 Dr. Brian Langlos, Mr. Carl Neumann, Mr. Drew Helm, I newly graduated Ms. Jillian Leigh Riley. Present. Ms. Rachel Epphart, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Snars, I'm here Mr. Chair. I'm just messing, it's the last meeting. Ms. Washington said she will be here a little late, but she will be here. Okay, all right. Mr. Chair, quick point of order just to let everyone know that we're connected to YouTube, so we're just streaming to YouTube just to let all the members know, just let them know. All right. And good morning, good evening to everybody at YouTube World. My name is LaVon Barnes. I'm the Chair of the Citizen Advisory Committee, and this is our May meeting. And at this time, I'll go on Action Item Number 2, which is to approve the minutes from March and April. Hopefully, everybody's had an opportunity to look over those minutes and in turn, if you haven't seen any errors or if there's any amendments that you would like to make, do so now. If not, I'll take a motion to accept those minutes. Mr. Chair, I move acceptance of the March and April meeting minutes. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. It's been moved by Ms. Alicia Smith Freshwater. Can I get a second? Actually, I second. Okay, second by Ashley Robbins. Okay. Any discussion? Okay, no discussion. All those in favor of approving March and April meetings, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, those minutes have been adopted into the record. Thank you. I guess Mr. Johnson, did you want to speak a little bit before I introduce our guest? No, I don't have any comments right now other than welcome to everyone. I'm sure the Chair will share with you that based upon the Executive Committee's discussion, this will be the last meeting until for the summer. Normally we have a meeting in June, but mainly that's to close out the year and eat. And to have a little celebration and thank you for your service. But of course, we won't be doing that in the midst of COVID. And so we'll finish Transact the Season's business today. Yes, I'm sure that some are disappointed right now by hearing that news. But I'm sure that you will get over it quickly. However, I am very excited about introducing my chair, my co-chair of the Affordable Housing Implementation Committee, Ms. Tiffany Elder. I wanted to bring Ms. Elder in here to talk to us because I think a lot of what the Affordable Housing Implementation Committee does and what we do really is co-exist. It's parallel to each other. And in our last committee meeting, Ms. Elder presented this PowerPoint that she's going to present today that raised a lot of eyebrows. And honestly, I know that after looking at this PowerPoint and those who may be watching at home, you're going to come away. I want to say just upset with the way that our housing market is going and our real estate market is going and what the trend is looking like. So I'm not even going to waste any more time. Ms. Elder, how are you doing today? Doing well. Thank you all for having me. Awesome. I give it to you. You are now on the floor. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to share a PowerPoint with you. Let me get that up and running. Am I able to share on here? Hang on. Yeah, Ms. Elder, I believe you should be able to. And I didn't want to cut you off. I'm sorry. I have a quick question for you. Would you like to entertain questions during or hold? Maybe if I can run through and then we can have a conversation or have any questions immediately following. That might make sense. That'll work. So committee members, if you have questions along the way, write them in the chat and then we'll cue those questions. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Here it goes. Hang on. Here we go. Can everyone see this? Okay. Perfect. So my name is Tiffany Elder. I'm co-chair of the Affordable Housing Fund Implementation Committee. I'm also a realtor and licensed general contractor based here in Durham and have been in real estate since 2003 here. So I will start off by saying we are witnessing a market, a type of market that we've never had here before. And the purpose of this presentation was initially me digging in and trying to understand what was going on in the market because we were seeing crazy offers and so much increased demand and I was trying to understand why. So in here we're going to talk about some of the forces that are at play. These are five of the main forces that we see are driving the high pricing and increases in our market, first being low interest rates, increased construction costs, lack of inventory supply, influx of new residents, and the fact that new residents are bringing much higher income, which we will cover in more detail. So we're going to walk through these one by one. To start, these are the annualized historic mortgage interest rates over the last few decades, all the way back to 1972. As you can see, they've been dropping precipitously and as of January of this year, that was the average rate for mortgages. So good thing for home buyers who want to buy a home because it makes home ownership more affordable, ideally makes even owning rental property more affordable so that benefit can be passed on to a tenant in a perfect world. But it also increases demand for housing and this is one of the factors that's playing into the increased demand that we're seeing in our market is because mortgage rates are really low now. The second is increased construction costs. So I pulled this snippet of an article from NAHB, the National Association of Home Builders, record high lumber prices, they reported about six or so months ago, were adding just a lumber price, were adding $24,000 to the price of a new home. So building a home was more expensive and that $24,000 was just due to lumber, that was not due to any of the other factors that go into building a home. I just saw an update on this article last week come out from NAHB and in maybe just over six months that number has increased now to 36,000. So record high lumber prices because lumber has been climbing continually, a typical home in the US costs 36,000 more now to build than it did approximately a year ago, just based off the lumber price increasing. To give you an example, a little over a year ago, a four by eight sheet of plywood you could get for about $8 or $9, about two weeks ago, there was one vendor where it was priced at $52. So lumber prices in some cases have quadrupled or better, but we're seeing high increases in lumber. So we are going to spend a little bit of time on this slide because I want to make sure this is probably the most important factor, one of the most important factors is lack of inventory. So these numbers come from our local Triangle Multiple Listing Service, MLS, and these stats are as of the end of January 2021. You'll notice median home sales and average home sale prices are at the highest that we've ever seen in our city. This is for Durham City, median price 294.5, average sales price just under $338,000 for the price of a home in our city, which based on the average income per capita in our city, which I believe was just over $60,000, it's sort of driving up the cost of, our housing cost has been driven up and it's becoming a little more difficult to afford the average home in our area for someone who's on an average income. One thing to pay attention to is the difference between the median sales price and the average sales price. There's a pretty notable gap. Average is, of course, take all the sales, total them, divide by the number of sales, median being line up all the sales, $1,000, $100,101 million, pluck the one out the middle, and that sales, whatever that sales price is, that's our median. Anytime you see an average so high above the median, it's because so many homes are selling above that median sales price that it's pulled the average up. So, not only are these numbers significant, but the fact that this is so much higher lets you know that there are a lot of homes selling on the high end of pricing in our area. Of course, days on market or down, etc., but two things that I wanted to make note of at the end of January, we had 0.7 months of inventory. In and of itself, that probably doesn't say much, but if I were to tell you that an average healthy balanced market has six months of inventory, that puts this 0.7 months or three weeks into a different perspective. What that means is 0.7 months, three weeks of inventory. If no homes were to go on the market beginning today, and we could only sell the homes that were already on the market, and three weeks we would be completely out of inventory based on the pace of absorption in our sales and our area. Typically, again, there's six months of inventory sitting there, so there's plenty to choose from. This lets you know that we don't even have enough inventory on the market. There's nothing to choose from. Inventory levels. In the entire city of Durham, at the end of July, there were only 341 homes on the market. To put this into perspective, there are approximately 1,100 realtors who belong to the Durham Association of Realtors. There are about 12,000 realtors who belong to Durham, Wake, and Orange County altogether, and most of those realtors are working with more than one buyer, and all of those buyers who are looking at Durham only have 341 homes to choose from. We are seeing levels of competition in bidding and pricing and concessions that we've never seen in this market, and it's because of that. Again, lack of inventory is very challenging right now. I want you to remember the median price of $294, the average price of $337 at the end of January, so $294 and $337. Now at the end of April, $294 is $319, $337 is $359. The new median and average pricing. Our market is accelerating. 