July 28, 2021 — Housing Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

[MM:SS] timestamps correspond to the YouTube recording.

[0:05] Meeting the boulder housing Advisory Board. let's see who was President Danny. President. President President pipe. You go there, we go. So Julia boom. Hello. jack. Hello i'm here. To. Terry polos. Jerry is not here yet, but I believe we have for you today I forget to call anybody who is here. Okay. Quick review welcome everybody happy summer's day goal. I quick review of the agenda, I believe we have a quorum and we'll be able to prove our Minutes review minutes first and then 26 then we'll have some public participation, oh open comment.

[1:08] Matters from the board we're going to have a couple of I think will be very interesting presentations ones learning nj on affordable housing pending finance and then in swallow has joined us from boulder housing partners. Then we'll get into our retreat and a debrief and attempt to prioritize work plan is based on the survey results. didn't get a lot of survey results, but I got some very interesting comments on that will go to item see a committee and project liaison reports, we do have those President may be terrible joining us by then to report out on 20 homes and era. Madison the staff. number seven D repeating calendar check and then we'll adjourn to 9pm. So I think it's appropriate for me to ask for a motion to approve our minister of may 26 2021.

[2:09] Second. Okay, all in favor raise your hand any way you want to. I believe that's been approved, thank you. Public to station, we have any members of the public who would like to speak. To. Hearing new sound when a person. Take our participant most. I don't see any. members of the public listed on the participants. Does that look right to you corey.

[3:00] That is correct. I believe, then we can move on to our next agenda item. It will start with this overview from Jason and swallow to take it away. Here we go everybody, so this is a presentation that Ian. embalm and I gave to the planning board. A couple months ago and I thought it might be extremely helpful some of its going to be kind of basic for some of you, but. Maybe not but it might be a good refresher, but I think the piece from Ian will be really interesting and just in terms of the inner workings of how affordable housing. gets funded and give you some in depth, greater knowledge of how that works so i'm going to start with some highlights and successes.

[4:00] In terms of the city's policies. Specifically, with the city's role and then, as I mentioned Ian is going to talk more about the. I think everybody is familiar with what the problem is and why it's a problem, so the bottom blue line is basically area median income. hasn't changed a whole lot in the past 20 to 30 years, whereas housing prices have been climbing steadily and particular since 2010 so the middle of red line is a attached. And the really shocking number is the detached homes, so this is sales price data that comes from Barra and we track this every year, as well as the household income and you'll see this graph also in the CDS Community profile that we publish on an annual basis as well. So the rental situation is very similar.

[5:03] data is not as reliable, but it gives you a sense that rents are increasing, although rental renting in boulder is still. significantly more affordable than purchasing home, as we all know, it's really when people make that are trying to make that transition from rental renting to owning that a lot of people are challenged. So. Also, I thought it was important to talk about some definitions, so when I talk about affordable housing it's different than what sort of the industry standards, so the industry standard for affordable housing means you pay no more than 30% of your income housing. So what. In the city of boulder permanently affordable housing is really what we're talking about when we talk about affordable housing. And that means it's deemed restricted to ensure permanent and affordability in perpetuity so there's a deed restriction on the property, and that applies to both rental and ownership units.

[6:10] area meeting income, so I think you all know, this half of the people make more happen people make less in 2021 it was just over 103,000. There are also lots of different sort of definitions of income levels out there, I won't go into all the subcategories the city for simplicity purposes, we talked about low moderate and middle income and that's really what our 15% goal is not low zero to 60. Moderate 60 to 80 and, as you can see middle and. Keep it the nice thing about the Am I recently, is that you can just that 30% amia is roughly a household of three earning 30,000 so it's kind of easy to remember it that way. And also, if you guys have questions i'm jump right in because I can't see you all on my screen just just please feel free to interrupt me.

[7:08] hey Jay Jesse another presentation, I think, is in again and if everybody can like see the. notes about my notes yeah. funky I don't know if it's full screen out up everybody can see that. Your what am I doing now. Thank you go to display settings Jay. I gotta try again. Come on technology. resume slideshow what. well. What if you press f5 you have an f5.

[8:00] He on your dinner. At five is the shortcut key for a workstation no. No, I guess, I didn't know. More time it did work but it showed somewhere else. how's that. All right. So I think, as you all know, we've been making pretty significant progress towards achieving our goal. Last year we had 277 units, which was really bit, which was the second best year on record. So we've been doing quite well. And in addition to. That it's not advancing for some reason.

[9:12] There we go you see that. Yes. i've done this before, to believe it or not, flawlessly. Okay, so, in addition to the. 277 units this year we've had we have. Just over almost 1000 units in the pipeline that we hope to be building over the next to say one to seven years. And another big piece that's kind of has evolved in the past several years is that a push for permanent supportive housing, so you recall a permanent supportive. is for people transitioning from being on housed provides more wraparound services like mental health services addiction services so there's been a big push that all of our new affordable projects provide at least to.

[10:06] A certain percentage of units as permanent permanent supportive. it's working. So there we we accomplish we've been accomplishing this goal, through a combination of regulations policy, as well as investment. So those regulations that everyone's familiar with, including our housing that 25% requirement that all new housing has to be permanently affordable. We also have Croatia linkage fees on new commercial development, so we have last I checked, we still have the second highest commercial linkage fees and the country I think other California communities are catching up quickly. But that's you'll see that's providing a significant source and annexation so annexation our primary Community benefit as you recall, is that typically anywhere from 40 to 60% of any new development has has to provide 40 to 60% of those units have to be permanently affordable.

[11:10] We have another number of strategies and policy in place we'll talk about the middle income strategy and next month. We just you just reviewed them manufactured housing strategy builds upon the state provisions and preservation is also been a big push in the past, say five to seven years. The ideas and instead of focusing most of our efforts on building new in areas of city that can that are growing this really helps us to purchase existing. Houses housing stock and convert it into perfectly affordable in perpetuity so that's been a big shift in our policy and that investment that we're going to talk more about really allows us to use those local funds and federal funds and leveraging.

[12:01] And we can do all this without all of our partners to boulder housing partners as a course or primary partner, very important. But we also have other nonprofits we have even privates developers providing not affordable housing and keep in mind the city does not own or operate affordable housing we rely solely on our partners. don't ask me about ponderosa with that statement. So funding sources. As I mentioned those commercial linkage fees 11% so that's been growing over the past couple years federal funds have been shrinking so the linkage views have kind of been filling that gap. Property taxes about quarter of our funding comes from local property tax but caching little is still the bulk source of. Funding for affordable. And you can see, you can see, over the last six years, just over $66 million has been collected.

[13:05] And that cash in lieu in the commercial linkage fees this just gives you a sense of how variable they are a year to year. You know, some years are really big some years are fairly small. It really has to do with market has to do with timing of projects. And it almost seems like there is no real rhyme or reason but. just wanted to highlight that for you, but, as you can see linkage fees are becoming more important in terms of our funding source. And how we use that is that we combine a lot of different sources that come in. And we're able to leverage those to basically. For every dollar that we spend in local money we can leverage two to $3 about. State or the federal and you know we'll talk about that the low income housing tax credits and those funds are very competitively distributed to our our affordable housing providers.

[14:08] We sometimes hear from people that we have all this money just sitting around not going towards affordable housing, but I guarantee you that these the funding requests that we get exceeds available funds on an annual basis. And I would say, one of the great things about funding is that it allows us to provide deeper affordability right, so if we were say to get rental projects on site. And the developers would provide all of those units at basically 60% nami, which is the basic requirement. So when BHP approaches the project, they will always look at well how do we get 50% units 40% units 30 and i'm down because there's definitely a need for those lower incomes as well. So that's been a. One of the great things that happens with it because towards new construction so as I mentioned, we have the housing authority other nonprofits private developers.

[15:10] The preservation we've been talking about so some examples tantra than so if you're familiar with those. And then programs but also it, you know it's not enough just to get somebody in an affordable home there's there is a lot that goes into educating future owners of the Program. Helping with people to maintain those homes, over time, particularly if they're very low income of fixed income and sometimes Homeowners get in trouble. And we have to bail them out from foreclosure it's still beneficial to the city, even if we have to invest a little bit of additional money to keep that in the Program. So, like I said feel free to interrupt me if you have any questions and then land banking so it's great recent examples Hello parkway.

[16:03] 30 Pearl was land bank for quite some time we just recently purchased lease option for 20 acres and planning reserve. BHP just recently purchased 6500 odell up in gun barrel so you're going to hear more about land banking from Ian probably just because they have so many projects in the pipeline. They just don't have the staff capacity to actually fulfill them all, at this time, which is a really great problem to have. So those regulations and the policies and investments have had some really tangible outcomes so. This is an interesting analysis, we did so out of every hundred new units that get created in boulder so focus on the inner circle at 1% at one of those are market rate and 19 or permanently affordable so some of those are provided on site, but the vast majority of those are provided.

[17:03] Through funding. And in addition to those 19 every year we're getting about 17 through preservation and again this is on average over five year period. But it just shows that the policies and regulations in investment combined are making significant progress. And another benefit of the funding, as well as you can see the the units that we have are fairly well distributed throughout the city. And if we were to rely solely on getting development or affordable units through new development that map would look very differently so it's that preservation piece itself allows us to land bank and that's going to allow us to spread out those units. across a broader spectrum of the city.

[18:01] And then on the website there's a if i'm sure we've all like bike by walked by driven by projects in boulder we have no idea where we're actually permanently affordable, so we have on our website a similar list like this and it shows you. samples of projects throughout older pictures, how many units at what am I do you really want to dig into the details, but the whole idea is that these funding sources help provide a very diverse set of housing in the city. And then, before I turn it over to Ian, I just wanted to this is analysis, we did. Well, it was like three or four years ago, definitely pre pandemic comparing some market rate projects with affordable projects, so the affordable projects are in green the top the market rate or purple. You can see the portal projects are typically smaller and number Michael you have question.

[19:02] Yes, I do, but once you finish this panel and it'll ask you. here. So you can see the affordable projects are typically smaller than. The market rates they, but what we wanted to show were sort of the number of public meetings. that the changes that are made through the development review process and all the Community benefit that's provided. And you know this was kind of in response to some concerns we're hearing from the community that affordable projects we're getting special treatment from the city and as Ian can attest, you know we put it. Affordable projects through the wringer just like market rate development and even more so, I think we we almost hold them to a higher standard in some respects, so I just wanted to share some of this and before we turn it over to Ian we start with michael's question. Thank you Jay i've been hearing about all the new money for housing that's going to be coming in, as a result of various relief act as a species started to assess.

[20:11] What piece of the pie, that we might get and how that might be applied. Yes, I do know that those conversations have started, I do not know where they've landed and i'm pretty sure they have not landed. But affordable housing, I would say it's definitely in the mix. What percentage of that I really couldn't speculate but between now i'm I will definitely share that information. Because you know i've been hearing, and this is a little anecdotal I apologize, that the funding available in the next I guess fiscal year is going to be like 10 times. what's out there for this year and that you know, maybe a one time infusion but that could really create a significant amount of new housing communities.

[21:02] that's very exciting. Any other questions any other reactions, I mean it was this interesting useful helpful. Yes, I would love to get a copy of it okay yeah. Question J. Good um I was curious on the linkage fees did the did the geography expand for that. The boundary that the city impose where business new businesses would have would be asked to pay a commercial linkage fee at some at some point. it's it's city wide or are you. Anyway, are you thinking of the Community benefit. Allowing you know development to have that additional height or intensity. Maybe that's it. I just thought there was like a bit there was like a boundary.

