 Chad Peleshek the city planning and development director and I want to take everybody for joining us today on this important release of the information on an affordable housing study that the city commissioned back started this process back in October. A few housekeeping things that I just want to share with the group is that if you do have comments through this thing we would be happy to try to answer them so Becky Benz is joining us from MSA and she is the consultant that worked on the study and is going to do the presentation on the results. But if there is questions that arise throughout the study I would encourage you to use the chat function and put your comments in the chat and we will try to answer the questions as we go along. I mean at the end of the presentation I should say and if we don't get to all the questions we will put them into a question and answer format and get the answers to you and make it available on the city's website in the next day or so. So I would encourage you if you have to check out early and you want no more information to visit the city's website at sheboyganwi.gov for the information on it. So just a little bit background of how we got here the city has built a number there has been a number of new apartments that have been built in this in the community particularly in the downtown in the past 5 to 6 years and we wondered for a long time what the affordable housing demands were both from the single family side of things as well as the multi-family so we went out on the request for proposals early last fall interviewed a few firms and ended up choosing MSA to help put this together MSA as a consulting firm out of Madison and Becky men's is joining us today and she will give us the report and like I said if you've got any questions please use the chat function on the go to meeting and with that I will turn it over to Becky. All right thanks Chad and thanks everyone for being here and finding out a little bit more about what's been going on with the sheboygan housing study and hopefully asking some questions too. So today we're going to go through the findings and also the recommendations and strategies that we found as we work through the studies. Generally what we're going to go through is just a little bit of background on the process and the data that we used and we'll talk a little bit about findings of the housing market in general and then we'll further break those findings down between the renter and owner market. After that we'll follow up with some demand projections looking at numbers of units by price point general locations. So those recommendations and then finally we'll finish up with a whole toolbox of strategies for how the city can help get those units implemented. So study process. So this whole thing really began with a big data dump and us sifting through a lot of different data sources. If you look at the report there it's very long there are a lot of numbers in it. So that was really the first step for us. Our next step was to meet with staff a few times throughout the process to look at the data we were finding confirm that these were things the city was also seeing talk to the city a little bit about their concerns and what they were worried about with the housing market and then review findings and recommendations with them as well. We did interviews with those we view as local housing experts to better understand the housing markets and its shortcoming. So these interviews were with realtors lenders builders landlords and nonprofits primarily. We also did a community survey to try and better understand what residents were experiencing and the issues that they were having with housing in the city and we had over a 100 or sorry 850 responses to the community survey. We are doing a public review right now. Council viewed a similar presentation last week. After this presentation hopefully council will be approving the study in the next couple of weeks that they're next meeting. So all the different data that we used a lot of it came primarily from the American community survey data from the U.S. U.S. Census Bureau. We also use quite a bit of data from the hood conference of housing affordability strategy. And that data is primarily derived from a CS data but it just allows us to filter that data even further by affordability measures which is really helpful. We also got access through local realtor to the multiple listing service to get our pulse on what was going on with the real estate market primarily the single family condo and duplex duplex markets in the city. And then also that community insight piece that's a really important part of all the housing studies we do because data tells us a lot. But often we need to truth that data with what people are actually seeing. So again that's those experts we talked to the residents and then staff input as well. So general findings. I think population is a good place to start. So over the past 10 years the city has experienced a population decrease while surrounding communities policy increases in population similar to the county. And if we look out over the next 20 years to see what might happen. So the population projections we're using are all based on Department of Administration population projections and those are based on status quo. So I think these estimates were done in like projections in 2013. So they're a bit dated but they're based on what was happening at the time. So looking out over the next 20 years DOA is projecting the city to have a decrease in population of 3% and the county's population is projected to increase by another 1.4% during this 20-year time frame. So it isn't all doom and gloom for the city. I think this just shows that there is an opportunity here. So with the right types of housing with the right types of amenities all the revitalization you guys are doing downtown and making the city a really attractive place for people. I think that's going to go a long way to capture some of the anticipated regional growth. So hopefully this housing study is part of getting you some of that growth to happen. Age cohort projections are another important piece of the puzzle. So the DOA also projects by age but they only do this at the county level. However, we did apply the general percentage increases to the