 afternoon I'd like to call the March 25th 2024 housing authority regular meeting to order members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda as a matter of housekeeping I'd like to remind the commissioners to keep their microphones muted unless they are speaking the city of Santa Rosa is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment free from disruption we 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 also immediately end the meeting mr. clerk please explain how public comments will be heard at today's meeting indeed at each agenda item after the item is presented the chair will ask for housing authority commissioner comments after the commissioner comments the chair will open the item for public comment for members of the public attending in person when the chair calls for public comments after an item is presented please go to the closest public speaking podium in the upper tier of chambers once situated at the podium the clerk will unmute your microphone and permit your comment to be heard public comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker per item public comments are limited to one comment per speaker per item additionally there is one public comment period on today's agenda to speak on non-agenda matters and that will be item six this is a time when any person may address the housing authority on matters not listed on this agenda but but which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the housing authority before I ask the clerk to do a roll call for attendance to assist with the streaming of the meeting and capturing the commissioners as they are speaking I want to continue to remind the commissioners to please ask the chair to be recognized before asking a question or making a comment this will allow time for the cameras to shift to a new speaker mr. clerk please call the roll okay we'll do a roll call for attendance we'll start with commissioner Owen here commissioner Downey commissioner Conte here commissioner Smith here commissioner Friedman is absent it appears vice chair Newton here and chair LaPenna here let the record reflect that all commissioners are present with the exception of commissioner Friedman item three statements of abstention are there any commissioners that have to abstain during none we'll continue to item 4.1 eight gold fine thank you chair Owen item 4.1 is a staff briefing the housing authority fiscal year 23 24 quarter to financial update administrative services officer gold fine will be presenting right good afternoon chair LaPenna vice chair and housing authority commissioners I am Kate gold fine administrative services officer for the housing and community services department and this is the quarter to update halfway through the current fiscal year 23 24 so I'll hit the highlights and be available for any specific questions so first looking at expenditures we have loan activity of nearly 3.6 million and the loans at which that was expended is in the detail we've expended 15.7 million in housing assistance payments averaging over 2.6 million a month for over 2,000 clients a month and in projects what projects are mostly comprised of one-time state and federal funding that is reimbursed as we expended moving to funding sources the best news is housing impact fees which were budgeted at 1.6 million and we've received nearly 1.3 million 80% under that compliance monitoring fees are also looking good with 54% received through halfway through the year and then loan repayments are still low however we've reached the time of year where developers and managers are remitting their audited financial statements which give us I blinked on that word for a second which shows us their residual cash receipts which are the loan repayments so I'm hoping to see a good increase in that over the next two quarters and hit our budget so with that I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have housing authority any questions for staff mr. Smith if you can just explain on the state grants almost 31 million it's been approved we've only received less than 1.8 variance can you explain that one yeah absolutely so most of the so the that in particular is mostly comprised of the IIG grant which is infill and infrastructure and you may remember that was a 21 million dollar grant from last year for this current year at about an 8 million grant from last year and we do receive that funding on a reimbursement basis so we have to go through the NOFA process commit it to a project have the developers get to the point where they expend it we pay them and then we request the money back from the state so there is a little bit of lag in that does that make sense okay newer grants and we haven't received our reimbursement yet any other questions for staff mr. Arwin thank you if you go to the first page and you're looking at housing assistance payments so this is for half the year and 60% okay so we have 60% remaining okay that's I was ringing at the opposite that we'd expended 60% so and then the next page we've got the American Rescue Plan our emergency housing voucher service fee are those those are emergency vouchers so those expire or just the funds get used if so the service fee in particular was a one time pot of funds that HUD gave us as part of the American Rescue Plan Act that's specifically used to assist the clients with so it can be used for like landlord incentives down payment assistance that kind of thing so we are still utilizing it and we'll have to work with HUD on if they want us to return any unused bit of that when we get closer to being done with the program so this is an overhead reimbursement but the actual monies that are no we're awarded not the service fee I was not a service fee are you asked I thought you asked specifically about the service fee well normally if we look at money coming in there's a service component and then it's an actual program component so is this just a service component in the funds for vouchers emergency vouchers go to to other nonprofits yes so the emergency housing vouchers themselves and there's a hundred and thirty one of those those are rolled up in the housing assistance payments and those operate just like a regular housing choice voucher the service fee like Kate said is an additional fee that was intended to assist with lease up and so we still have households that are leasing up under those initial hundred and thirty one vouchers as well as vouchers that have rolled over so if people have exited the program we can release those units the service fees are available to help them with lease up expenses so if they need a security deposit or need assistance with furnishings they all work through a case manager with the emergency housing voucher so it's a slightly different it's structured differently than a housing choice voucher and the service fees are what we can use to provide that type of assistance to the individuals and again to go back to our prior question is there has had made any announcement that those funds aren't used they will be recalled or they're just already dispersed and they're not going to be recalled hot has not made any announcement thank you and then can you discuss the commercial linkage commercial linkage fee and how that works so my best understanding and I may need to get assistance from our planning and economic development department is that when a commercial building when a commercial development is built within the city there is a fee charged to the developer for the impacts that the employees of that business will have on the surrounding areas such as meeting housing does that make sense yes it does okay so that that's the basis of that and that was included in the ordinance update for the housing and Lou fee or otherwise known as the city's housing allocation plan and I believe that was about 2018 that that fee was added into the city the city's fee structure and it's approximately I think we budget about $400,000 a year and we're at zero yeah so I've talked with our planning and economic development department about that and there is existing commercial space being used right now so the reason we've gotten fees the last few years is a few what do you call it like self-storage buildings have gone up and so we've had revenue from the commercial linkage fee and we're not expected to have revenue going forward so in we we had a few