[22:01] Linkage feed boundary within the city limits. 20th street and West, or something like that, but it's all over the city. All new commercial development, and it was phased in over three years and 20. This year last year with it's fully phase two. Okay, so I guess what we're seeing so so there's more there was more of the commercial linkage as a as a part of the distribution in the later years because because it had been it was fully phased in, by them. Exactly okay so it'll be interesting to see that graph and say two or three years to see if that becomes our dominant funding source. yeah be interesting, but. I was surprised I was expecting it to be less cash and Leo and more linkage fee but. it's kind of held steady. Mary J need a quick question, do you have any analysis of how low income tax tax credits have been leveraged in boulder to help create some of this housing and related to that other tax structures, like opportunity zones anything happening.

[23:13] In that department. I mean even can talk more about how they utilize low income tax credits, I mean they do it for pretty much all of their projects. operative opportunity zones, you know it's interesting I you know I haven't heard discussion about that in quite some time. I would have to get back to you on that. yeah I haven't heard of any affordable housing being developed Israel but maybe someone else at. The end now. yeah I mean I can speak with it a little I have not on obviously as a little feedback there. isn't a nonprofit kind of developer, we don't we don't really benefit from opportunity zones. And what we've seen is that the investors who are investing in a low income housing tax credit are not really interested in the opportunity zone it's not really an incentive for them it's kind of a different.

[24:11] tax benefit than than what they would find useful. On the market rate side I know there's been some rumblings but I honestly have not heard of any projects that are specifically developing as a result of that opportunity opportunity zone. legislation, at least in boulder specifically other other places, I think there has been a little more action in those areas, but I have not heard it specifically in boulder so. I would agree with that. gay. Quick just a question from you, I just wanted to understand, well, I have two questions, maybe the first one is around between the cash in lieu versus the. Just lost the name of the other option for the funding.

[25:04] The linkage. uh huh it came back to me yeah. So. The capsule just like it to be, we saw on the. graph of it. it's it's great increase do you I mean I know that's a balance between how much. property is developed from which we can collect linkage fee, as well as the increase, probably in the linkage fees. Do you have a sense, because that was quite a jump it seemed like it was more than just the increasing percentage, and I know like you said they're hard to peg anything to any sense of how much of that is based on the increase in the fee versus just more development that pays the fee. Now I mean that's just comparing only one or two years worth of data. To see a trend, I guess, I think it'll be really interesting to three years to go back and look at it.

[26:04] But I would say it's a combination combination at that there's been quite a bit of commercial development. And defeated fully implemented, we and you know we thought that a lot of people will be jumping ahead, you know, trying to get in under the lower fees and I think that did happen, a little bit, but we're still have people coming in with a fully implemented fees so. That didn't seem to be a deterrent particular. I mean we'll know with more more years under our belt like you said the other question just so I understand it correctly, is the. The graphic that you showed with market rate new and then. permanently affordable units and you have the there were 19 permanently affordable and then you had the 17 that were preservation, so when we look at that are we really looking at like, if I understand that correctly 36 units.

[27:04] Out of well, this would be out of every hundred and 17 units. have been we're getting 36 to 81 is kind of the balance that we're getting is that. yeah with that how I understand. that have to be a little careful with this graph so that hundred units is all new. So that's why it's an outside circle, so we are getting 19 affordable you out of those new 100 new. But we're. Of the existing buck we're we're transitioning those from market right affordable. Right so that's yeah okay that that answers my question that's I just want to make sure I understand correctly okay. Thanks. For we get day, so I just so first things that functionally it's essentially like 3664 when you put in the preservation that comes after the fact, with the existing units right.

[28:08] So that's why that's on that outside circle, but it has the effect of bringing that 81 down to 64 is the way I looked at that right. Well, during that that's. Okay, all right. applies it's all new. I think I think this is great, I really appreciate I think would be really great if we had some sort of just regular updates on some of these things once in a while not necessarily just for the members of the board but whom whoever may be attending and. This is really I liked how this is very direct and concise and and you know this is, I am sure it is made available to the public, but if there's some way for more people It just seems to me a lot of people don't understand what's going on, I think it's pretty comprehensive is very commendable. Especially compared to other communities, you know nothing's perfect and this is a daunting challenge for everybody that's just growing more and more, but.

[29:05] Having something like this, so the public understands what's going on the steps that are taken and how they can you know better support it, I think, would be. a wonderful step, because I think it is you know distills down to some very specific information slides or powerpoints whatever it is, and yeah that was great so I appreciate it, I will have a copy to know. It will get posted on the website, like all our presentations anyone else, before we move on to the main attraction. All right, go ahead you're. Perfect thanks Jay do you want me to share my screen, or do you want to run slides here. You can also request control, I think. All right, let me see if I can. or just tell me when you want to advance. i'll try this, let me see you guys, let me know in this next presentation mode here.

[30:03] You had no problem with that I did. This looks good. Great well thanks everyone thanks everyone. Jay you want to meet yourself I think i'm getting feedback from you. Perfect line. You can swallow with boulder housing partners thanks for having us, of course, i'm going to just give a little presentation today on on kind of who HP HP is what our role is in the city and kind of the main tools we have for developing affordable housing in boulder. So, usually we like to start these presentations off just with a little bit of info on php, so we are the housing authority for the city of boulder so be bolder housing partners is just a DPA doing business as. We are independent from the city so that's a question we get a lot we get our authority from state statute, we have a nine Member board that is appointed by City Council but operates fully independently of city council, we have our own executive director and and kind of full staff so.

[31:21] That is just a little bit about kind of who BHP is and how we're set up. Looking at kind of who we serve, and what that demographic looks like in the city of boulder you can see, we serve about 1800 households currently I think this this data is from last April, so so fairly current. And then you can see just you know some of the highlights certainly our highest. highest kind of folks we serve our households with children, and then a significant number of both seniors and people living with disabilities. And then you know, looking at the bottom of this graphic you'll see that we're we're really.

[32:04] Serving kind of those most in need and kind of some of our most vulnerable. citizen so median income for those 1800 households is just under $16,000 a year, so you know you're looking at less than 1500 dollars a month in income. And that you know equates to about you know 74% of who we're serving is at 30% Am I or less so we We certainly strive to meet those most in need, I think you can really see that in these numbers here in terms of who we're currently serving. transitioning a bit so some of the pieces wanted to get into today, these are just touching on kind of all the ways php is involved in affordable housing in the city so. Obviously, new construction so so going out and building new affordable housing we're currently just wrapping up or 30 Pearl project right a 30th and Pearl so that's a great example.

[33:04] acquisition we're always looking to purchase existing housing stock, I think you know you heard Jay touch on that piece of bit, but that's an important part of what we do both you know preserve. Some of that naturally occurring affordable housing and city and then also acquire some you know communities that we think are good fit for what we're seeing where we're seeing the need. Land banking Jay also mentioned we're we're you know going out and just acquiring land or other. Buildings are properties that we you know don't necessarily see as immediate development potential, but we know, and you know, three 510 years are going to be really, really good to own and be a great opportunity for new housing. renovation, another important piece, we were chatting just before this began about some of the. Recent renovation so that's you know, maintaining our existing portfolio we're up to about 1600 units total in the city currently so that's important that we are being good stewards of those existing communities.

[34:13] And then finally partnerships so that's you know, working with the city it's working with we have a ton of great private developers, who are creating affordable housing. As well as our nonprofits so you know folks like builder shelter for the homeless we've done good partnerships with private developer private developers. The cyclo community, which is over, on just about belmont and foothills That was a partnership with element properties that was a good way to get some new housing So those are kind of all the ways we're currently touching affordability and affordable housing in the city. transitioning here so getting more into the funding, I wanted to touch a little bit on kind of the big funding tool that php uses and really nationally, is the primary tool to create new.

[35:09] Affordable rental housing, and that is the low income housing tax credit you'll see it commonly abbreviated here la Li htc or lie tech you'll often hear it referred to as. This a federal program actually came out of the I guess most recent tax reform law prior to 2017 which was in the mid 80s and really came out of a desire to replace. Direct subsidies from the Federal Government so that was really the public housing program where you had hud and the Federal Government directly building. affordable housing results of that were certainly mixed you had you know large scale projects in big cities that are you know pretty widely viewed now as. Having been a failure of public policy, and so the low income housing tax credit program was implemented to really replace that and What it does is bring in a private entity as an investor into the the partnership that ultimately builds and owns this housing so.

[36:14] They get basically $1 for dollar tax credit. against their federal income tax liability in exchange for providing upfront funding for affordable housing so. simplistic way of how that works is a project will be awarded a certain amount of. tax credits and it's eligible for an investor will then pay us current pricing you'll see here is between about 88 and 95 cents on the dollar. So they're basically getting the return, plus a little more of that that difference, so that between you know five and 12 cents per dollar of tax credit as an incentive for investing in the housing is how the low income housing tax credit program works.

[37:02] A little little more detail here so important piece that's often folks don't don't realize with it, but the tax credit program is actually administered by the irs. it's a tax credit, so it sits under them rather than hud they allocate a tax credits annually to state agencies, so in Colorado that's the. Colorado housing and finance authority often shortened to chaff it's based on population so it's a per capita calculation that's done. And then shatha basically administers those tax credits in the state of Colorado so you'll see in the diagram here, they will. receive proposals so it's a competitive process or two application rounds per year so developers submit applications if Chapel likes them they get awarded tax credits. you'll see on the bottom, then those tax credits will flow to the investor as their benefit in exchange will get.

[38:03] Some funding to help build the housing will also take out a loan so just like you know you might have a mortgage on your House, the affordable housing rebuild all has a debt on it so. lender will issue alone that's that is supported by the rent that we charge to the residents. And then you know kind of the third piece of the pie is grants so for us largest funder That is certainly the city of boulder it's that cash and Lou and linkage fee money at work, and that is a kind of a critical piece for us in terms of how we we finance our communities. If that wasn't complicated enough, we add in there are either actually three different types of tax credits that we currently have access to so. There are two federal tax credits, one is the 9% tax credit you'll see on the Left that's kind of the most valuable and the most competitive that equity typically brings about 70% of the funding that we need to build the housing.

[39:12] The compliment to that on the federal side is the non competitive 4% piece, so that is a. Tax credit that, basically, the Federal Government has agreed to issue in it, you know in any amount there's no cap on it, there are their end up being some some ways that it's kept that. are little in the weeds but that brings about 30% so that resource typically has to get paired with something else to be viable because you're only able to get about 30% of the you know kind of total capital, you need to build the housing out of that so. The third and kind of final tax credits is actually the state of Colorado affordable housing tax credit, so this is relatively new I think the first year for this was back in maybe 2016 or 2015 it's currently extended at the state level through 2025 so.

[40:10] works exactly the same as the federal credit, the state of Colorado basically gives investors, a tax credit against their state income tax liability in exchange for funding for housing, so that ends up getting paired with the 4% non competitive. and get you a lot closer that you know 45 to 60% you see there in equity that helps to build the housing So those are kind of the three flavors of tax credits that are currently available. I will just quickly pause there in case any immediate questions I have some more examples of how this works in some hypothetical projects, but any initial questions on on the tax credit piece. All right.

[41:02] Is it trending in a direction between those three options is one starting to get utilized more or is it just pretty much status right now. yeah that's interesting so it's you know typically you see the list of applications all. Basically they're all oversubscribed we typically see about 321 so you know there's funding request for about three times as much money as is available. I can tell you in boulder the last 9% BHP had was probably over 10 years ago at this point, so we have almost exclusively been using the 4% and state tax credit combination to fund our projects. The reason for that is there is a there's a cap on the amount of 9% tax credits that chapo will Award for a specific project. And we tend to see higher construction costs and just higher development costs for our projects in boulder so what that does is we, you know we quickly exceed that CAP to the point where a project isn't feasible, with the 9%.

[42:10] I think you know you know we're always looking at it, it tends now to be smaller community, so you know. 30 4050 units, rather than 60 7080 units, which is what you'll see more commonly with the the 4% and state combination so that's certainly been the trend in boulder I think you know demand for all of it has has exceeded supply consistently for for a long time so. Thank you yeah. Alright, so. we'll keep moving here, this is just a quick slide to show you some of the things chapter is looking at when they're. kind of evaluating projects so everything from you know location was the transit like obviously you know what's what's the need, who are you serving.

