September 06, 2022 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Meeting. Okay. Would it be possible if it's just sort of like a link or something maybe to just like email something around? I know we're all kind of, you know, curious to know how this plays out. So if it'd be possible to send an email update and then we could also talk about it at the next meeting, that'd be awesome. Absolutely. All right. Great. Thank you so much. All right. And next up is the item on gap loans. So, Matt, do you wanna take that one?
Sure. So this kind of follows a suit with what Jake was referencing. So the North Carolina housing finance agency, typically issues, workforce housing loans through the live tech process. It's like a category under which you can request funding when they process 9% tax credit awards. And so I'll talk a little bit about that program and then about the gap funds, which delayed the regular processing of awards for this current cycle. So what the workforce housing loan program does, as I said, it's requested as part of the 9% tax credit application. This is state funding, so not federal funding, that's passing through the state, but actual state funds. And the purpose is to help fill funding gaps for those 9% projects, recognizing that there is often a need that extends beyond what they might be able to access through tax credit. The maximum awards are based on county income level.
So obviously boon county is considered a higher income county. So we have the lowest amount of funds that an applicant can access. So we don't talk a lot about those because they're relatively small awards and, and may not actually be sought given Buon county status, but it is a loan. It's a 0% interest rate loan with a 30 year balloon, no payments. So that really does help a lot of projects in, of meeting and balancing out their, their funding. And so what happened is there was a request for increased funding to that program, given the escalating cost of construction and a lot of open and existing awards and projects who were experiencing cost overruns. And so the state did expand the amount of funds available in order to assist those distress projects. There were over 181 million in funds awarded and actually two projects within Duncan county did receive some of those gap awards that pro those projects where the Villa at Swan Noah, which is a 60 unit senior development, they received a $367,000 loan as well as Jasper, which the project in which the county has provided funding support. The 84 unit development received a $256,000 loan. So we did have a couple of projects that were identified to receive some of that gap funding.
So of course we think it's great project. We supported it. So obviously they've finished constructing it cause they have like a, you may not know the details of how they make their pitch or whatever, but do they, how do they explain? They have a gap when it's like you have an existing apartment building that is completed sitting here. So seems like you did have enough money.
So there, I mean, there are certain aspects of their financing structure that remain fluid through the end of any project cost overruns can happen up until the last, you know, minute you complete something. We received our draw requests early in the process because we were one of the more favorable loans. So they were substantiating those expenses. They did provide the county with their successive monthly kind of draws against the other fundings that we could monitor the project. But the tax credit N C HFA would very unlikely have provided them with a loan. If there wasn't a cost overrun that justified those loans. So, and I recall seeing around a quarter million dollar escalation that had happened at one point in that project, but given that they hadn't requested any additional, you know, funding from the county, we
You wouldn't mind just checking on that. I'd just be curious. I mean, it's just like, I feel like we always kind of learn, you know, from seeing how these, you know, projects happen and you know, what gets done. So every project that kind of gets across the finish line, I feel like in a way is kind of a, a data point that's worth sort of understanding.
And no direct county funding. Of course, no city funding. Okay. And, and these COVID gaps, these gap funds, these are funds that are available every year. It's just that this year there was more because the legislature did a special appropriation to bump it up in light of the, the moment we're in, so to speak.
And, and, and I'm sorry to, you know, you got question, do we, so this is a, this is an opportunity. Anyone can always go back there for additional funds after their tax credit award has been made. And these other items to basically kind of say, Hey, we just need a little bit of money. I just, I guess my question is like, how routine is it for like these 9% projects to go back? Is it pretty common or do kind of, do they look at it as sort of like, you need to make a special case? Like we don't want this to be the routine or the norm. So
It has not been my experience that this would be the norm you typically receive your award and you had kind of advanced through that process. The, you kind of have noticed of your tax credit award, you would've requested in the RPP funding and workforce housing funding to kind of all roll out pretty systematically. I do believe that this was kind of a special circumstance, one, the volume of award with increased budget sharing amount, but to the extenuating circumstances on already, you know, projects already in progress, which put a lot of thinking about that way. You put a lot of projects at risk where you're already invested to, to get them to complete,
I guess, just in a way it sounds like from a process standpoint, that first that comes to mind for me is like, you know, sometimes we or the city provide funding and then a project, you know, everyone's working in just basically on the information they have, but something happens the performance not working now, there's a, like a follow up request. And I guess just in the future for that situation, would it be appropriate for us to say, well, have you look, this sounds like this funding source kind of exists for that purpose. Right. You know, so I don't, I don't know. I'm wondering if that's the question that we might, rather than we being have a place of last resort, you know, is there another, you know, coolest funding that specifically exists to address cost of runs or
When we can see clarification, if anything, about like recent events have changed kind of their approach to that. And we'll get you that information more. I don't want to answer on behalf of N C H a with certainty, but we can touch base with them. And just clarify if that's gonna be kind of a change holistically or, or how they anticipate forward.
They actually just released their QAP, which is the, it outlines how you identify like projects and how they're scored. So that is currently open for comment. Now, as out a recipient, we don't necessarily typically provide comment. A lot of that comes from, from people who actually make capitation for the funds because they know what their direct experiences have been, but it is currently open for comments.
Well, I would, I would, I would agree, particularly on the, the parking issue and it, it is something that I think we've heard developers say is, has been, and they do expect to be a problem in terms of building in the urban core. Right? Cause a lot of these projects are very suburban projects. From what I understand from hearing a lot of ways, they get kind of in some ways, incentivized, I mean, projects can be out the middle of nowhere, but they aren't like suburban environments where a lot of these projects happen not downtown and are near downtown. So like when in two built the equal market street project this year with us was they got some kind of variance from the parking requirement. But then within whoever they are within the organization that writes the rules and stuff basically said after they approved that variance, they said, we're not gonna do any more variances.