0.7 months of inventory has now turned into 0.6 months of inventory, approximately two and a half weeks of inventory. If I were to rewind to this time last year, beginning of last year, there was 1.7 months of inventory on the market this time last year, and that's still very low, but it's been dropping, dropping, dropping every month, and now we're almost at a half month of inventory, which is essentially no homes to sell. Days on the market, 12 days, we're seeing homes come and go, leave the market, same day they hit the market. Just to reiterate, all of these price increases make it that much harder for a landlord to buy a property that he wants to rent out and make it available for rent at a reasonable rate that is amenable to folks who are at median incomes in our city. These rising sales prices affect not only homeowners, but they affect tenants as well as far as affordability. Another factor are these recent employment headlines. Just take a look at some of these. All of these are Durham based except for the last one, the most recent one. 878 jobs, biotech. All of these were pulled from Triangle Business Journal, FYI, biotech, 878 jobs, average income, 96.5. Clorox, 158 jobs, 120,000. Another company, 119, manufacturers bringing in new jobs, Googles coming downtown to Durham, and of course we've all heard about Apple coming and bringing about approximately 3,000 plus jobs at an average salary of $187,000. So again, if we look at our median per capita income in the city, which is just over 60, as I believe just over 60, I must change recently and I'm not aware, compared to these prices and these incomes, some of which hopefully will go to folks in our area, but a lot of these are going to be folks relocating to our area already in these positions. These people who are making thousands more a month than our median income are going to be able to compete more fiercely for both rental and ownership opportunities in our area. So again, I've been giving you a lot of stats on the housing market and the sales side, but the rental market is feeling a very distinct pinch as well. We'll chat about that in just a minute. So the takeaways, Durham market's moving swiftly due to multiple factors. If you own something, understand the value of what you own. If you want to own, put something in place so that you can become owners and sort of have a stake in the community while the numbers still allow for you to do so, because pricing is accelerating at a much quicker clip than wages are. And the rental market has extremely high competition. Renters have to remain aware of the potential for steep rental increases. I've gotten calls, multiple calls on lease renewals that are $350, $400 more to renewal lease from the prior year for tenants in place. I have a colleague who was put in a difficult situation. He's selling a property in Eusterm for his client. And while that client is not planning to put the tenant out, the price that the buyer is going to buy that property for, they are probably going to put the tenant out. And the gentleman's been living there for 20 years. He pays $450 a month. He's older, disabled on fixed income. And we've been scrambling to try to find somewhere to help him move to. So any resources that are available, please let me know. Because these are situations that myself and my colleagues see quite often. And it's really challenging because individuals are being displaced on a daily basis. Yeah. And to secure long-term viability, I always just want to press the point that it's important for members within the community to own residential and commercial spaces. We are getting a lot of eyes and activity from out-of-state buyers a lot. I know myself and my colleagues have worked with folks who are moving here from another area because their jobs are now permanently virtual. So they can bring their higher income and move here wherever else they like to. And that's who locals are competing with for housing and for rentals. Anecdotally, recently, a friend's daughter went to a local apartment complex. And the onsite there was pretty direct in telling her, we have so many more applications than we have available space. So they can pretty much cherry pick their tenants based on applications. And so it's going to be really difficult both on the rental side and on the sales side. So I will leave it there. Maybe we can chat about any questions. Any of you have, I'll leave the slides up in case you want me to go back to pull up anything. Thank you, Ms. Elder-Fore. Again, it's a very humbling presentation. Thank you. It's funny. Literally, the gray Apple made their announcement. My phone, some of my colleagues' phone started ringing off the hook with California and out-of-state buyers who wanted to get a handle on what's going on in this market. A friend of mine yesterday or Saturday, yesterday, back home in my hometown of Chicago, called and said, hey, there was something on CBS, which is one of our news stations, talking about the Dura market in Chicago. So we're not a secret anymore. And there are a lot of eyes and a lot of money who want to have a stake in this area from out-of-state. And I can't press the point enough that it's really important that we find ways for folks who are here, who are looking for ownership opportunities, that we help to make that happen. It's really hard to compete. And that we also carve out opportunities to help folks who want to get into rentals, because that's going to be very difficult as well if it continues in the same path that it has been. I will open up the floor for questions via either the chat or you can meet yourself in our recommendation. Hey, this is Gillian. Thank you so much for that presentation. I took some screenshots of those statistics. So just to clarify with the renters market, so people that are wanting to buy a house are unable to afford a house or compete. And so they're becoming renters. And so that's putting pressure on their renting market. So people that would normally just be renters are unable to find rental properties. Is that okay? Yes. Absolutely. And some of the folks who are moving here from out of the area, sometimes when they move here, they want to rent for a little while before they buy. So we're seeing more competition from folks who are transplants who want to be here in this area and get used to it. It's sort of coming from all directions. You want to know anybody else's questions? Ashley, I'm sorry. I saw Ashley saying. Yeah, I was just, I'm just overwhelming news and I've kind of been following it as someone who's trying to buy a house myself in the near future. And I'm pretty engaged as far as paying attention to city council. And it seems like the response is always that they don't have much recourse to their rent control and those type of things to keep the prices from going up. So I mean, what are we able to do? Because it doesn't ever seem like we get to the meat of what we can do. We like to dish out what we cannot do. And if people still waiting on money for over a year for hope funds and the rental assistance, it seems like this is going to encourage folks to push people out quicker because now they have unlimited supply of people willing to buy and rent homes. So I guess I'm just curious what recourse as citizens do we have? That's one of the challenging questions. I just learned recently that rent control is overseen at the state level. It's nothing that local municipalities have control over. So that's, you know, that's a conversation that some are having now potentially, I'm sure. Locally, you know, I'm encouraging anyone who does find a rental to try to lock into a longer term lease and not necessarily do a one year lease, try to lock yourself in longer, even if it has built in increase, at least you know what that increase is going to be. And you don't have to worry about getting sideswiped at your renewal with several hundred dollars in increase. You know, really just understanding what's out there. There are so many conversations that folks are having to try to figure this out. And unfortunately, I don't have the answer. But that's a conversation that I'm happy to have with anyone. I think it sort of shipped me when my Wendell, my colleague mentioned the older gentleman who was going to be displaced in that property and realizing how few, if any, resources that we have for individuals at that income level. And you know, so where do these people go? And that's a tough one. Yeah, in the queue, I just want to put in the queue, it'll be Carl, then I saw Rachel, and then Alicia. Hey, Tiffany. Yeah, I think I read an ABC 11 story that was really based off of those triangle MLS April numbers. And it was pretty disheartening to see that year over year jump. And I think it's like a two third drop in what's available on the market in Durham County. And I know a lot of the reporting has sort of said, oh, you know, these job announcements have a lot to do with it. And it sounds to me like you're saying that really is true. I'd actually wondered if that was reporters guessing, but it sounds like that really is almost one to one on some of that stuff. I, as in my amateur legal opinion, rent control really isn't possible at the local level in North Carolina, unfortunately. And there's no hope for giving those laws changed in the General Assembly as it stands today. I wonder if, given the construction cost problem, because the other thing that I think a local government at the county or city level could do is try to do things to help increase supply, particularly of rental properties. And it just seems to me like, you know, we drew who's not here tonight is actually his company is building an ADU in my backyard sometime in the near future. And between when we signed a contract in December and we got the final construction budget in May, the estimated cost of the price per square foot was up about 40%. And so I'm just sort of thinking like, if the only other thing that