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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAHAB minutes 042319 Orange County Affordable Housing Advisory Board Minutes Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 6:00 pm Health Department Conference. 3rd Floor 300 W. Tryon Street, Hillsborough, NC 27278 Members Present: Olivia Fisher, Tammy Jacobs, Ellie Kinnaird, Allison Mahaley, Blake Rosser, Jenn Sykes, Cain Twyman Members Absent: Douglas Boemker, Alison Brown, Keith Cook, Mae McLendon, Noah Oswald, Narayanan Venkatakrishnan Parlikad, Nannie Richmond Staff Present: Sherrill Hampton, Housing and Community Development Director and Diane Beecham, Community Development Specialist I. Call to Order/Introductions — Vice Chair Tammy Jacobs called the meeting to order at 6:20 pm. She determined that there was not a quorum and thus Board business could not be conducted. II. Approval of Minutes — No approval of minutes since there was not a quorum. III. Volunteer Assignment Updates — Ms. Jenn Sykes stated that she attended the Westside Neighborhood Group meeting regarding the results of a survey on housing affordability. An important challenge discussed was maintaining affordability in the neighborhood without maximizing density. She also attended the Hillsborough Planning Board meeting and a proposal was discussed to rezone land on Murray Road, in a historically African-American community. The land used to be a mobile home park with three mobile homes and two duplexes. The proposal is to rezone the land to allow for three new houses, each 2,000 square feet in size. Ms. Mahaley added there were originally five houses that were moved to this property from off Occoneechee Mountain in the 1970s and she bought one of them. She expects that the four other houses will go on the market and it is important that they remain affordable. Ms. Sykes responded that the Westside Neighborhood Group also wants it to remain affordable but the Town of Hillsborough may not have the same priorities. Sherrill Hampton said that the County has funds from its land banking program to acquire properties to add to its affordable housing inventory. Any property to be potentially acquired has to be assessed as well as meet other requirements. Ms. Sykes said that water rates will be discussed at the next Hillsborough Planning Board meeting. Page 1 IV. Other Advisory Board Updates — Ms. Kinnaird said that she met with Mary Jane Seyda, CEO of CASA. This organization originally specialized in providing housing for people living with disabilities but has since expanded to provide workforce, family and veterans housing. CASA works collaboratively with other organizations and secures funds from a variety of sources including HUD, developer fees, NC Housing Finance and property management income. They now also subsidize rental units and buy scattered site units, such as in a condo complex, but homeowners' association fees have become problematic. V. Outside Agency Resources Update — Ms. Kinnaird said that Family Success Alliance is housed at EmPOWERment, which owns and manages a total of 46 housing units, many of which are in the Northside neighborhood and on scattered sites. EmPOWERment also works with children in the neighborhood and offer paid internships. UNC-G Immigrant Refugee Center has a comprehensive resource services list and Family Success Alliance provides a website link to this services list. VI. Community Read Update — Ms. Mahaley said that the County Human Relations Board held a facilitated Community Read on the book Evicted and a second one will be held tomorrow night. The Board is also planning a Constitution and Citizen Day Celebration to be held in September. VII. Department and County Report Local Voucher Program — Ms. Hampton stated that the new local voucher program is expected to go live starting in early June. There will be about 15 vouchers awarded and the application process will be conducted entirely on line. The waiting list will be limited to 200 people. Service providers will be able to make referrals by using a code. The local voucher program will be similar to the federal voucher program and will use a preference system to include preferences for homeless, elderly, disabled and victims of domestic violence. There will also be a preference to address urgent community needs. The local program will allow undocumented people to apply, although federal HOME funds cannot be used for this purpose. Vice Chair Jacobs wanted to know how the new voucher program will be advertised. Ms. Hampton responded that it will go on the website and people who have contacted the Department in the past about vouchers will also be contacted. A briefing for service providers will be held on May 15t" and so that the providers can inform their clients. Rapid Re-Housing Program — Ms. Hampton stated that the program is expected to begin in early June. The amount of funds available is $25,000 and it is anticipated that it will serve ten families for a period of two years. Page 2 FY 2019-2020 HUD HOME Allocation — Ms. Hampton stated that the FY19- 20 HOME allocation to the County has been announced and it is $350,302, which is $51,000 less than the previous fiscal year. Two applications were received from non-profits (Habitat and EmPOWERment) in addition to the County's request for Tenant-based Rental Assistance funds for the rapid Re- Housing and the new local voucher program. Habitat was awarded $180,000 to provide second mortgages for six new homes and EmPOWERment was awarded $145,201 to purchase two units to be used for rental affordable housing. These amounts may have to be changed since the HOME Consortium's allocation was reduced. Changes to Housing Bond Selection Criteria — Ms. Beecham indicated that Sections D and E were revised to make it clear that Section D (Building and Site Design) incorporates the criteria which deals with the actual building and the site while Section E (Community Design) incorporates criteria which deals with the surrounding neighborhood and larger community. The criteria themselves have not changed, but were just intermixed among the sections and now have been separated. The revised Housing Bond Selection Criteria are shown in Attachment D. Local and Federal Voucher Program — Ms. Hampton said that in response to a question about the number of evictions in the HCV program, she explain that the PHA does not play any role in evictions. Instead, the County is responsible for such things as income verification, recertifications and unit