 Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. Okay commissioners it is now one o'clock we can go ahead and start our meeting. Good afternoon. Thank you everyone for being here. I want to go over a few items on this special meeting and first of all I want to. Call the meeting to order in a few housekeeping items to remind commissioners to keep their audio on mute unless they are speaking. Commissioners under the chair can mute themselves. Staff will remain muted until meeting to speak. All members of the public join the meeting. You will be participating as an attendee. Your microphone and camera will be muted. Only today's panels will be viewed during the meeting. You're calling in from telephone and shoes to speak during the public comments portion of today's agenda. With privacy concerns the host will be renaming your viewable phone number to resident in the last four digits of your phone number. And as a reminder the city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption. Will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions and are well staffed to monitor that everyone is participating respectfully or they will be removed. If necessary we will have we will also immediately end the meeting. Or can you explain how the public comments will be heard at today's meeting. At each agenda item the item is presented. The chair will ask for housing authority member comments and then open it up for public comment. The host in Zoom will be lowering all hands until public comment is open for the agenda item. Once the chair has called for public comment the chair will announce for the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on this agenda item. If you are calling in to listen to the meeting audibly you can dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on the public will raise their hand. Public comment will be limited to three minutes and a timer will appear on the screen for the commission and public. Once all live public comments have been hurting her the meeting host will read email public comments and play any voicemail public comment. If you provide a live public comment on an agenda item but also submitted an email your email public comment will not be read during. Thank you may ask the clerk to make a roll call. Let's go ahead and do the roll call. Commissioner Olson. Here. Commissioner Downey. Here. Commissioner Burke vice chair test. Here. And chair Owen. Here. Let the record reflect that all commissioners are present with the exception of commissioner Burke. As it relates to commissioner Burke wanted to add something here for common abstention. Commissioner Burke stated that you will be abstaining from item 3.1 on today's agenda after consulting with the city attorney's office Jeff Burke. The housing authority will not be attending me again. He's a soul action on the agenda. He'll also not be attending the meeting. The reason for the extension is commissioner Burke is on the board of directors for digital light who is selling that property to one of the applicants that discussed in 3.1 that is. He's a petal in acumenical properties are kept. And for that reason, it was determined even though he has no financial incentives as a volunteer is the board. It was best viewed and you have him abstain and he presented that himself. So, with that I'll move to report items one in item 3.1. Good afternoon chair Owen and members of the housing authority item 3.1 is a report. This is the fiscal year 2021 2022 focus NOPA focused notice of funding availability funding recommendations. Nicole Rathbun program specialist will be presenting. Good afternoon everybody Nicole Rathbun here program specialist with the city of centers of housing trust. Thank you for your presentation for you. We will go over the solicitation process for this current NOPA the application scoring information and some information about the top two projects that are recommended by the ad hoc committee for a funding award today. Next time please. There we go. Alright, so to go over the process in March on March 22 2021 the housing authority held a study session to review the current NOPA process and to receive input on a new scoring matrix used in rating the applications. Also at that meeting commissioners test and Olson were appointed to an ad hoc review committee to go over the NOPA applications they came in. The staff drafted the NOPA and published it on March 29 with applications to on April 16 of 2021. The ad hoc review committee meeting met on April 29 and funding recommendations are presented today at the special meeting of the housing authority. Next slide please. This NOPA has approximately $8.9 million available $5.8 million is from local funds about $2.9 million is from community development block grant funds and about 231,000 are from home total funds. As noted in the NOPA that's attached to the staff report. This is a larger NOPA than we typically see in a year as a result of a return of a $4.2 million award earlier this year. Next slide please. And also as discussed in the March study session. These are the selection criteria that were identified for scoring of the inaugural point system for these applications. The first category has to do with planning approvals and entitlements. The affordability category has to do with how low the percentage of area median income households will be served by the project. Bedroom size is the number and how large the units are the special needs set asides. The second category has to do with how large the units are. Populations as identified. We mirror what the state HCD department includes. These are categories like homelessness, seniors and farm workers. The third category has to do with the total development cost with higher points being awarded to projects requesting a lowest percentage of funds as compared to the total development cost of the project. Project competitiveness. How does this project self score against programs like the state MHP or a SIDLAC tax credit applications if applicable. And also the public service providers and the management team local have completed projects that are at least up in the area. Services and amenities include