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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-17-2010 Housing & Community Development CommissionAGENDA HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION LOBBY CONFERENCE ROOM, CITY HALL THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010 6:30 P.M. 1. Call Meeting to Order 2. Approval of the April 15, 2010 Minutes 3. Public Comment of Items Not on the Agenda 4. Staff/Commission Comment 5. Fair Housing Presentation by the Iowa City Human Rights Department 6. Discussion of the City of Iowa City Human Services Agency Funding Process 7. Subcommittee Report: Community Development Celebration 8. Monitoring Reports • FY07 &08 Habitat for Humanity — Homeownership (Chappell) • IC Housing Rehabilitation (staff) • IC Economic Development (staff) • Aid to Agencies — United Action for Youth (Douglas) 9. Adjournment CITY OF IOWA CITY �"' am P I lml IN" MEMORANDUM TO: Housing and Community Development Commission FROM: Community Development Staff DATE: June 10, 2010 RE: June Meeting Packet The following is a short description of the June agenda items. Fair Housing Presentation Kristin Watson, Human Rights Investigator, will discuss fair housing laws, review potential housing discrimination practices and discuss the procedure to file a discrimination complaint. Human Services Agency Funding Process The City Council has asked HCDC to consider making the allocation recommendations for the Human Services Agency Funding Process (Aid to Agencies) for the annual municipal budget. This would entail reviewing the funding requests and sending a recommendation to the City Council. The JCCOG Human Services Coordinator would provide staff support. Currently the JCCOG Human Services Coordinator and two City Council members review proposals and forward a funding recommendation to the City Council. Community Development Celebration The subcommittee for the Community Development Celebration will provide an update on this year's celebration. Monitoring Reports • FY07 & 08 — Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity (Chappell) Contact Mark Patton at 337.8949, markpatton22@gmail.com • Aid to Agencies — United Action for Youth (Douglas) Contact UAY, Jim Swaim at 338.7518,iimswaim(aD-unitedactionforyouth.org • IC Economic Development Fund & IC Housing Rehabilitation (staff) If you have any questions about the agenda, or are unable to attend the meeting, please contact Tracy Hightshoe at 356-5244 or by email at trace-hightshoe(aD-iowa-city.orq. MINUTES PRELIMINARY HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 — 6:30 PM EMMA HARVAT HALL, CITY HALL MEMBERS PRESENT: Andrew Chappell, Andy Douglas, Jarrod Gatlin Holly Jane Hart, Rebecca McMurray, Brian Richman MEMBERS ABSENT: Charlie Drum, Michael McKay, Rachel Zimmermann Smith STAFF PRESENT: Steve Long OTHERS PRESENT: None RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE CITY COUNCIL: The Commission voted 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent) to recommend approval of the Citizen Participation Plan with minor changes. The Commission voted 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent) to recommend approval of the FYI Annual Action Plan and the FY08, FY09, and FYI Annual Action Plan Amendments as proposed by staff, including a recommendation to allocate an additional $70,000 IN FYI HOME funds to the City of Iowa City's owner -occupied housing rehabilitation program. CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order by Chairperson Brian Richman at 6:30 p.m. APPROVAL OF THE MARCH 25 2010 MEETING MINUTES: Richman recommended a change in wording on a comment attributed to him. Chappell motioned to approve the minutes as amended. Hart seconded. The motion carried 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent). PUBLIC COMMENT OF ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA: None. STAFF/COMMISSION COMMENT: None. HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 2 of 9 REVIEW OF THE CITIZEN PARTICIPATION PLAN (Recommendation to City Council): Long said this is an important HUD -required document that is being updated from the last time it was approved in 2004. He said the format is different though the contents are essentially the same. Long said the only change staff is proposing is under Section 3, bullet #2. He said there are now two categories: "substantial change" and "non -substantial change"; previously there was only the "substantial change" category. Long said that under these revisions, any change of $50,000 or more would be considered substantial and would require City Council approval. Anything under $50,000 would go to the City Manager, who would decide if it should go back before the City Council or the Commission. Long said that a review had been conducted of the Participation Plans for the other entitlement cities in Iowa and that some of the changes incorporated into the new document came from those plans. Long said that basically the plan governed how documents would be made public and what do to if there was a change in purpose, scope or location for an HCDC-funded project. Long said