[43:00] They want to look at you know what's the population that you're serving, are there any special populations energy efficiency has been a big focus in the last couple of years, so we. Certainly, are good good at that in boulder the city has a very strict energy codes so that's always looked at favorably by chaska. And then, this last point readiness to proceed, which is really you know how how how quickly after an award are you able to pull a building permit start construction and you know, bring that housing to the market. Is a is a very important one, so something we're always very cognizant of. This. This slide we really included when we did our the same presentation for planning board who's you know, often reviewing our projects, but this is our kind of internal you know, then venn diagram but. timeline for the city of boulder is kind of entitlement process to take a project from you know we bought a piece of land we're ready to start designing.

[44:03] Through a full building permit, so you know we're currently seeing that's probably about a two year process just based on current timeline so the city has quite a quite rigorous review process which is you know, certainly a good thing, I think, for the vast majority of cases, but. This is kind of what we're navigating through when we're preparing to go to Chapel because they're. always looking at that readiness to proceed how far along in this process are we, and how close, are we to being able to pull a building permit for any any given application so that's kind of what the what the city process looks like. hey in this is Julie, I had a question just on the on the last slide. yeah. So, with respect to housing need and characteristics, is that, how is it determined with the housing types, you mentioned that a large proportion of.

[45:02] The clients that you serve have children and then there's another proportion that people with people with special needs, and I would imagine the housing types of those two groups would be quite different. The style of housing and and their people have housing preferences and we hear. It that's why people leave boulder at a certain you know, in a certain demographic profile, how does How does that get determine because it's a little subjective right. yeah absolutely. So yeah good question I actually have some future slides that I think will kind of show you how BHP is looking at what we're seeing in the market in terms of just demographics and where the demand is but. So for chaffetz a very kind of black and white process, so you know, will propose a project so BHP will look at you know. What demand, have we seen where are we seeing kind of the highest need, will you know kind of create a program around that and then chapter requires a third party market study, so we go out and hire a market analyst.

[46:06] They basically determine you know here's the market area and do a very you know analytical review, there are. This many households in that market area, there are this many at that income strata, these are the comparable properties, these are the amenities, that those properties. and develop what's known as the capture rate, which is a big item for chapo which is basically you know how many how many people out of the pool of potentially eligible households, would you need to. capture to fully lease your your property so they're looking at it from a very like you know they don't want. They don't want you, building a bunch of three bedroom units, if your market area only has single households, who are not going to qualify for those units so for them it's a very kind of cut and dry analytical driven process that that we have to hire an analyst to to perform.

[47:02] Thank you yeah. Alright, so these next few slides they're just gonna be a couple examples, just to kind of illustrate. The power of the low income housing tax credit and how it works in practice so very simple kind of 50 unit example project. At the top there you'll see kind of sources of funding the bottom are the uses of funding, so you know bland hard costs, which is you know kind of our. Construction developer fee soft costs so things like architects and engineers so hypothetical 50 unit project, you can see, at it, you know, affordable rents, we could take out approximately five you know five and a half million dollars in debt. We might be able to go get a million dollars in grants so from the city of boulder from the state from boulder county. But it's going to cost us a little over $19 million to build those 50 units which leaves us with you know, a tremendous gap of about you know we're about 12 and a half million dollars short in this, you know kind of simple.

[48:13] Calculation here, so you know clearly not not feasible. When we add you know tax tax credits into the mix here kind of have that new table on the right, you can see, for for that hypothetical project. Tax credit equity would bring a bow $11 million dollars to the project up front, which basically would almost entirely fill our. fill our gaps and so, then you can see, you know, using the city of boulder that's that's really that cash in lieu. Money and some additional outside grants were were suddenly able to be at the point where we have a project that works. But the key you know, in all of our communities is that is that tax credit equity, so that is certainly the largest driver of our budgets in terms of what.

[49:08] You know the percentage, it makes up which you can see there on the rights and you know same project just adding in that equity makes all the difference in in something getting built. And then you know, to get a little more nuanced on that piece This shows a little bit the impact of density I think it's something we always are looking at it's always you know can be. controversial topic, it can be you know something that is you know difficult at planning board hearings and those things but it's but it's super important for us. In terms of feasibility of our projects, so this just compares a theoretical 50 and 60 unit project on the same same piece of land so on the left, you can see. All the same, sources and uses from the previous slide if you're at 50 units you're looking at you know with tax credit equity we wouldn't need about $1.9 million from the city to make a project work.

[50:10] If we were able to say add 10 units to that same community you'll see the you know total cost is going to go up but also is the. total tax credit equity so that second line from the top you'll see an increase in the 4% state tax credit. And then, what that allows us to do is the the two lines below where you see city of boulder and outside grants, we can we can reduce those asks. Pretty significantly So you see, you know city theoretically would be able to ask for about $700,000 less which is $700,000 that can go to another project. And the same thing and outside grants portion, so this is really something that we try to be really cognizant of. And this just gets to you know the the real driving factor here is the you know what's The total cost per unit of housing that you're building and that's a big metric we see tracked a chap so.

[51:08] density allows us to really lower that cost per individual unit when you're controlling for kind of like you know same piece of land just with the ability to add units it's certainly beneficial in providing affordability. Switching gears a little bit to the acquisition acquisition side this. is again just illustrating on the left, new construction, you can see kind of our sources of funds you'll see you know debt grants and tax credit equity. The piece, where we really struggle with acquisitions, we can certainly go take out a loan against an existing apartment building there's you know rent to support that we can certainly go get funds from the city and others. The piece that we struggle with is bringing in the tax credit equity so we've been able to be creative in a few instances and be able to buy some.

[52:08] Larger kind of apartment communities and then in the future renovate them and bring in that tax credit equity but. it's certainly a nut that's difficult to crack when we're looking at acquiring existing buildings, just because you know we're missing about a third of the pie there to make make everything pencil out. Right let's see Julia this I think we'll also kind of help on some of the household data that we're seeing recently. In terms of how we go about thinking about you know projects and unit Max and who we're trying to serve. So all of this data has come from recent market studies we've done for specific Community so this, you can see from canopy, which is a project that was just completed about this time last year, and you can see, you know what's kind of the.

[53:08] makeup of renter households in in the boulder area so. You can see includes students good. yeah so it's great question and one actually dug into after our planning board presentation, so this would exclude students who are living in, like a group living setting so that's you know it dorms sororities fraternities or anything that's classified as group living. It would include anyone living in like private rental housing so obviously you know. significant portion of see you probably lives in private rental housing was super difficult to quantify did a student respond to this census data saying I live in boulder are saying they live in wherever they're from. Certainly, difficult to parse out but that that is what this data show, so I think there is probably a skew for for students in this when you see the the one person household size but.

[54:08] It also it does not account for all that either I would say. But you can see, you know largest percent of renters is certainly in the smaller household sizes, you know about 70 75% is at that one and two person household size that we're seeing and pretty consistent from 2017 projected forward to 2022. Taking that a little more nuanced so this basically takes the same numbers and then applies income so who would be basically eligible for affordable housing. And we see it's it's pretty consistent, so you know about 70% of the total households earning less than 60% Am I would be one in two person households.

[55:01] But you know we also are looking at over 20% that are in the three and four person household size as well, so certainly need across the board we've seen lately that you know highest proportion is in that smaller household size. And it's you know, certainly been where the demand has been for our units in the last couple of years. Again, this would this wouldn't we wouldn't it be hard to parse out the students living in private Rentals and what. yeah their what their income is. Right right and I. guess would be pretty low. Right, you would you would certainly assume, and it is yeah it's it's definitely a struggle for the the analysts who do this work and. You know I would say just and i'm not sure, let me see if I have a future slide on this, but you know you know anecdotally in who we end up seeing on our waitlist it is skewing in those smaller households more recently.

[56:00] Even though you know you saw in an earlier slide where we're primarily serving households with children, a lot of those are. You know, tend to be smaller households with children, so can be single parent with two kids single parent with one kid but it's been an interesting kind of data point that we've seen evolving over the last couple of years, so. This is, you know kind of boulder wide market data that came from our 30 Pearl market studies, so this is looking at both you know anything, affordable and then market rate and where we're seeing they can see rates at. So, this would have been probably bow for 2019 so again it's you know it's kind of showing that that the two and three bedroom units. are just not seeing as much demand as the smaller units certainly those are low vacancy rates across the board when you would Compare that to other communities, we do not have high vacancy in boulder but the demand has really been more that smaller unit size, at least recently.

[57:05] em i'm sorry to keep asking. No, no you're good. To those two and three bedroom do we know what kinds of developments, those are situated in Are they in high density, primarily in high density development, where you might see two and three bedrooms or they and other neighborhoods where it's more of a duplex or a triplex. yeah you know. yeah that's a good question you know the data is probably not that nuance to break that down. I would say again just anecdotally no i'm what. seemed market rate projects come through they're really not been a lot of market rate with the three bedroom units there's certainly some a two bedroom but. it's pretty rare to see new market rate rental providing the three bedrooms which would be more in that you know higher density more like an apartment building. So I would guess it's a pretty it's a pretty fair representation across the board, it would include some of those yet you know duplexes or townhomes things like that.

[58:04] But I. The data is just not doesn't get into that unfortunately. Thanks yeah. And then, this is is showing just kind of you know unit unit size across our portfolio compared to kind of market rate units that had been built since about between I think that 2018 and 2020. So you can see, you know both php and the market. are mostly providing one in two bedroom units, but you will see, you know BHP when you look at the three and four bedroom units significantly more than what the market has been providing so. The demand is has not been as high for those units, but but it's obviously not zero, and you know our mission is obviously to serve serve anyone in need of affordable housing in boulder so.

[59:02] We certainly do have a number of three and four bedroom units, those are you know we try to always have a diversity of housing types throughout the city so whether that's. You know up in North boulder and holiday and it's more of a townhouse style unit or you're in you know South boulder and it's a stacked flat but it's a three bedroom. We try to have a variety of unit types kind of throughout throughout the city and throughout our portfolio to kind of serve serve all those demographics, where we're seeing them. And do at this is, you know kind of I guess reinforcing that point about you know new market rate has been three bedroom units have been basically non existent in the past couple of years just just from what i've seen, and you know you can see it in this data as well. And these are for rent and for sale. This would just be for rent and market unit sides yep, so this is just for rent we have seen, I mean there's certainly been some new construction for sale, but not.

[60:05] Not at any kind of scale recently, so we have not seen large new condo developments but boulder certainly does not have a land use pattern that would have you know larger subdivisions being added, where you're at in 400 for sale units anything like that. So that's been a different market in terms of what is getting provided it's been almost exclusively new rental in the last couple years. switch switching gears again wanted to just touch on a point that Jay brought up, which is permanently supportive housing and kind of how BHP is working to provide housing for for folks excellent homelessness so. You know we've really come about it in a number of ways you'll see the picture kind of in the top right there is our. Lee hill Community up in North boulder right across the street from our office so that's 31 units it's 100% permanent supportive housing so each unit, there is occupied by a formerly homeless client.

[61:13] A lot of onsite services, all in one building and we have also been in the last couple of years working to provide supportive housing units that are kind of. More dispersed through through the Community and through our portfolio so you'll see a lot of our new construction projects will have a percentage of the units that are set aside for supportive housing so. You know anywhere between 10 and 25% so, for instance 3030 Pearl which is just wrapping up in the next couple of months we had 10 supportive housing units there where we partner with the boulder shelter for the homeless, to provide services. And we do we really do the same thing when we acquire existing buildings, a lot of times that's a that's a really good way to to get people housed quickly when we're able to acquire new building and provide some support housing there.