city. But if we're looking strictly at the county numbers, the line I want to draw your attention to is the blue line which is those aged 85 plus. So DOA is projecting that this age cohort is going to increase by 112% over the next 20 years. So this is about 3000 additional seniors in this age group. So there's going to be a growing senior population in the county and also are anticipating the same thing at the city level. So the city does have a lack of senior living options. So with this increase more units are going to be needed for seniors both assisted and independent living facilities. So this is going to provide an additional type of housing that some seniors are looking for. And it's also going to have the added benefit of putting additional usually single family more affordable older type housing on the market for let's say first-time home buyers or those who are looking to buy at a lower price point. So it's going to have a double double benefit for the city. We also looked at incomes. That's really the most important determining factor in how much a household can pay for housing. So if we look at incomes in the city, the median household income and per capita incomes are relatively low compared to surrounding communities and to surrounding counties. So that's just telling us hey generally price points are probably going to need to be lower in the city. There's less money to spend on housing. So that's something important to note. We also looked at what employment growth is going to be like. We know there's a really strong manufacturing base in the city and in the county and surrounding area. So what we looked at is so the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, they're a nonprofit created to address local economic workforce issues. And what they do is they project employment growth for the 11 county northeastern Wisconsin region. So we looked at their numbers to see what they were projecting for employment growth. And what they're looking at over the next 10-ish years in the northeastern region is about a 4% growth in employment. And this is really consistent with what we were hearing when we talked to the county to SCEDC. And when we talked to the local employers that we interviewed, they all felt yes, we are hiring. We are anticipating hiring in the future. Outlook is really good. So this next slide, this is taking those projections that the Workforce Development Board did. And this is looking at the most in-demand occupations for the region and what those salaries are going to be on average. So I calculated a weighted average salary for these most in-demand occupations for the Bay Area region. And we're looking at a weighted average of about 50,000, which is about the median household income in the city. But generally these wages range between 20,000 and 100,000. So there's a really big difference and those are really different affordability levels that need to be considered. Other things of note, so over half of the homes in Sheboygan are detached single family homes. This includes both owner and renter occupied units. 80% of the homes in Sheboygan were built prior to 1980. So it's generally an older housing stock that we're seeing in the community. And this is typical in a lot of Wisconsin communities are generally older types of housing. And while age isn't a direct measure of condition, we often use it as an indicator. So older homes tend to have poor energy performance, higher maintenance costs, and sometimes maintenance and upkeep might even be impossible for some buyers. So that's an area of concern. And age of housing, quality of housing is something that came up in the interviews we did and also throughout the survey responses. Another point to note is just the development of housing in the city over the past six years. So on the right, we have some permit data on the topics for single family and duplex duplex units on the bottom for multi family units for both apartments and for condos. You'll see the development of single family homes has remained relatively low. And this has really been the case in the city since about 2000. Things have just really slowed down. But however, we saw in the past six years, as Chad mentioned, there's been a big increase in the number of apartments and multifamily buildings being built. So a big factor in this is that the city doesn't have a lot of greenfield space for new subdivision development. So it's really hard to get subdivisions with all those single family homes built. A lot of what the city is doing is infill development, which generally lends itself more towards the multi unit types of uses. So that's that's just one big reason that that has been happening. Diving a little bit deeper into the rental market. So just an under 40% of the housing stock in the city is rental units. Again, generally older age housing stock. So it's not really surprising that over over half of the rental units in the city are considered affordable for a household that's earning the median income. Although affordability generally seems good, there is still about a third of the renter population. Who is cost burdened? And when I say cost burden, this means that these households are paying more than 30% of their gross income towards towards rent. So I want to draw your attention to the table on top. So this rental unit mismatch table. So in this table, we break down by income levels. So I'm just going to walk through the first line of the table just to tell you what's going on. So we're looking at zero to 30% AMI, which is zero to 30% of the area median income. So this is the very lowest income population group in the community. So what we're doing in this table is we're breaking down the number of rental units who are technically affordable to households at those income levels. That's the second column. The third column is the number of renter households who are actually at that income level. And then the fourth column calculates the difference between the two. So we're seeing either an under supplier over supply of units. What this table is showing us that generally there's an over supply of units that are available at lower price points, which again isn't surprising due to the age of housing in the city. And generally an under supply of higher price units, which we know units haven't been