Housing Commission

City of Falls Church Housing Commission MINUTES 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 10, 2022 PLACE OF MEETING: In Person & Virtual MEETING CALLED TO ORDER BY: Joshua Shokoor at 6:32 p.m. THOSE PRESENT: Commission Members Planning Commission Liaison Meredith Anderson City Council Hannah Jordan Letty Hardi Joshua Shokoor, Chair Guests Staff Gene Gresko Dana Lewis Mansour Abdul-Malik (Virtual) Kayleen Mark Gabrielle Happi Alicia Garcia (Virtual) Andrea Caumont (Virtual) Minutes from the April 19, 2022 meeting were approved as amended. Proceedings: Meeting and Roll called to order at 6:33pm – Chair Joshua Shokoor Reading of Virtual Meeting Notice – Staff Dana Lewis Approval of Minutes – Chair Joshua Shokoor Motion to approve as amended by Joshua Shokoor and seconded by Hannah Jordan & Meredith Anderson. Motion passed. Rental Assistance Programs in the City Update – Dana Lewis The Virginia Rental Assistance Program’s last day is Friday May 14th. Residents have been getting up to 18 months of rental assistance. Landlords have been applying on behalf of tenants so we are unsure of the amount of people who received the help. The City has rental funds through ARPA to assist people in the city if needed. Money with the state will spend until it runs out. The City has about $150,000 and some of those funds are going to the welcoming Falls Church refugee program and emergency assistance including utilities. Currently the City pays $500 of assistance for utilities or rent and we want to increase that amount to $1,000 of assistance a person can receive at one time. Joshua asked about a tracking or update on those clients however there is no tracking because tenants were referred to the state program. The concern now is the people who were getting that assistance from the state will be coming back to the City and we won’t know the demand for the program until the state program goes away. There was a motion to support raising the assistance amount to $1000 and raise the months of support. Hannah supports. Dana will research to see what works best for raising up to. Josh ask motion to raise to 50% of rent for now and Hannah second. Amazon 2 Homeownership Program & Support for Developer Agreement Update – Mansur Abdul-Malik After the last meeting, they went to the drawing board to tease out individual costs and transaction per AMI cost. Mansur provided a spreadsheet that breaks down the details to the 80/20 equity split and the developer fee and gave insight on how they came up with the cost and how to get the 18 homes delivered. Letty questioned if the 80/20 equity split is enough to replenish a revolving fund because 20% does not give much back to The City because of appreciation of homes. She said maybe it is best to seek out ten homes and change equity split to have better revolving of funds. Mansur said once the property is sold they’re not just getting back what was put in, but also from the equity split and the goal is not profit but to keep the homes affordable. Homes will remain in the same AMI as when it was sold to the first buyer and the concept is to remain affordable for the next buyer. Mansur said we are using AMI model and not appreciation model to keep homes affordable. Hanna asked if market is moving fast and more expensive then what happens and if Mansur has checked to see the impact that would have. Mansura said he played around – and the higher the cost the fewer homes we can buy and they will continue to look and buy homes close to the amount as possible. More expensive means lesser homes to buy. Bottom line is we will end up buying fewer homes if more subsidy is needed. Hanna brought up the developer fee – previous meetings it said the fee was 12 but this spreadsheet provided says 7%. Mansur explained that is the total fee for purchase, hold and sale. NHP will be managing and execute properly and receive 7% on the entire transaction. Dana said the developer fee was discussed with council and details will be discussed in the work session. Meredith suggested addressing the concerns about the 12% developer fee. A request was made for a simpler model on the process and cycle of the program. Amazon 3 Acquisition Strike Fund Update– Alicia Garcia Virginia Village project is making great headway with the working group. A version of the MOU was presented to working group between the City, EDA and Wesley. Excellent feedback was given from the working group. Alicia said there are a few more changes to make and she will make the changes and recirculate and present to council early June. • Rehab at 310 S Maple – request for quotes have been submitted. A few people declined but some are interested. Getting them to do in person visits to the building to get more accurate quotes. • CHP – working with them to do energy efficient upgrades at all the buildings and not just at 310 S Maple. CHP came to see the buildings to see what work was feasible and has great ideas such as electrical updates, insulation in roof and may have additional scope of work. • Alicia attended the EDA meeting where the resolution was passed for signing of the rehab application with Virginia Housing and she will work to get it signed and passed to Wesley. • Phase 1 environmental is on track to meet the June 30th deadline. • Transferring 208 Gibson to EDA – this is the last building in City ownership and will bring to council for approval on the refinance. Wesley will act as buyer per MOU – want them to be proactive about buying and not wait on buildings to become on sale. Affordable Dwelling Unit Update – Kayleen Mark HUD has released the updated 2022 AMI and we have updated the increased qualifying income amounts. Rents will remain the same until November. Founders Row had to delay two ADU units until September 1, 2022 while waiting for the certificate of occupancy for some units. Only two ADU units were affected by this. We currently have five units at Founders Row to fill for 5/15/2022 move in and three units at Verso for 5/15/2022 move in. Pearson Square has two units for mid-June that she is in the process of getting them filled. For outreach, she participated in the monthly employee town hall meeting giving updates on the ADU Program and applying for the waitlist. She has the EAP meeting scheduled for June 7th to share information on the program. She will also be completing a video on Thursday with the property management teams to provide more information on the ADU program and how to apply. She then shared with the group a flyer she created for outreach and received great feedback on the flyer. Other • Joshua is moving to the Netherlands and we need to fill his spot. Christina will also be leaving Housing Commission and her spot will need to be filled as well. There is no timeline on when but she indicated she will be resigning. Dana said for diversity we should look for the two people to fill those spots and also reach out to people with low income. • Opening on the community service board – there is a mental health interest and Dana said she needs someone and the board is also looking for diversity • Taking on a student rep – Mindy reached out to ask if we are able to take on another student rep. Kayleen will email her to let her know that we can. • Change date of meeting for next month to June 28th and next meeting to July 19th. Meeting Adjourned – 8:23 p.m. The City of Falls Church is committed to the letter and spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 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