Well, we can start and um welcome everyone to the first chess committee meeting and chess is uh community development housing education social services and state and commerce.

Welcome.

And Angie, can we please do a roll call?

Sure.

Goldberg.

Um is he on?

Yes, he raised this.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry, and it's okay.

Um Gross.

I'm sorry.

Uh my computer was not unmuting.

I am here.

Okay.

Gross is here.

Okay.

Uh Palick.

Present McEwen.

Present.

Price.

Present.

Sylvestre.

Don't see her.

Waston.

Boston.

Present.

Present.

And we're present.

And Jaeger.

Present.

Okay, you have a quorum.

Thank you.

All right.

Um I messaged Stephanie as well.

So I'm looking forward to a review item.

Welcome to our guests, Emily Gordon and Sharona Cowan.

Do I pronounce your last name right?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

Uh thank you both for coming on.

Um, let's see.

I bring forward, correct, Angie, chess 32.002.

Correct.

Okay.

And this is a broad overview.

It will be in conjunction.

I believe Emily Gordon will go first.

Is that how you both want it?

Um I'm actually gonna have Sharona Cowan go first, if that's okay.

Great.

Um would you like to so this is a a broad overview of both of their departments, which they'll go into more.

And we could also ask questions, keeping it broad, and if there's anything more specific, we'll definitely set up another review and go through them.

Um Shona, would you like to jump right in?

Sure.

Um Angie, can I share my screen?

You should be able to.

I mean you're a presenter, so do you see yes, that's fine.

Thank you.

Okay.

So while I get that going, so again, thank you all for having us tonight.

Um again, my name is Sharona Cowen.

Um I'm been an employee with the city of Stanford for uh the last 19 years, and about almost two years in my current role as the housing services director.

Um as you know, I'm housed under public safety and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Um, but before we dive in tonight, um I just wanted to start my presentation.

Um with um I don't know, hold on.

Can you guys see my screen?

Yes, it looks like it's it's little mini ones.

Hold on, let me go here.

Okay.

Well, we can see it full screen if that helps you.

Can you see it full screen?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you, because my view is totally different.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right, let me um.

Hello.

All right.

Uh oh.

Okay.

Can you still see everything?

Yeah, yes.

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

All right.

Um so I wanted to go over some terminology just so that we're all on the same page, so that when we're using certain terms, um, you know, everybody comes to the table with their own um idea or definition.

So I just wanted to uh clarify a couple of things and then get on with my presentation.

Um so I first wanted to just kind of go over affordable housing.

For the most part, it's it's almost like a concept.

Um the idea that housing is affordable when it's priced at around 30% of someone's income.

Um the idea is that if that is the situation, basically um you'll have money left over for other things like travel savings, utilities, car repairs, and so on.

Um, but not all affordable housing is considered for like low income.

Um and that'll make more sense as we me and Emily go through our presentations tonight.

Um, but just wanted to make that clear.

Um, in terms of income-based housing, income-based housing is the type of affordable housing, but not all affordable housing is at 30% of income.

Um income-based housing is gonna be things that you normally think of the Section 8 programs, uh, low-income tax credit and so on.

Um so I just want to make that clear.

And then when we talk about AMI, um it's not just based on the incomes of the people here in Stanford, it's based on a region.

Um I think that region has expanded, and Emily, you can clarify later.

Um, but basically, as the wages of folks um go up or down, then you'll see where that affordable housing concept is more fluid, it's not a static kind of thing where income-based housing is always gonna be um sensitive to someone's income.

It will adjust in most situations.

Um that's why I wanted to make that distinction.

And then the last thing I wanted to go over was um cost burden.

Um, and again, if somebody's not in affordable housing, or their housing is not affordable to them, is considered cost burden, and if they're paying more than 50% or half their gross income, they're considered extremely uh cost burden.

So I just wanted to go over those things before uh we we move on.

So uh who benefits from affordable housing?

Um just about everybody.

Um, these are just a few, you know, seniors, uh divorcees, these are folks that I get calls from, young professionals who want to move back to Stanford, um, even businesses who want to help their workers because their workers are commuting from you know other communities, um, and then the other component is what are the other benefits of affordable housing, you know, if people are um able to afford the housing, they're not moving so much.

So you see decreasing absentee in school uh with children, community stays diverse and people are stable.

Um I wanted to share um something that was put together, not by myself, but another organization, and this really illustrates who we're talking about when we say we need affordable housing.

And so this is based on the Are you advancing through slide?

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Are you advancing through slides?

Sorry, uh a point of um information to ask, sorry.

But it is a fantastic question.

Go ahead.

My apologies.

Point of information, Sharona.

Uh, are you advancing through slides?

Uh yes, I was.

We're not seeing that.

I'm sorry, we're still on slide number one.

Oh very good catch, Mr.

Frank's representative.

Okay, let me get back.

Okay, so this was the terminology.

My apologies.

Okay.

Thanks.

All right.

Um sorry, so were there any questions about breakdowns?

Will you be able to share this afterwards with the committee or absolutely okay?

Um so now that you guys can see the slides, I just before I move on um to the um exhibit that I was going over.

I just want to see if there were any questions about that.

Uh thank you.

I did have a question about the 30% where it came from on whether it was adjusted gross income or not, but the the slides answered that point.

So I appreciate that.

And I appreciate the presentation too, Shaw.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

And I see uh Representative Walston's hand up next.

Hi, Sharona.

Hi, good evening.

Quick question about the area media income.

I know that it keeps changing, but what cities are are included in our current AMI.

I believe in Emily, you can correct me.

I think it goes as uh basically Lower Fairfill County.

Um so Greenwich to about I think Danbury is its own catchment, but now I think Bridgeport is now included.

So all the towns including so Stanford Derien Um Westport.

Yeah, it if I could, Sharona and Representative Pollack.