been built as often recently. So we're expecting to see that this isn't table is not telling us that we need 3000 higher price units, but generally showing us what exists today and where there might be an opportunity for more units. The figure at the bottom, the rental unit consumption is showing us actually who's consuming the rental units by the by the different price points. So I'm going to draw your attention to the bottom column. This is for the rental units that are affordable at 30% AMI. So who's actually living in those units? So 38% of the households living in those units are at the 30% AMI income level. The 60% of people are at higher income levels and could technically afford to pay more. Now that's not saying that they would choose to pay more, but they could technically afford to pay more. So what this this figure is showing us is that households have generally been renting down in the market. And again, reinforcing that idea that there might be some room for higher priced units, which would free up some of the more affordable units to households who actually need units at those at those price levels. We also looked at rental unit vacancy. So a healthy vacancy rate is between 5% and 7%. This generally will signal a healthy balance between supply and demand. So there are enough units available to renters that they have a choice and provides a downward pressure on rent. And this also serves an incentive for landlords to be competitive with what they're offering and at what price. So the city's vacancy rate is at 3.3%, which is a little bit lower than desirable. So there are new units needed to bring vacancy rates up to a healthy level. Another interesting statistic is the cap rate. So the cap rate is the net operating income divided by the purchase price for property and really gives you a measure of risk or a measure of risk for an investor. And when we looked at the cap rate for multifamily within the city of Sheboygan in 2020, it was 7.4% which is the lowest the rate has been in the past 10 years. So this is really telling us that maybe multifamily housing isn't as attractive to developers and investors right now as it has been and it might be a little more tricky to get this type of housing built. The third point I wanted to make is just the point of construction costs being really high right now material costs are really high right now. So in building new units, especially affordable housing unit subsidies are needed to offset costs and ensure that units are affordable for lower income households. So this this slide is showing just a typical example of what it costs. This is for one bedroom rental construction. This includes the cost of land. So what we're seeing on average is the cost of about $130,000 per unit. And if you do the numbers and figure out what the break even monthly rent is on this type of unit, it's $1300. And next slide I'm going to show you. So this is HUD different income levels again, these are those zero to 30% 30 to 50% AMI those different income levels I was talking about a couple of slides ago. And these these squares are all showing what an affordable rent would be at this income level, based on number of people in the family. So if you look at that, I've basically crossed out all the income levels and family sizes for what this type of unit would not be affordable for. So there are very few low income families who could afford a new one bedroom rental construction, again reinforcing the need for some sort of subsidy to make it make it happen and make it affordable. Moving on to the ownership market. So median home value in Sheboygan is relatively low compared to surrounding communities. Again, this is just a reflection of the older housing stock. But with the lower price point, and it's also not surprising to find that most current owners can comfortably afford their homes. So only 18% of owner households in Sheboygan are cost burdened or paying more than 30% of their income towards their mortgage. And if we look at those households who are cost burdened, it's primarily households at the lowest income level at that 50% of the area median income or below. It isn't a typical to see a smaller percentage of owner households who are cost burdened as compared to renters, because there is that barrier to entry for owning a home. You need to have a savings. You need to have a good paying job, credit score, all those types of things. So that generally is a barrier to some lower income families. So not surprising there. We also did the same kind of ownership unit mismatch. So we broke down by the different income levels, how many homes are available at that price point, and how many owner households are at those income levels. And we're seeing something very similar to what we saw in the renter market again, due to the age of housing. So we generally have an oversupply of lower valued homes and an undersupply of higher valued homes. Again, not saying we need 6000 new higher priced homes, but just that there might be a room room for some newer newer units. And we also did the ownership unit consumption breakdown to see who's actually living in homes by different affordability levels. Again, I'm going to use the affordable at 50% AMI the lowest bar on this graph. So for units that are affordable at that level. 20% of households consuming those units are at the 50% AMI or below level. 