it not only how close the project site is to services in the community. What onsite services are being provided and what amenities also onsite and in the community are available to the project. What are prior leveraging or prior financial awards in the project, either from the housing authority, the red, the city or the county, or if the site is located on city on land. Also during the March study session, there was direction from the housing authority board to make the scoring and criteria as equitable as possible for any of the projects that were applying for rehabilitation and acquisition. So it was not to unintentionally bias the scoring towards new construction projects. So you'll see on the slide there is an asterisk next to readiness and next to project competitiveness. After reviewing the applications, it was apparent that those two categories were not well aligned with rehabilitation or acquisition projects. So the rehabilitation and acquisition projects did not score in those two categories. Those points were omitted as to not negatively affect those projects and those projects were scored out of a total of 80 points instead of 100. So as you can see in the next two slides, the scores received by all projects are percentage because they're a percentage of total points possible with the new construction projects scoring out of 100 for all of these categories that you see on the screen and the rehabilitation and acquisition projects scoring out of 80 omitting the two noted leveraging readiness and project competitiveness categories. So in response to this, we received seven project applications requesting about $23 million in funds for 454 affordable units. Again, we had about $8.9 million available in the solicitation and 231,000 of it was for home total funds. That is a restrictive funding source. We did not receive any applications for that funding source that would have aligned from a community housing development organization. So that brings the total amount of funding awards available down to about $8.7 million in funds. The projects on this on this table in front of you are listed in order of ranking based on the percentage of total points received. So as you can see the top ranking project was the Bennett Valley apartment at 702 Bennett Valley Road. That's in the southeast quadrant with 62 units and requesting $5.8 million in funds and they received a score of 82% out of the total points possible. Now this was a new construction project or that this is a new construction project. And so that 82 is 82 out of 100. Next, going down the list. We also received an application for Mahoney and Glenn, which is at 51 73 highway 12 requesting 2.9 million as for 99 units of new construction scored 77% out of 100 and received a rank of two. Next on the list is the visual light apartments, which is a rehab and acquisition project in that category requesting $1.5 million in funds. And so this project was ranked out of 80 possible points. They received a rank of three with a 76 percentage score that equates to about 61 points out of 80 total possible for the project. Acne apartments at 1885 so the basketball road for 77 units requesting 1.75 million received a 74% per foot apartments at 68 99 Montecito received a score of 68% and a rank of five requesting 750,000 for 55 units. This was another acquisition and rehab category application. The her and veterans village at 2149 her Avenue for 32 units requesting about $3.6 million in funding received a 62% and a rank of six. And the ponders of the village project at 250 Roseland received a score of 55% and ranked seven requesting $7 million for 80. Next slide please. Oh, there we go. So the ad hoc committee met on April 29 and reviewed all the project information and the scoring criteria as used by staff. The ad hoc committee conferred with staff that the correct and most appropriate way to rank and score the projects was on a percentage of total possible points, rather than the raw scores received. That led to the top two projects. They recommended today with Bennett Valley apartment. For 5.8 million with a score of 82% and Mahonia Glenn. For 2.9 million and 77% was their score. Next slide please. So to go into the Bennett Valley apartment. Project information. You see an aerial of the site location today. That is the former site of the Bennett Valley senior center complex on Bennett Valley road at the corner of Bennett Valley and Rutledge Avenue. Next slide please. The developer of this project is free for development company requesting 5.8 million. This is a new construction site. 62 units total would be built here 50% 51% excuse me of the total units would be targeted for formerly homeless individuals and families with the remainder of the unit set aside for family units. Next slide please. So here we have the affordability mix. It is proposed that 32 units would be at a deep level of affordability of 20% of am I 29 units would be at 50% of am I and there would be one unrestricted managers unit. The unit mix equates to 19 studios 19 one bedrooms 8 to bedrooms and 15 three bedroom units. The status of the environmental reviews on the project included completed need for review. And this project is exempt from sequel. Next slide please. So these are the categories that were evaluated for the Bennett Valley project and the scores received and a brief note on the reason for the score. So if we start up at readiness, they receive a 10 out of 10 because permits are ready to be issued following the award of funds. This project was as fully entitled through SB 35 Senate bill 35, which also makes it exempt from sequel. The affordability was received in 18 out of 20, because 52% of the units are for household that 20% of am I or less this represents a very deep level of affordability. The bedroom size received a five out of 10 for 37% of the units at two bedroom or larger. The special needs set aside received an eight out of 10 was 51% of the unit set aside for formerly homeless persons or families. So if we start averaging the project application received an eight out of 10 the loan amount requested was 14% of the total development cost project competitiveness