They plod along with about three or four meetings under their belt . . . and about three or four meetings left . . . Review of IZ, discussion on recreating the housing committee, doing a housing report and does low income housing create crime.
Present: Rummel, Munson, Porterfield, Clear, Passman
Absent: Solomon, Compton, Olson (Compton and Olson show up late, I don’t recall Solomon making it to any meetings so far . . . )
INCLUSIONARY ZONING LESSONS
Munson says it was a long complex process, that’s his take on it. Inclusionary Zoning was a complex mechanism to implement and purchase. Hurdles early on, opposition every step of the way. It became more and more complex at every turn and attempt to fix it. It’s not an easy thing to do from sales prices to incentive matrix or deciding where units needed to be – complex and complicated. Despite efforts of dedicated committee, couldn’t come up with a better mousetrap.
The other issue was that it was not perceived as a win-win. There was a loss from developer to purchaser concerns about equity. It was set up for conflict, there were some good faith actors and some bad actors where they tried to find loopholes, more did than didn’t. Conflict between the parties, things ground down.
Final take away, the money came from somewhere. It was a matter of who fought over it the best. In some cases that also resulted in more conflict. Do the incentives represent value – some would say yes and some would say no. Incentives weren’t valued or flowing to the people who needed them. Lots of paper approvals, but many opted out or didn’t happen. Not alot of people moved in, not just IZ but the games and the market influenced it as well.
Number one lesson, whatever we adopt, we need partnerships to make it happen instead of drawing lines and fighting to make it happen.
Rummel said as a neighborhood leader at the time she was very excited about it. There was a real perception that we didn’t have enough affordable housing. They were excited about 15% being affordable after sitting though many meetings with developers creating housing for people in the neighborhood. Proud her neighborhood had the first purchase. Proud of what it could have been, sad to see it fail. Interesting to note the difference between downtown and edge development. Bell curve was ridiculous. [I think she is talking about that Zach Brandon equity model.]
Olson asked if Rusk made observations about our program.
Munson said early on he did express some reservation about it. Not brought back in to do after the fact analysis. 41 houses built and sold. They are still out there and it would be hard to say it was a complete failure. Some units remain unbuilt and they are still bound by the ordinance. The 41 units could be an opportunity to keep them affordable.
Olson asks where they are located.
Munson says several downtown and some periphery ones.
Passman asked what the major lessons are that they have to learn.
Munson says link money as easily as possible. It’s going to cost money, the more hoops to get to the money the harder. The quicker we can take the funds and get it to the purchaser the better. Need to find a win-win. More we can avoid the fight, the more effective we can be.
Clear asks about the “opposition at every step” and who was opposing what.
Munson says that groups were working in different directions and IZ came along and became the focus. The development community was skeptical because the incentives didn’t make them whole. They were looking at would the project be viable and could the market rate units fill in the gap.
Clear asks about preconceptions or actual response to program.
Munson said there were groups that decided before it was written that they were opposed. Some would make an honest assessment. Some stuck to it and some backed away and fought it. He gives examples of cornfields for sale as single family houses. There were groups that tried and were not successful. Perception was tainted from the start.
Clear says that we should not narrow our focus to come up with a program to replace IZ. That is mostly what they have done so far. It not just more affordable housing, but where it is and who is in it. He doesn’t want to try to find a new idea that is better than the last.
Munson agrees, we need to look at the market and city as a whole and look at strategies. IZ is one of many tools. Maybe we can match a strategy.
Rummel says this was only new construction and not rental. Could have been a whole different program. She says Compton talked about housing at those price points. Rummel says that they were aged housing and a new house was a good idea because it was lower maintenance. Downtown neighborhoods want more density, but there is some line where they know it when they see it and the neighbors didn’t like the density bonuses. That was a real thing they had to confront.
Munson says focus on new construction and loss of rental had a huge impact on the success. No rehabilitation of buildings was included. New construction is hardest way to do it. Rental could have had lower price points and a stronger need.
Porterfield said that observing this from the outside, he said that it was too complicated and whatever kind of intervention or program we come up with, it has to be simple cuz alot of people need to understand it. We are trying to interfere or adjust normal market forces. The public understands market forces, but if it’s different you have to re-educate everybody. He questioned the wisdom of it, one valid point is that IZ ended at the city limits and the real estate market goes beyond that. Keeping it simple and avoid having an impact on the real estate market itself, limiting value is a tricky thing to do. He works on these programs and comes back to the same thing, the buyers don’t want to limit their equity. Wait a few years and save more to get their equity. Limiting the market when you do that. He talks about building houses without basements, $10,000 less and people didn’t want that and it took three times as long to sell them. They were told that up front and ignored it and they learned a lesson. We need market testing. He says IZ was a supply side program, and we have plenty of supply and creating more supply is hard cuz can’t get the credit. We really need to look at a demand side and need to work with the consumers to get better rental or owner occupied housing. Since we are looking at schools, we need to look at demand side and it fits better with the school issues. Says another way to deal with affordable housing is to increase the income of households. It might need it all at one time. Opponents and forces against it will bulge out.
