Agenda - 01-22-2009 - 6e - Laserfiche WebLink

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ao entail looking at floor area restrictions and determining if they were reasonable, as well as other regulations. He stated they would need to make those difficult decisions, and they should be having these discussions in order to identify more creative ideas in order to prevent big-money developers from coming in and providing payments-in-lieu rather than affordable units. Alderman Broun stated that part of the problem was the limited streams of revenue, and perhaps that segued into what they could discuss at the next Assembly of Governments meeting; that is, some sort of sustainable economic development. She said as they moved into the future, the ad valorem tax from the residential taxpayer would be more difficult to increase, and it would be more difficult to justify raising those taxes for those issues. 9:47:16 PM Commissioner Foushee said she did not believe anyone would disagree with Council Member Kleinschmidt, but what they were asking this body to consider were options that would provide some flexibility for funding if they were going to continue to talk about sustainable models that would continue to provide the necessary maintenance and affordability. Mayor Foy pointed out that it was more than a theoretical question at this point, and there was a practical reality today. He said Mr. Dowling had told him last week of an immediate issue at Vineyard Square, and asked him to relate that issue. Mr. Dowling said that they looked at all their properties and projected what they would sell for and what would be affordable. He said in 2004 four people in Vineyard Square had indicated they wanted to sell their homes, and those two-bedroom, 1,100 square foot homes had been sold for $92,000. Mr. Dowling said those homes were now being bought back at $100,000 because of the appraisals, but they could not resell them for$100,000 because the income limits today were exactly the same as it was in 2004 when they had sold the units the first time. But, Mr. Dowling said, the tax rate was much higher. He said because of those factors, persons in those homes were paying perhaps more than $100 a month in non-mortgage costs but their limits were the same. Mr. Dowling said they were being forced to resell those units at $88,000-$90,000 because costs were higher, meaning they had to find an additional $10,000-$12,000 just to put them back on the market. He said that was part of the $1.5 million affordability problem. Mayor Foy said because of those four units that was $50,000 the Land Trust had to come up with in order to make it work. He said that was a continuing problem, and those types of costs were above and beyond the other kinds of subsidies being provided. Council Member Czajkowski stated an underlying premise of the Task Force was that they have affordable housing that worked, and in order to ensure that it worked they had to fund the ancillary costs in advance, such as just described by Mr. Dowling. He said his notion was that they had a problem and knew it, that they did not see any other sources of funding, and therefore they should try to fix the problem now by emphasizing payments-in-lieu. He said once they had the problem fixed, they could go back to adding actual units on the ground hopefully through a mechanism that would allow funding. Council Member Czajkowski stated his view was that these funds from payments-in-lieu should go into a trust. He said when you looked at a project that was of the magnitude of 54 East, taking payments for the required affordable housing component as a payment-in-lieu would possibly fund such a trust for up to ten years. He said he was not saying that was what they should do, but was saying they should think about that issue. 15