local governments can do is help increase supply, it kind of seems like right now there's nothing we could do to help increase supply given how quickly the cost of construction is shooting up. And I wonder if it's as hopeless as it looks, but is there is there something that we could be doing right now to help increase particularly the rental stock? I mean, supply would be amazing. One thing that I was excited about that went into effect the October, BC before COVID is expanding housing choice, which allows for larger ADUs and smaller lot options and different configurations. And I was excited to see that but then COVID sort of screeched everything to a halt. So we haven't seen as much activity as we were hoping to on that end. And now with pricing for construction, being up, it's making it a little more difficult. But I think as more people become aware of that and understand how they can unlock additional value in their properties and also how they can help with the housing shortage that we have, because essentially that's what it is. It's just true supply and demand. I sometimes hear people talk about, oh, we're in a bubble and they're looking back to 07 when things started to change. But that was, I want everyone on this call to understand that back in 07, we had about nine months of inventory on the market. It was a very different situation. All of the excitement in the market and everything was, I didn't even understand why it was happening because we had so much inventory sitting on the market. We are so far on the other end of the totem pole here that this is just true supply and demand. So anything that we can do to get more supply out there, whether it's sort of yelling from the rooftops and making sure everyone understands how they personally can leverage expanding housing choice to create some rental housing. Because I know a lot of folks, sometimes I mention it to people and they're not even aware of it. So I sort of go through a brief explanation. Anything that can help with sharing that and getting supply on the market can help. Also, even for ADUs and things like that, funding is a challenge. There's sometimes a gap in there and maybe you saw that in the situation with your project. So I don't know if there are funding sources that can sort of help to facilitate that, even if it's just short term during construction funding, so that the owner can do a refi out on the back end once everything is built. If there's a way to pull together funds or an initiative to help with that. But really anything that can get supply on the market would be very much helpful. Rachel. Mr. Chair, I can also comment. Okay, Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I would also share that remember one of my goals pre COVID and for the city is to increase the supply. And that's the reason we presented our $160 million package over the next six, seven years, as well as affordable housing bond referendum. Recognizing that's not to solve it, but that's one of the goals to increase the supply. I'll just give you a picture into the decision that I had to make this morning. So we received the letter last Friday, May, Thursday, Friday from one of our nonprofit developers who's in the midst of a project creating affordable housing. And basically that that letter said that, hey, Mr. Community Development Director, we're not able to complete that project because of the increasing costs, which basically increased over 40% due to the construction costs. And so I'm waking up this morning coming to work and having to make a decision on whether it's a go or no go. We're going to make work our best to try to keep it going because I don't want to lose the units. And I'm not going to say what project it is right now because we're still, of course, in discussion. But this is reality. And this is the first project, well, maybe the second that is facing these type of cost increases. And the question is, do we have the resources to keep them on track? And when I can tell you that we won't have the resources to keep them all on track. But we're going to manage best we can. But this is the environment that we're working in. And I would just say it's tough. It's a challenge. But I just wanted to share that in real time to the challenge that we have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. And point of information for Sorry, I was just going to say, if I could ask a follow up question before you turn over to Rachel. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Yeah. Well, Tiffany, yeah, Tiffany, I was just going to ask one other question, which is just, is there any hope that some of the low inventory in especially the single family home market is caused by a kind of like COVID holding pattern that there will be people who over the summer, especially when they're like out of the school year will say or past mandatory summer school this summer for some people will say now is the time to move. Like, is there any hope that the market will actually get some, you know, sort of normalization in single family home inventory this summer? Yeah, I've seen correspondence that speaks to just that question. And so my answer is hopefully yes. This is what we call peak season in the real estate market right now. This is typically the busiest time of the year, leading up to like when the school year typically starts, because most families like to move and get settled in and have their kids in the school district they're going to be in. And then it sort of tapers off in a normal market at the end of the year. This past year didn't really taper too much at the end of the year just as we didn't have any supply. But yes, we are hoping that because things are getting a little bit better with COVID that more people will be comfortable with putting their homes on the market. But there is a force that's working against that is people know right now are starting to understand how competitive the market is. And so some people and I've spoken with some homeowners who said well I kind of like to sell my house, but I don't want to be on the buyer side in this market. So they know that they're the bell of the ball when they're selling their home, but they know that they're sort of you know the pimply faced awkward teenager when they're trying to buy definitely not on the desirable side of things apparently. So you know that and some sellers are like well I'll just stay in my house and make some updates and do some renovations and and sit tight. So it time will tell what will what that balance is going to be. But that's a great question. All right Rachel I'm not even going to hold you go ahead Rachel. Yeah thanks this is interesting. Thank you for for sharing. I think when we talk too about the barriers on the supply side the construction cost is kind of the obvious one, but a lot of people don't realize how expensive it is for the parking to also be built alongside these units. And so these these parking minimums really especially for a lot of the income restricted units. I mean it's a maker break right in terms of making these deals kind of pencil out and I think Mr. Johnson you've heard that from a lot of development partners kind of coming to the city who are trying to to build more affordable multi-family. So I think just kind of thinking through this in terms of like what can we do I I don't I don't know of any um any parking utilization studies that have been done on the city side or on the development side in general but I think uh encouraging city officials to reconsider um these parking minimums and and also just taking a closer look to it how many unused spaces there are. I mean these spaces it costs upwards of like $20,000 to build a single parking space and you can't live in a parking space. So um I think that's something too that a lot of folks aren't aren't aware of in this discussion and I think it's it's something that would be kind of a first first stop to to reconsider as we kind of look at this because um yeah it we're just not building enough and so I think it's kind of hard to look at that while kind of providing these barriers for for the supply side. I think the parking goes hand in hand with the construction costs so. Thank you for that parking parking is a conversation that um builders and developers have in this area quite a bit and that's on you know the multi-family side and on the single-family build side as well just trying to sometimes trying to get or a small small multi-family two to four unit you know we call it getting your project to park you know being able to pencil it out so that you can get it parked and some sometimes projects don't get done because you can't park it because of our um local criteria and the thing that we're going to have to be aware of and stay ahead of is that um a side note that leads into this one of my mentors Wendell Bullard spoke with the Board of Equalization that shared some interesting factors one of which is they suspect or they expect that within the next 10 years Durham will be completely built out and 10 years goes really fast apparently all of the large parcels like 50 to 100 acres are already gone some of the mid-sized parcels a lot of them have been snapped snapped up it's really hard to find single-family lots here and so um we're going to start seeing more construction go up but we can only have construction go up if you can park it so we're going to have to make a decision as the community you know are are we are we going to build walkable transit-based communities or are we still going to require these archaic you know two car per unit rules that you see in some places for single-family or small multi and and other parking restrictions that you see for larger multi-family like we we need to make it easier to get housing on the ground otherwise we're going to keep moving at a sales space thank you Rachel for your question