80% of households consuming those types of homes are at higher income levels. And again, could technically afford to pay more not that they would, but they could. So again, the same kind of idea. There's there's a market for higher price housing. If we could get some of those households who could technically afford to pay more into more expensive housing that might free up some of the housing that's most affordable for the lowest income families in the city. Here's that MLS data. I talked about the real estate data. So we looked at single family statistics and generally probably not surprising to anyone. Supply of single family homes is really tight. So this is led to an increase in sales prices. So over the past 6 years, sale prices have increased 52% for single family homes. Average days on market decreased from 77 to 29. So very, very tight supply definitely room for more. We looked at the same statistics for condos and duplex homes. And we're seeing similar we increasing demand, though not to the same level as single family homes. So median sale price for duplexes increased 75% number of sales increased 27% over a 6 year period and days on market decreased from 98 to 48. For condos, median sale price increased 31% over 6 years. Number of sales went up 45% average days on market dropped from 90 to 72. Demand projections. So this is where we're going to get into the numbers of units. I'm going to walk through just kind of generally what went into the calculation. But I'm not going to do this for every slide. So first of all, we broke down the number of units by owner occupied units versus renter occupied units. So these first slides are owner occupied units. And we did two different estimates. So we did a conservative estimate. So using that DOA population projection for the city. And then the higher estimate is using the percentage increase projected for the county, but just applying that to the city. So owner occupied conservative estimate what went into it. So we incorporated projected demand from new households within the city. And we're specifically looking at households who are under age 65. We have separate calculations for senior units. So new households, we also took into account demand from existing residents who are likely to move. ACS has a nice number you can use for the annual turnover within the city. So we also looked at that. And then we broke the projections down into single family detached versus single family attached. And the percentage breakdown we used is 75 detached 25 attached. And when I say attached, I really mean like town homes, duplex types units that so keep that kind of thing in mind. So we broke it down by that. And then we also included what it's going to take to get the city to a healthy vacancy level for owner units. So I didn't talk about it in earlier, but the vacancy unit for ownership units is 1.1% in the city. Healthy rate is 2%. So we included some additional units to bring that that vacancy rate up. So we crunched the numbers and the total single family detached need. This is for the next 10 years. We're anticipating 244 units. And for attached units over the next 10 years 81 units. So in total 326 units or 33 owner occupied units per year. This is the high demand projection for owner occupied units. So I'll just do total we're looking at 750 units total or 72 units per year for owner occupied. The next two sides are for renter occupied units. So I guess the only things are different about these calculations. So we did the new households. We looked at demand from existing households, but we also took into account we adjusted the recommendations down by the number of units that the city currently has under construction, which is 399 units. So we did a reduction there. And then we took those units and we broke the recommendations into three different price categories. So we have affordable units, mid-level units and high market units. If you look in the report, those are all tied to different AMI levels slash price levels. So we broke it down by that. And then we also added in the number of units that it was going to take to bring the city from the 3% vacancy up to 5% vacancy. So just overall the number of rental units that we're projecting the conservative estimate is 401 units over the next 10 years or 40 units per year. And then the high demand projection is upwards of 1,000 units or 100 per year. These last two slides are geared specifically for seniors. We broke out the 65 plus population. So this first slide is looking at independent living options. So we projected the number of senior households age 65 plus over the next 10 years. And the slide is specifically looking at the percentage of households who do not need assistance with daily living. So we calculated total market potential. And then we further broke down the projected units into subsidized units and market rate units based on current income levels for those 65 plus in the city. And the thing to note about these projections is there's not an official count available for the number of independent living units in the city right now. So this 1,000 subsidized 284 market rate units. This is total number of units needed in the city by 2030. It's not taking into account any existing units. And then on the flip side, we also looked at seniors who would need assistance with daily living and looked at the number of assisted living units that the city would likely need over the next 10 years. So this number does take into account existing units. The state has a nice count of assisting living nursing home units. So we calculated that there would be a need for an additional 196 assisted living units over the next 10 years. Part of our recommendations was looking at specific types of units and locations in the city. So the first type of unit that we're recommending a focus on is condos. So the benefit of condos that there is that they're attached ownership units, they require less land and therefore less costs. So they're generally a more affordable home ownership option, which is a good fit for those with lower incomes who maybe don't have what they need to afford a detached single family home. So that's a great ownership opportunity there. Also the senior housing piece. So for those seniors who are looking for independent or assisted living units, there aren't a lot in the city right now. So building more of those, it's going to build the need for the seniors. And it's also going to like I talked about before, free up some additional affordable owner occupied units, which will be great for starter homes or those with lower incomes. So that's kind of a double whammy there. The third recommendation we had is for missing middle housing. There's a graphic below on the side to show you kind of what we're looking at. So these are the 2 to 16 unit attached and they can be either condo or rental units. But these types of units have the benefit of addressing affordability. And they're also compatible with a lot of different neighborhoods. You still want to be mindful of where you're placing them and making sure it makes sense. But they're they're generally compatible in a lot of different locations. The fourth type of unit that we're recommending a focus on is 3 plus bedroom