Minutes 02-21-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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20 Chair Dorosin pointed out that there is a clarification of this point in column 3 or 4. Annette Moore said to add, "and the home may be then sold to a qualified buyer" at the end of the sentence. Chair Dorosin asked if there is general consensus with staff recommendations in the two definition columns, with the addition of the sentence stated by Annette Moore. The Board indicated general consensus. Chair Dorosin asked if there were any questions on the Land Trust Model, and there were none. All recommendations are acceptable. Chair Dorosin asked if there were any questions about the Period of Affordability. Commissioner Rich said this is already in place. Chair Dorosin turned to the second page, and reviewed the recommended changes. The Board indicated general consensus to accept. John Roberts said unqualified should state non-qualified, in order to be consistent with the rest of the document. Chair Dorosin said the big issue is the exceptions to the 99-year affordability, located on page 3. He said the County is maintaining the 99-year affordability as the base policy, but the County is creating some provisions for waiving that, or adjusting it to 40 years, if certain circumstances are met, or if it is deemed appropriate by the BOCC. John Roberts said the reason for this change was due to several deviations from policy, and he said there was concern about not having guidelines or standards, and that is why these have been proposed. Commissioner Price referred to Exception C, and asked if this is particularly for CHT, or does it apply to any provider of affordable housing. John Roberts said it is for any provider that complies. Chair Dorosin said this is a good step forward, and he would be in favor of reducing the base of 99-years lower. Commissioner McKee agreed with Chair Dorosin. Annette Moore said the reason 99 years was chosen was due to wanting to keep the houses in the affordable housing program, and no other reason than that. She said there are banks that lend with the 99 years provision. Robert Dowling said the CLT was created in 2000, and a ground lease of 99 years was adopted. He said the County Attorney at the time crafted the affordability policy with a 99-year affordability term to mimic the ground lease. He said the only entities that do home ownership in Orange County are CHT and Habitat, and Habitat does its own financing. He said CHT has struggled with financing since the financial crisis, but the banks are not concerned with the 99 years affordability term, but rather the ground lease. He said the banks do not want to have a leasehold interest in property. He said the CLT model is a pain to administer, but it is the only way to insure perpetual affordability. Commissioner McKee said he thought the 99-year ground lease and the 99-year affordability ran separately, and asked if the 99-year affordability were changed, would the ground lease change as well. Annette Moore said all properties have a 99-year ground lease, which has affordability provisions in the restrictive covenants. Commissioner McKee asked if the affordability could be reduced on the house, but not the ground lease. Robert Dowling said the County's deed restriction is 99-years, and the ground lease is also 99 years. Commissioner McKee repeated his question. Annette Moore said these are two separate programs. She said the first is the ground lease program, which is for different properties than the deed restrictions being discussed. She said the ground lease properties in the CHT have a 99-year restriction on the ground. She said