Alicia yes thank you and um thank you Tiffany for sharing this information it was really enlightening um of course we've been hearing about it but just seeing it is really really believing you know what's going on but my questions are are twofold do we anticipate and I think one question is for you to see if you can look into a crystal ball but the other question is is for Mr. Johnson probably as well but do we foresee revamping of city plans to look at the commercial retail space to minimize that is there going to be is there any room for I guess revamping and pivoting on some of the development to to provide more affordable housing because everything this has this has ramifications for colleges and universities I mean you have Duke you have central I mean everybody's going to feel this this crunch this housing crunch so the question is is there room for yes is there is a process for revisiting city plans like growth and we adjust um commercial retail space to provide additional housing and I'm guessing that might be more of a regional question I'll take I'll take us um um look at that so one of the things to keep in mind is that uh the city uh the one of the drivers in the creation of commercial space and registered potential space whether it's rental or uh home ownership is the the market the marketplace and so what you're talking about is uh converting not well not converting but how do we you know use some of the retail space which typically is downtown in the zoning so really what you're asking is a zoning question and if you remember from the slides that you know I may have think I've shared with the committee there are two things that influence affordable housing creation more than the amount of money that we spend in creating it one of those is jobs that's the number one the second one is zoning and so what you're talking about is how can we change our zoning and we did just change some amount of when I say we the city city county planning department did just change some zoning to allow more density is it enough probably not but that is something locally that we can do and be be advocates for the and we have to be real about it because just as there are some people for it there will be some that are not in favor because that makes things more dense and you can see the impact of the most recent change uh because if you look at through neighborhoods where they have an infield development you begin to see houses in the front and houses in the back okay that's new because of the the zoning change and what you're talking about the market all of the the space downtown is basically driven you know by the market you have businesses and people coming and I can if I you know can get a loan from a bank I can build whatever I want to build because I know I can get somebody to buy it rent it at the price that I want you know and the city can't stop that uh unfortunately uh what we can do we can do some changes but the reality is we are going to have to go up uh and right now if you look downtown even where there's residential that's going up the retail has to be on the bottom that's okay ordinance uh and look at the new city parking garage there's retail on the bottom so we have to follow our own ordinance you know that's not my area we can talk about next year when I say next year next season having the planning director come and talk about that be glad to consider that and work on that over the summer and have that ready when you return okay thank you Mr. Johnson and then my last question was around the affordable housing that that we're building so what you just experienced this morning I mean it just seems like that that is going to it's going to dominate right on all the development that we're doing I mean there's the cost increase and I think there's going to be further delays because of you know material shortages so is there a is there a work group is there an active you know um we're looking at where we are and what adjustments need to be made globally well I would say that we are looking at it is not a work group of course we'll be you know briefing you all right now we're just trying to manage the projects that we've already committed to these are projects these are not new projects but projects that we've already committed to and I know uh you you know I use the term you know bowling it's like bowling pins you know you hit one you know knock them knock them all down but it is uh uh a challenge and what we're trying to do right now at the departmental level is work to make sure we as best we can keep the projects we have on track now come remember we're coming out of COVID one of our challenges where we were trying to keep our nonprofits on track you know because they were getting the real incomes and and and so now we you know hitting with this so it is challenge challenge but we just know that we are going to do the best we can and you we in fact have to delay and that's a hard decision to make but I'm prepared to make it on a price something we're going to have to put holes on because the resources are not there for us to do the gap financing which is what what we do uh or we may have to wait till the gap get smaller now one of the things that said I know this is a long answer uh is that this price increases maybe temporary but temporary maybe two years um and so you know it may return but we don't know and it is having a it's going to be having a real impact on projects and then the other piece that I would just mention was you know on the parking not to shift gears but remember when we tell the affordable housing is two elements to parking one you talked about what the city requires but then also what the financing requires North Carolina Housing Finance Agency governs parking as well in the standards that they use also so I know that's a longer answer I apologize for that Mr. Chair. No you're all right Mr. Johnson we it's your last last we let you slide. Thank you. Brian Dr. Langlos. Yeah that actually is a great lead into the question I had was really thinking about in my understanding is a lot of the increase in construction costs is because of the interruptions to like mill shutting down and things like that and disruptions the supply chains and things and so I guess I was curious as things are getting back to normal people are getting vaccinated people are returning to work things are starting to open back up is there are there kind of you know projections or anticipated timelines of like when like supply is going to start catching up to this demand and kind of bring the new construction price down so that the inventory can start building back up again or so I haven't seen any timelines on that per se but we've sort of been waiting for that to happen for months now there have been whispers among the building community of oh well now these manufacturers know that we're willing to pay a higher price and we'll come up with the money to make the project work at that price so they really don't have an incentive to drop the price even though now they're running it full tilt so we we don't know when or if I I saw something several days ago that there is either a bill or there's effort at the federal level you know really gone up the chain of command to to ask for assistance on this as well and to do some help with like tariffs from materials from Canada and things like that so again this is something that we expected to have already happened and we haven't seen it in fact prices have continued to climb and so um yes hopefully that's something we'll see soon but I you know I don't know if we can hold our breath waiting for it yeah that's that's interesting I hadn't heard that there's kind of federal legislation being considered because I know there's like federal law to prevent like price gouging and like shortage you know the equivalent gas shortage to this and so it'd be kind of interesting if they they look at something to kind of prevent price gouging and like construction supply and stuff like that yeah thank you thank you for your time this was this is really great thank you going back to Ashley um yeah I guess I just had more of a comment and a question um I think it's it's gonna come down to the city having to answer to a citizen's whether or not housing is a basic human right and if it is then we're gonna have to figure out a way to make sure people have a place to stay and as with other social issues that are happening now I think in regards to housing people are going to start pushing back in more direct ways and not just being upset and facing eviction and going and trying to find something else people are going to start staying and being forced out because you know folks are getting tired of working and and being told they can work and achieve these things and then constantly being pushed to the margins and being told they can't buy a house or rent a place while six hundred thousand dollar condos are going up downtown so the the juxtaposition of those things people are having a hard time reconciling and there's just going to be a little bit more direct responses to that and people are just going to make me leave and at some point you can't put but so many people in eviction court at one time you know and folks are just going to start pushing back and squatting and doing those types of things because it's getting out of hand and it's it's just not right and it's not any particular person's problem is systemic and we all know that but it's enough is enough and people are getting upset yeah i'm gonna double back on what ashley's saying and then i'll get rachel and then brian did you have another follow-up question after that yeah i'm still up it enough oh no sorry i forgot to lower it i'll do that okay um i think what ashley says is is correct uh i myself was talking to my landlord the last couple of days because of course you know my air