rental units. This is something we've heard in interviews in Sheboygan and we've heard this in other communities we've talked to as well. It's it's hard to house lower income families. And those units that are available. There's generally I mean just due to the age of concern about the quality of housing and just they're not being many options. So families don't really have a choice. So that would be the last type of unit that we recommend to focus on. And then finally just a location specific recommendation to focus on infill development. So we know the city has limited greenfield growth opportunities so placing a high priority on infill especially downtown especially along certain corridors and the unit types that that we recommended a high priority focus on really lend themselves well to infill development. So the condos the senior housing really that attached type of housing that works well as infill. We also included a map for target areas for affordable housing. So the lighter areas on this map are the higher priority areas for affordable housing. And this map was based on so there's a state and federal program low income housing tax credit which is the most common type the developers used to help fund affordable housing projects. And it can there's a competitive part of to that program. And so developers can score higher by meeting certain criteria and so we took some of those criteria and put them on a map. So some of those criteria are on a long bus routes near parks schools within tax increment districts. So we highlighted those and put those into a map for the city to use and also developers to use to highlight those areas that might score higher when going for funding for affordable housing. Now the strategy that I really get into the meat of what what it's going to take to to make this happen. So the first strategy I want to recommend and the first thing I would suggest to the city to do is to establish a housing committee. So this committee should be in charge of implementing this plan overseeing any funding programs that results as from this plan. Doing public outreach about what the city is doing what the city's priorities are and especially when it comes to affordable housing. Doing an outreach about about who's living at these types of units. That's a common barrier. Communities are seeing to getting affordable housing built as people just feel a little uncertain about it. So using this housing committee is really a public outreach piece as well. And then this group could also be in in charge of updating this plan as new data becomes available and new priorities arise. The second recommendation under communication would be to just take a have the city take a stance in the messaging stance. But the city believes in access to safe and affordable housing for everyone. Especially those who struggle to find housing more than others. So low income resident residents homeless those who have a criminal record prior evictions and really prioritize programs that help these groups. The third recommendation would be to attend we did events. We did events. So this recommendation actually came from an affordable housing developer who's worked with the city. And their their general thought was the city's been great to work with. So the city's been really flexible in working with developers especially to get affordable units construction constructed which is great. So this developer suggested go to the we did events network with developers let them know what what you're interested in talk about potential project ideas just have a conversation. So relatively easy easy thing to do but could have a potential big impact. The fourth recommendation would be to continue the developer summits that the city is doing to show developers what's going on in the city what kinds of new and exciting things are happening and why it's a great place to live and really market those redevelopment properties. Under initiatives. So the first one would be to focus on neighborhood associations. So this came up especially during interviews. And in the survey as well I would say. So neighborhoods are really really important to people. They feel it creates a sense of identity and really helps people feel like they're they're part of something. And so we would suggest to continue building neighborhood associations and potentially engage them in different planning efforts and new developments. To get them on board and really you know from the beginning of a process to get people's input. The second initiative we are recommending is to purchase and market city owned redevelopment properties. So identify properties that are primed for redevelopment and release RFPs tell developers exactly what you want and where you want it. That's something that they like to see and we've seen other communities do that with success. A third recommendation would be to develop neighborhood master plans. So I mentioned the city doesn't have many opportunities for new greenfield development. But there are opportunities within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction. So if you look at the city's comprehensive plan and the future land use map there's one area to the north and one area to the south that are identified as planned neighborhoods. So we really see these two areas as opportunities for the city to set a vision for the neighborhood make these places walkable include a mix of uses and a variety of housing types at different price points. So lots of different people can live in the community live in the neighborhood and they can stay in those neighborhoods as they age or as their circumstances change to focus on housing focus on just quality of life in the neighborhoods providing parks providing gathering spaces make these really a model for what you want to see as other neighborhoods might redevelop within the city. So people what what it could be. One thing I didn't know in the plan though is careful site design is going to be a key part to the success of these neighborhoods and making them work and function like they should. Last initiative recommendation would be to create a tenant resource center. So landlord tenant relations with something that that came up a lot in interviews and just talking talking with different people. So creating something like this