 Hey everybody Can we is the volume good here? Okay good No feedback so far. So Good evening. I am David Greenwald for those of you who do not know me I'm the director of the Davis vanguard and I will introduce the panel in a second, but this is the first of Basically a three-part series on affordable housing in this community and we've kind of broken it up Hopefully logically So tonight we're going to talk basically from more of a policy end and then next time We will have affordable housing providers and that meeting is already set So that's going to be April the 18th in this very room also from seven to nine and then the third part will probably be on the UC Davis campus and It's going to be What we're calling the consumers of affordable housing the people Who either are living in affordable housing or need to live in affordable housing, but may not have any available So that that will be in May But we haven't set the date or the location just yet for that one So tonight we have Three panelists. We have Davis City Council member Lucas Frerichs We have Lisa Baker from Yolo County Housing is that the correct name? Okay good and Matt Dulcich from UC Davis so Welcome everybody and Basically, we're going to have four rounds of questions and we're going to try to take about 15 minutes for each round and I've given the Panelists the questions in advance. So we're not springing this on them So hopefully they had a chance even though I sent it yesterday to at least Prepare a little bit for it and then after the first hour We will open it up for audience questions We are recording this from Davis media access. So everybody needs to speak through the mic We have two mics here. So hopefully This will go smoothly So the the first question and I'm not going to do like a Hard time, but I am going to kind of watch so try to limit it if you go through a little bit faster than Then 15 minutes then there can be some kind of back-and-forth interchange as appropriate So the first question Goes to Lucas describe current City affordable housing programs Sure. Well, thank you. Thanks David very much and appreciate good evening everyone and I appreciate the opportunity to participate this evening It's nice to be home. I've been in Washington, D.C. all week and Returned home to into Sacramento at the airport at about 1 a.m. This morning. So a little bit. Oh, no, that's on now There we go So, yeah, I still not quite back in the Pacific time zone here but Really happy to be back and be home so you know David had asked the first question here is just about Sort of some describe a little bit about the city of Davis affordable housing program and or programs and I just want to I'll give a little bit of a history To start which is the city of Davis has had an inclusionary housing ordinance in place which means it provides for a Mandatory amount of affordable housing as part of each development either actual developed units or in Luffy's But is that has been in in effect since the early 1990s is one of the first cities in California to do such Create such an ordinance and really for many years is looked as I think a national leader in terms of its Approach towards housing as affordable official big a sort of capital a affordable housing Of course, we I think we all recognize that there is a lack of Affordable housing little lowercase a right not subsidized but just housing which is affordable to many But the city has done over this sort of since the early 90s Approximately 1500 units has built approximately with partnership with a number of affordable housing nonprofits and others Approximately 1500 units of permanently affordable rental housing here in the city And I think I'll just highlight a few sort of some of the statistics from the past few years I think it's important to sort of talk about Sort of some of the successes in the past few years So since I'll just go go back to just 2013 just a few years ago In that time frame we have 135 units across Bartlett Commons in the cannery 63 units the new harmony Community in South Davis 69 units, but since 2003 so that's 16 years About 325 permanent affordable housing units have been built across the city The and that's the you know the sort of the past 15 or 16 years We have a number of pending projects currently in the city, which will add to that afford a permanent of permanently affordable housing stock the creekside apartments are under Under construction right now. That's 90 units all affordable project $12 million state grant for that project and 91 bed apartments with full wraparound services Primarily geared towards those individuals who have been homeless or who are at risk of homelessness and a lot of services will be provided there The Stirling project is also under construction the main apartment complex, but we're working with mutual house in California and building 38 units there It's a land dedication site will specifically target traditional low and moderate income households and One thing I think that's really excellent about that particular project again 38 units the target population is going to be emancipated foster youth It's a it's an it's an area that the city has not really been engaged in previously and that's something that There was identified as a real need. So those individuals who are emancipated in some cases minors with sort of folks living with them or also Who are just above they you know 18 and older. So that's going to be a really interesting project in the next couple years The West Davis active adult community, of course was passed at the ballot box just a few months ago and that proposal and contains 150 units of senior affordable housing not again under construction and still has some additional steps ahead of it before it is actually Even awarded funds and also will be constructed, but still something to be coming Now in the next couple years and then the last area that I'll sort of talk about that's a new territory for the city of Davis but I think is exceptionally an important one is There are been several projects that the city has approved the city council has approved in the past several years including Lincoln 40 on on Olive Drive Davis live On Russell Boulevard over by the University Mall and then in Nishi 2.0 all of which Created we're we've actually now been able to sort of for many years. It was told to us that we cannot How house students in our affordable big a subsidized affordable Department complexes to traditional undergrads graduate students. Yes, but not not undergraduates and We worked very diligently with a couple of housing affordable housing law firms goldfarb and lipman in particular based out of Oakland and We're able to essentially crack that nut Where we have In each of the three projects. I just mentioned Lincoln 40 Davis live in Nishi between the three Apartment complexes that will be built. They have not yet been built 460 beds. So this is a new, you know, it's not by the units rented by the bed And those will be subsidized affordable permanent permanently subsidized affordable housing for aim towards and geared towards students So those are just some of the I think a little bit of the background of where Davis has been over the past We'll say 25 years. There's definitely a variety of projects in review right now Then the research Research Park University Research Park in South Davis University Mall proposed redevelopment There Plaza 2555 in South Davis by playfields Park And then also a proposal by Davis community meals and housing called Paul's Place sort of an expansion of the homeless shelter So those are a couple items sort of in review and on the horizon as well And then there's a bunch of ownership projects as well that the city has built over its course of say 25 years Where there are actual land dedication sites in the city has provided housing Most recently Berry Bridge in South Davis in the Willow Creek neighborhood eight Eight permanently affordable homes single-family homes have been built and have been sold to residents The fascinating the wonderful thing about that actually is fascinating too, but the wonderful thing is out of those eight homes I think five out of the eight homes are One or two teacher households that you know that that is an issue for folks in this community and across age range as well as sort of socioeconomic status That is a major concern for us is the inability to afford to live here and and also work here in this community So we are though. I think have been working diligently at providing solutions for folks And across the spectrum and we're going to continue to I think you're going to see the current city council continue to Try to offer a range of options for folks and make things more affordable for those folks to limit for folks to live in Davis in general Thanks And just a reminder there's some goodies and some water in the corner there So I hope yourselves as you get hungry or thirsty So so Matt can you describe the current? UC Davis affordable housing programs for students as well as for faculty and staff I can thank you Thank you, David, and I think as we get the Microphone adjusted, please let me know if you can't hear me, but if it sounds good First of all, thank you for hosting. This is another wonderful event an opportunity to speak about it a really Critical issue for the community. So thank you for creating this opportunity And then I think really just following on Lucas's comments about the laundry list of projects that are coming online that really points to the Overall issue of supply and I think in any market where there's not enough supply prices tend to go up we've seen that in Davis and Both from the community side with the city of Davis and then also with the campus side There's more supply on the horizon with a lot of construction underway. I'll touch on that in a minute But it is a critical issue right now. We're looking at the List of projects that really have not been built in the last 15 or 20 years But the really ambitious efforts of the city to limit peripheral growth and not have a sprawling community has had this kind of side effect of not a lot of infill developments being approved and constructed and Combining that with a period at UC Davis of not a lot of new construction for housing. So those two factors really In some ways have created this local problem But it's a local problem within the context of the entire Western region having not enough supply post recession high demand for housing and Prices accelerating in some ways really beyond what people had thought they would accelerate So that's I think the context for this discussion and and thanks again for hosting For UC Davis, I think the affordable housing programs kind of start with what you would think of as the traditional ways the traditional ways that a university supports its students are through aid packages and the university has one package for households Families sending their student to college and with a household income of less than $80,000 a year the blue and gold opportunity program provides aid for those students and that aid is applicable both for housing expenses and for tuition and fees there's At UC Davis approximately 38% of the undergraduate students are eligible for federal Pell grants So that entire amount of aid that comes to a student helps them figure out their annual budget and helps them in some ways Enter into the Davis market for housing whether it's on campus or off campus for on campus housing We have our kind of traditional campus supply of housing and we typically talk about that in terms of dormitory apartments or Residence halls and that's the kind of dorm experience that a first-year student might have With a dining commons and a shared experience of living in a in a room We also then have for students who are maturing out of that opportunity Apartments and those apartments are priced based on In some ways when they were constructed the older apartment complexes on campus are lower priced than the more recently built apartments But there and there is a wide range in those Availabilities with students who are able to double up and share a room Experiencing that that benefit of being able to share those costs I can get into we house right now on campus about 10,000 students and we have about 4,000 beds under construction Those will come online in the next two to three years And then the more immediate solutions that we have and are introducing more are the kind of softer programs of Helping students become more aware of leasing opportunities helping students become more aware of their responsibilities as a tenant in the community and Opportunities to jump into the city's mediation program if they have a problem with the landlord