Clear said that changing marketing conditions and IZ lagged the market. A big challenge is to work with any market condition and current economics.
SCHEDULE
They will meet.
November – 18th?? (need to confirm that date)
December – 9th
January – 13th
BRAINSTORM STRATEGIES
Munson hands out a suggestion that says the following about a housing committee:
Reorganize Housing Committee Structure
1) Housing Committee as central strategy body tasked with creation and implementation of Citywide housing strategy.
2) Revise makeup to include an appointee elected by each housing focused committee within the city and four alders.
3) Focus on full spectrum of housing needs, with actions delegated to the appropriate sub-committees as needed.
4) Charged with creation of annual housing report.
Munson says that some committees work well together and some don’t know the others exist. He says that cross appointments from other committees would bring people together. Talked with other folks about it and that might help, this committee is a short appointment and they could keep the conversation going beyond the committee.
Porterfield asks about other housing committees.
Clingan hands out the handouts from the first meeting. He lists the Dane County Housing Authority, the Housing Merger Committee, the Housing Committee, the CDA, CDBG and IZ committees. He doesn’t know what the Housing Committee subcommittes are – They explain subcommittees of the housing committee – affordable, accessible and landlord/tenant. [For what its worth, they should add Plan Commission to that list and the Dane County Housing Authority doesn’t really belong on the list.]
Munson says that alot of the substantive discussion is at the subcommittee level and the thought was to keep those as committees and reorganize the housing committee.
Clingan asked about membership of the committee?.
Munson says they would keep the current people on their subcommittees but reorganize the housing committee.
Clingan wonders if it would be the chairs of each committee. They say no.
Cear says bottom up instead of top down – Clear says a shared strategy makes sense.
Compton just got here, she says one of her concerns is that this committee won’t develop a goal for the committees. We’re still on this committee need to establish the goal, right? They say yes. She says she is concerned about land banking, numbers are up from the school board in her district, and they are up to 83% free and reduced lunch and jumped 25 – 37% in some of her schools, Allis at 67% and these are areas that we are focusing on for affordable housing. She says time is of the essence. The committee might have to have a diversity committee. Need to have one large goal.
Munson says this doesn’t supplant our goal, but becomes an entity into the future that would continue working on it.
Rummel says a school district representative should be on the new committee.
Porterfield said it is hard because the Housing Committee has no resources, but it is disconnected except through mayor or council.
Rummel asks if the housing committee sees CDBG as a funder.
Porterfield says that they deal with policy, but that is all they can do and it’s just a recommendation. There is alot of good thought and good people but doesn’t want that to be a waste of time and wants to make sure that the places where the action happens that they know what they are talking about. He says might want it a little broader, need some subject experts. Professional planners, nonprofit people, real estate.
Clingan says that the childcare committee that deals with childcare policy issues as well as the funding related to child care but they still pass it on to Community Services Committee and that committee defers to the childcare committee because that is what they are good at.
Porterfield says CDBG and HOME funds there is a plan, as far as he knows that has never come to the housing committee, that is the policy document the housing committee should review.
Clear says that housing committee hasn’t been focused on policy?
Porterfield says it is focused on policy, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Might go to another council or committee, we have input, but we don’t make a policy that would have an impact directly. We need to connect the discussion to the rest of what goes on.
Munson says that he’s been on the committee a little over a year. He says we need to link the implementation and action items to the policy. We need to creat the dialog and create a center point to have conversations and create opportunities to have coordination. He says they have questions about presentations and have good input, but they could have more impact.
Clear says that they need to be more proactive than reactive and sometimes committees don’t realize how much power they can have. Alders are supposed to draft legislation at the request of the committee.
Munson says accurate, we need more groups talking.
Olson says the fact that there are so many committees, instead of IZ sent to Housing, we created another committee. Housing merger committee could have been assigned to housing committee. Olson says that we think they don’t do things, so we don’t refer to them.
Compton talks about Ped Bike, members from Long Range Transportation Planning, South East Planning Committee, and other committees and then do they do things with that? She agrees they need to look it.
Clingan says that the housing committee will have longevity and staff are chasing their tails and can’t figure out where the most important place to put the staff.
Olson says that housing diversity committee should be housing committee.
Compton says that this committee was needed and we need to look at the effectiveness of all the committees and how much they jam the system.
Olson says happy to be here, and attempting to come up with new ideas, but hopes we find a place to put the ideas. Doesn’t want to keep this committee.
Porterfield says that there are plenty of Alders here to make it happen.
Rummel says we need to tweak the mission – doesn’t talk about quality of the housing stock. Connecting housing to jobs and making it a vital neighborhood. Where is the money? Because that solves alot of things.
Compton says a goal would be empowering to take claim to our crumbling neighborhoods around the edges. We need to empower residents to save their neighborhoods. She want people to get together and paint a senior citizens porch or put on a roof and not just dole out money. We tend to correct the face of the neighborhood and don’t get to the heart of it and we don’t want to be enablers of the destruction by the attempt to put band aids on it. We can give people the pride to do that.
