 to be completed at that time. At this time, we are holding a public hearing. And this is on CCHIP and ICRIP public hearing. Will the clerk read the agenda? Item E on the agenda is the public hearing. And it reads, I'm sorry, item number three, public hearing to gather community input on the proposed amendments to the Center City Housing Incentive Policy, CCHIP, and the inner city reinvestment infill policy, ICRIP. Thank you. The public hearing on the Center City Housing Incentive Policy and the inner city reinvestment infill policy is hereby opened. Anyone who wants to express their views may do so. However, comments must be limited to matters about either or both of the policies. If the speaker starts discussing any other subject or topic, he or she will be interrupted and asked to leave the podium. Okay, we have people signed up. I'll call the first two people. First one is Artman Bland followed by Layla Neek. Artman Bland followed by Layla Neek. Give me some seizure. I'm not sure on what I'm speaking on. You're talking about the CCHIP and ICRIP amendments. The Center City Housing Policy and the inner city reinvestment policy. Well, seizure. I paid, let me say this because I don't want to be off the subject, but I have paid tax resolutions to pay our bills, our taxes off, and the tax office stole and sold our property and ignored the tax, ignored the tax office, the tax resolution, people paying the taxes and they stole and sold our property and promised me excess proceeds. And so I haven't had a standstill where I can't do anything because they haven't given me and they sold to the Iranians and they were conveniently there to be there to have it auctioned off to them. Mr. Bland, that really is inappropriate for this hearing, but you are signed up to talk under Citizens to be Heard. May I call on you later to talk about that? Okay, all right, all right, because I wasn't clear. I don't want to sit on the wrong station. Thank you very much. Layla Neek followed by Mark Pettis. Hello, my name is Layla Neek, and I am the property manager at the Baldwin at St. Paul Square. And so 50% of our property is selected for the San Antonio immediate income of the 80% units. And so a lot of our residents are pretty much entry level Air Force military. We also have city employees such as idea public school, so entry level teachers as well, counselors. For the city, we have via bus drivers. We also have counselors, like I said. And so we are for bringing more people to the area in our property. About 20% of the residents don't have vehicles. So they use the scooters, which is convenient for our residents and for the environment as well. So they don't really often use their vehicles to, you know, go anywhere. Walking distance is, you know, to the river center mall is a mile. There's restaurants half a mile away. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Neek. Mark Pettis followed by Dr. Meredith McGuire. Yes. As you know, my name is Mr. Mark Pettis. I'm against this plan amendment to come forward until we assess where these neighborhoods and who's getting this grant money. As you know, we've been having some issues with developers here in the community having an influx of permitting system out there development services. In most cases, there's some issues with the zoning. And I know Mr. Shaw was on the zoning commission. And if you look at when Shaw was on the zoning commission, there's some questionable cases that came when he was on that board. And as you know, when it comes to, you know, these grants, where the communities are going to be located? As you know, if there's any around this pro burry over here, you know, we got chemical facilities that frequent our neighborhoods that men going under under the radar. And as you know, you know, we've had a like I said, when you built the Victoria courts many years ago, and they had a best us, you know, I'm not too sure on the planning or anything. Do we have anybody here that knows about that plan amendment? No, you know, city attorney maybe over here. But anyway, like I said, it's public safety. And hopefully we have a map on where is this money going for this, you know, in the neighborhoods or the neighborhoods clean environmental. And you know, and as you know, I've been a very big critic on our environment here in our community. I'm not too sure if you got the office sustainability involved, the office of the government affairs, Jeff Coyle involved to kind of verify these areas where y'all want to give this grant money to our plan amendments to. And as you know, plan amendments, it requires a task. And in most cases here, we've been having development in most cases homes don't even have to come for rezoning or any plan amendments. They get it automatically draw off the board. You know, extra city clerk, she's aware of that Melinda Euregas, all in her staff are knows about the undergrounds that are happening. I'm even wondering why we're having a waste of today. Because it's a done deal. Yeah, Trevino said done deal, right? That's why you're probably discussing not back there with the extra city attorney. But anyway, it's about public safety and hopefully this money and the developers and who's who's who's going to be getting that money to build matchboxes here in the city. And I tell you, there's a lot of matchboxes going growing around here in our city, very big matchboxes. And we don't have the educated inspectors to be out there inspecting. I'm not too sure if y'all do have a committee that's going to be overlooking the funds if it does pass, you know, not too sure. But like I said, public safety in our community, and many of you have been given a deaf ear, even the city attorney's officer, you know, putting these people in very dangerous situations where families could be shaken up at night. As you know, of, you know, there's places here in the city that could happen. And I was reading this one. Thank you, Ms. Perez. Dr. Meredith McGuire, followed by Ms. Gay Wright. Can you give me your name? Ms. Gay Wright, okay. Dr. Meredith McGuire, you have six minutes. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I first of all am concerned because I believe that Sea Chip and ICRIP and other impact fee waivers are not a solution to San Antonio's affordable housing problems. In fact, they are a big part of the problem itself. I urge you to postpone any incentive program consideration until you've had a chance to look very carefully at what the affordable housing program that Maria Beriozavo was involved in. I think they are coming up with a number of very valuable recommendations and that those should be highlighted as what you need to be working on and focusing on. In the meantime, pause all impact fee waivers. The issue has to do a lot with the unaffordability of utility rates in this city. The utility rates have to go up because the costs are rising, but the fact of the matter is they disproportionately hurt the residential rate payers and the ways that the rates are structured is such that it particularly disadvantages low-income households so that we have to fix the utility rate structure before we're going to be able to protect the people who are already here and already barely able to afford their housing and their utility rates. Equity for the many San Antonio residents who are especially vulnerable to some of the worst impacts of climate change, that's another really important thing that we have to be working on because we know that we have increasing chances of heat waves, of droughts and so forth, and we have to make sure that the utility rates are affordable for families so that they can afford to have cooling for example in times of heat waves and that they can afford water despite drought and other problems. There are entire neighborhoods at risk due to their inability to afford a decent place to live and the cost of utilities necessary to have enough water for health and life itself as well as enough electricity to keep cool. I urge you to closely examine the entire effects of the impact fee waivers, who benefits and who loses. When impact fees are waived it is the existing residential rate payers who lose. This morning I was at the meeting of the Capital Improvements Advisory Committee at SAWS. It was discussing setting new rates for impact fees to be paid by developers for future development for new housing. I learned that the existing impact fees do not cover even half of the actual costs of the new development so that existing residents are already being forced to subsidize new development with every monthly bill. I learned that existing waivers of impact fees resulted last year in more than $3 million being paid by existing residents rather than by the developers who stand to make billions of dollars on those new developments. I learned that the developers and the real estate industry appointees to that committee are fighting hard to prevent the cost of the Vista Ridge capital investments from being included in calculating the impact fee amounts for the next 20 years or so. That is outrageous. We came to this room in council in 2014 and argued that the Vista Ridge was a terrible deal because it committed SAWS to paying for vast amounts of water that San Antonio doesn't need but now has to pay for whether we need it or not. The developers and the real estate industry paraded before council insisting that San Antonio is growing so fast that we needed non-Edwards water to supply urgently. The figures they used for per capita consumption were greatly inflated. Now they are claiming that they should not have to pay for SAWS investments and if that is allowed it will cause a 9.84% overall rate increase that will make SAWS rates to existing residents even less affordable. Please don't force San Antonio residents to subsidize new development. Halt the impact fee waivers and focus on true economic development which would address the housing that's affordable to the workers and the people of San Antonio. That's the only justification for any kind of incentives. Thank you. Thank you Dr. McGuire. Don Hanson followed by Maxwell Woodward. Hello my name is Don Hanson. I'm with District 1 and I'm also part of San Antonio neighborhoods for everyone. I am in support of the ICRIP and SeaChip revisions. As we know the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan, the SA Corridor Plan and the Housing Task Force all specify to target more housing to transit corridors and regional centers. This helps people live near jobs and opportunity in transit. Further the Housing Task Force specifically calls for revising SeaChip to incorporate incentives for affordable housing units within developments and the revisions to SeaChip do just that. Most of you voted to approve each of these plans and policies. Why would we delay? This does exactly what every plan calls for including the task force. Some of the concerns you might hear about displacement and the Housing Task Force partnered with NELCAB last year to complete a vulnerability assessment of the neighborhoods and this is a good starting point to inform current and future policies. Additionally the Housing and Neighborhood Services are conducting a displacement study and the SeaChip has a displacement affidavit attached to it so this seems like the city staff is addressing some of these concerns. An economic displacement happens when rising rents force tenants to move elsewhere. Preservation or slowing down that building of housing which is the SeaChip has already halted housing does not reduce displacement it only rearranges it where displacement happens and can increase its occurrence because it adds no new housing to the city stock and does nothing to relieve the demand for housing. Recent research even confirms this. Economists have found that displacement is more than twice as likely in low income census tracks with little market rate housing construction then in tracks with high construction levels and subsidizing below market rate housing curbs displacement even more. Researchers at Berkeley recently found that the effect of subsidized units and reducing the probability of displacement to be added to be more than double the effect of market rate units. So tackling displacement requires building lots and lots of new housing and providing support for communities that are most vulnerable to change. Vulnerable communities need more housing need more than just housing alone to equitably equitably address displacement pressures. Such cases weren't locally targeted preservation of low cost housing a concentration of new subsidized housing or other public investment and incentives to stabilize vulnerable communities. Such interventions must be supplemented with increases in housing construction in other areas of the city and SeaChip is a good start to this. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Hansen. Maxwell Woodward followed by Peter French. Hello my name is Max Woodward. Thank you all for letting me speak. I'm a San Antonio native small business owner the president of the Uptown Neighborhood Association chairman of the Fred committee that's a business owners group on Fred road and also sit on the planning committee for the Midtown Regional Center at least I did till last May when a organized group of wealthy property owners stormed a meeting and basically put that process to a halt something that was very disenfranchising to me as a young person excited to be involved and taking on my civic duties but this underlined to me a big issue and that's the the danger of neighborhood associations operating like homeowners associations homeowners associations being comprised of property owners with legal authority to enforce rules regulations that focus on restrictions building and traffic issues that sounds to me a lot like neighborhood associations in San Antonio's urban core and they use ncds and historic designations one other code enforcement tactics to enforce their own agenda. Second these neighborhood associations have historically been used as lobbying tools to funnel resources to affluent neighborhoods. It's a complicated process these city processes and stands to reason that wealthy retired property owners have more time to engage than the most vulnerable populations which are working class largely tenant populations. Finally kind of underlining their their organization and political savvy a coalition of neighborhoods was formed last year and and basically represents the equivalent of a super pack in the way of local lobbying. Their current agenda which thankfully you guys shut down their request to remove mf 33 from the neighborhood plans just a few weeks ago. This would have served to artificially limit the housing stock which would result in accelerating the increase in values of these neighborhoods. I'd like to say as a neighborhood association president and property owner that this agenda actually serves my bottom line for them to limit housing stock makes mine that much more valuable but again like I said this is at the expense of our most vulnerable populations. So in closing I support the amendment to the c-chip policies as it has been working to add housing. We need housing in every shape size and form even if it's not for vulnerable populations it takes pressure off our urban neighborhoods to have these new projects. I'm over time thank you. Thank you Mr. Woodward. Peter French followed by Liz Franklin. Good evening. Peter French would urge you all to vote for the iCrip and c-chip amendment. The moratorium on c-chip has had a very clear effect of cooling new construction of housing and San Antonio needs new housing throughout loop 410 in the inner city right now today. Every unit of housing creates de facto unit of affordable housing new housing net new housing is the goal needs to be the goal. I would encourage you also to pursue a very robust affordable housing policy but I would not stop this process to achieve that process. These things are separate. They're distinct. I spent time I worked on the neighborhood housing task force on the equitable neighborhood working group and in places like that and as assistant city manager for Houston said today during the B session there have been information sessions happening in small groups in large groups as part of the neighborhood housing task force work as part of the mayor's annual housing summit. This conversation is happening. This conversation is happening publicly. It's happening privately. It is not as if these policies were created in a vacuum. I don't think that's a fair way to categorize them and I don't believe it's the right thing for San Antonio to defer approving these policies which are proven to produce new housing in the pursuit of a separate and distinct goal. So again please vote for I grip and see chip. Please also pursue an affordable housing policy. Thank you. Thank you Mr. French. Liz Franklin followed by Lynn Napaic. Liz Franklin. I live in district two. I hate going behind Peter French. He's so smart. The neighborhood. He did say something that was very compelling. There's a couple of things he said that were compelling. First of all I'm not I'm not against each it. I'm just against it tomorrow. Okay. You're right. There's been conversations all over the place. Likely those conversations didn't get down to the people that are most impacted and most affected and most critically need. Good answers about we're not going to be displaced and what happens when we are because we haven't had a good track record. Of not of addressing that. We haven't had a good track record of that in this city. Okay. So far but I'm optimistic. I think we can change the ship anytime but cruise and those ships take a long time to turn around so we have to start right now. You know the other thing is is I look at all of the community leaders that come out here that have years and years of putting their time and their effort in from the underserved for the underserved and the marginalized and if they say do the study and we arbitrarily don't think we need the study why do you ask them to be on anything they spend countless hours trying to understand how all of this could work to the best benefit and you know lastly I'm just going to say if a market value development project cannot get off the ground for a month three months or six months until we have another piece in there that will