing Department will be working with DSS on securing the houses. There are two bills in the general assembly to take away impact fees. One is directed at Orange County and the other is across the state. If this bill becomes law there will be a potential loss of revenue of about 2.8 million. Those funds go to schools to reduce debt. April 19`h The League of Women Voters in Orange, Durham and Chatham has asked Ms. Moore to come and speak about that issue. One of the RFP's for the County Bond Fund due date has passed. There is a need for one of the AHAB members to sit on that panel. Eleanor Kinnaird volunteered with the support of the other members. This RFP would be for the bond money. Ms. Moore stated there would be a need for another member which involves county owned property. Ms. Moore stated the position for Director of Housing closed on the 15t" Rental Housing Strategic Plan Development Ms. Renee Holmes provided affordable rental information for the board. Ms. Holmes stated there are concerns about how HOME funds are spent. She provided information from the 2016 Annual Action Plan to provide guidance for how to start a strategic plan for affordable rentals to address the needs of the county. Ms. Moore stated that this information is so the AHAB board can think about how to go forward with the issue of affordable housing. Ms. Moore stated she had a discussion with Robert Dowling of Community Home Trust and that there does not appear to be any big developments in the pipeline for the next two years. She spoke about inclusionary zoning and its impacts. The conditional zoning will be changed. This is a barrier to getting affordable housing. There was board discussion on the tax structure being a barrier to people owning their own home in Orange County. Waterstone will have rentals for seniors and Habitat will have houses in that area. The board discussed having a table at Last Friday's event to let people know about affordable housing. Other Business There was discussion on term expirations and vacancies on the AHAB board. Nannie Richmond, Patsy Barbee and Arthur Sprinczeles have all served two terms that will expire June 30th. Noah Oswald can be appointed to another term. Applications of people interested in serving on the board were distributed for the board to review. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 7:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted Angela Rockett, Administrative Assistant Annette Moore, Interim Director Housing, Human Rights and Community Development Department