Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Robert Van Pole.

I'm the chair of the land use and environment committee of the city council.

Today is July 23rd.

I'm here with my councilmates, Clark and Paul.

And start the meeting.

And we're supposed to be like that.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

Can I get approval of tonight's agenda?

I move.

I move to approve the agenda for today's meeting.

Second.

All right.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right.

We have an agenda.

Public comment.

Do we have anyone with hands up in the online or person?

Okay.

Cool.

All right.

Can I get approval of the minutes for June 25th?

I move that we approve the minutes of the land use and environment committee for June 26th, 25th.

Second.

All right, all in favor.

All right.

On to committee business.

We have a discussion of tenant opportunity purchase arrangements.

Good afternoon.

Sorry, I don't know if folks online can hear okay.

So I am Krista Lenson, senior program specialist in the housing department here.

And I'm gonna go over just a discussion about tenant opportunity to purchase.

So next slide.

Olympia's housing action plan and comprehensive plan both direct the city to consider adopting a tenant opportunity to purchase ordinance.

The city hired a consultant in 2023 to conduct a study on ways the city could support affordable home ownership.

And part of that study, the consultant provided recommendations about tenant opportunity to purchase policies enacted across the U.S.

and provided some options for the city to consider.

And then in February, staff provided some initial research to the land use committee summarizing some of the lessons learned from other jurisdictions who've enacted these types of policies.

And at that meeting, land use directed staff to gather together community stakeholders to hold a special meeting.

And that meeting was held on June 11th.

Next slide.

So just some key highlights from that meeting.

There is interest among community partners to support uh tenant and a community opportunity to purchase.

Um with the opportunity to compete to purchase their manufactured home parks, uh, provides a good template for what legislation funding sources and a program model might look like.

Um so there's already kind of a framework that uh we can look at um with the success of that legislation.

Um there is also some lessons learned um that the community partners provided about resources needed, um timelines, and other factors that might be applied to um multifamily rental properties.

Um Rock Northwest, which is resident-owned communities northwest, um estimates that about a 30 to 40 percent subsidy is needed in additional in addition to traditional financing um for resident acquisition of a property um to keep the housing affordable when it's a limited equity cooperative.

Um and there's currently no set-aside funding for this type of acquisition for rental properties um like there is for manufactured home communities.

Um so just to put that into context, 30 to 40 percent.

Um if a property is selling for four million dollars, 40% of that is 1.6 million dollars.

Um so that's the kind of subsidy that would be required to to keep that property at an affordable rate for residents.

The Regional Housing Council's opportunity fund is set up well to support these kinds of acquisitions by residents, but funding is limited.

So typically there's around $3 million available annually in that fund.

But feedback from Rock Northwest is that funding has to be rapidly available, like it is in that funding source.

And they also suggested at the June meeting that there shouldn't be a requirement for site control to award those funds.

And then ROC also the representative from Rock Northwest also advocated at that meeting for a direct appropriation, which is how it currently works with acquisition of manufactured housing communities.

So the state has direct appropriation that allows residents to be able to purchase their manufactured home park as a cooperative.