Um it used to be Lower Field Fifth County, and in I believe it was a year or two ago, it changed to become all of um what you might know as West Cog, which is our council of governance.

So it's much bigger now, so it includes Danbury and um and up that way as well.

So it's actually brought the AMI down, as you can imagine being around Greenwich and New Canaan, our AMI was a little bit inflated.

That was always a point of conversation, and now that it's been expanded to be such a broad geography, the AMI has come down a bit, which means that we're serving we're able to serve lower income folks at lower rents than we were previously.

So this is the whole Fairfield County then for the AMI.

It's bigger, it's different than Fairfield County.

It's the it's the West Cog Towns.

Um, so it's uh it's a bit complicated.

It's the it's kind of the new definition of county at the federal level.

We're not using Fairfield County at the federal level anymore for data collection purposes for the census.

They're using West Cog, which is why our geography changed.

Thank you.

Okay, Sharona.

Okay, perfect.

Um, so again, this is uh who I was referring to in terms of who benefits and what are some of the um secondary benefits of having affordable housing.

And again, it leads to people not having to travel as far.

Um, let's see how I can get to this other okay.

Can you all see this?

Where it says uh Stanford Connecticut salaries, it still says benefits of affordable housing.

Let's see here.

Um Representative McEwen, do you have your hand up?

Thank you, Chair Pollock.

Uh, to the extent it's easier, I think members of the committee can also manually move the slides for themselves.

It doesn't change it for what everybody else is seeing.

But if that's helpful, um we we could always we can always do that ourselves.

Okay, yeah, I was trying to bring up an attachment.

It comes up in mine, but it's not showing on you you guys' screen.

So it might be it might be the case that you're sharing the program and not necessarily the whole screen.

Got it.

I am able to see at the bottom of my screen three of nine as and move through it.

Thank you, Representative McEwen.

Is everybody else able to do that?

It's a good suggestion.

Could all manually do it if we're able to, or better yet, is anybody unable to move the slides themselves.

Okay.

Um so I will um probably put this in the chat and then I'll put as a as a um attachment in the um when I forward it.

Okay.

I'm on page four of nine now, housing services.

Okay.

Um in terms of housing services, uh, what does that entail?

Um so again, you guys brought both Emily and myself tonight, and um of course her area is more on the development side, and a lot of what I'm doing is more in the retention area.

So this is including um so much of my work falls into these four content areas, um, housing literacy, landlord engagement, uh the fair rent program, and then landlord tenant complaint.

Okay, and this is just a breakdown um of those different areas.

Um so you have a more visual of the scope of the different things that I'll be have been working on and will be working on should we move to slide five?

Yep.

Okay.

And so when it comes to landlord tenant inquiry, um, outside of questions for the BMR program, um I receive the bulk of those um questions and or complaints that are also not related to uh the conditions of the property.

Um so that is you know, questions from people who are maybe going through a foreclosure, maybe they're the homeowner, maybe they're the renter, um individuals who are looking to seek shelter, um, folks who want to understand their rights and responsibilities, um, dealing with discrimination, security deposits, so on.

Um, and so I'm often pointing people in the right direction.

Um there's been build out of resources on uh the housing services page of the City of Stanford website.

Um in terms of getting out into the community, uh doing workshops, presentations, attending health fairs, um, you know, just really trying to get information out to people, and then also um demystifying um things about housing, um, not only for folks who are new to Stanford, but maybe also new to the state, new to the country, um, or maybe have never found in their cells in a housing situation, uh, but now they've maybe you're um getting a divorce or what have you.

Um with the fair rent program, um, it is now uh required by law that municipalities that have more than 15,000 residents uh have a commission.

Stanford's commission has been in place, I believe, since the 1970s.

Um it has been a very active year, um, as you can imagine, um not only dealing with rent increases, um, but the fair rent process also deals with um rental charges in general.

So that could be um a situation where the person was um um if the tenant feels that the amount of rent that they're paying is not worth the value of the unit.

Um, so maybe they were supposed to have uh receive certain amenities and those amenities are not being provided, and therefore they like a reduction.

Um it could be for in chart rental charges that maybe the tenant wasn't responsible for prior, and then um a little bit more tricky, but in situations where there was retaliation for um filing a prior fair rent complaint, uh forming or joining a tenant union, or um having had called in a code violation if the tenant can somehow tie it uh that reasoning to maybe why they're being in the evicted or the lease is not being renewed, they can also file a fair rent complaint, and then landlord engagement.

I did a survey that we sent out.

We're on the next slide.

Uh yeah, I see is it landlord engagement?

Now it is, yes, but some of us are moving it manually.

Oh, I see, yes.

Yes.

Okay, sorry.

Um so with landlord engagement, um, again, that's an area that I'll be exploring more this year.

I did a really simple survey that was sent out to uh landlords via email.

Um not a very good response, but enough to at least uh gather a couple of things.

Um so in that um there was interest in having some type of guide or um way to kind of know how to be in compliance.

Uh so compliance support.

So what things did they they needed to get permits for, you know, maybe you know, certain rules really simplified and in one place.

Um also resources and information.

Um quite a few requests for loss mitigation.

Um, you know issues with insurance cost.

Um that was also brought up.

Again, that's maybe not something that I can do, you know, do something about, but um, you know, nevertheless worth mentioning.

And then again, uh for my purposes, um, it's always the good to have those partnerships.

Um, you know, we do need landlords uh who are willing to work with um, you know, families maybe in the emergency situation.

Um, so um hoping, you know, um, through this process and um, you know, building relationships that you know, hopefully we can develop some good partnerships.

And then the last thing I wanted to cover was how's the best way to submit a complaint?

Um this is a really simple QR code.

Um, you can share it with your constituents.

Um, you know, you can post a flyer.

Um basically um it's a way for folks to be able to file a complaint if they have a housing code violation, if they have a landlord tenant inquiry or if they need to file a fair rent complaint.

