It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council.

Join us for the Finance and Business Committee starting now.

Well good morning.

It is Tuesday, May 12th.

You've arrived at the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council.

My name is Paul Cashman.

I represent Denver District 6.

I'm vice chair of this committee.

And we have three items on the agenda.

Real estate deal between the city and uh, I believe the state, and uh a couple of items uh related to uh tax increment financing of the Rossonian property in the five points neighborhood.

Before we get to work, start with introductions of members of council starting on my left.

Chris Hines, Denver's perfect.

Darrell Watson, fine district nine.

Madam Pro Tem.

Diana, Romero Campbell Sunday, Denver District 4.

Very good.

And uh we'll uh announce if anyone joins us online, uh, and we will start off our uh schedule uh with uh our department of finance and uh uh Dotti and uh take it away.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um, Molly Scarborough with Dottie and the Vibrant Bond program.

Lisa Lemley, Director of Real Estate, and Laia Mitchell, the acting deputy director of the Department of Housing Stability.

Very wonderful.

Excellent.

Well, thank you for having us again.

We were here on April 14th to bring to you the vibrant housing investment process as well as our first opportunity for investment at 251 East 12th Avenue.

Um we you gave us a number of feedback on that, and so we are here um providing updates on both of these for you.

Um so first we'll start with the housing investment process for the vibrant bond program.

So this um slide shows the project description for the affordable housing project development for the vibrant bond process that voters approved on November uh in November 2025.

And so it says that the city will invest in land, buildings, andor site preparation to support development and or acquisition of affordable housing and to mitigate and voluntary displacement.

Land or buildings may be leased partners or city-owned, depending on the specific details of the project.

And the city expects to use this capital to leverage additional investments to deliver on these projects.

And so we brought to you last time we further elaborated that with um some specific goals to mitigate displacement of residents by providing affordable housing in proximity to city infrastructure or other projects that may spur displacement.

We are estimating that we would invest in five to seven properties, but that is an estimate based on um expectations, but we could potentially spend um a little bit less for each opportunity and spread that out to more um properties or site improvements or building acquisitions.

So that's just a uh guesstimate target.

We came to you last time with an initial housing investment project approval process.

I'm not gonna go into this in great detail because you gave us quite a bit of feedback on that.

Um, and so we are coming you today with an updated uh approval process.

Um, and so with this, we received feedback from this committee one that we should ensure all council members are given the opportunity to feedback earlier in the process, and that we should continue the bond executive committee for the vibrant bond, and use that body to evaluate the housing investment companies before bringing it um to committee into council for a vote.

Um and we also heard um an interest in involving um not just the council president but another council member in that vibrant bond executive committee for these housing opportunities, and so the recommendation is for the council president to appoint an at-large council member for the that evaluation process.

And so running through this approval process, it starts with real estate identifying opportunities through their usual scan of market opportunities, as well as those coming through the host affordable housing pipeline.

We have also sent a survey to council members to identify if there are other opportunities in your districts that we that you would like to flag for us to see if they are feasible for bond funding and evaluation through this process.

Excuse me, one moment.

Feasible opportunities are then offered to all council members for feedback and then brought to the vibrant bond executive committee for evaluation and for potential referral to council.

And as I mentioned, during the time that potential housing opportunities are brought to the vibrant bond executive committee, then council president will appoint an at large council member to join for that process and that evaluation prior to bringing it to council.

With that, part of the evaluation, this is not changed from last time, that we presented to you.

The project site selection criteria remains the same.

So we are looking for sites that are in proximity to city infrastructure investments.

No more than two vibrant bond affordable housing projects would be in one council districts.

We're looking for sites that are at least a half acre in size and sites that are in proximity to services, ideally within a half mile of those that you see listed on the screen.

And then similarly, the housing RFP criteria, if approved by council, an RFP would be issued for development of the affordable housing.

All those proposals are required to include development of long-term affordable housing with a variety of options for development type to provide more flexibility based on the site, the location, the needs of the community.

And so with that, we will jump into 251 East 12th Avenue specifically.

Wanted to recap the process to bring this specific project opportunity to FinBIS today.

So as we mentioned in April, we followed the initial vibrant housing investment approval process.

We brought it to an internal advisory committee, which recommended the project to a vibrant oversight leadership team, which is made up of city executive directors, to executive sponsors and the council president, and then it was forwarded here to Finbiz.

As I mentioned at April 14th, we received a number of recommendations for process changes and also some requests for some council members to receive more information on the project.

And so since then, we have provided additional briefings with additional council members.

We've issued a survey to council members to identify potential opportunities, and the we updated the overall process as I described earlier, and we have a commitment to continuing the bond executive committee for the vibrant bond.

So we are now bringing the opportunity at East 12th back to you, requesting approval for 251 East 12th acquisition with funding.

And I will turn it over to Lisa.

Thank you.