there have been issues in the past concerning changes in location; however, that part of the plan has been unchanged because the City Council has provided good direction with its scattered -site housing policies and, as it stands, changes in location go back before the City Council. Chappell asked what was meant by the phrase "change in scope." Long said it deals primarily with changes in dollar amounts and significant changes in budget. Long said that this is an area where the City Manager can make the decision rather than having the matter go back before the Council and the Commission, so long as the change was non -substantial. Douglas asked if this pertained to CDBG-funded projects and Long replied that it was in regard to CDBG/HOME-funded projects. Chappell asked if the language meant that these regulations pertained only to projects that were originally allocated at least $50,000. Long said that was correct. Chappell asked if the amendment to the plan was only required if the change in scope also was of at least $50,000. Long said that was correct, adding that it was $50,000 or 25%. Richman said that it should actually be "the lesser of." Richman suggested that it should read: "a change by the lesser of $50,000 or 25% would be considered a substantial change." Long and Chappell agreed. Richman commented on Section 5, The Citizen Access section. Richman noted that earlier in the year there had been some issues with the survey for the CITY STEPS plan. He said he wondered if there were ways to improve that process to garner more participation from the wider community. He said that it would be valuable to get input from the wider community when setting strategy, and not just from vested parties. Long said it is difficult to get wide participation. The City had advertised in the neighborhood association newsletters, had meetings at different neighborhood organizations and sent direct mailings to targeted neighborhoods. Long said that he believed there had been some lessons learned from the online survey. He said it would have been helpful to have a mechanism whereby the same people could not take the survey more than once. Richman pointed out that this could have been done by requiring an e-mail address. Richman suggested that it might be useful to consider having a staff, Commission or Council member appear on a local radio show to talk about the importance of the process and what actually comes out of it. He said it could be one way of getting people more interested in participating. Richman suggested adding a sentence under Media which includes something about making an effort to have City officials appear on local media to discuss the process. Douglas suggested that City TV would be an appropriate vehicle for that. Long said these could be follow-ups to the media releases already included in the plan. Richman said that having people actually discuss the matter in a public venue could get more participation from the general public. Chappell motioned to approve the plan with the changes proposed by the Commission. HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 3 of 9 Gatlin seconded. A vote was taken and the motion carried 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent). REVIEW OF THE FY11_ANNUAL _ACTION PLAN AND FY08, FY09, FY10 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN AMENDMENTS (Recommendation to City Council): Long said that the Commission had already actually considered these matters. He explained that the FY08 amendment was the result of a CDBG allocation to Blooming Garden for which the applicant had cancelled its agreement. The Commission terminated the agreement and reallocated those funds as part of the FY11 funding process. Long explained that the FY09 and FY10 amendments were the result of Dolphin International having been allocated $188,000 in HOME funds for down -payment assistance. As that project is no longer moving forward, those funds have also been reallocated. Long said that this agenda item is the formal process to let HUD know about the changes. Long said that the Annual Action Plan is currently in the middle of the public comment period. McMurray asked how many comments were typically generated for something like this. Long said that it depends. He said that there may not be many for the amendments, but staff has already received a number of comments on the Annual Action Plan. Long said there had been comments from applicants that had been pleased with the process and some comments from Dolphin International as well. Hart asked if the comments were public and if the Commission would see them. Long said that the comments will be sent to the City Council as part of their packets and will be forwarded to the Commission at that time as well. Hart said she would like to see them. McMurray asked if Dolphin International was hoping that City Council might change the Commission's ruling on their case based on the comments they were offering. Long said that was likely the hope. Long said that the FY11 Annual Action plan is a HUD -required document. He said the plan looks a little different than it has in previous years, as