Agenda - 02-21-2017 - 6-a - Minutes

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28 1 She said Susan Levy, Habitat for Humanity's Executive Director, has done a really good at 2 pulling the County and the Towns together. Bonnie Hammersley said she has been bringing in 3 experts, including a Mr. Will Clark for the next meeting, who is an expert on manufactured 4 homes. The mobile home strategy and the land banking strategies are pending items. This is an 5 example of behind the scenes progress. 6 7 Commissioner Rich said that the Community Home Trust Board had asked its Executive 8 Director, Robert Dowling, to talk with Hillsborough and the developer of Collins Ridge. 9 Hillsborough does not think it needs to have these kinds of conversations because, as 10 Commissioner Jacobs said, it thinks anything it builds will be affordable. They need to switch 11 that mindset, because it will be a missed opportunity for Community Home Trust if it persists. 12 13 Commissioner Jacobs said that the BOCC can tell Hillsborough during an upcoming joint 14 meeting that they would love to work with them on this without intruding on their prerogatives, 15 and that they have directed their staff to talk with theirs. The voters of Orange County have said 16 they want to advance affordable housing, and that includes the voters of Hillsborough. 17 Hopefully, they can present this in a way that is less threatening to them than if they just read it 18 in the paper. 19 20 Craig Benedict reported that at a recent public hearing on Collins Ridge he learned that CASA 21 will be a partner in the development of 88 units, although there were not many specifics. 22 Hillsborough is interested in integrating affordable homes with the market rate single family 23 units. They were a little bit at odds at how to achieve that. 24 25 Commissioner Jacobs said that this was encouraging. 26 27 Commissioner Price said she would have like to have seen more progress on solutions for 28 people who are in crisis: people living in their cars or who had been living in substandard 29 housing and forced to move to Alamance or Durham. This could be pursued in parallel to longer 30 term affordable housing solutions; people have immediate needs that we are not responding to. 31 It's hard to talk with people in immediate need about waiting until a bond passes and then 32 waiting another year before funds become available. 33 34 Commissioner Jacobs said the Board could have a conversation about Section 8 housing. It is 35 another topic for which the change in the federal government is going to be a driver, but maybe 36 there is something they can do to shorten waiting lists. It is similar to what they do from to time 37 with child care. Maybe they need to put more money into the urgent home repair program, 38 which is one of those holes they did fill but which keeps getting bigger. 39 40 Chair Dorosin noted that there are things on the Manager's list (update on Goals) that are 41 objective —they either accomplished something or they did not—and other things that are more 42 subjective. "Develop a mobile home strategy" is an example of the subjective. Wouldn't it be 43 better to break the bigger topics down into smaller, observable pieces, so they can see what the 44 progress is on these goals. They are more likely to initiate and complete the smaller, 45 observable tasks than they are the things that are bigger and less well defined. 46 47 Commissioner Burroughs said the Manager already is doing the smaller tasks; it would help us 48 to see and hear about these smaller pieces when she reports on these goals. 49 50 Chair Dorosin said the BOCC has a reputation for being really good at planning things — "let's 51 have a mobile home strategy!" — but less good about actually executing things. They passed 28