Okay, here we go. Is there any public, no public. Okay, then the minutes from the last meeting were distributed before the meeting. Are there any changes to the minutes? Without any changes, is there a motion to approve? I move to approve. Steps it on the second, okay. All in favor? Aye. Okay, the minutes are approved. And before we go into our next agenda item, I just wanted to thank Madeline for the invitations to all of the MLK activities. I was able to make the one at Silver Creek and it was really wonderful. Thank you for coming. I was able to go to the one at Second Baptist and it was great. Awesome, well thank you. Thank you for coming, I appreciate that. Okay, so let's move on to agenda item four, we designate permanent posting location for the 2020 Housing and Human Service Advisory Board agendas. Now that construction is complete, I used the west entrance. It was fabulous. Besides council chambers, it's totally done besides that last meeting. No? No? There's just that. But so just to clarify, so what we can do now is to go back to the official posting place if you so choose, which would be at the west entrance to the mall area. Now that it is back open. And it has been on the north entrance. So let's do this. First, is there anybody who would like to see it relocated back to the west entrance and if so, let's make a motion. We designate permanent posting location to this west entrance. Thank you, is there a second? Second. Okay, now any discussion on whether that is a good idea or not? Where is the west entrance? It's the one here that's been under construction. It's to the west. The one that we could come in up to a year and a half ago. Oh, the goose. The goose is. The goose entrance. Okay. Yeah, the goose entrance, right. That's what I know. Okay, yeah, okay, gotcha. Is there any concern that moving it there sort of in the middle of the year is going to be confusing since not everyone knows that you can now enter there? We've been posting it at the other, the door by the library, right? Yes. And for the past many years, it's always been at the west end. So yeah, so I think. Could we have just a note, a sign there saying for agendas, please see the west entrance? Just so, I think there is some direction that if somebody says yeah. Well, I would think that if you keep it posted, I mean, if you change it to the west entrance for a couple of months, we can certainly tape up an agenda. That would be my only recommendation for so short a period of time. It's important. Forwarded after us left. Before we could go to the house. We just might, you know, just put it up for a couple of months. If that works. That would be fine. Any other discussion? Okay, then let's go ahead and vote on relocating the agendas to the west entrance. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We have relocation for the permanent housing, permanent posting location. All right. On to agenda item five, reviewing the 2019 CDBG performance report. And I believe everybody did receive that report in their packet to me. So you're going to walk us through as well. All right. Yeah. All right. So this is a requirement of the community block grant program or CDBG program. And then we usually tack on the affordable housing program and home program. If we have, we see funds in that current year to give an update. So this goes out to the public. And for comment, it's actually out right now for public comment. 30 day notice, 30 day period for public comment. Council will have a hearing on March 17th, which is next Tuesday. They're getting a little sneak preview before they see it. And it is due to head by March 31st. It's only after submitted. So I will go through. And can we be clear that what you're about to show us was not correct. Just finished today. So the primary program that we operate with CDBG funds is our housing rehab program. And that's made up of four different programs. The general rehab program, architectural barrier removal, mobile home repair program, and the emergency grant. So on the general rehab program, we make loans, which are either deferred until a home sells or is refinanced, or sometimes they're a repayment loan if the income of the homeowners are above 50% every day income to help improve the home. And it's prioritized to address code violations, health safety issues, make energy efficiency improvements, and then other things that the homeowner might want to have done. The maximum amount that can be borrowed is $25,000. And in 2019, we spent a total of $140,865 on this program. We assisted seven households at an average cost of $20,123. And this just shows a couple of the improvements. So on this particular home, we did some kitchen work. The floors were also really bad, as you can see, and whatever that is. Right. And so we put in new... Well, it's... The glaminate? The glaminate, thank you. I just couldn't pergo, but they don't want that anymore. So, and there was other improvements that were made to this home as well. And then also, here's just shows another home. It's the same home. We resided it, put on a new roof. They had some porch improvements and some interior improvements as well. So just to give you kind of an idea. It makes a great difference. Yeah. On the mobile home repair program, we provide grants to low and moderate income mobile home owners to help them keep their homes safe and to prolong the useful life of the mobile home. We spent a total of $126,600. On this program in 2019, we did a lot of hot water furnace replacements in mobile homes. A lot of window replacements, which makes it more energy efficient. Roof repairs and weatherization updates. We assisted 17 households in 2019 at an average cost of $7,400. Just under $7,400. And then on the architectural barrier and removal program, these can be a grant or a loan to low and moderate income home owners or to renters to make the home accessible for the occupants. We did do things like upgrading or installing ADA toilets, ramps. We do a lot of tub conversions to walk-in showers or roll-in showers. And we also can do flooring. There's tripping hazards for folks and walkers, et cetera. And also, we do a lot of these health seniors that may not have as formal disability but to keep them in their home. 13 households were assisted this year at an average cost of about $4,700 and a total of $61,500, if I didn't say that already, was spent on this program. And then on the emergency grant program, this is where we can go in one time and do a grant for a low-moderate income home owner to make repairs that are a health and safety hazard or a serious or immediate threat to their safety. We spent a total of $8,000 on this. We did hot water and furnace replacements, electrical repairs, and some water and sewer issues were fixed. Six households were assisted at an average cost of $1,300. So in total rehab program assistance, we spent over $380,000. 43 households were assisted. If you add up all the ones that I just talked about, it adds up to more than 43 because people can't get more than one grant or a type of assistance at one time. So the average cost was about $8,800 for those 43 households that were assisted. This is a decrease in volume from 2018. We actually spent $455,000 in 2018. We assisted slightly more households 40 at a slightly lower average cost than in 2018. We are still struggling with having sufficient contractors, number of contractors to bid on the job, which is slowing us down. It takes jobs longer to be completed, and we have to have multiple bids for each job. We keep trying to reach out. We put all of our bids on the state's bidding website and direct folks there. We're going to try and do here in 2020 an outreach to all of the licensed contractors that the city has on file. See if we can window those down a little bit because obviously home builders aren't going to want to do this. That would be a waste, but trying to figure out if there's some way we can try and increase the pool that we have. Kathy may ask a couple of questions real quick. So the city of Longmont, your staff hires and manages the contractors for these projects. Given that it's harder to find contractors, what have expected the price to go up on average just because they charge more because there's fewer of them? So are the nature of the repairs changing? Your average price for 2019 is lower than 2018? I think probably, if I went back and looked, there might be fewer, or there might have been more, general recaps that were done in 2018, which is the higher cost drawing is my guess. But we also, so when we go into a job and look at what needs to be done, we do a cost estimate. And then the bids have to be within 15%, they can't be more than 15% over that cost estimate. So that's also sometimes why we have to re-bid it. If something's out of wax, sometimes we have to go back and take things off. Sorry, you can't do this. You really want your forward to replace, but we have to focus on this in order to get it done. And under the cost estimate, that kind of thing as well. Thank you. I have a sort of along the same lines. Are you, I don't know if you know this with the contractors in the city, if we've seen an increase or decrease in permits filed. So if we are seeing sort of these bids for these going down, is that because contractors are busy enough with other things that they're not wanting to bid through the city? Or is there any outreach to determine sort of like why a contractor might not be bidding on some of these projects? Yeah, I mean, I think when we looked before, it's been because we lost a lot of construction workers in the recession, they haven't come back. They may be starting to, but wages are high. With the floods as well, maybe. People who were the main contractors have found other things to do. And it's much more financially beneficial to do. We have on a higher income homeowner's home and direct when you don't have to bid it. Well, I mean, you might have to bid it, but you don't have all the other federal requirements that we have. They have to register for a DUNS number, which can take some time. There's all kinds of requirements. They have to have insurance, et cetera, which hopefully regular folks are doing that as well. Sure. But yeah, it's just been tight. Is there a way you can advertise to contractors to let them know that that's out there? I mean, there might be new people that come in that aren't aware that they could go to the city and figure that out. I mean, is there a way we could advertise for contractors? Yes, we can put an ad in the paper or something like that or we can use social media or the website or something. We haven't found that to be successful in the past, but obviously we could try it again and see. I just was curious. Yeah. Yeah. Usually folks who are interested in doing the work are pretty hooked in with like the bid net service that I talked about at the state or they don't want that level. They don't want to have to do that. And you're more on the Craigslist with the home advisors, that kind of thing. And they don't want to show better responsibilities. All the rules and regulations. I have another question. We obviously helped more households in 2019. Did you find that there were a lot that because we couldn't get bids or anything like that, that we had to turn down for these grants or loans to be able to do work that they thought was needed? Yes. So we did have a couple that, I'm trying to think, maybe three last year that we tried multiple times to bid their work and didn't get any sufficient bids. And so they chose to not move forward and figure out a different way to go or decided not to have the work done. They can reapply at any time or they can reactivate their application at any time. But yeah, we did have that. We don't really advertise the program. It's mostly word of mouth so that we don't generate more interest than what we can do. But we are also trying to grow the program and do more. I was going to say three out of 46 seems like a relatively low rate that we're not meeting the need that's coming in. But obviously there's probably need that we're not seeing if we're not advertising the program. Okay. That's helpful to know. Thank you. Okay, so then the other things that we funded in 2019 was a grant to the Boulder County Housing Housing Program. I mean, they amounted 50,000. They actually spent a little bit less, 47.5. 