a consultant was hired that used a HUD template that staff has not used in the past. Long said that this had the effect of making the document a little less reader -friendly. Long distributed the budget for the CDBG/HOME funds. He explained that the Commission does not consider Council -mandated earmarks such as The Economic Development Fund, Aid to Agencies, and Housing Rehab. Richman noted that there was a memo in the Commission packet outlining the final dollar amounts from HUD. Long said that they had received some good news. Richman said it looks as though the City received an additional $70,000 in CDBG funds. He said that staff favors rolling that funding into owner - occupied housing rehab. Long said this was not correct. He said there had been no increase in HOME funds, but there had been an 8% increase in CDBG funds. Long said there has been a pretty drastic decrease in program income in the form of loan repayments because the refinancing frenzy that had occurred for several years has decreased in the last year or two; additionally, people are staying in their homes longer and not selling them as quickly as had been the case in the past. Richman asked for some sort of sense of the magnitude of the drop in program income. Long said he believed the funds were down about $60,000, and those funds are used to estimate Aid to Agencies and administration costs. He said that 15% of CDBG dollars can be used for Public Service applications and up to 20% can be used for administration. He said that a lot less administration dollars have been used the last two years because so much time has been used for flood recovery. He said this is part of the reason there is a little bit of surplus in HOME funds, which is usually used for project cost overruns, or changes in projects. Long said a lot of projects have issues that come up, so the reserves are kept to cover those. Long said that HUD has just notified the City that they must have some HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 4 of 9 funds committed by July 31, 2010, and that one way to do that is to give it to Housing Rehab. Richman asked if the additional $70,000 would be money above and beyond the $212,000 earmarked by Council and Long said that it would be. Richman asked how that $282,000 would compare to what had been earmarked by Council in the past. Long said he believed that last year's earmark was $228,000. Long noted that with HOME funds and Housing Rehab a comprehensive rehabilitation of the property must be done; it is not allowable to simply go in and replace the furnace as it would be with CDBG funds. Richman said the question is if the Commission wants to go in and allocate it to owner -occupied housing rehab, or to something else. Long said that staff had chosen Housing Rehab because they knew they could commit it quickly as they have a waiting list of people. Richman said that is fine unless Commissioners have other ideas. Hart and Chappell said they have no problem with staff's proposal for the money. Long said the first part of the Annual Action Plan explains what the goals are in CITY STEPS, how they will be met, and the anticipated resources for the next year. He said CITY STEPS is then basically summarized. Long said that Appendix A describes each project with the objectives, outcomes and accomplishments. He noted that the Commission's Justification Memo is attached at the end. Long said that City Council does look at the Justification Memo, so he appreciated the time the Commission put into it. Hart asked who had done the memo this time and Richman said that he and Zimmermann Smith had done it. Chappell asked about the public policy recommendations on page 29. He noted that one of these recommendations was to adopt a mandatory inclusionary zoning ordinance. He said it was his understanding that at a recent work session the City Council disavowed itself of any interest in inclusionary zoning at this time. Chappell asked if the Commission should then remove that recommendation. Long said that they could not remove it because it was part of CITY STEPS and had been adopted. Douglas said that the City Council might choose to revisit the issue. Long said CITY STEPS is reviewed every fall. Douglas said he liked the idea of leaving it in, as it may put the slightest bit of pressure on the Council. Long said he would anticipate at least one or two of the Council members revisiting this in the fall. Douglas said that he had come across a statement in the plan that encouraged the creation of co-ops for the management of mobile home courts. He asked if this was something new. Long said that it was new, and that it had come about as a result of the Housing Market Analysis that was done just prior to CITY STEPS. Douglas asked if this was actually happening. Long said it was not. He said there had been discussions with one mobile home park that is actually outside the city limits, but that nothing has gone beyond the discussion phase. McMurray asked what was meant by a "cooperative." Long said that instead of a mobile home having a single, private owner, everyone in the mobile home park would own a