Um and it brings them directly to those um complaint pages.

Um and if someone's not able to navigate the QR code, they can still call into the Health and Human Services Department, and someone can assist them.

Um, but this is really great because this can also be used as a tool for referral.

Um, so if the person is not able to navigate it and um they have someone who can help them, um, it's uh really simple to submit and it complaint comes in directly, it doesn't get tied up in a phone line.

Um and I'm open for any questions anyone may have.

Thank you.

Um if there's anybody else who'd like to ask a question, if not, I have one.

Um representative McCwen, go ahead.

You have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, I uh I just want to say I thought the presentation was great.

I do not have any questions, but I did just want to state for the purposes of the minutes that I have to leave the meeting um to attend a conflicting committee meeting.

Uh, but thank you again for your time and and the presentation, it was very helpful.

Thank you for joining.

Are you going over to LNR?

Yes, yes, exactly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Does anyone else have any up uh representative Walston?

I did need to step it back a little bit because I'm still trying to the area median income stuff.

That's kind of always been a little wishy-waffee with me.

What cities are included?

You said Westcog towns, but Madam Sherman, I believe I have that information.

Uh point of privilege, a question of privilege.

Uh go ahead, Representative Goldberg, if you can answer that.

Um, I just wanted to let all of the members know and and representative Walson.

I replied to your email a few moments ago with the list of the towns that are in Westcog from their 2025 annual report.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

What are they?

There's not that many.

Uh you know, it was surprising to me.

It was more than I anticipated.

Hold on, let me go to my sent folder.

Oh, they hide it under drafts.

All right, the municipality in West Cog is Bethel, Bridgewater, Brookfield, Danbury, Barien, Greenwich, New Canaan, New Fairfield, New Milford, Newtown, Norwalk, Reading, Ridgefield, Sherman, Stanford, Weston, Westport, and Wilton.

Wow.

Okay.

Thank you.

Wow.

Representative Austin, you still have the floor.

I yield.

Thank you very much, Representative Goldberg.

That's great.

You're welcome.

Glad to be helpful.

Representative Yeager, I saw your hand up before.

Do you have a question?

Yes, thank you.

Uh thank you very much.

And thank you for the presentation, Sharona.

It was great.

I had a question about the last slide you presented about the QR codes and if we have a constituent who is either unable to make the file themselves, is it um there's a phone number on there?

Or or even the phone number if they're if they're for whatever reason unable to make the complaint themselves.

Is it is it uh acceptable for a representative to help or make it on their behalf?

Yes, because currently um I may get a call or an email, and it it is almost like another extra step.

So it'd be quicker and um documented it and ready to go and ready to respond to um then maybe sitting on any um a voicemail.

The number that's on there gets you to the uh front desk of the health department, so it won't sit on my line um just because I'm I'm all over the place.

Um so it this is a much quicker way for constituents to be able to file a complaint and get it directly in um to a system to then be responded to.

Um so yes, if they're not able to navigate that, there is a phone number where they can call and either get an appointment and or help to do it.

But yes, if a constituent um has come to you and they need help, if you're able to assist them, absolutely.

Um is just questions.

Thank you.

Um Representative Gross, you have the floor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I was wondering um if you could sort of explain the um makeup of I guess of the fair end commission, like who sits on it, um, and then take us through a little bit of just like the decision process and like how um, you know, if you file a complaint, what's the sort of process for settling that?

Sure.

Um so I did kind of run through those slides, but um basically a complaint comes in.

Um I receive the complaint, I I respond to the complaint and basically try to get a better understanding of the complaint and make sure that it is something within fair rent.

Um fair rent sometimes is uh confused with fair housing and rent control, and it is not those things.

Um so once I verify the nature of the complaint, I under you know, go over the process with the tenant.

Um, and then it's a notification to the landlord.

Um both parties are given uh something via mail just to document.

Um, but I do often reach out via phone uh at first contact to notify the landlord to see um if there's some possible way to find some middle ground.

Um if it doesn't seem like the parties uh can find a mutual agreement.

Um well let's say if they do, um I document it, uh you know, try to at least see it through to you know um whatever the agreement is, whether it be a lease or uh a settlement or whatever the uh final rent is uh before I close my case, and then um you know they they go on.

Um if parties are not able to come to some type of agreement, uh then I start preparing it for a hearing.

That is gathering all the exhibits and documents, uh could be pictures, videos, uh, to prepare uh the commission for its hearing.

Um so I'm staffed to the Social Services Commission, uh, which is a five-member uh board.

Um they apply for a board.

Um they are then appointed by the mayor, and then um I believe the um appointments committee or commission uh then makes a uh final assessment of whether that person's approved for that board.

Um so that essentially is the process.

Um and so once I gather all those documents, I'm share those documents uh as a packet with the all the parties uh in advance of the hearing.

Um and then uh just like how we're meeting tonight, um I'm basically facilitating the meeting only, um, you know, responding to clear for clear clarifying questions and concerns.

Um I do not have any voting power um or um you know really don't try not to infer um any uh thoughts or ideas um about the situation other than the facts to the commission ahead of that.

Um the commission will allow both parties to speak, uh cross-examine each other, uh submit evidence, uh witnesses, um what have you, and then once they close the hearing, they um actually deliberate right after it is public, um, so the parties can stay on, but they can't speak, um, and they make their decision on what the new rent will be.

Some decisions are tied to the need for repairs, uh some are phased in over uh maybe a couple of months.

Um it really depends on the situation.

The commission gets its powers through the state statute and it uh really guides uh gives them a guide of 13 different determinants that they can use to guide their decision, um, and those would include things like uh the last time the rent was increased, uh the person's ability to pay, um comparables, the condition of the unit, uh were there any uh prior capital improvements or um to the property, um and those are just the name of few.

So that's essentially the process and um how the commission is created or formed or thank you.