288 residents used their programs, which include classes as well as required one-on-one counseling sessions when somebody is going to get a document assistance loan or a rehab loan or want to refinance their house or have some kind of issue which we've seen before where they've had a loan and we've decided to defer it or whatever. They have to go to the housing counselors and talk through the classes, center around also foreclosure prevention they will work one-on-one with folks that are going through that. The classes are generally around home ownership preparing for home ownership, preparing to be a renter isn't the right word, but being a good renter and how to increase your credit score and what to do to position yourself to be in a better position budget-wise as well as if you ever do want to move into a home ownership. And actually, we just got noticed that they have suspended their classes and they've got the coronavirus right now. So we'll wait and see what happens. Nice accent on that. At some point we have to laugh about it, right? Laugh or go crazy. And then the other thing that we allocated funding for was the security deposits to support local funded vouchers and additional housing authority vouchers that help the folks being referred for housing that come out of Homo Solutions for Boulder County. We set aside 8,500 in 2019 and we're just getting to the point of being able to contract for those services now so we'll hit it hard in 2020 and actually it works out better we'll be able to do a contract, one contracted for both 2019 funding and 2020 funding. And CBE, the HUD doesn't have an issue with those funds being spent in 2020 instead of 2020. That line up there on the side that says leverage 364,000. What does that mean? So the Boulder County Counseling Program got that much additional money from other funding sources so City of Boulder contributes, the state contributes, private banks contribute to their program so that is the amount that leveraged. Now all that wasn't leveraged in long-long but if the program itself leveraged that. Got it, thank you. So some of the comparisons on triggers I guess or goals that we have to meet so we had a 33.4% expenditure ratio this is not good. We were at 50% in 2018 so what this means is of the funds that we had committed and what we spent, we only spent 33% of what we have and available to us in 2019 and you're going to see the ramifications of that. In 2019 our timeliness ratio was 1.43 we're going to be prior to be below 1.5 so we did meet that. What that means is that at a certain time point in our fiscal year HUD checks and we can't have any more than one and a half times our grant amount in our letter of credit at HUD. So you have to be below that 1.5 we were at 1.43 last year we were at 1.24 at that checkpoint so that, we didn't do a good job on that either. We leveraged 64 cents for every $1 spent in CDBG funds it was 53% or 53 cents in 2018 so that's a little bit better. 14.6% of our 2019 funding was spent on administration the cap, the top amount that HUD allows is 20% so we were below that so on one standpoint that's good on the other standpoint I'd like it to be at 19 so we're getting at least as much as we can coming from the CDBG program and then 98.9% of our funding was spent in 2019 benefited low and moderate income residents and we were at 87.4% in 2018 and the requirement is 70% so we were way above that. Who else would have done that? What is that like a 2018 that 13% So it's some of your programs so like the health accounting program they can assist people over in their immediate income I can't remember what we funded in 2018 that it was something that might have been not an urgent need but it was on light activity or just had a lower percentage of folks that were non-low-moderate income What's the threshold for moderate on AMI? The 80% Is 80% where the top of moderate Yeah So financially speaking this kind of shows where we stood or how we progressed through the year so on the far this way is the 2018 Expended Funds we brought into 2019 which is 671,800 then we got 622,900 in our CDBG grant for 2019 the big number which kind of is what threw us over was we got 402,000 in program income we anticipated 50,000 and we got about 50,000 in regular program income so we got 300,000 at the very end of 2019 from a couple of loans but this will repaid some of their loans when we loaned them even more money that they repaid so that came in at the very end of the year so that threw us way off whack because we didn't have time to spend it allocated or spend it so which left us with at the end of the year 362,000 in funds not allocated that is that extra program income so we had budgeted 1.3 million in funds in 2019 we spent 566,400 which leaves us at the end of 2019 with 1.1 million and spent oops so you have an income between unexpended funds the grant program income you have about 1.7 million and then the funds not allocated that is 2019 funds or those are the next column over funds not allocated the funds not allocated so funds not allocated means they haven't been assigned to a project unexpended means they were signed but not actually spent so that would suggest they are going to be spending some point in time so it's a timing issue yes so what this shows is those unspent funds and where they're at so this is hard for you guys to see but this is the funding for rehab project delivery so this is our cost to manage the rehab program this is the general rehab so we have a lot of funds committed for that program over 350,000 this is how much we spent as the red and the green is what was left unspent at the end of 2019 so that's the general rehab this is our potential barrier this is mobile home repair this is the emergency grant program this is the utility deposit security deposit for HSBC this is the in between Terry street project that we awarded and then this is Aspen Meadows refinancing rehab project we awarded so what this shows us is that the mobile home repair is the only program where we spent more than we left unspent so that one is doing very well obviously we need to get the rehab funding out into the community all of the rehab programs unspent account for 452,400 dollars so part of the problem is we did not receive our grant agreement until September so we did and that's the grant agreement from CDBG and HUD to actually calendar year so we're supposed to get our money in January we got it in September awesome maybe some staffing issues there at HUD or who knows it's been a trend for how many years now long-term longer than we thought because when I went back and looked I think it's almost 15 wow later so the projects the HSBC and the Terry street project in between and the Aspen Meadows Refi those could not begin even until late fall in 5,000 so that's 757,000 of the 1.1 million that was left unspent and then we received that over 300,000 in programming so it makes another 300 of them so you got about 700 parts of that right there and our contractors also changing your timeline well that's part of what's hampering the rehab program the in-between has went ahead and they were able to fit the work so they should start here pretty soon we just couldn't get them under contract and they couldn't sign a contract with their contractor so it could be bad I have a question sort of kind of going back to that advertising you mentioned some of the challenges for contractors are the limits on these funds such that the city couldn't like if a contractor doesn't have like the DUNS number I think that you said or some of the things that are required for federal approval through HUD are these funds limited in such a way that we couldn't help contractors do some of those things we do help them so we will sit down and help them go online and it doesn't cost them to get this number it's just a timing thing and sometimes it takes a while to get process it's not complicated but it's not the most intuitive process so yes we will sit down with them and help them get it they're on their own to get the insurance that's required and to get their license we try and use a general contractor as much as possible because their subs don't necessarily have to be licensed they carry the liability for all of that so that's a way we've done it because we've talked about do we start acting as the general in order to get more bidding and more trades involved but they still have to have it done and then they're going to have to have insurance and everything we're not a licensed contractor to do that so that doesn't help much I just wondered like if the city had an outside general contractor but we could help support them with their insurance costs so that then they would be licensed and insured to then bring in subs but they would be able to closely help for these grant funds I mean there are programs that help with that kind of stuff and I would think so we could send them to Colorado Enterprise Fund and help small businesses get started and help with that kind of thing so I think there's resources as well for that so it's you know it's less of a like it's a cost thing for them and it's more just like we just don't have enough general contractors that can do all the work right we should have contact with the wanted I was going to that seems to me the problem is advertising to get contractors that seems to be the issue it's just getting the advertising out there you could help contractors that needs to get out so because there seems like a lot of people out there that would kind of do that so grandma is kind of interested this is kind of in your wheelhouse do you have a little bit do you have any thoughts on how we could recruit excited contractors for this drive as a contractor it just seems like high cost a little reward you know what I mean it is competitive against some mandated price range within 15% so the profit margin probably pretty low I would imagine I imagine the government stipulates that you know the profitability of the job they're a fairly low dollar value they're averaging $8,000 so it's really more in the realm of a handyman in terms of its value and so contractors it's hard to be attracted to them they would have to be from my perspective almost a social benefit project for you know an established large contractor in the community to take on these kinds of projects it would be sort of I think the appeal would be the marketing value that looked at this company to contract that we care about our community and so we're engaged with the city of Longmont and helping these REAP programs and that would be I think the hope to make it work a contractor to engage these kind of projects and deal with the government and the lower dollar projects is that they would get their name on the community so that would be the pitch I think that would be effective I can see a lot of the I can see even like the higher value homeowners that are looking at contractors seeing that type of thing because so many people are looking at are the people I'm doing business with you know are they socially responsible there's a lot of people that are interested in so I can see that being for the people who are doing the hundred, two hundred thousand dollar jobs if they know that the contractor they're working with is also doing those things that might be appealing to at least some homeowners that are doing those just as a thought because so many of these all of what we discussed are remodels it seems like