assure that the people that are most decidedly going to be displaced have avenues and other ways of we have other ways of mitigating that maybe that's not the project that belongs here giving them money and incentives for that just because we need housing is just not the answer we're still going to need housing the most vulnerable populations will continue to need housing we can address both at the same time it's walking and chewing gum at the same time and with that I'll say I wish you all a happy holiday sorry but a little annoyed because it shouldn't be going to this conversation you have many respected community leaders putting in a lot of time and effort saying do the study wait wait we don't have to do this right this second okay thanks happy holidays miss franklin uh miss lin napik followed by jack finger good evening my name is lin knapik and i am a downtowner i live at pearl and i have for the past eight years i owned a condo in animal heights before i moved back to the suburbs but i was anxious to get back downtown and i discovered pearl by going to the museum reach one day and decided that's where i needed to check out so eight years later and i'm still there but more importantly i am a downtowner and being one is a joy there's an energy and a synergy among the people downtown that i've never felt anywhere that i've lived everyone is a neighbor no matter what they part of downtown they are in and every time you walk out your door you meet somebody new and find new friends what i really love about being a downtowner though is the opportunity to be part of making our city better every day and i guess you could say i've become a downtown activist first it was the midtown breckenridge planning uh as i was moving to pearl and then s a 2020 and then hemisphere planning meetings and tci and complete streets downtown residents association central membership uh the s a centennial conservation society and more but i've become part of all of this because i live downtown i didn't live downtown i wouldn't be part of it so in uh 2014 i was appointed by mayor taylor to the midtown ters uh serving on that board has helped me understand the importance and the implementation process of the sea chip and the icrip programs these programs have certainly been instrumental in creating the vibrant downtown that we all enjoy i've marveled at so much happening over the past eight years and fortunately as a realtor and a uli member i've had the opportunity to visit so many of the properties receiving these tax incentives but having served on the also on the stable equitable and resilient neighborhood technical working group of the mayor's housing task force i understand the need to rethink the incentives provided through chief sea chip and icrip it appears the proposed updates uh take a thoughtful approach to the current and future housing needs certainly we need to encourage construction of affordable housing with the use of these funds and recently the members of the midtown ters were very pleased to approve funding for the museum reach lofts an affordable multifamily project to be located across from samah and just a block from the san antonio river we certainly need more projects like these in all parts of the town but especially in the inner city so i know there are those who would like to have the vote delayed for final approval of the revised program until certain research results can be collected but i also know that there are probably projects waiting in the wings to make use of the programs so i suppose my hope would be that we can find a solution to satisfy everyone to get the new program approved as soon as possible and help take care of both situations thank you thank you mrs napik jack finger jack finger emiss roulos emiss roulos jack mr jack sanford mr sanford will be followed by richard costa good evening my name is jack sanford and i'm a member of the altavista neighborhood association which is a member of the tier one neighborhood coalition i'm also a member of san antonio neighborhoods for everyone and i would ask that you vote for these amendments on sea chip tonight we need more housing in this city that's the only way that we're going to avoid displacing people in our urban neighborhoods um in our urban core in the tier one neighborhoods is to have more housing for all the people that want to live in these areas they're hot areas people want to live there people are being displaced because there's nowhere to live except for these old homes that they have to fix up um thank you very much for the meetings that you had on sea chip i was happy to attend a couple of those um i know some people have said you know there wasn't a public process you had public meetings i guess this is a thank you to city staff that held those meetings um it was a great process we gave input um we're excited to see this move forward and in talking to developers they this is a key program and getting housing built and without this even in the moratorium on this program many projects have gone unbuilt that could have added to our housing stock and helped our um housing shortage we're in a good position now we're not austin we're not seattle san francisco yet but we can take advantage of our position now and start building housing so that we never get that so we can maintain our affordable status as well as helping to move um inequality spread that around this is a very geographically unequal city and if we can build more housing in these cores like we've talked about affordable housing as opposed to uh we can help spread some of this um inequality uh not spread the inequality around but i think you understand what i'm saying that we can reduce the geographic disparities uh in income levels that we have now thank you for your time thank you mr sanford richard acosta mr acosta will be followed by yannis floris thank you very much my name is richa costa with my city is my home is that is micasa we are a non-profit organization that started as a direct result of the marist housing task force um we are well to say one of the things this is the second time i've spoken in front of