[62:10] And then, finally, the the city has provided some local funding so it's a voucher program for supportive housing units. That mimics kind of the housing choice voucher often known as section eight, which is the federal subsidy that's largely available, so we do administer a number of those city of boulder vouchers. For support housing clients in boulder. This. This is a good slide I think an important one, I think you know we. have really heard lately and it's you know impossible to miss, I think the the homeownership piece, and that low and moderate. Income homeownership piece so BHP you know we have traditionally been we build own and maintain our own rental housing.

[63:04] that's what basically housing authorities mission is and what you'll find most housing authorities do we have certainly been interested in looking at home ownership, especially just given the gap that's really developed in boulder for that piece. And this slide is really just to show kind of. The hurdle that we run into there, so the Left you'll see basically that bar is showing what you know typical cost, you could expect to provide. A three bed two bath kind of single family home even a townhouse something like that so we're seeing you know land is coming in, currently, where we see about $100,000 per unit for the land costs. construction costs have been definitely trending up and then you know infrastructure entitlements that's going through the city process and financing costs so.

[64:00] All in you know we're seeing a cost to build a unit or a home like that is probably in the 550 to $600,000 range surprising to a lot of people you look at the market, and you can see, oh, I can buy that in Westminster for you can buy something for 400,000 bucks. But really you know the cost for new construction is pretty prohibitive part of the reason, when you see new new you know for sale construction in boulder it's a lot of scrape offs and then you'll see you know million plus dollar homes for sale on that is this is that the reason why. And on the right, which you'll see is basically what you know what would be affordable for someone earning at the various Am I level so. The bottom you'll see somebody at 60% which is you know the upper limit of the programs we run all the way to somebody. who's you know very solidly in the middle income at 120% of am I, so there is a very real gap between what it costs to build that unit and what an affordable price is to the end user.

[65:10] And the piece, we were missing here is the tax credit equity, so you know that is the big federal resource that allows us to build affordable rental housing and there is just not an equivalent source for ownership housing. There is certainly no funding available from the city, they run a really great homeownership program and and boulder does better than a lot of communities and providing that low and moderate income home ownership piece. But it is you know increasingly difficult. To do just given the lack of any kind of you know, major federal resource to do that so. not meant to be you know saying this is something just we you know kick aside and will never look at we're actually looking at.

[66:00] Some options with some land bank parcels BHP currently owns and trying to get creative with you know, maybe some modular construction and things like that to be able to provide some of that. kind of middle income homeownership opportunities, because it's clearly a big missing piece, but it is, it is definitely something that is difficult and requires some some new resources and and creative thinking so I wanted to be sure, and touch on that piece as well. And that is it so. That thanks again for having me and and happy to hang out answer any questions or just general comments or anything like that. So, even just. for clarification sake so. you're really focused on. Affordable ownership, rather than rental right it looks like from for here that's been there, so.

[67:04] I suppose. The opposite so we're we're more much more focused on affordable rental so that's all we I guess for who we own a portable ownership but, basically, you know we. We own and manage all of the affordable rental housing in the city, we do not at least currently we're working on some potential options, but we do not currently provide any kind of ownership opportunities through BHP the city. nj can certainly speak to that the city does provide that piece, but BHP does not okay. With pizza looks like maybe a question. Yes, thank you for seeing the my raise hand. yeah the question I have is regarding this difference between the rental in ownership, because you know, in the planning board it comes up often. That that we do not have much to offer in terms of ownership and you just sort of answer that question we don't have a federal.

[68:06] program that can provide some funds to allow us to close that gap right so i'm wondering now with all of this discussion with the new administration. Is that any kind of program that you guys see coming down the pipeline from the Federal Government to provide some of those funds to improve housing, because they do know it's a problem you know countrywide but in terms of ownership, you have you guys heard any rumblings about that. You know I have not i've heard plenty of rumblings on the tax credit side and improvements to that program, but I have not heard anything on the ownership side. You know and it's it's a it's a tough one, you know traditionally the subsidy or just you know kind of resource has been more on the on the demand side, so you know when we're the low income housing.

[69:04] Tax credit is much more trying to help on the you know supply side, so money comes to the developer, and the owner of the housing. Where we've seen you know federal resources that go to help home ownership has been much more targeting like you know downpayment assistance for a specific household. Remember coming out of the financial crisis, you had like a first time homebuyers tax credit. So it's much more focused on like funding to the individual rather than funding on the supply side, like trying to lower the cost of the housing, so you know focus on giving households more resources to buy a still expensive home. The difficult part has always been, how do you give you know homeownership the person owns it so that, how do you account for that benefit and make sure it lives on you know for future users and you know, do you give some you know.

[70:01] You buy an affordable home what you know, is there a resale restriction, how do you kind of keep that affordable so. that's always been one of the difficult pieces to to crack and I think you know, one of the reasons, the Federal Government has kind of more opted to give you know resources to an individual to go buy a house, rather than trying to lower the cost of the House. So, following all that and going back to some of the data that you gave earlier regarding you know the preponderance of the of the housing, that we do have on the rental side being smaller. numbers, I think one or two bedrooms could it be a correlation in that in fact that people that are not interested on renting a three bedroom will rather buy a house. Elsewhere, because at that point you're talking about a real family, because when you talk about one or two people usually you know it may be. You know, a single person potentially a couple, but not before they're having children potentially so i'm just wondering if there is something any that issue as ever come up with the people who put form the the market studies.

[71:16] yeah you know that's that's interesting, I think that is certainly the anecdotal thing you here in boulder all the time right, so you. folks live here they maybe get ready to buy a house and they end up you know looking elsewhere, you kind of drive ease, so you can afford it is kind of the. The way it's often described we don't really look at that in our market studies, those are you know highly specific to a particular development and really meant to serve like the needs of chapo when they're reviewing it. But it is an interesting question again, I think you know, sometimes those anecdotal stories are the case on the ground, but sometimes they're just you know, a result of the people we happen to interact with.

[72:00] Rather than you know the actual need there, so I don't have any hard data on that, unfortunately, but it is, it is definitely something we hear a lot. So my question is is what will be the right process to try to get out that data. to know that so weekend know for sure that is not anecdotal I mean I do know faculty Su who have specifically mentioned, they have to move to superior because they were enough for at home here in boulder. And so, like that story there's many other stories that we hear, but my want Mike my question is, is it a way where we can systematically get that information for sure, instead of email telling stories. And under whose you know jurisdiction will that full you know gathering that data. yeah boy that's um I am not a market analyst that's a that's a tough piece to try to quantify exactly for someone individuals, leaving.

[73:02] I think, certainly the city and Jay i'll probably defer to you on that, I know you all, probably have looked at that a little bit more, but. You know it's it's difficult to quantify and actually put numbers to that that kind of a situation, Jan I don't know if you guys have done any studies or anything. yeah I mean so Peter we did a middle income market study back in 2015 We talked a little bit about this at planning board not too long ago. But the thing that I would keep in mind so there's your acid there's sort of two different questions, so the transition from rental to wanting to buy a house, I think we. Established quite strongly that purchasing a home in boulder is expensive, but I would say, there is still a demand for three and four bedroom Rentals in boulder as in charge, those are there still fully leased there's still demand.

[74:00] They may take longer to leave stuff but there's still demand, which is different than you know, is there, affordable her affordable ownership opportunities. yeah and so, and then, then my question, the second one was you know who will be the right guy NTT group. To do an analysis on that Is this something that you know the city will could take on, is it something that the planning board can suggest, or are we, you know sort of at the mercy of you know, when these are the projects i've done and people get hired. him for a very specific, you know, like this, this. Companies get hired to do the analysis and they're frankly I will suspect that they do just a you know, a pretty basic commercial base analysis nothing too sophisticated to try to get up there sort of problem. And i'm wondering if that, if that is an option, so how.

[75:09] yeah. So it would be, I would say yes, it is, I would just be really clear as to what the question is that you want answered. Yes, that there is not there's no alternative within the city or or to find out cool will be able to do a an analysis like that that we were talking about. How their hands. who's next. In my hand raise but i'll defer somebody else who's next in line. um I i'll go ahead and go, since I. He and I just you touched on Jaffa and the readiness component of working with them. Do you have any.

[76:02] I mean, how does the city, does the city work with you in that process in any. Like special manner, are there any compensations for you or you just in the pipeline with everybody else. yeah yeah great question we we are treated like like any other developer, so we go through the exact same plan Ruby or you know concept review site review tech Doc you know, obviously specific to a property but. We we don't get any special pass, I think you know oftentimes our you know some of our projects are higher scrutiny, some are not but. We we have really tried in the last couple of years to be in that city process what what we don't want to do is is go to chat. Here here's our projects it gets approved, then we go through the city process there's you know requests for changes to that from staff or from planning board or from Council.

[77:01] And then we have to say, oh, but we got this approved by chat so you know we're between a rock and a hard place so. What we've really tried to do in the last few years is get through, you know kind of the first main milestones of that city entitlement process. Before submitting to chap up so that we know this is a project that the city supports that the Community supports. And then that's the budget that goes the Chapel is for that project, so we avoid that like back and forth and but we got this approved, but you want us to build this kind of process that can happen. Okay, so you, you can basically front load it to the city, before going to chat but that works from your perspective. It does it does, and that you know it's you'll see a lot of private developers don't necessarily like to do that because it, you know it costs a lot of money to go through the city planning process and that's you know that that's a risk for them and that's.

[78:01] Something that they tend to be averse to it's you know it's it's similar rest of the HP I mean we have to spend money before knowing that we have a project that chapter is going to support and approve. we've been around you know we know the process really well, so we like to think we're not you know we have a good sense of where everything but what's a project that's going to work for everybody, so I think that's a that's a key part of it as well okay. Great thanks yeah. Great. arbonne homeownership for the moment, because I know it's really important to have people on this board that may influence our work plan, but first questions or clarification is BHP interested in getting more involved in for sale housing is not restricted from doing that anyway correct. There is no yeah no like statutory restriction. I think it's not been something we've done a lot of lately and that's you know direction from our board, I think you know generally housing authorities role has been to serve kind of like the most vulnerable and those.

[79:05] At that deep deep affordability level, I mean you saw you know $16,000 a year median income for our household so. Certainly that's where I think we've been focused, but we have you know it'd be impossible not to hear that. Coming from the Community, as indeed so it's been something I think we've been starting to look at just to assess feasibility, is there a way BHP can help or bring some expertise or things like that. And then those gaps, he showed, and you know the cost of providing housing for different a man's name is it's for sale is really interesting, would you say the primary impediment or factor driving that is land costs or could also be other factors regulatory. Market forces. It yeah it's. Really it's really all the above, I mean, I think you know the unique piece that kind of market forces is you know you see that across the board, so you know Labor has been.

[80:05] really difficult not you know it's it's it's expensive it's also just like number of workers right like it's hard to get capacity for construction that you know I think we know is probably not changing anytime soon it's just kind of a trend across the country. Certainly the city's process for entitlements is is quite rigorous compared to other communities that you know not saying that's a bad thing, I think we end up with really high quality projects as a result, but it does that cost. But the biggest piece that you know sets folder apart from other similar communities on the front range is that is that land costs piece. We are always beating the drum at Jaffa when they see our you know our total development costs will be much higher than anyone else. And so we really have to point to how much did it cost to acquire the land, what are the you know additional costs that we see from the city process from construction costs, all that stuff so yeah.

[81:07] Thank you, we might come back to it later, but thank you so much yeah. Do that yeah. um I just to peter's point I am I had recently looked at the housing choice survey, and I know that that was done many years ago 2016 I think or 2015. But something notable in there, and that was done by an outside research firm and i'm not sure how they did their research, but something notable in there is that over half of the in commuters that they surveyed, so this is a survey and commuters had previously lived in boulder and. Of the middle intercom respondents that were in commuters 80% are living in single family homes so to me that indicates a preference for a single family home in commuters at median income.