promote promote positive relationships between landlords and tenants. This could be you know the city already has access to some of this may be expanding some of these services. So the housing counseling eviction clinic clinic exploring landlord and tenant rights and just helping make those relationships work better and giving people a resource to do that do so. As far as regulation. We had a number of recommendations. So probably one of the biggest ones is just allowing multifamily as a permitted use. So right now multifamily is a conditional use in the residential neighborhoods that it is listed under. So just making it easier to develop and showing people yes, this is something that we want. That's going to save developers time and money as well. A second recommendation would be to update the zoning code to reduce front inside yard setbacks and all residential districts to decrease the number of variances that are needed. That's something that came up when we're talking to staff and developers is because of the older generally older lots. They're smaller. So there are generally a lot of variances that are requested and that just adds more process and time slash cost to developers into the city. The third recommendation is kind of going one step further than that. But just creating a new residential district that's going to enable smaller lots perhaps on alleys by right to just try and streamline the process and make it easier for that to happen. The fourth recommendation is about the city's current code enforcement program. So that's something that came up in interviews and it was recognized as a success for improving the appearance and safety of neighborhoods and some main corridors. But it was also brought up that one downside to that program is that for older homeowners or those with lower incomes and little equity in their homes. It can create hardships when they're already struggling. So for this reason it's important to have staff and maybe it's one maybe it's more people who can be empathetic and take the time to work with property owners and try and find solutions. We're trying to avoid putting additional hardship on the property owner. Last recommendation here just would be something the city has done recently is just being flexible on its infrastructure requirements. The city has seen some reduced cost due to curb requirements modified cross sections of streets for some some green field development that happened recently and that cost savings is passed on to homeowners eventually so that's going to bring in homes at lower price points which is going to be a benefit to everyone. Lots of funding recommendations. I guess that's really what a lot of it comes down to. So the first probably one of the biggest recommendation is to expand the use of the city's revitalization fund. So using this as a general purpose vehicle to fund affordable initiatives around the city. These funds could be used as matching funds as land purchase for new construction renovations down payment assistance you name it. And this fund that what we're seeing communities. How they're seeding this type of fund is kids. Bonding sale of land general funds private contributions. This is often a good way to help developers be more competitive when they're applying for funding programs. This is a really nice match to have set up for them that's ready to go. Another recommendation so this is based off of something that Dane County is doing that developers across the work across the state are really excited about. So what they've done is they've gotten together a bunch of major employers in the county and investors. And they started this fund to build housing that's affordable at the 80 percent AMI or lower level. And when investors are getting out of it is a modest return. But employers see the value in having housing that's affordable for people working at their businesses. They want people to like where they live. They want people to be able to afford where they live. And they're hoping that'll get them invested in the community and where they're living. So I think that's a really interesting thing to maybe put some focus on and something that we've heard developers are interested in. And we're increasingly seeing employers realize that housing having the right type of housing at the right affordability levels is important for what they're doing too. The next two recommendations are focused on TIF. So the first would just be to use TIF to construct infrastructure to offset some of that cost to developers, which eventually leads to offset costs for home homeowners. And then the second TIF recommendation is to use the TIF affordable housing extension. So the state allows you to hold TIFs open for an additional year and to use that increment primarily for affordable housing initiatives. So the city has four TIFs closing over the next 10 years. So we really see these as great opportunities to seed the neighborhood revitalization fund and make a really big impact for the city as far as what's available for affordable housing funding. Also recommend promoting the use of the low income housing tax credit again that neighborhood fund could be used as match which would be very attractive to developers. Increase the use of the WEDA 710 Flex financing program. So that program is not as attractive when interest rates are low like they are now. But when they're when they're higher again, that's an attractive program to use and it requires a set aside of affordable units at the 80 percent AMI level. There are several down payment assistance programs. So just promoting the use of those programs, there's one local program and then WEDA has one at the state level and the region has one at the federal home loan bank of Chicago. The last recommendation is maybe something to tackle with other other communities or your representatives on this is something that Illinois was looking at. But off offering a bill that offers rental incentives to landlords who rent or renew leases to someone convicted of a crime. But again, this is something here time and time again in every community we work with. So a recommendation is in there to partner with some of those communities and and see what can happen. And then last but not least recommendations related to partnerships. So the first one just be