And other programs like that some of them are housing specific some of them are more food security specific So I think that's kind of the general overview of our traditional support our supply on campus And then the software programs that are aimed at building awareness and making students have more aware of their housing opportunities so Thank You Matt Okay, and Lisa can you describe current? affordable housing options for Yolo County residents So we're the housing authority and we serve all four cities and the unincorporated County and The options are different depending on where you are to some extent But I would talk a little bit about the landscape Essentially around housing so you've heard a little bit about how it works in student housing which in many cases is sort of Over here on the side Because starting in the 70s the federal government has passed a lot of laws ratcheting down Subsidy assistance for students start originally with foreign students Aimed predominantly at those coming out of the Middle East And not being allowed to do it and ended up over time basically disallowing all students With the exception of those with particular special needs such as termed out foster youth Or homeless students so there is a very large barrier actually to students in what you would call publicly financed housing Which still exists and one for which the housing authority wishes that Folks would be galvanized into action Because it's not good to see homeless students who are also saddled with in many cases Student debt and then trying to launch themselves So that's just a side issue and kind of jumping ahead probably to the other So you heard about inclusionary housing really important I should also say the city gets home funds and those are often used in matching In order to be able to build developments and have been a really Good way in which things have gotten built most recently with the Canary affordable housing development which was done with home funds and a variety of other funds and so that's The landscape often with developers which could be private developers or private public partners We also are developers of affordable housing Sometimes we are the sole developer and oftentimes we do it in partnership with other entities, and we've used neighborhood partners here in Exciting we use they I'm quite the trained person. I want to run out and see We've worked with neighborhood partners here to do Eleanor Roosevelt circle and says our Shavas Plaza We have other partners in those projects as well Davis senior housing in Eleanor Roosevelt and Davis community meals and housing is our partner In says our Shavas. So those are some of the newer developments in Davis And then there's also what we would call our core federally funded programs You may have heard of the voucher program and some people call it section eight It actually hasn't been in section eight of the law since the 90s So we should probably not call it that anymore But those are housing vouchers Those are rental subsidies to private landlords where we essentially play the banking function and paying a subsidy on behalf of a qualified household There are also obligations for both the landlord and the tenant around habitability and Suitability and then there's public housing and we don't have any public housing in Davis But we do have several large campuses throughout the county and all together between our public housing and our vouchers and our farm worker housing were housing almost as many people as the entire city of winters and So that's a pretty big population to do and people come and go through that so it's not In many cases not a stagnant way in which people receive housing on average people stay in those core programs for four to five years In some cases seven and then they just need to cycle out to other housing options Now that depends on what's happening in the market when the market's very tight people stay longer when the market Is a lot freer people will move For example in the last economic downturn We had quite a few families leave public housing and become homeowners because the market favored Leaving subsidy and being able to launch out into the regular market So there's tax credit housing development home to fill in public housing Unfortunately the public housing development program was eliminated in the 80s. So that's a very Finite resource of probably the deepest subsidy housing in America and about 1.2 million households across America call that home But you will pay 30% of your income for rent and utilities So if you're somebody making SSI at about nine hundred dollars a month You're gonna pay about three hundred dollars a month for that house And your utilities and that just depends on how many your family if you qualify for a three bedroom You could be paying three hundred dollars a month For that three bedroom because we're pricing it at what you can afford to pay And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the land is sort of cut out of the deal because that land is in public ownership So those are our major core programs and There you go all together quite a quite a big chunk and we are just finished 80 new units Housing with a permanent supportive component in Woodland and as of last night got approval to move forward with our partner Mercy in West Sacramento for another 85 Unit land acquisition deal. So for permanent supportive housing as well So Lisa before you put the mic down just a quick follow-up. So is public housing then housing on which the The land is owned by the public or is there some other way to define it so It's owned by the housing authority So it's public in the sense that it's publicly financed and the housing authorities a public agency But it is for private residential living. So no, you just can't go stand on your neighbor's lawn So you for from their perspective it is their private home and and their apartment complex But it is what you would call public housing or publicly financed housing and for a long time That's been unpopular since the elimination of the program in the 80s But we're seeing a huge resurgence in that issue It's sort of like taking a community land trust model if you will where we're keeping the land Permanently in our public portfolio and then making it available at a better price To folks who can afford to pay it. I see thanks Okay, so the second question and it's It's a more general question for everyone Who is eligible to receive affordable housing and how do they access that housing and then what? Programs are available in your respective jurisdictions So I don't know if maybe Matt can go first and we go down this way Yeah, so who is eligible a lot of our eligibility is based on the students financial aid submissions And then those decisions kind of blend in to create their entire financial aid package so It's the students who have obviously lower incomes or lower household incomes from the family that's supporting them that would receive a larger Financial aid and then the and then have more resources to help supplement their annual budget as they look for housing either on campus or in the city I didn't mention earlier. There is one program. We have for faculty and staff. That's the There's one really good example as a model of what could be done It's the project that the campus did in the 1990s the Aggie Village Villas apartment. That's off of First Street the model there was to for the University to retain ownership of the land to build the units and then sell those units at the About 10 percent below the Davis market at the time So those were made available to faculty and staff to purchase They lease the land but own the dwelling the appreciation in those units does not follow the Davis market So those units have not accelerated like the rest of the Davis market they've stayed at a lower price point so that when they and the appreciation is capped at sort of a Consumer price index or another index and then when that faculty or staff member eventually decides to sell the house The house is priced based on that index. So those houses now when they come to Market and for sale. They're a lot lower than the Davis market That's an interesting model and I think one that could be replicated for other Public institutions for us. It's been hard at West Village to launch our new faculty staff housing We have about 500 dwelling units that are planned to use that same model with Existing labor and materials costs. We're not able to build those At a level that is below the Davis market. They would come in and be Right at about the same price. So it would not be attractive to a faculty or staff member to buy for the same price A dwelling that you would not actually own the land and would have an appreciation cap So hopefully that might change labor prices might go down or materials might become less expensive We could build those or there might be other institutions that could do a similar model for those Yeah, thanks. So what bats outlining is actually the classic model of a community land trust And what's really interesting about them though is that the more expensive land becomes the more popular they become The downfall on community land trust really has been however That unless you're using something like the housing authority who has a lot of lines of business And owns a lot of public land. It can be very hard to make it financially feasible Unless you've got a very wide jurisdiction and a sort of deep well of development and most community land trust don't Which means that I do think from a public housing authority perspective There's actually a really good model to explore because we're already in the public ownership of land business So that is kind of foreshadowing probably another question But the question here is who what kind of programs and who qualifies so an interesting side note for housing authorities Is that when we started we started during the Great Depression and we started as actually the missing middle income housing? for a very long time If you wanted to live in public housing authority properties if you were on something like SSI or Aid to families you would not be eligible And that's a very far place from where housing authorities find themselves today Where most of the product that we offer is really available to folks Below 80% of median income tax credit properties are almost always targeted at 60% or lower 75% of everybody coming into a housing voucher has to be below 30% and median income And public housing at 60% and I just think people don't really get an idea of what that actually means So if you're a family of four And you are making about 25,000 a year. You're at 30% and median income and if you're a family of four at 41,500 you are also At 50% of median income and if you make in this county as a family of four sixty six thousand five hundred a year You're making 80% or less of the median income So this idea of who the folks who are eligible are I think people often think it's Someone much different It's a weird thing to wake up one day and realize you're squarely in the eligibility category As most people in yellow actually are in one of those categories But the majority of our service population Attend to be the elderly the disabled and working families with children matter of fact for those who can work in our portfolio Not children not elderly not disabled or unemployment rate is actually only about 3% So but if you're a senior citizen on a fixed income and you're making 17,005 a year or less you're definitely in our demographic for public housing and vouchers and Portfolio-wide I'm just to give you a sense of how Little income many people in this county try to subsist on the last time we looked at Income figures the average income for folks like that in our portfolio was about $8,900 a year So these are folks who would definitely not not for us Not be living in a decent place and keeping their lights on At all the problem of this course that is one of the amount And it is a fairly finite resource. I do have a little handy cheat sheet for you Which will show you some of those things and a lot of our programs are actually outlined in our annual report Which will give you all kinds of cool stuff and recipes So and a calendar is ultimately useful and that'll give you a lot more detail about our programs Yeah, I actually want to just tag on to Lisa's comments because actually can I see your cheat sheet for just one second? You hold it there. Yeah, because so most of the most of the How you know affordable housing subsidized affordable housing in Davis or in Yolo County, right? Of course is primarily income based as was sort of discussed And so you have these ranges and categories extremely low