Agenda - 01-22-2015 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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I Mayor Kleinschmidt said the representatives have described their commitment to the 2 CHT and an appreciation for the ways in which it advances affordable housing goals. He said 3 the question now is to ask staff where we are and whether we are ready to move forward. 4 Bonnie Hammersley said the managers have all met, along with staff and the executive 5 director of the CHT, and there is a plan to meet again to discuss a unified recommendation to 6 their governing boards. She would say that this could come back to the governing boards by 7 the end of January. She said staff has worked with Robert Dowling to understand the 8 challenges that CHT is facing. 9 Mayor Kleinschmidt said the community has wondered about the timeline. He said 10 support has always been very strong for this. 11 Town Council Member Palmer said the model is good for getting people into home 12 ownership. She would like to do more than just maintaining what is already here. She said 200 13 units is a drop in the bucket for what our County needs. She said affordable housing is 14 economic development too, and she would like some information on what can be done to 15 extend this model of ownership to other types of housing units. She said many older adults, 16 especially in Chapel Hill, cannot afford to pay their taxes or maintain their homes. She asked 17 what might happen if someone were willing to sell their home to CHT and then only pay taxes 18 on the portion they own. 19 Town Commissioner Ferguson said until there is a viable funding source the CHT 20 cannot expand. She said rehab is always more expensive, and this is a very cash hungry 21 business. She said the Home Trust itself is looking at how it can best serve the community, 22 but the hard reality is that you need cash in order to expand. 23 Council Member Matt Czajkowski asked what parts of Orange County are being defined 24 when looking at affordable housing. He said Chapel Hill defines affordable housing by how 25 much exists in the actual community of Chapel Hill. He said the CHT started out primarily 26 providing single family residences and townhomes, being built by developers already working 27 on these projects. He said there are now virtually no single family residence applications 28 coming through, and the town is seeing rentals almost exclusively. He said this provides a 29 whole host of other challenges. He said the land in Chapel Hill is prohibitively expensive for 30 affordable housing. He said land is less expensive in Orange County, and there are some 31 single family developments happening, and he questioned where we should look to expand 32 affordable housing and whether it needs to be defined by specific community. 33 He said questioned how success is defined in terms of affordable housing when there is 34 affordable housing in Orange County versus in Chapel Hill. 35 Alderman Johnson said they cannot rely on the CHT to meet all of their affordable 36 housing goals. She this is important, but some things are being mixed up. She said this was 37 really about the inter -local agreement, and it is connected to our goals, but it will not address all 38 of the affordable housing needs. She said there was interest from all of the municipalities, at 39 the last Assembly of Governments meeting, in having some sort of committee to work on 40 supporting their action plans related to affordable housing. She asked about the status of this 41 group. She said it is important to maintain their focus on the purpose of the inter -local 42 agreement. 43 Commissioner Pelissier said her comments are related to affordable housing around 44 transit, and she said people are now looking at housing plus transit when talking about 45 affordable housing. She when you think only about putting housing in cheaper areas, you 46 might have much higher transportation costs, which is not what anyone wants. 47 Council Member Matt Czajkowski said he disagreed with Alderman Johnson. He said 48 the direction this is moving toward is for all of the jurisdictions to provide funding for the CHT, 49 whereas it has historically only been Chapel Hill. He said the fundamental question is why 50 Orange County should fund this if most of it is happening in Chapel Hill.