Like this is, you know, we're letting this one in, but we're gonna, you know, we really believe you've gotta have all this parking America and, and you know, and it's just sort of, but it is this sort of suburban idea of like, well of course everyone has a car, have a car. If you live in a suburb suburb, you kind of do. But if you're living downtown, it's a very different, you know, reality for folks having a car might be as much of a hassle as it is an asset. So we see all these small apartments being built downtown, no parking, right. And the developers are like, we just believe there are people who want to live in these kind of environments who will figure it out. They'll take transit, they'll get an electric bike. They'll do car sharing. You know, this is, there's a lot of, there's a lot of options. So I would be really supportive specifically on, and I'm thinking about this cause cause, cause we have our own properties. We wanna see develop, which we may wanna apply for right in, in downtown. So I would certainly be supportive of submitting a comment saying, please provide flexibility in bringing open mind to community staff that wanna invest in housing and that's partnering. And, and we have live examples of very financially viable projects that are happening in these kinds of improvements that have a lot less parking or even no parking built in. So
Although in the city, I think the city does not require parking. They do have like we do, which we should check out. Yeah. Probably change. But minimum parking requirements generally like within zoning. But I think the C B D is the one district where they do not require, I could be wrong about that, but I feel like going back in my mind, that was great, which is a, which is a good copy have well Parker, where is where you wanna go? How long is the commentary at been for?
So, I mean, we can certainly make any comment that you wish it might be helpful if you'd like we can distribute to you the QAP as it stands and what it will highlight is everything that they're proposing to change. So every year they themselves say, you know, this is a change from the prior year draft one that makes it easier for people who looked at last year to know what they're looking at, what's different about it. But in case there are other, you know, items of interest that warrant, you know, any discussion or possible inclusion in a, in a letter, you know, parking requirements from staff perspective, we know that increases project cost as well. So that's kind of another issue that we, as an agency providing funding anyway, you can reduce costs. So there, I mean, I think there are a number of reasons that would warrant a comment about the parking requirement. But as you mentioned, I know they've been pretty reticent to write a relief valve. And that is also through some conversations with DFI, about projects that they have tried to move through their processes. So
This, this is, you know, fortunately, I mean on this point, you know, I felt like our projects are about to be proposed. This, this may be, you know, kind of a longer term effort. Right. Cause we're probably not gonna win them over with the letter. Yeah. It seems like we should chime in and, and you know, we probably just need to kind of plan on, I mean, if we wanna do a lot of, I mean, if we wanna be taxed credit, as far as some of these properties, which I hope, I hope that ends up being feasible, then we're gonna need some kind of strategy on that. Anyway. How about the, how about I'll make a motion that we authorize share the committee and to work with the staff to kind of draft up the letter, expressing our concerns and perspectives around flexibility on parking requirements. And y'all can kind of work that up and send something over. Maybe just obvious when you have a draft about here, something like that. Does this sound good?
The other thing that, that we can do, I don't know if we'll get response, but any, any entity with which we currently have an award that would be of like the candidate to seek those again, we can ask them if they're submitting any comments, just to see what theirs are and if those are ones that we could get behind as well, it will at least give us some more perspective from those, those agencies were partnering with already as well.
The, the part, the, one of the other criteria, which makes a lot of sense is around the proximity to like grocery stores and pharmacies, you know, like one, I've heard different things like 1.5 miles temper, two miles only with the, I've just been thinking about some different places and you kind start like looking at maps and stuff mean like what, how did that, how does that criteria? So you,
You receive different points depending on how far from those locations you are and they are spelled out in the QAP. So that would be kind of helpful. Okay. Because you can see like what, what benefit you get from retail shopping versus access to grocery shopping and which is the, the highest point generator. And it being closest to grocery shopping. I mean, like that is the one, but you can be farther away from grocery and still get more points than you can for being closer to a pharmacy. So you can kind of see how they play together. So it's giving you, it's like a scalable point. So just because you're farther away from one doesn't mean you don't get any credit at all. You just don't get the maximum points in that category.
Yes. So in terms of the federal recovery funds, we are in process. So this is a update. This is for $400,000 development in the county, and this will also be for home repairs. And the difference in this, it's gonna allow the per unit investment for a repair to be up to $30,000. So, so this will be from big health and safety, our low income homeowners, and at that rate, but have 12 to 24 units repaired depending on the extensive, these will cover electrical plumbing, water, sewer, septic, grouping, typical and drainage, which heating systems or access for repair. But you can do more than one system at or utilize these funds for higher levels of work goal is that we are currently in the contract development stage budget, waiting for them to return the draft contract then. So we will hopefully finalize that by the end of this month. And then that way in October, we'll be developing the fizz and then developing the scope scoring October. And then we will have hopefully the received and queue, and then November, December with the, and then ready to go to contract in January, that would probably say realistically, getting projects underway at March and then draw. This is with the APA funds able to go out a couple years. So gives them time.
Okay. Okay. So it says 15 to 30, it's really zero to 30, correct. And that comes into play with oh 15, the current cap lifting the cap from 15 to 30. We're really going to encourage in the RFP that they would stay in that range because that's the, the group that we can't really currently serve, but it wouldn't preclude or necessarily prevent that. But again, encouraging that it would be the 15 to $30,000 repair. The real opportunity is that we can serve those units that we haven't been able to serve given that that cap is higher. So we really want to encourage that higher end. Okay.
What type of projects would typically fall within that? 15 to 30,000? No idea. Well, it could be a new heating system, plumbing repairs, oftentimes in with improve maintenance. You will have, well, we need ADA improvements in a bathroom while you start to do things and the flooring is rotted out and then the Joyce might be rotted out. And so it can kind of, I don't think, think it's difficult if you are really looking at senior, who's had deferred maintenance, they don't have income. And so it allows you to do a couple things more than just like one.
Off. I have no data. This is my one data folder. Alright, great. And this is just for the ARPA. So, so kind of going forward with our annual funding around home repair, the staff thinking is we kind of keep that similar to what we have similar to what we have in the past, kinda use funding to do some of these deeper repairs or what what's the kind of forward thinking around that.
