 from our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in San Antonio. We are here today because there is an effort underway to ram through a policy that means tax breaks for developers and higher taxes for the rest of us. City staff wants council to discuss this today and council is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a new version of the Centre City Housing Initiative Program which was put on hold last year by the Mayor. The original Sea Chip gave $100 million of our tax money directly to developers. It created new housing, spread growth in downtown, but it also caused serious gentrification in nearby neighborhoods. The NALCAB study published in January proved it. Appraisals doubled and tripled in affected areas. The incentive program displaced families. City staff now proposes expanding it to the entire city. Public dollars should not be used to displace people. It is too important and too expensive to rush Sea Chip through council. Our representatives must delay this vote. We feel that the revised Sea Chip program is being rammed through council. The vote should be delayed until at least January 2019 and Mayor Nirenberg needs to explain why he's ignoring the NALCAB study released in January and key recommendations of his Housing Policy Task Force. There are several reasons why the vote should be postponed. First, the policy scope grew exponentially well beyond Centre City only last Wednesday, December 5th. Surely all the ramifications of such a huge expansion have not been thoroughly vetted. Second, public concerns and questions are being squeezed in on the eve of the vote. Third, a proposed affordable housing fund which is recommended in this policy lacks any meaningful detail about how the money will be spent. And fourth, City Council has not studied the way rising property taxes are displacing families. Rushing to pass a new Sea Chip is bad for taxpayers and bad for neighborhoods. It is not enough for the City to say, not my job. Assistant City Manager Laurie Houston told COPS Metro leaders recently that Sea Chip is not about affordable housing, but about economic development. We beg to differ. When the City foregoes hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to incentivize developers to build housing, it's a housing policy and should be therefore treated as such. There has to be tangible, not superficial component addressing truly affordable housing offered today. Before passing this policy, COPS Metro urges City Council to demand the following. An impact study of property taxes and rents in nearby neighborhoods during the first Sea Chip. The proposed affordable housing fund must be fully defined, including how the money will be spent for what and by whom. No sane person would sign a contract with a third party without knowing all the details. Why should taxpayers? The building height shouldn't be a criteria for Sea Chip projects as it's proposed for level two. The effect is developers receiving generous tax rebates while creating zero affordable units in vulnerable neighborhoods. The 80% AMI standard for affordable units must be lowered to 60% AMI throughout the program consistent with the Mayor's Housing Policy Task Force recommendation. Earlier this year, Mayor Ron Nirenberg told us again and again about his commitment to the Housing Policy Task Force recommendation. For this reason alone, the City Office's charge with housing should be working together hand in hand to develop a balanced housing policy. The now kept study published in January showed appraisals of homes in Dignity Hill more than doubled and nearly tripled during the first Sea Chip period. What will council say to homeowners across the city whose rising taxes drive them out of their homes? Developers will reap the benefits of these incentives, but where are the protections and incentives for homeowners and businesses in the communities impacted by the new development? The Mayor, foremost, and City Council members should delay the vote on Sea Chip and heed the request outlined by COPS Metro leaders. So San Antonio's housing strategy must be balanced. COPS Metro will support policies that encourage the gold of the city's housing stock, even market rate housing, but the Sea Chip program as proposed is lopsided. It's too expensive and too important to rush through. The Mayor especially and City Council must know that is unacceptable. What will you say to the people who are building all the big buildings where they want to actually build apartments for everyone, but they want to build apartments that are quite expensive, that cannot reach the regular citizens of that apartment. For people who earn more than 80% of the average in the area, we want them not to vote today, not to discuss, not to vote today. We have to talk about this, we want them not to vote until they have it, at least until they have it, because if they had this program before and they stopped it for a year, and that program gave 100 million dollars to these people who are building the buildings, and if they built new houses, new apartments, the city center grew, but at the same time, so many people left their houses because of the value of the property that was so high that they could no longer afford to have their houses there, and we do not want them to use public money to move people from their houses, to get them out of their neighborhoods, and more or less that is what we are saying. Do you know who is behind putting pressure so that they can vote on that? Well, what we see is the city staff, the department of Lord Houston, who want to, let's see if I can help with this word, move faster, yes, but one said that it is not a matter of living, it is not a matter of growing the center, and it is not a matter of things alone, because if they have them, and other people, more poor, who have been here for longer, they no longer have their houses due to the value of the taxes, it is not fair, we have to discuss it. Hopefully, they would get together with the housing committee and really line out that fund for one thing, because that is really bad, and we will give more time for more public input, because just tonight at six o'clock, who even knew that was going to happen? Four demands, again in that matter, they could review the four demands that we have, first, an impact study on property taxes and rents, the affordable housing fund fully defined, redoing the 80% to 60% AMI, and the building high criteria be removed. Everybody got their first release? Everybody get a first release? Okay, so can you talk to me about how this makes you feel? I mean, as a member of the mayor's task force, I would continue to do that, I've been there before. And actually took her on my personal tour, because she wasn't aware, even though she's found my buzzword, she was not even with it, she wasn't aware of the impact, and I took her to an easy dark place, so she knew. So that's the same thing I wanted to find out today, whatever it did, it wasn't the right thing.