you and that was too um in support of the marist housing task force and one thing that we do is we help people protest property taxes for free throughout san antonio i've helped every people in every single one of your districts protest their property taxes for free the other thing we want to do is build homes for under a hundred thousand dollars or less a single family homes i can't i i'm gonna have a hard time doing that right now because i want to build in district five and a lot of those the the policy is a point the thing that we want to rezone is like a point 15 lot is an acre and turn and reply to like a point zero four which would lower down the would change the zoning on that which i believe i won't be able to apply for c-chip it might be another way for me to apply through getting maybe city vote city council vote but that's something that's going to affect us from being able to get some of those incentives so i just want to point that out under the marist housing task force report there's 32 000 units that need to be built for 30 percent AMI um out of the 7 500 units that's kind of a mix of 30 to 60 i kind of ask i ask why isn't 30 percent AMI the point of target of those 7 500 units that we're hoping to add on to the to city count uh to the c-chip program i ask why are we basing our AMIs off of HUD uh requirements instead of of san antonio requirements of uh of what we think uh AMI is for a direct result of uh of san antonio so i ask why don't we is that not our target rate and i i i just i'm not i'm for c-chip well we're for the program and everything we just why is it being rushed why can't we have enough time to figure out what's going on what's all the information i think that i'm pretty intelligent when it comes to what's going on in affordable housing i go to like three meetings a day uh regarding housing and i'm learning a lot in the last hour or two during the session b and if i have a hard time figuring out all the ins and outs of what's going on our public has a hard time and one of the the things that came out of the mayor's housing task force is accountability where is the chance for the public for the city to be accountable to the public given us enough time to look and understand what that was going to be out of our city dollars and for probably a great program and i 100% like i said i'm for c-chip and everything but where's the public engagement where do we have enough time to be engaged and that's really what i'm asking for thank you very much for your time thank you mr acosta yana flores followed by michael taylor what's your name sir you got it okay thank you mr rojas due to its my name is yana flores um due to its potentially incriminatory discriminatory impact or request that the city council postpone consideration of the center city housing infill policy otherwise known as c-chip program until a more thorough public process has been put in place the city's year-long c-chip moratorium provided an opportunity for san antonio to consider whether its program is necessary whether this program is necessary to achieve goals for residential development and if so how that it can be done while keeping downtown san antonio an accessible place for people at the accessible living space um i do have some comments from the b-session that i just quickly want to touch on um i think the description of the txp study um that lory mentioned might have left out some really important points so the txp study on c-chip impact does note that development downtown is likely more feasible now than when c-chip was created in 2012 financial incentives are not required nor necessary to spur downtown development that is noted in the study we are concerned that c-chip prioritizes development without concern for the indirect displacement of existing low-income communities of color who live in the relevant geographic areas the housing task force identified important goals for the city especially the need for housing affordable or residents living at 60 percent or below the area medium income an income that i or an average that i think we all agree might be incredibly inaccurate while living while level three and the affordable housing fund contribute to housing for residents at and below 60 percent am i the housing created will likely be outside of levels one and two and that increase opportunity and choice for low income and working class folks near and in the downtown area if the city of san antonio plans to invest in new development at the expense of local taxpayers we believe the city must promote policies that increase genuine affordability protect existing communities and mitigate an inevitable effect the effects of displacement the proposed revisions do not achieve the important objectives that i just listed the c-chip coverage areas include neighborhoods with vibrant history and incredibly valuable communities many of these residents in level two and low-income our low-income working class latinx or black we anticipate the development of new higher priced housing in these areas will increase rents of the surrounding properties increasing the cost burden on existing residents and displacing many of them out of the inner city or even perhaps the city of san antonio further developers may opt out of accessible affordability and level two by building higher than five stories again referring back to the txp analysis it states that incentives are primarily beneficial for building multifamily housing above four four to five stories developers will likely capitalize on the opportunity for incentives to build vertically and generate a greater profit um maybe we can ask them they're all sitting behind me um in addition of level three may also cause further displacement of communities of color as affordable housing is built outside of the urban core core while more market rate housing is built in the urban urban core the displacement of residents of color due to a city incentivized housing policy may violate the fair housing development through sea through sea chip projects will disproportionately affect low-income residents of color and likely steer them to