new construction versus remodels remodels can fit in on the timing seasonality when new construction maybe can't but as I remember you want to have your basic framework up in your roof in your walls before that weather hits so you can go on your inside work but is there no timing advantage to some of these remodels for a contractor keeping their staff busy you know what I mean it would be a benefit to have some nice interior jobs that weren't schedule sensitive that if you have weather delays or something that you would have small projects that you could go to and build a gap that is that would be a good time on it yeah it's hard enough looking for contractors so then going into the affordable housing program and this is really just looking at the affordable housing fund so we made a $300,000 loan to purchase a home park if you remember so they can become a resident own community and that has moved forward and is completed a $600,000 loan was provided to FISL to refinance and rehab their loan properties and that has they have started work on I think all of their properties on that and they have actually made $300,000 of the $600,000 already $110,000 loan was made to Habitat to do pre-development work at the Rogers Road site so they have submitted plans for into planning and development services for construction review going forward on that I think just a pre-app I can't remember if they actually submitted yet or if it was a pre-app but they have been moving forward anyway I know that we made a $287,300 loan to the in-between to finish construction on the micro homes and almost all of that has been spent and the homes are COed I think and started leasing not fully leased we continued work on two of the pilot projects the ADU stock plans and the planning facilitator so the planning facilitator and I think I talk a little I'm not sure if I talk a little bit more about it later but has been very successful actually and this if you remember is a contract that we did to see if we could help smaller developers get through the planning and development review process which is quite lengthy when they're less sophisticated and don't know as much about how the whole process works and we have assisted six different developers in 2019 two of those have moved to building permits and another one another two three are still moving through the process and then one hasn't moved forward yet so they're still available so we have felt this is pretty successful, we are not out of funds yet but maybe mid-year we might be coming back to have some additional funds go into that contract on the ADU stock plans we have the plans fully completed there's four different varieties I should have added those in here and they're through building permit they've been approved through building permit so we've got that so everything is now waiting on me to finish the financial analysis so what they cost to build versus what the rents are at an affordable level how much are we going to have to subsidize to make it attractive for a period of time and then put the collateral information the brochures and that kind of stuff together what does the website look like etc and then launch the program which we should get going here in April assuming we don't get shut down for coronavirus so that is moving forward and we will get that program going that we'll have to go back to council for approval because we are looking at fee waivers to apply to those which that doesn't have to go to council I think an additional subsidy what I'm looking at is somewhere between probably 20 to 35,000 per ADU in order to bridge the gap for loans they would have to take out and the rents that they could charge on that and still cover their taxes, their insurance their replacement reserves and all that kind of stuff so kind of laying all that out would be what I would suggest is that it probably would be a forgivable loan if we if there are interests, whoever is interested in doing this sign an agreement to keep their rents affordable for 10 years the loan would be forgiven over that 10 year period as long as they kept it affordable so for those stock plans do you know right now what the range of like building costs for those are that you're estimating yeah so the low end is $10,000 for like a studio stand alone and these are all stand alone units up to I think it's $175 that has a two bedroom I think it's a bedroom in a loft or a bedroom in a nook but that's with the garage construction I think what I'm finding I'm going to have to take the garage out they can obviously build it over a garage if they want but they're going to have to finance themselves and we're not going to subsidize that so I'll have to take that that's another thing I'm struggling with if we can out that calculation but yeah there's two of them that can be built over a garage or they can be built by themselves and then the other two are just stand alone it's a kind of cute loan units that's really cool I think that seems like a really interesting thing we sold a house last year and that's it the people coming in were like we're going to build an ADU but to have it sort of like packaged to be able to provide affordable I think would make it a lot easier for a lot of people to think about that I do want to say I was at a presentation yesterday morning at the downpump old department their board meeting and one of the representatives presented and she specifically presented Michael Holmes and the stock plans saying that these things are happening in Longmont and Boulder really needs to catch up to the work that's being done here so I think that's very complementary to what they're doing and it's really lovely if we get it going you're close so close ADU wanted we're just going to have a whole bunch of signs people can stick in their yards and contractor ADU and then the same properties program that we just got started if you remember the city reviewed its properties that it has purchased basically through open states and through water sewer purchases slowly converting those to affordable rentals so we did set aside 125,000 to rehab one of the properties and we're waiting it's right involved in the greenway improvements on county light one just north of 9th avenue so there's a lot of construction going on and they're using most of the property for staging area so there's no point in adding to the chaos by having rehab contractors so we're going to wait until they're done with that one one of the other properties we did lease to Habitat to have some of their volunteers at and temporary staff stay out which helps save them some costs and increases their capacity to get and utilize volunteers as they prepare for upcoming inclusion in housing builds that's exciting and then we provided a little over $157,800 in fee waivers from the affordable housing fund which supported 66 rental homes which was the Michael home project and the fall river senior rental project so that's an average of just under $2,400 per rental home with fee waivers that were provided so administration wise we conducted three application cycles in 2019 11 applications were received and reviewed five projects were approved for affordable housing funding as well as five for CDBG and one home we instituted the inclusionary housing program and we moved only six units closer to our goal in 2019 because Michael homes and fall river didn't get CO'd until 2020 we were hoping they were going to get CO's in 2019 so we added four units at Blue Vista and two Habitat four sale homes was all we added in 2019 and then the regional affordable housing partnership which you were talking about I personally was involved in six different community presentations about that we've got a ballot measure county by ballot and it's being explored we set up an affordable housing trust fund governance structure and distribution formula it's ready to go if that ballot measure moves forward so again it would operate kind of like a little bit like the home with all the county communities participating and receiving funding as well as allowing for funding for a countywide down payment assistance program and a countywide recap program so that might get to some of the masks that we need to get the recap program expanded by operating a countywide and then it would also allow for some competitive funds as well and then the home wanted education and support campaign started and really kicked off and kicked into here in 2019 so we'll keep you posted on what's going on as we move into 2020 is the ballot measure a tax increase a sales tax we're not sure at this point they're going to do some polling in March first part of April county commissioners will make the decision I think they're well I'm not sure if they're going to pull both on property and sales it is looking like it might be a housing and transportation tax together that would move forward so we're we've started meeting and we've only had three I think meetings all together so far so and I presume it would be potentially delayed if it was determined that this is not a good year to ask for a tax increase because of the recession yeah I'm sure that will fit into it I mean we were pretty well that if we were going to do it we should do it in 2020 because of the anticipated high turnout for the presidential election and voter voters in particular being engaged but yeah if we're going to recession then that might be a whole different story okay that's the end of that that's the end of that one yeah well we ask a lot of questions during the presentation are there any additional questions for Kathy on this 2019 performance I do have one question does HUD evaluate these reports and say that's good you know we should continue to do what we're doing or that's bad they should get any more money or yeah so they do evaluate them they look and compare the goals that you set as part of the consolidated plan which we're getting ready to start another five year consolidated plan we set five year goals and we set annual goals excuse me as well so they compare back to the goals they they do send a report that they have looked at everything and whether you are concerned to be adequate or inadequate they don't use the word good no they adequate is as good as it gets satisfactory maybe that's high it's an interesting they're very subdued kind of like an audit when the highest you can give is that there are no findings almost those lines yeah so they really look at are you meeting are you exceeding any of the caps that you can't exceed are you primarily serving for moderate income folks you know somewhat how you're doing with your goals but if you have narrative that explains why you didn't need something or why you over exceeded on something they just don't give you much feedback on that kind of stuff so it's really the primary triggers that they look at so it seems there's a lot of accomplished right timing effects what period they go into this sounds like 2020 maybe a really upper year getting a bunch of projects completed on the books but seems good right so some of the things I know you're concerned about like being at 1.43 1.5 but you're still under having no reason for concern you will be likely found adequate you'll be weighed and found adequate mostly satisfactory almost we should keep a list of the adjectives there would be five of them I think does HUD flag the fact that we had so many unused funds is that a concern for future grants or anything like that so that's why they look at the 1.5 they go over that that's the trigger that's the biggest trigger so I mean if you go over that then they start well you have to have a plan of how you're going to get out of it the next year but then if you're over it again then they start docking your your funding theoretically I'm sure a Chicago or a New York City who probably never needs their 1.5 I have not heard they've ever had funding taken away but maybe I'm curious