Yeah, that was that's very thorough.

Is is there um is there a process to like appeal a decision?

Uh yes.

Uh once the parties receive their decision, either can uh file a uh appeal to superior court, um, but my understanding is is uh superior court is more interested in uh did they have due process.

Were they able to uh submit evidence and testimony?

Were they able to speak?

Um not so much the decision, but um we haven't had any appeals, so I I don't know from experience.

Great, thank you.

Uh Representative Goldberg.

Thank you.

Uh first of all, let me apologize for not having my camera on.

Every time I attempt to turn it on, I get a message that um uh signal something to the effect of you know bad connectivity.

So that's why you don't see my very handsome face tonight.

Um I have two process uh one organizational question and and one uh I guess uh domain question.

The first one is if I understand where your department is organized, you're a department within the department of public safety, is that right?

So your your department it doesn't report directly to the mayor, you report to a de to someone that reports to the mayor, is that right?

That's correct.

So um if you go from top down, you have the mayor, then you have the director of public safety, health, and welfare.

And under that would be police, fire, health department, EMS, and so I'm in the health department.

Oh, okay.

So do you work for the director of health?

I'm trying once again, I'm just trying to organizationally understand.

Correct.

So you're part of the health department, I see.

Yes.

Uh so I was formerly the social services director.

Health and social services merged.

Okay.

And they became health and human services.

Okay.

So now and then the existing staff still does social services work, but I was asked to focus more on housing because I had a background in housing matters, not only working for the city, but also had prior experience working for the housing authority and some other housing related programs prior to that.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh I I knew there was a change.

I didn't quite understand what happened organizationally, so that clarifies that.

My second question is everything we've been talking about so far has been landlord tenant.

Is that the your exclusive domain?

You're not involved in things like mortgage or mortgage y issues.

Is that right?

And in what way?

Um, I mean, if you think back to the foreclosure or foreclosures or or let's say a constituent has a servicing challenge with their mortgage servicer, or they have you know some other you know, there and let me give you the context.

Okay.

So district 13 doesn't have a lot of rental housing.

We're mostly single family homes.

Yeah, where it's owner occupied, but people have a mortgage.

And so I'm trying to understand what kind of services you would have for my constituents that are mostly single family homeowners with a mortgage or maybe a home equity line against their house.

It doesn't sound like based on what you've discussed this evening, your department has a lot of content for them, but I just wanted to check that.

Um well, um I would say that I do get calls from homeowners throughout the city.

Um because it yes, I I it is a landlord tenant inquiry, but yes, it I do also get homeowners who call about things like home repair, or maybe a reverse mortgage, or maybe their neighbor really needs to, you know, maybe have someone come check on them because they don't think that they're taking good care of themselves.

So it's not necessarily something that I would provide, I'm more of a referral or resource to get that person to where they need to get that information.

Um that may just be because of my social services background.

Um the different resources has been a part of you know, a large part of my work, and so it helps in housing because housing is just not in its own little bubble, it affects all you know, all these other things are impacted as well.

Um, but in terms of uh content, yes, landlord engagement, um, homeowner, that's an area that I'm I'm looking more into to figure out how to engage um that population more because um yes, they do have issues and concerns just like everybody else, but the squeaky wills often the people who are uh their housing is very unstable, um, whether their rent is going up or um they're living in substandard housing and need to move.

Um that's just been more of my experience, so I do have a lot more resources in that area.

Um, but yes, when I was speaking about um landlord engagement, a lot of that also does include um landlords, I mean homeowners on this housing services website.

There is a section for homeowners.

Um, some of that is duplicative uh for the information for landlords.

Um, but I do get homeowners who say I'm facing foreclosure, and you know, I'm not sure what to do.

Um, I'm not gonna be the one to help them negotiate their mortgage, but I'll try to at least figure out what agency uh could at least work with them or speak with them or give them better information.

Okay.

So follow-up question to that.

Here's the three situations that I've gotten calls about over the last couple of years that are housing related, but I had uh Representative Pollock, did you want me to yield for a moment to others?

Yes, and if it's more specific, I would actually request that maybe we could write them in or speak with her, but let's see how we're doing on time.

Does that work?

Yeah, I mean, it was three very simple follow-ups.

Um I'll just bullet point them and then you can come back around to them.

The first one was homeowners' insurance being canceled.

I don't know if that's something because I know that right now a lot of insurance companies are rebalancing their risk profiles in Connecticut.

Number two was um servicing companies not reflecting tax payments in a timely manner against uh mortgages accounts, so they pay the city, and then the mortgage servicer says, Well, we don't have any proof from the city that you paid your taxes, and the third situation um has to do with mortgage servicers not posting uh uh mortgage use payments in a timely fashion.

So I just want to understand if those three areas you can help, or if that's out of your scope, and with that I yield.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um yeah, insurance being canceled, I is something that I have been seeing in the news.

Um, you know, especially in areas that have had um, you know, wildfires and um storms, um, Florida included.

Um yeah, you know, this is where I start when I receive calls that I don't uh really have expertise on.

This is when I start calling.

Um, and then you know, if I'm not able to find anything, um, you know, I try to at least encourage the person to escalate this up to their legislators at the state level.

Um, you know, there are a lot of state agencies that have oversight.

Um, so I'll probably start there and then um you know, see what I can find to point the person in the right direction, so I'm not sending them on the wild goose chase.

Representative Goldberg, I saw your hand pop up and down.

Uh, did you still have more or no, no, not at all?

I don't um I apologize, I'm not sure how that happened.

That's okay.

Um thank you, Sharona.

Um, I really appreciate you coming on.

I thought it was very important for us all to at least get a briefing.

So when these issues arise with our constituents, you know who to reach out to.

Um, I had one question for you that wasn't answered.

You guys asked great questions.

Um I knew before you were in social services.