income 30% of area median income very low income 50% and low income 80% of may or immediate income, but so Lisa did a great job of talking about the a four-person household Well, let me just go very specifically to the single the one-person household right one or two-person household Because I think it also helps to sort of illustrate this so if you are a One-person household and the reason why I want to bring this up is because this goes very Specifically to this new pro these new programs that we're launching with regard to trying to provide affordable housing for students So if you are a single person right in this case, you know, you're in the 30 you have 30% of area median income So that means you're making about $17,500 a year or less you're in that 30% range and so 30% of area median income that Qualifies you as an extremely low income individual and that you would be you would qualify for these Beds leased by beds at Lincoln 40 at Nishi at Davis live Similarly a one-person household That's again say it's a student if you are at 50% of area median area median income That's 29,000 just will say 29,000 per year or less an income And that's a 50% that and that makes you a quote-unquote very low income and then 80% of area median income AMI Is for a single person is 46,600 dollars a year or less So if you're a single person making 46,000 a year or less you qualify as a low income individual here in Yolo County and so I think it's pretty important to Thank you Lisa for that here. I'll get that back to you Pretty important just to sort of as opposed to just giving the the the numbers Of a four-person household It's nice to also give up give the numbers sort of income ranges for a single house single person household So a couple more points here Firstly, I would be remiss if I didn't give a quick shout out to two of my colleagues in the city council mayor pro tem gloria partita Council member Dan Carson. I appreciate you both being here this evening And this is true for everyone here this evening. It's now the Sun's going down now, but it was so Absolutely beautiful today that I really appreciate you being here this evening since it was such a gorgeous evening And I know I'm sure most people would probably rather be outside in the beautiful weather as opposed to being here But we pretty so we appreciate you very much being here for this discussion and then next Just meant to do this at the beginning, but if we could just take a moment of silence we learned today there was a a Pedestrian that was Struck and killed by a train yesterday a passenger train right here at the Davis depot by one of the capital corridor trains and That individual is Noah Moyle and Noah is a long-time Davis resident and also His family the Moyle family are very long-time Davis residents and very much much Sir stalwarts in our community. So if we could just have them and now the other reason for this is because Noah had a long history of mental illness and mental health issues, but Specifically was a resident at Cesar Chavez Plaza on Olive Drive, which is one of the city's affordable housing communities that was built in the early 2000s and has a wide array of Services provided to its residents. So if folks would be willing to entertain just a moment of silence on In memory of Noah Moyle, I would appreciate that Thanks very much So two more quick points on this this particular item because I think they're really quite important, which is I think that One I will just sort of respond to Matt's comments about yes, the city has Certainly over the past will say 10 or 15 years not done a lot of peripheral growth There's no question there In fact the city until just until recently the city did not had not approved a market rate affordable housing Excuse me a market rate apartment complex For a minimum of 10 years there had not been a market rate of apartment complex can either approved or constructed in Davis That of course has changed. We are seeing of Certainly additional for we've seen many affordable housing apartment complexes be constructed during that time But not any market rate apartments The tide I think has turned in some respects with regard to the approval and beginning construction of Market rate affordable market rate apartment complexes. Excuse me And I just wanted to say that I think that there's no question that the increased public support Has allowed us to do this has allowed the city council to take actions in supporting Additional the construction of an approval of additional apartment housing And I'll be totally frank a major component of this has been the students at UC Davis the undergraduates and the graduate students have in many cases Literally flooded the city council chambers And in and on for both the planning commission meetings as and as well certainly the city council meetings over the course of the past several years in support of additional housing options in this community and There is no question at least in my mind that That has that support strong. There's been a lot of strong support from members just members of our community as well But also in long-term members our community But also that there's been just a huge outpouring of support from the student population and that has absolutely enabled and helped the city sort of the council in particular to be supportive of Creation of additional housing options here in our community. So I just wanted to add that in and I think that in particular it's because I think for the students certainly and we're seeing these issues in the neighborhoods as well, you know, the students are An integral part of this community first of all, but secondly They're the ones who I think are in some ways are most acutely sort of I'll say suffering from the lack of housing options and so You know, there are many of us who know students who are not just doing what we would Sort of historically consider couch-surfing, but are literally living in vehicles There are there are students living essentially living on campus that go from room to room I mean not just the dorms, but in particular classrooms and trying to make it sort of eke out an existence here in our community And who do not have adequate housing options available. So And I think the other issue that we're seeing and we've started to see this in the neighborhoods is that, you know This students do not necessarily want to live in 12 10 to 12 students in one single family home, right? They would just like all the rest of us would prefer to live in maybe their own home Maybe their own apartments and individually with even with a few roommates certainly, but the lack of housing options in both the city but also on campus have really resulted in situation where students are Being forced in a lot of cases to live in these sort of situations of you know 8 10 12 or more students per per house per single family house and that is definitely having an impact not city-wide But certainly on neighborhoods that are there especially directly adjacent to the to the campus And so we're seeing that quite a bit and so that's why I think it's also essential that Both of course the city continue to provide Adequate housing options in within the city limits, but also that the the campus provide adequate housing options on campus as well Thank You Lucas It just wanted to make a couple of quick comments before I ask the third question The first one Dovetailing on Lucas's point You know, it's finals week. So I think had We Scheduled this not to coincide with finals week There'd probably be quite a few students in the house here and I anticipate that they will be here for the second and third One so wanted to make that point Second thing I think there's a perception out there that affordable housing is strictly low-income housing And what we've seen in California is that housing has become so unaffordable That that subsidized housing could be for people that you would think of as relatively wealthy For instance, I was reading in the Bay Area People making up to a hundred and seventy thousand dollars a year qualify for affordable housing So it's not quite that ridiculous Here in Davis, but I I know that you can you can rent housing in Davis You know That's subsidized if you're making upwards of eighty thousand dollars a year. So Those are not low-income people And not that there's anything wrong with low-income people or supplying housing for that But I think I think there's a perception out there that that's not quite squaring With with the reality of the situation and a lot of people who who may own their own homes May not even realize what the cost of living is so that's that's something that I think really needs to be emphasized so on that note I Ask of course For for Lucas. What are the current funding limitations for? Affordable housing and when I say funding limitations, I'm referring to on the supply end. So What what is preventing the city from? Enacting more affordable housing, I guess might be another way to put it Yeah, there are a variety of limitations for the creation of additional affordable housing. I mean in this community So one primary mechanism that the city has used Throughout its history particularly with regard to construction of affordable housing has been the use of land dedication sites So so it will use the cannery as an example. So the cannery, you know neighborhood When it you know a hundred acres they the developers the cannery dedicated Two acre parcel to the city so the city owns the two acre parcel And that is the city what the city had as an ability to Sort of put up as collateral for purposes of Partnering with a non-profit affordable housing developer to build eight now what's called Bartlett commons But it's a 63 unit affordable housing community there. So that that has replicated itself Probably 20 times over throughout the years in the city and a variety of different communities apartment complexes and affordable housing communities throughout the city New harmony Owen Dale Tremont Green more village I mean the list goes on and on of different communities in our in date throughout Davis Interest first throughout all the existing neighborhoods that are our Affordable housing communities that have been created through the use of land dedication as a as the mechanism by which the city puts It's land the land dedication site into the mix for it to help leverage it for to gain other Housing sort of affordable housing dollars both federal and state the Loss of the redevelopment agencies So under Governor Brown the loss of the redevelopment agencies for Davis So there's a lot of there's a loss for affordable housing across the state no question Davis specifically It's a loss of two million dollars per year annually since the law the end of redevelopment So that that's a huge that's a really quite a bit of money right where in the range of it's been five six years now Since the end of redevelopment So, you know, that's a minimum of 10 plus million dollars that the city has lost To help create additional affordable housing as a very valuable tool that Cities cities and counties had at their disposal and has been missing in action for now You know getting gleaned closer to the greater part of a decade But there's some hope I think they're certainly so a couple of bills that are in the state legislature right now now, you know Governor Brown no longer in office governor Newsom very much dedicated to Tackling the housing crisis along with the members of the legislature Actually appreciate Sira Delgado from Assemblymember Agar Curry's office is here with us this evening and Assemblymember Agar Curry Cecilia Agar Curry is very supportive of the finding solutions for the affordable housing housing crisis in general But the affordable housing crisis that we are in There are two bills Currently, they're very similar Assembly bill AB 11 and as well as Senate bill 5 they essentially are what we would term RDA redevelopment agencies 2.0 RDA 2.0 and they most specifically deal with Restoring some of those dollars for affordable housing And I'll just say that Dan Carson and I as the legislative subcommittee of the council had brought these two bills among others To the the rest of the council to take a support position on them And we're going to be tracking them throughout the process and continuing to lend the city of Davis's voice and expertise in these matters to the Sort of the passage of these bills ultimately and you know governor brown or excuse me governor Newsom in his unveiling of his proposed budget this year Said look, I don't have a specific redevelopment proposal, you know sort of restoration of redevelopment here But he said in his press conference to the do all those listening