good years as the fee started and so going forward I imagine budgeting that at zero and then if we get anything great we'll use it in the next year but like this year we budgeted to receive $400,000 and have received none I believe the impact fees will make up for that but I want to be really conservative with that going forward that represents the fact that there's not a lot of commercial development going on within the city but there is some housing going on the housing going in but to the extent that those are in lieu fees rather than building affordable units within the project itself is that correct they are and we refer to them as impact fees so impact on the surrounding area but yes they go to affordable housing thank you missioner Smith on the page to the funding on other where it says this is reimbursement from the rental assistant program participants who underpaid their portion of the rent how does how do you find out who underpaid so participants in the housing choice voucher program have annual recertificate reexaminations where they provide their income information they also are required to report any changes of income to their technician that is assigned to their voucher failure to report those or if we receive documentation that shows a change of income that is in excess of what we had previously noted would could then necessitate them to reimburse us for part of their voucher so if we are assisting them more than they are entitled per the formulas they would need to agree and reimburse us for that portion and that's done through an agreement with the participant and we structure it so that they can make a reasonable payment each month that will not be detrimental to their finances any other questions from the commissioners missioner newt yes thanks for putting this together a couple questions I guess in the sub receipt funding to start off we have funds that are committed but they're expended but but haven't been committed can you explain sort of why that is why the delay and those being committed and not actually going out so a portion of our sub recipient funding is funded by CDBG a federal source and we are not we don't know yet for this year if the CDBG is going to be enough to cover the P the sub recipients so we budget a little more of local funding and that's what that fifty seven hundred is to make sure that we can maintain the contracts like kind of our annual ongoing sub recipient contracts even if the federal funding is a little bit less so in this case the federal fund this year this current year the federal funding covered it and so we didn't need fifty seven hundred of it and it will just roll over into next year's budget okay does that have to do with kind of the budget cycles being off between us and the federal government yeah so currently we're hoping to get our federal entitlements in May and there have been years when we haven't we've had to adopt the housing authorities budget prior to receiving our allotments so it is just kind of being off okay under projects the the infill grant going going back to that so we talked about a lot of those have that we haven't been reimbursed for those yet is that because they haven't been committed to projects I mean are we still sort of holding those funds are they gone out so we don't have the funds yet the funds are still still being held by the state when the grant was applied for it's for specific projects with designated amounts for each of those projects and as part of the process we have to go through agreements with the state so the developer also has to meet certain requirements with the California Department of Housing and Community Development in order to enter into a disbursement agreement to even access those funds so there's a lot of steps along the way and a few of those projects have not even started construction yet okay so that's included under expenditures under projects and it says there's there's some infill money here 20 20.6 the city was awarded infill infrastructure grant funding of over 26 million so so we haven't been awarded that money is that is that is that money that's been reimbursed from the state or so we've been a little confused on what that means that the city was awarded we've been awarded the funds so we have notification that you are you can access these funds but before we can actually access them we have to meet several milestones with the state and the project has to be ready in order to draw down the funds okay so the expenditure won't occur until those milestones are met and we have the necessary agreements in place with the state and on our end in order to give the money to the developer and then request reimbursement from the state all right so we have to be very mindful and how we're navigating through that so we don't expend money with the project that we we aren't able to draw back down from the state okay so does this mean that there are projects sort of working on getting this funding to the tune of 26 million yeah there's a there's a handful of projects for example one of the projects that is currently working on satisfying the requirements of the state would be the keratoss homes okay they received I think it's a couple million they're working through the documentation process in order to get the reimbursement from the state of California okay is there any threat to those funds because of the budget situation going on in Sacramento I don't think so because they are identified awards and we've entered into a standard agreement for like the umbrella agreement for those projects so I think if if there's milestone issues like if we don't meet the timelines or work with the state representative then maybe the state can walk it back but at this point we're just we're navigating through the process that they have outlined okay RPTT I saw a note in here that that the housing authority is getting all of that now is that in is that a new development I think we were just sort of getting a percentage before so that is special for this year and next month when I do the housing authorities budget overview for the following year you won't see that so the city council has a policy where an escalating percent of real property transfer tax goes to housing and homeless services annually and for the last two years homeless services has been funded a hundred percent by one time American Rescue Plan Act funding so the entirety of our percent of our PTT could go to housing that ends this coming fiscal year so you'll see that significantly reduced okay one more question on impact fees that's okay I actually read your stuff so you should yeah I had some time yeah I had a question on the commercial linkage fee so appreciate that the other one that jumped out to me was fees in place of providing affordable units in their market rate development so that mean that developers who who do market rate development have to pay an impact fee if they don't have a certain amount of affordable housing available so the way the ordinance is currently structured in that was the ordinance that was updated in about 2018 is a developer has a choice they can provide on-site units and there's various thresholds based on the geographic region that the units are being constructed in so downtown has a lower threshold than the rest of the city they can pay the fee or they can opt for a creative solution but when developers pay the fee and that's based on the units that they're constructing as market rate that's what goes into our lending pool so we use those funds to provide loan products to our nonprofit developers to support overall affordable housing we also use some of that for administration but the primary use is for the development of affordable housing okay which department is it that determines the impact fee so the fees are usually brought forward by the planning and economic development department in conjunction with finance that reviews all the fees for the city and I think there's an annual escalator on it so it increases I know the impact fee doesn't it's based on size of unit so ultimately it's reviewed and approved by the city council okay that's all I got thanks one more from Smith are we going to get any of the new money from the state on that prop one that just got passed I'm not sure how that money is going to flow yet if it's similar to other funds that have gone towards behavioral health