Minutes 04-26-2022 Business Meeting

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25 All comments received during this hearing, and anytime during the public comment period, will be incorporated into the final Annual Action Plan to be submitted to HUD. Before submitting the final plan, the Board of Commissioners will consider the approval of the Annual Action Plan and the FY 2022-2023 HOME Program Design (funding recommendations) later in 2022. The governing boards for the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough are also scheduled to consider the approval in 2022, in order for the final plan to be submitted to HUD by the federal deadline in July 2022. Corey Root, Housing and Community Development Director, introduced the item. She said that HUD did not have the award amount available yet and she would be coming back to the Board when the award is known in May. She said usually they know this amount by March. She said the notice they received from HUD regarding the change was not sufficient enough to cancel the public hearing since it had already been noticed. She reviewed the material in the agenda abstract. A motion was made by Commissioner Bedford, seconded by Commissioner Hamilton, to open the public hearing. VOTE: UNANIMOUS PUBLIC COMMENT: Douglas Call, of Habitat for Humanity, said his organization helps homeowners with down payments. He said these down payments are getting larger and larger due to the increase in values. He said in FY17 they were given $285,000 and they helped twelve families. He said that in FY20 there was less money available at $131,000, and that helped six families. He said that last year, $450,000 was allocated to help fifteen families at $30,000 each. He said they have nineteen homes they plan to close on this year. He said they hope to serve affordable housing community as much as possible. He said that it will allow only $7,000 for each family. He said they had requested $475,000 but these requests were made before the conflict in Ukraine. He said there are a lot of changes in the amount of money that is allocated from federal dollars. He said he was here to give details on how they use the funding and if further monies become available, he will return to make a request to add to that amount. He said that some homes built in Hillsborough that were assessing for $180,000 3-4 years ago are now assessing at $300,000. A motion was made by Commissioner McKee, seconded by Commissioner Fowler, to close the public hearing. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Chair Price said this would be up for approval at a future Board meeting 6. Regular Agenda a. Approval of a Network Development Agreement for Broadband Deployment The Board approved a Network Development Agreement with North State Communications Advanced Services, LLC to deploy broadband service in unserved locations in Orange County and to allocate an additional $5 million, for a total of $10 million, in American Rescue Plan Act funds to fully fund the Agreement.