Housing and Planning Committee Transcript – 09/08/2020 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 9/8/2020 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 9/8/2020 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [10:03:54 AM] >> Good morning. >> Good morning, chair. Good, colleagues. Hopefully you'll bear with me, I'm under the weather but I'm here. >> First day of school and you're second. Thank you for joining us. >> My kids have already been unleashed for big chunks of time. >> Okay, I think I will get us started. Staff, are we ready to go? >> Yes, we're ready when you are. >> Right, then I'll get us going. It is Tuesday, September 8, 10:0 [10:04:58 AM] 5:00 A.M. We are meeting virtually. I'm Gregorio Casar, chair of the housing and planning committee. We are joined by council members kitchen and harper-madison, giving us a quorum. S first thing do we is approve the minutes but it is my understanding the minutes from the last meetings are not ready yet so we will skip that. We will go out of order, taking up the emergency housing item second and then the mapping tool showing our affordable housing and planned public transportation, we will take that third. So, staff, let's get started with the "Affordability [10:05:59 AM] unlocked" presentation. >> This is Maggie, neighborhood housing and managed development. She will be delivering the presentation on "Affordability unlocked." >> And as she comes on, sorry, my screen failed to scroll for me, I missed -- we have vice chair he will less here and I see council member Renteria and the mayor are logged in and listening. So back to you guys. >> Great. Good morning, council members. This is Alex -- can you hear me? >> We can. Welcome, Alex. >> Thank you. Hopefully, you received some slides that I sent in, that's [10:06:59 AM] going to be my presentation today. Thanks for having me today. I'm going to give you guys an update on the "Affordability unlocked" program, talking about the program in general what that process looks like to go through and the current pro sect type line. It is my -- project pipeline. We have a couple of speaks in the program able to speak to that experience. Slide two, please. >> I'm sure you're pretty familiar with "Affordability unlocked," but a reminder, this is a development bonus program that offers waivers for development regulation in exchange for affordable units. They can better leverage public funds in light of the 2018 affordable housing bobbled dollars. In addition, it was meant to be peared with other tools for [10:08:01 AM] other density bonus programs. The "Affordability unlocked" ordinance was passed may 9 of last year by council. In November we had the ING afordability application portal up for the public . We worked with council to create strong protections for the affordable units coming out of this program and most importantly is a document on the property itself so in the event of change in ownership, those affordable units are stilt are still secure. Slide three, please. Here we have an overview of [10:09:03 AM] requirements. I have this on there so later when we talk about type one, type two projects, you know what that is. The type one two two project, it will change in size were it is rental or ownership project. Quick summary, one to two unit project, 100% are needed to be affordable. Three or four or 50% of the units need to be affordable it must everybody is households at 60% median family income or below or 40-years and 20s if 20% of all units must serve median income of 50% or below. The affordable units should serve 50% or below for 99-years. In connection to those requirements, the project must be 25% of affording units following one of the three [10:10:04 AM] options. Two or more bedrooms bedrooms serve as senior housing or affordable housing. And just- cause eviction, service income protection. We use our rental housing development assistance loose addendum which includes all these ideas and included in the unit as an exhibit. When you're thinking about type two, type two simply builds on and requires greater commitment than type one, so a type two project is going to meet all of those type one requirements an nights is going to meet at least one of the following four options, so that is going to be at least 75% of all the units are affordable, at least 50% have two or more bedrooms or [10:11:07 AM] project is in a quarter mile of the Austin corridor in transition. There are a number of different development modifications that the applicant receives in exchange for these affordability dedications, but I do want to highlight, just because, to make it a little bit more clear about why you would be type one or type two, the difference in the bonus you would receive is in two different wares. The first is height, you're able to increase 1.5 above the district height limit. A type two project, that factor is 1.5. The other difference in type one or type two with the don't news is if your base district limits the number of dwelling units, and this is typically going to be something we see with a single family district, then as [10:12:08 AM] a type one project that limit is modified up to six units per site as a type two up to eight units. That's the over all very quick type one, type two, you're leaking at, what you're thinking about. The process of getting certified in the "Affordability unlocked" project. First, submit an application via the online portal. We require a couple of documents as back up, including a site control document. The applicant needs to show they own the property or have an option on the property in order to apply. If the project meets requirements, at that point we're going to use that agreement template, draft up, create a draft outlining exactly how this project is going to meet the affordability requirements that will then be executed by the applicant in hdc [10:13:10 AM] and certification letter is issued. This letter is going to accompany all applications so the viewers can apply the appropriate development bonuses. We've worked closely on this process. It is somewhat similar with the format to the smart housing process so it is not completely new, we haven't had any sir are issues so far on this it goes through the regular development process. They place a hold on that project so the certificate of occupancy cannot be released. What is outlined in the agreement, the number of units and dedicated affordable units and so forth and it is recorded at that point in time. We will release the administrative hold, the occupancy can be issued and the [10:14:10 AM] project will enter that compliance and monitoring stage. Slide five, please. So here we have a look at our project pipe line. I'm actually going to start on the bottom half of the slide. Since September 3, the we have received 46 applications, 26 of which have been certified. Five have been canceled or we have not received a response after the initial application. Of the certified projects, 10 were certificate Ed as type one, 10 certified at type two. As far as 10-year break down, 31% of certified projects have been ownership and 69% have been a rental product. Over all, we've certified 2,721 units, of which 2,307 are affordable. We, of course, are tracking projects as they move through [10:15:11 AM] the development process, as we do all of our projects that are certified under density bonus programs. As of our last report update, we had three projects that had received a building permit or had a building permit under review. These include 12,500 lamp posts similar to a project, the Guadalupe neighborhood development project, 300 east groslin project, and we have three projects that have a seat plan under review, the matador and Henderson, both with lgb development. Slide six, please. Here we have a break down of the geographic distribution we've seen for certified projects so far. As you'll note, directly to has certified projects with six, [10:16:11 AM] close behind that, directs one and four each have five certified projects. So far we have not certified any projects with district six or eight. I've also pulled out over to the side a couple of interesting statistics that I wanted to share with you today, including that 70% of certified project applications indicated participation in the low income housing tax credit program or the rental housing development assistance or ownership housing development assistance programs for funding and that speaks to the fact this program was designed to be used in combination with a number of affordable housing tools. This is solidified that 65% of the projects are chosen to be smart certified which allows them to access a number of development fee waivers. I'm happy to report that the lamp post is the first to break ground July 22, just a couple months ago. Slide seven, please. [10:17:12 AM] That's all I have for you today. Pretty brief, but any questions? >> Thank you, Alex. I'm going to save questions for you and the staff probably for after we also get presentations from some other folks that are building the affordable housing, if that is okay with everybody here on the dais. Staff, do we have everybody, our guests here in queue, to give uses specific examples? It looks like they're coming on so I'm guessing the answer is yes. We will take up testimony from project transitions, from quad lieu , from Guadalupe neighborhood development association. [10:18:12 AM] We have a lot of really good and dense information from our city staff and our team, Alex, thank you for putting all those numbers together. Basically in less than a year, this is supposed to be the year check in for agent for "Affordability unlocked," but technically, it started in November. That might be apartments that are really, really low in rent, you know, $500, $700, $800 rents, includes home ownership projects that, where you could get new homes built at less than $200,000. And scale of over 200 homes applying is impressive but seeing it on a spread sheet is one thing and hears from the builders and non-profits on the [10:19:13 AM] ground is another. I'm glad we have you here to tell us about your work so we can better understand how it is working on an individual scale San council members can ask our guest questions or the staff questions. Why don't