[82:06] People who had previously and a large proportion of those people had previously lived in boulder because there was a lack of that housing type edit affordable at a price, they would put a show want to afford or able are able to afford without stretching themselves so so thin. So I feel like that data is there, somewhere, and maybe we need to revisit that and I don't know who does that to your point lupica who's responsible for gathering that kind of data, but we have some reference to that data and information from a survey that was done. I guess the most recent survey that was done on on those profiles unless there's something more recent or I missing something. you're not missing anything so there was a companion piece to the housing choice survey, which was the housing market analysis. So both done by BBC now route consulting.

[83:00] I mean they're both great reports, we will spend more time is have talking about them in August at the August meeting and going through those findings. But I would venture to guess that those findings still apply today I don't think that the market has changed dramatically. I think you're just going to find it's more exaggerated than it was back in 2015 so I mean we can update the numbers i'm just not sure how much value that would be unless there's a new question that we haven't been answered with previous work surfaces. As long as people feel that that data is still valid and could we could extrapolate it forward, I think we need to make sure we're factoring that in as we think about. housing in general on this in the city. That was awesome presentation and thank you. yeah, of course, thank you.

[84:06] anyone else the Peter Do you still have to have a good one. yeah just to follow up Thank you Julia I was looking at the chat so thank you for the mentioning this was also mentioned in the planning board about some of the data already indicate some of these discrepancies that we do know that likely the. anecdotal data that we discuss regularly is reflected in the actual data that we got from that that that survey and the question then becomes in my mind. What do we do with that, and you know because I think it has to do with interpretation you know it doesn't take too many steps to kind of put these two pieces together and you did it beautifully right now. So that that the question is there something in the hands of the city that could do to kind of move in that direction, so we can address that that gap because, even in the way that we're planning or you know our growth, it continues to be focusing and in the lower the lower.

[85:15] household numbers i'm sorry that number of people number of people, one or two people on a on a on a houseful and that we by the sign. continue to exclude this other people that continue to drive into the city, so that problem is not going to go away, and so my question has to do is there something somewhere that we can start looking at that problem with a little bit more eyes for action. If it's not the government is that any other things that can be done within the CD the state something to advocate for. that's it.

[86:00] yeah I think we can get to that question when we get to her priorities discussion we've identified some of the barriers here, and the question is which ones, do we want to focus on that are. Not in super bowl I suppose. And and just remember next next month August we have on the agenda tentatively to discuss middle income in the middle income strategy, the work that the city has been doing for the past. Four years now and sort of what's on our current work plan specifically to dress middle income homeownership. Very. good friend and make that presentation Jay my remind me. Of makeup expert. This is a great discussion, do you want to keep going, or should we move on to the next agenda item which would be our retreat follow.

[87:01] Any other questions for Ian is, this is a unique opportunity we're not going to have them all the meetings. and throw anything about php anything throw it out. I just want to say thank you very helpful. Absolutely. I actually have another question I don't want to let you go quite yet. i'm curious about your kind of strategy as far as the land, banking and what what you look for what kinds of properties you're trying to call in under that. yeah yeah absolutely it's um it's it's a broad umbrella, so what we look for is basically anything in the city of boulder, that is, you know remotely possible to build housing on I mean that that. Truly is kind of the situation when you when you look around, I mean the city is mostly built out, so we will look at basically any any property, but you know, we have, so we go through kind of traditional methods that we work with.

[88:06] A brokerage that's always kind of looking for us sending us things we do have good relationships kind of throughout the city, so we get a fair amount of you know off market inquiries. we've had a lot of success, you know partnering with other kind of mission focused agencies. So you know, churches, for instance, who maybe are seeing a decrease in you know attendance but want to do something, you know mission focused with their property that they own but. But yeah I mean you know we have looked at. You know adaptive reuse sides I get you know give you an example, or recent most recent kind of land bank purchase, which is the rally sport fitness Center. So right over on 29th and bluff so again, that was that was one where it's you know, was not. it's not a traditional housing side it's not a vacant piece of land, but it was an opportunity for us and a really excellent location to work with that that owner to purchase that property so that was a great one and yeah all those kinds of things.

[89:15] So, for instance on that, what are you that when he appears anyway, I don't know what the zoning is there, but are you looking to do you need to get through an entitlement process for zoning allowances, there are variances are. How yep so that boy I forget exactly what it was, it was either an industrial or kind of like a business general. But we did so in that we actually went through the site review process and got our site review approved last February. But so that's one I mean again will will typically you know go under contract on a piece of property will go through a concept review process at the city where we can you know make make a proposal. You know here's generally what we're thinking we can get some feedback from planning staff, as well as planning board and counsel.

[90:04] If it's positive you know will will close on the property at that point with some confidence that, yes, we'll be able to build some housing here. If it was you know horrible, this is not the location for this we typically will not close on something until we have some confidence that we could you know do happening there yeah. Right yeah that's I guess that's the piece that i'm wondering about kind of that risk assessment moving through the process with the city. yeah yeah. Like so typically right will our contracts to buy will have a you know, a due diligence period that gives us enough time to take the property through some initial feedback from the city. One one last piece on that do you find that the sellers you're working with are generally looking for that kind of. For you, as a buyer so that they give you more flexibility.

[91:02] It does, that is, is do you kind of lean on that a little bit or. yeah you know I would say it's 5050 I think we start a lot of folks reach out because they like the mission. I can tell you, we do not get a break on price nobody wants to wants to give you a lower price, which is understandable right, I mean that's a land in it, or a building in the city of boulder is an asset but. I you know I think people know BHP I think they know we're active in development, so we come to mind when someone's looking to sell sell some property as a potential. acquisition and then a lot of organizations, you know they do like that it could be end up as affordable housing, so I think you know that certainly a benefit. Good great are you glad you guys are doing that because I think we could put a little more effort into land acquisition, we did a lot for open space we could probably do a little bit for affordable as a Community. Definitely yeah.

[92:01] and gave them a really easy example it's not always easy Palo park was a big struggle, you know mount calvary was a struggle. So. it's a struggle. yeah it is anything else. kind of played it in the planning reserved where they were required to much higher, as I understand it. boy, you know I try not to not to touch the planning reserve and stay out of that that world but I. You know I J probably could speak better to that from the latest COMP plan updates and all that piece, certainly, you know something we would track, but I do not actually know the latest on anything planning reserve related. yeah so like I mentioned, I mean we we have that 20 acres that this that the Department of housing and human services own so that'll be 100% permaculture affordable. There is the 40 to 60% requirement, so it will be primarily affordable, it will be similar to sort of the holiday or northfield commons example so mixture of market rate affordable.

[93:13] But yeah no real planning has been done so, you know there's like you all know, I think there are lots of steps that have to happen, so it counseling basically have to authorize a. provision of services, study and then go through a lengthy annexation process, and then a lengthy planning process as well, that would be Community wide so but yeah housing is definitely I think that will be the primary focus just like every other annexation. hey the else for Ian. last chance all right thanks. yep Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.

[94:01] Okay. The next agenda item is a retreat follow up, I think we all enjoyed the retreat. We made a start prioritizing. Maybe we can have a quick debrief to start and then we'll have further discussion so anybody who would like to weigh in a thoughts of what they got out of it, or what they didn't get out of it please jump in. And then we're doing sent out. By our facilitator. I wasn't there, so I was hoping I would hear some. excuse. We could start with how staff is doing.

[95:03] Okay, well, if you observations. If you. Go that document that Susan provided a draft summary. there's a whole section on review of the role the housing board. And the items are highlighted in red and that seemed to be more important to us. Those are the study and recommend the counseling team manager long and short range goals ordinances finding parodies and programs to address recognize housing needs. that's one bullet point and other is to develop and recommend with Community input innovative approaches to accomplish city housing goals quitting tools for housing preservation and the third. to advise the city council and city manager concerning the impacts of City policy proposals on housing affordability diversity and accessibility i'm sorry, there is one more to review regional housing issues and make recommendations to the city council.

[96:10] Now, all those in my mind sound fairly proactive at least two responses to the survey, I sent out, I guess, I need to become a better survey writer, but. One of the items on that survey was you know kind of getting the existential question of why, why do we exist, is it simply to answer questions from Council, to the best of our ability, or are we. Developing more of a innovative having an agenda that we are presenting accountable for their consideration. So That to me is an unresolved issue, though i've gotten some interesting feedback on that and be curious to see what people think. Michael. I mean, I think you know I think i've i've kind of.

[97:05] landed strongly on that side of saying you know, I would like to see our role, become more proactive. somewhat more visionary looking for the solutions and seeing on a broad scale what the city can do and bringing those things to to counsel, I think you know my whole time on the board i've been pretty clear about that position and and wanting to move more in that direction. You know, and my my rationale simply, is that. The market is overrunning us if we think that the current structures that the city uses for affordable housing are going to actually outstrip. The you know, are going to are going to somehow outstripped the speed of the problem we're fooling ourselves and so without doing. Some creative work on our side, I just don't think we're going to we're going to make a dent in it, I mean I shouldn't say a dent because I think we are making a dance.

[98:08] But the problem is moving faster than we are so we're getting dropped by the leaders and the leaders right now are essentially. A market that is investor driven, I think, to a large degree in our neighborhoods our lower cost neighborhoods. And then zoning and you know, Peter can jump in on this one, but a zoning regimen that essentially. prefers. single family homes over other options and. we're losing land rapidly to the development of very large single family homes, because that is what our current Code and sizes. You know, I have a I have a perfect example that i'm doing an ad you for a family who live in North boulder on a large lot.

[99:10] We got through that process and I just I just want to put this out there as an example of exactly kind of where I think we need to be going and things we need to suggest counsel. to lock side by side in North boulder approximately the same size and the one both owned by elderly people, on the one side. Their children happen to live in town, are able to move into the main house or able to build an A to us so that's a great example of getting another unit on a large law. But I think that's a rare condition oftentimes and the neighboring house that same large lot. You know, has been sold to a developer and it's coming down in a big house is going in and that's generally what's happening on those lots because that's what we.

[100:02] Allow in our code and we need to get the flexibility and I think we need to we as housing board need to push Council to start working on that zoning flexibility to the large lots. And says, you know what if you got a large law you're allowed 10,000 square feet and your if they are 8000 whatever it is you're allowed that if they are regardless of. You know, within certain bounds how you're going to develop it, you can put. Why don't we have for 2000 square foot house is on that same piece of land, so I think those are things that we need to push we counsel. And I don't think we're really going to start to have any impact until we start to do some of those things because it changes the dynamic of the missing middle. If we do that it hits it from both sides, it gives people who are being pushed out of their properties because of raising tax rates and fixed incomes, the ability. to utilize their properties and stay on them and not get pushed off of it so that's where I stand on that stuff I mean i'm glad that we discussed it at retreat and i'd love to see it.

[101:07] Thank you just summarizing before we get to Danny if you add two bullet point that it would be, we need to look at some zoning innovations. We need to look at zoning innovations yeah. that's great Danny and. I just uh you know I think Jacques and I have agreed on this for a matter of years now, and something that you know we've. kind of repeatedly brought up, but I think you know part of the challenge here, too, is that as time goes on those windows becomes smaller and smaller because, as the cost gets more and more prohibitive. And people so just the exact scenario josh was talking about, you know if you don't take advantage of that scenario at that particular point in time, it may you know move away permanently because somebody ends up buying and it doesn't have any interest in looking at. more efficiency in these little end and and you know, at some point in time, I think we're just running headlong into the the.

[102:11] The conflict between white have all these regulations that in every single way kind of constrained a introduction of density understanding that you know local local housing or you know, affordable housing. Has a real density implication to it with having a you know a lot of policies, saying that you know we really want to focus on. affordable housing and I think at some point in time, you know, we need to figure out some pathway towards this that we can really try to effectuate as much as we can, because it gets more and more challenging month by month, particularly the last two years. Okay again another. Vote it sounds like for looking at kind of regulatory oversight.