Clear says one of our recommendations is tweaking mission of organization. Broaden the focus and expand its charge to continue goals of this committee.
Clear and Compton think that Platinum bike was a good model because they handed their work off to PBMV.
Clingan asks about application by a non-profit submitted to CDBG, referred to BOE, this new committee won’t see each of those applications will they?
Munson says that they will look at the strategies.
Compton says that the Royster Clark issue and whether give it to Habitat would be appropriate, that neighborhood when did research for IZ had 98% of assessments that fell below 80% AMI. For city to focus on getting more low income housing there is wrong. She would like to see Housing Committee look at that. She says that CDBG requests kept feeding a pocket of poverty.
Rummel asks if 80% AMI is low income?
Compton doesn’t really answer, she just looked at the number because of IZ.
Porterfield says to make it affordable to someone at 80% AMI.
Clingan says geographic disbursement of affordable housing is important.
Compton says something I missed.
Rummel says it was a middle class income program, a low income program is CDA, then a little higher is CDBG. Rummel says Royster Clark is a middle class neighborhood.
Compton says it not a middle class neighborhood.
HOUSING REPORT
Munson’s hand out says:
Housing Report
1) Focused on elementary school district.
2) Analyze housing trends within each district, then combing to track the whole city.
3) Items to track
– Existing Housing Conditions (# units, type, age, assessment)
– Housing Statistics (size, income, age)
– Approvals (built, un-built)
– Assisted Housing Units
– Schools Date (enrollment, free lunch)
4) Goals
– Compare median family size, income vs. median household size, income
– Track Housing characteristics and trends (owner versus rental, impact of approvals…)
– Identify concentrations of housing within City (affordable, move-up, declining, affluent)
Munson explains what the report would do. He wants to put approvals in the context of the neighborhood. He wants to have a focused study on a yearly basis. Most of the info we already have. May be tracked through Neighborhood Indicators. It would be a document the Housing Committee would use but also plan commission would look at it as well. If we get the data we could use it to formulate a strategy.
Compton talks about 3 – 4 units in foreclosure in her neighborhood. Trying to raise the bar, one of the non-profits will buy one of the units, but her first inclination is that this will improve the problem that was there. Heavy drug problems, when they come and rehab the building, if we had a way to check on how the rehab was done and if it is brought up and to what standard, that would be an actual improvement. Like FHA guidelines. Bring it up and how is it used. Not sure if inspectors could do that work. Inspectors are focusing on one street right now, but we don’t take the reins that way and we need to pay attention to that.
Clingan did a mock up of what would be in the report and says it would be a good resource.
Clear says that they should look at the economic dashboard. Housing neighborhood indicators. Neighborhood indicators will be presented to the committee next month.
Munson says that the housing reports hold be collected in a way it can be used on a month to month basis, trends over time will be key.
Rummel asks if this is tweaking the neighborhood indicators?
Munson says the data would be focused around the schools. This would be done city wide and focusing on city. Some challenges where school district and city don’t match.
FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS – SECTION 8, HOUSING STOCK QUALIRY & CRIME, BRAINSTORMING
Neighborhood indicators project will come back. Munson asks what else they would like to do.
Clear says that he had a neighborhood meeting where a neighbor was challenging the mayor on section 8 and crime and the Mayor said there is no correlation. He says that maps they looked at from planning and from the school district that there is a correlation between quality of housing stock and crime – is that true and does it have any relationship to section 8 and how does that affect housing stock?
Why not just do housing stock and crime asks Olson?
Clear says section 8 is a euphemism for low income housing or bad housing stock. It would be good to confirm or refute.
Olson says section 8 has minimum housing inspection.
I missed some discussion – Compton seems to be agreeing to not use the section 8 word.
Passman says they use that word with the School Board too.
Compton says they should say subsidized housing.
Clear says housing quality and crime and quality of life might be a correlation. Neglected aged housing brings in low income people. Clear says that they need to build the framework of what the report would look like.
Munson notes they are supposed to be done in January. They should identify strategies. Bring any ideas that they are thinking about to keep the discussion going.
Olson suggests that they should have a brainstorming session. She’d like to see a facilitator that would help brainstorm and let Munson participate – they will set aside half the meeting next time to do that. They should make sure everyone is here and make sure everyone gets to talk.
Compton says that quality of housing and crime and they need to look at services, lack of metro, no place to walk to shop, so we need to look at how we affect that.
Passman says that there is a neighborhood happening, you can see it happening, you can look at housing and types of families and crime and that might be a case study.
Clear suggest the brainstorming be directed toward the report.
Compton says that we should come in with neighborhoods that are good affordable neighborhoods and mixed income neighborhoods. Can’t use our new neighborhoods expect that they will have some problems some day. We should use Owl Creek as an example of what happens in a poorly planned development. 2 years old and crashing. She lists off some neighborhoods, but I don’t think I’ll list them. She says that they should say what the good neighborhoods are.
And with that, the meeting was over and they adjourned.