you remind is all about the great work you do and how you've been using it. >> Absolutely, Greg and thank you all for having us here today. Isle aexecutive director of project transition and I'm here to share how "Affordability unlocked" is making it possible for us at project transitions to make it possible for affordable housing here in Austin. Project transitions has owned property for over 25-years, since the 90s. We are nearly doubling our capacity from 22 to 40 40 [10:20:16 AM] supportive homes. All affordable, 19% at 50% mfi, plus we will have 5,468 square feet of community space, including a commercial kitchen, dining hall, community rooms and classrooms and surrounded by a green, open air area for residents to enjoy. This is something that could not have been possible without "Affordability unlocked." In fact, our team determined early on that without it we would not have been permitted to build even the 22 units that already existed at Roosevelt gardens. As we speak, Roosevelt garden gardens is under way. With the coordinated effort of our team, we are pushing through because we know how vital this housing is for our community both for individual quality of life and the public health at [10:21:17 AM] large. This expansion was literally not possible without eight so thank you a"affordability unlocked" so thank you for that. We're slated to break drown ground in spring of 2021 and northwest Austin, on Barnett road, somewhere near 11,000 square feet of community space, a real hub for community building where residents can receive telehealth services right on site and also be part of our community garden project we will have there. Again, another desperately needed needed innovative development that would not be possible without "Affordability unlocked." It has been possible why your leadership, stepping up with these affordable housing units. [10:22:17 AM] Funding still seems to be the largest barrier, we originally planned to build 84 units at that site. We had to scale that back to the 61 unlets but still incredible to offer the 61 units to this special population. How to sands of folks in Austin -- thousand being of folks in Austin are living with HIV and we fear covid will increase those numbers. We know that housing is health care because we see it every day and the expansions made possible by affordability unlocked, we will bring our community that much close sore for that and everything you have done to support affordable housing in Austin, we thank you. >> Thank you for that. Are you able to stick around in case folks have questions? [10:23:18 AM] >> Absolutely. >> We will get presentations from the other three groups. Thanks for that group. That sounds like Roosevelt gardens, that is a more than 80% increase in the units there, which is great. Next we will take Guadalupe neighborhood development corporation. Rachael, hi. >> Hi. Thanks for having me, I'm Rachael stone, assistant director with quality neighborhood development corporation. He wanted to share briefly with our project, it is the Lopez tower, as we've been calling it. Gndc owns the land at that site. It is currently a historic house we had been interested in preserving and we initially were going to build as much as we could on that site a six-story, 24-unit, 70-foot building. It is senior housing, it is close to a bus stop. There is not a lot of senior [10:24:18 AM] housing in that neighborhood and we will do want to dedicate some space, we haven't build senior housing before and this will be our third mull teal multi family property. Under the nhcd, I can't remember what the acronym is, but con agree Gates but congregate living was not a use and the project as six stories was very costly per square foot because of the needing to build a tower that was only going to have four units per floor. With "Affordability unlocked" we were able to go up to nine stories, that made it so we could have 34 units, increase of 10 units, and that also allowed us to add six units that are [10:25:22 AM] deeply affordable and that will allowed us to apply for hud 202 funding, those are 50% and below, and we were able to increase the number of units so much that are 50% or below, those 10 units, we applied for 26 deeply affordable units for Prak which we were awarded so that will go to this project to fill a large gap because of how complicated a project it is. And "Affordability unlocked" took care of our parking issues so we will provide the number of spots we they will be used in the building. We've seen some senior project building around town that have a lot of 34789 34789 spaces because -- of empty spaces because seniors not bringing cars to that type of housing. We're able to serve significantly more seniors at [10:26:23 AM] the site, so that's been really helpful. >> Great, thank you, Ms. Stone. We will get back to you in case folks have follow ups. Do we have someone here for foundation communities? >> I don't -- this is Mandy, I don't think Walter was available until about 10:30, so he will join if he can. >> That sounds good. And I think he was going to hop on at 10:30, potentially, so we will pull him up when he gets here. Are there questions from the dais for our staff, for gndc or for project transitions? Vice chair Ellis and then altar. [10:27:23 AM] >> In the chart it shows two districts that were not able to out authorize program? Are there other things that make it prohibitive because of cost, or is it is a matter of funding and demand for these types of units? >> You want to take that one? Go not, I can jump in. 54. >> Sorry. I just found my mute button. I do think it is certainly a bit of funding, a lot of it is availability, as well. There are a number of different factors. And it is such a new program, I feel like it is safe to say I think these numbers are going to be changing a little bit, [10:28:23 AM] probably in this next year, as people catch on more. It has been great. They've used this quite a bit but I hope other organizations and even developers, market rate developers that also start to learn about this. So I think these numbers could change and it is hard to say right now where that is going to go. >> And, council member, the only thing I had add is I think the availability of the base building would hinder our usage of "Affordability unlocked" in certain districts. District six and eight, we're the only two districts who were present. There wasn't any "Affordability unlocked" yet but, as Alex said, it is a new program and anticipate as the word gets out we will potentially see more [10:29:24 AM] developments. And of course the market is going to drive a rot of lot of the decisions over which developers choose to take advantage. >> I look forward to seeing where people are able to expand this in the fought. I think there were a couple that may have had only one project, as well, and so I know there are all parts of town that can benefit from using this program. >> Good morning. Again, kin talk too well but I will try. I appreciate this presentation and it is exciting to see the progress made on affordability through this program. This is a density bonus that happens based on your I was in your base [10:30:25 AM] zoning. My impression is these are all cases they started with their base zoning, they didn't change their base zoning and added affordability unlocked. We now have a different situation, I don't know if we fully anticipated before us for a zoning case where we are being asked to change the zoning and they're saying they want to use' fordability unlocked. But, -- to use "Affordability unlocked." But it is my understanding just as in other situations they could get their new zoning but not use it and we would have no way you would the current program to guarantee that. And it is just something I'm struggling with because I think it's problematic if we're giving zoning based on an expectation of additional affordable housing but there's no mechanism to ensure that that happened, and I'm curious if staff has any thoughts on that or my [10:31:25 AM] colleagues on that, because it doesn't seem to help ease the process if you have to have all these private covenants and bring in all these other folks to be able to use it with the new zoning as the work around so I'm just wondering what options we have or remight consider for that in the future. That is not going to address the tech case before us but if this is working well and we can account the density, that is something I would be interesting to see if we could address. >> Do you know if any have had a zoning change associated with that? [10:32:26 AM] >> So far, I've had one or two developers reach out and ask about "Affordability unlocked," explaining they are planning on going through zoning change, and then we will plan on applying and make sure they understand the program and advance according to that change. I've yet to receive an application for either of those projects and none of the applications I've received so far have those conditions. >> So to council member alter's question, we don't have a mechanism place where the affordability unlocked certification will bind that developer to the affordability? I think that's the heart of your question, council member. >> Yeah, that's what I'm -- you know, if we're giving them -- if [10:33:27 AM] the reason -- if we wouldn't have given them the up zoning absent the "Affordability unlocked" and they don't have to do "Affordability unlocked," you know, we're potentially stuck. And that may not be the case of the particular example it just raises a regulatory concern that I would have in the future because we want to make sure the people are actually building the affordable units. >> Council member, I would like to speak briefly to this. Count kich sen your question on the seam pound -- council member kitchen, is your question on the same point. >> Asking what would it take to -- what would it take to obtain that, obtain that assurance? In other wordses are how can we commit the zoning change to [10:34:27 AM] requirement to pursue afford "Affordability unlocked" ." >> Let me step in here because I've asked similar questions. In my mind, and staff, let me know if you think differently in part this is what "Affordability unlocked" does on many of these projects, where