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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-08-22 Housing MIN ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION MINUTES AUGUST 22, 2001 CALL TO ORDER - The meeting was called to order at 4:10 p.m. by Chair Larry Medinger. Other Commissioners present were Richard Seidman, Jan Vaughn, Diana Goodwin-Shavey, Nancy Richardson, and Aaron Benjamin. Absent members were Joe McKeever, Joan Legg and Cate Hartzell. Staff present were Bill Molnar and Sue Yates. APPROVAL OF MINUTES - Vaughn moved for approval of the Minutes of the July 25, 2001 meeting. The motion was seconded and the minutes were approved. AGENDA ITEMS - Seidman wondered if there would be an appropriate time to discuss the Railroad District development. Molnar said that could be discussed with Item 6 on the Agenda. There are three major proposals brewing that could be considered quasi-legislative and the Housing Commission would do well to put something in the record at some point in time regarding affordable housing. This would include the Croman site (Tolman/Mistletoe), Russ Dale’s project (Tolman/Clay), and the Railroad District plan. NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND ACTION PLAN Molnar said the Request for Proposal, the Scope of Work, and the Final Draft have been approved. The advertisements are ready for the newspaper. Debbie Price gave him a mailing list for the RFP’s. Medinger would like to advertise locally. Shavey wondered if NAHRO, AIA, or AICP, or Urban Land Institute were on the list. Molnar has not seen the list from Hartzell. Shavey said she would e-mail Molnar the list Hartzell sent around. Benjamin said next month, he thought there is an Oregon Chapter Planning Council to be held in Salem. One of the items on the agenda is affordable housing. Molnar said the Oregon Planning Institute, has their annual planning meeting in October and one of the conference sessions is Housing Needs Assessment Model. He just found out that the State Department of Land Conservation and Development and the Housing Department have developed a computer model for doing a needs assessment. Corvallis just used it. Molnar went into the Scope of Work and asked the firm we hire to be able to run the model that has been developed. Shavey noted that the Enterprise Foundation website has “Consultant in a Box” software. There is a tremendous amount of information on how to do community planning, community meetings, communication, etc. She is concerned about hiring someone to develop a framework that is already available to us for a small price. Molnar said the RFP will probably go out next week. Medinger said a month from now we will need a subcommittee to meet with Molnar and McLaughlin to interview the highest prospects. Shavey, Richardson and Medinger volunteered to be the core group. Vaughn and Benjamin are back-ups. Commissioners will be called when it is time to do interviews. Shavey wanted the RFP to go out by Friday. She would like to make sure the person Cate spoke about, Phyllis Robinson, Center for Community Change be sent an RFP. SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS Seidman reported on the Community Outreach and Education committee. He, Richardson, and Legg met and talked about potential participants who would be willing to work on an education working group. They listed several potential partners. They came up with about five potential goals of an outreach campaign. 1) Encourage people to leave a legacy of housing in their will. 2) Provide a stronger political voice to the City Council and Staff. Build a more grass roots constituency for affordable housing. 3) Support employer/employee housing. 4) Get more participation among developers and builders to support affordable housing. 5) Create a higher acceptance of higher density among the general public. There would be three components to the campaign: 1) Community meetings. 2) City of Ashland website. 3) Media campaign - print, radio, television, billboards, brochures, bus signs Shavey said she has some information on charitable remainder trusts that she can share with the subcommittee. She believes they should actively bring into partnership anyone in this community that could be a voice for that kind of effort. Charitable foundations and faith-based organizations are natural partners. Shavey said with regard to the Employer Assisted Housing committee, there is a meeting scheduled with Jim Watson, August 31st at 3:30 p.m. A representative from Senator Wyden’s office will be attending to discuss the employer assisted housing issues in the hospital. At the City Council meeting last month, Watson said that affordable housing for his employees was a big ticket item on his agenda for the next year. There were no other committee reports. ASHLAND COMMUNITY LAND TRUST REPORT Molnar said last month they elected two new board members: Cate Hartzell and Debra Wolf. Medinger is concerned about the way the ACLT books are kept. Eighty-three thousand dollars went through the organization last year and it is practically unaccounted for. That is a huge vulnerability in applying for grants and funds. Richardson said it was her understanding they contracted with ACCESS for that. Medinger said they may have a process but a certain person he knows dropped off the board because the fiduciary problems are immense for serving on that board. He doesn’t want to see anything happen to them. Shavey thought an audit was necessary if they were receiving HUD funds. Seidman appreciates the concern about fiduciary responsibility, however, he believes it is our role as a Housing Commission to support the institutions that are promoting affordable housing. How can we encourage and help them do a better job rather than pointing a finger and saying “This is not adequate.”