other racially segregated areas increasing segregation in the city before taking the final vote on sea chip we asked the city of san antonio to seriously consider the potential effects of the sea chip program including just including the impacts that this will have on our communities uh to revamp the program so that it includes housing for people that are living below 60 percent AMI we also ask for a community impact study to be done prior to a sea chip vote and I know that we cannot get that done by 9 a.m. tomorrow we asked that you center those that are most vulnerable in this city and that you act with their well-being in mind that you act compassionately and that you center the needs of our community always sincerely texas houses uh esperanza peace and justice center the west side preservation alliance the west side historic neighborhood association and the san antonio chapter of the poor people's campaign gracias thank you miss floris michael taylor followed by susana seguro michael taylor habitat for humanity of san antonio um i just wanted to share a little bit about how these programs help provide housing for low and very low income families in san antonio and also share some of the some of the problems with with not moving these programs forward but first i wanted to thank lori and and baronica and their staff for working with the nonprofit housing providers on the policy to try and make it more useful for us we've always been a big user of the policy and and they've actually found ways to make it even more beneficial for the families we serve so we now with the new policy we'll have a dedicated pot of funds for the fee waiver programs which will ensure availability for affordable housing and also the new policy removes the impact fee cap of five thousand dollars so this is going to allow the full six thousand eight hundred and fifty two thousand six thousand eight hundred and fifty two dollars that we spend on impact fees per house to be waived and this is going to increase the labor cost and will actually give us the certainty we need to build three additional houses next year and as far as the c chip policy goes we're very excited about the new affordable housing fund we think that that has the potential to generate a lot of revenue that will help us in the future to produce affordable housing the families we serve really need these fee waivers we need them to keep home ownership affordable and i wanted to tell you a little bit more about the family that you saw in the photo at the b-session presentation today this is one of our typical home buyers it's a family of five the husband and father works in food manufacturing he's worked for the same company for seven years the family income is twenty eight thousand two hundred and thirty five dollars a year this is thirty nine percent of area median income they're buying a four bedroom two bathroom house 1200 square feet for eighty thousand dollars and their monthly payment is going to be five hundred and eighty two dollars a month zero percent interest loan that includes property taxes and insurance and this is not a one off just under half of the families that we served that we built houses for this year had incomes between 30 percent and 50 percent of am i and we're continuing to build but we're at risk of having to delay our houses if we don't have these waivers in place so we have eight homes under construction for next year that we've already started and we'll be starting fourteen more without these waivers we're going to have to raise a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to cover impact fees and city permit fees that's not a popular ask from any donor so that would be a very big challenge so we ask you all to move forward with the policy and approving it as is thank you mr. taylor susana sakura followed by sarah gold hello my name is susana i just want to ask that you please delay the sea chip vote i also want to echo something that i heard councilman courage say no one wants to stay in a low income situation but the reality is that san antonio's economy is based on the tourism industry and none of y'all that are sitting here in front of me have done anything to make sure that all of these hotels downtown are paying their workers a living wage that's the truth i have not seen any one of you move any policy forward to do that so what happens is the course of the poor work in hotels why do people come back to san antonio because we're largely latinos because we're hospitable because we fold your clothes clean your beds clean your rooms do your toilets cook your food and we don't get paid enough to even own a car why does via run the largest number of bus lines through the west side of san antonio because people can't even afford to purchase a car that's why and that's the primary workforce is coming from the poorest zip code that's your zip code charlie that's your district district five i've been working in your district for 27 years i've been in and out of homes i've raised people's children and they're not making money they're not even making it they're two jobs two and a half jobs working that's how you know how many hours that is like people can't even spend time with their families i heard you say earlier that if somebody got into a wheelchair situation that it would be so much cheaper for them to knock their house down and rebuild it new that is a lie you live in the most economically segregated district in san antonio the city of san antonio all of the city of san antonio has been listed as one of the most economically segregated cities in the nation city of san antonio has been described as one of the poorest cities in the nation what are you doing to stop that you live in a district that is heavily redlined and deed restricted that was primarily segregated for mexicans and african-americans that's the truth so if i were an 85 year old woman that had to be in a wheelchair would i actually tear down my house and rebuild it new and my house is only valued at $35,000 would i do that no i'd probably divest myself of my house move into a senior housing situation and give