about the funding that's supposed to be applied in January and we don't get till September and it's happened for years right it's a trend a trend for years is there anything that can you can do or can be done to break that trend and get it back on track well so it's all tied to Congress and they're in a way to approve a budget on time so the interest never happened so I have advocated that they can change the 1.5 or they can choose to ignore it I mean there are regulatory things that HUD could do and their response was why don't you change your program or just start later in the year I was going to ask if there was something we needed to or July or whatever the problem is you'd lose funding we'd lose funds for a period of time if we did that because you can't move back you'd have to move forward so you'd have a gap so they wouldn't retro anything I'm just kidding try if it continues to be a trend does it make sense at some point to bump it by a month each year so you don't really lose the amount of funds you could potentially lose is really low and then you eventually catch up to where they actually are allocating the funds so that we don't if we were ever going to do that what I would do is move it all the way back to the so we were a whole year behind so almost take a hiatus for a year a whole year behind the fiscal year the community I came from in Ohio we were a year behind the fiscal year so we got our funds always on time because you know they had almost a year to work it out now at some point they might start getting even further behind but it's hardly worth it to me what you would lose to move it to like July or even to September without going way back behind it the fiscal year so have you lost money before so it's working so it's an inconvenience but it's something you're able to work with the best the problem is that when you consistently get your money so late you just can't spend you're just behind all the time and it's very difficult to catch up so this year we've got our allocation amount we have not got our letter from HUD about when they're going to do our grant agreement we're hoping it'll be May to June this year so if we could start getting it a little bit earlier and a little bit earlier then that would help us and there's nothing like a federal line of credit that you could draw on until the grant agreement is in place given that the grant agreement is relatively secure getting one is not at a high risk well what you can do is you can ask for a waiver to enter into agreements before you get your grant agreement it's a process and you know there's no your so you're flex your local funds at risk and we do that for our admin and for the rehab program so they continue and we don't have to stop them but to actually give funds to another organization and take that risk is we have not done that alright let's move on to the 2020 so the 2020 I don't have any big presentation it's only more if you have questions it's just really showing you this is where we ended up when council approved it the slight change that happened was that we actually found out our grant amount as we were right after actually right after we had submitted our council plan to council so I had to do a amended one so the chart has the circle around it the colorful chart looks like this so the numbers highlighted in orangish are what changed from when you guys saw it to what actually went to council and was approved yeah because we had anticipated getting a similar grant amount to 2019 which was 622,000 we got 610 so we lowered the security deposit amount by about 2,000 I think for 2020 and we had told in between they could get up to 160,000 so we lowered that by 64,000 and then the administration amount lowered a little bit as well any reason for the decrease in the grant that's what happened it's a formula that they plug in the numbers my guess because I think that the approved amount actually increased but every year there's more entitlements of communities ebb and flow on their property rates and construction and housing stock how better are you doing on what you get with our housing prices that are increasing I'm thinking that but it wasn't huge but we did get a decrease 2019 from 2018 which I think might have been I think that was presentation that you had I did somewhere so the memo you would include Kathy I guess he was the council copy of that one so if that's all that was okay any questions on future plans specifically related to the changes so we've gone through this before but didn't we go through recommendations that were satisfacing on this I think we finalized them early this year so I'm trying to think of our new members were here when we did that I think it was might have been the great first meeting between you and me so you probably remember more about it than we do nothing unusual here this is all pretty standard so if you, I would suggest because if you haven't had a chance to read the memo go through the memo to council on the street if you've already read it but if you do have questions that might be if you don't have any now reach out to Kathy and see if I have some follow-up because I know it's a lot of information without the context to put that into a questionable format alright thank you Kathy it's the Kathy show now it's the inclusionary housing yes so now we are on to item 7 reviewing the 2019 inclusionary housing program metrics so there's a lot of information in here so I thought I would go through it this was the presentation that was made to council and did everyone or does everyone have this I don't know if you can read it out you were able to do whatever it was an active comment yeah it's at the end of the city council communication it's like excuse me so this is an update on the inclusionary housing program which just started in 2019 it's approved at the very end of 2018 so the most of the developments that are under construction right now were approved before the ordinance went into effect so we are just now starting to see some developments come under this program so there are about 20 different projects that are going to fall under the ordinance as of this point in time which changes this was through the end of 2018 nine of those who are providing have chosen to provide their affordable housing on site five of the developments are already chosen to make the fee in lieu payment and then eight of the developments are still undecided so they are moving through the process this adds up up to more than 20 because some are doing both payment in lieu and providing units so one in particular is doing some of the units the whole number of units on site and then paying the fraction in lieu and how I've thought about this I've always believed that developers would be more inclined to renew the offer of housing on site I wouldn't say this is a good number but it comes to surprise for me at all for the days so most of them that are providing on site are rentals and it's a little easier to do it it's cheaper how hard would it be to add to the ordinance to provide an option that they would perform CBDB house it's not a terrible idea yeah the problem with that is that it doesn't seem fair to de-restrict permanently affordable a house that somebody already owns and we are trying to get permanently affordable and to increase the number of units and to increase the number of units and to get new units but it's not you keep thinking but your thought wasn't to de-restrict those houses that they're rehabbing it's just to incentivize them to help with some other piece of our affordable housing issues it was basically to say rather than paying a fee you agree to at least bid on some of these things that's what I was saying but I think in order to get it to count toward our initiative of affordable housing it would have to be rent controlled and that's de-restricted two different programs there you keep thinking are you working on it? yeah the projects that are providing homes on site actually the numbers are equal for rental and five rentals and four sales but the homes in the projects that rental developments total homes are 789 and 230 of those 789 would be affordable and the majority are provided within market rate development so they're not 100% affordable but they are within market rate development I see where you made a mistake the rate of affordable homes and a four sale developments total 100 1,422 total units 52 of the homes are affordable and the majority of the affordable four sale homes are being provided in partnership with nonprofits so the developer isn't the one that's actually providing the units they're donating land basically so the fee and loo that we're estimating for three of the rental projects our estimate is 48,400 that we would get in payments and on the four sale projects that have chosen fee and loo we're estimating about 1.4 million from those so significantly more because the homes are larger and it's based on a higher fee and loo per square foot rate and the square grade is higher so we're still trying to figure out when these are going to come in but the pipeline on the right hand side so we think we might get around 330,000 in 2020 and then about 500,000 each in 2021 and 2022 obviously this will change we know more on projects developer change and it could all go craziness if we go into recession point so the interest in building the middle tier housing and to remember our program is somewhat unique in that if the development is willing to build in the 80 to 120% AMI 81 to 120% AMI range they get different levels of exemption from the 12% requirement to incentivize that middle tier range we've got several that are in the review process and have said that they're interested but we don't have any signed agreements yet committing to building the middle tier so we don't really count them but council wanted to know this information so one of the projects on south over which is south of Oscar blues there's a triangle property right just south of there they are anticipating building the majority of theirs in the 100 and 1 to 110% AMI range and then some in the next range up so there still would be some if they hit these targets there still would be some be a move that would be due 40% of the be a move for the 101 to 110 and 80% of the be a move for the 111 to 120% and the mountain brook even though they satisfied some of their units with the habitat land donation and the veterans community project land donation have got about 49 unsatisfied units and so somebody is going to have to make a be a move or meet the middle tier whether it's in the town or the condo part of their development so we're working through that what that's going to look like so that triangle they're planning to have 236 single family or free standing homes on that property yes I can't remember their town development or if it's a mix so far it might be condos I don't get distracted I'm trying to extricate myself a person so just taking a look at the market of what's happening with that so so median sales prices are kind of leveling out at the end of 2019 within both the attached for sale and the detached for sale prices there was a 1.3% increase in the sales prices median sales price for detached homes and a .74% a little bit less than 1% decreased in the attached prices some leveling may be due to more homes being available to purchase there was a 5% increase in the number of units that were available 2018 to 2019 in the detached home product and 11% increase in the attached home product so a lot of hometown homes in condos were actually available in 2019 that were available in 2018 which could account for some of that on new homes versus existing home sales new homes are becoming a greater part of home sales increasing from a low of 4% in 2010 to a high of 28.7% in 2018 and we ended in 2019 at 22% of all home sales for new home sales versus existing home sales so a change you can