wants to go out and it's about to be about nine million degrees outside and you know she was just talking about you know how um even landlords right now don't feel safe because the the i guess the responses that they're getting from tenants has been very volatile because they are they know landlord's know come June 30th that the moratorium is ending i think it's June 30th if i'm if i'm not mistaken i think within this state and uh they're ready to start evicting folks now obviously there's a whole process within that but the fact that my landlord was just like listen you know i i got people like 14k they haven't paid they haven't done anything they know they tried to work with them this it is going to be a wild wild summer here in Durham County and within the city unfortunately and that's why you know you know Tiffany can attest to this why i'm constantly talking to not just this committee but to the affordable housing committee about our lens has to be on okay yes housing is important but without the job it doesn't matter without a good paying job that's going to be able to keep folks in good housing or affordable housing it's not going to really make too much of a difference uh because i can see some things turning into permanent rentorship instead of rent renting and then hoping and then getting to a level where you can own and what Ashley says is absolutely correct and that folks are tired they're frustrated and um they this is where we're supposed to lean on government but then again but but also our citizens need to realize that a lot in this state the state runs everything and the city kind of just follows suit and uh we in order for that to change the legislature has to change give cities the opportunity to to to rule or make decisions over their counties as they see fit but uh i just wanted to kind of make that comment and then uh Rachel we had a question no that's that's perfect it actually hits on what i was going to mention i i was going to ask either Carl with your legal background or if mr johnson wanted to discuss kind of dylan's rule and how that kind of plays into this tension between um our local leaders here and their decision making versus what um what the state essentially is is granted in terms of power over um a lot of these developed development decisions that we're discussing but i mean to put you on the spot but no no that i'll just ask and it's uh state in north carolina basically the way the state is structured and you know we have 50 states but in north carolina county governments are creatures of the state they're created by the state they're giving power to the state municipalities can only operate in north carolina on power that's given to us from the state as a matter of fact when we decide to do anything the first thing that we have to check as a municipality is due has the legislature explicitly given us that power if they have not then that we can't do it and that's the way this structure so that means that the state government and who was our your state representatives your state senators uh and governor etc across the state of north carolina doesn't matter uh it matters and it matters greatly here's an example but you know if the the state is silent on it as relative to a municipality then most likely we can't do it we can't go and occupy space unless they give us the affirmative explicit authority legal authority to be able to um to to fulfill whatever that responsibility is so it's a challenge and it it's handcuffing i don't you know disagree with anything that miss you know ashley uh has said uh but why that that's you know i can only work with some tools that we have i can't you know try to be creative and you know create tools but it's it's hard uh when the laws prevent you from doing that i hope that uh responds to this ratio and i'll just add that because of course i'm not your lawyer and nor is this the good i'm sorry i don't i cut somebody off i apologize um no that was me uh looking at the u2 yeah carl oh oh yeah but i was just gonna say just in terms of and many of our members of city council and many of our members of the durham county commissioner sort of sing this song every now and again and i think some people think it's a cop out it really isn't um you know the general assembly has been moving very much in the direction of more preemption of local control in the last few years and i don't know if you guys know about this one but they like just are working on a bill right now to take away the ability of local governments to have tree protection ordinances bitten to their development um they were worried that us you know liberals in durham were going to require developer developers to not cut down trees when they built stuff and so they have now you know they're working on a bill to try to preempt that ability at the local level i mean they're at the point where they want to take away the ability of a city or county to say you know really i mean even minor things about development to be honest um you know rent getting rid of the prohibition on rent control is one thing but i think you know reginald's exactly right in terms of understanding of north carolina's government that you know we have to be given the power to do something at the local level or but the general assembly is moving in the exact opposite direction on a lot of stuff when it comes to development especially development that's eyed towards building more affordable housing right now all right the city oh sorry go ahead go ahead go ahead right now the city though too like all that being said there are still some tools in the toolbox so to speak that that the planning department is able to use whether or downloading a property as well as um kind of putting into place some design standards and i know people are talking a lot about like form-based codes when it comes to walkability and stuff like that so am i right to think that there are some tools though that we have at our disposal locally to still still kind of determine how we how we grow and develop yes there are and uh as i shared earlier what we'll do when the in august at your august meeting i'll work to uh ensure the planning director oh hard dancing me uh is here that you can talk about that more in detail great thanks so much um i want to recognize those who those who are watching from home that are on youtube right now i i don't know if this is the protocol but i as chair i'm going to just kind of um do personal privilege here and recognize those um Durham citizens who have asked questions and hopefully we can get them some answers to the one question that c dixon has asked is are there any incentives for citizens who may want to develop affordable housing on small lots one acre or less and i'm sure that's a mr johnson question and in the last question i think it was deleted um but um mr johnson do you think we have an answer to that are there any incentives right now for citizens who may want to develop affordable housing on smaller lots that are one acre or less uh i would say we have uh we we are going to issue an rfp for what we call um neighborhood and under neighborhood stabilization it's going to be for five units or less uh so it's not necessarily lot size but it's the number of of units and you know remember our role is to provide gap financing uh we have not issued that rfp you know with covid it's impacted a lot of things but our goal is to issue an rfp for that uh we don't have a uh just a program that for everyone who wants to participate we don't have that in terms of our you know our funding uh but we do want to and we'll be funding smaller uh smaller units but it's going to be competitive appreciate that answer tiffany if you could check your messages on uh on on the zoom um are there any other questions that we have right now um from this elder while we still have her on this important conversation and uh carl drew is here he's been here the whole time he's just been he's been quiet today yeah yeah i know carl gave me a shout out and i didn't have a chance to chime in if you want to chime in drew it out go ahead and chime in i mean i think everything that everybody's saying has been really great and uh tiffany i really appreciate you jump in and given this presentation um i really think the i've been feeling and saying the same thing regarding like this compared to await like there truly is a supply demand thing going on here like it does not feel like a bubble like it did back then because there was these weird market things at play that nobody could really figure out like here it's just everybody wants to come everybody wants to buy and there's not enough supply um but yeah my firm's trying to find ways to be proactive but like carl said like the construction cost is going up and there's not a whole lot you can do to it one one thing i did want to chime in on a bit ago when we were talking about like change in the supply chain um my my supply chain manager recently told me that she was reviewing some reports and in generally the industry has a sense that while they definitely agree that the price isn't stopping anytime soon they do at least see a like uh evening out of being like an ability to access the supply for construction um to become much more accessible by q3 like there's kind of this blip of uh because of factory shutdowns all these different things like it's hard to even get the material need so like when it comes to adding units there's two variables right the cost added but then the time it takes to edit and i think i think the right now we're experiencing both and at least it sounds like there should be some of alleviation on on the ladder of the time because you can actually get the material in a timely manner here by the end of the year is at least what people are projecting but but i agree if if people are still willing to pay for the wood when it's