Do I still or do we still direct social service questions to you, or is there a new person that we would reach out to?

Um that would be a probably a great question for the director of health and human services.

Okay.

That way they can better guide you through maybe you know, certain specific things where they they they land.

Okay, thank you.

Uh, and of course, you're welcome to stay as our guest.

And if anybody else has any other questions specifically for Sharona, I would ask now.

So this way she's free to enjoy the rest of her evening.

Okay.

Thank you so much again.

We appreciate you and all the hard work you do.

Thank you all for having me.

Okay.

Emily, you are up.

If you would like to start, introduce yourself and the department you're in now and what you do.

Great.

Um, so let me try to share my screen first, just so we can get that going.

Um see.

I do.

You do.

Okay.

Yes.

And you see, and if I flip to the next slide, you see that too.

Yes.

Perfect.

Okay, great.

Um, so I'm Emily Gordon.

I'm the housing planner for the city and the land use bureau.

And my background is as a city planner and an urban planner.

But I really didn't start working in housing until I started working with the city in 2019.

And as you know, that was right at the start of COVID.

There was a lot going on at that time.

And there's been a lot of talk about housing over the last five years.

So it was, I think, a necessary thing for the city to start having more discussions about the city had put into place some policies and programs about 25 years ago in 2000, around 2000, I believe when Molloy was mayor, and those programs and policies were kind of running under the radar.

And I think it's good that over the last five years there's been a more of a focus on housing, as we've seen there being kind of growing, growing needs in this area, and the ability for us in Stanford to have such great foundation of these policies and programs already to be able to build on them as we move forward.

We see that we're in a bit of better shape and a bit of an advantage over some other communities, even though our rents are very high.

So some basics of housing affordability, and this is there's a lot of people to ask how do you define affordability?

What is affordable housing?

People like to have that conversation.

But so I'll just run through these just to get you thinking.

It is nuanced, it is complex, and that's what makes designing these programs and the policies such, you know, a complicated thing.

It's not as easy as we just need more affordable units.

So everybody needs housing that's affordable to them.

That includes, you know, the wealthiest CEOs and you know, the people that are unemployed or seniors or people who are disabled.

Everybody needs housing that's affordable to them.

So when we have a scarcity of housing, it affects affordability for everybody.

So when there's not enough housing for everyone, higher income households like the CEOs, they're able to outbid lower income households for the existing units.

Housing can be affordable without it being deed restricted.

So we don't always need deed restricted affordable housing in order to solve an affordability issue.

Um there is naturally occurring affordable housing, or you'll see in our zoning regulations, market rate affordable housing as a term, and that really means maybe it's older stock of housing or housing that just hasn't been updated, but it could even mean housing that's actually unsafe or not up to code.

Those units are less desirable for maybe a variety of reasons, and and so they're not being charged, um, tenants aren't being charged the same as a um maybe a luxury or a new market rate umit.

Not all housing programs operate um the same way.

So Sharona also talked about this earlier.

Some a lot of people think of um public housing or vouchers, where you, if you're making $30,000 a year, you're only required to pay a third of that or $10,000 a year on your rent.

So that's how kind of generally speaking, public housing or voucher programs operate.

But how our program operates the below market rate program, which you may have heard of in the city of Stanford, and also some of the tax credit programs, the way that some of those operate is you have a unit that is designated for an a specific affordability level, and the tenant is paying a fixed rent, no matter what they make, as long as they're eligible for the unit, they're paying the fixed rent for that unit because the unit is designated an affordability level.

And affordability is relative.

So a unit affordability, a unit that's affordable to one family may not be affordable to another.

So you could call a unit affordable, and it could be deed restricted affordable.

Um, but if it's at 80% of the area median income, which we talked about earlier, um, it's not going to be affordable to a household that's only earning 30% of the area median income.

And then residents also of deed restricted affordable housing could still be cost burdened.

We have a lot of people who live in affordable housing today that are actually still cost burdened because there's a mismatch in where they're living and the unit, um, or there's just not enough units at deeply affordable levels.

We've seen this recently in our needs-based housing assessment and through our look at the bullet market rate program, we can see that there's just not enough deeply affordable housing units.

So people are living in affordable housing, but they're still cost burdened.

Thank you.

I'm going to pause you real quick.

I saw a hand come up.

Representative Yeager, your hand was up and down.

Did you have a question?

Yeah, you kind of answered it.

I just wanted to see if you could uh talk a little bit more about the naturally occurring affordable housing and clarify what that sure.

So I think you know, when we see luxury housing going up, well, I'll say quote luxury housing, new housing going up today, right?

Maybe it has a pool and it has it's brand new, it's up to the current codes, all of that.

Um that one bedroom unit, I don't know, maybe it could go for $3,700 a month.

But if you have a one bedroom unit that's in a building built in the 1980s, and maybe the washer and dryer is a shared washer dryer on the same floor, and maybe it doesn't have the newest appliances, the appliances are you know 15 years old.

You could see how those units, even though they're both one bedrooms, would be rented at different levels.

So the idea is though that 1980s unit is going to be affordable to someone, and maybe it's less than kind of the average market rent.

Um, but it's not deed restricted.

There's no there's nothing to say that the owner can't come in and then just you know flip it.

But it's still serving a community that could be served by affordable housing, but instead they're being served by this kind of naturally occurring no subsidy affordable housing.

It's not costing the government any money to have that unit exist to serve that tenant.

Thank you.

Thank you, Emily.

Sure.

Um, so there's a few ways in which uh so I operate out of the land use bureau.

Um and the the primary things that I focus on are planning.

Uh we plan for housing affordability, we require uh affordable housing, and we also fund affordable housing.

So those are kind of three big things that our office does.

Um, and so you all probably know what plans are.

Some of them are required.

The housing affordability plan is actually required through our local ordinance.

Um, the trust fund ordinance requires that we have an affordability plan every five years.

