Public works committee will begin with a Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, well, thank you all for attending and uh Tracy and Nicole.

It would be great if you could lead off with a discussion on sidewalks.

Good afternoon.

Councilmember Brem Shackleford and Hemplerani.

Nice to be here today.

First time before the Public Works Committee.

So this is this is fun.

So I'm here today.

Tracy Coleman, Director of Public Works, by the way.

We are here to background on the our code and policy funding sources and assistance programs that we have in place right now for sidewalk repair and maintenance.

And then we'll give a just a brief overview of our sidewalk conditions survey and inventory project that is nearing completion.

So with that, I don't have a presentation, but I provided a bunch of information in the executive summary.

In that I provided the entire section, Article 2, Sidewalks, which is Chapter 22, and it starts on uh in section 22-23 and talks about construction by property owners.

Um we're not probably not here to discuss that much today, but just uh some of this stuff is just so that you're aware this exists.

Um the construction by property owners, we have utilized that um some in the past.

Um the code section itself says if there is a street to grade, then the city engineer can compel the property owner to construct a sidewalk.

And um we don't do it often, and street to grade basically means that there's a street there, there's curb and gutter, and then the grade or the you know the land right next to the curb is basically where a sidewalk could be.

So a property owner wouldn't have to grade it in any way, shape, or form.

They could just call someone and say, place sidewalk, and then that that contractor could come in and place sidewalk in accordance with our standards.

So that's what that is.

Um like I said, we we haven't utilized that very much, um, but we can if there is a place with missing sidewalk and it's to grade.

Um what we're mostly here to talk about, I think, um, is sections 22-24 and 25, um, which is the responsibility of a property owner to maintain the sidewalk that is um adjacent to their property.

Um the code specifically says binding thereon, and I just want to clear something up that that is it is very much an engineering and surveying profession phrase.

It's a very old phrase, it's really not used very much, but basically it means adjacent.

So a lot of people will wonder, hey, the sidewalks in the public right-of-way, why do I have to fix it?

Um it's just because of how properties were how right of way was established a long time ago, and what is considered um uh an adjacent property owner's responsibility for that.

So the policy says that um the property owner is responsible for installation repair, maintenance um of the sidewalk.

Um I think most property owners are okay with general maintenance, you know, cleaning off leaves, cleaning off snow, those types of things.

Um may be surprised um when they receive a notice of repair to say your sidewalk is uh uh is not compliant with um ADA, which means it's it's it's unlevel, it's um there's it's broken so that there's big gaps in it.

Um, but but that's the section of code that we refer to.

Um with respect to policy, I provided you with a policy that was adopted.

Um it was there are actually guidelines that were adopted in order to enforce these sections of the code.

Um and they were originally adopted in 2001.

Um and it gives just much clearer guidance on what our uh city staff do to inspect what criteria means or what it means to be out of compliance.

Um let me see um I want to insult you by reading it, but I'm gonna read just a little bit so that it's out there.

So our inspector determines um whether or not a sidewalk has a variance of a half inch or more and it's in violation.

Um that half inch comes directly from ADA code.

Um if you have a travel way that's you know for pedestrians or those that are um in some other um have challenges with mobility, a half an inch is a lot.

It doesn't look like a lot if you're if you're not um challenged um, but it's a lot.

So that's that's the the criteria that our inspector uses to determine whether a sidewalk is out of compliance.

Up until um a couple of years ago, all of our sidewalk repair was a remove and replace in order to level it out or ensure that that half inch issue didn't exist.

Um I'm skipping ahead a little bit.

Um see.

Thank you.

Yep.

So in um July of 2024, um, the council created a CIP called the EEA Equity Emphasis Area Sidewalk Repair Program in R CIP.

Um as part of that program, the city, our staff has uh contracted with a company that uses a technology to basically I'm gonna call it shave, that's not the official like non-engineering term, but precision use a precision cutting method to cut down that half inch or or maybe sometimes a little bit more.

They have a they have a certain amount that they can cut um and still leave the sidewalk in a condition that it won't deteriorate, you know, any time too soon, um, but leaving the sidewalk in compliance, um, getting rid of that um that gap or that rise or that unlevel condition.

Um I talked really briefly about um the application of the code and the policy.

Um's department um is the one that administers the policy.

Um it is so our sidewalk repair program is complaint driven.

Um we don't go out with the exception of the survey that's ongoing, the condition survey that's ongoing right now.

Um we don't go out looking for problem sidewalk.

We get um complaints through our online system.

Um we also get calls, um, and then our inspector goes out and investigates that and then sends notices of um it's not violation, what is it?

Sidewalk repair a sidewalk repair notice to a property owner.

Um it gives all of the information um about who they should contact.

There's an estimate for repair that's typically attached to it, um, a contract or an agreement for that property owner to sign if they want the city to utilize our city contractor to repair the sidewalk.

Um when they are willing to pay for it, even they're supposed to, um, they sign the agreement and they and it's it's just easier to have the city use the city's contract to repair the sidewalk.

Those property owners who choose not to use the city's sidewalk repair contractor um have to um submit, first of all, they have to use a contractor that's going to um construct sidewalk in compliance with our specifications.

Um they have to submit a permit application um through the engineering department.

Um they have to submit a sidewalk closure, if there is a tree involved, then they have to um work with an arborist.

It's if a if a resident or property owner uses the city's program, they don't have to do any of that.

If they choose to um repair their sidewalk on their own, they have to go through all of those processes themselves.

Um any time, by the way, feel free to stop me.

Um I can ramble.

It's a good place.

So why?

In terms in terms of so someone I got sidewalk and my contract or my contract I have is significantly lower than yours.

I mean, or then the city, so we're all the same.

Right.

No, I understand what you mean.

Go through everything, and if they use a city contract, they don't have to go through all those steps in terms of permitting arbores, all those things, but if they get their own contract to do that, they have to.

Why we so our city staff controls the execution of the work by our city contractor.

Um city arborist works very closely, and he's not called our arborist now, but that's part of the title, um, works very closely with the project manager to determine what should happen with a street tree, should it be in the you know the reason for the auto compliance.

Um our city contractor um already ha meets the requirements and performs all the work necessary for like sidewalk closures, um uh traffic control if necessary, if they have to get out in the street.

Um it's uh it's all baked into the contract that we have with our contractor.

If so.

Yeah.

Did that help?

You look at the No.

I'm just recalling there's a uh constituent who we we've been kind of dealing with this who says he's not allowed, they are he, sh he or she, they know, are not allowed to use their own contract or or contract that they they have requested to do their sidewalk repair that they have to use the city.

Is that true?

That's not true.

Okay.

However, just to be clear, their contractor, whoever they use, needs to follow city specifications to install sidewalk.

And our specifications detail the mix of concrete.

They it details um uh the how the surface of the ground before the sidewalk is poured, before the concrete is poured for the sidewalk, that the sidewalk has to have a brush finish, that um that there has to be there have to be so many joints, you know.

Yeah.

Understood.

Now about in regard in regards to city tree is planted.

Um and someone's sidewalk is affected by that in terms of repair stage.

Whereas So if uh I'm glad you brought that up actually, because if a and it's in the policy that was adopted in 2001, um, if a property owner's sidewalk is in disrepair because of a street tree, the city covers 50 percent of the cost of the repair.

If the property owner uses the city contractor.

If the property owner does not use the city contractor, the city does not cover the repair.

We don't reimburse a property owner for work that they had performed by someone else.

And that's a policy decision.

It it correct.

It is in the policy that I attached to the project.

Okay, which that policy was written in one, this is 25 years later.

No, I'm just having uh uh talking out loud to myself here.