at 60 a sheet for osb then they're still going to be paying for it and we're not going to we're not going to see it come back down until people stop buying it um but yeah i think it's really great listening on this i really appreciate everybody's perspective absolutely there's a couple more questions that were in the chat i want to make sure that we touched on those um this could either be i think either tiffany or mr josh's question uh jillian asks what are the statistics from Durham county are we seeing more urban sprawl or they're projecting for how this will impact rural areas and i think it was okay uh and then uh and then actually asks if the city can't enforce rent control can they incentivize rent control so on the mr chair on the last question i'm going to seek a legal opinion to give a precise answer i think you know uh incentivizing rent control is something that cannot be uh done because it requires a subsidy but i get a more precise answer but it's still the rent control nonetheless and so we'll we'll work on that the other question and would you repeat the other question uh i can just ask it i'm curious um like this is mostly the Tiffany you know with ml last the statistics looked at the city of Durham and just curious if we're seeing more of an expansion into the county areas and how that might be impacting housing yeah and i actually i have a similar slide that shows city and county numbers um they're actually very similar um what we've seen especially over the last probably two to three years is that the areas on the periphery of the main cities here in the triangle are becoming more desirable and it's sort of spreading um i know that that conversation that Wendell had with what was the office i just mentioned said that the city would be full in 10 years i can't remember the board of equalization i think it was you said you mentioned board of equalization thank you he said during that conversation they also mentioned that probably a majority of the new growth and will happen in the northern uh part of the city county area because that's you know part where it's it's not as dense right now so we'll probably start seeing some some growth going north so i would say you know of course when when we see cities grow it's just generally at the core and then it fans out um we've started seeing the fan out you know outside of even if you go to like orange county i was blown away at how demanding the mebbin market is now mebbin and hillsborough um so that's already started to happen so yeah we should see more of that here in Durham county as well i hope that answered it for you yeah it did i was just curious um yeah i've done a little bit of work with some person county the county right above us their county commissioners and i know they've just internally been talking about expecting Durham residents to expand towards them um and so i wasn't sure if that was like also a conversation that like realtors were having so thank you okay um uh mr. johnson there's a question in the chat for you that dr. language put out there yes be glad to answer that question and the answer the question is um would it be possible for the city to require developers to set aside like 10 percent of units for affordable housing or other similar requirements that wouldn't be rent control that could help to increase the affordable housing the answer to that question unfortunately is no because the general assembly does not give us the power to do that uh with the we do have a fund for example that uh many developers could contribute to uh that uh when they come before the council to seek approval and they uh the city cannot require them to contribute to that fund but many do voluntarily uh contributed which we greatly appreciate it but if the state does not give us the authority to do that going back to that question that we talked about earlier i want to recognize miss washington thank you so i'm i'm asking this question once for clarification because i've i've sat in a couple of the um planning committee um um board meetings um meetings as well as when they've gone to the city council to request permission you know or well builders or contractors have come in to present their proposal for approval or denial to move forward with the project so mr this may be more for mr johnson so is it not um possible for the city to control the projects that are approved when they are not aligned with providing affordable housing because there's been a couple of times i've sat in on the meeting and that seemed to have been the focus like they were probing the contractors and the people who were represented representatives from the planning committee to ensure that you know the project was going to lend itself to be affordable so is that not a is that not a space that it could be controlled at that point that based on the proposal that submitted that it could be denied if it does not lend itself to be affordable affordable housing project so the answer to that question is no you use the right term probing and uh you know unfortunately we're um i'm trying to choose my words carefully uh uh for some reasons that i'll be glad to explain to you know members offline uh but no there are certain times in certain places in certain types of projects that builders can build what they call by right meaning based upon the type of project it is where it's located and that they can build and the city council can't stop them there are some types of projects that uh they have to go before the council to gain approval depending upon if you're changing the zoning and those sorts of things and but the council is um we have to be careful what legal ground we're standing on i think i can say it like that and so we we kind of float on the edge if you can read between the lines i'm trying to watch my for some obvious reasons words carefully yeah we don't we don't need you to get fired right right right so the answer to the question is the city council cannot require affordable housing uh and developments that come before the city council that's the bottom line what they're trying to do is to encourage uh uh developers to either make a contribution or service and target different groups now i will just tell you that you know as you share as i've shared with you uh that they're usually it's a subsidy that's going to be needed to be required for it to be sustainable uh people can offer or i'll give you discount rents for three years uh but when we talk about affordable housing you know i don't have a problem challenging that's really not appealing uh to us in our mission i need something longer than a commitment of three years two years five years um for the month if we're going to put any money in it so so i'm sorry i'm sorry no go ahead mr johnson go ahead so so when the city so when i hear the mayor and i hear council members speaking of we are committed to affordable housing um to ensure that durham has affordable housing you know when i hear that i'm thinking that they're going to make sure that they there's new affordable housing that's going to be input into place so and maybe this is not a question for this for you in this forum maybe it is a question directly for the city council is it that they are when they said they're committed they're committed to contributing where they can to continue to support spaces that are already deemed as affordable housing what there's you know as as you know our council members are very well able to speak articulately but i will say that they are committed to putting the resources uh to create affordable housing here's an example is that when that big revaluation uh has occurred uh the dedicated housing fund remained at two cents uh in terms of the amount of financial resources to two pennies on the tax rate uh that's committed for that uh resources that's really what they're saying they're committed to policies uh and a prioritization of affordable housing since the the bond referendum uh any particular development that comes before the council they'll encourage it but they don't have the illegal authority to require it that helps a ton because i think in other is this been um i think some miscommunication in some other spaces where people citizens had had had thought or had given the impression that um there was more control that could take place and and from what i'm hearing and more and more as i'm understanding that it's not so much that they have the control as they have maybe the resources to contribute to us to assist yes okay and i would say that that is correct um as you know i have a role uh and it's sort of on the ground uh and i leave the elected officials to do do their their thing uh but you know i've always been clear with the citizens of uh advisory committee on where we are and where we stand sure right yes i can agree with that thank you thank you miss washington um we'll go with ashley with the final question before we move on yes i don't expect anybody in any official capacity to respond to this at all because i understand that you probably can't but when we say that the city legally can't do things does that not mean that the city technically can't do these things but there would be a legal response to them doing things right like i technically can't be i maybe technically can't build something in my backyard but i really can't build something in my backyard and you have to come and get me for it pretty much is what i'm saying if you read between if you can read i apologize for later right right right like it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission type deal for good calls let me let me let me make it so that reginald doesn't have to answer this question that's why i prefaced it and i didn't expect anybody in any official capacity to even respond to it but go ahead but but let me just say you know um as a person who is not involved in the