The Housing, Planning, & Development Committee of Lakewood City Council met on April 27, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. to discuss affordable housing. The meeting, chaired by Councilmember Bryan Evans, featured a comprehensive presentation by the Planning and Development Department on existing programs, challenges, and future opportunities. Council members and members of the public participated in Q&A and offered comments, highlighting the need for increased density, expanded resources, and improved education and advocacy.
All right. Good evening, everybody. I'd like to call the April 27, 2026 meeting of the Housing Planning Development Committee to order. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the March 30th, 2026 meeting of the committee. Can I hear a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. We're here today to um talk about affordable housing. And this is uh the first of um what's hopefully uh a larger community conversation about this issue. Um I know I've on my time on council, which admittedly hasn't been that long. I've never gotten a full rundown uh from planning uh about all the efforts we do, um, our successes, where we could use some help. So I'm looking forward to hearing from you today. Um we have some folks in the audience who are, I'm sure, gonna have some questions. I'm sure my colleagues will have questions. So I'd like to know if we can, uh colleagues, if we can go through the presentation from the city first and and do questions after, so we make sure we save time for us and to have folks from the audience talk as well. Um but uh just before I kick off, thanks in advance supplying department for putting together and coming out in force this evening uh to talk about this. Um I'm really excited to bring this to the forefront and have this be something we uh put a lot more concentration on on council and uh with and at the city in general. So thank you. And I'll hand it over to you. Thank you, members of council, and thank you, Councilman Evans, for referring this matter to committee. As you know, one of our department's goals is to further affordable housing. Tonight we will provide an overview of our existing programs, resources, and challenges. Additionally, we will talk about the state of affordable housing today in Lakewood and the continual upward trend regarding the average cost of homes and reduction of available affordable units. This discussion is timely. As this year, we created the position of housing and development manager, filled now by Ian Andrews. One of Ian's many tasks is to assist in reviewing our our existing programs as they relate to the current environment in Lakewood, and to provide recommendations on amending or creating new programs as permitted by our Federal funding sources. We understand that programs can always be improved upon. We see tonight not as just an overview of our programs, but as a beginning of a conversation and an opportunity to work with council and the community on this important matter. First, I'd like to introduce our key staff. Dan Wyman is our development officer. Dan manages the city's federal dollars that fund our existing housing programs, as well as capital projects such as street and park improvements and public service programs. He oversees all compliance matters, including eligibility, program policy, and administration reporting, and the fiscal responsibilities tied to the federal funds. Next is Marty Castelletti, our program manager. He is our direct department liaison with the residents, utilizing our programs. He works closely with families and individuals to help them through the process. I'll turn the presentation over to Ian at this point, who will move into the state of the existing housing stock in Lakeland, provide a high overview of our programs, and talk a bit on the eligibility as it relates to household income. Thanks. And uh just one second, one more point of order. Um Matt Dixenstein will be here late. He's um but he will come in. Um he's working on another ward formatter. And uh Councilman Hamilton, councilperson Hamilton Steiner is uh traveling for work. She couldn't be here, but really wishes she could be. And so just wanted to put that for the record. I think all of us know this is a very important issue, so it's um just can't be everywhere at once sometimes. So thank you. Sorry about that.