So this is kind of a one time. And in, in staff's creation of the, a app application, which I recall was earlier in the pandemic, 30,000 seems like a, a good cap at that time cost escalations. Maybe we would've adjusted that slightly to a higher threshold. You know, we would look to other funding sources possibly go even higher where you're getting into more substantial rehab. So looking at other external sources of funding like CDBG and R might be an option to do even larger, still repairs verging on rehab, but not yet replacement kind of activities staff. We don't wanna like cloud your thought processes on the affordable housing services program, but we'll likely have some recommendations around our maximums that currently are in place for that program. Given things like an HVAC system costing estimated cost between 10 and $20,000, depending on home septic repair averaging 12 to $15,000 for, you know, replacement of an existing billing septic. So there's some things that, you know, we are aware of just in watching the cost, as they're substantiated through that program, we don't wanna, we wanna give the committee the opportunity the first to provide us some feedback on the affordable housing services program, but we are kind of evaluating constantly, what are the right caps? What are the thresholds, what can we actually achieve with those per unit?
The, the struggle around it, you know, regardless of like kind exactly where we land on the funding levels and, you know, ARPA gives us a little bit of extra funding for the moment, but it's always this question of like how many people to help versus how much to help them. Right. Like sure. Fixing more stuff. Sounds great. Except that, that means we served like, you know, half as many people and the other half people got got nothing, right? So is it, is it, you know, better to serve twice as many people? You know, I mean, in a way that seems pretty compelling, like serve twice as many people, you know, instead of people getting a, you know, $30,000 of improvement. So, but while you're in there and you're in this house, you know, if you can do things to like save that house, you know, then, and it does make sense to try to get, get as much, you know, while you've got the team there kind of looking, looking at it. I mean, I can, I can see strong arguments on both sides in a way.
And that's the challenge. I think for applicants, we've had some meetings with different emergency repair providers, just generally talking about their programs. And so when you see applications, they're average requested funding is about six to 9,000 per unit. There's certainly units that are investing a lot more in to make achieve that. And there are units they're investing less in than that. And so what we find is, you know, when we contract with them, there's a dollar amount that we provided. They're the maximums that they've agreed to, and there's a number of projects there to deliver. And so sometimes we might do, you know, the bulk for the projects or at the upper cap. And then they fit in a few other ones to get to yield the number of participants they're supposed to impact. So they're balancing that as well to their own programs and through other funding sources. But there is a whole discussion about, you know, larger impacts, fewer individuals, more individuals, smaller impacts. And, and part of that comes to a decision making process when you receive applicants, you know, they, if they put all their projects at 15,000, they're definitely gonna impact fewer units than someone who's saying their average cost is five or six. So yeah, it's a balancing on all fronts right on that one.
Sure. And so I'm gonna step in here for, for Matt card, who you met at the last committee meeting. He had a prescheduled vacation, but we didn't wanna delay getting this kind of information in front of you. So we have three mapping updates to bring forward to you. And then one to just kind of talk about it in a conceptual way, but we have currently available emergency home repair map on our website, as well as a map of existing affordable housing projects that have Bonham county funding support. So those are existing maps, but they're updated on somewhat different schedules as well as a new map that we're working to create the affordable units map is what we're technically off that right now. So what I would like to do is just switch over to the websites that we can kind of show everyone in, in real time where to find this information, to show you kind of what the updated materials look like or what the status of those are.
So anyone who's not familiar with our, our website, if you go to Bonham county.org/affordable housing, it takes you right to the main landing page. If you're looking for these maps, you'll select the link that says affordable housing services program. I'm just gonna switch to that tab within that. There's some PDF documents, those include the emergency home repair map. So there's a clickable link here. I'm switch to that tab because it's already open. But what we have is through August the 17th, the current and up to date map of all of the units, which have received a home repair since 2010, which is when we began mapping those activities. So you can see where they are. This is a PDF map mainly to protect people's individual, you know, information. We don't want you to necessarily be able to pinpoint to, you know, commissioner Edwards received a home repair at this address.
So it is again, PDF scalable, but looking to see the disbursement and where those kind of activities are occurring internally, we can use it to see perhaps there's the distress neighborhood, cuz we see a lot of repairs there or something like that. So we can use it in a lot of internal ways, but for public viewing, we have it at this scale and availability. And so going forward, this PDF can be updated more regularly again with additional staffing. As the actual draw requests are received, we can go in and update the map. So this should be regularly updated going forward. So that is available online. The second map, which scroll down to here is actually live within that same site. So if you've gone to the site to find the PDF, this map is of the existing projects with bunk county funding support, we have updated the feed.
It sometimes takes a couple of days to load the feed. So it's kind of an interactive data set. And again, we can update this one, as projects are funded, this would still happen on a more annual basis. But as a reminder for how this map works at the bottom, there is a table that includes the list of projects, the funding, the number of units, the funding years, what the status of those projects are. It is also interactive. So if you, you know, zoom into the map and you find about the project, it will actually pop out and show you the detail as well. So you can look at it kind of spatially or you can look at it tabularly. So I know that this information was loaded last on Friday. It doesn't appear that it's populated with the updated 23 information yet, but it should be occurring in the next couple of days.
It's really a good way to see which project that the county has had an involvement in. It's getting a little more complicated because some of the projects now have multiple funding sources or have that received funding over a couple of years. So for example, a project may have affordable housing services, program funding, and it may have car funding and how we reflect that. So we're working through how, how to reflect that all tabularly and really track it to the years. But it does show, you know, social dispersment. It will help with kind of identifying, you know, where we as a county have been active in supporting projects and just generally provide that transparency, the new map, which is not yet available online, but I wanted to, to show you kind of where it is in development, but that's not online right now. This one is, yeah, that is okay.