including the legislature, but you know legislature Send me these bills set not just these send me some bills. And if they're good, I will sign them. So both assemblyman and some member Agar Kuri I know as a co-author of AB 11 and Senator Dodd I think is that I'm pretty sure is a co-author of SB 5 So we have Dan and I have been to the Capitol talking with both of our members in the legislature but Senate and Assembly and Advocating on behalf of those bills among others But really appreciate the continued support of the full council On advocating for a solution to help restore some of the affordable housing dollars that the city has lost I Will I'll stop there for now, and I've got some more than I think in the next couple questions so Lisa what are the current barriers to expanding affordable housing options in Yolo County? Tag team on to Lucas here I don't think the loss of redevelopment funding for affordable housing can be Understated I think statewide it was about three billion dollars a year That's been lost And you can see the ratcheting up of the housing crisis in the aftermath of the loss of those agencies But that's part of a sort of bigger and longer term and more troubling trend In the 80s you got the elimination of the public housing development program You also got the loss of Federal government investment in infrastructure in America. This has directly led to the need to do impact fees The American people built the interstate highway system by taxing themselves a modest amount and was able to build a Tremendous amount of infrastructure in the wake of that Elimination we've now come to a place where if we're building 80 units you 80 people have to pay everything Where it costs about a quarter for 325 million people to pay for something is very expensive for 80 people To pay their full weight, and that's really led cities to have to Scramble to be able to figure out how they're gonna pay for infrastructure and the impacts on people and those have been pushed straight In to a project and in many cases impact fees can cost over a million dollars to an affordable housing Development project in in communities in California in particular So you see this retrenchment from infrastructure which publicly financed housing is a component of the infrastructure and that is another part of the market dichotomy because if you are in the Private market in housing housing has become a commodity it is cease to become shelter. It's become a thing we buy and sell and How many of you could been to the last party when they asked you how much your house appreciated and you all were very happy about that But that same happiness about appreciation of of your asset is completely disenfranchising vast and numbers of fellow citizens in the state And is directly a result of the commodification of housing when my parents bought a house It was their first house. It was their home. It was their shelter They didn't actually think of it as their investment, but over time we've been sold this idea That our house is our single biggest investment and we should think of it as an investment And that has had a pretty much a deleterious effect on the market from a policy perspective That also sets up an issue about buying more housing because when you have a commodity the commodity is only valuable when it scares So the more that we make our housing scarce and the more it is worth the happier We are if we have a house, but the fewer people get housed and now we are in a Circular cycle of this wondering how we've gotten here a Publicly financed housing in the housing for us for example is outside the market And that's one reason why it can be there and stay there except in the voucher program where we're competing in that market and That current cycle has been very bad for us as well because his housing prices rental prices have shot up The amount of subsidy it takes per family has shot up which means and for YOLO We have a contract that will allow us to serve up to 1795 families and seniors and single folks But because of market prices the value of that contract is now only about 1400 units Which means we've literally lost About 300 units to 400 units annually from families. We could be serving just because the current market value So the problem with not having daddy I love all of Governor Newsome's proposals because I'm in housing and I like housing money And we've passed propositions for housing money, but I think you really cannot Understate the fact that when you're building housing it's big and it's complicated And it takes a long time and to adequately plan for it means you need something stable to depend on and the funding for Stability to be able to have a dependable supply is non-existent Funding is fragmented and it's in pieces and the average tax credit affordable project takes about seven sources of funding To be able to go and even then housing you think is affordable Might not actually be affordable to real people and that's the other big barrier So if I'm building a property for people below 30% immediate income where that's at 17,000 a year person The affordable rent to that 30% median per income person theoretically will be set at about 475 dollars a month But if you're on SSI Your annual income is $9,000 a month Your affordable per year sorry is 9,000 per year and your affordable rentals about 251 So if you can afford to pay 251 and you're going to a 30% of median income unit at 475 You are priced out of the market So it's really important we're talking about affordability They were talking about affordable to whom has to be affordable to real people And so there is also this mismatch even within the affordability community Between what who lives in the community and what that community can afford to pay and what's actually being charged Now if you're the tenant, let's talk about your barrier to housing and if you have been Incarcerated many landlords now have an absolute prohibition on Renting to somebody who has some form of a criminal record And this is not a great thing considering that about one out of every 57 Americans is currently on some form of probation in America and So large numbers of folks are completely disenfranchised from the system by having Actually have been involved in the criminal justice system. That's where the restorative justice program in Davis and Yolo is really important to be able to remove one barrier to being housed if you've been homeless You don't have credit references. You don't have housing references You might not even look like somebody I want to or rent to and that's another way in which you're disadvantaged in the market And then of course, let's talk fair housing and be fair about this Because of implicit bias and other issues Communities also tend to be reinforcing agents for who gets to lease and who doesn't and so for a lot of reasons Certain populations are really deeply priced out of the market But even if you've been in them if you've been housed for a very long time and then become unhoused. I really think you can't Imagine how difficult the barrier isn't so last year I was giving a talk on affordable housing here in Davis at the community center at the police station and afterwards this lovely woman elderly Came up to me and she was so unhappy. She had always Lived in a very nice home with three or four roommates had a very nice a lifestyle She wasn't rich by any means but the landlord had come and wanted the house back And she could not replicate this model and she could not find housing And so for the first time in her life as a senior citizen, she was going to actually be priced out of a place She had called home for decades And these are the realities of that so some of the barriers in terms of also building things Can be the time it takes to get permitting it can be land use it can be your neighbors It can be what your height limitations are All of these are things that have to be thought through But but the good news I think as Lucas already said is when you have the political will to actually solve this for your neighbors That's a good thing So I'd leave you a two cup two ways in which you could really solve barriers is remember that everybody's your neighbor And they just want to get on with their lives like you want to get on with yours And when it comes to homelessness, I'd really like to reinforce that homelessness is not a kind of person It's a situation in which you find yourself Okay, and then the last question in this round For Matt. What are the barriers to affordable housing on campus? Well, thank you and It's tough right I think as the third person the news does not get better with me So hopefully we're at the low point and at some point we're gonna have maybe good news by the end of this Is there something on the horizon, please so our barriers for on-campus housing Right now it's supply. It's that we don't have enough supply We have created programs for students to double up and triple up and that helps them get into housing It helps lower the cost per month for them for a little by a little bit But that's really our immediate sort of problem. That's in the next 18 months to two years is that supply problem the bit of good news is new construction on campus with In fall of 2020 another thousand beds of student housing coming online in The year after that 2,300 beds Plus another residence hall program that would open up in the same year with about another 800 beds So that's the good news Because overall supply Increasing within the Davis market whether it's just the campus or the combined campus and city market would help either reduce prices in the market if there's that much supply coming online or at least Remedy or prevent future increases or prevent Landlords from really increasing rents in the next few years. So that's the bit of good news is new supply coming online The barrier for us to really making that's affordable housing and making it really accessible to students is The costs of materials and the cost of labor We're struggling right now with our projects to bring them in at a Monthly rent to the students that's less than a thousand dollars a bed and that's a big number so We we've looked across and we see some of the projects that are under construction and we expect those will come in Also at about a thousand dollars per bedroom And that's a really tough high price point And it in some point, you know, we looked at financing this project that's under construction right now That's a thousand beds next year and twenty three hundred a year year after so thirty three hundred beds total $550 million of construction and It will help it'll help like I said the overall market But the price point is high and the students will sign up for leases at that thousand dollars a bed They will receive their fight some of them financial aid to help apply some of that money to that thousand dollars a bedroom per year But it's that is the barrier is our ability to build and construct housing at this point is It's Good we can build more we can build on a scale of thousands and thousands But it's not cheap and I think all of the labor conditions with construction workers many of whom left the construction industry with the recession and There's a boom right now in throughout California for building the housing and Contractors are not bidding aggressively or that combined with materials costs means that the ultimate price that is delivered in the Building is a high price point for people to get into and We're just another consumer in that overall labor and materials market So a very difficult thing for us to overcome Oh, there we go All right, so this is our final question and then Once once this round is done We will allow audience members probably to come up Into that corner and grab a mic and ask questions of the panel yourselves So hopefully this is another the more optimistic question So, how do we overcome obstacles and provide additional affordable housing in the future? Why don't we start with Matt so he doesn't have to end? I Think it's kind of just extending what I just said it's the more supply We need to build more of that is what will help the market a little bit In the end I think Davis is always going to be an appealing place for people to live It's a great community people are willing to pay more Particularly UC Davis students Their Stay here in the Davis market is relatively short for some of them. They can look at moving off campus and Forecasting themselves while I'm going to graduate in two years and yes, it's expensive in Davis, but it's worth it It's worth the convenience or it's worth the ease of focusing on my studies to pay more and Jesus markets really expensive I could save if I moved to and pick a direction