received a 10 out of 10 the self scores for Sidlack and the multifamily housing program through HCD run the top 1% of the total possible points they could have earned and developer and management experience but a project application received a 12 out of 15. So there are five projects in the region, five projects in pre development and individually, the developer management teams have significant development in the management experience outside the region. The free bird developer is in relatively new collaboration of several very experienced development teams that have come together so that was taken into consideration as part of the review. The project services and amenities, the project score to six out of 10, but less than a mile to rush ran retail transit stops within a 10th of a mile of the site, and there are significant onsite services and amenities, provided to not only the permits for housing units but also to all the residents on site. Other factors, the project received five out of five because the project is located on a city owned site on the former Bennett Valley senior center complex. So all of these factors led to a total score of 82 out of 100 or 82% of total points possible. Alright, next slide please. Moving on to the Mahoney aglan project this project ranked two out of the projects received. This is at the former site of the old Prickett's nursery and rink and valley at the corner of highway 12 the calistoga road. And as you can see across the street from the St. Francis shopping center. Next slide please. The number for this project is the mid pen housing, otherwise known as mid peninsula the farm, the loan amount requested is $2.9 million. This is also a new construction project with 99 units with 5% of the units targeted for formerly homeless individuals and families and 44% of the units targeted to farm workers and their families. Next slide please. The affordability mix on this project proposes 26 units at 30% of am I 22 units at 50% of am I and 50 units at 60% of am I with one unrestricted managers unit. The unit mix has 42 one bedroom units 29 two bedroom units and 27 three bedroom units. As far as the environmental review, the NEPA review has not yet been completed and the project is also exempt from sequel through approvals on SB 35 as well. Next slide please. Alright to go through the project application scoring details. The readiness the project scored a 10 out of 10 because permits are ready to be issued following the award of funds. This is also due to a fully entitled project through SB 35. The affordability received a nine out of 20 because less than 50% of the units are for households at or below 50% of am I. And 51% of the households are at the 60% am I level. The bedroom size score received a six out of 10 because 57% of the units are two bedroom or larger. The special needs set of size received an eight out of 10 with 5% of the units for formerly homeless persons and 44% for farm workers and their families. Leveraging received a 10 out of 10 with the housing authority loan amount requested only 4% of the total development costs for the project. Project competitiveness competitiveness is a 10 out of 10 with self scores for a select for tax credits at 100% of the total possible points. For developer management experience, the project received a 14 out of 15 because they do have significant experience in the region and several projects completed and we stop. As far as services and amenities, as I mentioned earlier, the project site location is across the street from the St. Francis shopping center in Rican Valley. So that is 0.1 miles to grocery or 0.1 miles or less, I should say to grocery and retail and transit there's on site services and amenities also available at this project. As far as other factors, the project didn't receive any points in that category because there are no prior housing authority, city, county or red awards on site. And it is not located on a city on site. The project received a total of 77 out of 100 for 77%. And I should mention also that as an attachment to the item today is the NOFA, I believe it's attachment number one, if you would like to take a look at the score and how the score categories are broken down even further. That was an attachment aid to the NOFA that is included for your review today in that document as well. Next slide please. Alright, so with that, it is the recommendation by the housing authority ad hoc review committee in the housing and community services department that the housing authority by resolutions approve a conditional commitment of loan funds to free bird development company LLC and the amount of $5.8 million for construction related costs for the Bennett Valley Apartments project at 702 and 716 Bennett Valley Road 921 and 927 Rutledge Avenue. Those are all the properties on the site. And to midpen the farm ink and the amount of $2.9 million for acquisition related costs for the Mahonia Glen project at 5173 Highway 12 in Santa Rosa. And with that, I would like to open it up to the possibly the ad hoc committee if there's any comments about this review process and the initial point ranking system that we've used and to the commissioners and the chair for any additional questions that I can help answer. And Nicole. What I'd like to do is is vice chair test. And Commissioner Olson were on the ad hoc committee. And if either one of you would like to present. Before I do that, Megan, we tried to have somebody from city council join this ad hoc and I know many attempts were sent out to them to have them join the ad hoc and you provide some details to how that that didn't happen. We didn't have city council. Correct. Following the March 2021 housing authority study session where you provided direction to solicit city council member to participate. I reached out to the mayor. And we did not receive an appointment. But certainly if that's the interest of the council, the housing authority going forward will continue that process for future endeavors. But we were not able to get someone for this process. So I'll go back to the background. Vice chair test. I'll let you start in either you or Commissioner Olson can