The Mayor asked the Inclusionary Zoning Committee to come up with recommendations for the Inclusionary Zoning Program. Today, the committee will begin the discussion about final recommendations. Here’s my very rough (and sleepless) draft of some potential changes and they are likely to be modified, added to or some may be eliminated. Hopefully we will come up with a final package in the next few weeks.
STAFF OFFSET NEGOTIATIONS
The Mayor should have staff meet when negotiating staff offsets with developers. One staff person should be lead to negotiate on behalf of the City and be instructed to place a priority on creating affordable housing with offsets provided from various departments including Fire, Parks, Engineering, Planning and other departments as appropriate.
IZ UNIT PRICING
Re-evaluate the formula that links the number of the people in a household to the price of home they can purchase. Consider requiring the family size to match the number of bedrooms in the home that is purchased.
Analyze the AMI levels that are targeted and compare it to current lending practices and available housing stock and consider either lowering or raising the targeted AMI levels as appropriate.
CONSIDER FEWER UNITS AT LOWER INCOME TARGETS
Consider lowering the 15% of the units requirement for Inclusionary Zoning Units in exchange for targeting lower income households.
MARKETING
Have the City income qualify the list of potential home owners who qualify for Inclusionary Dwelling Units.
Remove the bump out period to eliminate generally acknowledged games played during the marketing of the inclusionary zoning units.
Have the City Market the units.
Have the City purchase the Inclusionary Zoning units when the units are available for occupancy.
OFFSETS and WAIVER
Remove the offsets and waiver analysis and in exchange lower the 15% requirement to 10%, but make it mandatory.
Evaluate if the offset model formulas are giving us the results we had anticipated.
SERVICES
Provide housing counseling services to first time homebuyers.
Consider hiring buyer agents to deal with additional costs that developers try to charge for amenities (parking, storage) that are included in the sales of other housing units.
The City of Madison should participate more actively in 1st time homebuyers roundtable and proactively market the Inclusionary Zoning Program.
The City of Madison should educate professionals in the real estate and banking industry, correcting the many myths and focusing on changes to the ordinance.
MARKET ADJUSTMENTS
Develop a mechanism to adjust for changes in the market measured at the time the units are being built, as opposed to the time when the units are approved.
PAYMENTS IN LIEU
Any payments made in lieu of the creating units should cover the at least 80% of the cost to create an additional unit.
NAME CHANGE
Consider changing the name of the program and re-brand the program since improvements were made but many still think that the previous flaws in the program still exist.