share of it and would have a voice in its management. Long said this has been done in other parts of the country. Douglas said that the current owners of a mobile home park would have to be interested in selling to a cooperative entity. McMurray asked if Iowa City had more mobile home parks than is usual as it seemed like there were a lot of them. Long said he did not believe so, but that many of them were just outside the city limits. Richman said it was relative; there were more than in Manhattan, for example. Long said that Habitat for Humanity had put together a good study of mobile home parks and presented it to the Board of Supervisors last month. He offered to forward it to Commissioners. Long said there is one park in Iowa City where 88% of the homes were built before 1976, when HUD passed requirements banning the use of aluminum wiring and requiring the use of 2x4s and 2x6s in their construction. McMurray said that if the mobile home parks were outside the city then there was not really anything the Commission could do about them. HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 5 of 9 Long said that the Commission could direct staff to study the issue within the city limits if they were interested in learning more. Long said that if the Commission wished to put some of the extra funds into Housing Rehab then that should be stated as part of any recommendation the Commission makes. Douglas motioned to adopt the FYI Annual Action Plan and FY08, FY09, and FY10 Annual Action Plan Amendments as proposed by staff, including a recommendation to allocate an additional $70,000 in FY11 HOME funds to the City of Iowa City's owner - occupied housing rehabilitation program. Hart seconded. The motion carried 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent) DISCUSSION OF FY10 PROJECTS THAT HAVE NOT PERFORMED PER THE UNSUCCESSFUL OR DELAYED PROJECTS POLICY: Long explained that the City has a policy which states that if a CDBG applicant has not expended at least 50% of their funds by March 151h they must come back before the Commission. At that time, staff reviews all of the budgets to make sure that they are on track. Long stated that there are five applicants that have not spent 50% of their funding. MECCA's Aid to Agencies funding has not yet been spent; however, Long said that they simply have not yet billed the City for the funds. Long said that the same is true for Successful Living's Therapeutic Recreation Program. Long said that United Action for Youth had received funds to renovate the exterior of their facility on Iowa Avenue. He said that the project had involved painting, and the weather had not been warm enough to allow the work to be done prior to March 151h. The Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County (NCJC) received funds to replace an exterior deck. Long said they hoped to begin by May 15t, and staff is confident that project will go forward. Richman noted that this would only give NCJC two months to spend their allocation. Long said that after talking to the architect, staff is confident the project will be done by then. Long said MECCA's security improvements are on track to be completed. Long said that all of the projects seem to be on target for completion and that it is unlikely that any of those CDBG funds will need to be recaptured. The new facility for Shelter House is under construction and will be completed on schedule. They drew down the CDBG Stimulus funds first and the FY10 CDBG funds will be drawn down by the end of the fiscal year. REVIEW OF THE FYI ALLOCATION PROCESS: Long said this agenda item offers Commissioners the opportunity to consider (or form a committee for further consideration of) how the allocation process went overall, and/or any changes or recommendations the Commission might have in terms of meeting format, application materials, outreach to the community, etc. He said the idea was to have the Commission start thinking about it while the process is still fresh in their minds. He said that the issue can be set as an agenda item for a later date, or a subcommittee could be formed to revamp things somewhat. Richman said he still felt like the ranking process is less than perfect. He said that the categories and line items available to rank some of these projects still need some work. Richman said that he believed the ranking forms could certainly be improved to better reflect some of the things that go into the consideration of these projects. Douglas said he would agree with that. He said that some of the points are so broad as to be meaningless HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 6of9 and can be applied to all of the projects. Richman said that putting criteria that Commission members do not necessarily put a lot of weight on tends to unfairly skew the process. Long asked if having separate ranking sheets for rental projects and owner -occupied projects would be helpful. Richman said he personally would not find that particularly helpful. Richman said that he would very much like to see the staff reports delineate specifics about the ability of applicants to repay all or portions