discuss the process and how you went through each deal in the scoring would. And what I'd like to do is Nicole, if you could bring up, I know who has control of the screen right now. I think it's the first attachment page five of five stratifies the readiness 10 of 10 points and it goes into further detail. Then that could be brought up on the screen. I think that would be beneficial to try and discuss the process and how each the project's rule or review. Yes, chair and I can bring that up for you. Give me just a moment. Thank you. Mark, I believe that's the last page of attachment one. Is this the correct page, Nicole? I believe that is what we are looking for. Yes. Let me see if I can make it more visible. Does that work for everyone? Is that too small? It's good. If you made a little bigger place. It's on binoculars, Jeff. Is that okay, Commissioner Downey? Yes, thank you. My concern is that you can't see the full document. So I guess I can scroll down as needed. If you guys just need that, let me know. Thank you. So yes, this is was included as attachment A to the NOFA. So this was made available to all of the developers before they applied. This is the detailed scoring sheet. For each category. So just for an example, let's look at the top category for readiness. It's easily visible on the screen. So to get it, to receive a score of between seven and 10, the planning approvals, building permits can be issued following the award of funds. So that means that basically the project is already entitled and they just have to pay the fees to get there to pull their permits. They've already gone through the planning process and the entitlement process with our planning and economic development department to receive a score between four and six. The application has been put in to the planning and economic development department, the acronym PED, and they are pending approval or currently under review, but not yet receiving the approvals for entitlements. And between a zero and three would be an applications for entitlement have not yet been submitted. Chair, did you want me to go through the rest of the categories as well? No, that's fine. I think that's good as we as we go through and I'll let Vice Chair test take it from here and she and Commissioner Olsen can discuss, but I think this is good as we go through the pro can explain the process that the subcategories that allow the projects for their score. As you can see, staff and they had ad hoc committee reviewed all of these different categories. There's a seven categories and the reasoning behind this point scoring as shown on screen. A couple of things that were there was so much information that didn't get in on all of the information that that I think was important in these two projects for me is on the Ben Valley project. The amount of onsite services was quite significant. And of course, there's a large percentage of units dedicated to the homeless or formerly homeless. Therefore, very deep level of affordability had to be included. And they include also a full time clinical case manager, a full time coordinator for services and a project program manager onsite to provide resident services for the homeless individuals and families. So for me, that as well as the point ranking system was important. And then in terms of Mahoney Glenn, the same situation. There's a number of units targeted to farm workers. And you don't see that type of funding available or coming to us on a very regular basis. And I felt that that was important, as well as the number of units it's almost 100 unit apartment building. So that those are my comments and I'm sure there may be other comments to thank you. Commissioner Olson, did you have any comments? Only that the point ranking system I think is going to work real well. It's very precise, you know, very clear, very precise. It should put a to decide a lot of, you know, a lot of concern over exactly how things are worked out. So I think it's a real good system. And I think it'll be refined a little over the next year or two. But I think it's a long way toward getting this thing down to a real straightforward approach. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Megan and Nicole, as you went through the process and we're evaluating the the applicants. Our last meeting we had the point system brought in and presented to us and how this how it was going to be, how many points were what the categories and then the stratification within those points that we have up on the screen. When you were going through this process when when did did you see any difference in the applications versus what you thought were going to happen because when we were discussing what I want to go through is we were looking at trying to match up something that would be had a visibility in terms of transparency for what's done, how they how they are evaluated, what the criteria are. And then what with the city of Santa Rosa was looking for special needs being important. And also service and amenities as Vice Chair test discussed, but is as you look at these and again as Vice Chair test brought up the Benne Valley Apartments did very well in terms of the amount of amenities brought on site but is is as I understand it was as you look at what services were around the project but if either you have Nicole or Megan can discuss what your findings were as you're going to the process of scoring applicants versus putting the scoring system together. And I'll defer to Nicole because she did the lion share of the work on this so Nicole, you would. Sure. I think the, the number one is reaction to seeing the project applications come in was that with this being a larger note but we received more applications than we were anticipating with the $8.9 million potential for being just awarded out. As far as certain categories, I think it was planned for us to come back to the housing authority later this summer for a study session, again, to do a total debrief of the this inaugural point system, and to let the housing authority know how it goes and maybe suggest some alternative categories or tightening down some of the categories so we don't get so many