that would go to the county of Sonoma because they have the health and human services department that operates those types of services so the community will benefit from them but I don't know if Santa Rosa will be a direct recipient Mr. Clark oh Dr. Downey hi I was curious to know when the CDBGDR is scheduled to end so the funds that were awarded to the city of Santa Rosa it's roughly 38 and a half million have been committed to the five projects that the housing authority approved in I believe 2021 three out of five of those are completed and leasing up and the other two are under construction so in terms of that trancha funding it's it's nearly sunsetted with the city and that we've identified them for projects we've expended 60% of them and we are just waiting for those final two projects to complete in the absence of any further disasters I I don't think we'll be seeing any more dr. funding coming to us Mr. Clark please move on to public comment on item 4.1 we're now taking public comments for item 4.1 if you wish to comment upon this item please go to one of the podiums in the upper tier of chambers hello you may state your name for the record if you so choose you have three minutes to make your comment let me put the timer up please before you begin can you see the timer hello my name is Duane Dewitt I'm from Roseland I want to thank you all for volunteering and participating here on this board and I appreciate the review we just got I have some major questions though because in Roseland there's a project called Burbank Avenue apartments that's supposed to be going ahead and living right down the street from it I pass it all the time and no apartments are being built what's being built is the market rate housing I think we actually got bamboozled on this one because I was at various meetings when these people came forward looking to do their project and it wasn't until the last minute that they decided to put in some apartments so they could get some funding and then use the money to do their project I really hope that you'll follow up on this and make sure that those apartments get built because in the past the city was actually left on the hook when affordable apartments were promised to us for what was called Bellevue Ranch it's been over 30 years ago but what occurred was 64 affordable apartment units were supposed to be built by the developer and they didn't build them then they put it off onto the city and the city had to hustle up to work with Burbank Housing Development Corporation to get extra funding and then they didn't even build the apartments what they did is they built self-help ownership units and as you know here in Santa Rosa the most desirable need is actually for affordable residential rental units so please follow up on this and make sure that this Burbank Avenue Apartments project actually provides the apartments they've promised to do to get the more than five million dollars apparently that was given to them based on disaster recovery and yet there was no disaster in Roseland whatever disasters have happened here have been over in the northeast part of Santa Rosa and then you might say well COVID was a disaster and we got some of that money but we didn't get a lot of that problem over in Roseland so matter of fact one of the things that's been occurring is a lot of people seem to think that the housing that's going in isn't housing Roseland residents and that basically it's opened up for people all over and then they're coming into Roseland and we're getting hundreds upon hundreds of hundreds of housing units built out there which is nice but it should go to Roseland residents especially the low income folks that need residential affordable residential so it was a great report right there but I still see some loose ends so thank you kindly for your time and I'd like to speak during public comment from the other podium thank you kindly next we'll move on to item five which is studies one moment one go ahead oh I didn't see you I'm sorry thank you my name is Carolyn Spencer I'm a Sonoma County resident born and raised I too have concerns about the massive construction projects that are happening all over Sonoma County I realize the need for housing but my concern is similar to Duane's I want to know the breakdown on the percentage for low income actual low income housing I'm not talking about the rent 38 degrees north that's going for $3,800 a month for a three bedroom unit I don't know I can't afford that and I make six figures a year so the concern about having a low income affordable housing for our future generations for our current generation is is high high up there on the list of priorities I want to know if there's a mandatory percentage of low income units for new construction I want to know why new construction isn't held to a reasonable accommodation for our infrastructure our water our streets maintaining these areas where large increases of population will be happening I also don't really like that most of our massive units are already happening in highly dense populated areas Roslyn the south anywhere that is considered not fountain Grove or upper middle class is being inundated with massive apartments I'm also not I'm not really seeing any actual homes being built so I'm not sure what the future of San Rosa is looking for are we looking for renters are we looking to to facilitate generational wealth and providing opportunities for our constituents to buy houses to provide that for their future generations like our grandparents great grandparents were able to do which is seems to be non-existence these days and also I'm just want to nail down how many are truly for low income in this 30.5 million of the state risk I'm not I just walked into this but my concern is there are lots of homeless people out there that are looking for housing I'll speak during the public comment as well thank you any more public comment show that it appears that we have no more in person comments for this item we'll move on to item five which is the study session there is nothing on that agenda so we'll move to item six public comments on non-agenda items just one moment please all right you you may state your name for the record you have three minutes to make a comment since I can't project that and this at the same time I will make you aware of when the three minutes are getting close thank you sir my name is Dwayne D. Whitt this is a copy of a newspaper from six years ago and basically it pointed out that we were going to be here in the county beginning a process of rebuilding after the fires of 2017 the idea about how much and warehousing should go is really quite important because it has been said for decades that we would do city-centered growth for most people in the community the idea of city-centered to them means downtown it means somewhere close by us here in these neighborhoods where the city hall exists Burbank Gardens even the JC neighborhood things of that nature but what actually has been going on is the definition of city-centered has been stretched to mean anything within the city limits of Santa Rosa so the housing authority has actually been helping to finance housing on the farthest city limits to the Southwest out on Bellevue Avenue on what's now called Dutton Meadow it was South Dutton when I grew up anyway big project down there for a long time it took 13 years to build it's finally gone forward and it's this body that finances much of this activity so I wanted to point something out because this year right now is the 50th anniversary of the housing the section 8 housing choice voucher program from the federal government but even farther back 60 years ago HUD had basically gotten started this is from a document of 1964 pointing out up in Sacramento they had been able to put in apartments that had a density of 80 to 95 units per acre they had even been approved for even larger 125 150 to 125 persons per acre so I know we can do good things and we can put it in the center of the city I think that this body here could actually be the conscience of the planning department and say hey listen we've got these ideas we've been getting this funding you got 35 million dollars from the federal government and you took five million for an apartment complex supposedly on Burbank Avenue which is three miles from the city center and it hasn't even started