working with affordable housing providers and developers that are already located in the region. So habitat partners and others by having a supply of available lots or even rehabs of existing buildings. The second piece is again related to the landlord education. We know the city does that already but just continue to advertise those programs and reach out to landlords. The third recommendation again relates to major employers in the region. So this recommendation is getting at just convening maybe a working group maybe once a year to see what's going on. What kind of employment projections on these businesses have what price or sorry salary levels. They're anticipating our hourly wages. They're anticipating hiring at and then talking about initiatives that the city is spearheading and seeing if there might not be some overlap of interest and maybe pulling some of those employers on board and on board and getting them to champion some of the initiatives and work with the city. And then the last recommendation is to explore opportunities to partner with property management companies who offer on-site child care or health care. I'm just really those things that we often see families struggling to find access to offering them on-site or even what we're seeing some communities do is offering them adjacent to a new development. So right now I can think of one in my community where a new apartment building was built right next to a health care clinic. So looking at models like that that other communities are trying out. And then just finally to wrap it all up so that's a lot of different strategies. A lot of those things are within the city's control. But there are a lot of things that are outside of the city's control. So it's going to take a lot more than just those strategies to solve the city's affordable housing issues and other housing issues. And this is the same with every community. So it's going to take talking to neighboring communities to talk about what types of housing they're providing what what need they're seeing and having some partnerships there. And it's also going to be more state and federal policies and programs. Lytec is awesome. But that's probably the main thing that that is out there right now. So hoping hoping we'll see more of that and more more programs and policies and maybe funding in the future. That would certainly help. So with that that is all I had. I guess we'll open it up to questions now. Chad are you you're on mute. Well sorry there was three questions in this in the chat and then we'll open up to other questions. So addressing the three questions in the chat. One of them was is a study available and I said put the link in the chat. It's also available on the city's website. It's a fairly large document. So we can't email it but you can get it out of the city's document software board docs. So that's available. There's another question in terms of rental units. Does it seem like the answer is actually for the city to continue to build the luxury more expensive rental units? Question mark we've heard time and time again that there are too many. So this seems to be count. This seems to counter what we've been hearing the market deserves. How is the city managing that. So I guess I'm looking for I don't know if Tara if you're still on and if you'd be willing to unmute your line and just get I'm a little confused over what you're asking. Yeah hi Chad this is Tara. Can you hear me OK. Yep. Perfect. Well thank you. Yeah I just know like it's one of the conversations that we've been hearing are you know people saying there are too many luxury apartments being built. We want to see some more affordable options. So I just think it's kind of interesting to see the figures that maybe actually the answer is building more of those to kind of free up those affordable units. That's kind of the conclusion that I'm hearing. I just want to make sure is that is that kind of correct or can you expand upon that a little bit. So I would say the answer is both. I wouldn't say that simply more luxury units are going to do it. But we know it's hard to get affordable housing built. So definitely yes I would say priority on on more affordable units. But at the same time we know that it's easier to get market rate units constructed and that's going to have the benefit of attracting some of those households who can pay more. So I would say it's definitely both. I didn't mean to come off as it's it's it's we need more luxury units. That's definitely not what I meant to say. I think both are part of the solution. Okay. Thank you for that. And Emily asked we've been told that the creation of luxury apartments would free up lower cost apartments in the community. But boots on the ground observation is that landlords are asking higher rents on the now quote unquote freed up apartments. Is there a way to balance the market to avoid the inflation of older lower cost apartment rental expectations? So certainly I think increasing the supply. I think supply is still quite tight for rental units. So landlords can do things like that which which is not right. But I think adding more units is going to place more pressure on landlords to to to make them have to do better and provide higher quality units or provide more competitive price points. So those are the questions we got. Is there anybody else on the line that has additional questions? You don't have to type it in the chat. You can just unmute and ask the question. There is a question that just came in. Does the city have in its planning at present more senior options? And the answer is yes. We recently finished a neighborhood development plan for the River Bend neighborhood and looked at what the former may line property along the Sheboygan River could be. And the recommendation that came out of that was senior housing options related to both independent and assisted and then some type of memory care. So that's just one of the locations. There's multiple other locations that this could be at. So yes we are we see the need in the study confirms the need and we're just looking for interested parties that would like to develop that type of housing. Anyone else have any questions? What about another question? What about 55 and older condos? Yes, that plays into the whole thing. It's you