my kids my money if i had it and since i don't have kids i'd probably just give it to any non-profit and then i would get on housing that's what would happen thank you mr. guira sarah gould this gold will be followed by the minute uutias rojas uutia rojas thank you ma'am hi my name is sarah gould i'm a resident of district seven and a member of the san antonio chapter of the poor people's campaign which is a national call for moral revival that has united tens of thousands of people across the country to challenge the evils of systemic racism poverty the war economy ecological devastation and the nation's distorted morality the poor people's campaign believes in the dismantling of unjust systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color we also believe that people should not live in or die from poverty in the richest nation ever to exist housing is a prominent issue in the poor people's campaign in 2016 there was no state or county in the nation where someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford a two bedroom apartment at market rent only one in four of those eligible to receive federal housing assistance actually do so this has precipitated a structural housing crisis with 2.5 to 3.5 million people who are living in shelters transitional housing centers and tent cities this population includes a significant number of women children lgbt qia youth veterans and the elderly one of the poor people's campaign demands is that the wealthy and corporations pay for their fair share of our country's urgent needs around decent and affordable housing free public education a robust social safety net and social security at the san antonio chapter of the poor people's campaign we are concerned that sea chip is being considered for renewal before the completion of a citywide displacement policy before the affordable housing plan is in place and without a coordinated housing system in place we are also concerned that the definition of affordability does not meet the realities of san antonio incomes and that not enough residents in the sea chip area or the adjacent areas which surely will be impacted have been engaged for feedback given that it's the holiday season i want to leave you with this whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did for me thank you thank you miss gold warren wilkinson followed by bill stone good evening mayor council members um more and wilkinson executive director of central san antonio i asked that you support these proposed updates to the sea chip and the icrip program these programs luckily the city had the insight or the foresight to pass these programs some time ago and the insight now to tweak them so that they're more effective together these programs encourage development with good guardrails limits guardrail limits they address affordable housing they provide consistent predictable policies regarding available incentives they promote historic rehabilitation with appropriate oversight they promote development of legacy businesses housing density developments for small businesses and they provide reevaluation in two years these programs have been a success and i hope you approve those tomorrow thank you thank you mr wilkinson bill shone followed by larnzell harper thank you mayor city council people i'm bill shone with pearl and silver ventures i want to put this conversation in context because i feel like sometimes it's been taken out of context the whole idea of sea chip think about san antonio from 1985 forward and the lack of any residential development any office development basically a 30-year period where people were leaving downtown hotel development great great visitor city but our downtown became somewhat one-dimensional there was a decision made to change that sea chip was passed and since that time 7500 more or less new residential units 1.7 million square feet of new office spaces under construction right now that's one thing it's not talked about much because we're talking about thinking about sea chip as a housing instrument it's an economic development tool and it's made a huge huge difference strongly encourage you to pass it i will share with you as a developer a personal opinion that i'm concerned that it might have been watered down a bit i think that you may see that it doesn't incentivize development as much as we hope that it will i hope that if that turns out to be the case that you'll revisit it and reconsider it i want to put another thing in context and i think this is really important because oftentimes what we hear and what we read in the papers is they stretch out if there's a if there's a tax abatement take that number and stretch it out for 10 or 15 years and that's a huge number and they say look at that developer he's been given this much when the pearl property was acquired in 2002 we paid less than $150,000 in ad valorem taxes on the property less than $150,000 since we have been doing what we're doing and we have been the beneficiary of sea chip since we've been doing what we're doing last year we paid about 6.4 million dollars in ad valorem taxes and that's not only to the city that's to everybody six point four million dollars last year and that's year after year after year and we get 783,000 back as a result of sea chip now when you think about sea chip as an investment if you were that kind of investor and you said well i can i can take a hundred and thirty hundred fifty thousand dollars turn it to six point four million and i give seven hundred thousand back that's one hell of an investment strongly strongly encourage you to support it let's keep turning and at the same time before i run out of time i want to share that we share the concerns of others that housing affordability is a huge issue here and we want to help solve them we at silver are going to turn our attention toward affordable housing and hopefully with you we can we can find a solution together it's not either or it's both it's sea chip and economic development and finding solutions to affordable housing thank you thank you mr shone larzell harper followed by john cooly good evening mayor