Austin Housing Finance Corporation Meeting Transcript – 08/26/2021 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 8/26/2021 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/26/2021 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. Part 1: Speakers [11:06:19 am] here at 1106 and we are going to convene here on August 26, 2021, the board meeting of the Austin housing finance corporation. We have a quorum of the board present. We're convening solely for the purpose of taking public speakers would you call the speakers to speak? >> Monica Guzman. Monica, please unmute. We'll call her back. [11:07:23 am] Ana Aguirre. >> Good morning and thank you president Adler and board members for your time. I'm the immediate past chair of the southeast combined neighborhood plan contact team. I am speaking on item 8 on the ahfc meeting. As the immediate past chair of the contact team I need to inform you that we vice- president been notified, much had the opportunity to review, vote or have a formal discussion on this case. Correspondence was submitted to the city requesting formal written notification by the city when housing tax credit applications are received. The request was to make sure that community engagement occurs prior to the city council or the Austin housing finance corporation board taking any action that will have impact on the 78744 community's quality of life. The city staff responded and informed us that they would review our request with staff and anticipated a response to us the week of August 16th. To date we still do not have a response. We have also requested that the equity office and office for displacement and prevention be included in [11:08:23 am] the city's review process for their independent reviews. We do support affordable housing. In our area we have multiple concerns. The major one being the ongoing efforts of proposing additional density of affordable housing in our dove springs area. This site constituents in a tract that is already identified as a racially and ethnically concentrated area of property. That poverty rate being 35%. This burden is challenging for us as we do not have the same equal access to resources to support vulnerable communities as other areas of the city. This has been demonstrated by the outcomes during the pandemic. Affordable housing should be made available in all parts activity which allows vulnerable residents access to much needed resources and services. We look forward to working with councilmember Fuentes's office on this and also hope to have the opportunity to be fully engaged in this process in its entirety. Thank you for your time and consideration and service to our community. [11:09:24 am] >> Mayor, I received a message from Monica Guzman that she's not going to speak. So all speakers have been heard. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you for that then. All speakers have been heard. We're going to go ahead and recess the Austin housing finance corporation meeting and we'll bring it back later in the day. It is 11:09. Part 2: Action Items So let's do the Austin housing finance corporation and get through that. I'll recess the Austin city council meeting here at 3:50 P.M. And I'll convene the -- I'm going to reconvene, calling a recess in the Austin housing finance corporation, still [3:51:09 pm] August 26, 2021. Do you want to lay out the consent agenda for us? Absolutely, mayor, Mandy de mayo, Austin housing finance corporation. The consent agenda, I want to note a couple of changes and corrections. Agenda item number 1, today you will just be approving the minutes from July 29th, 2021. We have pulled and will repost the August 11 board meeting minutes. Also we have withdrawn item number 2, a service agreement between the city of Austin and Austin housing finance corporation that was on changes and corrections posted earlier that related to council item number 13. And that will be reposted for the September 2nd meeting. The remaining items are related to our housing development assistance program. We have before you the authorization to execute and negotiate loans to -- >> Mayor Adler: Ms. De mayo, while you're also doing the housekeeping matters, there was also some [3:52:09 pm] late backup I think in a couple of Austin housing finance corporation items? >> There was. Certainly on one item, which was number 7, and that is the foundation communities loan. >> There was on Austin housing finance corporation item number 1 there was late backupup. So go ahead and proceed now with the consent agenda. Thank you. >> Okay. The consent agenda includes an ownership housing development assistance loan for $1.84 million. That's agenda item number 3. Items number 4 through 7 are rental housing development assistance loan agreements which will result in nearly 500 new units of affordable housing, some of which will be restricted to people experiencing homelessness, others of which are for folks between 30 and 60 percent median family income. And so those are four different rental housing projects we're very excited [3:53:10 pm] about. Item number 8 is authorizing us to move forward with 5.3 acres purchase on south pleasant valley road and this will be part of our land acquisition portfolio for future disposition for affordable housing development. And item number 9 is authorizing us to move forward with about 2.6 you acres acquisition at it 3511 manor road. We're purchasing this in the public works department that's related to council item number 19 that was approved as part of the consent agenda earlier this morning. So I offer those items on consent and I'm happy to take any questions. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Consent agenda items are items 3 through 9. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Councilmember kitchen makes the motion. Councilmember Ellis seconds the motion. Director kitchen makes the [3:54:10 pm] motion and director Ellis seconds. >> Mayor, item 1 is still on consent for the July minutes. And postponing -- >> Harper-madison: The July 29th minutes. >> Mayor Adler: So item number 1 as concerns those and plus items 3 through 9. Thank you very much. >> That is correct. >> Mayor Adler: Discussion on the consent items? Councilmember Fuentes. >> Fuentes: Thank you. I wanted to ask staff if you could please keep the southeast neighborhood contact team informed about the land with a with a session item number 8 and they would requested to be notified for any housing tax credit applications that are submitted in the 44 zip code so if we could also ensure that they are notified if they are applications put forward. Thank you. >> Thank you for that, councilmember Fuentes. Just so you know, Rosie and I were talking about the testimony earlier and we will be reaching out to the contact team to talk about future plans for the 5900 [3:55:13 pm] south pleasant valley parcel as well as tax credit projects in the future. >> Fuentes: Thank you, I appreciate it. >> Mayor Adler: Further discussion on the consent agenda? Councilmember Casar. >> Casar: Director, right. >> Mayor Adler: Director. >> Casar: And I think you're president. [Laughter]. Sorry. I wanted to take a moment because this is a really strong agenda where we're again going to be able to house hundreds of low income people and many people experiencing homelessness as well, along with purchasing land that will be the future St. John future and the Ryan drive developments which used to take so long, but now that we have this strong land acquisition strategy I think we'll be able Ta do many more of them at scale in all parts of the city. I want to thank the really hard work of our housing staff who have been tasked with so much during the pandemic and to keep addressing our persistent affordable housing coverage [3:56:13 pm] and then again a moment to thank the voters for their trust in us for the housing bonds that make all of this happen. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. I think the work you're doing on affordable housing and the scale to get to 500 units today is pretty incredible and I want to thank staff for pushing that forward. It would be helpful, I think, just to be able to see how we have done as a city as we've gotten better over time. So if you could give council a memo that would indicate how many affordable housing units we've been able to do, maybe by year for the last 10 years,ic that would be really, really helpful. So that the public can see what happens as they have authorized, given money toward it and really put their shoulder to that. I want to -- >> Mayor? >> If I might, Rosie truelove, treasurer, Austin housing finance corporation. We can certainly put together that memo. We also have on our website we have our strategic [3:57:15 pm] housing blueprint score cards for the last couple of years so you can see that progress as well since we've adopting the strategic housing blueprint, so we'll reference that. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. And I'm hoping to go before that so people can see what impact adopting that blueprint had in terms of the focus and what we were doing. Thank you and thanks for pointing out that some of that information is online. I want to call out, if I could, item number 7 for just a moment. This is a unique and really interesting proposition that is being done with Walter moreau and foundation communities. I really want to thank them for responding to the call to really help really directly with homelessness and in the community. Foundations community, great organization, does just incredible work and they probably do that kind of [3:58:16 pm] work as good if not better than anybody in the country does it. In this particular project it's my understanding that foundation communities in addition to the work they have done over time keeping people from falling into homelessness primarily has agreed to do a project here that will move towards serving people who are experiencing homelessness directly and half of this project will be working with folks coming off of the lists that the agencies use with respect to placing people and getting them off our streets. I want to make sure that as we move forward that other operators consider following this direction and this [3:59:16 pm] example of foundation communities. Certainly if we're going to house 3,000 people on our streets in three years it's going to take people like foundation communities and Walter moreau stepping up to really help with this and it's appreciated. Please make sure staff, as you did this morning as we're talking about service providers that as part of the arrangement you make sure that we're getting the information and the data associated with these folks so that we have ability to be able to measure our successes and be able to get the data to support the directions that we're headed. Please make sure that you get that. And again, I wanted to say thanks. We really appreciate foundation communities working in this direction as well. Further discussion? >> Thank you, mayor. We're very excited about the foundation communities project and all of the other [4:00:18 pm] housing development projects that will result in these investments. >> Mayor Adler: Absolutely. Further discussion on the consent agenda? Let's take a vote. Those in favor of the consent agenda please raise your hand? Those opposed? It looks like everybody is voting yes with the mayor pro tem off of the dais. I think that's all of our business, so we'll adjourn the meeting of the Austin housing finance corporation corporation here at 4:00 P.M.