of their loans. Chappell asked if Richman meant that staff should support recommendations on financing. Richman said that was correct. He said that this year all of the applicants for housing requested some variation of a forgivable loan. He said that this was not addressed in the initial staff reports, though Long and Hightshoe had provided this sort of information later on. He said it might be helpful to see this information earlier in the process. Richman said that one thing that could go on the ranking sheets is whether the Commission feels the proposed financing terms and developer fees are appropriate or reasonable. Douglas noted that this might cause applicants to think a little bit more about the terms they request. Hart said that was a good idea. She said that there are some projects or applicants that will simply never bring the kind of resources to the table that would allow repayment; however, there are some applicants that can repay. Chappell said that overall the process had been about as efficient as he could have imagined it to be. He said that in the end he is not sure what he got from some of the site visits; however, for a project like DVIP's ramp, it did help to understand the nature of the project better. Long advised Commissioners to continue thinking about the issue. Chappell said he had concerns similar to Richman's regarding the ranking sheets. McMurray said she would like to be able to give additional points for green projects. Chappell said he wondered if there could be some sort of discretionary points that are awarded to projects, as so often it wound up that all of the applicants had the same point totals. Chappell said that he sometimes became so absorbed with the ranking sheet that he then ignored the priority level. He said he could not, however, figure out how to build the priority levels into the ranking sheets. Long said the function of the sheets in their present form is to serve as guides for the Commissioners' recommendations. Richman pointed out that in the last allocation cycle rental housing was a high priority and owner -occupied was either medium or low. Richman said that, nonetheless, funds were appropriated for owner -occupied projects such as Habitat for Humanity, though all of the funds could have been allocated to rental projects that were technically ranked as being of a higher priority. Richman said he agreed with Chappell's idea of having some way to reflect the more subjective assessment that shows up in the rankings. Douglas said that ultimately it seemed as though the Commission did not really pay much attention to the rankings. He said the rankings serve as a process for Commissioners to wrap their heads around a project, but in the end they are not used much. Richman asked Long what a good process for improving the allocation system might be. Long suggested having a subcommittee get together to go over the process. He said that in the past staff has contacted other communities to see what they do. He said Iowa City is one of the few to use a ranking sheet. Chappell asked if any of the feedback from applicants made reference to that part of the process. Long said that Habitat had some concerns about the ranking process. Chappell asked what the nature of their concerns was. Long said that they seemed to think it was not really worthwhile to even use the ranking sheets. He said it was the opinion of the person who offered comments on Habitat's behalf that the Commission should either strictly use the ranking sheets or should strictly use the priority levels. Long said the ranking sheets were set up to be used as a guide. He said that, to be honest, one of the original intentions of the system was to weed out some of the applications that did not seem to be feasible; a score of less than 65 meant the project would not be funded. Long said that since then the ranking system has evolved quite a bit, and continues to evolve. McMurray said she thought the rankings had been intended to eliminate some of the biases Commissioners might hold. She said that everyone has their own favorite projects and agencies that they cannot help but want to aid. She said that the rankings have been useful for her in checking those inherent biases, HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 7 of 9 and seeing that although she may really like a project, if its ranking is low it should be funded lower, if at all. Gatlin said that he would not want to see the ranking sheet eliminated, but some modifications would be helpful. Gatlin said it had been helpful to him to see how other Commissioners had ranked projects. McMurray said it would make sense to eliminate categories where either all points or no points are awarded across the board. McMurray gave the category of "human resources" as an example of this. Long explained that this category was put in place to level the playing field for agencies such as Habitat for Humanity that had a lot of volunteer power but few outside resources who were competing against agencies with a lot of resource power but little volunteer support. Richman said this brought up the issue for him regarding