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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_HOUAB_10.25.2006Notice of Meeting of the Housing Advisory Board and the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, October 25, 2006 The Housing Advisory Board will meet on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 03:30 PM in the Georgetown Municipal Complex, located at 300 Industrial Avenue, Georgetown, Texas If you need accommodations for a disability, please notify the city in advance. Housing Advisory Board Members: Carol Parsonage, Cynthia Anderson, Dan Bonner, Deena Berg, Emily Northrop, Hartley Sappington, Janis Cowman-Arteaga, John Gavurnik, Larkin Tom, Nancy Biggs, Naomi Walker Housing Advisory Board meetings are held on the third Wednesday of each month at 03:30 PM. Call to Order at 03:30 PM A.Consideration and possible action to approve minutes of the Housing Advisory Board meeting held on Wednesday, September 20, 2006. - Robyn Rye, Administrative Assistant B.Distribution of flyer for Urban Land Institute Austin's First Annual Marketplace on October 26, 2006. C.Discussion and assignment of case studies in Workforce Housing: Innovative Strategies and Best Practices . - Robyn Rye, Administrative Assistant D.Discussion of NY Times article entitled, "Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden ". - Deena Berg E.Discussion of Raise the Roof program in Austin, Texas. - Deena Berg F.Discussion of City Council's adoption of the Housing Advisory Board's Bylaws at the October 10, 2006 Council meeting. - Tom Yantis G.Discussion of amendments of Development Regulations. H.Discussion of Master Plan and task prioritization. I.Discussion of next meeting date and agenda items. J.Adjourn. Certificate of Posting I, Sandra Lee, City Secretary for the City of Georgetown, Texas, do hereby certify that this Notice of Meeting was posted at City Hall, 113 E. 8th Street, a place readily accessible to the general public at all times, on the _____ day of _________________, 2006, at __________, and remained so posted for at least 72 continuous hours preceding the scheduled time of said meeting. __________________________________ Sandra Lee, City Secretary Minutes of the Meeting of the Housing Advisory Board and the Governing Body of the City of Georgetown, Texas Wednesday, October 25, 2006 The Housing Advisory Board of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met on Wednesday , October 25, 2006. Board Members Present: Cynthia Anderson, Janis Cowman-Arteaga, John Gavurnik, Emily Northrop, Carol Parsonage, Hartley Sappington, and Naomi Walker Board Members Absent: Deena Berg, Nancy Biggs, Dan Bonner, and Larkin Tom Staff Present: Melissa McCollum, Rebecca Rowe, Robyn Rye, and Tom Yantis Minutes Regular Meeting A.Consideration and possible action to approve minutes of the Housing Advisory Board meeting held on Wednesday, September 20, 2006. - Robyn Rye, Administrative Assistant Minutes were reviewed. Walker moved to accept minutes. Parsonage second. Approved 7-0. Berg, Biggs, Bonner and Tom absent. B.Distribution of flyer for Urban Land Institute Austin's First Annual Marketplace on October 26, 2006. Walker described event and suggested attendance for those that were interested. C.Discussion and assignment of case studies in Workforce Housing: Innovative Strategies and Best Practices . - Robyn Rye, Administrative Assistant Rye introduced the book Workforce Housing: Innovative Strategies and Best Practices . Rye suggested dividing up the different articles and then reviewing them to help get ideas for the City of Georgetown's housing plan. After group discussion it was decided that the following assignments would be made: Cowman-Arteaga would read and report on the article the article S.M.A.R.T Housing Initiative: Austin, Texas , Sappington would read and report on the article The Housing Trust of Santa Clara county: Santa Clara County, California , Anderson would read and report on the articles Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) Program: Montgomery County, Maryland and Chapter 40B - the Comprehensive Permit Law: Commonwealth of Massachusetts , Walker would read and report on the articles Stapleton: Denver, Colorado and Casa del Maestro: Santa Clara, California , Berg would read and report on the article Edgemoore at Carrington: McLean, Virginia , Parsonage would read and report on the article Noji Gardens: Seattle, Washington , Gavurnik would read and report on the article Ohlone-Chynoweth Commons: San Jose, California , Tom would read and report on the article Marshall Parkway : Marshall, Minnesota , Northrop would read and report on the article University Glen at California State University - Channel Islands: Camarillo, California , Bonner would read and report on the article Murphy Park: St. Louis, Missouri , Biggs would read and report on the article First Ward Place: Charlotte, North Carolina , Rowe would read and report on the article New Pennley Place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania , and Rye would read and report on the article Cabrini-Green Homes/Near North Redevelopment Initiative: Chicago, Illinois . Sappington also volunteered to share information he had on Burlington, Vermont and some of their housing initiatives. Rye also mentioned when the times were for the 2030 Comprehensive Plan. General discussion of dates, times locations, and topics for the meetings. Yantis informed the Board of the Comprehensive Plan process and how it would work. Yantis also explained that it is a 9 to 10 month process and in late Spring or early Summer of next year the consultants for the City's Comprehensive Plan will have another set of meetings to reveal their finding. Yantis expressed to the board that this process is an effort to shape what we want the City of Georgetown to look like in the future over the next 20 years. D.Discussion of NY Times article entitled, "Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden ". - Deena Berg Rye explained the basic concept of the article due to Berg's absence. E.Discussion of Raise the Roof program in Austin, Texas. - Deena Berg Rye explained the basic concept of the article due to Berg's absence. General discussion of home rehabilitation programs that have occurred in Georgetown. General discussion of federal funds available for rehabilitation programs. F.Discussion of City Council's adoption of the Housing Advisory Board's Bylaws at the October 10, 2006 Council meeting. - Tom Yantis Yantis informed Council that the bylaws were approved. Yantis did ask Council about the Board's concern