cases if you haven't heard about them there's a series of cases in north carolina that are about cities uh local municipalities charging impact fees to developers and basically the long and short of it is the developers sued after they'd already made a bunch of money on the developments and said the city shouldn't have weren't legally allowed to charge them the impact fees that they charge them and now the cities are having to refund a lot of that money there is someone who will come around eventually and say actually your attempt to rent control your attempt to develop in a way that was forced me to create a formal housing but like there just is um there there kind of isn't a way to seek forgiveness later when people are going to realize that there's a lot of money that they could potentially win by saying the city wasn't allowed to record that in the first place so let me just hopefully that will excuse reginald from trying to offer an answer of yeah the city mr joseph just be quiet he's being recorded on youtube we don't want to uh we want to do that hold on jenise before you go oh i gotta i'm gonna um quickly i gotta quickly i gotta quickly recognize miss washington first of all thank you miss elder we appreciate that um if you could if you could i know there are some folks in the committee that would like to contact you if there's a way that you could put your info on the channel how they can get in contact with you and i will definitely try to make sure that the committee gets that slot the powerpoint if it's possible um so for them they'll be able to look at that themselves but i'm gonna skip real quick um matt um and i need to recognize miss washington because this is her let i know she has to jump to another meeting and this is her last meeting so i just wanted to thank miss washington for her years of dedication to this committee her years of perfect notes for our meetings um i couldn't have a better kind of right hand in our executive board than miss washington who's always been a a mentor and a great listener and at the same time has never been afraid to to file off the real questions um to to to folks who needed uh you know question so i wanted to give miss washington this opportunity before she jumps to um you know have any words since it's her last meeting well thank you so very much um mr chair um no i i just quickly just want to say i've enjoyed my time here i have learned a lot um i i yeah i'm still i'm stunned a little bit because i'm still i'm just done by the presentation itself even though i came in late so i'm still my mind is in process mode right now still um but yes i do want to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to serve i've enjoyed hearing everyone voices the passion that everyone has for the citizens of Durham um i think we all probably share that um that compassion and that component of who we are as individuals and wanting better for um all individuals um and that that has been and that has been helpful for me because it's easy to look out and see that there is a problem there's a need um and then you don't see many people sometimes it's easy just to look at the problem and not see the people that really care about the problem willing to do the work but this committee has given me the opportunity to see that there the hear voices of others who care not just for themselves but the care for the sake of others as a whole and that's just been been really helpful um and encouraging for me so again i've been um very very grateful to have the opportunity to have served with um some of you all for two terms um and some of you all for one term um but yeah just keep up the good work and i i i plan to do so in a space that i can find um to make it to make this this this city um better for all for all citizens not just a few elite but for all yeah thank you miss washington truly truly appreciates you you will be missed yeah so thank you mr johnson and mr um mr mr serves for all of your your work your hard work you do um for the development department and yeah i wish everyone the best thank you i just wanted to uh just see that council member uh free line is here we we recognize you i want to go ahead and go back to um action item number four real quickly to the cares act um second substantial amendment mr stars so thank you mr chair let me reshare here okay um good evening uh committee members so i just wanted to um provide you an update we are in the process uh of a second substantial amendment for the uh department of housing and urban development cares act funding um and so i just uh wanted to briefly review um the cares act funding allocation so the high level allocation amounts we have um three resources and so we have the um you can see my screen mr chair yes we can we can see it okay i see a mark man okay so we have uh cdbg is community development block grant and had made these uh it's one um it's one grant but they made the announcements in the allocations in in stages and so the first allocation for community development block grant was one one million two hundred two thousand six hundred one dollars and then in the fall in september the second allocation of one million five hundred thirteen thousand six hundred sixteen dollars was was made available or announced is made available to durham for a total of two million seven hundred sixteen thousand two hundred seventeen dollars and then the second program is the esg program it's the emergency solutions grant um and that is uh targets people who are experiencing homelessness uh the first allocation was six hundred two thousand three hundred and eighty three dollars and then a second amount of uh two million sixty thousand two hundred eighty five dollars was made uh in june for a total amount of two million six hundred sixty two thousand six hundred six hundred sixty eight dollars and then the third program is hopl which is housing opportunities for persons with aids or hiv and there was only one um allocation to durham and that amount was seventy thousand three hundred forty dollars so the overall allocation for the cares act for durham was five million four hundred forty nine thousand two hundred twenty five dollars so that's just a high level overview and what i wanted to do is then just review we did uh as part of to receive this funding um we have to do what's called a substantial amendment to our annual action plan and we did the first annual action plan amendment on it was approved on december 7th tooth at 2020 and so that um for that amendment we had um three programs that we used the money for public services income tax preparation assistance was twenty five thousand dollars housing counseling we had planned to use a hundred thousand dollars of that um the first amount of cdbg to do housing counseling we we actually are going to use that for a different purpose as part of this second amendment that we're working on right now and then we also had emergency rental assistance in uh the amount of one million seven seven thousand six hundred and one dollars for a total of uh one million two hundred two thousand six hundred and one dollars for cdbg from that first for that first amendment and then merge the solutions grant for the first amendment we used that for something called rapid rehousing and that was four hundred seventy one thousand six hundred six hundred and eighty one dollars for emergency shelter assistance seventy two thousand four hundred and twenty two dollars and then for administration five hundred or fifty eight thousand two hundred and eighty for a total of six hundred and two three eighty three and then for hapa um we used that for a short term rental mortgage and utility assistance sixty three thousand and then the balance of that um was used for administration for a total of seventy thousand three hundred and forty dollars so that was um the first amendment once again that we did from uh in the fall and council approved that on December 7th what we're doing right now um is the second substantial amendment and it is in council's queue right now uh and is slated for a public hearing which is on June 7th uh 2021 and for this second amendment um for cdbg we are going uh planning to use that cdbg funding for micro enterprise business development support eight hundred and ten thousand dollars which includes the hundred thousand dollars that we had originally planned to use for housing counseling we are going to use that amount for the micro enterprise and then educational support programs which is a public service one hundred and ninety thousand dollars and then the administration of three hundred and thirteen thousand six hundred and sixteen dollars for a total of uh one million six hundred and thirteen six hundred and sixteen and then the emergency solutions grant second amendment we are gone planning to use it for emergency shelter uh seven hundred and seventy seven hundred and eighty seven thousand one hundred ninety one dollars homeless street outreach for a hundred and ten thousand dollars rapid rehousing four hundred and sixty two thousand dollars homeless prevention four hundred and eighty six thousand dollars four hundred fifty six and the administration amount of two hundred thirteen thousand eight hundred fifty eight for a total of two million sixty thousand two hundred and eighty five dollars so this is coming to you uh as part as as the um systems advisory committee you serve as the um body that is to review and support um these recommendations for these amendments um and so this is just uh you know a brief overview of what the plan is and wanted to make sure that you're aware of this public hearing that's scheduled for June 7th 2020 or what uh at this time I'll welcome any questions or comments about this any questions I think everybody's question out yeah again Matt off the hot seat in yes thank you sir no problem um thank you for