I think any policy that's 25 years ago probably needs to be revisited.

And that's it that's actually part of the reason we're here.

Um I think part of the reason that this committee um developed the sidewalk maintenance and repair work plan was to revisit these policies that are old and need to be looked at.

Yes.

Yeah.

I agree.

They need to be looking at.

I'm just talking out loud.

I'm not sorry.

So anyone who's walked down market and Patrick Streets or any of the side streets downtown will notice that most of the sidewalks are in out of compliance of a half inch.

Um somehow in the past 25 years, and maybe this is going on longer.

Like we've either people haven't complained or or because they're so heavily trafficked and they feel so public.

Uh and I know there's a sidewalk study being done, and the uh downtown Frederick Partnership has a grant to do a a street program, and so maybe this is moot, but but how did we get here?

You know, to for them to be in such disrepair.

Uh just over time sidewalk settles.

You know, the ground beneath it, um, if there isn't a street tree involved, um, that's part of it.

Um not the concrete itself, obviously, but the ground beneath it.

And 25 years, I think is plenty of time to allow that to happen.

Um if there is adjacent construction, it can maybe exacerbate that, not as much downtown, right?

We don't see that as much downtown, but um and then and then street trees.

Go ahead, Nikki.

Some of the older parts downtown also back then they didn't have the same construction standards as they have now.

Like you'll notice a lot with the brick pavers.

Any work we do now with any brick sidewalk has underlayment, which goes a long way with preserving the subgrade and keeping the surface level for an extended amount of time.

There is a lot of things that were built a long time ago that really didn't have the standards that we do now because people didn't expect for the impact that it had.

Also, downtown, we deal with a lot of um runoff, a lot of drains, a lot of roof drains, things like that that do drain across the sidewalk and are allowed to do so until something happens.

So when we do a lot of the downtown repairs, we install trench trains, so it will no longer do that, and you don't have some of these little dips you see down there that involves fixing the curbing gutter.

But we we make a lot of adjacent repairs when it when it comes to a lot of the older infrastructure that we have downtown because it's it's necessary.

But there's a lot of factors that contribute to that.

So in the the new plan, is this going to be done kind of comprehensively rather than having each individual row house kind of responsible for the section right in front of their house?

Because it's, you know, maybe I don't know how big these row houses are, 14 feet or something, you know.

So that's that's going to be part of the discussion when the um sidewalk condition survey um is presented.

Um so I'll skip ahead a little bit just because I I like to have the re you know something in front of me to prompt me.

But you know, some of the um recommend or some of the deliverables that we asked for basically it includes first of all an inventory of our sidewalks and our um uh curb ramps.

Um they're gonna tell us how they collected the data, which is uh kind of be kind of fun.

Um they're gonna give us a an overall conditions assessment, um, talk about um how they graded it, what the methodology they use for grading our sidewalk.

Um the big things that we're that we asked for that I can't wait to see is some of the recommendations.

Recommendations on methods for repair.

It's like I said, up until we started the EA EEA CIP.

Um the only method of repair that we allowed and that we performed was remove and replace.

Um they're gonna recommend some of those.

Um they're also going to recommend prior prioritizing repair.

Um, and then again, give us kind of some immediate repairs and then estimated costs for those repairs.

So that's going to come back to you all as a committee and as a council.

Um I put a couple of the um the current um operation or the current budgets that we use to fix sidewalk, like that are specifically directed at sidewalk.

Um in our operational budget in Nicole's department, um we have one and a half million each year for sidewalk repair.

That's for the program, though, so we are expecting revenue from that as well.

Um in our last budget, our expected revenue is just over a million dollars because we're expecting property owners to pay us back for the work that we do.

Um as I was discussed discussing with Councilmember Brem before the meeting.

That estimate is based on an estimate of how many of those repairs are street tree related, right?

We we think that there will be a certain amount that are related to street trees.

So we're gonna have to, the city is going to have to pay for about $500,000 worth of repair.

We have found over at least the last couple of years that that percentage of street tree related repair is actually a bit higher.

So we at the city ends up paying a little bit more.

So that's that's one budget that we use to repair sidewalk.

The other more focused budget is the CIP for equity emphasis area repair.

Um the first year that that that was created, um we the council put one million dollars in for sidewalk repair.

And that repair is a combination of the precision cutting that I mentioned, and then if the precision cutting is not going to work because the sidewalk is just too far out of compliance for that sidewalk cutting to work, then we do the full depth or remove and replace method.

So those are the two primary budget budgets that we get sidewalk repair from.

Um there are others.

I included a couple of others.

I included the the ADA, I think I have a list here.

Um I have it with me.

Let me fumble through my CIP 3408, which is for ADA intersection and corridor improvements.

Um the engineering department either identifies areas where intersection like um curb ramps need to be improved, some places where sidewalks need to be improved.

Um, but the sidewalk conditions survey will help us to focus that, and then we're gonna come to you or or through this discussion, because we'll we'll be in the middle of the budget, right?

We'll be in the middle of the FY27 budget, I think, when we get to a point where we're gonna figure out how we want to direct these funds.

Um, and maybe we want to create a CIP that isn't necessarily related to the equity emphasis area, it's just follow the recommendations of the sidewalk conditions survey and um you know city, the city will repair these areas in bulk as opposed to you know property by property by property scattered throughout the city.

Tracy, real quick.

So repair resident goes through the city contractor.

They pay after the work, correct?

Is completed?

Correct.

Uh no.

We so when the uh notice of repair is sent to a property owner.

Um I'll try to go through the step, jump in if I'm not correct, um, or if I miss something.

We get a complaint that there is sidewalk out of compliance.

Our inspector goes to look at that sidewalk, determines it is out of compliance, performs an estimate of how much it is going to cost our city contractor to repair that sidewalk, prepares a letter to the property owner.

It's called a notice of sidewalk repair.

The notice includes that estimate.

The notice also includes an agreement that the property owner can sign, they send that back to the city along with a check, or they can request that they kind of be set aside for a payment plan.

And I'll explain that in a second.

If they we will perform the work within a certain number of days, because that's we're required to.

That's part of our uh policy that was adopted in 2001.

Um and there's other reasons that we need to do that.

Um or at least we'll put it on our schedule.

I'm just make sure that sometimes our schedule is so big it doesn't get performed right away.

Um a property owner can pay right away, or they can ask to be put on a payment plan.

If they're if they ask to be put on a payment plan, uh they will not get the payment plan won't start until the work is completed and we get invoid invoiced by the contractor, by our contractor.

And I say it won't start, like the finance department won't send a bill until that time.

Now the property owner, if you get, let's say you get one, Councilmember Shackleford, right?

You get a notice of via notice of sidewalk repair.

You know what it is going to cost.

You have an idea of when it when the work might occur, because that's Justin will share that information as best as he can.

You can start putting that away.

You just you just can't pay the city because the finance department can't take that money until they bill you.

And they can't bill you until we have paid our contractor and gotten the receipt or invoice back from the contractor.

And Councilmember Shockford doesn't want to pay the bill, goes to collections.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

With that being said, on the front end, complaint, inspector goes out, violation, property owner says, you know what, I'm not getting it repaired.

Councilmember Sackford comes over, I mean, comes, I get a complaint.

Inspector comes out, looks at the property, says it's a violation.

Councilmember Shaqford says I ain't paying it because I am Councilmember Shagford.

No, I won't say that, but I just we're playing the role here.

Um what?

Um we send the initial notice, the sidewalk repair and notice and add.

Pull the mic closer to you, Nick.

Yep.

Uncomfortably close.

So we send out the first notice, and in that notice, it it states that it's basically a 60-day period that we wait to receive some kind of contact, whether they want a payment plan or you know, that we make forward progress on it and somebody commits to something.