the reason we're seeing very few zoning changes related to them. What might have been a zoning change related to the lamp post project, can he speak to that, generally there are not as many zoning changes, which is partly the point so if somebody is already going to participate in that level of affordability, they don't have to go through the rezoning process and, frankly, creates development regulations that couldn't get through the rezoning process as gndc mixed mentioned. [10:35:30 AM] We should look at what changes we can make to "Affordability unlocked" so they didn't come and ask for a zoning change but immediately mean "Affordability unlocked" which immediately triggers those affordability requirements. So I think the zoning changes could be really informative as to what things we need add into "Affordability unlocked" to lock in that permanence. The other issue, though, is, as you've described it, council member alter is because we are banned from inclusion air zoning, this is a challenge we face not just on "Affordability unlocked" projects but all projects with somebody comes and promises, if you give me vmu, I will use the bonus. And virt waltly every other state in the country we could make that a requirements about with our ban on inclusionary zoning, that's why we have to go do the private contracts. [10:36:36 AM] My thought is have a clean up on the private rules on could have vants, could have vants, fix -- covenants, fix the inclusionary zoning if we can. And make sure if they're not getting out of "Affordability unlocked," so you don't get put in that situation. Council member alter. >> So, I appreciate that and I need to still think it through. It may than we need to have some sort of template restrictive covenants or something that are ready for "Affordability unlocked" developed over time so that, you know, whoever is doing the affordable housing or who is [10:37:37 AM] the contact team has some kind of, you know, template in place or something that means they don't have to pay for the lawyers every time. I don't know exactly what the solutions are but I could think it is particularly with certain builders, it is not out of the question they would come in for that zoning and then not do it. It will depend who they brought in for their partner and I just, you know, the benefit of this program is that you get significant affordability with the additional density, even if this is happening in the neighborhoods and so I just, I think we need to keep brainstorming on that it looks like a couple of the folks who are online, as well as council member kitchen, meet have had additional thoughts. >> At some point, I would like [10:38:37 AM] to drill down and understand what kind of zoning changes are being requested, or -- so, the suggestion is perhaps you build into the "Affordability unlocked" program, something that means you don't have to get zoning changes. A better out might be the cos that Alison is talking about, but I would want to understand better exactly what kind of zoning changes are needed. The other question kind of related, I'm wondering to what degree, well actually, you already answered it, it has to do with market forces and what degree this program worked from a financial stand point, in some parts of town and maybe not other parts of town. So council member, this is Mandy [10:39:40 AM] Demayo. I don't know if it is closing a loop on the questions you and council member alter are raising about zoning. I do want to say that staff will go back and look at the range of applications that we've seen thus far and do a type dive into whether or not the zoning requests, we've been already having zoning requests pretty indicated on afford -- predicated on affordability, the and we will talk with our technical staff on this, we do have a lot of constraints. We will check with the state legislature, whether it is inclusionary zoning or spot zoning that really can tie our hands in terms of zoning questions predicated on the forum. This is certainly something we will look at, we do have at least one zoning case coming. [10:40:41 AM] >> So now I would like to call to talk to a project that has broken ground and also if you can speak to any of the zoning stuff, that would be helpful. I know Rachael at it gndc can speak to this, as well. If we could unmute him that would be great. I think I can, too. All right, you're live. >> Thank you. Thank you, Greg. I just want to quickly go over a few things before I get into the rezoning. I will share a little bit about the development itself. Good morning, everyone. So I want to talk about lam post, 12,500 lamp post lane, district seven, 17 multifamily [10:41:43 AM] friendly town home style homes for ownership by families making 80% or less of the Austin mfi and that works out to be 78,000 for a family of four. The average value in this neighborhood of homes is well over 360,000 in escalating, but these brand new homes will be available for just under 200,000. It's the first development that's utilizing "Affordability unlocked," it is the first one to break ground and we were fortunate enough to have a virtual ground breaking that Mandy and council members Casar and. >> Pool: Were able pool were able to attend, which was great. At least 50% of the units are income restricted. We were also able to use funds [10:42:47 AM] from the 2018 "Affordability unlocked" bond through the Austin housing finance corporation, about $1.4 million and we're able to use that to leverage other financing, as well. How "Affordability unlocked" helped was that this particular side, which is 1.25-acres, was evaluated and was able to put in seven units and that because of the sf 6 set backs and parking requirements. We had 10 and then 17 so that was more than the 7 we were able to put on that lot. I heard some questions about the rezoning. This is one seat rezoned from sf 3, and sf 6 was critical because it wases an odd-shaped lot and [10:43:47 AM] allowed the units to be clustered efficiently and around trees and other constraints, there was a creek through the site, a channel through the seat that we had to work around. And, if we were to reef it leave it at sf 3, "Affordability unlocked" allows six or eight units at the most and, as I mentioned, we were able to get 17 in here, combining all the relaxed regulations in the "Affordability unlocked" and funding from hfc. And the sf 6 also allowed the additional impervious cover we needed on this lot. Rezoning took about four-months and I want to direct your original council resolution which specifically called out, and I quote, whereas the rezoning process is costly, time consuming and may limit the [10:44:48 AM] number of units and family friendly units in affordable housing in allowing affordable housing to be built by right without rezoning may benefit the city's affordable housing stock. And there are some thingses that council member Casar alluded to, whether there are tweaks that can be made to improve and have some of these projects go through faster, through the process. This particular project took 10-months to do the full site plan review and, again, I want to direct your attention to the original resolution which specifically called for, and I quote, a modified site plan process that closely resembles a side plan, while addressing health and safety and drainage in the same way it is addressed for structures with the same impervious cover, include be the [10:45:48 AM] fee schedule with 16 or fewer units. There's promise in the draft code rewrite, but it is still, needs more work. The 10-months and the four months, you know, together have cost us quite a bit in increasing material cost, I would say that every month that is spent in the rezoning or site planning process is significantly increase the pricing and I can tell you this first hand from this particular project. So we do have a few recommendations in mind that we would like to work with staff on, and I don't know if Connor is on the line, but he was going to help me kind of work through the list of recommendations we had come up with, if council member Casar, you would like to hear that. >> We might wind up having some time. I did want to hear from gndc and [10:46:48 AM] I think that Walter has joined us so certainly e-mail us that list and we will see how many more questions it is that we have to cover. But that is really helpful to know that we still have pieces of this to go but also great to hear that on this project it sounds like you are going to do seven, now you're able to do 17. By my math that is nearly a 15% increase in the number of -- a 150% increase in the number of affordable homes. I was driving through Gracy woods and saw a 1970s house on the market for and seeing them on the market when the older ones are going to the half a million dollar range is good. You want to speak to the zoning issue. >> Just an example, we were approached by a family who wanted to sell us their land in [10:47:49 AM] one of the neighborhoods we work in. The zoning is currently only two units to go on it, they wanted a million dollars. That is obviously not affordable. We can put up to eight units on it which sounded like lot us to in the beginning. Even though it is zoned single family, it is over 10,000 square feet. It is a very large lot. When we looked at it, it would be much more comfortable and feel like a community to put 14 units on it. That's a case we would need a zoning change and then "Affordability unlocked" but it is not giant density project, it is a lot of area and, you know, other -- so those are the kinds of cases where it is the size of the lot and the, you know, the properties of the lot that make it, the zoning doesn't suit the lot. I wanted to offer an example of a time we would be looking at [10:48:50 AM] "Affordability unlocked" because 72,000 per unit for home ownership is better than 125,000 just for the cost of the land. So just a small example of something we're looking at for single family it would still be single family houses on the lot but it allows flexibility so a zoning change would still be needed. >> Really useful. Thank you, Rachael. Do we have Walter on the line? >> Yeah, I'm hire. Can you hear me. >> We can hear you. Why don't you give us two quick minutes. >> The biggest thing