Housing Task Force

Housing Task Force Meeting #11 Thursday, April 25, 2024 7pm Village Hall Conference Room Attendants: Arley Arno, Monica Fonseca, Jane Lippman, Kathy Pandekakes, Catrina Shivers, Aldo Vitagliano, Andrew Weiss, Ursula Winchell Absent: Margaret Adamson, Lisa Cordasco, Chester Edwards, Luis Yumbla Meeting opened at 7:05 p.m. Meeting minutes from March 28 and April 11, 2024 were approved unanimously by motion from Kathy Pandekakes, and seconded by Andrew Weiss. Discussion on where we have been and where we think we are going next: Suggestion of having Shelley Mayer as guest speaker to talk about New York State incentives, including current Affordable housing programs recently approved in the new State budget. Suggestion of having Blanca Lopez, the current Westchester Planning Commissioner and Port Chester resident, speak to the group along with her colleague that worked in New York State Housing. Kathy Pandekakes was invited by Mamaroneck Coalition for Affordable Housing for a networking event about affordable housing on May 3, 2024 and offered to bring a Committee member with her. Monica Fonseca volunteered to join her and take notes for the rest of the group. It was suggested to bring in one or more developers who are building affordable units in their projects to discuss the process and logistics of affordable housing. David Mann of Tarry Lighthouse and Nick Williams, who has coordinated with other developers and has also done projects in New Rochelle, were suggested as potential guest speakers. The goal would be to get a developer’s perspective on the back end of how the mandated affordable units will get build, what the process looks like, and what we could recommend in lieu of incentives to get them to build more affordable units. It was suggested to have Frank Ferrara, the Chairman of the IDA, to give perspective of IDA incentives. Are there ways to modify the 10% or the AMI in order to get more affordable units? If the 10% mandate doesn’t help the people we are trying to help, then maybe tweaking the numbers would be more helpful. Having a conversation with the developers that are actually building them would be helpful to learn what more could be done. We discussed keeping two meeting in May and June on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each of those months. The meetings in July and August could be the 2nd Thursday of the month for those months but we can follow up based on availability of Committee members. A question was raised of what was meant by the term “backing into the numbers” that guest speaker Lou Larizza used at a prior meeting. Is it economically feasible if we played with the numbers for required units and the AMI levels? It was stated that it depends on the individual project, the price of the land, how much funding they are getting, whether they are getting state and/or county funds, etc. We also briefly discussed tax credits like 4% and 9% tax credits for example. The AMI depends on the kind of project you are doing and whether you can afford the package. Mr. Larizza was talking about building all affordable projects, which is different than the new mixed-use projects being built and the mandated percentages and AMI. If we are playing with the AMI, we would need to see what the project will allow in order to pay the mortgage because a developer still needs to make money. There are multiple layers as to how to manage it. The Village has no one to manage it, and for the projects that aren’t receiving State or Westchester County funds, who will manage and enforce the requirements on those units? There is no enforcement agency. If the village is mandating the 10% set aside there has to be some mechanism to enforce it. If the consensus is that more people will be able to afford rentals vs owned, will we propose both? When we make recommendations will we recommend one of the other or a combination of both? We should also be recommending incentive programs with the State and County to the Board of Trustees. We need to incentivize the developers. Based on the needs assessment, they will need to have someone in the Village to manage all these affordable units. We can all likely agree that one of our recommendations will be that the Village needs staff to manage this. The newest Village parking law was discussed and whether there’s a need for all this parking, instead of using those funds for more affordable units. It’s estimated to cost around $30,000 to $40,000 to create one parking space. How are the economics of mixed use projects different than all residential projects? Should we also invite a management company, like the Director of Housing of New Rochelle to discuss how they are managing and enforcing their affordable housing? Based on prior discussions with guest speaker Howie Ravikoff, are there incentives and programs that already exist or could be created, for current landlords to keep their affordable units? We need to find out what’s out there in the way of incentives and programs available for current landlords, and potentially recommend that the Village do more outreach to make landlords aware of these programs to help. Good cause eviction laws were discussed and that there are opt in rules for municipalities. What is the vision of the Village for affordable housing? Are there underutilized places in the Village where new housing could be created? May dates for our meeting will be May 9th and May 23th. June dates will be June 13th and June 27th. Discussion on absent members: It’s critical that we have people contributing to the group. We will ask those who have not been participating if they wish to resign. Then, we can ask the Board of Trustees to add more people if possible. There is concern about getting new members caught up to where we are and where we are going but it’s also important to get input from a variety of people. Meeting ended at 8:01 p.m. with motion to adjourn by Monica Fonseca, and seconded by Andrew Weiss. Next meeting will be Thursday, May 9, 2024 7pm at the Village Hall Conference Room.