yet they're building the houses there so hopefully you folks will take it upon yourself to talk with the planning department and the policymakers the city manager who recently told me she does operations and that's what she's all about so please tell her the operations are supposed to be that we want this housing in as close to downtown as possible and there is a desire for it you few trails building up on 4th Street now is going to be all leased up everything's going well and he actually got a deal from the housing authority and redevelopment for the old ATT building over here right across the street from the Bank of America which is now vacant and he said he was going to build housing in that building then he didn't do it and we gave him a 1.5 million dollar break on the purchase of the building so with that in mind I'm hoping you folks might take him to task and say hey let's get housing in that building right downtown right right across the street over here get some apartments there and make sure that we start getting these apartments in this area he built a hotel called art house over office 7th Cherry area and the bottom line to all this is we should be getting that affordable residential rental here within a quarter of a mile of this building we stand in thank you kindly any further comments yep yes I was gonna say you can state your name for the record if you so choose can you see the timer thank you yes I can see it my name is Carolyn Spencer residence Sonoma County so this issue is about the SA Y closure well I don't think I need a mic this issue is about the SA Y closure I have major concerns with the way that the SA Y closure was conducted these there were youth that were housed by funding obtained by SA Y I have a family member who was given 48 hours to evacuate or remove herself and her four-year-old child and seven while she's seven month pregnant and was put up in a hotel for a week if that's the way that we treat our youth who has been who have gone through a program to receive services and then our subsequently kicked to the curb with no backup plan that is infuriating these are our children these are our youth they have previously been exploited they have previously been homeless they have faced things that probably not many people in this room have faced and yet here they are getting kicked to the curb again I was once a voucher holder of Sonoma County Housing Authority and I was able to transfer that voucher to my child I didn't realize that it was an equitable asset until I was able to income out and provide that resource to my child my understanding is that voucher holders are required 90 days notice Adam at a minimum yet our youth was given 48 hours I feel like there was some violation of Housing Authority's own policies and procedures in this instance and I'd like to know what the Housing Authority is planning to do for our kids who are now out there homeless on top of doing all the work on top of getting clean and sober on top of not having a stable home environment or any support system the last place that was able to support them couldn't what is our fallback plan for these kids what is our backup plan for them I think just as a solution oriented thing I think that the children that were that you can verify that were in these that were receiving housing assistance from a voucher I don't know if it was a program-based or if it was I know it wasn't a choice voucher it was probably program-based but why can't they be assigned other program-based vouchers why were they not given options by this very organizations that helps mow income people obtain housing thank you any further public comment chair appears we have no further in person public comments for this item they will move on to item seven which is approval of minutes we have the minutes from the February twenty six twenty twenty four meeting are there any changes to the minutes hearing none the minutes are approved is prepared we'll move on to agenda item number eight commissioner reports chairperson reports I don't have anything did the other commissioners have any reports hearing none we'll move on to item nine committee reports I don't believe there are any committee reports we'll move on then to item ten executive director reports thank you chair lapena attached for your monthly review is the housing authority pipeline this is our monthly compilation of projects that have been recently completed are under construction or are in various stages of permitting and financing you will find a list of projects that have either a density bonus have the housing authority assistance and then project-based vouchers and within this table you'll see the number of affordable units per project as well as the location of those units again this is updated monthly with a status of the construction if they are actively under construction I'd be happy to answer any questions commissioner commissioner Smith just one quick what two questions one on the the last item the development concepts are you worried that there's only one project in there or is that normal for the future we generally have a couple right there we'll probably get some more concepts following the solicitation of our annual notice of funding availability that's when we have developers come forward with new projects that they're looking to move forward so it's not that concerning at this point and I I know you were not here last week I had asked them is the normal time frame from like beginning to construction ending about four years in the city to build different projects or is it is it is it more like a three four-year time frame I think depending on the size and scope of the project we often see some of our affordable developments be about two years and hopefully that tracks with some of the projects that are showing up in the pipeline but generally I'd say about two years from the start of construction to completion any further court mission economy hi yeah I'm wondering if there's a system of accountability if funding if we're get funding to somebody who ends up not building the affordable or low income housing that they've promised to build so yes there is all of our loans which come before the housing authority for review and approval for multifamily developments are accompanied by Adida trust which secures the actual funds and then a regulatory agreement that identifies the the scope of the project and we monitor those through the course of the development in the event that the project does not proceed as anticipated we return to the housing authority so examples that have been mentioned earlier in this meeting would be the Lantana homes which is in southwest Santa Rosa initially that came before the housing authority and I believe 2007 2008 as a multifamily rental complex over the course of the 13 years we came back before the housing authority numerous times to go through the status of the financing and that occurred during the great recession the end of redevelopment so that one had a lot of hurdles that had to overcome and then ultimately it was reprogrammed using the money the housing authority had committed as well as additional resources to create 48 ownership units so we do bring those forward if there's going to be a change in the scope of the project and look to keep the housing authority's resources available for low-income households whether that be renters or home ownership and I think that one's a good example of we're able to pivot to 48 ownership units that went to individuals who were 80 to 120 percent of AMI but the majority I believe ended up being towards the lower low income 80 percent of AMI great thank you any further questions and commissioner or one thank you as we go through this and and we were talking about last meeting with the overall number of units that are tracked right now for affordable and on the second page there's a number of units and then a number of affordable units and then if you look at for example on the stony oak apartments there's 142 units but that's a 9% tax credit deal so actually except for the manager unit all those are considered affordable but we only we're only tracking 15 because they're of a density bonus that is correct in stony oaks they receive 9% tax credits so that makes them all affordable but we have direct compliance review over the density bonus units so in actuality was coming on