We send the secondary notice at the 45-day mark, just in case somebody hasn't sent some like seen it, we do send all the mailings certified to make sure they they get delivered where they are.

So we send the secondary notice and at approximately the 60-day mark, depending on where the workload is, is when we will move forward with causing the work to be done.

And if if they choose not to pay or we don't receive anything, then we turn that property into finance as a nonpayment.

Justin keeps the spreadsheet of all that information and we have all the records for all our mailings and it goes to finance from there.

No, thank you for that.

I I'll just I mean I know this scenarios may occur, and I just think it's important for decide what will be repaired for someone who may file a complaint or a danger or something in that nature or safety issue, but that sidewalk will be repaired things that's important to know.

If if we do receive so if we have um a documented injury, uh we will have whether if it comes to us first, we will have them coordinate with the risk department so we have everything documented for the city purposes as that as that goes.

But then Justin works with the risk department, and if we have you know an actual bodily injury, we will expedite those repairs.

We will still reach out to the property owner.

A lot of times if there's an actual bodily repair, the property owners are very willing to move forward with contracting with us directly.

I don't think it's too often that we don't have that.

But we still we still have to notify them.

Yep.

Well, thank you.

A couple things.

Uh one is just for my education, uh, how many miles or feet or blocks of sidewalk equals a million dollars?

Oh, wow.

And if you don't know that, that's that's fair.

I'm just if you did know it.

We have approximately 300 city city line miles of roadway, which corresponds to center line miles or just the center line of the road.

And in most places in the city, we have sidewalk on both sides, so we can easily say that we have 600 miles of sidewalk.

But your question, Councilmember Brem, was how much sidewalk can we repair for a million dollars?

Right.

Um we'll have to get back to you on that.

And that's fine.

Justin knows what we've done in the past couple years.

Okay.

It varies.

I probably will have it in my budget presentation because they usually provide it to me.

It can wait for this is uh just a scaling question.

Yes.

Yeah.

900 projects.

And 900 projects, and that's did do you have a feel for how many miles of sidewalk that is?

And and that's fine.

Again, I'm just trying to figure out if we have 500 miles of sidewalks and mysteriously we had to replace all of them.

Uh I could do an envelope calculation about the the cost, that's all.

1.5 million dollars under one point million dollars equity.

That's correct.

1.5, you said 2.5, so 1.5 to 1 million dollars.

Okay.

Okay.

The other is uh who who dictates tree box openings?

Does the city do that regardless of who pays for the sidewalk?

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

Who specifies tree box openings?

Does the city say we're going to put a tree box here or so when a new road is constructed or new city street, um there is a certain requirement for street trees on that street, and it's in I can't tell you off the top of my head how close city streets have to be.

Um, but every new street, every new public street with the exception of alleys has city uh street trees.

Okay.

Great.

And then the last is I I read that we replace cement with cement and brick with brick.

Is there an aspirational goal by the Historic Preservation Commission or anybody else to keep downtown sidewalks brick or make them brick?

Or it or would we just continue with replace with as is?

Um so if somebody has a concrete sidewalk and they can elect to put brick in, um it's a substantial uh much more cost.

Sure.

But otherwise, whatever is existing is is what we put back.

Now, with the exception of a lot of, like I said, a lot of the downtown areas do not have underlayment.

Excuse me.

If we find sidewalk that doesn't have underlayment, the city does absorb the cost for the underlayment because we try to match the condition in kind, and it's not necessarily property owners' fault that you know that the way it was built back in the day isn't as good as it should be now.

So we will absorb the underlayment in that condition, but the brick goes back.

I think also, Mr.

Chairman, I I I believe that there is a color difference between in the sidewalks and the HPO versus the rest of the city.

Is that correct?

That there's a certain thing.

I think there's a certain close historic color that we add.

Yeah.

So I I'll repeat what Scott's saying.

There's a in the downtown, in the historic preservation overlay, there is a specific concrete color that needs that is used to replace sidewalk.

And it's it's different than every other.

It's a historic mix.

Um we're actually hoping to have some more internal discussions about that.

As far as places that can deliver locally to Frederick concrete plants, there is one that still makes the historic mix.

A lot of the other concrete plants are not making it anymore, and even the historic mix that we get, it's inconsistencies.

It's all in the sand and stone that they mine and and stuff like that.

The only real difference is it has more Portland than standard concrete.

But sometimes visually you you really can't even tell a difference, but it is a substantial upcharge for that historic mix.

So we we would kind of once something goes to sole source for something like a concrete product, and you may not be able to rely on that day to day, and we don't want to not put sidewalk back when the opportunity is there, we would like to explore some other conversations to take that off the table.

Um just to follow up, um I opened up my budget presentation from last year.

Um we repaired um about 2.2 miles of sidewalk last year.

Um with the Did we use the equity emphasis last year?

So yeah, so with the 2 million to 2.5 million dollars.

So maybe a million dollars a mile just as a rule of thumb.

There's a ballpark.

Okay.

How are you working together with what downtown Frederick Partnership is doing with their streetscape initiative?

And they I think they receive some grant funding for that.

So are they constructing new sidewalks or is that just for the plan?

Um all of the funding that they have received to date is design funding.

I don't think they've received construction funding yet.

I'm I I know that they're working very hard to get that because it's uh it's a substantial project.

Um city staff, engineering staff, uh DPW operations and project staff all have participated in review of the streetscape plans.

Um at the higher level from the beginning, um as the plans are being formulated in more detail than um other staff look at it for for the detail, the constructibility, yeah.

So we're not necessarily putting that project as a CIP, or is that gonna be uh grant funded or I guess what I'm trying to wrap my mind around is the relationship between what engineering and and what our program is doing here in the city and what they're doing, because they're not quite a department of the city, but they're you know kind of adjacent working together.

I just want to understand how how that's coming together.

So is that something that we want to put in the budget or we wait for a grant?

It so that it's I mean it's up to you whether or not you want to dedicate general fund dollars to that.

I believe it's a CIP already.

I think it was established as a CIP.

Um that um it shows that the city is also very interested in the project.

So in applying for grant funding, you know you have local municipal support.

Should that grant funding be awarded, right?

So and that's it would be funneled through the city, any grant funding.

Um with respect to whether or not there should be anything added to that.

I mean, that's up to you.

Um there are a lot of general fund dollars that you're gonna have to decide where they go.

And I'll leave it at that.

I can help with a little bit of that.

The funding that the downtown partnership received was to finish the design work, and the reason why they wanted to push that as hard as they could is because if I understand it correctly, the stormwater management project is ready to go, and they didn't want to tear up Market Street twice.

So they wanted to do the stormwater project and the streetscape as well.

So I don't know about the funding for actually shovels and bricks and cement.

I I'm not sure where that's coming from, but that that's uh I do know about chapter one, which is the design part.

So when uh I met with them, they they talked about the the concern for not wanting to tear it up twice.

Uh so I would I would just love to see this finished, and I'm I'm wondering how all that funding is gonna happen.

But I do believe, given this goal of let's design the streetscape to match with the stormwater, that downtown partnership and their contractors are working closely with engineering.

Is that a fair statement?

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

But thank you for raising that.

Always good.

Well, we are eager as soon as the study is delivered, for you to come back and share the results with us so that we can have discussions about path forward.

Yeah, definitely.

And um uh we'll keep an eye on um your meetings.

Anytime you have other stakeholders come present, you know.

If nothing else, we'll just come and listen um and questions, feel free to reach out to me and you know I'll work with my team and get you some answers back.

But if if you could estimate something, then we could put it on the schedule for late May.