Matt for that report in in detail um we'll go to other business I think is the next action item um I Mr. Johnson do you have any other business muted um mr. chair I would just say that again we will not meet in June and July the next meeting will be on August the 23rd um I would recommend to you that uh since this is the last meeting that well I'll leave to you remind you that we do have need to have an election of officers yes um and so I would you know turn that over to you but that's just a reminder yeah that that other business of election of officers um for members who will be returning um if you're interested in running in all the three positions I'd be chair vice chair and secretary uh those are the three members that serve in an executive board if you're interested in you know applying for those positions we will do so at the August meeting and then you will whoever is elected will then um chair the September meeting that will be your first uh meeting as an minister well as an executive body um I do want to recognize some members I feel like I came in with like two out of the two out of the three that are no longer going to be uh serving on this board but I wanted to give Andrew and Ashley an opportunity to um give a few words on their behalf about their about their experience here on this board I would just say on behalf of you know those who have been on this board in the past if you serve with and those that you currently serve with we truly appreciate your dedication to this cause it's important cause and um and that you will be missed and that you always will always have a home here in the citizens advisory committee so I will start with Andrew and then ask really appreciate it mr Barnes I uh I really appreciate everybody on this committee and I can't believe it's been three years I feel like I just started um but it's it's really been a good time um to just get to know the community development department more and and see kind of a little more the inner workings of what you guys do and all the hard work that you are working towards the the betterment of Durham um and it's been an honor to have a chance to be involved in some of that and and to help make decisions and and see in the the back end of a lot of the work that you're doing um hopefully uh this does not mean that I will not continue to interact with many of you um on this uh board as well as the the people of the community development department um as uh as Haven continues to try to uh help help Durham in many ways that a lot of you guys are are striving to do um so it's it's really been a honor to serve amongst all of you who have very similar passions emissions in life and I'm sure our paths will continue to continue to cross as Durham grows into uh this ever-changing market thank you Drew Ashley yeah I've um I thoroughly enjoyed working with you all for the past two years um I've definitely learned a lot and will continue to be engaged in a variety of ways and you know take the information that I've learned here to kind of implement in some other some other areas um I'm sure probably I'm a rebel rouser I guess if you haven't noticed so welcome to the room I definitely intend to uh you know take this information to people that you know don't have the privilege or the access to this information and because it makes a difference when you're trying to get things done to have a little bit of information on it how things work inside so I appreciate the opportunity and I'll definitely see you guys see you all thank you Ashley uh welcome to the Rebel Rouser crew I started out as one and I'm so glad that uh your last meeting you brought that heat today um which was much needed um if there any announcements I mean I know we have a graduate I I just like promote her so much because I just love Jillian but will you have a graduate any other announcements Jillian I was just gonna thanks the one um I was just gonna say Ashley I do just like I we're gonna miss you like always appreciate your comments like I just you know whenever we did meet in person back in the day I just feel like you would always say you know exactly what I was thinking or more than what I'm thinking and I'm just like always grateful that someone in the room was was doing that and um you know I'm sure that there will be people to continue to fill that spot and say those things but just you know I feel like you're yeah just gonna gonna miss you and I'm grateful for for your work and for your words of wisdom throughout these last couple years absolutely I appreciate that Jillian absolutely absolutely any other announcements oh I just want to thank Ashley and Drew and I know it I've only been on the committee for a year but um it was nice to to work with both of you um I also wanted to let let my fellow members know I I recently started a position uh with CASA so I'll be on the development side I kind of come from the affordable housing financing side and now I'll be on the development side I know most of you met Joe and Mark so um so I'm excited to kind of bring a new perspective I guess would that work and Rachel we we thoroughly enjoy you uh being on this board and look forward to that lens and perspective um any other announcements before I was just curious this is Jillian um like so the elections for uh the executive team positions are in August like is anyone on the executive team not planning on rerunning for their seat just because I feel like we're always kind of in a position of trying to like kind of coerce people into taking a leadership position so you know we should know now y'all aren't planning on it so people can start thinking about that over the next couple months well Janice isn't coming back well we know we have right right for sure um if the board wants to keep me I'm more than welcome the more than privilege to stay in the position um but at the same time if we want new energy I'm more than willing to pass it off so um Dr. Langlos yeah I mean I'm happy to keep being co-chair I don't want to be chair I feel like there's people with way more experience and knowledge in this area than me but I'm happy to keep being co-chair and helping out uh you know either either Levan or whoever ends up taking the position if someone else wants it and he decides not to take it but um yeah so yeah I mean listen I'm humbled and those of you who know me uh it's never about who for me it's never been about you know being in the position I'm just honored that to just have been able to serve just like everybody in here so I guess that we're going to like kind of my part in words for the group as we go into our summer recess it has been an extreme honor over this last year this difficult year um to serve with everybody on here um I think that our committee sometimes gets overlooked and yet we're the oldest committee out of all the committees on on the city side and if there's not a time where our committee is going to be at the forefront it's it's going to be right now and I know based on today I knew that today's meeting was going to raise a lot of eyebrows and it was going to conjure up that fight that we all have for to make sure that citizens of this county in the city are served well and that that their voices will be heard and that we will represent their voices and we couldn't have ended better than what we had today and I couldn't have been more proud as a chair than I have been today and I just hope that that same fire um that we had going into this meeting carries over into the next year because we're going to be looked upon and I mean I'm thinking that we want to need to have the mayor attend the meeting because I think that we have questions that need to be asked and um I think that since he's at the top he needs to be able to answer those questions and at the same time our committee does coexist with other committees like the homeless advisory committee I think that the more that each of the committees can work together the better Durham is going to be and so I've always wanted to make sure that our meetings have some type of meaning and that we're efficient and productive and that you came away better than what you initially came in here with and I hope that this year during COVID that we have gotten better you have learned and you have grown and although we're losing some super people in the sense of they're not going to be here or they're going to retire or they're retiring like you know we always got to shout out miss Kanya's who you know who's just been a part of this team for so long I know that those new members that will be coming in I know that we're going to welcome them with open arms and have them jump right in and they're going to feel our passion and our fire to make sure that affordable housing is something that is no longer a talking point but an actual action point um and so I just wanted to just say that um it's just been an honor to serve with each and every one of you um on that note like mr. Johnson stated we're not going to have a meeting in June we're not having a meeting in July and our next meeting will be August the 23rd 2021 and on that meeting we will elect officers and then uh that that those officers will then whoever they maybe take over uh in the September meeting so if nobody has any other questions I will take gladly take a motion for adjournment and I will see you all in August if I don't see you on the street now that we're going to be opening up a little bit more so move sure second so moved and everybody in the whole wide world have a great have a great next two months make sure you get vaccinated if you haven't vaccinated wear your mask still and uh I'll see you guys in August see everybody in August see y'all thank you all thank you Drew thank you Ashley thank you mr. Johnson thank you Matt you did great all right call miss we can call miss Kanye's up he can rest easy now all right