just see and beyond there was no new home construction obviously so this chart shows the income needed to purchase or rent in one lot compared to our median income and our affordable rates so the blue line on the top is the income that's needed to purchase at the median home sales price single family detached home sales price and the reddish line solid reddish line is the income that's needed to purchase the median attached home sales price over the years the green line the purple line is the income needed to purchase I'm sorry the income needed to rent in long lot over the years the median rent the green line the solid line is the median income for the city of longmont over the years and we don't have 2019 yet because it's American community survey data it hasn't come out yet or at least when I put the chart together and then the red dashed line is the 80% HUD median income for a three person family which is usually what we use to set the sales prices for detached home prices so you can see there's a big big gap there and then the dashed purple line is 50% of the HUD median income for a two person which is usually what we use to pay that cut for rent not likely to be able to purchase it so those HUD ones are based on nationwide medians but the city median it doesn't track they're not even over time so the red dotted one is above the green in 2010 is that because longmont city median income was lower than me as a whole sorry just trying to orient myself on them got it because green is city of longmont whereas those orange and purple are really based on our income system folks in the low and moderate income got it and still people in the green line can't afford to purchase attached for at the median can't afford to purchase attached or detached and is that calculation to afford average rents is that based on the rule of 30% of rent so current does this help you with the questions that you had about and is that the same for the income needed to afford the sales prices is also based on that 30% that you're essentially your mortgage would be no more than 33% of your income but also like if you're making that if you're spending 33% of your income you're at sort of the max and that's assuming everything is going well for somebody making that to be able to afford a house at that and we know other things that we've seen is there's so many folks that are rent burden that are above 50% of their income right not just rent housing costs so they could own a home and their income hasn't kept up with their so something like the home away home wanted home away I was going to say home away Airbnb that was a movie yes home want so however that tax works there has to be this question because ideally there's some redistribution of money to say most people are not able to afford a house here but some are able to afford a lot of home but depending on how the tax works it's potentially people who can't afford a home that are paying a tax to them afford a home I guess it's progressive in some ways it's a sales tax or something because it seems to me to be exactly the right idea of the community as a whole contributing to this issue and figure out how to fund it it's just this strikes me that there are a lot of people here who need to benefit and there's only a few who can afford to pay into that so not a question just people trying to look through about solutions these gaps are getting bigger is what I'm seeing is just bigger and bigger over the years it doesn't seem like it's I mean even if the price is level off it seems like that gap is big enough but it's going to continue to be an issue short by a third of what's needed in order to afford it so that's a big shock to make up a 33% shock which is a subsequent reduction this won't be uplifting guys should have lived with this one of me who doesn't know so in looking at rental need is what we're providing or what we're getting in the inclusionary housing program so this shows information from the draft consolidated plan which you'll get next month in greater detail it shows that the greatest rental housing need is for folks that are added below 40% of the area median income which is those top five both categories there and our inclusionary housing rental projects the ones that have been approved to provide the units on site and I just saw the renal spell check I was going to say it's an actual word are providing primarily 60% area median income where there is not a gap or a need so I don't know if you can see this if you can see it on your projection thing but there's 2373 units need in that 40% area median income below the number of units that we need and we have provided just through the inclusionary housing program 14 of the units will be 30% and 5 will be at 40% so 19 total 56 at 50% and then the majority 150 by 60% EMI so I think we do need to look at whether or not we should go back down to having the affordability limit for rental housing at 50% EMI to be under the inclusionary housing program so we were at 50 we went up to 60 when they passed the inclusionary housing and and a lot of people came in with 60% well because it's very difficult to provide 40 50 at least gets us closer and it might by pushing it down to 50 so so the whole theory is that if you build higher in rental units people who are in lower priced housing it doesn't have anything at the higher end will move up and out and it will free up units which has nothing so so it's kind of the triple up there's a triple down or it's a triple down in a different way kind of thing so the theory was that there was kind of a demand for rental housing which there was right after the new session and you can see there is a gap for really high end there's 1455 unit gap there but that's also not where folks are building so the thought was if you build enough in that middle range 70 to whatever goes up to that folks who are currently in the lower that 427 area like here so folks who are currently in there and can afford to be here will move here so there's only a 39 unit surplus in the 50 that's about 50% AMI so if we keep it at 50 and it actually gets in units there then that might start to happen a little bit but building here isn't going to happen going to help enough people move I mean isn't that movement predicated on people's circumstances improvement like some it's based on the assumption that people in the 25 to 35 roughly 35 range can afford to move up when the reality is you're paying whatever you're paying for rental housing I just got a new product for you but if you're paying whatever you're paying for especially if you're on the middle range to move up in anything especially if you're in a position where you're comfortable you have to be very optimistic about your future or your sales it could also be this like 35 to 50 range but you're in one of those ones that are $500 a month which means that you're sort of taking the stock for the folks that are in that and if you actually moved into one that was in your income range that would open up things so that we would have at least some of the folks that are actually in that income range be able to live there when I was talking to the folks at the last week they said that that's one of the biggest things that they're looking at is what are the barriers to people actually leaving the transitional housing and is it can they afford what's next like can they do they have all the things they need to do that because if they don't they can't move out which means somebody else can't move in yeah correct if you have some security you're likely to hang on and if there's only 39 extra units if you're in that 25 to 35 range and there's only surplus of 39 you might not have one that's close enough to where you work or close enough to a bus line or whatever it is that you need to actually make that work even if you're in some gross if you're comfortable where you are you're just getting to pocket that extra cash you're not necessarily going to automatically move in or spend more I mean correct yeah Steve was right so 2019 sales there was 1440 total sales in 2018 we told this information from the Boulder County Accessory website so there's still some scrubbing that needs to do so most of the homes again were existing homes versus new homes and then if you break out the existing homes and new homes by the income categories you can see where things are being built or where things are being built this is just kind of illustrating that so next to no homes in the below 80% area meaning income area you know 62 out of 500 compared to 544 in that 81 to 100% 65 compared to 278 101 to 120 and then over 120 183 new homes compared to 202 on the existing home sales of the 7 new sales below 80% 4 were those blue vista homes that I told you about so under our program and then 3 are town homes in non-inquistionary housing development so a little bit of market help so the the lower income tiers are really relying on these existing homes for these purchases and county member Rodriguez said that the in this range in particular they're still seeing a lot of competition for the home so when I was talking about home sales prices have flattened somewhat in 2019 he pointed out that in this category 81 to 100% they are seeing multiple bids multiple offers still so they're still quite appetite in a competition in that area so so council is spot on that they're trying to increase housing under the existing housing in there do you know if in that range if primarily actual potential home orders or speculators you know that was happening for a while whether it still is or not I just mean I know when I was in scrubbing some of the data you could tell that's what was happening especially in 80% and below I took out several that were they're going to jump up to they're going to those that sold in 2019 may sell again but they're going to be the other once they're going to be modeled and invested in and you know split basically so I would guess that that category represents gentrification as well right the idea of these once a lower income neighbourhood all of a sudden becomes interesting the architectures mix the homes need some work but people are moving into them who are hipster I mean they're into it it's like it's not just hipsters I don't know do we have gentrifying areas in the long run I think gentrification can happen across the income levels as much as it can happen in ways as well so I'm thinking about east out towards Martin becoming increasingly more desirable or young couples young families and that seems to be where it's like okay we'll take a loan and we'll fix up the house and then I was going to say I was going to say I know of at least three flips that were at the end of the year last year right along Martin on some of those side streets that was exactly you know they were bought at like 250 and then sold for like 420 like pretty significant actually I'm wondering if that if we're going to see just the jump from 81 to 100 to 101 to 120 on the same properties do you have a offhand roughly what those sales prices are for those each of those categories like do you know where that falls if you don't that's okay well no I do 81 to 100 percent a tier is 300 to 430 wow that's so we looked at below 80 percent is below 300,000 81 to 100 was 301 to 430 101 to 120 was 430 and $1 to 520,000 and then 500 to over 520 was thank you at 80 to 100 I'm surprised how high those prices are yes we right so we're going to look at that moment's come out so by type of home the majority of the home sales are single family which in this case does include town homes because of the way the assessor's data we didn't have time to go out and scrub those out so the top line on each of the categories is all homes the middle line is single family and then the bottom line is condos by the different ranges and this is just breaking down the single family sales by prices available at the different AMI's