know, it's independent and market rate and condos. So it's finding the right developer that can make the numbers work and that you know the right location. But yes, that is part of it. The question about the slideshow posted anywhere. We will get it on the city's website and then we will also get the this is being recorded by W S C S our local cable station and we once it's posted on their YouTube channel, we will post that on the site as well. So you can get it right on our homepage. The next question did the consultant analyze not only quantity but also quality of low cost housing overall in the city. Yeah, so I guess most of our analysis there came from anecdotal data from talking to staff from talking to the housing experts and it also shine through in the survey that we did. So there's definitely a concern about quality. And I think continuing to fund provide funds grant funds for people to rehab their homes. I think that neighborhood revitalization fund expanding the use of that and providing additional seed money for that. I think funding rehab is going to be an important part of that just because of the age of housing stock. I think that's going to be a big, big focus too. There's another question. Does the city plan to create a housing committee? And at this stage, I am unable to answer that. We probably will. This document will be report will be referred to the committee of the whole when the new council is seated and the new mayor is on board. And then that will be one of the discussion items is whether the council would support the creating of another committee to address housing. Are there any other questions? I'll come off mute and ask a question verbally. First of all, I just wanted to say thanks to Becky because I know I talked to her as part of this process and to Chad for all the information and being able to, you know, put it into a 40 minute presentation. But kind of along the lines of what Heather asked, could you talk a little bit more about next steps and how the city will be communicating whether or not, you know, what's going to be followed through on as far as some of the recommendations that were put forth. So like any study that we do, we will work with the council to work through these, you know, to work through the recommendation. Some of these some of these require the council to take action when it comes to changing ordinances and processes. We can this is a document that we have already shared with a number of interested parties that are considering developing affordable housing. So it's going to be a working living document in the planning department and the city, you know, and the city document as well. So I and then we'll be reaching out to our partners. We are working on staff in the city planning with a number of partners that are on the phone are working on a housing solutions, housing collaborative grant application where they would bring in some technical assistance from a housing affordable housing consultant to kind of give us some help on what kind of drilling into more of the landlord kind of tenant problems. So there's a number of initiatives underway and we will continue to use the opportunities that they present themselves and also to look at. You know, look at how we use this to develop more housing. I think the the challenge we had and I we had a meeting earlier this week with our state and federal legislators and I shared the concerns that we have in the fact that, you know, if the if it's costing 1300 plus dollars per unit to build this type of housing. And we want to keep rents in the lower range of the 4, 5, 6, 700 dollars. How do we build the bridge a gap in between that because the city can't the city can't fund that gap that level. So, you know, I know that in talking with Senator Baldwin's office and the contact there that there was some there's some stuff coming through its federal legislation that might help with some of this, but it's going to take as one of the last slides that Becky laid out it's going to take the, you know, entire in the state, the federal and the city to, you know, kind of fill these demands because frankly, we just don't have enough resources on the local level to, you know, completely move forward and get these units built based on current construction costs. So there's another question that that low vacancy rate of 3.3 causes great problems for finding housing for low income people that is very important to bring that up. And then another question, do we know what the selection process will look like for the housing committee? And I can't answer that at this stage. It's really going to be up to the committee, the council and the council members to decide that. But I would believe that it would be open to interested parties and people that want to serve on it. So we will keep the communication open and work through that process with the council. Are there any other questions? Hi, my name is Emily Cundey and I'm actually currently the chair of our Sheboygan Housing Coalition. I just kind of want to bring this up to the community at large here that there is a housing coalition that meets monthly in Sheboygan. We're meeting virtually now. But if anyone's interested in joining that, it's a pretty open forum where we discuss the housing issues in Sheboygan and throughout Sheboygan County. It seems like this is a pretty interested group and not all of you are at the table. I will in the chat put my email address and I can add you to the list if you're interested in learning more about that. But I am pretty sure that members of the housing coalition would love to be part of any sort of committee that could help with this housing moving forward as well. Thank you, Emily. We're well aware of the good work that your collaboration does and we will definitely keep you guys involved. So are there any further questions? If not, hearing that there aren't, if you have anything further, my contact information is on the city's website and be happy to answer any further questions of anybody that might have anything. Otherwise, watch the city's website for some additional information. You can download the study and read it there and I hope you enjoyed today's presentation on the affordable housing market study results. So thank you for your time tonight. Yeah, thank you, everyone.