but students and their Supporting families tend to be willing to pay more to live in Davis and that has a pressure on the Davis market That I don't think we'll go away even with our new supply of housing that's on campus so I See it as a Enduring problem it made better by new supply that we hope will will really affect the market And it is worth to note The last 10 years have been almost no supply and Lucas's long list of projects our long list of projects It really is now another year and then for the success of years after that Nearly maybe 8,000 beds of housing that will come online So for this small community it will help and it'll be really interesting somebody should be doing a research project right now and how does that affect the overall housing market and prices and Condition of units does it cause new investment in older properties? Does it cause? what are the secondary and tertiary implications of a big new Blip of supply into a market. That's a really interesting question. Yeah Okay Sure, well actually it's a fear housing authority. It's pretty fun time to be in housing With all of those obstacles and barriers and the very real challenge that we have I think there's been for the first time for example in the last few years a Recognition that when you're dealing with homelessness, we've woken up and realized that they don't have houses and So that has been a game-changer in terms of how we can Work with folks in that. I was just told the other day that folks think that for the next few years This is really the epoch of housing and that's got to be good news for us And we also have quite a bit of projects Coming through pipeline everything from entry-level home ownership to permanent supportive housing But I also think that there's two other huge factors that are insanely hopeful One is public interest in actually resolving the issue one is Folks who have been marginalized being able to really tell their stories and capture Public attention and also I just think the fact that this issue around lack of affordable housing has reached into almost Everyone's family and people are really realizing it's not somebody else's issue. It's actually my own family's issue I do think that that raises the profile. I think also this is just a fascinatingly Amazing time to talk about eliminating the biases in the marketplace and in publicly financed There's more attention more research more understanding about the neurological basis underpinning Implicit bias and how the echoes of sort of past choices we've made continue to actually Impact the ability of large numbers of our folks to be able to obtain a Level plateau in how they access housing and that is really also a very good thing But then also I think as Lucas talked about earlier. There's a lot going on at the state Which is also both hopeful and I think sometimes just a little bit frightening because Part of what's happening is really fabulous another part of what's happening is this talk about how much local control Does the city actually get to have and so there's the creative tension the state believing Sometimes that cities have been an impediment to the building of affordable housing and so there's a tension there I think that will play out between the the state and the city But two things that are actually happening right now, which if there's two bills that passed They will make the biggest impact. One of them is Aguiar curries Billy bill a some Assembly constitutional amendment one which would change the bond threshold And that would be a game changer in terms the ability to access Good cheap public financing for things like infrastructure Which makes a huge difference and at the Senate level there's Senate constitutional amendment one which would actually take on Article 34 of the US Constitution, which was placed in the Constitution in 1950 as a Jim Crow law in order to prevent public housing from being built in California and that law continues today and Continues to disadvantage folks of being able to build affordable housing every affordable housing Development that is publicly financed has to go through a very long legal review to make sure it's meeting this constitutional amendment in order to even get built And that has had a very chilling effect on how much affordable housing is actually in California I want to also one of the prime contributors and that the folks are actually taking that on now is True ACA one and SCA one assembly constitutional amendment one So only two bills pass it should be those two so And so it's a very exciting time to be in housing and to work with our city partners I think the relationship between the housing authority and the cities and the county in Yolo is the strongest It's ever been and at least from my perspective We have an insanely strong board mostly of electives and consumers And a really fabulous and very tight Team next year will be our 70th anniversary of doing this We have about 3,000 units all together And a very large portion of them have actually been developed despite these trying circumstances Within the last ten years, so we actually see the future can be bright Well, all hope is not lost. That's the first first point So and I mean you've heard that both I think from a bit from Matt and also certainly from Lisa I think to add on to the the two specific constitutional amendments that Lisa mentioned One by our very own assembly member Agar Curry ACA one, you know, I just want to add a little bit more detail about that because the city council actually literally on Tuesday night Just on Tuesday evening unanimously passed a letter of support for ACA one and is now it's being sent to assembly member Agar Curry, but joining a long list of local governments and many agencies and others that are supportive of that measure They think the importance of that item cannot be underscored enough So right now if you are Proposing a specific tax, right? It's on the ballot in California. So if you you know increase in your parks tax or your You know roads tax something along those lines you it has to be Has to be approved by a two-thirds super majority Percentage, right? We know that okay Well, ACA one would lower that threshold first of all that almost exists nowhere else in the sort of you know In sort of the democratic world like it's talk about lack of democracy, right? The you know in this case the the Extreme minority can sort of outweigh the will of the extreme majority and it weren't super majority so So for example the city had a roads tax the city of Davis had a roads tax on the June ballot, right and it Received 50 nearly 58% support at the ballot box Anywhere else in the world that would be a resounding win resounding majority 58% of the public supported this Yet it failed because it did not receive 66% and change two-thirds, right? So Assemblymember Agar Curry's bill constitutional amendment would lower that threshold that two-thirds threshold to 55% still more than a majority but not that Super majority two-thirds requirement. So that's why it's so important Still you would have to Achieve a pretty high threshold of 55% to approve at a look at the ballot box a Local tax measure a specific tax measure, but I think that it's something that it really deserves all our support So there's a couple of other hot, you know, I think optimistic points out there are things so the state You know the citizens of California have spoken in the past couple of elections In November last November there were two bonds on the state ballot dealing with affordable housing prop one three billion dollars for affordable housing That's a heat. That's three billion dollars in bonds, right? That's going to all trickle down Davis will get its Fair share of those bonds a lot of those a lot of that those dollars are actually In part of competitive programs and sort of refilled the coffers of some of the state's affordable housing programs So we will definitely be seeking to apply for a variety of those dollars with some of the projects that we have coming down the pipeline Expansion of the tax credit program low-income housing tax credits. That's underway. I mean, these are all mechanisms to help Sort of with the creation of additional affordable housing Sort of variety of puzzles in the affordable housing pieces in the variety pieces of the right of the affordable housing puzzle And then I think the last thing I'll say is there's a variety of Tools in the affordable housing toolkit that we crab currently, right? I mentioned earlier the city of Davis has long utilized the land dedication tool, right? We get a couple of acres of land That's our collateral. We help leverage that to help build affordable housing working with affordable housing partners on that In Luffy's are certainly a tool that we have used over the years on occasion And and so if it's if it's very expensive to build units on site, we can all work when require on occasion particular project to pay in Luffy's Towards affordable housing that would be deposited into the city's affordable housing land trust or housing trust fund rather and then a new tool that we literally just approved Tuesday night with the approvals in the paper of the The 3820 child's road project workforce housing project Taking a long vacant lot and eight acres and turning it into much needed workforce Housing most of the most of the apartment complexes and the communities that we've built over the past will say 10 or 15 years have been and even approved in the past two years have been focused and rightly so on student housing But then and then even with the West Davis active adult community the potential for senior affordable housing But this specific site in South Davis, which was approved unanimously on Tuesday evening actually is geared towards workforce Housing and families and as a mixture of one two and three bedrooms And so it is going to provide an ongoing revenue stream to the city's housing trust fund Based on gross receipts. So essentially one one point six five percent or so of the Revenue coming income coming into that that market rate apartment complex will go towards Affordable housing into the into the city's affordable housing trust fund and then actually one last quick item I didn't I was thinking of this earlier and that I just mentioned it, which is a tool that the city has used I think Successfully not often but successfully over the course of the last 30 years and is that and I think we could do more of Is the creation of limited equity housing cooperatives both? Dos pinos just up in on off of Anderson Road, excuse me, Sycamore and as well as mere commons in West Davis Those two communities are Both roughly 30 years old Are perfect examples of what a successful limited housing equity cooperative can be The people the generations of folks are living there multi-generations young folks older folks kids folks with kids many folks without kids And it's really truly also workforce housing and you own your own unit I think it's a model that has been used successfully. It could be used more in the future I think we should be considering that the real key there is just the land needing you know Sort of it's same side of the situation in the land dedication site But I think that and then last actually one last quick item in our trip to Washington, DC this week We met with senator fine signs chief of staff and her ledger director And she is going to be introducing a bill very soon. It does not have a number yet and it is a bill that is specifically geared towards Sort of approaching and attacking the homelessness situation In her primary co-sponsor is senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska very Well-respected and also moderate voice and very reasonable voice and but it's important in the Senate to have a Partner as it was a Republican because the Democrats including senator fine signer in the minority in the Senate It will be the the basics are it'll essentially be very similar to the tiger grant Program the tiger grants are a transportation grant program, but it's the basics are 750 million dollar per year Program for five years would authorize for five years per year to grants to cities and counties and tribes tribal registered tribes and To a competitive grant program for specifically towards it for use and construction and on homeless And sort of facilities both apartment complexes and others And so we're going to keep our eyes on that and we're going to sort of also bring that to the city council for potential support As well, so it was appreciated appreciative of hearing that from senator Fine-sense staff so with that I'll turn it back over to David Thank you so before we take audience questions, I have a quick follow-up