neary berg members of the city council my name is larzell harper i live downtown i am a resident of 1221 broadway yes i am one of the 66 people per day who relocated to san antonio and this beautiful city is now my home i do not hesitate to admit relocating to a new city has challenges and it also has opportunities my journey in san antonio did not begin as a downtown resident my first apartment was in the area of town that is not as walkable as downtown and i admit even today sometimes i'm homesick for my family however the vibrancy of my downtown neighborhood provides me a deeper connection because the river walk is right outside my doorsteps i sincerely recommend the downtown resident to each resident to each the downtown experienced each resident locals can experience the exact same downtown experience to those as myself who relocated or our visitors i love living downtown and have any opportunity to experience events festivals museums restaurants concerts everything i hope you vote to approve the recommended updates to the c-chip and the i-crypt so others can also have this welcome experiences i thank you for your leadership thank you mr harper john cooly followed by christin reig ogreba good evening uh mr america members of council my name is john cooly i'm the coo of terremark urban homes i'm here today asking your support for these proposed changes to the c-chip and the i-crypt terremark focuses on attainable efficient medium density housing clusters in and around the urban core of san antonio our core demographics of of home new home owners are young couples empty nesters a good amount of military we've completed eight projects currently under this uh what was the original c-chip program that has amounted to almost a hundred new homes for sale in the urban core we're a little bit atypical in that it's really a predominant multifamily rental program we've been able to use it to build for sale houses and achieve home ownership for these uh these projects the average sales price of these homes uh while housing housing prices have gone up is still around 250 000 which if you'll you know pull up zilla when you get a chance and see how many new homes are being built in the urban downtown area under 200 000 it's a very very few one of the things that this program and and mr shone did an excellent job of explaining it is the original c-chip program and the economic development and the incentivization to invest in these parts of town that had not seen investment for a long period of time uh by all standards this program is uh and has been a success uh he also pointed out the the headline that's often written where the city is giving x number of dollars to a development or a developer to to bring this project to fruition um you know it's it's the criticism levied against that program is pretty simple but the rebuttal is somewhat more nuanced and complex so while that money is part of that abatement it takes the investment in order to achieve it and and mr shone outlined uh spot on how that investment creates tremendous growth for not just the city but also the flood districts the hospital districts the school district um all of which receive the benefit of this economic development far and beyond any costs that it may have to the city i mean this program makes money for the city full stop um so you know the the numbers are impressive and and ccdo and staff did a fantastic job i think in outlining it i would just ask that this program be continued even with the economic or even with the uh affordable housing uh modifications to it but the affordable housing program has to be somewhat separate and and looked at in in much more detail than just this modification to see chip and i've crept today thank you thank you mr coulee christian reed augba hello my name is christian reed augba i'm an advocate for modern uses of public and shared transportation access for transplant entrepreneurs in downtown living i stand with central partnership san antonio the baltwin and nrp group to ask that you approve changes to see chip and launch seed and launch systems to you see chip as an economic development tool i'm not your average low-income housing resident i've benefited from the youth of lower rates for larger spaces to bootstrap my business i'm an entrepreneur who took advantage of my ability to access mixed income developments as a two-time resident of nrp properties like the garden at san juan square in district five and the baltwin in district two special designations have given me room to build a solid infrastructure from my pr farm my and my husband's methods were definitely an anomaly as we shared our story during the task force orly this year and given the media fanfare we received i like to think we introduced another sustainable facet to pursuing this affordable housing policy to spark more economic impact among minority residents now as a downtown adjacent resident i feel more connected not displaced to the evolving culture of the city i've recently signed a lease in an historic development on 110 broadway where i'd be where i'll be able to live affordably within walking distance scooting distance or busting distance from my affordable office space is one of the business is one of the benefits i both to others like me studies have shown san antonio will see a large new population of transplants in the coming years who will require housing options that can level up their globally minded goal plans i urge you all to act swiftly to nurture decision makers like i am my husband as we stay in san antonio bridge communities develop our businesses create jobs and help curate an accommodating and sustainable community thank you thank you miss reid aqua okay having heard all comments from those citizens wishing to be heard on the sea chip and i crip policies this public hearing is hereby closed i'll now proceed with the regularly scheduled citizens to be heard and we'll begin i'll call the first name in the order please come forward and i'll call the second person signed up if you can prepare to come forward first citizen signed up to speak is mr jess maize followed by