This one. So the newest map is a map of all of the projects in the county, which offer units for rent, for income qualified individuals at 8% AMI or less, or that accepted vouchers. And so these are the larger apartment developments, Jake Eckford and Matt card have worked on this project together. Jake did reach out to a number of folks across the community to verify kind of what the status of their rental units were, what kinds of units they had available, whether they accepted vouchers or not. And we used a couple of different comprehensive lists that existed out there of affordable units in Boston county. This is a current like Google platform map. So we're working in a couple of different spaces to try to figure out the best way to make this information available. So right now this map, as you can see, has a lot more, so this is not live on the web at all.
And we can share the link with you guys as well. This is just a Google map. So where we're getting the data out there so we can get a spacial assessment, but obviously a lot more, a lot more sites are on this map than the ones that we funded. And what we envision is this being our tool for residents or potential residents to use, to identify right, different opportunities. We're hitting some barriers in terms of how exactly we wanna publish this data. Ideally, you'd be able to go on and say, I wanna live in Swanno and look at what's out in Swanno and pick those units and see what you qualify for. But also another way that would be ideal is if you could filter out properties by, well, I have a voucher which of these units create vouchers and then look at that. So we're looking at working with it and in terms of determining exactly what platform will push that out. But the important piece that is completed is the data vet. So actually contacting all of the various landlords to confirm what they have, that this is current information, something we can do annually going forward and then getting those sites mapped, which creates depending on how they're addressed and some other things. So we've done kind of that hard part. And now we're working to get a platform that makes this useful to residents, potential residents.
So it will have a status as complete or awarded. So the one that, as I said, we, that we're doing updates through the end of last week and it takes a few days for them to pull through the system. So Jasper apartments for example, is one which is an awarded project. It's not fully complete in our system yet. We haven't actually dispersed our last payment to them. We hold that until their final closing. So that one is what we consider an awarded, but not complete project, however, it's worth mapping because we get a lot of requests and calls for information about, you know, what apartments are coming online. So that's a helpful tool just to be aware of, of which ones are out
So we have discussed putting if it's been awarded yeah. Putting it in. And you know, volunteers are Americans example where awards funds were awarded and it didn't necessarily advance in that year, but they were re awarded. So something you can put in and then remove, but technically we have an, an allocation for that project regardless of what its status is at that point. So we would list those, you know, so the 23 awarded projects on hill road, all those projects would have a place on this map.
Remove it. Light would be part of that reallocation kind of process. So again, each of these are kind of in a different stage. The ER map is complete. The, the emergency repair map is complete. The projects with funding is complete, not yet uploaded, but it should be happening in the next couple of days. And then we're still in the midst of getting this. Here are the affordable housing developments, which you can access if you have this AMI and or a voucher, determining the platform and making sure that we do it correctly is really important so that we can serve people, trying to get to information in different ways, both spatially and based on their own individual criteria. This is a tool just for your awareness that we have in our meetings with city CD staff, they're excited about. So we're gonna be sharing our data and, or, you know, links with them because this is an area where they get a lot of requests, as well as land disguise realtors, association realtors. They do a lot of work and produce brochure annually on this. That's one of our reference points that we utilize. So they're excited that we're mapping it, and this is something that doesn't exist. So there isn't currently any mapping of the projects for Bon county. So we're,
And we won't have links to all those resources as well. So that's the other part is how to make that, you know, really fully flesh of giving links and access to the brochure that exists from sky association realtors and any other provider. There's also a state supported website, which we currently link to where you can go in and actually put in a bunch of criteria there and see what units pop up. So again, giving people access to as many resources possible, also be really helpful, you know, from a staff perspective, when we get calls or inquiries to help guide them here themselves, but also to help them navigate, learn how to, to
I give, you know, full credit to Jake and Matt. I've been hammering away at this one. So, and when we get, you know, this one finished or in a format that's published, we'll certainly provide that update as well. And happy to share the link with you, given that it's internal, we're not publishing it, but we can share it with you. So you guys can, what data is even available
All right. All right. So there, isn't a lot of information in this part of the meeting. It's more about providing you as a committee, some opportunity to provide us feedback based on your experience with the FY 23 affordable housing services program process, with the things that you experience, seeing the various applications as well. And so before staff brought forward to you, and I'm gonna switch to the schedule just for some perspective, before we brought back to you, proposed revisions program, guidance and application, we wanted to hear from you as a committee, you know, kind of in an UN staff led way, the committee lead the way on things that perhaps, and even if they're just general thoughts or ideas might help improve the program, guidance, the program itself, things that maybe we should be asking on the application and that sort of thing. This is happening first.
So then in our process, we wanted to come to you first, get your feedback. Staff obviously already have some ideas based on our experiences from last year that we've been documenting and will be happy to put into, to place. And, and perhaps still online, that would be good. We are having and hosting on September 15th, the community development division partner meeting. So we have reached out to partners that made application in the last two years to the formal housing services program, as well as partners that made application for affordable housing related activities through the ARPA F FRF process with the county. So we wanted to reach kind of all the applicant pool that was out there. We've invited them to a meeting to provide opportunity for one meeting with each other. But two, the real thrust of that meeting is to get feedback from them on our application processes.
You know, what was good about the process? What could improve with the process, what hindered you in applying and or in receiving funds? What, you know, those kinds of feedback questions. So we'll be working with them through that. So that's another layer of feedback that we're looking at to possibly incorporate some changes on the 19th we're meeting with community development division staff from the city of Asheville again. So we've started having some regular meetings with their staff to talk about processes. So they application process. There's some discussion about how we might align our applications, which would be helpful in evaluating them and suggesting funding support for that. So that's a positive, but also working with them to say, what about your application? Do you like what's really beneficial to the applicant? How might we align some of those pieces going forward to make it easier on applicants as well? So if they're using a budget form and we are using a budget form, can they be more similar
To use the same type of form? So meeting with them on the 19th, since a lot of activity, kind of in the first couple of weeks of the month, but bringing back to the committee on the fourth, some proposed revisions to the affordable housing services program that may necessitate, depending on how quickly we can condense all that information, having a second meeting on the 18th and, or possibly moving that October meeting to the 18th. So we've laid out a potential for a special call meeting there on the 18th. Our real goal is to get the committee to make a recommendation in the first part of November to the board of commissioners and actually have the board sit, you know, this program and its whole and adopted. We have been working with legal and the last several months to talk about the best way to set up the program.