projects that rank so close together. And in your example and service and services and amenities that Bennett Valley senior center the Bennett Valley project received a six out of 10. Because the categories that we look at to receive the highest number of points and mark if you could scroll down just a little bit to the services and amenities portion. There we go. So and services and amenities. Oh, there we go. So we're looking at, you know, to score a 10 out of 10 a project would have needed to have been within half a mile of retail transit and grocery and include on site amenities. And so while the Bennett Valley senior center or the band sorry the Bennett Valley Apartments project has significant on site services for the formerly homeless residents, as well as all of the rest of the residents. It was over that half a mile cut off to grocery and retail. So that was the reason for the project not scoring as well. Those are definitely, you know, things that we can take into consideration when we come back to the housing authority in the summer to decide if there's a better way to look at that category as well as the others to help more reflect the values and the the direction that the housing authority wants to go in for the project. One of the things I noticed that that was beneficial. And this is the discussion when we had how with this points we're going to be good at. Whereas, and I bring this up almost every meeting we have a seven year wait list in terms of our voucher program to get on here so we are very focused on being able to provide new units. But there's also the need to have units that are in place to remain in place so rehab is also very important. So I want to reiterate that I appreciate that when because I was not part of the ad hoc committee. I appreciate the efforts to go through the not just have straight scoring, because the two projects that were rehab Parkwood apartments and in digital light. Well, neither one being recommended for approval for funding. It wasn't because their scores weren't as high. It was the aspect of taking it so that there was the two categories where it doesn't apply to them readiness and also project competitiveness because they're not going into the state for funding and how they would score there. Those were taken out. So it was a percentage of the amount of points available versus just the total points. Another thing I would like to go back and and discuss is, as we were putting this point system together as his staff was putting it together the special needs set for farm workers, large family, formerly homeless and disabled persons and also seniors. So want to make sure that we we discussed that those categories have the ability to receive more points versus straight just affordability with no added focus as to what tenant base you're a demographic you're trying to go for that applicant is going for. So I wanted to be able to bring that to light and discuss that to make sure that that the understanding of what's what is being looked at in the current back in the current scoring mechanism. And as Nicole as you brought up, we're going to have a study session on this to review the process and always have it be a refinement and always striving to be better in terms of we go through this with the understanding that even as we do that projects that will be close may not get funding approval on it because of how they score. But to to make it as transparent as possible and as objective as possible is is always trying to be the goal in doing this to any other commissioners have comments on this. Commissioner Downey do you have your hand raised I don't know if it was for this or scrolling to see the site but do you have any comments on this. I'm sorry Commissioner Downey you are muted. I'm sorry I believe it was was April. March when Nicole introduced wanted to come up with a ranking system for for applications within that presentation. I was hearing the word rule break. Now I'm seeing the word matrix. And my question is, is there different values placed in a matrix contrasted with a rule break, or is this just what you came out with as a new vetting process. And then I have one more question. Thank you Commissioner Downey for the point for the purpose of this presentation we use the terms rubric and scoring matrix interchangeably. Thank you. And the second question I had was pertaining to the term conditional commitment of fun. Could could you please elaborate on what is triggering the conditionality to insert the word conditional. Sure, and that is our typical language that we insert in here there are certain criteria that the developer will have to adhere to and documents that they need to provide to us after the housing authority action before we can execute loan documents. So we always preface these with this is a conditional commitment of loan funds provided that you complete x, y and z. All of that is in the resolutions for the projects. For example, both of these projects have already come or I'm sorry one of the projects has already completed their need for review the other has not. So for example, the Mahonia Glenn project it would be conditioned on successfully completing an environmental assessment. So those are the types of things that make these conditional commitments. And if you can indulge me with the third question I'm so sorry. What is your strategy for two applications to score identically. As far as who gets funding. I'm sorry can you broke up a little bit can you repeat that question for me. What is your strategy for two applications or more that score identically as far as who gets the funding. So that actually did not come up during our review. There were no two projects that scored identically are there. I should say there are no two projects that received an identical total number of points or percentage of possible points. So I was having going forward if that scenario was to raise. What would be the process for taking one of the other even though they're right. If I may interject this is Megan Bassinger number director I think that in future funding rounds if we were to encounter projects that had identical scores or percentages of scores. That would be an example of a time we would reach out to the applicants and see if they were looking to refine their project any further in order to change their scores. And we would put all of those applicants on an equal footing and allow them the same opportunity. So we would definitely seek out additional information from the applicants if that were to occur. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Tash do you have a question. Just one more comment. I too would be looking forward to the next time we look into reviewing the scoring methodology. As far as rehab projects visual light actually only received one point one percentage point less than Mahoney Glenn. So I felt that that that aspect of using the 80% because of that actually worked. It was only 1% away from being funded. Right. And to elaborate on that. Thank you Vice Chair test. That is why we looked at all of the categories to make sure that they were equitable for each type of project application. For example it's the third ranking project of visual lights project which received the third rank and at 76%. That project actually received a raw score of 61 out of 80. So it is because we omitted those two categories that the project ranked third and not lower. So to me that is proof that the omitting those two categories for the rehab and acquisition projects was the right call and made one of the rehab projects very competitive for these funds. Ultimately there were two different projects that best met the criteria set forth in the note by though. Do any other commissioners have any questions or comments. Megan I would this is brought up in the presentation that we didn't do it verbally today is is if you could address the situation of the timing of this meeting and why this meeting is set up as a special meeting and and the purpose of why we're meeting today. I'd be happy to answer that. So one of the interests that we have been trying to address in the past few years with our focus NOFA which became a recent practice and I believe 2019 is to align potential projects with state funding routes. So either tax credit applications, SIDLAC bond applications or other competitive opportunities through HCD and SIDLAC will be reviewing or receiving bond applications in May. Finally the deadline was scheduled for May 13 which is why we're meeting today. SIDLAC did extend the deadline to I believe the 25th so there is another week of application period but we are trying to align any potential projects that they could compete for the bond opportunities in May 2021. You're on mute Jeff. If we didn't have the meeting today barring the the week extension and again knowing that the having the ability to leverage local funds to be able to be more competitive at the state level for either tax credits or tax exam bonds or both. When would they what would that do to a start of a project. I mean when would they be able to go back again. The unfortunately I don't have the SIDLAC schedule off the top of my head but they would need to wait for the next funding round. For example TECAC receives applications for 9% which is the highly competitive rounds twice a year and that's in February and in July. So in most recent rounds we have seen most recent focus NOFAs for the housing authority. We have taken action in June to allow a project to apply July 1st. If they were to miss that July 1st deadline they would have to wait until February which essentially would extend the project's timeline by a year. So similarly with the bonds if they were to miss the deadline it would prolong the timeline they have identified. And what I've seen for these projects it's usually 12 to maybe 16 months to build the project so if it was on the shorter end of a year that's that's one year that we wouldn't have units available. Correct. And our interest is trying to get as many units constructed as we can in the shortest timeframe. Thank you. Did any other commissions have comments or questions? Okay with that I'll open up for public comment. We are now taking public comment on item number 3.1 fiscal year 2021-22 focus notice of funding availability funding recommendations. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone please dial star 9 to raise your hand. You will have three minutes to make your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. Please make sure to unmute yourself when you are invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or at the conclusion of your phone. I do see some hands raised. Our first speaker is going to be Jim Wallin. Jim I've enabled your speaking permission. Can you confirm that you can hear me? Yes I can. Thank you. Can you confirm that you can see the countdown timer? Yes I can. Okay your time will start now. Good afternoon everyone commissioners and staff. Jim Wallin director of development for pep housing. As you know we are little visual light apartments is an application that we were looking at a partner with the city and our concern is without the bedroom count we would have scored in first place and been funded. The bedroom count is becoming an issue for senior projects because we cannot fund senior projects that are more than one bedroom. So in this situation the senior projects are not being funded which visual light is a project that is at risk which should be a separate you know almost different category because the regulatory agreement expires in a few years. Seniors are the fastest growing demographic in California and Sonoma County. We urge you to consider rescoring without the bedroom count because there is nothing we can do about the existing project. This project was built in 1983 and needs to be rehab. So please reconsider taking the top two and making it the top three. We look forward to working with the city but in the application you know that there was a one million dollar acquisition and we look for the city to help us with that. So thank you very much and let's really drill down on the bedroom count because it is something we need to look at with the senior population and the development. Thank you Jim. Our next speaker is going to be Devin Neary. Devin I've enabled your speaking permission. Can