question for Matt and You know you laid out pretty well the challenges in terms of the costs and everything Is it at all a possibility? That the university or maybe even the state since this is hardly a uc davis only problem Subsidized housing for lower-income students In these conditions, I think that's a great question to ask the Model that all of the uc campuses have put forward for campus housing is that the housing program operates as its own auxiliary enterprise its own it runs its own budget and Needs to finance projects on its own and then from the income from those properties Build up the capital reserves to create new projects So the question you're at you're asking is well does that have to be the case? Could you instead create within the uc system a subsidy to launch those projects or help get those projects so that they are Instead of coming in at just our construction costs Lower than that and make that a better. I think that's a great question to ask We are ourselves asking that question is is there a better way to do that type of business? but we're asking it within the context of 20 years now of less state support for the university system and trying to figure out how do we balance overall our operational budgets and Meet our teaching or research mission needs and Build housing so yes, we're asking that question. No, there's not an immediate answer of a Golden opportunity, but yeah, we're asking that Very good Okay, so anyone who wants to ask a question if you could kind of walk over to there and that Yeah Hand over the mic and then we'll just pass this mic around So the one thing I ask is that you don't make a speech You try to ask a question and then turn it over as sometimes people talk for five minutes and that doesn't work as Well, right no, I have a question actually perfect, but it seems like you've Talked about affordable housing in two different ways one is referring to the high market price of housing So it's hard for anybody to afford it and the other is subsidized housing for low-income people with respect to the first sense I'm curious of You've referred to trying to increase the supply of housing and that raises the question of what economists might call the I've just forgotten name the Anyway, how much does that the price elasticity of supply? That's what it was so Vacancy rates now are below 1% if if we increase the supply and vacancy rates went up to three or five percent How much would that actually affect the price of housing and then a sort of ancillary part of that is If that affects the supply of housing does that really affect Sub-settling affordable housing in the second sense in terms of somebody say who's 80% of median income Or would increase supply still make housing unaffordable? Yes, I'll Kick gladly kick off the response to the first question of the two questions. I think so Certainly, I think Davis is going I think was mentioned earlier Davis is a you know, very desirable community first and foremost I think number two regardless of how much supply is built I don't think we're ever going to you know build our way out of the ability to for you know to lower prices so drastically that would you know Especially with regard to market rate for sale housing I do think though that additional supply and and we I think it's we'll find out especially In this next year or two as all of the supply comes on board I think additional supply is going to be very helpful right one of the real ways to get at some of these issues is building more supply So I think that we are going to we are certainly have taken a variety of those initial steps Things are in the various processes in terms of construction now You know so that's going to be very helpful But I don't think that I think that you know this is going to continue to be an issue both in California You know the governor has a very ambitious goal that he stated of 3.5 million new housing units and then you know sent potentially next 10 years That's a lot I mean it's a huge amount and actually one of the major issues that I think Matt touched on this a little bit earlier, too Is the issue of literally labor lack of labor ability? I mean truly even individual bodies to actually be able to build all this housing So we're going to continue to see that as I think be an issue in terms of sort of obstacles of not being able to Create as many units as potential as potentially like I think the other thing though one of the major issues So there's a cost of labor certainly but in Davis and particularly because the lid it the inability to easily expand supply You know the the cost of land is a very very expensive. I mean that's that is really you know Materials and labor cost the materials to build the housing and the labor cost to actually the you know People-powered actually building to the construction are sort of one aspect But the literally the underlying dirt is also a very very big Sort of issue in terms of I think that you know if lack affordability and Davis and that's not something we can easily Change or adjust Actually, there's a lot of You got it There's a lot of really interesting things packed into there So one of them of course is that the last time the US really ever had Equilibrium in its market was in the 70s when the supply of affordable housing at the low end of the spectrum was slightly greater than the actual demand and that Actually achieved market equilibrium once those price supports went out and the market changed in the 80s We've had this sort of 30-year slide towards where we've inevitably found ourselves The question is how long does it take to undo of that? I don't think you immediately get price elasticity and pipelines for housing are really long For a variety of reasons and partly because people are living for a really long time So you kind of want to get it right the first time The the other piece in there though that I found it really interesting and Lucas you touched on this when you talked about the limited equity co-ops and you've touched on it a little bit as well is that really With the rise of standardization and zoning we also find ourselves now in market entropy so and part of what you're hearing is it really we've a we've Ratchet it down on the kinds of housing we allow to the point where there's either heavily subsidized Affordable housing at this end that all looks Has to be a minimum of 400 square feet and looks very similar or over here, you know 200 450 to a million dollar houses over here We're only about five percent of the population can afford them So if you're looking at deeply subsidized new housing over here and five percent of the population over here We're picking up about 15% of the market and the rest of us are running around playing musical chairs with older housing Stock that still remains and this is part of our issue. So I'm really actually heartened and Ash would know this better than me By the move by jurisdictions to form based codes instead of strict zoning to be able to look at recycling underutilized or low use former commercial properties as Lucas talked about Underutilized shopping malls and other places and getting back actually not only to a variety of land uses But also talking about the variety of housing types. So my cousin who's older than me In the 70s lived in a boarding house now. Do they exist anymore? No because they've been zoned out of existence And you find if you go back and watch old movies, right? If you were a single person, you almost always lived in a boarding house. You might have met your spouse there But those things have really been moved out of existence So this sort of rich variety of court style cottage style infill one to duplex triplexes Has really actually exited the market and left us with selling two product types So I think part of the excitement of what I see happening in the landscape is Actually repopulating that marketplace so people can find their own level. I Could add more. It was a really rich question, but maybe we just skip to the next Question if there is another question. Yeah, there's a line. Okay Hello Don Gibson graduate student, hopefully no longer soon graduate graduate student First of all, thank you all for being here and hosting this event one question I had specifically is about the Those students who specifically are undergoing homelessness or some form of homelessness. I Helped lead a housing survey as many as some of you know that identified that approximately 600 UC Davis students had An acute form of homelessness such as reporting living in either a car or a tent or something not made as housing and Matt if you want work on having this Survey go on for more years be happy to have you offline first But my question is is what services or permanent resources does either the city campus or county wish to and put to ensure We have transitionary housing emergency housing so that those people in the truly rough spots can have Opportunities to have a place for at least a couple nights I think I could jump in real quick we have at UC Davis a new position we're hiring for that is a Community housing assistance person so that person will be full-time dedicated to working with students on both Raising their awareness about housing options Helping them look at either on-campus options or off-campus options and then doing some amount of intake for the emergency housing crisis kind of situations So that's a new issue or a new item for us is the hiring of this person and really asking them to full-time focus on that off-campus housing issue and trying to create students who have a better awareness about housing and then Direct them to the other resources that are available We see that person working really closely with the city's housing person because there is so much overlap that Complaint from a parent or a student or landlord could come either to the campus side or the city side And there will be a lot of overlap between that city and campus efforts, so we'll coordinate that in the coming months I Appreciate the question. I think one so there's no question that Some of the actions that the council city council has taken recently will be of help But you know in a year from now essentially, you know a year or two from now not not today or tomorrow So that's a real issue. I think that you have so there's now only just two of us of the on the city council That are here one person had to leave but two of us here So you have made your point known and your question known to at least two members of the city council I think it'd be really important for you to raise that exact question with the rest of the council as well either individually or at a public meeting and Probably wouldn't hurt to bring a hundred of your closest friends and To talk about that exact topic I Think that Gloria's like no we don't want a hundred of your closest friends. I'm just gonna But Yeah, not at three minutes each But we so that's I really I mean that seriously I think raising that with the full council is important You know, we're in the budget process the 2019 2020 budget process the formulation of that budget So I mean certainly I think raising it now is the exact appropriate time The short answer is we don't have any specific like, you know, we're doing housing You know vouchers or anything at the moment for you know, even nightly stays at a hotel or whatever But maybe we should be considering that so that's one and the other item and it might seem somewhat obscure But I'm will definitely I won't miss this opportunity is that One thing the city is directly doing is Fighting the sequel lawsuits that have been filed against the apartment complexes that we've approved and rightfully so You know people who want to hide behind the shadows of you know coalitions for I mean Davis sites for sensible planning or coalition for a responsible planning or whatever, you know When it's first and foremost a coalition to me is more than one person. I think that's just a definition issue But we are a hundred percent fighting the sequel lawsuits on each of these projects that have been filed Because we know we're quite confident that we were well within our rights to approve these projects They're good solid projects They will stand up in court and they will also ultimately be built and they're needed And so that's one thing that we're directly doing currently right now literally on a daily basis in in the courts We did the same we proceeded with construction even though there's a cloud of a sequel lawsuit for our expansion project. So definitely feel like that's the Priority now is to move forward So just one note. We are not the county. So we are the housing authority and we're an independent public agency with a board made up