it's a little bit different while you're showing it yeah there's the prices yeah there's the prices on that see that there I saw that somewhere so single family new homes are trending to higher price units unlike the existing market which still shows the majority of homes in the 81 to 100% AMI tier also single family category is town homes which also may be skewing a higher number in this category so you go back on the slide you're all the way you're all the way you did gosh just go ahead I've got the page I thought it was going to be at least do this all night okay so new sales are in the lighter blue so new homes are for single family years in the higher income so for condos the breakout by AMI shows this their new homes 18% were in the 120% 8% of the homes were in the 80% below 8% AMI and the majority of condo sales were in the 101 to 120% AMI and this is market again it's not and then again so the new home new condo sales there were none so 80% would seem to suggest that the new condos being built are mimicking the existing housing market and by a slight majority most of them are in the 100 to 120 100 and above this one we've already seen and discussed we need to create 200 new homes annually the pipeline of what were projected for the affordable and stationary homes estimated upcoming new units initial 352 homes were 6.5% full attainment by 2023 if everything panned out as they are none of these are getting us to 200 in a year so obviously we have to still look at using our affordable housing funds to support other projects that be in lieu when that starts coming in and also purchasing existing and converting to affordable so some of the metrics that we're using to measure inclusionary housing and what we'll be tracking changes in building permits how did those compare to the state and our surrounding quality changes in the median home sales prices as we started to show here and how that might impact inclusionary housing goal AMI targets and what the market's providing how the units are being provided is being loosed sufficient to replace units how are we doing against our 12% full attainment and then eventually who's being served with the program as we start to actually get units moving into them so some of the trends that we're seeing in a number of projects fore sale and rental are choosing right now to provide units fore sale and rental are choosing the same proportion of the in lieu to units so that is not favoring one over the other yet rental affordable housing units are primarily being provided within the development and the greatest area of rental units needed below 50% are below are not what is being provided which we talked about so moving forward some of the things we're going to be looking at the code was somewhat unclear and it applied very broadly and we've had situations come up where people are renovating their existing house and they might be adding new say units to more bedrooms or they might be adding to their existing dwelling so what do we do with that other residential dwellings we've had some things like somebody wanted to go in and purchase an existing single family home and convert it to a group home because the inclusionary housing they're increasing the number of people living there and the number of bedrooms there's been property line adjustments that have created a new setup to how does that impact things and we had one developer that came in that he had platted town homes and wanted to come in and change to small single family homes and was going to have to have a flat revision which triggers the inclusionary housing he wasn't increasing the number of units at all the exact same number of units everything except for a different type of unit is that really triggering inclusionary housing so some of those things we're going to have to work through the other thing that's been brought up is that right now the code requires donation of land to the city and developers are more comfortable at least right now donating directly to habitat or a nonprofit so we're having to go and get council approval of those as opposed to just being able to approve that so take a look at that do we have a list of approved nonprofits that they can also do too so we don't have to go to council every time why is that, is it because of some tax benefit to them by going to a nonprofit instead of to the city or I think it's just, they feel well they've come in with a partnership already with a habitat or production community project that's related to so far that it happened and it just seems kind of foolish to make them donate to the city and then the city has to turn around and donate it to the nonprofit so we just request your permission and I'm trying to remember why this really was set up that way beginning with I think our attorney's office wasn't comfortable with who might get a donation whether a sham nonprofit might be set up by the developer to take it or something and that's why they you know we ended up doing it to the city but I think we figured it out and worked around so so that's that unless there's other questions I think this just pictures call river do this stuff might that question yeah yeah mm-hmm thank you yeah let's certainly illustrates the size of your I got about 20 copies of the last page okay it was a little accident yes it was an accident I only got one 10 alright so any questions presentation all right well thank you so much for putting that together for us it was very helpful we're not done yet we're not done yet we're discussing the role of the technical review group we're not done yet we need more of your tea we need more of your tea we need more of your tea we need more of your tea I'll bring that I'll bring that all right so we'll take it through the slide was started in 2002 to fill a need that the health advisory board at that time that there was which is that they didn't feel they had the expertise since we were starting to get more and more into allocating funding for affordable housing projects which are inherently more complex than regular CDBG projects and and are different than the human service agency funding that the group started out doing so kind of added to the duties of this board and this was a result so so they didn't feel like quit to review the applications that we were getting and at that time 18 years ago staff was me a down payment assistance program person and a brand new inclusionary housing person for the program at the time so we really didn't have much capacity in-house to conduct the reviews in depth and I think the housing advisory board just felt somewhat overwhelmed and out of their depth so it was decided to create the technical review group to review those and that group would be formed with particular expertise that could review the applications and then make a recommendation for funding to the housing advisory board so if you remember the technical review group includes housing builders or developers somebody from the real estate community the banking and lending community folks that either are low income or organizations that serve that population and understand their needs and then folks that either are special needs populations or serve special needs populations so those are considered as well they're supposed to look at the experience and capacity of the developer the costs are the costs in line with other projects evaluation of the developer speed, loan to value ratios etc the financial feasibility of the project whether they have sufficient operating reserves etc and then conformance to our affordability requirements around the goals that we've set, priorities by income or type of unit etc then the housing advisory board would review the recommendations of the TRG and make a recommendation up to the council what has I think happened over the years is we've tried to include the housing advisory board so they didn't feel like they were just a rubber stamp of the TRG with the presentations those weren't always well attended so it's been difficult to integrate I guess the work of the the two groups and I have felt for the last couple of years several years that we haven't been getting the level of review and involvement that we need from the TRG and our staff capacity has increased significantly actually last year with the addition of our new inclusion and housing person who came from the development side and then additional training that Molly or one of our staff person has undertaken in the last couple years as well so our applications have also gotten much more sophisticated and involved we are mirroring the CHAP application and the state division of housing application as well as the city of Boulder's application so we have come a long way in what we're asking for as well so some of the things that I've noticed with the TRG is that questions and comments are very thoughtful but they're not probing they seem to be accepting that the answers with not a lot of follow up most of the follow up is coming from staff and then the last project this last couple figures of work that we were working on and analyzing was really all staff so I don't know if you remember I think you got this part of the packet that was included if you remember I didn't make copies or anything but so where we put together the charts that compared cost per unit status and then it also included the use of funds with the estimated cost per unit the affordability level chamber bedrooms and then the financial assessment and compared the projects on a cost basis on a per unit basis the replacement reserve basis factors around that so that was all done by staff this time had it be done by the TRD in the past? No just another level it's another level yes because of the capacity that we have with the addition of Heidi we were able to take a look more of a deep dive in the past what we would do is just summarize the application for the TRG and then when we have the presentations we all have questions we might identify additional things that we need from the applicants and staff gets those and presents it back to the TRG and then we have recommendation discussion so we have tried to research what other communities have been doing around this issue that didn't really help us very much we either got no reply back or they're at a much lower sophistication level I guess I would say than we are we are going to attend a city of Boulder TRG they do have a TRG and operate kind of like we do so we're going to attend one of their meetings to see how their group functions and see if our expectations might just be too high or too low so we'll definitely bring that information back but this is an analysis that we intended to do in 2019 and with instituting the inclusionary housing program we were doing all we could do to keep our heads above water and process the applications that we got in and keep things flowing so we didn't get to the level of analysis that we wanted to we haven't met with the TRG to get their thoughts as well which I think we really need to have happen but as we move into that and so one of my recommendations is going to be that we go ahead and reappoint for one year terms again so that we have 2020 to do this analysis it makes them decisions moving forward but we thought this might be a good opportunity to talk through some of what your thoughts are and I know some of you are new and haven't been through this so but you still might have some idea of how you think the process currently works or should work as we move forward so I just kind of guess I wanted to throw out one do you have any follow up questions before we do that and then start throwing out a couple of questions for you guys so Madeline you've been off the board for a while what are your thoughts about the TRG I was just trying to remember when it was originally started or created was it not has the role changed for TRG from the beginning to now it has not were they not