I uh again figured out up whenever it may make sense, but I'd like to get that scheduled as soon as you have a good sense of that.

Because again, this speaking as a district three council member, this is a big deal that a lot of my constituents are really interested in learning more about.

Yes.

Yeah.

Also, along with that, I know we're talking about SAWS is kind of separated in that in particular with this year's snow event.

And I think it's probably a wise idea for us, a wise idea for us to also talk about the sidewalk policy in terms of snow removal for the public in terms of that review and the kick of that process.

Because we we got a lot, I'm sure you did as well, because I know Adam.

No, I didn't get any.

Thanks.

Yeah, my email doesn't work.

You all I will tell you, I'm just very thankful.

One that um the IT department created the new report, a snow issue, and that you all directed your you know your residents and neighbors and all to that.

It made it so much easier to triage.

But I'm sorry, I cut you out.

No, no, no.

No, I think it won't yeah.

Snow removal related to sidewalk.

So um we are planning a uh presentation before this committee um on to give you background and help you understand how we the Department of Public Works and other departments within the city plan for and address snow.

Um and we can talk about that.

I think I have that from our our initial discussion, like how the snow removal requirements and that.

So if I don't, I'll make a note to put it in.

No, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yep.

Well, again, thank you very much for sharing your time and knowledge with us.

Thank you.

Is there any public comment on this topic?

All right.

I appreciate next we'll move on to the affordable affordable housing council and look forward to that presentation.

Thank you, Mary Ellen.

Push for pull it as close as you can.

At Hood College, they said act like you're gonna kiss it.

So you too.

Yes, thank you.

All right.

Um thank you for having us here today.

I'm Mary Ellen Mitchell representing.

Yeah, there was a red button there.

Blue red light on.

Is that better?

Yes.

There you go.

Okay.

Mary Ellen Mitchell representing the Affordable Housing Council.

I am the chair and my co-chair, or my vice chair.

Michael Hatfield is with me.

Thank you for having us.

You had sent some specific questions, so hopefully the PowerPoint that we have today will answer that.

We can kind of skip through to the next page.

You've got the clicker.

You've got the remote in front of you.

Oh, I get to do it.

Wow.

Power.

Okay.

And I don't know how it's supposed to be pushing forward.

Yeah, that's what I did.

Nope.

Thank you.

It may be the battery.

It's always something, right?

So you had asked some specific questions about our membership and our mission, our relationship with the City of Frederick, and then how other people could get involved.

So next slide.

Who we are is the next slide here.

If you could go back one.

So there are a number of members.

And then we have representation from the county with County Councilmember Cavante Ducket and then Councilmember Shackelford represents the city.

Okay.

Next.

This is our mission statement, newly adopted.

But we advocate for the preservation and expansion of safe, equitable, and affordable housing opportunities in Frederick County, Maryland.

There are a number of ways that the public could get involved.

We do have three current positions that we are trying to fill for a July 1 start.

We have three members who have served their full terms and can no longer participate.

So we are in the process of taking applications.

So if the public wanted to get involved, they can go on the county website and apply under the board's tab.

But we have a good working group that represents numbers of organizations in the community involved with housing.

So we're we're pretty uh pretty great to work with.

Michael, do you want to do that?

Yeah, sure.

Sure.

So AHC affordable housing council has two standing committees, one being a policy committee, uh, the other one being marketing slash branding.

On the policy side, um as part of our advocacy and advise advisory roles, um, we establish on an annual basis what we call set of prior uh policy priorities.

Um we generally establish those on an annual basis in around May.

Uh and um uh they basically uh reflect uh uh positions that we will take on critical issues that pertain specifically to uh the development and preservation of affordable housing.

Um there have been uh very quickly several issues that we have particularly focused on as priority uh policy priorities.

One has to do um with uh the approval and permitting process.

Um that is the number one um issue, uh and I would say probably complaint that you hear from our building industry, uh our developer community uh in the county in the city in terms of getting projects off the ground, getting them built without undue delay and avoiding them becoming um too costly to complete.

Um as part of that effort, uh AHC uh hosted two seminars last year uh at 20 uh one semin one seminar, one seminar last year and one seminar uh the year before, um, where we brought in um builders, developers, and so forth, and discuss these issues.

It is extremely complicated, complex matter, as you can imagine, um certainly too complicated for no matter how dedicated we are here at AHC to fully understand.

Um what we have done uh most recently is to recommend uh to the housing director of the county that we uh provide funding.

We're still awaiting that that decision to bring an expert in uh to work with the building community uh and and the commun and the uh public sector to find out what exactly needs to be done to fast track the situation.

Understanding that is not only a county and city issue, but is also very definitely a state issue.

Um but we are in a process of moving forward on that.

Um as part of our efforts of advocacy and and and and in our advisory role, we also uh have uh provided and provide on an annual basis a support legislative letter uh to the county executive, which um given the fact that you know the city now has a a policy advisor could be part of this process, I assume if the city's uh so chooses, uh where we uh provide recommendations to the county executive on issues that are currently um being discussed uh in Annapolis that have implications for the county uh and afficacy roles and positions that we would like to take uh to make sure that the state hears what's important to us.

Um that letter, for example, last year uh included sustaining housing assistance programs.

We all know that the state is in a uh budgetary crisis, so rather than pushing forward new programs and new policies, what we focused on was to make sure that we had current programs, affordable housing programs by the state uh level funded.

So that's the position that we took.

Uh we've also taken position on on um senior housing um being a priority and so on.

There are other other issues as well that we've taken positions on MPDU program.

Point being that we've been very involved in all these issues that affect both the city and the county.

Um finally I would say we have a monthly blog where um uh we through our marketing and branding uh committee uh seek to publish uh annual pieces that are available to the public, with the with the goal being to help people understand what affordable housing is, so they are not afraid of affordable housing and know what what it really means and how it's an advantage to our community.

The final thing, sorry, well I will mention, because it's probably the most important thing, is with the new housing assessments, uh needs assessment.

Um we will be AHC will be working with uh with the county um to reach out to the uh municipalities that surround us to make sure that they understand buy into the challenges that we face with regard to affordable housing.

All right.

And I would like to mention as well, for marketing purposes, we have um a number of videos that delve into uh all the issues of affordable housing, including highlighting some of the people who have done successful programs through um our local nonprofits and other organizations that we uh support here in the county.

Um you had asked specifically what was our relationship with the city.

So obviously we have um Councilmember Shackelford as a member of our council.

We also are joined by um city staff, and so that would be Stuart Campbell, who is the Director of Housing, and Jody Ostich, who is the new policy advisor for the city.

Um we are also uh actively engaged in the newly formed um housing task force, which is a city task force.

Um there are three of our members who are part of that along with Councilman Shuckleford and Councilman Brem, who was there at our last meeting, but we will continue to be meeting um every Friday for the next I think two months in order to take a really deep dive into the recently released um county housing study that the city was also part of funding, and to come up with this strategic plan for the city based on those initiatives that were identified in the in the housing study.

So in addition to the city task force, the Affordable Housing Council is also tasked with helping the county initiate some of those pieces.

And I know Michael just mentioned this, but our our big push this past year has been to look at the different barriers that are preventing affordable housing to become to come to the market quicker.

There are barriers across the United States.

I listed them, I'm sure most of the folks in this room know them because they're our peers.

But specifically what can we do here?

And we did identify that there's a number of things with permitting and planning.

But I think with the housing study, we also have some opportunities to look at things like land, which I know you'll hear about today.

In addition, we are also trying to get funding to have someone look at our different zoning and other policies that could possibly impact housing.

And then if we can do anything to decrease the time that these new communities spend in permitting and planning, that also would decrease the cost for the end user.