from elected official from each of the four cities one County Board of Supervisors and then to consumers I Think what happens sometimes with homeless students is because they many of them know that a lot of housing subsidy programs are not Normally available to them. They don't actually tend to seek out access to any of the traditional homeless program access points when in particular those would definitely be open to them in many cases in one of the Open categories, so I think one thing that could happen is actually a better education about how you don't have to always go to the university to see if they can work with you in some of these other programming and I also think People think that because a lot of our programs as a housing authority are not open to certain students that we don't actually House students, but we have a very large student population as well So we especially if those are families with children If they are coming out of the foster system If they're coming out of homelessness or there's about two or three other categories That's mostly right within our wheelhouse if you will And so we would certainly welcome a conversation as a way to Broaden that relationship and we have been in contact many times with the Davis campus housing office as well so Certainly look forward to having a future conversation Just a real quick story Because it's a reminder sometimes we don't even know what resources are out there. So a few years ago I was investigating the Royal Oak mobile home park and I encountered this young couple that had some kids and there was Another baby on the way and and their home was literally falling apart and ended up fortunately being condemned That's the good news. The bad news was because it was being condemned They had to move out of it and they didn't have any resources and they had a newborn baby by this point and and so the question was you know, this is like December are they going to be homeless and Putting them in touch With the staff for a county supervisor. They were able to find short-term emergency housing That they qualified for and so it seems like there's a lot of these programs They're out there that nobody had any idea even existed until they Push came to shove and they tried to access it now You know if you're talking about 600 students, obviously that that's going to be different than one couple but You know, it is something that I think a lot of students don't know how to access the programs I mean one of the stories we ran earlier this year was on food insecurity and the fact that a lot of students weren't accessing programs that Calfresh and things like that which they were entitled to So let's go back to questions Connor So I'm kind of Mormon. I'm a grad student. I have a few questions, but they're interrelated and I won't give a speech so I remember Matt mentioned That there are some issues with building basically a Like a g village type of model on your West Village because of the construction of labor cost But as Lucas mentioned Land in Davis is a very major factor as well And if the university were to basically donate land to that type of project I'm just wondering how The the cost of that type of project would be on par with market rate in Davis When the land component would essentially be donated and then on a related question Even if that's true of certain style of housing I wonder if there could be a community trust type of deal with UC Davis land so Basically, I know that the university likes doing private part private public partnerships With private firms that are in it for profit But I'm wondering if there could essentially be some UC Davis land dedication to like Yolo County or other types of like public or community groups that could potentially build affordable projects on That land and then finally in terms of financing for those projects I do think it could potentially come from elsewhere, but Going back to a question that David had a bit earlier I am wondering about like the priorities in terms of budgeting and if there are ways that The university as well as the city and the county for that matter could reprioritize their budgets To devote more funding to housing Yeah, great question, and I'll take the first one the idea of could we find other partners in order to make our projects? more successful either with a Some sort of effort where we transfer the land to another entity or partner with that entity to make that project move forward We have in the last two years really been focused on the student housing component with the idea that now that that's project is launched We're going to turn back to the faculty staff project and look at kind of every delivery option that could be available and I think that's one that we will Investigate I haven't heard any of the other UC campuses doing something like that But it's certainly one that could be on the table for us to explore and see if there's a creative way to do that So sort of I appreciate the questions and appreciate Matt your response particularly with regard to the university and what might be possible I'll Specifically respond to the third question regarding just you know the issues of prioritizing or reprioritizing budgets You know there may have said this many times lots of people heard this before not just for me But you know budgets are a statement of values And so the issue is you know, but they're all but I mean that's so that's true What's a hundred percent true, but there's also a finite amount of resources and so there's lots of competing priorities So there are you know, for example Many people in the community have come forward over the course of the past year and said we want you to spend more money on homelessness Issues which is a very important issue currently as well. So we Have been doing a lot more than we ever did before Cities are increasingly doing much more than they ever have done before with regard to the homelessness issue Many many in social services delivery as well Met for many years and many decades counties were really that was the primary domain of the counties is sort of providing of the social Services, but cities have increasingly been taking on those issues in the city the city of Davis is no exception so, you know That's an area where I think we're going to put some more resources in this next year's budget for increased services for particularly regarding homelessness and so That's just one example on Tuesday night. We had a discussion about increased staffing for the fire department, right additional firefighters You know, they've been the numbers of firefighters have been stagnant for you know a good 10 or so years now While increased that both the city's population is increased and also the response the calls have increased And the amount of overtime is exponentially increased So the point is we are in a world of finite resources we are prioritizing a variety of priorities and I think that's something that we're we are again in that said it's a dawn earlier, too We're in the budget creation season. And so we are I think even at the next Council meeting like scheduled to have a budget budget sort of workshop in advance of our we ultimately adopt our 2019-2020 budget in by mid-June And so that's a great Item to bring forward both we can bring it forward But also that members of the public cannon should consider bringing it forward As an item to suggest that the council prioritize in the coming but coming year's budget Having authority and so our entire budget goes to housing So that parts the no-brainer, but I do think you have to Really think about it from the county and cities perspective Cities have particular obligations. They absolutely have to do and Lucas touched on that in terms of fire But there's also police life safety. There's infrastructure. There's clean drinking water There's sewer management and there's all these other things that you sort of depend on I think we've gotten very and I mentioned infrastructure before and housing being especially affordable housing being part of that infrastructure but I think we've all become sort of Infrastructures faded into the back into the background We automatically believed that when you turn on the water, you could drink the water and it will actually come out of the tap We think that's pretty magical We somehow think that the stop signs just appear at the end of the street or that the stop lights are like magically placed But no that is all as Lucas said a state of values and a way in which we all Are able to work together as neighbors in the community housing is a portion of that And then if you're the county, you're really tasked with certain particular services in mental health In other places and in Yolo County in particular Because they have adopted a long-term strategy to maximize our agricultural value And they have literally starved themselves of revenue in order to maintain our ability to feed the world so And almost all the money that folks like cities get and and counties get in housing authorities get is Restricted for use within the sort of use in which they're allowed to do unless it's general fund money So I I think that this ability to sort of streamline and grow the pie But also to look outside your city and your county Or the state and go back to the federal government for example and say What's your what's your role in providing for the general welfare? Which is one of the primary three tenants of the Constitution in this country? I think a really interesting fact for me was when I was doing research for Another presentation was to know that sixty percent of big cities budgets came from the federal government all the way up to the 1980 and by 1989 that number it actually dropped to about 16 percent and it has dropped since then so that retrenchment by the federal government in particular and to a lesser extent to the state in Investing in our cities or counties in our housing authorities Has had really a very deep effect on us in the country and really I don't think can be overstated Okay Good evening. I'm David Sandino and I want to thank you too for sharing your wisdom You provide a lot of information and I've learned a lot. So thank you for that I want to try to get you into more of a Interaction with each other with these kinds of questions because you've done a good job describing what's going on within your jurisdictions Your authority, but I'd be interested in your reactions to what the other jurisdictions are doing So for example Matt, I'd be interested if you could say what would you like to see the housing authority? Just one thing the housing authority in the city of Davis One thing that would that would improve the affordable housing situation from your standpoint and then for Lisa What one thing would you like to see you see Davis do in the city of Davis? To approve the situation and then for Lucas, what would you like to see the housing authority doing? What would you like to see you see Davis do just one thing if we can make the situation better? What would you like to see your your cooperative jurisdictions do to help? That's a great idea, and I've got a couple and they're They're there one is a I'll duck on the the easy one is I would like to see the housing authority to get more money and do more of what they're doing So I'm gonna duck on that one the other one is a kind of pet idea of mine And it's the city's rental registration program and sort of what could be a future layer to that program With the idea being Taking that and adding to Rental registration efforts a requirement for landlords to upgrade energy efficiency in those units so we've seen that Landlords who are renting out a unit Typically don't want to invest in energy efficiency because that cost is a direct pass through to the students the landlord never sees that cost and has no motivation to Replace a 20-year-old refrigerator or replace a heating system that's putting 30% of the air directly into the attic So that would be a requirement, you know, if you're charging Davis rents there could be an idea of let's have a conversation on At what point do you say no you cannot rent next year unless you replace your fridge or? The AC unit needs to be replaced or the windows or something like that that would be one that I think would be Beneficially it has all those duplicate benefits of greenhouse gas reductions affordability for students and Keeping the housing stock in Davis at a higher level So that'd be that'd be what we've talked about that. So not a surprise, but my pet project I was waiting for the response Well, we would like to get more money too and and do and do what we do I Think we spoke to the the grad student into 600 homeless students and this and