market and that's a perfect example it's more than what's in the affordable unit column because what the city's only tracking what was provided for a density bonus correct so if we look at the next page the 2003 83 units knocking out probably one manager unit maybe two for each project for the larger projects I think the last time we looked at the overall number of affordable units in the city of Santa Rosa that number was a bank basically a 20% increase the last time I was looking at this so in terms of the number of units I'm just pointing this out it's not really a question that there are significant number of units coming online between the disaster recovery tax 9% tax credits that went out and also the CDBG 9% that CDBG DR monies that came out so Megan you've been with the city for a long time this department is this the most you've ever seen come online within the last 20 years I'd say this is the most units we've had under construction and leasing up within that time period and just to add on to your earlier point if you're looking at units that are funded and under construction the same would apply to the Santa Rosa Avenue apartments in the Juana Springs apartment so right there we're showing the density bonus but both of those projects are entirely affordable projects okay I just I just want to be clear that the number of units that are coming online are more than I've ever seen in 30 years of living in the city and for affordable units so that's a big change in terms of how much this and and obviously they can only be built where there's land so the extent that none of these units were tearing down well Boyd took down a small project on College Avenue but besides that I don't know of any other project that took down any existing development it was all on bare land where there was land availability I would say the majority of them were on vacant land or in the example of Laurel at perennial park which is the former journeys and mobile home park correct that was the 162 unit mobile home park that was destroyed and it's being replaced with the 162 affordable units and then there's also a market rate component so the density right there went from about 12 units to 8 per acre to well over 30 okay thank you Jeremy you have a question sort of an admin question I guess but did we talk about putting something in here so you can easily highlight what's changed since the last one I feel like we had that discussion at some point or if not is there any way to do that we can certainly yeah we can look at revamping it for next month and making it just more apparent on what has changed maybe we can just use a color for the month so that you can easily see where the changes have occurred something easy like that certainly yeah appreciate it Mr. Clark we have public comment on item 10.1 yep we are now taking public comment on item 10.1 if you wish to make comment please step to one of the podiums give me just a moment to put the timer up on the screen very good you have three minutes to make a comment you can state your name for the record if you so choose Carolyn Spencer again guys it's great that we have a bunch of units coming up and I think the issue is what is affordable to this board's understanding and what is affordable to the public there are affordable units that are not affordable to the rates that people are being paid in this county I don't know how to stress that enough and when I'm have a couple of questions I'm gonna be doing some googling but I don't want to know what a density bonus is for contractors that sounds to me like a contractor gets a bonus for putting in more units and removing land where we also have a right to enjoy the space around us there are studies and statistics that show people excel in areas of nature not concrete jungles the ideal place would not be to further impact high density areas already that seems to my common sense and I know that we are all just a few humans in this room but you guys have a platform and I urge you I urge you to take a step back from whatever position you're looking at things and look at it from somebody who is homeless or coming off the street the minimum wages here in this county do not provide for a salary to support themselves at the rents that are being charged your low income is not low income your low income is not this communities low income when I transferred my voucher to my child he had to make less than 42,000 but then he also had to make it was just this weird I don't know what the housing rules are right now because it seems to be very convoluted and very difficult even for voucher holders already there is a huge problem that is not connecting to the people that are being served by the vouchers to the people who are issuing them and to the contractors that are building these quote because I know that we can't see my quotes on writing but quote affordable housing these are not affordable units period you can state your name for the record if you so choose and I'll start your three minutes when you're ready and I do choose you know how that goes my name is Dwayne DeWitt and I'm from Roseland and I have been looking at this pipeline I'm very glad that you folks have volunteered to be working on these things and that the staff has put together a pipeline graphic in which we can look and see what might be coming our way in the future one of the concerns I've had and I'm glad that miss Conte asked that question about accountability and then staff pointed out how Lantana changed along the way and went from being residential apartments to home ownership so they're on the Burbank Avenue apartments in the gray section there number 12 on your first page it points out that 63 units of affordable housing you're going to be provided one unit will be for the manager on site presumably so it's under construction at that 16 project based vouchers have been put into this project so if you do the math on this 44,320,899 as the development cost and then you divide it by the 63 units you get over $700,000 per unit to develop this project and one of the things that's problematic about a 703,506 dollar per unit per door is you can build houses for less than that and this has been going on for a long time in Sonoma County where the developers come forward and say well we can't build affordable housing unless we get some subsidy from you and it doesn't pencil out well yes it does pencil out these guys are taking you folks to the bank basically and no one's ever really called them on it and said hey look you can build units cheaper than that and what really needs to happen I think especially because you've got another one coming up that I saw here and no one in my community is known about it but it's called Ponderosa down on Roseland Avenue and it's coming forward and there'll be 63 no excuse me 49 units there 29 million dollars for that deal the Casa de Santa Rosa Roseland Village project I was a member of a advisory committee for the choice for midpen to be a part of that and they didn't do their due diligence and the land's contaminated and the project's been taking over a dozen years and still going to take longer so one of the things that's so important is for you folks to be our oversight if you will to go out there like Ms. Conte asked for accountability please do that with all these projects because something's not working correctly thank you kindly for your time hi my name is Annabelle Nunez born and raised here in Santa Rosa I'm late to this but I'm only gonna speak on like so I currently live in Dutton flats and the one thing I want to say about like these apartments let I mean let's call them what they are their projects because you guys are also getting builders from New York and they're coming out here to build in Santa Rosa and when I first went there was like holy these look like the projects like from a scene out of a movie that I've watched on the projects in New York right never been in the projects like that but you know I grew up in Valley Oak and West 9th right those are our like little ghetto areas in Santa Rosa but now we got the jets here so and then another problem with this is like if you walk in these buildings these are you obviously they're low-income homes right single-parent households or something but it's somewhat they look like prison like a prison yard and I've been told this by a few people who have