And we want to support our citizens.

So I did put the link for the housing study, which I'm sure most of you had read, but that's uh kind of what is going to be making up the rest of our year this year is working on the housing study.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions?

I do, always.

And we we love having Derek with us, I might say.

We love having Derek working with us, by the way.

Hold the mic a little bit closer to you, I couldn't hear you.

We are fortunate.

I appreciate Councilmember Shackleford your participation on this group.

So one of the things that was brought up a lot during this most recent campaign is a lot of residents are concerned about from their point of view, it feels like housing is popping up all over.

And then when I talk to the builders, they're saying, oh my goodness, it's so slow to get through this process.

So there's kind of a perception difference.

But but in between there is the infrastructure part.

So uh one of the challenges I think we have in Frederick is a lot of people want to live here because it's a really wonderful place to be, but our infrastructure can't always keep up.

And that, I mean, being schools, roads, we just talked about sidewalks.

Uh so how do we move forward?

We know that we need more housing, uh, but but these other components are you know take a lot of time to put up a new school, let's say, or um, you know increasing capacity of roads or you know, increasing ridership on transit or you know, these these things that connect us.

Um maybe that will be part of the report as we go on.

But yeah, there's a lot that we are looking at as far as like the impact to the schools, you know, the county obviously is uh working very hard on that and identifying where the new schools will be.

There was another um report done by the planning department and they presented to us, and some of us were members of the work group, um the housing element and looking at the land and how much land we actually have that's buildable and developable versus the need, how many housing units we actually need.

Um those are formulas that I think will be put into place through this housing study, and we're excited to be able to affect that and be part of those discussions.

I will say too that um if you read one of our blogs, I know people are worried about how much housing, like you said, coming into the community, but um the county in general, almost half of our land is in preservation.

So we will not be able to build out and we have to hold on to our farms.

We are the largest agricultural county in the state of Maryland.

We have to use from those acres, and so it can't all be housing.

And I would I would just add to what Mary Ellen said.

Um the the affordable housing effort, many people rightfully so um focus a lot on new production.

And and clearly, you know, if you look at the housing study, you have to have new production.

Um that involves um homeownership as well as rental.

Um but clearly there needs to be an emphasis on um preservation that is of existing housing stock, which is deteriorating.

And so while we while we focus on all the issues, and there are many out there that are challenges with regard to new production, and that's what you will hear from the builders and developers for sure.

And to that to my colleague's question and comment, I think the other part about it is from a city perspective or we can control what we can control.

So to some degree, we may not be able to control the school parameters because county and state that's also dependent upon state funding as well.

Same with some we look at roads, some of it is depending upon us, but also we need State and our Federal partners.

So some of the things we don't control.

We can only control some of the variables that we have the most control over.

Some of that, particularly for us in local municipalities, is the development aspect, whether it comes zoning, what become the policies that we create.

Sometimes when it comes to the other micro or macro, but micro in terms of what we can control.

Unfortunately for us, we don't control schools.

Now, what we can do is, of course, when we start looking at an existential in the future school sites, one and secondly, is particularly with the Liverpool Project Master Plan have encouraged development in our city is we need to look at urban school designs as we see across the country because we don't have the land development to go out, but we do have to have the development to go up.

And so you look at this is not unique in terms of most cities growing cities across the country, in which we see urban school designs that are happening in this in this within the city um limits or city infrastructure is they go up.

New York City and some of these other major cities have school designs which go up because the land is just not feasible for that.

So it's also important for us to look at creativity.

So we have to look at all these different variables.

And we would look at this issue about housing as not a one solution fix.

It is multiple things.

It's it's zoning, it is planning, it is it's preservation, it's new development, new construction, it's rental units, it's home ownership.

So it is a multiplicity of approaches that we need to look at in that in that paradigm.

And if I can just say one last thing, I'm sorry, but one very last thing I think is important.

Yeah, and I realize we are talking before the City Council here, but the whole issue of affordable housing is not just a city problem.

It's a countywide, including municipalities problem as well.

And when you talk about infrastructures, that is a challenge in the City of Frederick for sure.

But it is also and part of our effort, you know, with regard to the housing needs assessment, getting out to the municipalities, is to hopefully get a buy-in that we are all, not just the City of Frederick, responsible for meeting the affordable housing challenges that are in the county as a whole.

And also that's a culture shift.

And what I mean about culture shift is it's sort it's sort of like um looking at let's look at transportation and roads.

We all talk about expanding roads, but we expand roads that put more cars on the road.

So some of that means in terms of how do we culturally like now move from uh different transportation modules, you from car from walking to bike bicycles, and they are also lifestyle changes that have to occur.

So it's it's sort of like all these things that we have to take a uh serious look at and what we are asking for, which may require, I'll say this word in a context which we don't oftentimes hear us to sacrifice, whatever that is for whomever that may be for.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for the time, and we're glad to come back any time you need us.

Just one assignment, and uh, if you are able to stay, you'll hear a couple other presentations later today.

I am really interested in the specific policy recommendations that you either have or may formulate over the a path forward basis.

So, for example, I understand that we need to speed up the permitting time frame.

A specific or specifics about what does that look like would be really helpful.

We will be back to talk about that.

Great.

Thank you.

All right.

And I'll hold public comment until we are done because this whole segment is going to be about affordable housing.

Uh, could the uh housing solutions task force please come out and share information with us.

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for inviting us here today to share what we're trying to do through the um Frederick Housing Solutions Task Force.

And what do we have to say about it?

This group of maybe 30 people who live in this community and know that we can do better.

And how we do better is the question, and why we're here today at this kind of intersection of the needs assessment of more awareness on the gaps that exist in our in our community for those who are at the lower end of the income spectrum.

And we're hungry for details, hungry for if we really need 1,600 units for those making under 30% of AMI.

How do we do that?

160 units a year times 10.

We can do that.

Um to make that happen.

And so today we just wanted to say a little bit more about what we are, who we are, and what we're up to.

So we have some coal we have some Frederick Housing Solutions Task Force members in the room in the room here.

And so if we have questions at the end, some of the um heads of the of the uh committees can can help with that.

Um our mission um is in partnership with Coalition for Healthier Frederick as a local health improvement process work group.

We exist to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing in Frederick and the supports needed to invite stability and health.

And Marcy Correa is in the back.

She is our um partner with the uh Coalition for Healthier Frederick and is walking with us as we find solutions.

As I just said, housing is out of reach for too many.

There's there are huge gaps, um, people are left out, and our question is what do we do about it?

So we've developed in the housing, can you make that slide one second, please?

Go back?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

So our Frederick Housing Solutions uh task force is divided up into four priority teams.

One is what do we build, how do we build, uh, how do we create new units, um, how do we partner with the faith community, how do we partner with the city, how do we partner with the county to make units happen?

You know, if they if we need 160 units for under 30 percent each year, then what does that mean for city property?

What does that mean for county?

How do we work with the faith community?

How do we build an a designated fund to make those things happen?

Um the shared housing um uh focus, yeah, and Melanie Cox is here.

It's um what do we have to say about about creating shared housing in Frederick that would make room for seniors and others who need affordable rents and also needs that need the community and the support that shared housing would invite.

Um SROs, uh, other communities have proven that this works for those on the lower end of the income scale, and what can we do about it?

Number one, we have to pass that SRO ordinance, and then we back into where is it that we can make that happen?

Um we're working with Centennial United Methodist on doing some uh interior renovations, they have an idea.

Um, but none of that can happen until we pass the um SRO ordinance, which is in the pipeline somewhere.

Um then the landlord engagement is how do we know what exists already?