the applicants' documented attempts to secure outside funding. He said it has never been clear to him how specifically the ranking sheet is asking applicants to detail the efforts they have made to secure outside funding. Chappell said it may be helpful to have a meeting prior to using the ranking sheets where Commissioners discuss what those individual categories mean. Chappell said that he remembers having questions about how two categories actually differed. He said there was no need to get dogmatic about it, but that a conversation about individual interpretations might lead to a better understanding in the end. Long said that would be a good way to get everyone on the same page. Richman said that ever year there is recognition that there are some problems with the process, but by the time the Commission starts talking about it, the process is six months behind them and no longer fresh in their minds. Richman proposed that Long e-mail out the three ranking sheets and everyone take ten minutes to evaluate which ranking items are problematic; then, at the next meeting the Commission can discuss ways to improve the ranking system. The Commission agreed to proceed in this manner. DISCUSSION OF THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CELEBRATION: Long explained that this is an annual celebration that is held to focus on community development and what the funds actually do in the community. He said it is usually held at a place that has been assisted by HCDC. Chappell asked who attends the celebration. Long said that there are typically around 100 people; recipients of FY11 allocations are acknowledged. He said that invitations are issued to neighborhood groups, community members, realtors, former members, etc. He said the event is promoted through local radio and cable television as well as press releases. Long said that it does typically work best if a couple Of Commissioners take the lead on the project. He said that staff generally sees to the details, but they take ideas from the Commission members. He said that there will be an intern available to help with the celebration this year. Hart said she would be willing to help with this celebration. Long said the committee would pick a theme and a location. Staff then solicits donations from area restaurants to provide food. Long noted that last year First American Bank donated funds to purchase food for the event from restaurants that had been assisted by CDBG funds. Long said that banks are historically good donors in part because of the Community Reinvestment Act. He said he would send out an e-mail about this to Commissioners who were not present. MONITORING REPORTS: Shelter House — New Construction & Operations IMcMurra :McMurray said she was unable to speak with Kafi Dixon directly, however the $2,500 operational expenses for STAR has been fully expended. The CDBGR stimulus money in the amount of $116,785 is also fully expended. The $194,483 in CDBG funding was also allocated to this project and the funds HOUSING AND�COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION APRIL 15, 2010 PAGE 8 of 9 have not been expended; however, the funds will be spent by the end of the fiscal year.. McMurray said that Shelter House had sent her a construction summary to show what has been finished on the project, and the budgetary changes that have occurred. Richman asked if they were on schedule to finish -in the fall. McMurray said that she had asked that but no date had been given in their reply. Long said that they are governed by very strict funding deadlines so they will be finished by October. He shared photos from the Shelter House website. United Action for Youth — Facility Rehabilitation (Gatlin): Gatlin said that UAY had been allocated funds for maintenance and structural updates to their property at 422 Iowa Avenue. Gatlin said that the project was 80% done as of two weeks ago. The painting and the structural updates to the stairs and the exterior of the house has been completed. Gatlin said a new door has been put in and the window update will be completed by July 1st. He said they are approximately $2,000 over budget, but definitely feel they will be finished within the required timeframe. Long asked how that $2,000 over -run would be paid. Gatlin said that they had mentioned there had been some funding available through CDBG in the past and that they would be contacting Long and Hightshoe. Aid to Agencies — United Action for Youth, Elder Services Inc., MECCA (Douglas): Douglas said that Elder Services had received $54,000 in funding from Aid to Agencies, $41,000 of which has been spent. He said they are on track to spend the full amount for their case management department, which helps elderly and frail people stay in their homes by having services arranged for them. Douglas said that he had not spoken with MECCA, but he believed Long's report had already addressed the MECCA issue. Douglas said he would address UAY at the next meeting. ADJOURNMENT: Gatlin motioned to adjourn. Douglas seconded. The motion carried 6-0 (Drum, McKay and Zimmermann Smith absent). The meeting was adjourned at 7:33 p.m.