been to prison and who come over and they're like and you can't even tell the difference because they've done presentations where they've taken pictures of this place and at schools and this and that but and that so that's what we're we're having to bring up our children and Sonoma County right now there's a big issue right with the violence in Santa Rosa that you know the city's working with and you know the chief police and what are we doing but here we are prepping our children for that path another issue is parking you only get one parking spot in these areas and one day I was sitting in my little balcony area and I saw the police come up and was starting to ticket some cars like hey what's going on well you know parking that though I was like yeah so who's in charge of approving these buildings because the parking sucks not only that like I'm looking and I live there but thankfully I'm on the bottom floor right there's four stories high you got two stairwells for all these families that have children if there were to be a fire or anything else like I don't think all of them will make it unless they start jumping off their balconies but that's just you know something for y'all to think about when you guys are approving these buildings yeah and they're doing them like half ass because they want them done cheaply right you guys want to cut corners and save some money but who's feeling the effects we are it's a brand new building and I already had my whole kitchen flooded like three times already because they didn't even put the right size PVC pipes or whatever underneath my sink so that's something that's all I got to say any further public comment and I chairl up in it appears we have no further public in person public comment for this item I'll move on to item 11 consent items when the consent items are brought before the housing authority it is not required that the staff provide presentations to the commissioners if there are no objections with a motion and a second the housing authority commissioners can take a single vote on all of the consent items on this agenda after public comments will now go on to item 11.1 a resolution rescinding the housing authority resolution number one five three four and adoption of a new resolution delegating approval authority to the executive director or designee for certain multifamily rental and ownership housing agreement modifications we are we are now taking public comment for item 11.1 if you wish to make comment of course moved to one of the podiums and let me set my timer up for three minutes one moment thank you sir ready yes hello my name is Dwayne Dewitt I'm from Roseland I appreciate that the staff has put this forward but I'm not supportive of this I believe we have you here as the appointed authority to be our oversight on this and that in the past when the executive director or other staff have made decisions to streamline something it seems like we don't get the best deal my comments about Bellevue Ranch from 1994 30 years ago hold sway all the way up to now with Lantana which started 13 years ago both of those ended up being low-income home ownership rather than residential rental so I believe the only way we're going to continue to get affordable rental residential housing in the numbers that we need is if you folks on the authority take control and oversight to make sure that these things occur when you leave it to staff we're here it's not even executive director sometimes it might just be a designee we might not get what's the best thing for us I appreciate staff's hard work I like them I'm not trying to undermine their situation I'm just saying that multifamily rental agreements need to be the priority that we need to get more of that we don't need the home ownership unless you put back in the section 8 housing voucher stipulation that allowed for home ownership I don't know if you've dug into that in the past we actually had that but staff decided that because our real estate market was too expensive that they would take that out I believe you should put that back in if you're going to have single-family ownership housing as part of the purview of the executive director that would be something that would allow renters with the section 8 vouchers to own in the future and that possibility had existed in the past if you bring it back it would be more I'll rephrase it it would be better for me to support it I understand others have other points of view on this but the main thing is please don't give away any of your power keep what you have and keep going forward and look at it like you'll work with the executive director when the appropriate time comes to perhaps streamline something thank you kindly there's additional public comment carol carol and Spencer I just came here to concur with what he said I coming from a legal perspective I'm a paralegal please don't give up the checks and balances that's exactly why we're here please don't give up the checks and balances and taking that I mean nothing away from the housing authorities just like doing we've never met this is not a conjoined effort to bamboos everybody but listen he's I agree do not give up the checks and balances it's literally what this whole country is supposed to be based on thank you any additional public comment Charlie Pena appears we have no more in-person public comments for this item housing authority members any questions of staff Mr. Hagan I was I was reading over this earlier and it's it looks like it's there's already a time limit on this that where you have the approval to make these decisions somewhere up to like three years or something like that and and I don't recall the specifics on that but it looked to me more of a an extension or a waiver of something that that you it's a power that you already have as you're sort of extending that that authority that you already have is that is that right I'm gonna let Angela Morgan program specialist over here to my right answer that question for you good afternoon everyone so the the comment yes you're correct you're correct that we do have an existing exhibit a with the with resolution 1534 that does there is a delegation of approval authority there to the executive director that currently exists and the new or the proposed exhibit a in this included in this item is a revision there's a couple of new items in there but mostly it's a it's to include ownership housing with with additional information excuse me with additional approval authority on more specific items and so specifically if you look at exhibit a it adds two items eight nine which would all provide authority to the executive director and this is upon the review and vetting by staff to extend the terms of home ownership loans so we have those as silent seconds now those homeowners do not need to provide any debt service so oftentimes as they're bumping up against their 30-year loan term they do have the resources to repay us for that once we will extend the term and have it do upon sale or an extended loan term and part of the rationale behind providing that authority is also then we don't need to publicly notice that individuals name address and parcel number we do try and maintain the privacy of our homeowners now to see that our outside council Ethan Walsh has joined us so Ethan if you'd like to weigh in thank you Megan I just wanted to comment on on on this and note for the for the benefit of the board that this kind of delegation of authorities it's very common for for boards like you to to delegate to staff there's obviously decisions sometimes that need to be made quickly and and don't necessarily meet the timelines for the for the board meeting since you only meet once once a month and so these types of administrative areas you know you as a policy making board can decide that there are specific areas that you want to delegate to staff so that they can efficiently address issues and that's really what's going on here is it's looking to the to the board staff to make these decisions with within specific parameters they're consistent with your with your policy goals so that's it from a legal perspective this is pretty common for boards to do and it just helps staff to understand what the guidelines are as far as what they can what they can do and what they can't do without coming back to you Mr. Owen so I've been on the this commission