the group that were involved with that community forum where we had many sessions we had a contractor come in a consultant come in to do some assessment as it pertains to even how we allocated funds that's a different group I don't know are you looking for a discussion or general answer or do you have questions I certainly have thoughts so one of my questions was what are some of the thoughts you have about how the current process works what kind of concerns do you have or what kind of benefits do you see from how it's operating right now so as the person who currently sits on TRG is the sports liaison I think TRG in its present form admittedly I've only been on three funding cycles three quarters maybe I think it is a very well constructed and important tool in how we evaluate affordable housing in the city and that isn't to discredit staff it isn't to say that staff wouldn't be capable but the group of experts that you have even if they aren't necessarily as engaged as maybe they want them to be I'm sure for most of them they review the applications and they're kind of ready to talk about it and that's about it the group of experts who sit around that table make me more knowledgeable as a person who lives in that city and I think make our outcomes on affordable housing far better I don't know if you remember the last round of AHF applications that this board approved recommendations that came from TRG that was a pretty detailed conversation that board had what I thought was a creative solution what I thought was the right solution to fund as many of those projects as possible that I don't believe would have been breached without that combination of people in the room you have experts who work with the disabled community you have experts who advocate in key areas of housing policy that I do not believe again staff can take into those things in consideration certainly but I do not believe would have an advocate in this process especially the disability community if not for TRG the financial expertise that that group provides is able to do some pretty remarkable things in the way they can just explain projects personally I think I do hear you about how to make it more relevant to this board that's been my frustration as well and you mentioned presentation my one thought was that it would be helpful I think for this board to have those same presentations from developers that are given to TRG given to this board as well to make the developer or whoever is applying come in for a second time maybe a condensed version of that presentation so that that board feels like they have a better so that this board feels like there's a better understanding of what is being approved because this board does not get all the information that TRG gets which I think puts this board at a disadvantage which is not the goal the goal is for TRG to be a group of experts that can sit down and look at things and say okay this is where it's at in terms of the staff capacity concerns and staff now has the capacity to do this work I agree staff could do a lot of what TRG does but I think from a citizen from I guess I view it a little bit differently than that I view it as an opportunity for experts in the community to not only assist in doing the work but to also say people who really understand this stuff and understand it at multiple different levels and to come together and say okay this is how this is why this project makes sense this is why this dollar amount makes sense here's a red flag are some of the questions that TRG asks maybe not as probing as maybe they should be possibly I hear that concern I would say that what is probing or at least what has been in my opinion has been a conversation that comes out of those presentations and especially in the last couple of meetings the discussions that have happened at the table about different pieces and different developments and how we can come to creative solutions on funding specifically and what makes sense and what doesn't I really believe that the city of Longmont would lose a great deal if TRG were removed or changes are different I'm always open to having conversations about how something makes it better but eliminating TRG to me would be a mistake and that's why I'm asking how do they help her TRG do they fill her in on everything that was talked about then Kathy's in the room for TRG meetings Kathy's the one that brings the application to TRG I think it's less about helping I think maybe the function initially was to help staff and help staff kind of with the capacity issue but I think when I look at TRG what I see now is a different function and the function that I see now is to evaluate these projects in ways that this board I believe still could not and that isn't to discredit this board it's just to say the blend of individuals that are on TRG can look at these things in a different way and have different insights this board maybe because of timing partly because we do a lot on this board of course the calendar here doesn't have the ability to dive in in a way that TRG can but yeah I view it differently I guess and I see their role as more they we're going to put a bunch of really smart people in the room and figure out if this is a good project for Longmont or not and then on the financial side evaluate whether this makes sense and could staff do a lot of that work and make a recommendation to this board possibly I think the city would really miss out on the conversation that happens at that table in those quarterly meetings from individuals who work in these spaces well it sounds like community based community based yeah I mean that's the way to put it so what are the actual tangible results that you see as positive beyond the conversation so a good example would be I think I'm trying to remember exactly how the last AHF round what the final result was but I think we included we got creative TRG got creative and included home dollars in there included evaluated all sorts of different funding sources and came out with a solution and probably at least I don't believe this board would have reached and maybe necessarily staff wouldn't have naturally come to to begin with because of that we were able to fund more projects in I think ways that are ultimately beneficial in the city that's one tangible impact I also think yeah I think that's probably the I'd have to go back and look at exactly what are at what are the recommendation and maybe go back to my notes but I think we we get a great deal by having by having that group review these applications and make a recommendation I hear you about the rubber stamp piece though absolutely I think this board can often serve as a rubber stamp in ways that maybe we shouldn't afford one housing applications and I would just go back to saying one way to potentially address that is to power this board a little bit more and have developers and then have conversations about their applications my one maybe recommended change I don't know if that's your question I kind of went around in a circle but it is it is a in terms of tangible impact I think we gain this board and I think staff and expertise from different segments of the community that aren't necessarily represented in the conversation all the time specifically there's a disability advocate there's also real estate interests and business folks from the bank from on the board and all of that coming together is I think a unique process that serves the city well I don't think that so Karen and Katelyn do you have thoughts on this questions just it sounds like it's you don't think it's that important I wouldn't say important I just wasted energy well hopefully we'll get more engagement from them I guess around it so I guess one question I would throw back to you is what do you think we could do to improve it my question would be membership how often do those methods rotate it it's been a while for a while that would be my one thought does it make sense to maybe look at trying to look to some new folks who may be a little bit more ready to engage just naturally if you've been doing something for a long time you might not necessarily be as engaged with it as you were in the beginning because I do hear that I do hear that so Karen if we hold on to that question what are your thoughts you and I have before yeah I guess two maybe one is I think that it should just be communicated directly and clearly to that group the expectation of what they're performing I don't have the opportunity to bridge the gap you know I think that's critical and then second of all I just have a curiosity about the fact that this board is both housing and human services and I'm wondering what your warning from the TRG is sort of its own advisory board that occurs in other municipalities or you know they're always combined in this way yeah that housing and human services reflects the fact that Boulder County has combined housing and human services I think that the things that affect human services are affected by housing so like I know I volunteer with an organization and one of the things we've talked about is the fact that like the Coffin Street building those things go hand in hand for so much of our community because housing is like one of the biggest challenges for obtaining that idea of like if you don't have stable housing it's really hard to show up at like mental health appointments or get help with food so those things just seem like so intertwined in our community in particular that it seems like the county at the county level at least, they've combined those I don't know if that's the reason this board does those two things but I see them as like very like interlinked in our community it is the reason why both services are combined on this board that if we did that before folks would be happy don't think of human services I have a question for you I know that there is information that TRG gets that this board does not necessarily get when it comes to AHF applications specifically on the financial side does this board get everything that the TRG gets? I don't believe just last I'm trying to think do they get the full financial background? I don't know if I would recall that I remember either for some reason I'm under I know the application for sure I thought I think we, not the audits the audits is what I'm thinking about what it was of late we provided a link because that's a truck load of information but I think for members that were just really excited about diving into all the details I think we made that link available inside the call but what I will say is TRG like actively has conversations about those audits and that's conversations about the financial side in a way that this board does not and maybe we could, I don't know I don't believe our conversation just because of the way that that board is structured would be quite as in-depth or insightful as what happens there there are questions that get asked in those meetings that I would never think of just because I'm not in that space and I think I hear the two concerns about engagement and about the rubber stamp piece for sure I think talking, I think that's the first step and Graham is right, communicating the board that staff is not necessarily satisfied with what TRG is putting out, I think it would be the first step and then see kind of where that puts us and go from there I think it's an ongoing conversation rather than a I just, I still believe that kind of and just maybe it might be helpful for those who are new to kind of like what is all this to just kind of know how how TRG typically happens there's a Kathy sends out the Kathy sends out applications we have quarterly meetings on the calendar we come in they look at the developer actually is physically present to present to TRG and there's questions that can be asked there's a back and forth there that can take place that does not happen here and that I think is