you please confirm that you can hear me. Yes I can hear you. Okay thank you. Can you confirm that you can see the countdown timer. Yes I can. Okay your time starts now. Thank you. Hi my name is Devin Neary from Midpen Housing's North Bay office in Santa Rosa. We just wanted to say we really appreciate the newly instituted scoring system for this fund. And we really want to thank staff and the housing authority for the lightning fast turnaround for these projects. Our project Mahonia Glen is a great opportunity to bring 99 units of affordable housing to Santa Rosa. The project is surrounded by excellent amenities. It will be energy efficient and will also provide transit enhancements as well. So it's a great project for the city. And this project is in a high resource area and is therefore very competitive to receive bonds and 4% tax credits. And these city funds are essential for the project to move forward to the state funding competition. So thank you so much to the housing authority for your work on this application process. We really appreciate it. Thank you Devin. I do have one more public comment. Our next speaker is going to be Robin Zimbler. Robin, I've enabled your speaking permission. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear me? I can. Can you confirm that you can see the countdown timer? I can as well. Okay. Your time will start now. Sure. This is Robin Zimbler, the founder of Free Bird Development. So I just wanted to take a quick 10 seconds to thank you as well on behalf of Free Bird and Allied Housing with respect to Bennett Valley Apartments. This funding award is very timely. It'll enable us to compete for multiple funding sources at the state level. And we're excited to continue our partnership with the city on this project. Okay, Chair Owen. At this time, I do have one voicemail public comment that came in. It was from Mr. Dwayne Dewitt. I'm going to go ahead and play that now for the record. I'm sorry. It doesn't look like it's playing. Can anybody hear that? Okay. Give me just one moment. I apologize. I'm going to try to play it out loud on the computer here. I'm sorry. It doesn't seem like it's actually playing here either. Chair Owen, is there a possibility that maybe we could have a transcript added of what the voicemail said to the record just so we have some record? Jeff Merck, what do you advise? Do you mean to not publish it now but afterwards just so it's part of the record? Yes. Yeah, we can do that if there's no way that you can play it now. Okay. I apologize. Thank you. That's okay. At this time, Chair Owen, I see no more hands raised and we have not received any e-mail public comment. Thank you. I'd like to go through and go through the points that Jim Wallin made. And I understand the point that as we're going through this and we're working through the points categories and how things work and we will review this going forward. I do see that whereas bedroom size would hurt a senior's projects because it's not normal that you would have a senior's projects with multiple bedrooms. And that's a category for 10 points, but there's also a category for special needs, which seniors is a part of and looking at the two projects that were approved. Bennett Valley Apartments goes for formerly homeless, so it's scored high on that. And then Mahoney and Glenn is also working in for farm worker housing, so it's scored high on those special needs as well. So is where a visual light, I'm sure, probably scored very high because of the seniors component aspect to it. And then we had an applicant for Hearn's Veterans Village, which I think would probably score well on that. There is a bedroom size and I honestly at this point in time don't know how we can address that situation. Megan, do you have any comments or Nicole on that point? I would say at this point for this funding opportunity, we have included bedroom size, but it certainly can be one of the items that we discuss in depth during the Housing Authority debrief on the point system. And Nicole and I can be prepared with some additional information on how bedroom sizes are evaluated in other funding opportunities such as TCAC or CID like in order to look to see if there's a way to create more equity in projects. And you know better than I, but the seniors projects have been funded in the past. That is correct. Can you address that situation? Yes, certainly. As you may recall, in our CDPG DR round, which was the 38.5 million that the Housing Authority acted on in January of 2021, two of the five projects were seniors. And that's, I believe it's approximately a third of the units and Nicole certainly correct me if I'm far off base on that, but it was a significant percentage of the overall units that are designated for senior only. And we did at the request of Petaluma Ecumenical Properties in the March Housing Authority study session where we established this criteria going forward. We did include seniors as a special needs set aside. Okay, thank you. Was there any discussion going through this and and vice chair test you can also chime in on this as to and I've seen this and other funding rounds both at the Housing Authority for the city Santa Rosa as well as the state level for said Wacker or TCAC if there was any look at for what was requested versus and what was eventually awarded in terms of smaller dollar size in terms of being able to spread the funds was that reviewed at all in this process. Yes, I'd like to comment on that. Thank you. Yes, the talk to projects both Bennett Valley apartments as well as Mahoney and Glenn each reduced significantly there from their original ask to the amounts that we have discussed today. Very significant. And if you if the Housing Authority would like specifics Nicole can interject I know Mahoney and Glenn original request was $4 million and as you can see we are recommending 2.9 and then Bennett Valley. Nicole if you could chime in with with the original request was but it also is a reduced award amount that we are recommending. Sure and yes the Bennett Valley original request I believe was for about 6.9 million. So each project reduced the amount of funding that they