And really because it's a policy guidance document, it should be approved at that board level. So the committee will make a recommendation, the board would approve it. And we're hoping to set that up, to give us some flexibility, to, you know, modify what we need to and successive years without floor board approval, but kind of setting up a template that will work better in that format. So for years and years before the afford housing committee that always went to the board every year, this is the program, approve it. These are the applicants and allocations approve those. And the committee has been making adjustments to the program without the board fully approving them. We just want to kind of reset that to be the board is approved the program policy guidance, and then how we can modify it going forward at the committee level. So it will outline all of that. And then by December 6th, the board would consider and adopt the program guidance at the board level, which would allow us to issue the proposals and open the application and admit the, I don't have, again, it's always, we're operating on a tight timeframe to turn everything around, but wanted to start here with the committee and just thoughts, feedback. There's something very specific that you recall that you want to change and certainly, you know, open to discussion about it just generally.
No, so not advocating for it, just talking about it, but there's gonna be this fund referring in this fall. Right. So, which would be of course, the game changer for the county in terms of our resources available to investments. And we won't know how that turns out until on the evening of first Tuesday of the month. Right? So, but there's lots of reasons to, to be optimistic about it. People see what this is in our community. So let's, let's talk for a second about like assuming that the bond passes, then we're gonna have all these additional funds to program over a period of years. Right. But it'll be orders of magnitude more than we've had just through our annual budget process. So, and we've got these ambitious goals we wanna go after. So if thinking about the scenario where the bond passes in a way that I guess the most significant question I have about the process is, I mean, in some ways I would have this question, even if we didn't have the bond referendum.
Cause I think we would be thinking about like, well, we still need to meet these numbers. What are the other ways we expect this? Right. It's just, the bond is sort of the most, you know, compelling way to try to do it. If the voters will agree with it. But if that doesn't happen, I'm sure we'll, we're not just gonna give up on this, but you know, so we're gonna have this need to do these more, these 4% projects, right. Which are very complex projects. They are larger projects. You have to be qualified to do them. Right. They're just, it's not just kind of any housing development. Right. So I'm wondering if, I mean, one thing is that if the bonds do pass, I mean, one concern I have about the current approach is that probably there's, there's like a lot of people who would be interested in working in comb county, see the bonds pass.
And they're like, Hey, this is great in Duncan county. And the people in this community are really serious about increasing our numbers. Let's go find some great places to do, to do these, to do 4% projects along with the other kind of projects we're doing to help them meet these goals. But there's really not enough time for someone who hasn't already started that process from the time the election happens to the time. Or it's more is a question, not statement, is there enough time from then to then for realistically, for many people to like begin a good project and submit it in this first round, of course we have many years to do this, but in a way, like I would want, once the bond passes for us to be able to say, okay, great affordable housing planners of the world let's do this. Right.
So I would, I would hate sort of basically for people to realize there's really not time to do this. And my really my first buy at the apple is another whole year from them. I'd love to kind of like pass the bond and then have enough of a runway. So people could with the knowledge of that and therefore a lot of confidence that this, if they put all this money and due diligence and work to find a good piece of property and do some due diligence on it and then submit it to the county that, you know, they have a reasonable life, I guess the timing around all that is the one question. And then the other is like, there's so many different things we're doing in our housing services program. And you know, and you guys know I'm really kind of drank the Kool-Aid on this, but like I do think the 4% thing is important. And should we do specific solicitations speaking those types of projects that look to me from some of the other counties that have done bond bond reference, and then did a whole bunch of 4% projects, right? Like in a period of a few years to kind of meet these, like obviously they have these very ambitious goals. I haven't looked at this, but I'm just kind of assuming they did. They probably distanced solicitations specifically seeking the types of project. So those, those are a few of my questions in observations at this point. So yeah.
So I think I caught most of her questions. I wanna try to answer what we can. So in terms of having enough time, so the 4% projects don't run on the same cycle as the 9% projects though they can. So I know that you kind of experience some questions about, we need commitment letters, you know, by May 13th in order to advance this project. So 4% can be taken later in the, the year calendar year. Typically through September, if you submit them with the may deadline, they're considered as that time, they kind of move in the same cycle as the 9%, but they can be submitted outside of that window. So, you know, and 4% as you referenced, if bond funding were available, that would be a real avenue for them because they're looking for, you know, a higher gap amount to be filled. Sometimes there are limited available county funds that we've been regularly allocating. So there might not be enough to support multiple 4% projects. So even if they, the amounts were lower, there are only so many projects that existing funding level could. So I think that the timing issue isn't as pressing in terms of on the back side, it's more about if, you know, bond were to be successful in November. Would that be enough lead time for them to identify a site and move forward just
So I mean, that part is a little harder to know, obviously if a bond were to pass and the county were to move forward and, you know, in funding that and using those funds, that's gonna be a real signal to the development community at, you know, local state national scale. Hey, Bonham county has funding available start finding properties, but we did see evidence in the last round, just with our emphasis on 4% projects with the goal setting activities that there were developers already seeking and identifying projects on their own that met our timeframe. So while yes, the bond would probably draw more attention and we would get more. I don't think that that means that there won't already be development community in the process.