And then uh we have a state mandate to produce a comprehensive plan every 10 years, and that also has like a housing component to it.

Um, the Stanford needs-based housing assessment was something that we produced this year uh in conjunction with uh with the support of Stanford Health and Charter Road Communities, which is our local housing authority.

So we worked on that together and produced that in the fall with uh Data Haven was the um researcher that um supported us in that.

And then the way that we require affordable housing is through the below market rate program, which is a zoning requirement in section seven.

And um, we fund affordable housing through the um affordable housing trust fund and also through the affordable housing capital fund.

So I'm gonna go through kind of each of these, but um, like I said, the affordable the housing affordability plan is something that um I see that there's some hands up.

Yes.

There are.

So I believe first was Representative Walston.

You have the floor.

Hi, Emily.

So are you you're going through one, two, and three by um with this on slide because I had a question about number three.

But if you have a slide coming up for that, I can hold my question.

Great.

I'll go more into depth in that toward the end, um, Representative Walson, if that's okay.

Yep.

Yep, great.

Let's see.

Um, I believe it's my coach here who has her hand up.

Go ahead.

And then I see I had a question as well.

But since you're going to go over them, I'll just wait.

Perfect.

Thank you.

How about you, Representative Price?

I'm on the same page.

I'll happily wait.

My question was related to the same thing.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Great.

So as I mentioned, we were required to do a housing affordability plan.

This was the first housing affordability plan that the city had done in 20 years.

So that's going back again to that 2000 era where the city produced a lot of um a number of policies and programs related to affordable housing, and that came out of the, I think it was 2000 or 2001 affordability plan.

So 20 years later, we're doing our first housing plan.

So the key takeaways here was that Stanford did agree that housing affordability is a major issue that should be no shock to this committee.

Sorry to interrupt.

Are you supposed to be sharing your slide?

Because it came down.

Oh I was looking for representative price to say it.

I can reshare.

Am I the only one who doesn't see it?

I just think you're the only one that doesn't see it actually.

Yeah.

Yes, can you all see it now?

No, it was up for a brief moment, then it came back down.

Yeah.

Let me let me restart resharing again.

Okay.

Do you all see?

Yes, I see it.

All right.

Great.

Um, so the key takeaways from this plan was that Stanford agreed that housing affordability is a major issue.

The city is outperforming on housing production and affordable housing compared to other Connecticut communities, and that the below market rate program really, which we didn't really know here, um, when it's compared to other similar programs is actually a national example.

The calls to action though were to commit more funding to affordable housing projects, expand expertise and resources in the form of staff and training, and reduce or review current zoning patterns that have led to racial and socioeconomic segregation.

So those are a lot of the takeaways from that 2022 plan.

And that was built upon in the comprehensive plan that was just approved last year.

So Stanford residents still agree that housing affordability is a major issue.

Home prices and rents have increased significantly, creating the greatest challenge for households earning less than 75,000.

And Stanford does have a strong house, strong housing tools in place, but needs to uh and continues to adapt.

The calls to action were related to supporting diverse housing growth in areas served by existing infrastructure, uh prioritize the housing needs of extremely low-income residents and those at risk of homelessness, and expanding staffing and funding resources for housing development and services.

And the final plan that was done recently was the needs-based housing assessment, which was completed last fall.

Uh the key takeaways here, and this this is a really interesting assessment.

It was done in a different way.

It wasn't done with kind of the normal, all this public outreach and um and kind of the town halls that we saw for the comprehensive plan.

It was really done interviewing a lot of nonprofits and interviewing actual, you know, some low-income residents and understanding their struggles at this time.

So it was a very interesting study.

Um takeaways included that housing supply is short and demand is high.

Um 78% of our four 14,000 low-income renter households are cost burdened.

Affordable units in Stanford are mismatched with the needs of the low-income residents they serve.

So what that means is that we have a lot of affordable units and we have a lot of low-income residents, but the levels at which all of those are at don't necessarily match.

So we have residents that are being housed in units that aren't necessarily the best fit for them based on their income.

Um the calls to action included uh increasing support for emergency housing aid.

So that is some of what uh Sharona Moore deals with is figuring out how to help people stay in their homes or help them if they're at risk of um of being evicted, and um expand development of deeply affordable housing and support more housing supply generally to reduce market pressure on low-income neighborhoods.

Um the section two that we had talked about was um on that first slide, was that the city requires affordable housing, and that's through the below market rate program.

This is probably the program that people here have heard the most about.

Um it's a 25-year-old program.

It does require a percentage of the total units being built in a new development be designated affordable or an equivalent commitment to affordable housing.

That's usually through the um a payment to the now trust fund.

It is mandated by zoning for new developments and substantial renovations, including all buildings that are with 10 or more units.

And rents are capped at 30% of the maximum household income for the unit type and updated annually.

Units are permanently affordable for the life of the building.

So that makes us a little bit different than other programs, which we'll look at.

Emily, I'm going to pause you here.

I see representative prices hand up.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Emily, thank you for the comprehensive presentation.

A quick question about again, uh the same question actually for what I asked Verona.

The 30% of maximum income, excuse me, 30% of maximum household income.

Is that net or gross?

Because those are two very different numbers.

Gross.

Thank you.

Yep.

Great question.

And this is just a quick look at the um, you know, the BMR units can be, they could be managed by a nonprofit or built by a nonprofit or private, they could be rental, they could be ownership, they could be at all different unit types, and they could serve a wide variety of um the area meaning income or wide uh variety of residents.

But what we see is that um one bedrooms and actually some two bedrooms, these are the most common unit types.

Um the um is primarily renters, and that's because uh we have not seen a lot of condo development over the last uh 25 years.

Um primarily these are privately owned buildings, some of them are nonprofits, some of them are owned by the housing authority, but it's primarily privately owned.

And um and these the standard for the program is 50% AMI.