Where is the where are the units that are more affordable?

And where is there a registry that anyone knows about, and how do people that need housing uh know what's available out there?

So that's a challenge for us.

Um our structure also invites the policy subcommittee to look at what policies get in the way of any of these things happening.

Um how can we raise money to help some of these things happen?

Uh community engagement, how do we help the larger community know the need and and be uh and have the energy to address that need and welcome people into their community who they know are their neighbors and can provide uh housing in a way that makes us all feel better as a community.

Um then supportive services is always the the overlay uh uh invitation to make sure that when people get housing they can keep it and they have the supports they need to thrive.

Um so just real quickly our goals identify property, demonstrate innovate innovative ways to house those with limited incomes again.

It's happening all across the country.

We want it to happen here, SROs, studio apartments, cluster cluster, cottage clusters, smaller developments, um multi-generational occupancy, home sharing, uh reducing zoning barriers.

We talked a little bit about that, or Mary Ellen mentioned that too.

Um promote the expansion of smaller housing.

What can we do on a on a lot that's only zoned for single family housing?

What do we have to say about smaller units, about cottages, about quadplexes, about triplexes, about duplexes.

Those are invited across Maryland now to be allowed on a single-family uh housing lot.

Pass the SRO, we already talked about that, consider pre-approved permits, um, figure out a way to grease the wheels so things can move faster, that we've uh already approved for these kinds of a design, these kinds of designs on this kind of lot, um, and just kind of invite that to move faster.

Umbite the faith community to be a part of the solution.

This is where kind of how we originally gathered is how do we work with the um the faith community to identify what's available on their land.

We're working with several churches and houses of worship now to uh to um work together to figure out how they can participate in the solution.

Trinity United Methodists, Centennial, um, some others are um are in the midst of figuring out how they can they can be a part of the solution.

Expand shared housing, we already talked about that to meet the needs of existing homeowners and those seeking affordable housing, um, increase single room occupancy, create a shared registry so people know where the housing is, um, identify funding streams, um, considering consider setting aside a portion of the rental licensing fee, uh, MPDU funds, general revenue funds for an innovative housing demonstration project fund to support the pre-development costs or technical assistance to make these things happen.

And if we decide that we're going to require people actually build the MPDUs, and then we need a designated fund elsewhere.

We're thinking 2.5% of the general fund that would feed into demonstration and innovation for new kinds of new types of housing, and also replace some of the MPDU money that would actually that it wouldn't be generated anymore because they'd be building the units.

So that's that's a missing piece right now is how do we create the funds we need to to make these things happen.

Promote projects to demonstrate the feasibility of small developments serving those with incomes, 30 to 50 percent.

You know, left to the marketplace, that group will never be addressed, will never be invited in because there's no money in that.

But what do we have to say about creating a way?

Um and we're looking forward to making those things happen.

And real quick, you go back to the previous slide, I think for conversation or just for clarity, talk about pre-development costs and what that entails.

So that would be the engineering costs, the architectural costs, um, the the attorney fees, the you know, all the prep costs right now on the projects we're working on.

There's it's it's all pro bono, which has been really nice.

But as we expand and we take on more um interested um houses of worship and churches, um private land, you know, anyone else who's who's curious about how this might work, we'd like to say step into this challenge.

We've got some support, or the city would say we you know, we've got this much money, we want to demonstrate how it can be done here.

Um and share how that helps, how that helps with project.

It unclogs the the backup.

You know, if if anyone is mildly interested in prov in making housing happen for those under 30 percent AMI, they just there's no incentive, there's no profit, there's no support, there's there's there's they're on their own.

But what if we came together as a community and said you're not on your own?

We have these supports, we have these pre-approved designs, we have this land, we have this money, we have this technical assistance, go.

Well, I appreciate that because Bruce Abels is up next, and I know he's gonna talk more about that.

So I'll teeing it up for all.

And then we've got ongoing priorities.

Again, it's uh uh a clearinghouse of information so we all know what does exist, identifying best practices and models.

There's so many cool things happening all across the country.

And we we are able and capable of figuring it out here.

Advocate for a targeted city housing goals for those earning under 30 percent, like we said, and then a dashboard to measure those goals.

How do we know when we're doing better?

Um if we're investing in these measures, how do we know when we're hitting our goals?

Um partner with Houses of Worship again to expand deeply affordable housing, um, and then fund it.

You know, how do we make these things happen?

Where is the money and how do we come together to figure out what state money is out there, what federal money is still around, what can the city do, and what about private money, and how do we partner with some of the foundations to do a few demonstration projects for for those who are on the lower uh end of the income scale.

So thank you.

Thank you.

That was great.

Colleagues, any questions?

Any questions?

Yes.

Well, again, thank you for that.

And and again, on a path forward basis, in addition to what you have already shared, if you have additional specific policy recommendations, you know where I live.

So please please let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

And so Bruce, could you come up and share information that's part of the housing solutions task force as well?

Okay.

Uh my name is Bruce Davis, um, Davis Architecture and Design.

I have been involved in affordable housing for the last 40 years.

Seems like uh a long time.

Um, in Frederick in particular for the last 23 years.

Um I've been hearing lots of good ideas from different groups, but what I tried to do, and I I think it went public too, is try to consolidate those ideas into actionable items.

I used to be chair of the Affordable Housing Council in 2016.

I put together a list of priorities that I thought needed to be done through the city as well as the council.

Ten years later, those priorities still have not been met.

So I think it's time for the city, also in the county, to start doing actionable things, right?

Now we have the housing study.

I really haven't gone through it, but the reality is we need more affordable housing.

That's the ultimate takeaway from that study.

Now we have data to support that.

When I hear developers talk, of course, land is very difficult to find here, but we've asked the city to do an inventory of excess property, right, which needs to be done now.

We know that there we responded to an RFP probably five years ago for 530 Highland, which I sent out, which is teeed up, ready to go, as it was already submitted as an RFP.

Uh fortunately, our team was successful in getting that.

That was 220 units, but there was a problem in moving the dump site from DPW over to Fort Dietrich.

That should have been resolved, hopefully sooner than later, and that would tee up that site uh for development.

Um I heard an interesting comment at the city housing um task force that I'm now a member of as well.

The developers said, look, you've got to prioritize what you want.

If you want affordable housing, the APFO maybe have to be put aside.

If we're waiting to build affordable housing, but we can't because we don't have the school capacity, that's a political decision.

That's something that the city and the county have to think about.

Because if that's stopping us from building affordable housing, and the need is so great, maybe it's time to move on from that, and at least for affordable housing, put that aside.

The other thing that I used to be a big proponent of the MPDU payment in lieu of.

I always thought that was a good way of leveraging the money that we were getting from developers to build rental housing.

It was not, it wasn't originally put out there to build rental housing.

It was to build moderately priced for sale housing.

When I did my web search and kind of pulled this together, we haven't built any MPDU since 2011.

And I think that's when the MPDU fund was established.

So we built zero.

Go ahead.

I think that was policy, but at the same time, when the amount was not uh incentive to that I mean you know what I'm saying, in terms of that legislation.

If you have an out such as that amount wasn't out, what who wouldn't pay that?

I mean, I'm saying who I kind of who wouldn't pay?

That's a kind of no-brainer from a development standpoint.

So if you are trying to say we want to incentivize those units to be built, there's got to be an incentive, or this has got to be an overall policy to say they got to be built no matter what.

I support that.

I think they have to be built no matter what.

It was a too easy for developers to take the payment in lieu of and just move on.

But and I've also heard the argument that the developers don't know how to do affordable housing, for sale affordable housing.

Fine, partner with somebody, learn how to do it.