[103:00] Juliet you always have those ideas, please. Well, I guess, I would come to that, from a different angle and say if that we ought to be aligning our. Part our work with what the city's goals are the council's goals and if, and if you have alignment that we can be more effective and persuasive. For example, if, because what you guys are talking about are they are increasing accessibility to that missing metal right now. And so I would flip that and say hey Council if if your focus is missing middle here are some ideas, where we think we can mitigate that missing that instead of saying here are innovative ideas. By the way, this will accomplish your goal, I think we articulate it a little differently than maybe we'll get more. traction. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I think I think we have to show alignment and I think we ought to be aligned, I mean.

[104:03] We don't want people moving in a million different directions mean the city has people like Jane working. Day in and day out, to get information and accomplish goals and and keep and execute what city council's is directing I think we need to be in alignment and and then be creative to deliver ideas that are going to help push those goals forward. that's that's really interesting good go ahead yeah. I was just gonna say I think Juliet that that's I mean I think that's exactly what I am when I look at the city's goals in relation to housing, our goals are to do those things, and this is one way to you know I totally agree with you how we presented this is, of course, critical but. You know, I suppose, what i'm just saying is that if we don't look into those those areas and present those ideas as.

[105:01] potential avenues to support the city's goals. I just think that. I guess, I see that as our role to say look, these are things I mean Council staff. are overwhelmed by all kinds of things on their plate all the time and if we don't present those things to them, obviously, and then you know, in a manner that aligns with our goals and the city goals you know, so I think that's all we're saying is that you know. Of course we're trying to align with the goals as housing is perceived now. we've recognized that the missing middle is one of those goals, I think some of the lower income. You know, moderate income stuff is being engaged with already fairly robustly and I think this missing middle piece, there are some strong things that we could suggest that would improve our ability, because I do think that is the zone that in some ways, is most at risk.

[106:05] With the way this market is moving so yeah i'm. Sure, for you. yeah just just. coupling off for juliette said absolutely agree, but I just to clarify I think we're all on the same page we're saying we understand we're an advisory board, and so in this advisory board we're not. You know we're not setting policy that's what the City Council does, but we don't want to talk about implementation and policy. I think a lot of the things that we've talked about a lot of things that we've tried to focus on recent times really as an implementation. of you know policy directives as we've heard and we understand them from the city council like focus on middle income folks on housing and stuff like that, so, in other words, how do you keep. middle income people in their homes in boulder are given the opportunity, these are some of the things and includes at us from a lot of different perspectives, etc, so you know really what we're talking about here is implementation, which I believe.

[107:01] is precisely what our charges and so it's really in line with our charges and not trying to set policy we're not trying to direct thing we're just trying to say here's how we can do it so. that's really interesting it, I think, a few months ago I would have, but we need to be pushing harder for affordable rental housing serve folks that work in stores, for example, certain segment of the population. Now this project seemed to be. Advancing you know, in a more support than they used to. Peter can certainly talk about that, but you know you look at things like the diagonal Plaza downtown crossing. Water view and the gun barrel project in you know there's intense controversy over those projects, but they are. Moving forward so maybe it makes all the sense in the world to address the category that.

[108:01] Not being proposed, not being built has got special challenges, a lot of around land and zoning which are difficult subjects, but they are subjects, you can get your arms around. And that that could be or you know, maybe even evolving through number one priority also meant to lead with a bit of news, and that is. believe I read this right Jay Council is advertising for more applicants to have to fill our vacant positions and we could have more firepower if you will. Or perhaps before the election, which would be fantastic. So well that's a great example of a priority. hey what else would jump out. To you, I also like the idea that we could be proposing some innovative strategies but that you know kind of Lafayette with something that i've been talking about it will address something that's me, you can turn it on their plate.

[109:20] Michael did you get my essay response. I did. I am quite enjoyed reading it. and yeah you, you are extremely responsive to what I was asking, which I appreciate it. I can try to review some of your comments, but or call them up, but you might want to report to yourself, we did you know we talked about the House, for example, do you have some thoughts about that. I mean, I had comments about all of your all of the categories and I. think that I. My first comment is.

[110:02] Is I i'm a fan of doing fewer things and doing them, really, really well versus trying to do a lot of different things. And only having time to do them sort of so so well and I pointed to an example of. I know Jared polis has implemented this process, called the four disciplines of execution in in his government. And it's a methodology that's been used by businesses all across the world, that really gets everybody focused in line but behind a few important goals and then people to set targets and metrics and and work to achieve those it's a hard thing to implement but it's a great model for. Tackling some things and actually getting getting things done, and so, not that we have to implement that model in this format, but i'm a fan of that, and so, with that in mind, I would rather look at. fewer priorities and do them really well that have a lot of different priorities, and so, when I was, I also have the opinion that we you know, we need to choose our priorities based on.

[111:11] Data that's pointing us to those priorities, how are we, how are we coming up with these priorities, what evidence and supported by research show that these things should be priorities and then what are we going to pick within those. So I know that planning Board and the pita may have a comment i've heard from other Members of planning board that. That middle income housing strategy is going to be a priority and with respect to the N housed I think we spend a lot of time on the announced last year and and listening to presentations. By Kurt and others that the city really does an exemplary job of taking care of the House, of course, we can never do enough. But we have finite resources and so we've spent a lot of time on that and we have actually really excellent professionals working on.

[112:09] Problem Solving for the announced currently so where we want to direct our time this year to solve some of the other housing problems that we have in the city. That was my comment about about the announced, I want to be very clear that I support, focusing on the unhealthy but. But I think we have also an excellent. system, an organization in place that can always be improved, but is exemplary compared to most parts of the country. mean I had other comments about your questions with regard to some committees and listening sessions I don't know if you want me to go into any of that Michael but. I didn't actually mean to put you on the spot on that one issue I was just trying to start someplace.

[113:06] And I think we've already agreed, I mean yeah the city does do some really great programs on the analysis and yet it's a problem that's you know with us all the time because can't get away from. And I think we have already agreed, we need to focus on providing housing in that social services and not policing that's not our bailiwick i'm i'm personally impacted that. yeah we'd love for you to review and again I just got your comments today, so I haven't had a chance to read them and, certainly, as I might it, but I thought, a lot of them are excellent, so please go on with your thoughts about committees and listening sessions. Sorry, I was on mute there i'm just pulling up my notes so. My comment about subcommittees were that it it's I find this format to be difficult to be effective, with a subcommittee because we can really only have two people on a subcommittee we're also.

[114:08] stretched thin you know we don't have we don't have interim meetings we just have these monthly meetings and so progress can be slow because of that. And we're also lay people are not professional researchers, so a lot of times the reports that we put together don't really have data data that would be rigorous the. approved as a real method methodological approach to gathering and analyzing data or peer reviewed and that. You know, really professional researchers are best equipped so. If the city or if the subcommittee's requiring some component of research to inform its recommendations and I. Then I would say it's hard to be effective, given our format and are the fact that we're late people and we're not experts in this research and we don't have.

[115:00] access to resources to fund and structure, this kind of research so that was a general community in general comment about subcommittees and it also dilutes our energy if we're going to all focus on a few things so that was in the context of focusing on a few things. Should I mentioned we're listening session comment I wanna I don't want to speak so take up too much air here, Michael. No, we we heard some enthusiasm for the listening sessions at the retreat and I think you're offering a important. Criticism of that, so please continue. So I think the the listening sessions have the potential to be excellent, I think that we need to be clear about what what the goals we're trying to accomplish with those are we. You know and and I would submit that our goal should be to listen to a wide range of constituents and stake holders and be able to provide a balanced feedback to inform the decisions that we recommend are the recommendations to city council.

[116:15] And that we need to be clear with attendees about that, but it's a it's a given take I would say, you know listening sessions, where we can provide a platform to help solve people's problems and. Connecting resources is a great way to to employ a listening session and that, I think. If we can create an environment where people can have mutual understanding. sort of walk a mile in another person's shoes through a listening session and I think in my example. that I sent to you, Michael was the one that we had about the affordable housing experience, where we had. People that developers have affordable housing and then we had people residents of affordable housing and you could hear give and take in terms of understanding what some of the challenges are on both sides and enhance.

[117:07] Mutual understanding and. On both sides I think that's was valuable and we have to be careful that we are not. invited inviting attendees that are there to promote their activists agenda or. To use it as a platform to air grievances that's not what those are for their for listening and sharing a broad range of views that's my opinion on them, so I think if we can. offer listening sessions in person, where I think they they are much better in person and online that accomplish that are structured in that way, but that that is the wave, which I would want to approach listening sessions. So using that model I just reread what you wrote. A listening session would be.

[118:00] More like practitioners sharing and sharing your knowledge. much in the way we're hearing from city officials in summer beings were perhaps a little bit more open larger format, and I think you know getting people like Scott holding those you will I member is a great idea. Is that kind of what you have in mind with that maybe a little bit more by invitation only and get the experts and tell us how they can get these things done. i'm not necessarily by invitation only I think i'm at it's it's being able to represent two sides of an issue, for example in the affordable housing panel or listening session that we had we had people who are. Residents of affordable housing and people that develop affordable housing and for residents to hear that Scott took out a $20 million. Personally, guarantee a $20 million loan to build an affordable housing development, I think, was helpful because they understood that all this, he had to put his own.

[119:04] home on the line on personally guarantee something to get that he believed in getting something done Yes, he runs a for profit business but yes, he also put it put his. livelihood at risk and then for him to hear some of the challenges that people have living in an affordable unit that. requires some maintenance after a certain period of time and not having access to funds to replace the flooring or whatever it is, and how do we solve for that, so I think share a mutual understanding and a shared. A sharing of information, a perspective of what and people were great they didn't air their grievances they shared their experiences, and it was just. helpful to have all of that, and I it just creates more shared appreciation for others in the Community and and less polarization I think that's a worthy goal these days. that's great and bring two threads together are we, is it worth discussing a listening session on missing middle that would include Community members housing developers people finance housing.

[120:18] I think that's a great idea and in commuters Why do people leave. yeah I mean, I think it just going to jump in real quick on the listening sessions I I kind of have a bit of a soft spot, and I do believe that it is an it's I think it's an important part of our role, but I agree with Juliet that the focus on them and the structure of them. And maybe even the selection of them. You know, needs to be. A little bit more focused in, and I think that one that we did around tiny homes because experiences with that was great.

[121:06] And, and the affordable housing, because it did bring those sides together, just to. hear perspective and I, you know i'd love to see that kind of thing continue. I think it's an interesting which you just brought up Michael because part of me was when I was listening to Juliet I was like well should listening sessions, should we specifically focus those around work, the Council is doing. Because in one sense that you know, and I just. rolling this around in my head in one sense that they really gives Council as Julia was concerned about before we're not kind of spreading the net but we're helping Council to get some feedback from the public, and that could be a very helpful. addition to their data set, so to speak.

[122:04] You know, on the other hand. there's kind of this educational piece that leads me down the road that you just suggest Michael which is like well the missing middle we know it's something that's of interest in town councils tried to engage with it in certain ways. And so, should we go out and see what the Community understands about that, and what their perspectives are on it. So it's there's kind of two different ways that we could utilize the listening session and i'm wondering if we should be open to both those or if it's better to focus on one that. makes keep our our tracks, a little closer together, so to speak, and keep us from from bringing in. This you know I guess some can be useful for us some might be useful for counsel I guess i'm just wondering about that, and how we use it that way.

[123:05] So. Danny well, I think you know we've had so few i'm, particularly given the form that we've been. Moving forward on here for well over a year now. So I think you know the whole notion right now focusing on the things that really touch on. Key Council initiatives makes a lot of sense when we and we can fill our plate with those without question The other thing is, I think I you know I take the. tiny homes presentation, which to me was the most effective one that we had and. I didn't see as much as of advocacy as I saw. an educational approach to begin to thing, and so I think we definitely don't want to have and there's no way to there's really no way.

