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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Affordable Housing Committee - 02/28/2022February 28, 2022, SoBu Affordable Housing Committee Minutes – APPROVED Page 1 Approved on March 28, 2022 AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMMITTEE February 28, 2022, 10:30 a.m., meeting held online and at City Hall Members attending: Janet Bellavance, Leslie Black-Plumeau, Vince Bolduc, Sandy Dooley, Ariel Jensen-Vargas, Darrilyn Peters, Minelle Sarfo-Ado (arr. 11:02), John Simson, and Chris Trombly; member absent: Patrick O’Brien; staff present: Jessie Baker, City Manager; Kelsey Peterson, City Planner; PC liaison, Monica Ostby, public, Addie Lentzner AGENDA 1. Call to order, agenda review, approval of minutes from 2/14/22 AHC meeting, announcements, public comment 2. City manager update 3(6). CC discussion on ARPA funding 4(5). Planning Commission Update 5(3). Anti-racism bill (Minelle) 6(4). Rental Feedback (Ariel) 7. Adjourn 1. Call to order, agenda review, approval of minutes from 2/14/22 AHC meeting announcements, public comment, Call to order: Chris called the meeting to order at 10:35 a.m. Agenda review: Janet proposed moving agenda item 6 to become item 3, item 5 to item 4, thus making items 3 & 4 items 5 & 6, respectively. When members responded positively, she moved and Vince seconded motion to modify the agenda as proposed. Motion approved: 8-0-0 (Minelle had not arrived). Approval of minutes: Vince proposed that the positive results of straw poll be stated explicitly in the minutes. Then, Darrilyn moved and Vince seconded motion that the committee approve the minutes, including this change. Motion approved: 8-0-0 (Minelle had not arrived). Announcements: Sandy shared that the City Council has approved Summit Properties request that the City apply for a CDBP grant, which, if received, would become part of the funding for Summit’s affordable housing proposed to become part of the O’Brien Farms development. Chris shared that he will be consulting with committee members about changing the committee’s meeting times and frequency with goal of increasing their compatibility with members’ availability. Monica reported that Bernie Gagnon, long-term Planning Commission (PC) member, has resigned due to a work assignment that takes him out of the area. She hopes the process will be more open than was the case when the previous vacancy occurred. She asked Jessie if City Council (CC) will advertise immediately to fill this vacancy or include it with its annual recruitment for members of all committees. Jessie replied that CC’s practice has been to make “mid-term” appointments for PC and DRB vacancies. Public Comments: None 2. City manager’s update: Staff and CC are working on making improvements regarding meeting times and communication flow practices. In response to inquiry, she reported that work with School District on District’s lease of 575 Dorset Street property has not been completed but is moving along. 3(6). CC discussion on ARPA funding: Jessie reported that the City received $5.7 million in ARPA funds of which about $4 million is available to invest in projects, infrastructure, and/or services (whatever CC eventually decides). CC expressed support for directing $1 million of these funds to housing. She added that CC will discuss/define outreach process at its 3/21/22 meeting. Regarding how much ARPA $ SoBu should direct to housing, Leslie reminded members that Barre, whose populations is less than half of SoBu’s, is planning to spend $1 million on a project modeled after the “Missing Middle Income Home Ownership Development Program” proposal being considered in the VT Senate. In light of this and the severity of the housing crisis in Chittenden County, Leslie proposed that SoBu should be spending $2 million on housing, instead of $1 million. Janet and others present stated support for proposing to CC that amount for housing be $2 million and not $1 million (no one present voiced opposition to the $2 million amount). Janet asked, “What is it we need and how do we know we need it?” and mentioned contracting for a housing needs assessment. Others present cited the abundance of data February 28, 2022, SoBu Affordable Housing Committee Minutes – APPROVED Page 2 available about local housing patterns, costs, houselessness, etc., which led them to suggest that a full-blown housing needs assessment would not be necessary. Results of brainstorming ideas for how SoBu might invest ARPA $ on housing: something transformational (might involve the U-Mall), issue two RFPs—one for homeownership and another for rental units, make use of the system already in place by providing “gap” funding (reminder: $1 or 2 million will not buy a lot of housing), replicate the Missing Middle Home Ownership Development model in SoBu, establish a Land Bank, establish a low-interest revolving loan program for homeowners to construct ADUs, promote homeownership for Black Americans, develop housing targeted to folks without housing (note: this is already baked in—a State requirement), invest $ in infrastructure needed to support housing (waive fees for water & sewer lines), challenge is to have funding spent or allocated by 12/31/24, does CHT plan to build new housing in SoBu in near future, need for City staffer dedicated to making whatever CC decides happen, (Monica’s Wow) City & School District swap Veterans Park land with Middle & High School land and build housing & rec center on School District land and new Middle & High Schools on Veteran’s Park land, mixed use: have same building include housing, school, library,& day care. From Jessie: CC wants input from AHC on how to use $1 million for housing & input from community about how to use the remaining ARPA $, Chris provided following links with info from Burlington and Vermont League of Cities & Towns regarding this topic: https://www.burlingtonvt.gov/Press/arpa-survey-results https://www.vlct.org/resources/american-rescue-plan-information This discussion also included a focus on renters (Note: Ariel is only committee member who is a renter though Minelle’s dad is renter): each rental should have private open space (balconies, perhaps), tenants are fearful of making complaints due to fear of reprisals, from Ariel: “As we consider spending $1M of ARPA funding on Tom Getz' project for mixed use housing, I have to ask, ’What are his reviews as a landlord?’ Builders have become all-powerful landlords. There will be a growing number of tenants and possible sources of conflict with no official recourse in place. A proactive approach would be an ongoing channel for tenant feedback, both positive and negative. Same as we do for Amazon purchases! If builders know that these reviews would be included in the approval process for present and future projects, it would help balance the power differential and increase accountability.” 4(5). Planning Commission Update: Prior to AHC meeting, Janet provided members with written update on PC meeting and subcommittee’s work. Thank you, Janet. At its 2/23/22 meeting, the PC made a few minor changes to its draft General PUD regulations and voted to warn a public hearing (PH) on them for 3/22/22. Will AHC provide statement on these regulations at or before the PH? Members not familiar with these draft rules so not ready to vote on something at this meeting. Subcommittee will prepare comments for committee to consider at 3/14/22 meeting. Discussion of General PUD: a lot of what is in the General PUD regulations comes from the Form-Based Codes regulations, General PUD regulations may be used only where other PUD types cannot be used, members would like to see map showing where the various PUD types may be used, General PUD does not change underlying zoning re density, increased density achieved only by inclusionary units or units acquired via Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs), question: is there a minimum acreage requirement for a General PUD?, permits mixed uses on same parcel, what about proposed language re number of bedrooms or number of housing types requirement—do they meet City’s needs, response: these requirements are brand new, we do not want to impose onerous requirements, maybe number of bedrooms and housing type requirements should be dealt with more broadly in LDRs, (Monica) process has been rushed, there may be unintended consequences, we need a citywide task force on housing. Discussion then focused on Jessica’s (Louisos) & Chris’ proposal that AHC & PC meet together to develop common understanding of affordability and how it applies to housing developments. Leslie: lots of good data on the Affordable Housing Committee’s webpage on the City’s website (check out link below), Monica: will share good memo on this subject from consultant to Chamberlin neighborhood task force on airport zoning (check out link below). https://localhousingsolutions.org/about-lhs/ Affordable%20Housing%20Excerpt%20from%202022-03-03%20ARTF%20Packet.pdf 5(3). Anti-racism bill (Minelle): Minelle introduced her friend Addie (Lentzner), whom she met at the Governor’s Initiative on Activism conference and with whom she is working on this bill (H.584). At this conference they met Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun, who helped them draft their bill. It now has 22 co-sponsors and is getting a lot of February 28, 2022, SoBu Affordable Housing Committee Minutes – APPROVED Page 3 attention. It would establish a process through which a school district would develop an anti-racism curriculum that includes the following standards: diversity in literature, systemic racism, anti-bias training for teachers, the school-to-prison pipeline, BIPOC support groups, and a biannual survey. Developing such a curriculum would be voluntary on the part of the school district; once it develops a curriculum that meets the standards, the school district would be certified. Suggestion that they develop a simple graphic about the bill that could be easily shared. Vince shared his experience vis-à-vis developing and conducting surveys and expected this would be a burden on schools. He suggested that they might want to delete this requirement from the bill (comment: “Sometimes no data are better than bad data”). Minelle thanked Vince for this feedback. Another approach might be to provide a way for students to report racist behavior. Barrier to getting bill out of committee is the competition with so many other bills. How about getting VT-NEA to help? They haven’t done that. No SoBu representatives on House Education committee; Tom Chittenden is on Senate Education Committee. Leslie commented that what they have developed could be a model for the entire country. Ariel included in chat: “I would love for Minelle to become involved in increasing homeownership to increase non-white homeownership to build equity and increase generational wealth.” Chris thanked Minelle and Addie for making presentation to the committee. Minelle & Addie thanked committee members for their support and input. 6(4). Rental Feedback (Ariel): postponed to a future committee meeting due to lack of time. 7. Adjourn: At 12:33 p.m. Leslie moved and Janet seconded motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion approved: 9-0-0.