We've been working on our properties for you years now and like, we don't have, we don't have 'em ready to suggest any back. So, you know, it just takes time. Like, you know, people are working on, especially if it's not people who are already in the community, which I expect there'll be, I expect and hope there will be proposals from, you know, Duncan county, located companies and organizations that I hope there'll be great ones from, from other folks who work around around the state. That's just a short, that's a short window. And then we would, and then especially if they wouldn't have another chance for a year, I feel like we want to come out of the gates strong on this. Like we're not gonna do it all in one or two years. It's gonna take, we're gonna need this whole time. But I feel like we either extend that window or start it later, or plan on doing something that kind of looks like our normal housing services program, solicitation, where maybe we would plan on allocating the amount of money that we would be budgeting for in our budget.
And then do a separate like plan for like, you know, a larger window where we would say like, Hey voters have approved bonds. We want to go invest first 10 million of it and build 500, you know, affordable apartments, bring us your, bring us your best ideas. You know, something like that, where you give a nice wind of opportunity for people to put together really strong, really strong projects. So maybe it's an additional separate solicitation around, you know, additional tax credit projects that we would fund through the bond. I'm I'm I don't have a specific idea what right solution is, but I feel like February's very tight for people to something that's well thought out.
I mean, it is definitely a tight timeframe. If, if the activity of the bond responds someone to say, okay, now I want to go find a piece of property because now this is an appealing community to seek, to develop in. And we do notice, so last year we started the process of going through all of the prior two year tax credit, awarded entities, getting their contact information and actually directly soliciting to them, providing a notice of our release and that alone, I think actually drummed up some additional interest. So we're gonna continue that process with a regular cycle. But to your point, you know, there is gonna be a timeframe that cycle is really intended to identify, you know, the need for the local general fund obligation to continue to support the activities. So to your point, that may not be sufficient for getting additional projects beyond what we would've normally already received. And it may warrant doing an additional cycle or process outside of that one. So certainly you could have the potential to fund projects with general fund dollars, as well as bond dollars in that cycle that's currently running, but a separate solicitation. If the goal is to try to get some additional applications in that first calendar year would likely, you know, be warranted if we're not getting the volume that we need to get that really going.
Yeah. I mean, I know we, you know, we'll get a lot of attention. I think the outreach are doing is great, but like, you know, the city did their bond. Like they didn't get hardly any of these. Right. And I know the cities in this, like their land constraints are different, cuz they have to happen within the city. There's probably not as many larger tracks of land, but if we really want this kind of project, I just think we need to kind of clearly say like, this is what we want. We, we feel like getting five or six of these projects done or something in the neighborhood is essential to meeting these goals. So I just think we need to express that and kind of create a process that kind of communicates like we, we understand these are, these are bigger conflict, complicated projects, probably expensive to develop. So we wanna, you want, we wanna create a pathway that's gonna be inviting as possible.
I feel like if I'm hearing you hearing your point correctly, it's not just a timeframe. That's almost like a separate question, but the, just the, the concept of we're looking for multiple 4% biotech projects that probably need to be of a minimum size, like quantity of units wise and should be, should we, or will, will there be value in us doing a standalone solicitation for that kind of specific developer?
I, I, you know, I mean, that has appealed to me just because it does, I think as clearly as possible to that, like we're looking for 500 units through the 4% program, cuz we know that we're already doing the nitrogen, the nitrogen program. We're gonna get one of those every year. We know that. So like we've done the math, we need 500 more and we think this is where we should get the majority of them. But, but if it is part of the larger solicitation, so we're, you know, we're doing that plus home repair plus you know, home ownership and the other things we're working on. I still think it would be good for us to kind of spell out like we are looking for what, you know, whatever the specific number is. Like we're looking for 300 of these or whatever's the number that puts us on the trajectory to, to meet the goals we've had at.
We spell that out and, and express that we, we think the 4% program is very important part of that. So we really inviting those proposals. So I don't know, I think it could be together or separate, but could probably work either way if the timing is set up so that people have time. Cause I do, I do, people are, people are I'm sure hearing about the bond refer and stuff in the, in, you know, in this community. But my touch is that a lot of people who are already kind of committed to working in the county are probably gonna wait to see what happens before they start spending time and money to plan projects, certainly that are a few hours away. Probably heard of it are doing that as well.
So one thing that I'm kind of hearing and something that staff has made note of is one putting the recently adopted goals, affordable housing goals that the board fully adopted and referencing those in the program guidance, which we've re included in reference like the strategic plan goals surrounding affordable housing in the past, but actually calling those very specific unit goals out because that's gonna again, reference, this is what our desire is. We can do this process a couple of different ways if there is in, in that goal setting process. And then there was discussion about, we want this many units for rent and we want this many of them to be Litech, you know, kind of a subset, there's a specific subset goal, either kind of separately, you know, for the 4% projects kind of, and within this and the live tech group, we want this many of them to be 4%.
If that's something you wanna spell out, we can, you know, put that as part of the program guide and work that through that process or kind of do that as a separate actual item coming out of committee. If there is a desire to set that goal, again, those are all things that are signaling to the developers, what you're wanting them to do. And so, you know, I think that that's a, it was a strong case already that we, you know, it's definitely, we're gonna recommend putting those in, but if we need to add kind of a subset goal on the 4% do that. I think through that process as well, kind of meet some of that discussion. And that gives you some time too, to think about what exactly that goal would be kind of going forward to kind of flesh that out, but definitely including the goals, again, it's signaling to the, the development community and to the applicants, this is what we're trying to achieve. How can you help us move these very specific, measurable goals,
One other things with a bond which could kind of, or kind of, I guess, question about the timing is that, I mean, in my sort of assumption, I don't think we've ever really talked about this process, but that we wanna kind of get through our process, make decisions on funding of different projects. And then it all kind of folds up into the county's budget process. Right. But the bond funds won't really necessarily be tied to the ha budget process. Right. Cause it'll be this big pool of funding that's approved, that's sort of different than the budget process. So, I mean, in some ways it would kind of, it could kind of, if you did wanna do something separate, it wouldn't necessarily need to be synced up with the annual budget process.