These guys are smart, but they also know that ultimately it's much more profitable to build market rate for sale housing.

I think the average price is over 500,000 now, which, as we know, eliminates a lot of people from home ownership, quote unquote the American dream.

So that would be one of my recommendations is that we force developers not to be able to take the payment in lieu, that they have to build moderately priced dwelling units.

There are incentive programs that are out there.

Let me just take a step back, too.

The problem with the MPDU was that it is not a consistent level of funding, right?

You only get that money when you pull the permit.

We have got developments that have been in the pipeline for 20 years.

We never know when that's going to come forward.

Anne suggested a 2.5 percent tax that would then give us the possibility of a continuous revenue stream that we could then use for affordable housing, which I think is a is a brilliant idea.

Um there are, and I think you have a copy of this, and if you don't, I'll I'll give it to you again.

I said strengthen and modernize local developer incentive programs.

The reason why we know that Frederick is such a attractive place to develop affordable housing is because of the average mean income.

We're looking at 150 plus thousand dollars for family of four.

So if you're gonna do an 80 percent AMI deal, right, you're looking at 120,000 minimum income that you need for that.

Well, we know in Frederick, that's not our average mean income.

And we know that through the Alice report as well, because we are attached to Montgomery County, and we are attached to D.C.

as most people know.

So in my mind, 80 percent, even 60 percent, is not affordable for the majority of people that are Alice folks.

And so, from a developer standpoint, that's good cash flow.

I mean, again, it's almost market rate.

I know we just finished 423, um East Patrick, they're having problems renting it because the rents, even though it's affordable, are too high.

And then the junction that is coming online, kind of same thing.

You're looking, I don't know what the exact numbers are, but they are pretty much market rate.

So one of the other things that Anne was talking about and others of talking about, how do we incentivize 30 percent AMI for the people that really need affordable housing?

Well, developers aren't gonna do that unless their pro farmers work and their cash flow works.

That's where the city can step in, maybe provide them subsidies, that 2.5 percent.

Maybe that's a way for them to make their pro farmers work, and they can do a larger percent of 30 percent.

In the RFPs that I think the city is looking at providing in the near future, like Highland, build in there that they have to do 30 percent, at least a percentage, 20 percent, 30 percent.

Then they have to rethink how they're going to make their pro forma work and how are how are they gonna make the deal work?

Another thing that's important in that type of thing that the city needs to consider.

There are two types of developers in my mind.

There's the fee developer, which is mostly what we have in the city, and the county, meaning they get a if you take a look at the qualified allocation plan, they get up to, I don't even know now, up to $2 million as a developer's fee.

Well, that's good bid.

I mean, from them, that's good business for them.

They sell the project, they keep 1 percent, 99% goes to their tax credit investors, and they're out.

But I've also worked with developers who have wraparound services.

So not only do they provide affordable housing, but they also provide after school care.

They provide after school in uh classrooms, reading, whatever.

So you are you are doing a social good just not just by providing affordable housing, but the services.

And that could also be part of the RFP process as well.

The Himes Avenue one that we're doing for the county, the only thing that was in there in my mind that really benefited the community was we have a daycare center that is going to be a private entity.

The county could have done a lot more with that, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

Again, we've already talked about this, leverage county and city-owned land, underutilized land.

But we have to think out of the box.

I mean, again, I've been working with Melanie on the senior center over on Taney.

There's a possibility of raising that, building senior, but also then rebuilding the senior center.

But I took a course a long time ago at University of Maryland with Paul Rudolph, who is a very famous architect, if you looked him up.

And he was a person who I didn't realize that at the time had great foresight.

He said at some point we're going to start running out of land.

So where are we going to develop housing?

He we did a project where we actually developed housing over top an existing mall.

He also suggested on you know on the clover leaves, that open area of grass that you always see that's underutilized, building vertical there as well.

So those are things that are outside of the box that we need to start thinking about.

Because again, there's not a ton of land, and even if there is land, it is so expensive that it forces the developer to do 60, 80 percent to get a return on their investment.

Um, public-private partnership.

The Housing Authority is doing that, and I think doing it pretty successfully, but maybe there's a possibility of doing more of that, because the State looks very kindly with housing authorities working together with private developers, like they are doing with Harbor Development over at Lucas Village.

Um zoning.

That's always a problem.

But I'm always advocating for higher density, higher density.

And Ann talked about it too.

There's lots of different ways to do that.

One of the ways, and she mentioned kind of the cottages, whatever, but we call that missing middle.

And we're doing a project in Montgomery County where it's in a residential single-family development.

The thing, the project looks like a single-family home, but it's a quadruplex.

So again, we're maximizing what little land is left over, and that is gonna be again subsidized by low-income housing tax credits.

But the project that we looked at at Trinity Church is too small.

When we they have a piece of land there that has the house on it, I looked at it three different ways.

The problem is the way that they wanted it done, kind of like with townhouses, 24, you're it's too small.

The sweet spot for low-income housing tax credits is 50 to 60.

That's typically for maybe a 9 percent application, but 4 percent, you're looking at 120 and up.

So that small project, if the city had that the funding, that 2.5 percent that Anne is talking about, that could underwrite a project like that and help the smaller missing middle developments get funding because the State won't do those.

Um, I think I'm done.

So just to check, that thank you for this, and but just to check a lot of this references county, and I understand uh are are most of these applicable to city as well?

But yes.

They they yes, the city and the county.

But again, I'm gonna close with most of you were elected, and I have spoken with most of you before you were elected on a platform of increasing affordable housing.

This is a roadmap to do it with actionable items, and has got a roadmap with actionable items.

The affordable housing council has actionable items.

But I think this document kind of pulls all those together.

Now is the time to show some leadership and move this thing forward.

Great.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions for Bruce?

A couple of things, Bruce, thank you for your presentation.

You want me to have the question for you in regards.

So you already talked about pre-development costs, so I don't have to go through that.

But to your point about city-owned property, we just had an extensive conversation in our last committee.

RFPs are in conversations around that.

Some of my colleagues also brought up the conversation around the social aspect in terms of how we can offset those things.

So that is a conversation that is that is happening, a robust con intensive conversation that on a surface level.

So I just want to let you know that as well.

Also, we look at our matter of fact, right now in our Text Amendment process is some zoning conversations.

So some of the things which you mentioned are actually going to be are in motion.

So just want to make everyone aware in the room in regards to that.

And of course, SROs are are already in motion.

So some of the things we are talking about here are not starting in terms of like we are starting a conversation.

Some of these things are into motion in terms of and then implement implementation stage.

So just want to make everyone aware of that.

I have got one more point to make that I did just occurred to me again, hopefully.

Um when I started working in affordable housing, we did a lot of work in Northern Virginia and Arlington.

And Arlington, if you knew Arlington 35, 40 years ago, it used to be a one-story, very small town.

And they came in, the developers realized it's close to D.C., it's a great place to live, blah, blah, blah.

They started building high rises like crazy.

What the county did, however, is made them pay into a fund that then was used to help support affordable housing.

And what they did is they we had an open-ended contract with the county.

When a nonprofit came in with no money, they were able to get funds to do the feasibility study to show if their development was really going to work.

Now we know the big developers, they don't have a super deep pockets, but they have enough to do a feasibility yield study to see what something, you know, how it would work.

But say our housing task force, we have no money.

Um, but if you could tap into a fund like that, it makes it more real, rather than just having pro bono services being done.

So that's another thing that the city can consider.

And again, that 2.5 percent monies, that could help support that as well.

This may be for a bigger conversation later, but uh, you know, in my line of work, I make things that are gonna last for hundreds of years, so I tend to have a long view of things.