for us, we will break ground in the spring, 110 supportive housing units on half acre on south Lamar and we couldn't do it without the benefits of "Affordability unlocked," essentially height and parking. Instead of being capped at 60 [10:49:51 AM] feet, we can go 84, 85 feet than gets us that extra story. We might have been okay with a couple dozen parking spaces but that didn't become something special that required extra approval. Remarkably, a couple of the other projects we have on our development pipeline didn't need the benefit of affordability unlocked but we keep looking at any sites and come passability come passability come pat and compatibility and other issues. It's working. >> Without "Affordability unlocked," how much less than 110. >> It is six stories, so we would lose a story and at least a dozen units and maybe 18 units total. >> Got it. [10:50:51 AM] Great. Thank you, Walter. That's Walter murr row wall M Walter Murrow from foundation communities. He will try to get done with this by 11:00, so we have 11-minutes. Any questions for staff? At this moment, it might be useful to hear from Mr. Kenny or Mr. Casar about recommendations you all might have to make what seems to be working well even better. Are you there still? I might have to unare to unmute you. I see Connor. Get him off unmute. >> Aagent is great. Large sites -- "Affordability unlocked" is great. [10:51:53 AM] Large sites with zoning are more than sf 3 zoning. If we look at the anti-displacement funding, I think a lot of these interior neighborhood sites where we might see displacement and even the sites that have had a lot of heartache for a lot of us trying to soft through these issues conserved but looking specifically at the sf 3, sf 2 adjustments that are made that we have these very large sites or odd-shaped sites with not very much street frontage. If we were able to get flexibility or scalable unit bonus, the way you have where units per acre, that would help tremendously. We have the "Affordability unlocked" for the smaller sites so there is potentially trade-offs and compromised where [10:52:53 AM] we could look for some flexibility, get those 50% affordable units, which we're trying to get on some of these lots and some other lots near project connect without talking about putting up big old buildings. Then, as well, the site review process, it is kind of the undone action item on "Affordability unlocked," and we are really excited and interesting about working with staff and offering some of our lots at test cases to work through these issues and help design good policy. >> Great, thank you. Are there any other questions folks have come up with here, or should we get moving on? Okay, my quick math, on the quad on the Guadalupe neighborhood development, 42% increase in the number of affordable units and deeper affordability is really [10:53:53 AM] important for project transitions, which is providing housing with people living with hiv/aids. 80% increase on Roosevelt gardens and another or Barnett road, so we're more than doubling the amount of housing you will have across those two sites using this. It looks like civilitude had the biggest bump, 50% increase in the number of units there and Walter really needed really low-cost housing housing there. Can you remind me what the rent is on a 30% mfi unit? Generally the represental requirements for agent are "Affordability unlocked" are 30s about to 50% mfi. [10:54:57 AM] >> The 30% rents include rents and utilities, and for a efficiency, less than 500 at this point. >> Less than 500 for rent and utilities. >> For rent alone. The till tells will utilities were vary. >> Creating dozens more and $500 and brand new apartment building, also great. Thank you all for this. I said it was a 10-month check in but it looks like applications did start coming in in August so we are right at a one-year check in and over 200,000 affordable programs coming in this year. Next, we will move on to the item that was originally scheduled first which was a presentation on our housing strategy related to the covid-19 disaster. >> While we're pulling up that presentation, this is Maggie, we [10:55:59 AM] have nefertiti Jackman, providing relief of emergency needs for tenants and give you an update where we were. >> Good morning, everybody. Yes, this will be a brief update, let you know where we are since amount indications began applications began coming in last August. If you can move to the next slide for me. Thank you. This morning I will briefly provide an update on the budget, over view of the program structure and eligibility and highlight the tenant stabilization Evers, our marketing and out reach strategy. The applicant data as well as go over some of the program enhancements. Thank you. [10:56:59 AM] Next slide. And so the rent budget is primarily funded with cares act funding, over $12.6 million in federal funds, along with $2.6 million in funding from the cdgb dollars as well as $2.5 million in general fund. So we have nearly 500,000 for targeted community out reach, which I'll also go over in a little bit more detail. Next slide. The structure, some of this was shared at the July meeting, just want to just reemphasize an update of a few points on here. Our partners include haca, cbr and community-based organizations to help with gets the word out, helping apply for [10:58:03 AM] the assistance and Helling them with the documentation, up loading all those forms to the application portal. The goal throughout the program period is to pay approximately 2,000 rebels 2,000 rents monthly for September through January, 2021, it is through a randomized selection process, and it was decided this morning, which is really important, we will have our next randomized stroke take place September 14 at noon, so we want to highlight that because we really want to make sure that more people begin -- we're going to make sure the numbers supply the funding. It serves families 80% median income and below. [10:59:03 AM] We were able to design program that funds beam fund people with traditional and non-traditional agreements and they cannot have duplication of benefits and they must demonstrate the household has been financially impacted within covid and reside in Austin's full purpose jurisdiction. The benefit for this program is a full contract rent page which is paid directly to the landlord, . Next slide. As we shared, one of the things we wanted to make sure we included with this next iteration of rent assistance program is to make sure that we provided services in addition to direct rental assistance, which [11:00:06 AM] includes the eviction defense services, as well as tenant and land lord mediation services. Across the nation there was an anticipation that we would see a large number of evictions for people who are unable to pay rent, so we really wanted to be pro active, we've partnered with community based organizations to provide over $400,000 in eviction defense services and tenant/landlord mediation services. In addition to that, we have allocated approximately $600,000 for persons who are eligible for this program to pay their land lords in the event that there are fees that are in addition to the rent that they owe, if we're able to negotiate some type of settlement or agreement, these fund will be used to pay the landlord and make the landlord [11:01:09 AM] whole. In the, which we hope will be rare instances, in the rare instance that persons are going to face eviction, we haval low have allocated $208,000 in moving and storage fees and also to help households, to help households who need to be moved or fined to get a new location. Not every situation the tenant will be prevented from being evicted. Next slide, please. Part of our success with the first program is the out reach strategy which we partnered with community-based organizations to get the word out. We want to build on that success [11:02:11 AM] and reach people where they work and life. I have a focus of reaching communities of color as essential workers and we will partner with community-based organizations to tap into their networks, their expertise and help reach some of the vulnerable communities. This out reach strategy will include direct mail, aisd programs, park, rec centers and getting. They various resources and organizations. We have held a number of rent webinars for community organizationses and wet webinars for land lords be and we received feedback that those were very helpful for the landlords who attended and participated and received informatn regarding the rent program. Next slide, please. We are working with community- based organizations to provide over $400,000 in funding [11:03:17 AM] to partnering experience so we can maximize our impact in getting the word out. We need assistance informing the public about rent through phone calls, e-mails, hosting their own webinars and posts the information through their social media. We also could use assistance helping people really understand their eligibility ies, helping individuals cry ate e-mail create e-mail addresses and up loading documentation and making sure they're pulling the right proofs of form. That is one of the delays our partners have experienced processing the application, it is basically the information applicants are providing and making sure they have the right documentation could really speed up the process. Next slide, please. [11:04:21 AM] I just want to share, this information, we get updates on a daily basis, the data I'm sharing this morning is current as of September 3. As of that date, we have over 7800 applications started and these were not actually submitted but we have over 7800 applications that were started. Over 1500 that were denied based upon the information that was provided, and we had a total of 3900 applications submitted to date this morning, that is over, I think, 4400 applications. And, also submitted 2400 will receive reminder notify indications, basically that's the remaining number of those applications that are incomplete. We want to really encourage people to complete their applications, if they need assistance. Some of the important information that we've seen [11:05:21 AM] about the applicants who are applying, a pre-covid income was about $27,000 of almost $28,000 in their reported current income is about $14,833 which is about a 50% decline in their income. So, we really see why this assistance is really important. Please keep in mind that asterisks indicate that this is only for -- this is a combined average, so this is for households 30% and below, as well as 80% and below, so all of those households. 