inspections. There is a contract (called the HAP contract) between a landlord and the PHA which certifies how much rent will be paid to the landlord each month on behalf of the voucher holder. The HUD's 2019 Fair Market Rents are shown in Attachment B. The actual lease between the landlord and tenant spells out each of their responsibilities and if the tenant breaks a lease, then traditional landlord/tenant law will prevail. A sample copy of a voucher which spells out the obligations of the voucher holder and family is shown in Attachment C. Voucher holders can locate a unit within a ten mile radius of the County. This flexibility is allowed because of the severe shortage of affordable housing in the County. Ms. Hampton indicated that the new local voucher program will follow the same format except that it will not be portable like the federal voucher. Update on Other Housing Program Activities — Ms. Hampton reviewed the table of the Department's accomplishments and a detailed list of the Department's Urgent Repair and Housing Rehabilitation projects (Attachment A). Ms. Kinnaird asked about the County's land banking funds. Ms. Hampton responded that these funds are from the overall bond program and total about Page 3 $1.4 million. The DMAP program, which was funded at $285,500, comes from the land banking funds. Of this amount, $115,496 has been spent to pay EmPOWERment for management services and on two mobile homes: one near Walmart in Hillsborough and the other in the Tar Heel Mobile Home Park in Chapel Hill. As for the overall affordable housing bond, $2.5 million of the original $5 million has been spent. Ms. Jacobs asked if there are any projects in the pipeline for DMAP funds. Ms. Hampton responded that DMAP funds can only be used for displacement and the affordable housing bond cannot be used to provide additional DMAP funds because bond funds can only be used for capital projects. She said that she will request that the two mobile home units eventually be turned over to EmPOWERment. Also, it will be requested that the contract with EmPOWERment for management services be extended. Ms. Hampton indicated that the County needs rehab funds for rental properties but these programs (i.e. DMAP, Risk Mitigation and Housing Stabilization) can only be used for owner-occupied properties. County Attorney's Response to AHAB Requests — Ms. Hampton reviewed the email from the County Attorney regarding specific requests from AHAB to meet with H&CD staff, AHAB budget, meetings at other locations and mental health training for Board members (Attachment E). Ms. Hampton said that she is committed to having staff meet with the AHAB once a year by having them come to a AHAB meeting. Also, staff will attend the Board's orientation meetings. If the Board has questions regarding programs or other H&CD business, then the questions should go through the Director. This is consistent with protocol for most for profit and non-profit organizations. Mr. Rosser stated that when Mr. Cooke made this recommendation, he was suggesting occasional interaction with staff and not suggesting meeting with everyone on staff. The intent of this recommendation is to educate the AHAB about the different programs and activities of the Department. It is not the intention of the Board to instruct or give orders to the staff. Ms. Hampton stated that as for a separate budget for AHAB, she said that if AHAB needs funds for a specific reason, such as the affordable housing tour, training and state conferences, then it would go through the H&CD budget. Ms. Jacobs stated that the Board wanted to know about a budget because if they meet in a different location in the County, they may want to host a luncheon. Ms. Hampton stated that as for the trauma-informed and mental health first aid training, the H&CD staff are scheduled to attend this training in May and May. If AHAB members want to participate in this type of training, they will have to do it as individuals and not as a member of the Board. Page 4 Ms. Mahaley asked if the AHAB wanted to change the location of the meetings once or twice a year do they have to petition the Board? Ms. Jacobs said that AHAB used to change its location regularly years ago especially when they were looking to add members to the Board. They did not have to petition the Board. She said that the Board wants to be more transparent and have more interactions with the people that they serve. The Board wants to be able to provide information about affordable housing to residents as well as to people who want to live in Orange County. Ms. Mahaley stated that the Board's desire to have outside agencies attend their meetings so to have the Board learn more about them and their programs to better evaluate them when they apply for funding. It is not the intention of the Board to have to listen to long presentations from these outside agencies. Ms. Sykes added that the Board wants to know what these agencies do with the funds granted to them by the County and what impact they have had as a result of these funds. At this point the Board does not know. [Staff will provide the names of the organizations and the amount of the grant awards after the BOCC's June meeting. Staff will also provide the quarterly reports from the funded outside agencies to AHAB]. Rural Buffer— In response to a question, Ms. Hampton stated that the discussion of the rural buffer has to be separated between the Greene Tract and the rent of the buffer. For the Greene Tract, which is owned by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three jurisdictions selected the high density option for the developable part of the land with other parts reserved for open space, school and mixed use development. There has been increased opposition by neighborhoods along Homestead Road against the high density option. With respect to the rest of the rural buffer, the BOCC agreed to have a discussion about it but that discussion has not yet happened yet. Mr. Rosser asked if there were any studies or data collected about the buffer. Community Development Week— Ms. Beecham discussed the fact that it Community Development Week, its purpose and the books, movies and articles list that was developed to celebrate and promote CD week. The list is on the on the County's website and at the main library and Chapel Hill library (Attachment F). VIII. Adjournment —On a motion by Tammy Jacobs and seconded by Jenn Sykes, the Board voted to adjourn at 8:00 PM. Submitted by Diane Beecham, Community Development Specialist Page 5