[124:01] To address you know both sides are talking on a certain issue because there's always going to be a multitude of sides, and so I think the whole notion is you try to provide some information or insight either from. You know people in that industry tiny homes again be an example. or groups that are that are focused on that you know, we had the. Individual that worked on the actual tiny homes project and in longmont and then. From there you know we are. Specifically, open it up to the public it's kind of like. The sausage factory might not be pretty but it's you know comes up with a good end result. But you know we're open it up for the public to really explore, you know what the insights are that are there and at its at its best that could be. very informative for us very useful for Council and say listen people came they attended they had some real insight to hear that you might not just get when you're just hearing.

[125:01] Individual speak that are your you know from advocacy groups or from industry groups, what have you, and so I really think just focusing right now. We can pull our plate for the next six months, easily focusing on the ones that are that are reflective of what town councils also concentrating on. And you know that, having a advocacy groups, but having more of an informative presentation and then having a forum for the public to interact with this board. To try to get as much information or insight, as we can, and the reporting on that the Council, I think that's our most effective means going forward without question. really interesting idea of them have been providing a forum. For rational discussion we we've done it a few times and had workshops we registered neighborhood organizations in Denver They ran a panel of developers and. People are shocked to find out, you know extreme example these got home what people put on the line, what the developers line to.

[126:07] kind of make something happen, and then we don't reserve, you know not completely shocked that surprised, you know what they could have done differently to avoid acrimony. Simply by listening to a neighbor one so addiction and that can be very productive because you know the conversation, the three minute soundbite planning board and Council is very much about scarcity of the way not productive once I feels like the room type of like. So, so they endorse that direction and. I don't know, is it we want to. Take a look at Council priorities and think about three things we can focus on we've already got one. Missing middle slash. homeownership over that don't leave it.

[127:06] i'd say right. say what you mean that any. you're still muted oh. How about now. yeah that's great. Okay sorry i'd say right now we have the one we have the middle income one we we don't have Terry here, unfortunately um we have a few. A few board members that we don't know yet and so yeah let's focus on that middle income one and we might be able to do it, and I think, where we had talked about before was. Trying to have it live because I just don't see i've probably done 50 public meetings, for you know planning commission's and stuff like that, with work that are. zoom and they're just they're just nowhere nearly as effective as a public forum, so I think when we talked about us whenever we're alive again, you know, then we'll we'll plan to have a listening session on middle income and and maybe take it from there, and when we have.

[128:08] Some some more folks as. Well, happy few right now, then you know we can kind of plan for the next steps, but I think that's probably the best approach. Okay, great. I think we're maybe less certain about the in person, and we were two weeks ago but i'm i'm planning and hoping for the best. What can we do in between now or at our next meeting to move this idea forward. Well, I guess i'm wondering if we are. If we're leaning towards saying okay let's have a.

[129:01] I just want to see if i'm clear, are we leaning towards saying, if we do a listening session we will focus on the middle income housing is that kind of where we're landing with everybody. That sounds good, to me, I think that makes a lot of sense I I like the idea of alignment. are listening session aligning with with this product problem that we're trying to tackles. Okay yeah. I mean, I think i'd be i'd be in favor of that also like I like the idea of it, I guess, the next step, I would suggest is if we're going to be looking at that. What exactly are we trying to you know accomplish around the middle income piece in a listening session. would be the question, maybe I don't know Michael maybe we can each just give our input after the meeting and prior to the next one, so that we can take a look at at that and kind of start to narrow it down and give it some structure.

[130:09] Or maybe maybe we need to hear the presentation about the middle income first and then see what would make most sense for a structure, without knowing all the day's going to talk about and I have to miss the next one, but I will watch the recording. yeah that's not a bad idea. i'm sorry, who would make that you're talking about a presentation just for our board. Well Jay is going to talk about that at the next meeting. that's the agenda for the next meeting. Do you have any comments day yeah. yeah no I mean I think that's a great approach, I was going to say exactly what jack did this, you know start writing down, what do you think the purpose should be. who's the audience, what do you hope to accomplish and the earliest that we, in the past they released we've done that, and the clearest we've been in that written description.

[131:07] The mower successful those listening sessions have been so I think it's everything you guys have been talking about and we can add something to the agenda, Michael for August afterwards to have sort of a. An agenda item that talks about planning a potential listening session around him yeah income and missing. i'd like to do that planning with everybody on board and that you know shuffled out through subcommittee. You know we're good minds here, and I think we could reach some conclusions about an agenda and how it might work pretty quickly. Sorry, I forgot that you were saying Jay no offense. and And i'm wondering if, when Peter has any comments, because from the planning board perspective in terms of what they have coming up on their plan and and how. Maybe she I don't want to put you on the spot Luke Peter, but you might have some ideas about what you think would be useful for us to.

[132:09] to think about. The ways in which we might structure this or do other things as it relates to what you have going on. On your board well. Thank you, thank you for giving that chance to speak actually I was listening and agree with you guys all along, the only thing that I wanted to. add to what jax mentioned was that I like to think of listening sessions also opportunities to build Community it because of basically bring in the groups that are often in swimming. conflict that if we were to approach this, this is a very important problem that we have identified, and we are coming together and we want to hear from you what. You know what ideas you might have, I think the missing middle came up as a as an important problem for our for the planning board that was one of the.

[133:03] The topics or themes that we included on our annual letter to the to City Council so. But we haven't been able to do a whole lot in some of the questions I asked was because of that just kind of gathering more information and recognizing really Is this something that we think is a real problem, or is the city agreeing with us and does anybody have any other possible. You know ideas that can help us move forward and making progress on solving this one problem. And the format, I think that you know getting the background, just like we got today, and I know I was in the room, when we did affordable housing. talk, but I was a weather report, I was so exhausted that day I knew the topic so important to me and I can't. For the life of me remember very little of it, so I was so lucky that I was able to look at this time with a better mind.

[134:04] it's because these are complex topics, so I think that middle missing middle of something that it will it will pay up for us to understand more from the perspective of what the city is doing, you know. And then, and then get together with a community to see you know where they're coming from and bringing these different sub sections together, I think. The Peter can, can I ask you. As you said you held planning board haven't had a chance to do much specifically around that but have you had, I mean some discussions about it and avenues that that you think are you know potential solutions or ways to improve our missing middle condition. Is is anything, is there any kind of discussion or on planning board or consensus or areas of attack, so to speak for the problem.

[135:06] Nothing, that is, you know, like well defined, yet we started with you know even getting more background information for our retreat, we were going to a specific learn more about it, we got a book. And we had some initial discussions in some of that even came up like today, where what is the data that the most reliable data that we have about this problem. And it after Julia mentioned, I said Oh yes, yes, they Sarah brought it up to is you know this is like the one source of data we have regarding our computers. But what we have been able to do with it, nothing really as far as I can tell a press release that topic is coming up. And That to me is promising because more people are becoming more aware of it, and they want to do something so to me, is a putting together, you know our heads together and including the Community.

[136:03] To to look forward That was why one of my questions we have to do with is there anything that coming down the pipeline that we hadn't consider. From before in terms of potential sources of funding that can help us do something about this particular sector that right now we don't seem to have you know funds to to really do much with. So that's sort of like what i'm going, you know, to propose, I think this is a good place and just keep keep at it. Day will you be covering the down payment assistance Program. On your presentation. yeah yeah i'll talk about changes that we made to our current program I can talk about the ballot measure, if you like, but that's kind of a separate issue. Well, just yeah I mean I know it it's it's just getting started with implementation right or that's all getting them.

[137:05] Not all. The way. He says on hold, but there are quite a few other things that we're doing to adjust middle income ownership. And i'll cover those so what's outlined in the strategy what we've accomplished so far, what we're working on now and what we have to tackle on feature so we'll talk about all that. Great I think we've done an excellent job of focusing and particular issue and particular ways of addressing it if you don't mind if we could keep moving through the agenda if no one objects, we will go on to item see under number five. comedian project liaison reports we have to folks who worked on the tiny homes. report and I don't know if there any updates but jack and Danny if you have anything to add on that please do so.

[138:27] up like recovered the previous meeting. All right. All right. shut me off okay. I would. yeah I, I think that I have I kind of wanted to review a little bit what we were talking about with the EU discussion, to begin with, and then what i've really funnel down to is the piece that i've been looking at. And I have a sketch of what I think.

[139:06] proposed change in our city. regs. would look like and effectively model this oh after other cities, who have done similar things. With variations, of course, because some are fairly specific like lions but albuquerque fresno la so the mobile ad up piece is fairly widespread or it's getting much more widespread, I should say and we're seeing adopted in quite a few spots. I think you know I have expressed before my rationale for thinking that this is something that we should try to do. it's a relatively small lift.

[140:02] As I see it, from the kind of code related changes that would be needed there are. You know, in all of these. other jurisdictions where this has been implemented it's a pretty parallel structure as far as. What needs to be dealt with within the Code and the first and the biggest piece, and this is the linchpin of it all really is that what occurs, is that mobile at us. are made a subcategory or an acceptable category with 80 years so essentially that's the piece that. Really impacts this outside of that the the building requirements and health and safety requirements are really all already engaged with in existing code, either through the manufacturer housing and see standards or through.

[141:13] appendix Q of the irc which appendix Q deals with tiny owns in general. It now are you know and it just to put that in perspective, the reason, this is an issue is because our code specifically requires foundations. So. that's the one piece that. Was problematic, but if you bring in the manufactured housing that foundation pieces also engaged with, and there are foundation and pad requirements so basically i've put together. This proposal, I can read it off to i'd like to just read it off to everybody briefly it's essentially 12 points. That would would be the backbone of this of this change that would allow mobile a to use the first one is just that that we we change the brc so that the mobile ad use an acceptable and it falls under the umbrella of at us.

[142:20] second piece is zoning related it basically or the next color is only related it's allowable in the same district as a to us so again it's just falling under EDU policy. It has to meet the same zoning regulations as far as height set back coverage on a lot FA are. I personally would propose a. Special allowance for front yard. But i'm sure that that's, something that would be discussed at length further and may not be viable, but I would suggest it. And when cited in the front or side yard setback, this is number four that the undercarriage the wheels the axles the tongue and hit should all be hidden from view that's a pretty standard piece.

[143:12] In the tiny home the mobile tiny home. regs in other jurisdictions i'm not clear why that should be a part of a regulatory structure, if this tiny home is not visible from a public street so if it's an array or yard. I don't see why that would be a requirement. I understand it fully for a front yard and a side yard, where it might be visible from the street so anyway, those are again more detail pieces. number five is kind of this hits the regulatory issues with both pad requirements tie down or foundation requirements are what I call foundation. And they're not permanent foundations, and that is that any in any ma EDU or mobile ad you should meet or must meet the nc.

[144:09] nflpa the fire protection and the npc standards, the electric code standards and again, those are common to all the regulatory structures number six is, we also have to meet the appendix Q irc standards. number seven, it must be connected to city water wastewater and electric systems. And number eight has to do with occupancy, this is another one that I kind of throw out there, I pulled down what these other standards have put in place, I think it's, one that is worthy of discussion. which has to do with the occupancy limits and they go to for people, so that no more than four persons may occupy. Mobile ad you. Another one to be discussed, is the square footage allowance, most of these look break the square footage maximum at about 440.

[145:10] i'm not sure that that's. The only where I land on that one i've left that in here in my proposal that we stick with a 400 square foot. But I think it's worth having discussion about if we're going to move forward with this further about what that square footage. allowance would be both minimum and maximum. Then. It made us must be cited on concrete or structurally cotton pads and anchor to meet local wind load requirements Nancy standards again that's. covered within our rules and regs, but I think it's just one that people immediately come up with as a concern so it's worth noting in there that that's going to be those requirements are going to be met. This is one that i've added in i've had some discussions with David lowery.