77% of the applicants are 30%, at 30% mfi and 62% are female headed households so we are seeing a number of indications that people applying for the [11:06:24 AM] assistance are falling in line with the characteristics of what would describe households that are vulnerable to displacement. 21% have reported head of households as being African-American or black and 36 have reported the head of household as hispanic. Some of the additional support services that we have outlined on the portal that people are stating that they need help with include utility assistance. We've seen 42% requesting for utilities. 11% reported needed eviction services and 4% have reported they need assistance with tenant relocation services. Next slide, please. As a result of that, and as a result of feedback that we've heard from council members, as well as the data that we receive [11:07:24 AM] on a regular basis, our goal is to design a program that is responsive to community needs. We want to make sure the program is sensitive to those needs of our city. The applicants are not required to have a social security number, and we see that approximately 93% of persons applying did not have -- or did submit a social security number, but that is not a requirement. Applicants can be in a contractual relationship for rent outside of a traditional lease agreement, and then we are also examining how we can improve the program so that it's designed to provide a hand for persons who need additional services. So we are working on that because we want to make sure that we eliminate as many barriers as possible for people needing this assistance. [11:08:26 AM] Next slide, please. And, basically, this is just a timeline of where we are. The program launched in August, we're right now in the beginning of the program. We are in the process of finalizing our community out reach contracts, which will be awarded this month, as well as the tenant stabilization services contract. So the final program applications will be received in December, even though the program will continue until January, we will stop taking applications in December or when program funds have been committed. And, next slide. Here is the contact information to the rent assistance program. It is austintexas.gov/rent. [11:09:28 AM] Persons can also e-mail Austin rent at cdrassociated.com. And the call center is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 6:00 P.M. And the number is listed there. And that's basically all I have for you this morning. The next slide is for questions, if there are any. >> Thank you. Any questions for our staff? >> I have a quick question. You mentioned September 14 you are doing the next choosing of, you know, fairly and randomly from the people who qualify, you did already do one selection? Or is this the first one? >> No, this is not the first one. This is the second one. The first one was completed on [11:10:28 AM] August 26, and we had not planned to announce these because what we hope is that people will just apply as they need assistance, bus what we saw was there was a peak in the number of applicants right before that last drawing on the 26th of August, so that's why we decided we're going to go ahead and announce the next one. >> And for people to know, my experience was when people knew it was August 26, you know, local news stations were more willing to cover it, people understood there was a sense of urgency. My next question is whether you saw a spike coming up to the 26th. And how many you did select for the 26th? >> For the 26th, we started with a smaller selection. There was a total of 500, and we are continuing to go through [11:11:29 AM] that. We want to see what the process is going to look like. What we do see is that people still need some guidance submitting the right documentation. We can handle more but we're going to start with a small licenses in the first run. We definitely have the capacity to do more, but we're still trying to get information from the initial applicants the first time. >> And those granted from this group and picking more folks on September 14 so it sound being like you're potentially asking for help from the community and from us to get the word out again for people that need to apply. >> Absolutely, yes. [11:12:29 AM] >> One thing I want to make sure, this is a randomized, there will still nobody deadline, per se it will be a rolling deadline. If you get your application in on September 15, we will still be considering you in the next randomized short. If you were not selected in the first randomized short, your application rolls you will constantly be considered in each of the randomized sorts >> Thank you. Any other questions from members of council? I think it's also really important to reminding folks about the continued eviction moratorium, both by our local government and now by the CDC, that covers virtually everybody that would lose their home. And so really important to get that message out to the [11:13:29 AM] community that you wouldn't get kicked out for lack of payment, but -- >> You still (indiscernible). >> Chair: It's really important for you to apply. >> Right. Absolutely. >> Chair: Councilmember kitchen? >> Kitchen: I wanted to follow up on a discussion we had in one of our meetings. I think it may be in a covid meeting, about the relationship between this program and people experiencing homelessness. At that time I understood from our conversation that there's some availability for folks that are staying in extended-stay motels. But we also had some conversation about how to handle -- how to do a warm handoff for folks that are -- that don't have a home and are homeless. So wouldn't be eligible for this program. That was something you all were thinking about, figuring out. So just wanted to check in to see if you had a chance to think [11:14:30 AM] about what that might look like. >> Right. One of the things that I mentioned is the program enhancements, and what we can do to ensure that people who don't necessarily need rental assistance, that might need -- they might be homeless. Experiencing homelessness, it might be utility assistance. We are looking at the program. We ran out of time, we met this morning, and we've been talking about that since the conversation that we had with you. We don't exactly know, and so I don't want to put anything out there. We have looked at a number of different things. Right now where people receive, for those of you who aren't familiar with the portal, they receive a referral number or a link to a website for the various services. We want to do something more, I [11:15:33 AM] guess aggressive, or customer service-friendly, so we could either pull those names and put them directly in contact with the service providers that have the assistance. So we're just looking at the best way to do that, and we want to make sure that no one falls through the gap. Through the gaps. And as soon as we have something that makes sense, even if we have to continue to tweak it, we will follow up and let you know. But that's on the top of our list. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. The idea there, of course, for those who weren't part of that conversation is just -- so if folks were not eligible for the program, instead of just referring them and then having the potential to get lost, which happens a lot with this population, there was a more direct kind of referral made. So thank you for thinking through how to do that. >> Yes. >> Chair: Thank you. Any more questions? [11:16:36 AM] This program is so important, really important to make sure nobody loses their home, and thank you for the efforts getting the word out to the community. It seems like really low-income folks and folks of color are hearing about it and applying. People from all over the city applying. I would like to see more people in the Latino community apply. It matched their percentage of Latinos in the population, probably underrepresented the number of lower income population. So we will continue to work on that as well. >> Councilmember, this is Mandy Demayo. We are carefully watching those numbers within the demographic to those who are applying, and certainly those folks who will be receiving funding. And with respect to the hispanic population, I do want to point out that we scrubbed our marketing budget numbers, and determined that we are going to be spending more than 50% of our [11:17:39 AM] marketing on the hispanic latinx population. We're mindful of reaching out to the populations (indiscernible) To serve, and populations underrepresented, based on what we're seeing. >> Chair: Thank you. Mayor? >> I was going to say, in doing that work, are you working with the Austin public health, which is doing considerable outreach right now to that community? Maybe there's a way that everyone who shows up for a test, or for public health support receives information about the rental system >> Absolutely. I will say over the last, I think it was this past weekend, we had a (indiscernible) Flier (indiscernible), and we had information and distributed to all of the (indiscernible). Yes, we are working with Austin public health and anticipate [11:18:39 AM] that to be one way to (indiscernible). >> Mayor Adler: Okay. >> Chair: Always good to check. Anything else? Before we head to our last item? Thank you, everybody, for working on this. Again, if people want to apply, austintexas.gov/ -- >> Right, I'm sorry. Yes. R-e-n-t. >> Chair: Austintexas.gov/rent >> It will give you a direct link to an application portal. >> Chair: Now we'll take up our last item which has to do with the affordable housing stock and its relationship to public transportation. Thanks to the members of the committee for having brought this item forward. Are we starting off with a staff presentation? >> We are. And as we pull up the staff presentation, I will say this is Mandy Demayo in community [11:19:41 AM] development. And I have to just say I'm so excited that we are to this place where we can bring this brand-new tool to you. This is the official unveiling. And I want to give a little background as we're pulling up the presentation. Because this has been many years in the making. I will -- to give a little bit of context, that in 2017 (indiscernible) [Distorted audio]. Embedded within the blueprint we have very specific goals related to a variety of (indiscernible) For Austin mostly directed to transit. 