Right? Correct. So the reason for our timeframes and deadlines is so that we can sync the budget. So we know what we need to pull from general fund dollars to support the activities, but the, the bond funds will be, you know, it's over that whole span of time at the time that you allocate funding from that in order to fund with that. So they're not tied to that, that window timeframe.
So not to get ahead of ourselves in the November 8th vote, but I would be curious what that timeline of a process could look like in terms of how we do our decision making for the budget, how that aligns with other things that you all have going on with the staff capacity that you have. It sounds like we would have two very different processes happening maybe simultaneously, maybe not what that workflow might look like for us.
I mean, I think I don't expect an answer. No, no. I think our goal is always that we get the program guidance where we don't need to make a change. Right. Everyone, we can laugh now actually a joke, but really, you know, we spend a lot of our, our time in this cycle is kind of dedicated to, you know, staff's preparing the revisions in the fall, issuing it in the winter, considering it in the spring contracting in the summer, go back in the fall. So from that standpoint, if you know, there weren't significant revisions and we were using the same basic, you know, language, perhaps it's a revised one that really is focused on construction activity. Only, you know, this RFP, we're not including all of the activities, something like that. Those projects though are the most complex to consider. So it may mean, you know, from a staff perspective that we might not do a, a large set of revisions. We might be reissuing the same program guidance, which would be ideal. Hopefully we get it right. And we didn't need to, but that would be, you know, certainly consideration in terms of how do you manage that with the other process? What are we gonna consider it and how, and what timeframe?
And I mean, the process is even more important will be even more important us. So we have so much more money to work with, right? So it's like, it's always important, but only gonna be like more, more important going forward. And, and if bonds do pass, I mean, do the staff have kind of thoughts at this point around how much we would plan to invest in like the first cycle, like of the, of you know, of, of next year or would it just be sort of, Hey, here's the, here's what we're looking for. And then we kind of see how compelling projects are that come in then. And if there, if there's a whole bunch of rock, rock, solid projects, and we're like, Hey, let's put in, you know's fund all these projects. We've got this. Or like, let's take some more time then I don't, I don't know. Do, is there some thinking around that at this point?
So, I mean, everyone's thinking in hypotheticals, right? We have no idea what's gonna happen. As in reality, we don't know with certainty. I think that obviously from staff's perspective, when we look at a project, we're gonna look at that project as to whether it's compelling or not, regardless of what the funding source is. We have been unfortunate in certain cycles where we weren't able to find all projects, even ones which were compelling, but ultimately, you know, there is a decision to be made about projects and, and their level of what's compelling and how much you would fund, ideally because of the gap and the need. We would hope that we could expedite and move a lot of projects earlier than later. So we hope that the response, you know, if bond funds were to be available and we were signaling all of this would be positive and would result in a lot of activity earlier in the bond later, because the sooner we can get that unit into movement, the sooner that we can make that kind of impact,
Of course, I agree that, but if they're good projects, right? Like, I mean, like I'm just, you know, I would, you know, I would rather wait for good projects, right? Like I would rather wait for projects that produced a lot more units for the funds. We'd have to invest than just say, you know, this project's ready to go, but you know, at the cost per unit, that this is gonna cost, we're only gonna build a few hundred units over the next, you know, with these bond funds, I'd rather take the time and get projects that really take the bond funds and meet our goals. You know, cause if we, if the cost per unit is super high, even with the bonds, we're not gonna meet these goals. So we've gotta, so anyway, that's just my thoughts for some eager come out game fast, but we also need to, you know, make sure we're investing in really strong projects. Are there any other things about the processes for this year that I wanna talk about? We talked last
And I will have to go back into my notes to remember kind of the specifics around that. So we had, in terms of the emergency repair discussion, there are definitely some smaller repairs. So we had even talked about creating subcategories, kind of at staff level, you know, home repairs that less than $10,000 home repairs up to $20,000, do you wanna apply for one or the other? And that kind of speaks to that whole issue of people are averaging out and they make application, but they are making some more significant repairs. And they're also making some less significant repairs in order to meet their prescribed contractual obligation to us, but also when they make obligations to make a compelling application. And so how do we, you know, spread that, how do we evaluate those two or three or four different providers against each other? If one of them wants to come in and do more substantial repairs at the end of the threshold and the other would like to do more minor repair activities.
So we haven't nailed down kind of how we think at the staff level, we would bring that back, but it is part of, kind of our consideration of do we, you know, somehow bifurcate or, or split up our emergency or repair application process or fill at different criteria, depending on which level of funding you think you would seek at at that. I mean, per unit, you know, what kind, what does that mean? You know, if you're doing a more substantial repair, what kind of obligation you have staff has also had some discussion, you know, with providers about our existing requirement for a lie repairs over $10,000. What does that mean? What is the benefit of delay? So really looking in depth at kind of those aspects of emergency repair as well. You know, in a lot of cases, people who really have a need are sometimes really resistant to lie in their property.
So they already have debts and obligations they're at that income level where they don't really, there's a discomfort with taking on additional debt burden, even though it is a forgivable debt over a period of time. So that can be a hindrance sometimes to people actually receiving the repair, the staff, we're kind of evaluating that feedback from home repair providers, putting that in context with, well, an H track unit is gonna be $13,000 cause anyone who really needs that repair is gonna have a lean and that's gonna be required. And what is, I was just reading some of the resistance based where, what financial threshold does Dalene go place? It's 10,000, over 10,000, that's the current level. So staff will probably propose a, a different and perhaps higher level at which Alene would come into play. But again, thinking about what is the benefit, why did we do it?
So that's the lens that we're looking through for some of those specific requirements, the thinking behind why the lean exists anyway is you want someone to enjoy the benefit of the improvement, you know, kind of over a period of time, it does improve the value of the property as well. And so if you make the improvement and immediately transfers to someone else, who's not an income qualified, then the income qualified person didn't ever experience the benefit. So it's a recapture kind of tool, but again, it's over, you know, a it's reducing over a period of time, the lie isn't permanent. It's not completely repayable, but, you know, should we escalate that, should the timeframes be shorter on the lien? What would help people to not have that as a barrier, but also ensure that the benefiting individual benefited at least through being able to reside in a safer space for time. So those are some of like we can get into the real specific things. Those are some of the very specific things at the staff level that we are, you know, thinking about and trying to figure out how to those revisions for you want to consider.