[146:03] Our fire Marshal about this, which is that ma the US will not be required to be fire sprinkler and i'm sure there will be, because at us are currently required to have fire sprinklers. I think it's it's ridiculous to require well in certain cases, I actually think it's ridiculous to require at us less than 800 square feet, to the fire sprinkler when we look at what the rationale is for fire sprinkling a home. And, and it basically has to do with time of the grass and firefighting access and when you're talking about a 400 or 500 square foot space, the egress is very close and the access for firefighting is also very rapid so. I think it doesn't really make a lot of logical sense, but we have adopted it. And so I would I would exclude mobile at us, depending on where we ended up with square footage or mobile ad us beneath a certain square footage from that sprinkle requirement.

[147:09] However, they would be required to have of course smoke and co detectors which is standard code requirements and also working fire extinguisher within the unit. that's one that a number of other jurisdictions have pulled in when they've eliminated the fire sprinkler requirement. And then the other one which I think makes a lot of sense, and you know I discussed this with David was. Probably more critical and it's not within the code necessarily already is to require an egress within the sleeping compartment of the EU, because I think that's the greatest risk from a fire perspective so Those are all. aligned those last ones are all aligned with kind of the fire access and egress concerns around eight years.

[148:02] But basically, if we make an EDU a mobile at you and bring it up to the umbrella at us from a zoning perspective. The regulatory requirements between the manufacturer housing rules and our codes already cover all of these other pieces, including utilities access and everything else, so, in some ways it's not a terribly heavy lift. From a from a regulatory standpoint it's you know, and I would like to what I propose doing now, with this is essentially giving this outline to the board, and I will just after this meeting, if everybody wants if we agree that you want to see this, I will present this outline. And i'll present in a PDF format and i've attached to that PDF format also kind of the supporting documentation from other jurisdictions.

[149:02] From the state of Colorado and the mobile or the manufactured housing requirements from the state of Colorado which also touch on some of these points so or salient to it and. kind of present that the package for you guys to look at prior to our next meeting, or maybe the next one after depending when the agenda would allow us to look at that and see if we want to proceed any further down the road with the mobile ad up. So that's kind of where i'm sitting with the at us, I also have a list of kind of what are the main code related concerns just so that people can be thinking about those as as you're reading these pieces. And i'll just finish by saying that's kind of the mobile part which i'd like to I personally would like to see us kind of take up and make. A recommendation to counsel at some point that this might be something that they could engage with relatively easily, and it would provide I think some significant benefits to.

[150:07] Homeowners who do not have the financial capability themselves to put in an ad you. i'm doing an 800 square foot ad right now I mean i'm doing it basically pro bono from my my perspective, as a builder and doing the permitting process and the architectural design. And it's still going to costs my clients almost $200,000. To build this in their yard, which for most people is prohibitive in the mobile ad you allowance would let somebody put in a pad which may cost, no more than 20 to $30,000 and then bring in. A unit place it on that which could be owned by someone other than themselves and they could lease the pad out so it really can open up. The financial access point I think for at us so that's why i'd like to present it other pieces that we looked at under at you stuff i'll break off into that now is we were looking at, I just have a list of we're kind of, and this may still apply to the new thing and Jay.

[151:15] I know that there's an ad you update review coming up at some point in the future we don't know when that's going to actually realize self but you know things that we've talked about or fee relief for people who are trying to get at us in place. and One of the reasons I bring that one up is things that we still I think are worthy looking at probably when we get to what you're doing Jay and this mobile ad you may also be beyond that. Is because the fearless piece we've seen in other jurisdictions that that is the break, making it financially accessible to people is where you really start to see an uptick in the adoption of at us.

[152:03] And so, under those things we're looking at fee waivers standard pre approved plans, which you know are utilized in other jurisdictions I don't know why we can't utilize the air in the city of boulder. which will greatly decrease people's costs and somehow streamlining the process so Those are all of the parts to that i'll send this out to to everybody, after the meeting, if you want to see it and we could think about looking at it down the road. Danny please do send them. jack can Danny go ahead. jack i'd love to see it, a. Development code nerd I have drafted tons of myself, too, so you know that attention to detail of all the different aspects that we'd be wrestling with here is a phenomenal, but I think this is really going back to the retreat and everything, this is kind of a. Midi sensitive stuff that we talked about that you know you want to try to do that's really on the lines of implementation, so I think it's great i'm excited to look it over and.

[153:09] You know the avid wants to chat about and if there's any other thoughts or anything on it, but I think it's a huge first step and I love to see that be something that we can. You know, work on putting together to throw out to counsel and say hey here's something we can do here's how we do it. This is why it's important and and going back to what we talked about before you know this ties directly. To a listening session we had that was that was actually very productive and substantive and I think from that listen session that's where we got the inside, or the revelation even that. Mobile tiny homes and mobile ad use is a really a. highly profitable and a lot of circumstances and so to see this coming you know through to fruition, I think it's awesome so thank you.

[154:03] all look forward to getting your fine tooth comb into the regulatory piece, because I see it, from the builder perspective, you probably see it from a legal perspective that he could marry those two. Like the way it dovetails with our previous conversation about missing middle is the US can help you know people attain or maintain home ownership, obviously. I would add, you know I can't wait to review what you've done, but that would add that, when we present a Council it'd be interesting to present you know, one of the experiences these other communities that have adopted such strategies and ordinances. has an increase the housing supply for at us and has benefited the Homeowners who are providing them the pad and I woke up I also had a small technical question is the sprinkler requirement new because we did our EDU in 2017 and we did not have just alarms oh interesting wow.

[155:06] yeah. Okay, maybe i'm in this. subject. Okay. Well, I just say yeah I mean i've seen sprinkler requirements for large homes, a lot of codes, but yell at that size yeah you could fit you can reach anywhere with a fire extinguisher so yeah yeah I think the sprinklers things, a good thing and try to avoid. So it was five windows and you know you can write about one of them. Exactly on the ground right away, but. We can talk about it more later, but I mean the main idea behind it, is that these are detached structures, often above a garage access by an alley. And it's just I think the argument is that it's difficult to get a fire truck back there were a hose right so that's why the extra level of precaution, but.

[156:05] There are other systems and we can talk about those later too great. Julia would you like to talk about EP or age. yeah efforts so just to quickly let everyone know that the numerous ordinance that was passed, has been adopted and is now referred to as a press employee or i'm sorry. that's rental assistance and. eviction eviction eviction prevention and rental assistance program sorry. Anyway, it's a new acronym now moved from numerous to address, so I spent, I just wanted to let you guys know that I spent about 10 hours over a couple weeks of time helping. Jay Allen and Karen Armstrong and play phone interview a pool of candidates who were interested in being an attendant advisory committee to to make sure that this program gets implemented.

[157:09] As as it was intended. they're all renters it's a committee of five they'll meet quarterly they're paid a very small stipend but they're paid to participate and I just assisted in the. selection process or the interview process or the initial round, and then a final round of interviews and I felt useful because I interview people for a living so. So I felt I could put my skills to some some good volunteer use in that capacity, and it was it was fun productive. I hope Jane Allen J and. J Allen and play and current Karen thoughts. Were. Extremely appreciative Thank you so much Julia and I apologize, it was 10 hours, when I promise to you is closer to three. Oh that's all right.

[158:02] It wasn't all in one day it was spread out, and I was happy to help. Well, thank you that's kind of its own listening session for you right. So is that chapter closed for you now that people have been selected, the committee is is doing its work sorry to do is work. Well yeah they've been selected and their first meeting I i'm not sure if that's been set, yet they talked about having set sometime in September, October or. August or September but there's still a lot of it's such a new program I don't it's not fully baked and there's, not even a the first meeting is going to be about what exactly does this board do every every time that needs and how, so I. would say able to share the perspective of being on a on a volunteer Committee, like this one, and what works well what works less well terms of being effective so From my own perspective. grace. That this. has been excellent Thank you again.

[159:02] Sir i'm always happy to contribute. i'm sure we'll be monitoring that program as it continues to evolve anything else on there we go on to the next. agenda and I got. Great jd matters manners from staff, we need to review. I just have for quick updates for you. So, one has to do with recruitment at the mid term recruitment, the Council is going to do to fill the two slots so Michael mentioned that I sent the email it goes yesterday everybody. Please share that with your networks it'd be great to get some. good candidates. So it's kind of up to us to make sure that the people apply so that's one number two Community benefit for that project, so I don't know if you were following city council. But currently the Community benefit applied specifically to affordable housing phase two was supposed to apply to nonprofits.

[160:10] As well as human services, as well as affordable, commercial and yeah and basically went through planning board went to first hearing Council and Council decided not to pass the second reading and to basically go back to affordable housing being the primary Community benefit. The good news is. The extent of the range of where applies, we were talking about earlier Julia the map will will set to expire so fortunately. A broader are basically the entire city will be are almost the entire city will be eligible for the Community benefit provision, so will be i've actually been able to see how effective it is as a tool.

[161:03] Third, as Julie was saying that the rental assistance is still ramping up that committee, they will meet, I think the first meeting is going to be late September early October. But the moratorium expires this weekend so it's going to be kind of a real test to see. You know, is there going to be. A tsunami or cliff or you know, a surgeon in evictions we don't really know yet, but I would say that there's a lot of preparation that's gone into making sure that we have the staff at the county as well as the city. To help distribute the funds, and we have quite a bit in reserve to help provide those resources so trying to get the word out, but I wanted you to be aware of it as well, these are resources to tenants, as well as to landlords. And the last piece, has to do with in person meetings so I don't know if you've been following the Council discussion, they were contemplating going back.

[162:10] For a test run. In August, they have decided to postpone that to. early October. I think there were concerns about the delta variance. So the same direction pretty much stands we're going to follow their lead so once Council goes back in person that'll be our cue to be able to go back into person. And there might be some options for hybrid but all that is still being discussed, so I just want to let you know that that the conversation is still happening, but no decisions have been made. Any questions about any of that i'll get. Everybody tired.

[163:01] yeah. I think you just said, thanks oh sorry. zoomed out that it's hard to. Pay yeah. I have a quick non zoom suggestion I don't know if it breaks the rules or not, but i'm. Are we have a boulder committee of my organization and we're going to do a little we're going to do our next meeting in person at diagonal Plaza and just kind of walk through and talk about what's proposed there. The learning opportunity if that's not considered a meeting in violation of sunshine monitors I would love to. You know, invite everybody to come along and there's to learn, I imagine we'll have a city official developer Maybe someone else talking about you know what's what's being discussed there. you're. Still muted.

[164:02] Oh, can you hear me now yeah all right that's not a meeting you're right, so we can pull that off. So i'd love to know it as a look to see that. Okay i'll just send an invite through Cory again that won't be as meeting will just be this will be in the same place will be listening. And you know it's not to discuss any particular policy, just to learn about what's happening there and learn more about the site. Okay, great anything else from Jenny or. Others on the call. just add so keep in mind next month August meeting will be the middle income piece, but also presenting on the form based code for Alpine helpline balsam. Great. As well as the comprehensive reasonings in the that will go to planning board September 2 and then Council October 5 so. That will be you guys it's up to you guys, whether or not you want to make a formal recommendation, but that's that's that'll be entirely up to you.

[165:08] just wanted to give you a preview. Okay, and that's the last Thursday in August correct. Wednesday yes. Wednesday i'm sorry yeah me too. I unfortunately have to miss the next one. So I, but I will watch. Okay, do we need a motion to adjourn. We got emotion anyone second. All in favor. Maybe we'll see you, I think that is the leader that's going to be August 11 i'll send the invite out when I get back from taking a trip tomorrow but early next week. And thank you all very thoughtful discussion and we'll be seeing you soon. Thank you, thanks corey. Thanks Jay thanks Peter thanks Michael.

[166:03] That. Thanks have a great night.