So there is some flexibility that's been built into the regulations lately, but it's primarily been meant to serve households at the 50% AMI level, and that's where about um 90% of the units have been um developed to serve that um income bracket.

Emily, can I ask you a quick question on that one?

Sure.

Um can you clarify that if there's uh BMR and in a luxury building, it still does not translate to affordable for most people.

So I think that gets to the question of what what is what does most people mean?

There is um I I think uh what if we know that the average one bedroom rent is about 2700 a month in Stanford, and we know that a BMR unit is going to be rented for a maximum of let's say 1550 a month.

We know that people are getting somewhere between probably 45 to even 50 percent discount on their rent.

So that's really meaningful.

Um, it's not gonna serve everyone, and I think that's what we need to be clear about is that this program is wasn't created to serve everyone and isn't going to serve everyone, but it doesn't mean it can't be a great tool and it has been.

And we do need to make some tweaks because um I don't have it in this presentation, but this is kind of what the needs-based housing assessment was looking at was saying, okay, we've built all these 50% AMI units, but we know that the need is at the deeply affordable level.

So, how do we how do we adjust the program to deal with that?

So it doesn't mean the units that we have now or the units that we're building aren't of value or um you know to some families, but we need to build other units for other families too.

And um, so I think it's complex.

Um we'll go into more of that.

Um, but I wanted to bring that up on this slide as it comes up frequently on this committee.

Um representative well, thank you.

Representative Walston, you have the floor.

Emily, here is my famous question.

The AMI.

What's the what is 50% of our AMI and what is our AMI number?

Yes, I can bring us to I can rush us through here.

Oh, I knew this question would come up.

Um so this is a little different again because the AMI geography changed, the AMI is actually kind of plummeted the last couple years, and that's because of that geography change.

For the BMR program, we have frozen the AMI this year because of that.

And that's to preserve the program.

That's to make sure that we aren't kicking a bunch of tenants out of the program just because the geography changed.

So it's a little complicated.

We know that the BMR, we know that the AMI is likely going to keep going up.

It's generally gone up every year.

But what's happened now is we kind of had this reset to this lower AMI because of the geography change that we had talked about earlier.

So what we've done here is we've frozen the AMI at last year's level.

So for four-person household, this was for the Stanford Norwalk.

So this isn't for the area that we were talking about earlier.

This is for the previously used area, which was more targeted, the Stanford Norwalk area four-person household, the area mean income for a four-person household was 180,000.

So that puts 50% of the AMI for a four-person household at 90,000.

But what we do know is that the average household size in Stanford is something around 2.5 people.

So it's probably, you know, more in this range.

The 70 to 80, and that's at 50% of the AMI.

So the yellow here is where most of the program units are at, depending on the household size, that would be the income cap.

And then down here would be the rent limit.

Again, the yellow is the 50% AMI units.

But that also includes utilities.

So we would discount for any utilities they're paying out of pocket, and then they would pay the rent minus, you know.

So that's why I said 1550 might be, you know, after paying 150 dollars in utilities, you know, someone might be paying 1550 for a one bedroom.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sure.

Um so these are just some buildings that you may recognize that have gone up around town, and it just kind of breaks down how many units are inside that are actually affordable.

I think people don't realize there are affordable units in nearly every building that's going up in Stanford.

So this huge building that's on 777 Summer Street has 37 BMR units in it.

Um it's a 376 unit building, uh, the Julius.

Um and then here's some other examples as well.

Um, the 84 West Park Place building, this was a conversion, so they did not have the same requirement, I believe, but they still provided three BMR units on site.

Um, and this is down in Columbus, like the Columbus Park area.

So you might recognize that building historic building.

Um, real quick, Emily.

Sure.

Um, I know that Sharona went through process reach out, go on the housing services website, but again, it comes up frequently, both from constituents and from the landlords that built BMRs.

Um, I've heard from landlords that they've had vacant rooms and there's a not a disconnect, but it goes through Charter Oak and there's qualifications.

But more importantly, how does just to say it, how does a constituent apply if they want to go somewhere specific?

Sure.

So we don't contract with charter oak communities, that's the local housing authority.

We don't contract with them directly.

So every building is required to manage their own wait list and manage their own applications.

So if a tenant wants to apply, the city does not manage the application process.

We do not do the review of those applications.

Um I am the only person in the city that works on this program at all, and I'm doing a lot of other things so you can kind of get a sense for how under staffed this is.

There are over 1300 units that have been built throughout this program, and we're collecting annual reports from them all.

Um actually they're due at the end of this week.

So we have a lot of um a lot that falls on our plate.

But um, so uh we have a list on the website of all of the buildings that are participating in the program.

We try to keep that fairly updated with the number of units in the building that are that are as that are part of the program, what affordability levels they're at, um, what type of units, a one bedrooms, two bedrooms, so people can get a sense for if that building there might be a unit there that would be a good fit for them.

Um, and then the other thing uh we have is the contact information for the building that the building has provided.

We request that at the beginning of every year.