a missing point and then there's the there's a conversation piece where we relate the funding what's available in terms of dollars and what we can fund so it's a very it's an in-depth process in a way that I think is worth that just if I can comment so I think so I think that you know just to be thinking about so as Kathy laid out when we started the TRG which was probably 18 years ago it really was to bolster and bring in more technical expertise in the whole finance and housing development and so that's really what we really need the TRG for there was other precedent for that we looked at I think so they bolster had a technical review group or whatever and so over time we've been able to build that capacity within staff which is good and what we have heard from previous advisory boards is like you know hey we feel disconnected so you know there's a TRG and so and then we kind of represent that so those were really some questions so how do we have more opportunities to integrate could you know should we be having more joint meetings should we be doing a meeting as a group should we be recruiting and directing more specific expertise in the advisory board to bring that instead of having a separate board do we because some of the city advisory boards and commissions like the master board so we require some specific expertise in order for you to apply to beyond that board so there's a variety of options we just think after 18 years and our council had questioned that so that we probably should be just taking a peek at this and it might be that we do the same thing as we've done or there could be some enhancements that we do and a lot of different I think kind of to that point what I'd love to hear is so it sounds like staff capacity in a bunch of areas has increased one of the things I heard in terms of the expertise that we're looking for on the TRG is folks that are folks themselves are low income or organizations that serve that as well as like special needs populations and whether there's a way like are those what are the things that staff doesn't have the capacity for or doesn't have the lens to look at it what are the gaps of that and really understanding what are the ways like the TRG could really supplement what the staff expertise is now because if staff has more experience on the financing side or on something else then maybe we need less of that and more of the other community input that staff doesn't have but really understanding like if they're the same that doesn't necessarily help us unless it's a like what additional value process so that we really have the best recommendations and review of those and leverage of those dollars that's a great question and a great thought my one hesitation and this is I don't want to say ill of anybody but any staff in this room at all and Kathy and Karen and others call it all wonderful I hesitate any time that whether it's us at the state my day job or any time that community is handing more to staff that isn't just about capacity it's also about community voices being involved in the process being able to speak on policy and being able to speak on different elements of it so I think if there's a way to address your concerns Kathy and staff's concerns about the functionality of TRG while still maintaining that element of it where you do have experts who do not get involved with otherwise communities that would otherwise not have a voice in this process have a voice in it exactly to your question which I think is a great one how we get there I'm absolutely interested in it I just because I hear you on the finance side staff really in my experience on TRG is a pretty good handle on most of all of that there are certainly pieces that I would be lost so I'm going to overrank for one moment and recognize myself just to make it clear before it gets too late so in my experience this board I think is functioning at the level it should be functioning in relation to these and that is these are questions of purpose so for me I see the purpose of this board is to understand how these projects are going to the strategic comprehensive plan fulfilling those goals so the numbers you presented today are very important to us because it shows how are we moving towards the goals of having sufficient housing using these different tools TRG performs a role that varies it is technical and I think it's going to be hard for us to incorporate that on this board and get through the rest of our business so TRG's purpose to me is one of evaluating these projects are they meeting are the projects meeting the needs of their state are they the ones that we're saying we need can they be enhanced are they doing it to their maximum capacity are they financially sold enough all of those questions and I do like the idea of there being a community lens because I think what I hear you say is that I think it matters to have somebody that represents a disabled community they're saying if you're going to be doing housing that accommodates these individuals I can represent that interest or transitioning homeless or whatever it is and I think that is a valuable role and then staff of course needs to hold hold staff is responsible for not only evaluation but also implementing and make sure now she happens but in the way that TRG is saying is it maximized can't we enhance it are there things perspectives we can bring the lenses and you know that should be helpful to staff if it's not I think that's the real kind of teaser and they're to say why is it not and I think your experience with this other board will help you understand but again to me it's all an issue of purpose and I'm wondering if TRG's purpose has become a little vague so maybe redefining or restating the purpose it might be getting remarried let's just reaffirm our vows we're right here well that kind of remarried not the second marriage but the renewal of vows because sometimes I think that can focus groups I think one of the things I was going to ask is staff has a lot of expertise and you mentioned that it felt like a lot of the questions sort of the most probing questions were coming from staff versus from TRG members I'm curious just in your experience do you feel like TRG members will push back on staff to give you maybe perspectives that you're not seeing or do they take what staff says you know I think about in my day job I work with people who are really technical and the people who make me better at my job are the ones who are like I'm not sure you're doing this right how do we improve it is that not happening is that where you feel like you could be getting more of like staff and that board pushing each other to really get to serve this purpose that Brian laid out is not pushing that and I feel like maybe that's a question of like do they feel empowered to do that or do they think that you all have it in hand or is there some understanding there where they're not pushing those questions I'd like to get your thoughts on well for me personally I'd like to attend one of the meetings one of their sessions so that I can debate myself with what they're doing today because it has been a long time just to become current on the processes and how they operate and what the roles are you mentioned in the community being an entity of that group is it well I think when I say community what I mean by that is different voices from different segments of the community of the community but somebody from first bank somebody from disability somebody who would not otherwise look at that's what I say when I say community is those different outside voices would it be in your opinion Jake would it be beneficial for us to attend so I think that's first of all I think sure but I think it's a question for staff whether it's okay or not I mean that's why we have the liaison really is to serve that kind of go between but absolutely I mean we've talked about that having and we have had joint meetings more around goals strategic direction and then trying to have the presentations joint right so much money that was the other answer we weren't sure there's so much of our I'm thinking May or June so in theory we wouldn't be able to come back to May or June but I think it'd be very beneficial especially for folks who don't know or have questions to see kind of how that could function and additionally to see what areas could it can be improved because I hear you on the questions especially and I think I think there are definitely improvements that can be made just a matter of you know just a full re-shaming how do we know when the next how do we get the meeting scheduled or can we be invited okay no I think we just kind of have to take a look at having all things on the table one of the things that other communities have done is made their advisory board that board so in effect putting that expertise on the advisory board then it becomes a matter of can you do everything as a volunteer board the other thing option is that sometimes they split them out so housing becomes one but then you lose that integration without some more specific integration just on the calendar is there enough housing I mean I guess in theory we could fill work but it's based on the way the funding is structured in the schedule of that is there work to do for just a housing well they might not meet monthly might be still for later so everything is really kind of this is what we need to do feedback has been really great I think it would give me an understanding more of what what's all involved in this I'm still kind of unclear exactly what we do I think for me at least it was amazing maybe I haven't been that long enough but just watching these very very smart people who are way smarter than I am with their brains on stuff and figure it out is something that I think everybody should get a chance to do I think that whatever the next meeting is will be a part of it if this is going to be an ongoing question so can we Madeline are you okay with doing your presentation your walkthrough of your site visit next meeting rather than this one so let's table that until the next meeting I would just strongly suggest there we explore a crystal clear purpose for that group and how that really start purpose because I think there's some vagueness happening and I'm guessing that all these groups can contribute much better if we know exactly how we're going to have value to the work you do into the community okay is there any other business did I miss the photo session no we have a photo session oh I'm sorry you weren't here no I missed it no you didn't miss it we haven't done that yet okay alright but now the lights getting longer right and we're all going to be inside and the last entrance is now remodeled okay so if there is no other business any movement to adjourn we'll adjourn second possibly are adjourned


Are you someone who checks a weather daily or even weekly? Perhaps you're hoping for snow, or trying to find the best time to plant your garden or to spray for weeds. Since 1998, citizen scientists have collected and reported precipitation data as part of the Community Collective Rain, Hail, and Snow Network, more commonly referred to as COCO-RAS. Volunteers collect precipitation data in a standard 4-inch rain gauge and report it from a mobile device or computer. Volunteers report precipitation data daily or as frequently as possible. Locals and organizations use the data for a variety of purposes. Meteorologists may use the information to better forecast precipitation events. Emergency managers may use it to predict river levels and the potential for flooding. Even insurance adjusters may consider your data when calculating compensation for hail damage to crops and property. Being a COCO-RAS volunteer is a great way to learn more about weather and to give back to your community. For the University of Wyoming Extension, I'm Milton Geiger, Exploring the Nature of Wyoming.