75% of new housing, within one-half mil of an Austin center or corridor. In addition, 90% of new or (indiscernible) Housing could be [11:20:42 AM] within three-quarters of a mile of transit service. Within that, our goal is 25 brs of newer housing within one quarter mile of (indiscernible). We were very explicit about our goals and (indiscernible) And transit. And in fact, after 2017, we reworked our housing development assistance. So you all know our housing assistance program and our ownership housing assistance. We reworked the (indiscernible) Criteria (indiscernible) In connection with housing and transit. Then city council approved the Austin strategic mobility program, a variety of programs -- a variety of priorities and strategies, one of which is to address affordability by linking housing and transportation investments. We've been working on this for [11:21:43 AM] many years. We're thrilled to have that be a critical component of the Austin strategic mobility plan. And of course, embedded within that plan is the transit priority network, which you see on your screen in front of you. Those are the black spaghetti lines. That includes capmetro, high frequency service, existing. And then expansion, we've got connections (indiscernible) And project connect. So we are going to talk a little bit about our affordable housing investment, and housing throughout the city of Austin. >> Hey, Mandy, I'm sorry to interrupt. But your voice is a bit -- kind of goes in and out. It's a little hard to hear >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Kitchen: Maybe get closer to the microphone. I'm not sure >> This is about as close as I can get. Is that better? Okay. So just to go back a little bit when we're talking about the [11:22:44 AM] Austin strategic mobility plan which was approved by city council in 2019, that, of course, includes the transit priority network, which you see before you right now. The black lines (indiscernible). The transit priority network includes existing capmetro high-frequency transit as well as planned investments through connections 2025 and project connect. This is all aligned for Austin's strategic mobility plan (indiscernible) All back to imagine Austin's comprehensive plan and the concept map. I am going to turn this over now to our planner extraordinaire who is going to walk through this brand-new tool and hopefully you'll all be able to see the power of the visualization of the data that we'll be presenting, and we're, [11:23:44 AM] of course, ready to answer any and all questions >> Thank you, Mandy. Can everyone hear me all right? >> Chair: We can, yes >> The screen is up? So everyone can see the map series? >> Chair: I think so. >> Terrific. Thank you so much. And good morning y'all. My name is Sam Tedford from the housing department. I'm going to show off some of what Mandy was talking about and bring that data to life and walk you through this map series that we've created to really just visualize the relationship between our affordable housing investments and transit, both current and proposed. So on this first map, we're just seeing all here. And this is big picture. This is looking at all income restricted affordable housing units in the city. This is going to encompass both city of Austin subsidized and incentivized housing units as well as other non-austin housing [11:24:44 AM] as well. Like housing authority of Travis county and others. So the numbers that you see on the top left is just the roll-up of the number of units. So we have over 26,000 affordable housing units that are income restricted in the city of Austin. And these are only units that are on the ground, the projects have their certificate of occupancy. They are existing projects that are open today for housing. There's a bit of a description here. There are varying mfi levels for all of these projects so we didn't give too much description of what the mfi level is in each of these. But you can read a little bit more, and look at the median family income chart in that link there. What you see on the right here is the percent of those units, not the developments themselves, the percent of units themselves that are within a quarter mile or a half mile of a project connect station. So overall we have 25%, a quarter of all of these 26,000 [11:25:46 AM] units are within a quarter mile of a project connect station, and almost 60% are within one-half mile. And as the kind of headline here describes, these amounts are dynamic. That's why I'm here showing the actual tool itself instead of a set of slides because the real strength is you can get different perspectives by zooming in and out of this tool. This is a legend here, you can look at what is currently exhibited on the map. As Mandy described, these black lines are showing our transit priority network, as adopted by the Austin strategic mobility plan. And the heat map underneath is showing the number of income restricted affordable housing units. So this isn't just the number of dots on a map, this is the actual number of units that are on the ground that are going to make it light up. And so you can zoom in and out and get a few different perspectives. As we zoom in, we'll actually start to see the dots themselves that represent affordable [11:26:47 AM] housing project. And if you click on one, you can also get some additional detail about that project. For example here, we have garden terrace, phase 1 and phase 2. Composed together of about 100 affordable housing units. These are on the ground today. In garden terrace, it's located along William Tannen road. That is a high frequency transit route, route 333 for anyone who knows that one. And garden terrace, it's described as a foundation community project. Single-room occupancy. So as you zoom in, you can get more information and click on those projects to learn a bit more about them. So this is the biggest picture, this is kind of a roll-up of all city and non-city housing. The next few tabs are going to be just a subset of what we're showing on this map right now. So if we go to nhcd rentals, we're just going to be looking at nhcd, or city of Austin [11:27:51 AM] affordable rental housing, incentivized by a city of Austin program. You'll see this number is over 11,000 units, fall into this category. We kind of have a bit of a different visualization to these units. The dots will correspond to the -- the size of the dots will correspond to the number of units in the project, so the bigger dots here are going to have much higher unit numbers, where some of these smaller dots might be smaller projects. The majority of these rental housing units are eligible -- or income restricted for households making 60% or less of the area median income. And that translates to about $58,000 for a family of four in 2020. And as with before, this will be a similar layout to the rest of the tabs, getting an overall count here, and what percentage of these units are within certain proximity to a project [11:28:53 AM] connect station. And as with before, it's really important that you all should have the link to this map here. You can zoom in and out and learn a bit more about some of these projects. And with most of these maps, you'll also get some different buffers that show up around these project connect stations. Just so that you can a little more easily reference the proximity to a transit station that is represented in these charts here. So the darker gray is showing one-quarter mile to a project connect station, and then the lighter gray there is going to be a half mile. And if you click on a project, you can also get more information about it. For example, this is villas on sixth private developer, but a property with Austin housing finance corporation and has about 106 units. As I mentioned, these next few maps are just subsets. So rentals all rolled up. [11:29:55 AM] These are breaking them out a little more specifically, and so we looked at rental. We're going to show ownership, units that are city of Austin subsidized or incentivized only. So much smaller number. Many of these are coming to the development housing assistance program or community land trust or the like. The majority of these, about 80% of these are subsidized by the city of Austin and not really as much coming through our developer incentive programs. But as you can see, 65% are within half a mile of a project connect station. Next slide, please. Finally, the last map that was just a subset of what we showed in the first map is everything that is not funded or incentivized by the city of Austin programs. This can actually include a variety of different housing corporations, or housing [11:30:57 AM] developers, notably housing authority of the city of Austin, and Travis county and cdha. We might see light tech projects on this map that aren't receiving any city of Austin funding. This rolls up to about 15,000 income restricted affordable units within the city. Generally these are all reserved for families making 60% of the area median income but many are reserved for those making 30% or less. And there's a bit of a description here that you can read the numbers of how many of these units are from some of those various entities we discussed. Again, nearly 60% of those units are within half a mile of a project connect station. And same as before, if you zoom in, you can get additional detail. You can click on projects, and learn more about what that project is and where it's located. Finally, we'll go to -- not finally, the next slide on here. [11:31:58 AM] In development is going to be showing a future look at affordable housing. So these are affordable housing units that are going to be exclusively coming through the city of Austin program, whether with city subsidy or incentivized by one of our