And currently all of our programs are done through habitat and mountain housing. Yes. And this space. Yes. And so that's a requirement that both of them are working with the time and the large majority of the funds are currently one for project of less than 10,000, not between 10 and 15. Is that that right? Not, I guess I'm asking, I guess how much experience are we getting with this
Question? We we've had a very limited number that exceeds that amount. Now I will say that our home repair providers, again, they give us a budget and it's much larger than what portion they ask for, from us as a county. So they may in fact conduct a repair on a unit that costs 15 or $16,000, but we are only supporting an $8,000 portion of the repair. So because they're able to use multiple funding sources to sometimes complete an activity, part of how they assist in that not being a hindrance is using some other funds to balance out the hold of the repair so that they're not hitting that $10,000 threshold using our funds because it's about our investment as a county in the individual unit repair. So it has, there are a lot of, there are a lot of units that they're spending more than $10,000 on not typically with county funds
Going way, way, way, way back in time. But when I was on the city HDB committee, we had a program like this and it was what I remember is that it was extremely expensive to administer. And that when we looked at it, the administrative costs were like, like you could hardly justify program, right. Because it was like what we were spending crack this set of stuff. I mean, the rationale you laid out is perfectly clear, right? So someone doesn't just make, you know, get $30,000 and, you know, flip it and have a windfall. Like that's not, that's not what we want, but it was, we, I mean, we basically just continued it and I don't know where they're at on that stuff now. But like we got rid of it because it was so costly and it, because it was also such a, like a lot of people just wouldn't do it.
And, you know, and it's, it's probably not rational being a people in their homes and properties stuff. We not, we're not, we're not always rational creatures. So I don't know. I don't know, but this would be questions I would want to think about. Right. And kind of factor into like how much of our team's time and our partner's team's time and stuff is spent on creating lean and forcing lanes monitoring. Cause while the, the goal is completely justified in the public interest in terms of people not experiencing some, you know, windfall profits, you know, we also, it's, it's also the tax payers paying for all of, all of our time and energy and stuff like that too. So I think all that needs to be incorporated into our thinking around,
And we did shift, we no longer ourselves hold the lane, we just have to see that the provider is voting the lean so that they're able to reinvest the funds that does reduce some of our administrative burden. That was part of our goal because it is a lot for us to track and it's really allowing them to do the same work and purpose. So the whole idea is to pull the money back in, if that does transfer, you know, in a short period of time. But I mean, part of the emergency repair benefit, isn't necess only the fact that they get to live in a safer and healthier home, but there is some economic benefit at resale. So it's a, you know, it's a wealth building opportunity for the recipient of the actual repair as well. So you kind of, it's like walking that, that line of what is appropriate, but you know, our real concern is, is that hindering people who really need access to it from accessing it and what are the appropriate thresholds of which require it.
Is the for it. Can, can it be a question of the committee? Yes. Okay. Does many a vision, a place for single family dwelling village style development in camping the solution for affordable housing? Or is it focused primarily on multi asking? A lot of reference to multifamily large scale 500, but not so much say for, for a single family dwelling type residential development, part of development that's going on now in Marc hill where we're delivering 106, just, just right on the edge of the town and, and that type of thing. I'm wondering, is there a place for something of that nature in Bonham county?
Yep. Great question. Thanks for, thanks for being here. Yes, absolutely. So the goals that we set include like an affordable rental unit and those, those don't have to be multi-family, the reality is probably large. Majority of them will be, but we also have a, an afford affordable home ownership goal. And, you know, realistically probably a lot of those will be single family or small scale multi-family or town home type type projects. And then we also have a, a moderate priced housing goal as well. And, and, and a lot of those could also be a mix of single family and multi-family so, so absolutely. And you know, on the commission's agenda this afternoon, we're talking about our plans for doing development on some county own property. And some of those, some of those are downtown. They'll probably be like dense, very dense, you know, multi-family type projects, but we've got property, we've got one property called Barry road, which definitely is envisioned as a mix of single family, small multi-family and possibly, you know, large multi-family. So, yeah, I, I think our view is that we need, we need all of those in, in, in there's a great need for all of it, but redline home ownership. So we look forward to, you know, anybody who's interested participating as far when we were talking, we were talking about in this process to make sure we have a good process to invite, invite folks to come in who want to work here. Yeah, absolutely. Any other public comments?
Hey, I did have a question about the DFI presentation at the briefing meeting today. Is DFI gonna be here today, or is it just more of a presentation about the process that we're about to kind of launch into with DFI? It'll be your what? Virtually. Virtually. Okay. Okay, great. And, and where, where, in terms of the, the, the counties we've iden the county properties we've identified so far, have they started working on those or are they sort of just about to begin? Like where, where, where are we at currently with them ready to start? Okay.
So the ferry road project contract was finalized just ahead of hours. The county has signed all of our contractual obligations for the feasibility study. So we anticipate doing the seniors from D I technically the contract isn't in place yet. So they have not been obligated or authorized necessarily to do the work. But as soon as that contract finalized, you know, we'll create the financial obligation and they would officially begin work on, on that assessment.
We'll be bringing you an update, just kind of on where we are in terms of contracts that are open, what the steps of those funding are. Some further discussion on middle income housing, what we continue to learn about how to make impact there. And then obviously discussion of the revisions, kind of where we are. And maybe a first draft with staff recommendations. As I said, we're soliciting committee input. We're meeting with our community partners, we're meeting with city staff. So we're gonna try to roll as much of that as we can together, get, you know, a better revisions to consider kind of withhold that feedback.
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