Commission on Aging

REGULAR MEETING December 13, 2018 I. Call to Order and Roll Call: The regular meeting of the Wheaton Housing Commission was held in the Gammon Room, Wheaton City Hall, at 303 W. Wesley Street, Wheaton, Illinois. Housing Commissioner Chair, Bob Barger, called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2018. Present: Bob Barger, Chair David Horton Stu Johnson Mike Rybinski Jan Kay Tom Zullo Bill Gilbertson Marcella Incarnati Joe Kreidl – City of Wheaton Guest: Christine Eisenmann II. Approval of Minutes: Commissioner Gilbertson moved, and Commissioner Zullo seconded, a motion to accept the minutes of the November 8, 2018 meeting with one change. The second sentence on page 3 of the minutes should say “affordable” housing not “immigrant” housing. The motion was unanimously approved by a voice vote. III. Correspondence: a. Housing Commission budget The CY budget for 2019 of $120,000 has been approved. This leaves us with $720 not currently committed to people who have already been awarded housing assistance. The City Manager and the City Council have said if new people apply for housing assistance and are HOUSING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Month Date, Year approved, that we can go over our budget. They do not want anyone on the waiting list. b. 2018/2019 Housing assistance program summary No new people have been added to the list. Since the Social Security COLA increase for 2019 will be 2.8%, there was discussion about raising our maximum amount for people to quality for assistance by that amount. We had a fairly large increase last year and with a tight budget, we decided not to change the maximum qualifying income amount for 2019. We did agree to put a notice in the water bill again in August and to put our info in the SALT newsletter again in June. IV. Old Business: a. Web Site: Commissioner Barger will not be able to schedule a time to do a video discussing where to find helpful information on seniors and housing web pages until early next year. b. Affordable Housing: Commissioner Barger met with three members of the city council (Prendiville, Fitch and Rutledge) at the last coffee with council opportunity. They brainstormed places where affordable housing could be located in Wheaton. All agreed that it would be difficult and expensive to find 3+ acres of land needed to build a multi-story 40 unit building in the Roosevelt Rd corridor. They did think that approaching Du Page County about potential space at or around the county fairgrounds might be an option. c. Letters to Renters: Commissioner Barger distributed a list of 25 renters in different areas of the city that might not be aware of our housing assistance program. We will use the info put in the SALT newsletter in our letter to be mailed to each individual address. We will also put a sentence in related to their passing on the information to others that they know who might quality for such assistance. Another suggestion was to make sure none of the addresses on Roosevelt Rd were a part of Marion Park. Commissioner Barger said he would continue to bring 2 HOUSING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Month Date, Year forward a list of 20-25 renters monthly for us to notify of our assistance program. V. New Business: a. Proposed Inclusionary Housing Ordinance Commissioner Barger distributed a proposed City of Wheaton Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (which was adopted from the one from St Charles). The State of Illinois has already approved an affordable housing ordinance that requires that at least 10% of homes in each city be affordable according to the state definition. Cities who fall below the 10 percent figure must submit a plan to create more affordable housing in the municipality. A number of other cities in Chicagoland have implemented similar ordinances. The key differences among cities relate to what percent of new multifamily housing needs to be affordable and what formula they use to determine define affordable. Each city also has different amounts that a developer could pay to opt out of the need to make any units affordable. St Charles recently lowered their fee. Naperville just increased their fee. Evanston has partnered with Community Partners for Affordable Housing to manage its wait list for affordable units provided through the inclusionary housing ordinance. Batavia approved Windmill Manor which will have 72 of the 80 units to be rent restricted for which the developer will receive a tax credit from IHDA. The city of Lake Forest has an ordinance addressing low and moderate income housing. The southwest side of Chicago has just increased from 10 percent to 20 percent the number of affordable units a developer must supply. Arlington Heights used community development block grants to fund affordable housing. Developers must pay a per unit fee of $100,000 in lieu of providing affordable units. This will be the main item on the January agenda to finalize a draft of the proposed City of Wheaton Inclusionary Housing Ordinance 3 HOUSING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Month Date, Year VI. Adjournment: A motion to adjourn was made by Commissioner Johnson and seconded by Commissioner Gilbertson. The motion was unanimously approved by a voice vote at 8:30 pm. The next regular meeting of this commission will be held on Thursday, January 10, 2019. 4