and in the past We've actually had some good partnerships We did the Tana project together, which if you don't know is a mural and silk screen studio taught by UC Davis professors It's actually located in our public housing and was a joint venture between UC Davis and the housing authority With community development block grant funds from the city of Woodland So there are some really good models already in terms of cooperation between us in the university But we have long really wanted to deepen that relationship, especially around the deep affordability needs for students So that would be one thing we would really want to continue the conversation about With the city. Well, we're on your contract to them. So we do their bidding and so we Really are working very hard to to work on making sure that the units that they already have that are affordable Remain affordable and viable And that we are being good stewards of those public dollars. So I guess my thing for the city would be Just tell us more of what you'd like us to do because that's really the reason that we're here is to serve So thank you for that question I think it is good to have us sort of have some additional sort of interchanges with each other exchanges so for the city and I appreciate Lisa's comments just about the sort of relationship between the Yellow County yellow County housing in the city. I would say, you know, first and foremost is the is the Pacifico affordable housing community You know, it's there's some needs for change there and some adjustment, you know Again first and foremost that's half half of it is currently still vacant So it's I mean, it's an area. That's an issue. That's an issue where there is a need for a change No question there at least in change status there But so we're working on that together very much appreciate that With regard to the University, I would say sort of two quick things The renters resources ordinance, you know, City of Davis was the last sort of college town university town in California Without some sort of like renters protections in place In terms of citywide ordinance So it was essential that we not only got that original ordinance on the books But also that we now of course a one-year in Sort of help add a sort of a 2.0 version or strengthen it in a variety of ways And there are some major ways that we're considering doing that including the components that Matt mentioned regarding energy efficiency So that what I would love to see from the University as one's a minor one And so it's a two-fer the first is some additional funds from the University to help continue to implement Said ordinance. I think it's important including potentially the you know, the the energy efficiency components and enforcement of that and The other item is a longer-term one But while I'm extremely appreciative of the especially the mediated Agreement that the the University in the county in this in the city came to several months ago I would really like to urge the University into the future to build more densely The University of California Davis is the largest campus by land of all the UCs over 5,000 acres And that we are building brand new apartments at only a maximum of four stories or new dormitories is you know, it's Frustrating to me, you know, you see San Diego you see births you see Santa Barbara and you see Irvine Are building new buildings at a minimum of eight stories It's it can be done. It's done all over the place I'm not sure why it's not it doesn't exactly pencil here in Davis or UC Davis But I think that the ability to continue to build more densely in the future is something that I would like to see happen That was a really good question All right Somebody hand him the mic There we go Yeah, so this will be the last question Okay Good I Wasn't trying to cut you off. Okay, very good. Go ahead. Hi. My name is Evan I'm a law student and I was wondering if you guys think there's anything that can be done to incentivize private developers and like apartment management companies to Reduce their prices and is there anything that's going on in Davis to like potentially do that I know they talked about building more densely, but maybe to like reduce zoning restrictions or Just what do you think could be done to incentivize people to Charge less give you time to think and my standard answer is build more. I think more supply Into this market will incentivize those existing built properties to either temper their rate increases year-over-year or hold flat or Offer other concessions that might be upgrades to the units or bundling Utilities as part of the rental or or other measures So I think adding more supply to the market is going to put some pressure on those existing complexes and landlords to To not increase the rents as high as they might otherwise So my first answer and that's the easy one. So I'm gonna pass the mic Yeah, I mean if thank you for the question appreciate it I think if you know we sort of Been long a theme that we've had earlier this evening about the notion of like increasing supply will hopefully help and Drive down prices at least in part again I do think the issues of the cost of land or you know being what they are in limited supply in terms of the cost of Mount of land available keeps the prices high in terms of and then of course there's the issues of construction and labor and such but one item that I actually am I You know, it's one of those situations where you don't reinvent the wheel right trying what's happening in other communities, right? So we often do that we look at other communities as templates of what's happening across the state So this is one that I want I'm already raised the city manager I want to bring it to the rest of my colleagues in the city council I I'm not sure how successful will be here, but I would definitely want to give it a shot The city of Santa Rosa has done this and though in the aftermath of the Tubbs fire They've streamlined a bunch of their permitting processes for granny flats You know ad use and such in which we're doing all of that and they have certainly both as required by state law But also just because it's the right thing to do But one thing that city of Santa Rosa has done and it has not yet resulted in any actual applications They just have done it in about the past six months or so though, but it is very important is in their downtown In downtown Santa Rosa, they have changed the permitting process in the city fee structure so that a Develop an applicant building a proposal in the downtown Pays city fees for the first three floors and anything above three floors no fees That is a major. I think incentive to develop upward, right? So does that will that explicitly result in lower? You know the the if they their apartments will that result in lower price being charged to a resident I'm not sure, but I think it goes that issue of building more supply and so you know the city is in the process right now of a Sort of finishing its downtown plan and which will when approved will ultimately if approved should say will ultimately serve as a Approved sequel document for the over overlay of the downtown sent sort of quarry of the city and I'm not sure how part how Popular that idea is going to be with some people in this town But the folks that I the limited amount of folks that I've spoken to so far And it's a lot of folks in and around the downtown think it's a really good idea We are gonna try to bring the the city manager assistant city manager Who's been working on these issues from Santa Rosa here to Davis to talk about this exact issue among others? But in the interest zone in the comment quickly what Santa Rosa is they have said that they have four or five Developers that are very interested in actually taking advantage of this new streamlined rule and fee structure But nobody wants to be the first to do it They're all sort of like jockeying and sort of figuring out who's gonna be the first one to be the proverbial guinea pig And you know, but I think this I think it has the potential to be a pretty useful tool Here in our especially in the downtown area one of the main goals of the sort updated downtown plan is to increase Housing in the downtown and by especially gut by going up. So we'll sort of see you stay tuned to see how that goes So I'm just going to talk about a little bit of Hypothetical not about Davis specific but relating it to my prior experience as a consultant So there are some various things you can do with existing supply for example So with ad use there are ways in which you can probably incentivize for the building of ad use by doing a public financing In exchange for limiting affordability. That's one thing that you can do One of the other things that you can do is if you are code enforcing property and Then you can also give them financial incentive to bring their property into code compliance For example in multi-family and in exchange Extract affordability requirements on a certain number of units In order to be able to do that as well and then in my work with cool Davis We were working on what's called the split incentive Which was really touched on already about the energy use Because there's no incentive for a landlord to make changes where he doesn't achieve benefit That's called the split incentive You need the landlord to make the changes but the beneficiary is the tenant So one thing that we had proposed in terms of that was actually what we would call a green medallion program You either could get some financial assistance or maybe not But if you upgraded your property to meet a certain standard Then you would become a green medallion property and you would know that your property was very much cheaper to operate Than a comparable rent and as a landlord you'd be able to use that to market to your potential tenant base Because what good is it to pay 750 if your utility bills will be 1200 when you can pay 800 and your utility bills are 50 So a green medallion program would really then explicitly say to folks in a market in a market-driven way What your operating costs on a unit would be so those are some ways in which you can work with existing Properties while still maintaining kind of a market mechanism, but then using public finance opportunities to Help affect the market to a public good outcome Thank you. So We're just about to wrap up, but I want to make a couple of concluding comments since I have the mic so One thing I would like to see from the city and the university is I think there's a substantial benefit to figuring out how to get to five percent vacancy because I think that's kind of a critical threshold and so So working together to figure out what that number looks like how many beds that is the second thing that I would like to see will be much more controversial than the first thing but one of the things that most people don't realize is that a Purely affordable housing project is exempt from a measure our vote and and that's that's written into the ordinance and so the problem of course is that How in the world are you going to get land on the periphery of Davis that you can That that somebody is willing to simply give away And so one of the things that I learned over the summer when I went on the affordable housing tour in Sacramento Was all the efforts that they went through in Sacramento To literally raise the money to be able to get some Some of the properties and so I think It'd be really interesting to figure out a way to gain control You know, it doesn't even necessarily have to be a huge amount of land. I mean What are they donating like three or four acres of the West Davis project and they're putting 150 units? So I mean a fairly small plot of land Can go, you know, 150 200 units if you want to go super dense it could go even higher than that So so that that would seem to be a longer-term project That that you could take advantage of if you could get the land and and get the funding to get that land So so those would be my two ideas to put forward You know one is probably just kind of a no-brainer. The other is would be hugely controversial here in this town So We are now wrapping up So I want to remind everybody that we will be back here on Thursday, April 18th from 7 to 9 p.m for the second part in this series and we'll probably have actually a larger panel of Groups and people that are providing Affordable housing here in town. So I hope to see everybody here for that. I want to thank Davis media access who have donated their time to video The this event so thank you very much to them and then finally I want to thank everybody for Taking time out of your busy lives to come down here and listen to our talk on affordable housing So thanks a lot