for six years and everything that's come through there that time is has been for rental properties so this has to do primarily with with home ownership and silence seconds how many of those are actually managed by the the authority good afternoon chair housing authority Nicole del Farentino housing and community services manager to answer your question there are a couple hundred existing silent second type home ownership loans in the city's portfolio and with the majority of those loans starting to age we are looking forward and seeing that a handful will need to have some sort of loan modification otherwise we would be back to the housing authority for each individual loan to do some sort of modification in order to keep the current homeowner in their home because they do not have the resources to repay them and when the 30-year term comes forward does that help answer your question yes it does and all these loans are due upon sale if they sell their home correct a lot of them have already been repaid we have a handful coming forward in the next few years that are their original homeowners that still have these loans on the properties and primarily the modifications would be able to keep these people in their home so they don't have to sell and pay or have to make payments on the silent second yes and the term and the approval authority that you would be approving with this item is very narrow for the ownership loans and it's explained in the staff report I believe it would be extending by a 15-year term these were originally 30-year terms for the most part with our standard interest rate and you are not approving just any modification request the terms are in the new exhibit a and as far as the other non ownership related changes these are updating language from the 13 years ago when this document was originally approved and in some cases narrowing the approval authority of the executive director as in item number two the support nation agreements clarifies that we are only approving those with equal or lower interest rate and no cash out which is a more narrow scope of approval than as previously provided thank you any further questions hearing none the chair would like to make see if any of the commissioners would like to make a motion regarding item 11.1 consent items the motion would be to waive the reading of the text and to approve the consent resolutions on the March 25th 2024 housing authority agenda and any commissioner like to make so moved commissioner Irwin moves it is there a second I second second by commissioner Smith mr. Clark will you call the roll please okay just one moment okay well now take a roll call vote on the resolutions on the consent calendar and we will start with commissioner Owen yes and then commissioner Smith yes and then commissioner Downey yeah okay commissioner Conte my notebook of your mic closer I have a little problem my notebook was not working this weekend so I didn't have access to review any of this so can I abstain okay thank you one moment okay vice chair Newton yes and chair LaPenna yes okay and of course commissioner Friedman is absent right let the record show that that motion passes with five eyes one no and commissioner Friedman absent no I'm sorry let me change that with five eyes with commissioner Conte abstaining and commissioner Friedman absent excuse me they will now move on to report items I don't believe there are any report items on the agenda we'll move to item 13 public hearing so item 13 is the appointment of a resident advisory board an adoption of the public housing agency plan for fiscal year 24 25 and Rebecca Lane will be presenting we'll just be one moment while she pulls up the presentation good afternoon commissioners my name is Rebecca Lane and I am here this afternoon to present the annual public housing agency plan for fiscal year 2024 2025 this item also officially appoints our two tenant commissioners as the resident advisory board while they are concurrently serving on the board of commissioners so I'll start with some background about the purpose of the public agency or a PHA plan there are two types of PHA plans one is a five year plan and one is an annual plan the purpose of the PHA plan is to outline the goals and strategies the agency employs to utilize its housing choice voucher program resources and how these connect to the jurisdictions wider consolidated plan as well as fair housing and civil rights laws the annual plan typically provides a progress report on the activities of the five-year plan but can also provide a channel through which the PHA can communicate significant policy changes to the public and to HUD the annual and five year plans are reviewed by the resident advisory board the board of commissioners and the public and are submitted to HUD after approval by the board and for the commissioner's knowledge the public the annual plan has been available for public review since February 8th as of the date of this meeting we have not received any public comment but we can also take public comment as part of this hearing process and submit that along with the plan that is ultimately submitted to HUD so for our annual plan progress report in the 20 20 24 2025 annual plan the summary of that appears in on this slide and we have continued to use the resources of the project-based voucher program which is part of the housing choice voucher program to leverage additional affordable housing throughout the city and for special populations for example the first project that is listed here that has 17 new units for seniors coming online in this fiscal this past fiscal year that is Laurel at perennial park phase one and that 17 units helped leverage an additional 94 affordable units for seniors that were fully developed in phase one of that project and I do want to note here I there I noticed in preparing this presentation that there was an error in the staff report the keratoss homes phase one 30 units of project-based voucher units for people experiencing homelessness that should say a total of 64 affordable units being leveraged in that project so I apologize for that we also this year opened the waiting list using the new electronic format which was vastly more efficient both for applicants as well as for the staff in processing those applications and as we've mentioned in previous presentations regarding the waiting list the process is still available in the paper format for households who need to have it in that format so we've just made an additional way of applying available to the community and as of the end of the fiscal year last year we had achieved a 70% utilization of the emergency housing voucher program and for the record at the end of this month that will be up to 83% and the remaining households are searched have their vouchers in hand and are searching for housing sorry technical difficulty my slides disappeared that was the old one okay sorry so the annual plan is also a mechanism to communicate significant changes to policies which we have this year in the Hapma changes to the administrative plan which I have been before you a few times to discuss I have spoken to this body at length regarding the administrative plan changes and at our last meeting our best information had pointed towards and anticipated adoption date of the Hapma policies being July 1 and at this point we are looking at the timeline of the rollout of the technical pieces of the Hapma transition that needs to happen so we're no longer anticipating that we're going to meet a July 1 date so what we will do with the administrative plan which is submitted to you and submitted to HUD as part of this annual plan because it does represent significant changes to our policies we're going to be submitting that at the recommendation of some of our other colleagues in the industry without an effective date because at this point we can't anticipate when we will be able to implement those policies so we anticipate that we will come back before the board again with the administrative plan once we have a more solid timeline about when those policy changes will go into effect nonetheless we do have the policy changes that are required under Hapma included in the draft administrative plan that is included in this annual plan document so you had reviewed those changes previously in a red line version the version that is presented as