of the Habitat for Humanity and Georgetown Housing Authority positions have term limits. Council felt that the overarching board requirements state that “no other qualified applicants" would cover this concern. Council did not want to completely rule out term limits for any of the positions. G.Discussion of amendments of Development Regulations. Gavurnik expressed working with trees and how the City's proposed tree ordinance may pose problems. General discussion of what types of trees apply to the ordinance and the cost applied to saving some trees . Gavurnik expressed concern that the cost associated with saving some trees could lead to the builder/developer have to raise home costs. General discussion of saving heritage tree and working with ways to possibly incentivize the saving of heritage trees. General discussion of fees and the possibility of fee waivers and the speed at which the approval process moves. Gavurnik was wondering if there was any way to move projects along more quickly through the approval process. Yantis and McCollum expressed that the current timelines the City holds are as fast the state laws allow. Yantis expressed that the possibility of hold P&Z twice a month instead of just once may be beneficial to moving things along more quickly. Parsonage mentioned the Century Plan causing some delay in time. McCollum explained that Planning and Development currently has pre-application conferences and there are usually many different people working on different components of the project which can lead to delays sometimes. Yantis explained that non-profits use volunteers to work a project through the process they sometimes the volunteers don’t know what questions to ask. Walker expressed a need for information on the existing state of the process because she didn’t have enough background to understand the current process. Walker also expressed that once the background information is obtained it will be easier to know how to change the fees. getting a flow chart together so that someone can understand the order and timeline in which things happen. Yantis expressed the City Council's desire to recover cost of government projects. Yantis also explained the need to review fees to see which are cost recovery fees and/or infrastructure fees and what are not. McCollum offered to get a list of the City's fees and a timeline of the development process for the Board to review. Gavurnik offered to help McCollum with a flow chart that represents the process so that those on the Board that do not deal with the process on regular basis can understand. General discussion of how sometimes Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will back up the development process. Gavurnik asked if there was a way to come up with some way or program where City is not subsidizing the fees. Yantis suggested using the budget process to predict fee waivers. Sappington suggested using bonuses for developers who are doing things specific to producing affordable housing units. Gavurnik expressed using Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) as the best mechanism to get trade-offs with fees. Parsonage explained that for Habitat for Humanity, it is not the up front fees that are the problem, it’s the fees that affect house by house such as impact and utility fees. Sappington expressed a need to get the initial cost of the development of a lot down and that those are incentives the City can give and would need to be based on performance. Yantis suggested coming up with a sliding scale to adjust impact fees. Sappington expressed concern over the ability to keep a house affordable once it has been deemed affordable. General discussion of the ability to cap appraised values of a house due to state law and how that would work with deed restrictions and rent control of rental units. Northrop asked about builder/developers' desires to built high value homes versus medium to low value homes. Yantis and Gavurnik explained that lower value homes narrow the profit margin. Northrop suggested using smaller lots to help lower the cost per lot. General discussion of using smaller lots. General discussion of single family homes versus townhomes and condos. Sappington re-asked the question of what types of policies need to go in place to encourage developers to make affordable housing facilities and see the benefits. Yantis also explained that one problem is that land is cheap right now and dense developments aren’t going to succeed. Yantis and Walker explained the difference between Austin and the maximize intensity of downtown developments are being built as high end/expensive versus Georgetown and the downtown land is cheap. Parsonage discussed the possibility of older parts of Georgetown looking better if built well and planned out extensively. General discussion of the possibility of infill in Georgetown. General discussion of using property taxes creatively to better the value of some properties. General discussion of how property taxes are outside the City's control. Yantis expressed the City's ability to do property tax abatements for affordable housing. Yantis explained how Habitat for Humanity uses under utilized properties and makes them more profitable for the future and how the City will be in it for long-term, when it comes to fees. General discussion of the Board making a list of modified development regulations to present to the Council. McCollum and Yantis explained that fees won’t be handled in UDC, but lot design and infrastructure could be addressed . Walker asked for staff to put together a timeline and fee schedule for the Board to review before the next meeting. McCollum agreed to work on it. General discussion of current list of amendments to the Unified Development Code and the topics on the list. Northrop asked about the SMART Housing program in Austin. General discussion of reviewing the SMART Housing program. H.Discussion of Master Plan and task prioritization. This item will be carried over to the next meeting. I.Discussion of next meeting date and agenda items. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 3:30pm at the GMC. Sappington suggested looking at case studies is time is left at the next meeting. Update was given on the Housing Coordinator position. J.Adjourn. Motion by Gavurnik, second by Parsonage. Approved 7-0. (Berg, Biggs, Bonner and Tom absent.) Adjourned at 4:59pm. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 04:59 PM. Approved :Attest: _______________________________________________ Hartley Sappington - Chairman Robyn Rye - Administrative Assistant