Housing Commission

MINUTES HOUSING COMMISSION City of Falls Church DRAFT PURPOSE OF MEETING: The five-member Commission is appointed by the City Council for three-year terms. The Housing Commission maintains awareness of housing needs and opportunities, including affordable housing; proposes housing policy initiatives and changes; investigates fair housing complaints and conciliates these complaints; mediates conflicts relating to the Virginia Residential Landlord & Tenant Act and offers reconciliatory services in conflicts relating to other housing laws. DATE OF MEETING: May 12, 2020 PLACE OF MEETING: VIRTUAL MEETING https://meet.lync.com/fallschurch-fallschurchva/dlewis/LV3LS3ZN MEETING CALLED TO ORDER BY: Chair Jordan Hicks at 6:30pm THOSE PRESENT: Commission Members Staff Jordan Hicks, Vice Chair _X_ Dana Lewis _X_ Joshua Shokoor __X__ Planning Commission Liaison Peter Davis _ X __ FCHC Liaison Student Liaison Thom Vaccaro____ Council Liaison Guest Letty Hardi _ X__ Shaina Schaffer – Planning __X_ Moha Thakur – NHT __x___ Ted Risher – Boundary Stone _X___ Alex McMillen ___x__ Minutes approved from the February 11, 2020 meeting. Proceedings: Meeting called to order by Vice Chair Hicks at 6:30 PM New Business CDBG – CARES ACT COVID funds to the City – Commission Action – Staff Lewis The City will be going forward to Council to ask them to approve an amendment to the Cityof Falls Church and Arlington County’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) - Action Plan. This amendment will allow the City to receive $39,500 in CARES Funds from HUD that will go towards rent for City residents affected by a COVID loss of household income. The Housing Commission was in support and is thankful this is happening for residents. CDBG – Urban County Requalification - Commission Action– Staff Lewis The City has made the decision to leave its cooperation agreement with Arlington County and to join the urban County qualification with Fairfax County (Starting FY 2022). The benefit will be that existing CDBG program grant recipients will remain funded and the City will have additional resources such as housing finance that may be used for affordable housing. The Commission (Davis) (Shokoor seconded) made a motion of support for this changes West End Small Area Plan – Housing Commission comments – Shaina Schaffer - Planner Schaffer gave a presentation on the West End small area plan and requested Commission feedback. Questions included:  Time frame? – 10 to 20 years  What is the walkability? – It should have a lot  Public space – Commission would like the space to be available to the public and not just be private  Density – Would like to see it increased  Middle income residents – Can we have more housing to address this?  Cottages – Consider more projects like this that are affordable Housing Study Community Impact Grant VHDA presentation and feedback – Moha Thakur, National Housing Trust A presentation was given on the proposed outcomes of the Housing Study. Commission comments included:  Can we consider a community land trust? Absolutely will look at it  What will the timeline be as progress may be held up because of COVID? TBD  Meals tax as funding source? Will look into it  Have a specific plan for preserving the Fields apartments included as outcome  What options might we have with new Fairfax partnership?  Can we go into detail about expiring ADU units? Cash in Lieu Study – presentation and feedback– Ted Risher, Boundary Stone Partners An overview was given on the Draft Cash in Lieu formula that the City would be able to use. Consultant did research around localities to see what they were doing and developed a formula that is versatile and takes into account discount period of 30 years. Commission comments include:   Is our number higher or lower than Arlington? Higher, also Arlington is more of a negotiation.  What should we expect with negotiations? Payments are not structured in a way that would cause developers to not want to do it  Is their flexibility to do 30% of AMI for units or the ability to do up to 10% to total units? Yes  Why only 30 years? After 30 years it does not really work.  Can we run the numbers on Founders Row? Yes, we can  How does Fairfax do theirs? They are very regimented in Tyson Corner with regards to ADUs. The rest of the jurisdiction is set up for land development. In our next meeting we will discuss the Tenant subcommittee proposal.  Adjourn motion made at 8:45 pm