And so how do we position ourselves for not just the next three years, but like thirty, forty hundred years?

I mean, we have finite resources as far as water goes and land, obviously, you know, and and I think building up, and I always bring up height requirements whenever we have this conversation.

Um, because currently we are not building very high in this city.

Uh so how do we Okay, wait, let me back up a little bit one more.

Housing prices tend to outpace inflation and wages are kind of stagnant.

And so I feel like these lines are getting farther and farther away.

So in 30 years, are we going to be either subsidizing all of our housing?

Or how do how do we position ourselves for our grandchildren's future?

And so on and so forth.

I mean, for my end, that's a hard question to answer, but you know that the decisions you make now as far as lie tech deals, they have to be uh affordable for 40 years.

So that gives you a certain time frame there.

But you know, again, what I also have been getting to, I always was sort of anti-growth, and now I'm much more pro-growth because the more units we have, typically that will drive the prices down because you have more inventory.

Right now, there's not a lot of inventory, drives prices up.

So the more we can build, even though people don't want to hear that, the more we can build will theoretically drive prices down.

And how do you do that?

Increase density.

I agree with you.

I think we are limited to 70 feet in the city.

Well, you know, we're not a little rural town anymore.

Um, if you can increase those and I can, you know, do six, seven, eight stories of housing.

Again, my pro forma is gonna work better and I can house more people.

Bruce, one of the things if you can touch upon, talk about um making the pilot agreements, the benefits of the pilot agreements 20 to 30 years.

I I didn't hear that.

The pilot agreements.

Talk about how making those agreements 20 to 30 years, how how has been how it is beneficial?

And you're in your in your in your request, in one of your recommendations is making a poly agreements long-term.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

For the payment in lieu of taxes.

Yes.

I mean, any way to subsidize the on a yearly basis, on a perpetual basis, again, that's going to help in your pro forma, knowing that I don't have to pay those taxes, that's expenses I don't have to figure in.

And theoretically, I can lower my rents.

I mean, that's that's the goal is to lower those rents.

But um, yeah.

And again, keeping in mind the 80, 60, 30 percentage.

And I know that the district does that.

They will put in, when they start their funding rounds, how many percentages of, you know, percentage of 30 percent that they want if you want funding.

It's pretty simple.

Um again, the RFP is a very powerful, and you'll know if you don't get any responses, clearly you have asked for too much.

Um, but we know with Himes there were eight or nine um teams vying for that project.

And I think the county is going to get a very good project out of that.

Thank you.

Just uh Bruce, before you go, just two follow-ups.

Uh who did you talk to about inventorying excess city property?

Everybody.

All right.

You know, I I sent an email, I sent a text to all the council members, kind of outlining and attaching this as well.

Right.

But the county is doing that as well.

But obviously, I know two sites right off, the Trinity uh school site.

Again, we went in and talked to the mayor uh at one point in time, and things were already kind of uh decided for that piece of property, but that would be a perfect piece of property for affordable housing.

It's on a transit.

I mean, again, the qualified allocation plan kind of tells you which projects are going to score better to get funding.

That one I think would score very high.

The Highland, again, I sent it to a developer.

They looked at it and said, yeah, we're interested, this will score well.

But unfortunately, if you don't do it quickly, every year the QAP changes.

And ultimately, our mayor, not our mayor, our governor has control over where his administration wants affordable housing to be built.

And that can change.

Next year, he may want more in rural areas and change the scoring.

So it's important to keep that in mind, and that's why I have been pushing hard on the Highland, because I think you would get a quite uh a good response, because we had looked at 220 units.

That would be a very easy 4 percent deal, and the location is good.

And even though they are building all those crazy warehouses out there, it would spur, I think, you know, future development, you know, near the um yeah, the fairgrounds.

So how long have we been waiting for DPW to figure out how to get the equipment?

I think we were awarded the project five years ago.

Okay.

And the developer put a hundred thousand dollar deposit down, so they were serious.

And then the difficulty in dealing with the Federal, you know, government, I could fully understand.

There were, I had a meeting, uh, Zach Kirshner.

They're still working that through.

Um, maybe uh I'm, you know, got uh sugar plum fairies dancing in my head, but that should not stop that project.

Moving a dumping facility versus 220 units.

Seems we need some leadership there.

Okay, great.

Thank you for answering those additional.

Thank you.

Also, Councilmember Brum to that about excess properties.

We we did do we have done two presentations.

We've done one extensive disfuse.

So that is public knowledge in terms of what the excess properties are.

So that's no that is no secret for the city.

We just had a presentation from that last month in regards to those properties and those availabilities in terms of what those possibilities may be, and also some RFP conversations, which should be happening before the next six months.

Got it.

Thank you.

Is there any public comment on our housing presentations?

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

We are adjourned.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I thought she was getting up to go.

I am sorry, Kevin.

Go ahead.

Apologies.

And I'll speak loudly.

So I'd like to just re-emphasize a number of things.

School capacity, a policy change could be looking at the three to five year waiver in terms of when you annex, if you bring property in currently, you do not have to provide a school.

You can wait three to five years.

You can wait three to five years and I know it's not you who's building the school but you we're bringing in that property and then we're expecting the county to pick up the tab.

We should not waive the responsibility for school construction.

That's the first thing.

Ask me about that later if you want there.

Second point Ann brought up Bruce brought up 2.5 percent of the general fund.

That's the goal for essentially providing gap financing that's a goal that can provide the incentives it can help in the cottage and SRO efforts.

So as you construct your version or your submissions for the CIP or for the budget coming up if you could rigorously examine 2.5 percent of the general fund that goes for affordable housing construction.

That's the goal and Ann is working with uh um Stewart and and Jody now we're trying we're trying to approach you guys we sent a letter to the mayor uh to try to move that 2.5 percent forward because as Bruce said now's the time you all came campaigned on it.

We're all deeply committed all these people are deeply committed so we can do that.

I encourage you to look at Julie Weil's Washington Post article it's on the duplexes, triplexes, quad quadruplexes on uplexes.

If you read that article the zoning changes that were done in Portland, Oregon resulted in huge numbers of housing units that are quite affordable 300,000 and less so we could try the same thing and again if we're we uh leary do it as a demonstration project see if it works I got an opportunity here Jake Day, the chair uh I think uh Sarah you were there as well he waived uh all fees in Salisbury, Maryland because he was getting no uh uh affordable or I'm sorry affordable housing built it went from several maybe it was what 25 or 30 housing uh developments that were proposed after he waived the fees there were eight over 8,000 developer submissions for affordable housing so let's figure out okay provide that waive the fees Bruce brought up some ways to do that let's see how Jake Day recovered those fees through time in Salisbury but let's give that a chance I mean it one of the big obstacles as everyone has said is all of the fees impact fees uh affordable housing etc etc let's look at uh waiving all of those finally we approached Costco to build over the top of the hotel so that they wanted it for parking we initially thought so we're trying to find those sites where you could build vertically form based code if you look at the form based code recommendations it says if you add affordable housing you can go up two more stories.

So there are lots of things we can do and I think now's the time we have four years to really move this forward so please help all of us out.

Thank you.

Are there any other public comments before I hastily bang the gap okay please and I I I didn't ask Kevin but go ahead just so that I do it the right way please identify yourself and where you live and okay since he brought it up several people were able to say Drake Day a couple of ways a few weeks ago please watch his video I can send it to you or there are ways to get it I think it's on the strong towns Facebook but very inspiring what a mayor can do and very inspiring that we have a real leader as the Secretary so if you have a chance watch it please and again for the record your name and your address your name and address oh my name and address Alan Feinberg on East Church Street thank you it's all right thank you any other public comments thank you all we're adjourned