part of this item is all of the changes in a more easy to read format without the red lines so the administrative plan as I said will be submitted to HUD concurrently with the annual plan this is also at the required HUD requirement to submit the Hapma drafts along with the annual plan okay and the final piece of this presentation is just a summary of the purpose of the resident advisory board and how the two tenant commissioners that we have on our board of commissioners also concurrently serve as our resident advisory board we have as a housing authority were considered in the end what is known as a housing choice voucher only or section 8 only agency because we do not operate public housing if we operated public housing we would have access to resident advisory boards as part of that structure tenants in that are residing in public housing units also participate in their own governance which would be satisfying the requirement for a resident advisory board in those agencies that have public housing since we do not have public housing HUD has determined that section 8 only agencies are allowed to determine their own methodology for establishing a resident advisory board so in resolution 1129 which was dated in January of 2001 we established in this housing authority that our two tenant commissioners would also serve as our resident advisory board so this item also establishes the two current tenant commissioners and appoints them as the resident advisory board so our recommendation is that the housing authority by resolution appoint any and all housing authority commissioners who are also housing choice voucher program participants as the resident advisory board to represent the interest of those served by the housing choice voucher program and adopt the annual public housing agency plan for fiscal year 2024 2025 as required by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for local administration of the housing choice voucher program that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions thank you thank you Rebecca commissioner Downey it might turn on I think so this is a great idea a few years ago we had a meeting I think it was out at Apple Valley Papa go where the whole housing authority went out there and I'm wondering what's the likelihood of us having another field trip to residents that's been modernized so that we get an idea of the opportunities that people were having as a consequence of these programs as opposed to them reporting to us the experience of being recipients of this program so Commissioner Downey I think your question strays a little bit from the agenda but we can bring it forward in April and have a discussion as a an agendized discussion for the entire housing authority about setting up some tours and an opportunity for all of you to get out in the field and I'll add that specifically the resident advisory board for the housing choice voucher program which is the requirement of this annual plan and the PHA plan process is specifically voucher holders so participants in the housing choice voucher program not overall residents in affordable housing in the city any other commissioners Jeremy yes of the the June implementation date is something we've been tracking for a while I think since you first came up here and even told us about the the whole hotma thing so now it's a I guess it's official we're not gonna we're not gonna make the implementation date yes that was a anticipated we were hoping July 1 transition to the hotma policies but as I have brought before the board one of the requirements for each agency to transition is also a new data submission process so those we are not yet able to we do not have access to test yet in that new system and without already as of today's date being able to submit our data having gone through the testing know that our data is going to be accepted and validated we were we're already behind to try to meet a July 1 date so we're working very closely with HUD on that effort there are weekly meetings now that have been reestablished as part of that process our IT director and our programmer who are support who support us in the development of our software they are actively participating in those meetings as well as myself and a couple other staff members so we we definitely have involvement in the in the process it's just that the HUD is not ready for agencies such as ours yet to be testing so the question is the delay is on their end and that they haven't had that they haven't got the system up and running in time for us to use it correct in order to meet the digital aid and so the whole this whole annual plan is based on those changes and so you mentioned we're just going to submit it anyway with a delayed implementation date was that guidance that you got from HUD or you mentioned friends in the industry like yeah if it's if it's there yes it's kind of their fault that we can't meet the deadline then they should provide some guidance on on how to proceed yeah so there's a lot of us in the same boat every agency basically who has a July 1 fiscal year date is required to submit this annual plan that you're reviewing today by April 17th and we are also required as part of that plan to submit the draft administrative plan or what your your planned administrative plan will look like under the HOTMA regulations so that that is a component of the annual plan that must be submitted by April 17th when we in the sort of earlier conversations last year when the timelines were first released I I believe that HUD anticipated that agencies would be able to have a firm implementation date by the time that agencies needed to start submitting their annual plans and it just hasn't played out that way we know that statutorily every agency as of this date is required to come under HOTMA regulations by January 1 of 2025 so it right now can't be any later than that but we still are unable to determine as of today when that will be and so a recommendation from a consultant who helps us develop the administrative plan policies was to submit the plan undated along with the annual plan and then internally what we'll do as an agency to to sort of manage that because it is a little we can't just sort of leave it floating out there without a known implementation dating without making that known to the community we will plan on coming back to the housing authority once we have a firmer timeline in place with an effective date of when that will officially be adopted the administrative plan policies any other questions of staff hearing none we'll move on to public comment on item 13.1 we're now taking public comments on item 13.1 chair LePenet appears we have no in-person public comments for this item okay would the any of the housing authority commissioners make a motion regarding the resolution of the items on 13.1 the consent items the motion would be to waive the reading of the text and to approve the resolution of the housing authority of the city of Santa Rosa establishing membership of the resident advisory board and approving and adopting the public housing agency annual plan for fiscal 2024 through 2025 is there a motion so moved so moved by commissioner Erwin is there a second I second commissioner Smith seconds mr. Clark would you call the roll please indeed take the public comment on that oh my goodness can I beg your indulgence to let me make a couple comments go ahead I wanted to thank you all as volunteers and especially thank the two residents I believe that's miss Conte and mr. Smith no okay well who's the other resident thank you the reason I say this is because the resident board it's a very helpful thing and it's very important that the residents be involved in the activities so whoever the residents are please have them also do more outreach because most of the people who live in the units don't know that the residents could have contact with the resident board thank you county for your time thank you okay we will now take a vote on the resolution for item 13.1 we will start with commissioner Owen I one moment I forgot to set something up and then commissioner Smith I then commissioner Downey I commissioner Conte hi vice chair Newton hi and chair LePenna hi let the record show that that resolution passes with six eyes and commissioner Friedman absent seeing nothing else on the agenda for today the meeting is adjourned