could move forward with by about a million dollars. Yes 1.1 million dollars in one case and one million dollars in the other. Thank you I appreciate that. Was part of the process. Are there any comments from commissioners. On these on these items before we I seek to move or is there a motion on the resolution and the first one being for free bird Bennett Valley apartments. Commissioner Downey does have his handbrake. Commissioner Downey. My question is for Jeff Burke. If an applicant is being scored. One way. And there's also a separate category. For set aside that could potentially. Compensate a deficit. Could that potentially bring. Some challenges to the way that. The scoring process was. And I just want to stipulate that this is a new baby. And I'm not wanting to poke holes in it but I'm just curious from a legal standpoint if that could. Rear up for potential applicant. So I have not researched this issue and I'm not familiar whether or not there's any case law but my general understanding would be. That if somebody were to challenge the decision of the housing authority. The test that a court would look to is whether there was a rational basis for the decision being made. And the fact that you have now a point system at least provides a little bit more I mean. You know I suppose you know you as you've discussed that correctly I think that you're trying to get to a more objective standard. You know I think that staff and and and the ad hoc committee have presented. A sufficient rational basis for explaining how they came to their decision and. And I hope the other folks who weren't selected or other folks who may submit proposals going forward they'll have an opportunity you know through the study session and. And this can be further fine tuned and and try to make it a more perfect thing and you know it maybe you know it will never be perfect but I don't think that's the legal test so I hope that answers your question. Thank you and thank you all for your hard work. Thank you Commissioner Downey I'd like to just interject also and provide some additional context the top two ranking projects the Bennett Valley Apartments and Mahoney is when would have been in the first and second positions in the same order. Regardless of the point scoring methodology of using percentages versus the raw score. So we would have been looking at these two top projects either way. Chair Owen I have found a way to play the previous voicemail public comment would you like me to go ahead and play that now for the record. I'm seeing the city attorney's shake his head yes so yes I would agree please go go forward. Mark. Okay so that was the voicemail public comment from Mr. Dwayne do it. Thank you Mark. I'm not hearing any further discussion is there a motion on the first resolution. I'm sorry I don't have a motion in front of me so I can't help you. The first resolution is the resolution the housing authority the city Santa Rosa approving conditional commitment of loan funds the amount of $5.8 million to free for development company LLC for construction related costs with the benefit Valley Apartments located to 712 Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa California. Second that resolution. Oh I need someone to make a motion first place. I also for some reason have a problem getting it on screen so I can't see it sorry. Commissioner Downey. I need a motion. Thank you Commissioner Downey is there a second. I'll make a second. Thank you Commissioner Olson. I asked the court to conduct a roll call vote please. Okay we'll go ahead and do the roll call vote. Let's start with Commissioner Downey. I'm sorry Mr. Downey I couldn't hear you. And then Commissioner Olson. Aye. Vice chair test. Aye. And chair Owen. Aye. Okay let the record show that the motion passes with four eyes and no nose with Commissioner Burke abstaining. Thank you. And then our next step is a resolution of the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa approving a conditional commitment of loan funds the amount of $2.9 million the mid peninsula the farm for acquisition related costs for Mahoney and Glenn located 5173 highway 12 in Santa Rosa. Is there a motion for that resolution. I'll make a motion for that we pass a resolution. Thank you Commissioner Olson is there a second. I'll second that motion. Thank you vice chair test court can you please do a roll call vote. Okay we'll do a roll call vote on on this resolution. And we'll start with Commissioner Olson. Aye. And Commissioner Downey. Aye. And vice chair test. Aye. And chair chair Owen. Aye. Okay let the record show that the motion passes with four eyes no nose with Mr. Burke abstaining. Thank you and if with Jeff Burke's permission we don't we don't have a normal director's commentary but if if it possible if we can if if we can get Megan to give an update of where we are with being able to add more commissioners to the housing authority the status on on that process is that okay Jeff Burke. Yes I think it will. Thank you. As of this morning the interviews for the housing authority commissioners are scheduled for the June 29th city council meeting so the city clerk should be contacting the applicants to schedule those interviews in the near future. Do you know what the timing interview to recommendations appointments and then one month two months. I think that the council is looking to act fairly quickly so following the interviews I am hoping that we'll have appointments coming out of that meeting. We're shortly there after. Thank you very much I appreciate that we looked at expand our roles we we made it today with with. We only had the ability for one absentee so it's good to be able to add and we also want to be able to make sure we have 10 commissioners on the board so. Nicole thank you very much for your work. I know this is a lot to go through you did exceptionally well with a new process and Megan as well you and your team is always doing a very good job. We appreciate your help and your assistance and providing more housing city Santa Rosa. So thank you very much and with that I'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you everybody. Thank you everyone.