development incentivized programs. These are not yet completely built out. These have not received their C.O. They could be anywhere in pre or development stages, pre-development meaning they've received their certificate of -- or they've been certified by nhcd to include those affordable units. But they may not have broken ground yet. And some of these could have their building permit issued and be in development as we speak, but aren't in the project complete stage. So these are kind of future look ING, where will affordable housing be in the next few years. We have over 11,000 units in our [11:32:59 AM] development pipeline. And 55% of them are within half a mile of a project connect station. There's a few different things going on. This map has a lot of information in it, but the colors of green actually correspond to the stage of development it's in, so the really light green, almost white is pre- development. So the earliest stages. The darker green being they've broken ground, they have a building permit issued and are a lot closer to coming online. The size of that dot will correspond to the number of affordable units we're expecting from that project. And same as before, we can zoom in and out, and get more information about each of these proposed developments. And the total number of affordable units that it may include. As well as some information about is it funded, is it getting city of Austin subsidy which means it's an nhcd program, or from a developer incentive program. [11:34:01 AM] Next I'll go to our city assets tab, which is going to be showing city of Austin land. Basically land that we own that is either ready to be used for affordable housing or could be used for affordable housing in the future. We've broken this into two different categories here. We're looking at land that is held by the Austin housing finance corporation. Those are displayed here with the black star. You'll see reasonably (indiscernible) Projects. And if you click on them in the list here, you can zoom in. You can get a bit closer view of those pieces of land. And same as before, you can get a bit of information by clicking on them. You'll see the address here and you'll know that this is ahfc land. The city assets for potential future affordable housing, some of them you might recognize, sites like St. John's, old home Depot site is listed here. It is proposed to include affordable housing, but is in [11:35:02 AM] the very early stages. And so that's listed here. And all together in this tab, I think we have about 12 sites that are identified. All together nine being -- nine lots held by the Austin housing finance corporation that will be including affordable housing in the future. Next we'll go to the expiring affordability tab. This is a tab that does kind of bring the timeline of affordable housing to light. Many of our affordable housing units have an agreed-upon period of affordability in which they will maintain that income restriction. And it varies greatly of what that affordability period might be. And so on this map, we're looking at housing that is today on the ground income restricted, [11:36:04 AM] but its affordability period will be expiring in the next five years. So between basically August or September 2020 through the year 2025. These units have an affordability period expiring. We have 4,600 units that fall within this category. Nearly half of them, 47% are within a half mile of a project connect station. And the final tab that I will show to you all today is our displacement risk areas. So we just wanted to show you exactly the affordable housing investments made by the city of Austin that fall within the UT uprooted neighborhoods that are most vulnerable to displacement through gentrification. These areas, if you're familiar with the UT report, we've summarized what it means to be susceptible type 1, dynamic and the like, and that's broken out here as well. So we're just showing affordable [11:37:06 AM] housing developments that fall within those areas that were identified in the 2018 UT uprooted report. And that equals about 13,000 units. That is a large percentage of the city of Austin's affordable housing investments that fall within these areas. And then you'll see just a bit more specificity of where those units are in relation to the stages of displacement vulnerability. So the majority out of these, the height number are within susceptible areas. These are in the earlier stages of gentrification. But we have a significant portion, over 30%, in the dynamic areas as well. And same as before, you can get a bit more detail just through the map and clicking around on the units. A what we're showing alongside the units here is our transit priority network, as we noted, project connect is a subset of. [11:38:08 AM] And those are all of the maps I have for you today. I'm sure that there may be some questions or discussion, and hopefully between Mandy and myself and the team, we can get those answered. >> Thanks so much, Sam. We are happy to take any questions. And I know it will take a bit to absorb all of this information, (indiscernible) You can play around with it. But again, we're happy to take any questions. >> Chair: Thank you. This is really great. Thank you to the staff, and thank you, Sam, for this. We will get out of here on time by noon, so we'll try to keep the questions short. I think the first thing is, is this publicly available yet or is it going to be online shortly? >> The link that is included in the backup is publicly available. I'm sorry, was someone else speaking? >> Chair: No, you, go ahead >> Okay. The link is available in backup, [11:39:10 AM] and is publicly accessible, so anybody can click that link and explore this. I'm not sure yet if this link will go up on our website, but it certainly could. >> It will go up on the website. To be clear, it's a work in progress. We're going to be updating the information as (indiscernible) Online. It will be constantly updated. We're eager for feedback as well, if there are changes that folks would like to see, additions, subtractions. It will be up on the website. >> Chair: For those councilmembers who want to click around and ask your questions, you have the link and backup. We'll start with you, councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Oh, okay. Well, I'm very excited to see this. I mean, this is just incredible. So thank you all for putting this together. It's very helpful. I just have a couple of [11:40:11 AM] questions. So does it indicate -- I think I was looking at -- which one of these tabs would indicate planned acquisitions? I understand that you can't broadcast all of them, but at some level there, is that the city assets one that -- >> Councilmember, just to be clear, under city assets, if you look at the ahfc assets, which include acquisitions we've made using the 2018 affordable housing funds, those are only things that have either come to city council or we have -- or come to Austin council (indiscernible) Or that we have a signed contract for. We have many other properties in the works that we're very [11:41:12 AM] excited to bring to you, but that are not included on this. >> Kitchen: Okay. So the properties -- just explain for us, so I understand, but explain for the public, what stage they have to be in before you can make them public. >> We need to either have a signed contract or (indiscernible) Finance corporation for approval. And so just as a reminder, the last properties that we've brought to ahfc for approval were the 1108 and 1114 framer which is in district 4, and which is near the intersection of Kramer and Lamar on the Orange line within that half mile of the project connect station. >> Kitchen: Can you say just briefly what your priorities are, for the additional investments that you all are [11:42:13 AM] looking at using the bond dollars? >> Sure. (Indiscernible) Strategic housing blueprint, and so we are looking at opportunities (indiscernible) Which don't [background noise]. Sometimes they do. This right here actually happens to be in a high opportunity area in district 4 adjacent to gentrifying areas. So we're moving at a combination of high occupancy and (indiscernible) Connection to transit. So again, in alignment with the strategic housing blueprint, (indiscernible) Percent of all units should be within a quarter mile (indiscernible) And 75% within a half mile (indiscernible). So these are the things [11:43:14 AM] (indiscernible). >> Kitchen: One last question then. I really appreciate the mapping showing the project connect, the stations. Now, I'm assuming you're using estimated information from capmetro for that, right? Because to some degree, some of the (indiscernible) >> That's correct. That is correct. So, again, as this map is -- this map series, the tool will be updated as we go. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Chair: Mayor add ler? >> Mayor Adler: I just want to add as well, this is really exciting to see. You know, as we increase transportation options in the city, obviously there's the risk, or the challenge of [11:44:15 AM] gentrification and dislocation. And to be able to affirmatively be fighting back against that is exciting to see. We've been so focused on the $300 million that's been added to project connect, which is a huge investment, it's real important to note as you're showing us here how much is already being done in that regard. And because project connect followed the routes of the Austin strategic mobility plan, it's already set up to do this. So the work that you've already done with respect to the total number of properties that are for this housing, over 26,000, and knowing that 58% of those are placed within -- 58% within half a mile of project connect, and how that gets built out is real exciting to see the over [11:45:21 AM] 11,000 under construction right now. 55% are within a half mile. And that's even -- that's just using the money from the 2016 bond and the 2018 bond, the properties that have already been purchased. The land that's been purchased. Is there still some of the 2018 bond money that's still available to keep investing on properties that will be near the project connect stations and routes? >> Absolutely. Our 2018 affordable housing bond, the contract with the voters included $900 million for land acquisition. Of that amount, we have spent encumbered thus far approximately (indiscernible) Million dollars. We have up to $30 million submitted. And remember, our land [11:46:22 AM] acquisition, our acquisition program also includes acquisition of hotels, motels, for the motel conversion strategy. And so we're balancing all of those different acquisitions, but we do have a five-year spend plan. We are spending the money in alignment with the strategic housing development, certainly in alignment with the priority network. >> Mayor Adler: Since the voters haven't had a chance to weigh in yet on project connect, none of this includes that $300 million (indiscernible) That comes up early. It's exciting to see how much has already been done, consistent with what the council and its contract with voters said would be done with the project connect. We already see it happening. Last question I have, and then the thing that I think this does point out, too, is the number of existing affordable housing [11:47:22 AM] units that are going to roll off because, what are they, 4% through the grant program and the like which only has affordability for a certain period of time. I notice, too, in the number of units, 47%, almost half of them are also within a half mile of the walk shed of what project connect is. Do we have a strategy, we're trying to aggressively figure out how it is we maintain that at least 50% on -- in affordability, so that they don't roll off over the next five years? That would be incredibly valuable housing stock to maintain. >> Absolutely. And this is really the first step in our preservation strategy is identifying, locating, determining the characteristics of those projects with expiring affordability. Not every one of these [11:48:23 AM] properties will in fact lose affordability. Some of them may choose on their own to extend periods, some properties may be capitalized as a live tech program. Our goal at neighborhood housing and Austin public financing corporation is to identify these projects early enough and to see what we can do as part of our investment strategy to (indiscernible) Extension of the period. So we have been talking about preservation in the city for a really long time, and really, this was the first step in our preservation strategy in terms of identifying where we can potentially pull a lever to extend affordable (indiscernible) It's crucial that the affordability (indiscernible). >> Mayor Adler: If you need anything further, please make sure to bring it back to this committee, or to the full council so that we can get whatever authority or tools that [11:49:24 AM] you might use that we don't have now in order to preserve that. Thank you for this work. >> Chair: Any other questions? Councilmember Ellis. >> Ellis: Thank you. This is an incredible tool. This is really exciting and very interesting to get to play with. There is a lot of information to digest. Do you have a spot for feedback or questions so that if there's any more information that could be helpful for any of us, to be able to get those answers? I see one that looks like it may roll out of affordability soon, but knowing the type of construction that it is, and the program that it's involved in, it may decide to voluntarily stay in as affordable housing. So is there a good location for us to get more information about that? >> Sam, I don't believe there is a mechanism within the tool to provide feedback, unless I'm mistaken. >> There's not. >> Okay. So the best way would be to [11:50:25 AM] reach out to me directly and I'll connect you with whoever -- probably somebody within our housing affordability assistance program. We can certainly dig down and get that information for any questions that you might have. >> Ellis: That would be helpful. I'm sure there's a lot of information on here and a lot of good partnerships that have been established. So I look forward to looking through this tool a little more and understanding these projects a little better. Thanks. >> Chair: Before I pass the mic back over to you, councilmember kitchen, I just wanted to make a couple of high-level observations in line with what the mayor said. This is really powerful information. I didn't know until today that about 60% of our city's low-income housing is walkable to the project connect stations. That's really important. And it's really important to keep them there, and to add to [11:51:27 AM] the stock. I also didn't know until now that it seems like if we have just over 11,000 low-income housing units that are city supported, and that are in development pipeline, is also just over 11,000 units that we would be on track to doubling the amount of low-income housing that we have in the city relative to the amount that the city currently supports. That's great. Except, of course, you know we're also losing affordable housing. So again, I think that's part of why, as part of the proposition on the ballot, we've included the $300 million for rent displacement work. I hope we do actually double the amount of affordable housing the city provides here in the next few years. That would be a huge feat to double what we've done in our whole history here in the next few years, would be -- I think [11:52:27 AM] would actually start addressing the need we see in the community. So thank you for this. And do get the link up and let everybody know where it is, once it's available on the website, so that everybody in the community can look at this. It's really useful information. Councilmember kitchen, did you still have a question? Over to you. >> Kitchen: Yes. As everyone has said, this is very, very helpful, useful information. And in a format that's easy to use. So I really -- I can't say enough how much I appreciate this. You know, as others have said, one of the concerns that has been raised related to transportation, and it's something that was spoken to in the asmp, chapter 6, I think it is, was the need to get out there ahead of the curve, you know? Ahead of transportation investments. So what this shows me is that we [11:53:28 AM] have been doing that, and which is important for us to understand, particularly when we're talking about project connect. We're not starting with the 300 million. And we're certainly not starting after that program -- you know, after the transportation loans are in place. You guys have already been starting, and the city as a whole has been -- has indicated as a commitment a number of years ago the commitment to aligning housing with transportation. And we've seen that in our asmp, and on the policies you all have been proceeding with. We've seen it in the blueprint, in the implementation plan of the blueprint. All of that speaks to the fact that for some time we've been working to get ahead of the market in terms of increases in pricing of housing along transportation lines. So I think that this just [11:54:28 AM] illustrates for us the progress that has been made in doing so. So I think it would be helpful to understand, and I'd like to follow up and get information from you, in terms of the value of these investments to date. If there's a rough idea of the value of them. It goes so much beyond the $100 million that we have in the housing bond, it goes beyond the 300 million proposed for project connect, because of all the other funding sources, both public and private, that are being leveraged here. To the extent that that kind of information is available, that would be interesting to note. So again, thank you, chair, for putting this on the agenda. It's very exciting, and helpful, very easy to use information. >> Chair: Thank you. Councilmember Renteria. >> Renteria: Yes. This is very great. I just have a question on the [11:55:31 AM] expiring affordability tab. There's some yellow dots there. Is that what are your -- we're supposed to be seeing that it's expiring, or what? I just didn't -- >> The yellow dots show the -- I'm waiting for it to load - - there they are. These are projects that have expiring affordability within the next five years. And Sam, can you scroll down to one of them? Maybe Riverside? The properties on Riverside? >> Renteria: I was just noticed that the skipped two houses are -- the yellow dots there. Are those the ones that are going to be -- we're going to be losing? >> So this is a great example, councilmember Renteria. They are technically expiring. [11:56:33 AM] (Indiscernible). They're actually owned by Austin housing finance corporation and there is no intention to ever, ever, ever lose that affordability. >> Renteria: Okay >> That could be an example of a property where we do the drill-down and we say, oh, that's not something we need to worry about. Because we know that that's within our mission. We own that, and we in fact are -- >> Renteria: >> We determined the destiny of those. >> Renteria: I just wanted to understand how it was set up. So thank you. >> Mm- hmm. >> Chair: Great. Any other questions before we close out here? >> Councilmember, this is Mandy Demayo. All I want to say is, I want to say thank you to Sam and (indiscernible), they're the magic behind the curtain. They've done an incredible job. They've been brainstorming this for months and months and months [11:57:33 AM] and I'm so excited that this is now a reality. We look forward to feedback. And again, this will grow and change as we get more information, but we're glad to unveil this today. >> Chair: Thank you. It does really seem like the council is unified in the same direction on this. We are in the process of trying to double the amount of low-income housing in the city. But we know that we're losing units as well. We have to save those. We know that a majority along the project connect lines, where you have a majority of low-income housing in the city accessible to align, and we also want to keep it that way. And so thank you. I think it's really helpful to see how that's happening and keep track of whether we're reaching the goal or not. Thank you to everybody. Unless there's any objection, I can close out the meeting here at 11:58 A.M. Of today's housing and planning committee. [11:58:33 AM] Without objection, we'll do so. Thank you to the staff and thanks to the member of council and our guests for joining us today.