? The tenor of the discussion has been almost anti-Land Trust. He is not hearing how we can help the Land Trust to become better. That was not Shavey’s intention. One thing we need to find out is whether or not the expressed concern has a basis in fact. It would seem Maria Harris could advise us on this. Secondly, any good non-profit board should have an accountant on it. One recommendation should be, if they do not have an accountant, is to move to find an accountant to be on their board. She has no reason to think the Land Trust is not behaving in an appropriate manner. If Seidman interpreted it that way, she would like to remove whatever concern he had in the way that she phrased it. The first thing is find out what is going on and obviously help them get where they need to be. Medinger agreed. Molnar said the only funds that have been disbursed to the ACLT through CDBG were two to three years ago, $90,000 to purchase two lots at Chautauqua Trace. With the help of ACCESS and the Board, they negotiated three lots for the $90,000. Since those properties have been sold, Maria Harris has met HUD’s requirements and closed it out. Molnar said they closed on the 41 Garfield property that will have around five to six units. They are getting ready to put together an RFP for developers to put together a package showing what would be involved in developing five to six affordable rentals on that property. They have applied for some grants for the actual construction. Molnar said they just received another TPA (Technical Planning Assistance) grant. The ACLT is still negotiating on a piece of property in the Railroad District. TRAILER PARK COMMITTEE Rich Rohde said they met with Paul Nolte to review the draft ordinance. Nolte is drafting the final version and felt it would be legally strong. Rohde will be coming with the final draft to the next Housing Commission meeting. Molnar said he just received a copy of the ordinance. Next week Staff will probably review it and see how it works with the Land Use Ordinance. They might have a joint study session with the Housing Commission and Planning Commission to review it. CROMAN MILL SITE Molnar said a potential applicant has gone through a pre-application for this property. Staff raised a lot of issues. Staff has delayed the application because there are too many land use issues that had not been addressed. The applicant met with the Planning Commission and Council in a joint study session to present their proposal. The applicant did not get a strong indication from that meeting that the Council would endorse the zone change to residential. He thinks the applicant is planning to have a charrette in September to let neighbors know what they are thinking about doing. Molnar briefly explained the proposal. The site involves 65 acres. Chris Galpin has an option to purchase the property. They would like to have Residential, Employment and Health Care zoning on the property. If the Council wants to keep this area as ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION 2 MINUTES AUGUST 22, 2001 a job creation area, then would they want it Residential? A zone change is based on public need based on the Comprehensive Plan. Was the property incorrectly zoned years ago and is there a need to correct mistakes? Molnar said the applicants would probably try to use public need as an argument. He is not clear about the affordability package. That is where the Housing Commission could give some direction to the Council. Seidman asked how the Housing Commission could effectively provide input to this process. Would it help to write affordability guidelines? Molnar said the application would first go to the Planning Commission and they would make a formal recommendation to the Council. He sees this body drawing up some guidelines for affordable housing. It is his understanding they could make some specific requirements about the number of affordable units required. Shavey thought there could be a real place for the Housing Commission to work in an advisory role. Molnar said it would be good if the Housing Commission would comment and he could send the comments to the applicant. Medinger said we should sit down before the next meeting and make comments, then get a draft to Molnar. Molnar said if he at least knows the areas they want to push, he can write something up. Seidman said there is already a subcommittee for Land Use Practices comprised of Medinger, Shavey, Vaughn, McKeever and Hartzell. RAILROAD DISTRICT PLAN Molnar said the City was awarded a grant to hire a consultant to draw up a master plan of the area. They just received the final product from the consultant and from here we will go through the public hearing process and the process of adoption. There will be more time for input on this than for the Croman property. RUSS DALE’S APPLICATION BETWEEN TOLMAN CREEK AND CLAY STREET Shavey said we should send Russ Dale a letter inviting him to talk to the Housing Commission. Molnar said he would write a letter. ADJOURNMENT - The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 p.m. ASHLAND HOUSING COMMISSION 3 MINUTES AUGUST 22, 2001