try to keep that fairly updated with the number of units in the building um that are that are as that are part of the program what affordability levels they're at um what type of units so one bedrooms two bedrooms so people can get a sense for if that building there might be a unit there that would be a good fit for them um and then the other thing uh we have is the contact information for the building that the building has provided we request that at the beginning of every year um this is not used to be the practice this is a new practice as of a few years ago that we started providing um kind of that that updated information so when we do get changes to the contact information we do try to um keep that updated list but so people can go to that website they can um kind of browse the different buildings and then contact them directly to submit an application if there is any issue if people feel like people aren't getting back to me you know those are the times when people can reach out to me we're really oversight and compliance um we do not look at every tenant file or or um application but we can help if there's um any sort of issue that a tenant may have thank you uh yes that was the process um the the middle picture there is the Lafayette and they manage their own by using charter oaks so I was hoping to share that thank you so much I do see representative gross's hand up you have the floor yes thank you um well I guess I'm sort of just wondering what's the you're saying that the applications and the I guess wait lists are managed by the individual buildings I mean what's is it like a a sort of lottery system to select people for these BMR units um or is it like how does that decision uh you know how's the decision made yeah at the beginning of uh the building being built each building has uh is required to sign on to an affordability plan with the city so we co-sign an affordability plan with them that's a plan that the city has developed that basically has all of the rules of the program uh it also specifies the specific units in that building that are to be BMR units so there's a lot of details in each of those affordability plans um most of them are public on the website um if they're not there it's just because we haven't gotten around to adding them if they're newer buildings but um they're all in the land records so you can you can access them they're all public and in those it does say that when a building comes online you know we sign we sign on with those affordability plans they do outreach they're required to do outreach that can be through the paper um you know there's there's a minimum outreach requirements that they have and then um they typically do a we've been pushing for them to do a lottery system most recently for that initial um onboarding of tenants um initial lease up and once they do that initial lease up there is kind of a growing list of that the wait list is growing over time as they're getting new tenants on that wait list and then it's a first come first serve on the wait list um that they contact the tenants after that initial lottery period um they can close the wait list if they feel that there is uh that they're not going to be able to serve the the tenants on or the applicants on the wait list within a two year period they do have the ability to close those wait lists um so that's why you see a lot of closed wait lists on our website because there's quite a few um applicants that are interested in these buildings and so you said they're you're pushing for them to do lotteries but are they not currently for I guess when a building is first built I think in the original affordability plans they had the option so they could either do first come first serve or lottery but you know what we know now is that the lottery is just the fairer process it shouldn't just be whoever got to their door first with their application it should really be um a period of time that they're collecting applications and then they do a lottery um with those collected applications so um I can check with my colleagues to see if it's a requirement now I don't know if it's been made a requirement but it's basically the the standard practice at this point.

Okay thank you yeah I'd be curious to know if it's a requirement um I see a few hands up so first it looks like representative price and then uh representative Walston your hand was up if okay so you're second because I saw it up before and then after that is representative weirs.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Emily again thank you for your efforts today.

A quick question for you at the Lafayette I'm trying to get my my head around this uh this stuff and it looks like for some of them uh show me show the excuse showing seven seven summer street it's a 10% uh BMR rate and for the Lafayette I'm trying to figure out how we got 17 units off of 130 that just seems like a an odd number to me.

Yeah that's a that's a good point.

So um it looks like the the Julius here on the right that that was a pretty straight 10% and what they probably did you might say well what happened to the point six unit well they probably paid they what they did was they paid that into the trust fund right so they could have given 38 units they gave 37 and then they gave the the remainder into the trust fund.

So they could have given 38 units, they gave 37, and then they gave the the remainder into the trust fund.

Um and like I said, with the conversion on the left, I'm actually surprised to see they have three units here because um usually the conversions there's a lower, and that may be that they got in before the regulation had changed, but they're typically the conversions have a lower BMR requirement to make it a little easier for them to convert the buildings.

Um as it goes for the Lafayette, as part of the development, we talked about um there was a question about naturally occurring affordable housing or what our zoning regulations call market rate affordable housing.

There were actually um some town homes, I believe, on this site before the building was developed, and these townhomes were they were not in great shape, but they were housing people, and so there is a requirement in our below market rate regulations right now that if you are um if your project basically removes housing, so if it's removing what they're calling market rate affordable housing from the site, you have to replace it at a fraction of what it was on top of your BMR requirements.

So that's how we get the 17.

So we had the original 13 requirement, and then there's um an addition on top of that.

And also I'll just add that the zoning regulations have changed over time.

So diff districts are a little bit different.

Some of the districts are actually up to 14% right now.

So it could also depend on the type of building, what was on the site when you were developing, and also what district you're in.

Thanks, Emily.

That was a very comprehensive answer to a very pedantic question.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Sure.

Uh Representative Walston, you have the floor.

I accidentally hit raise my hand.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Uh Representative Weirs.

Thank you, Emily.

Um, this this is very helpful and appreciate your time tonight.

Um, so you had mentioned before um, and I think we all know that most of the new development is all apartment buildings and and rentals.

Um, and we we never very rarely do we see condos going up.

Um it's kind of a two-part question.

Uh first, why is that?

And two, um, because below market um rates do apply to condos as well, I believe.

Um would there be a benefit to affordable housing in Stanford if we had more uh new developments that had condos as opposed to apartments.

Yeah, it's a good question.

Um there um so it's funny.

I actually live in a condo building that is a BMR condo building that was built in around the 2005 when they were actually building condos.

Um and it's a mixed income building.

Um yeah, we're just not seeing condos being built.

I think the reason I think is two part.

One is that there is a really high demand for rental, and there's kind of always probably going to be a high demand for rental, right?

Because of either whether it's transient more transient people, people who are moving here for maybe just a short time or they just want to move to a certain neighborhood for a short time, or just people not being able to to afford a down payment on a house, and especially in this housing market that we're seeing.

Um, I think that there's many reasons why people can't afford homeownership at this point.

And so there's just a very much higher demand for rent.

But then secondly, my understanding is that homeownership is much riskier to develop, that the developers have to have their kind of financing more in place, that they have to get their buyers lined up, that there's a lot more complications and it's more risky.

And so I mean, my assumption is that until we see this is my assumption, is that maybe until we see like the rental market more kind of saturated that we probably won't see more condos, but that's just a guess from me.

And and so we do have um, we do have about 90, I think, homeownership units in the BMR program.

So they do exist, they are a bit of a unicorn, they don't come up very often.

We see maybe one sale, one resale of them a year.

Um, and they're very highly desirable.

Yeah, yeah.

And I I know for the the for the builder for the developer, the rentals far more profitable for them.

But you know, unless unless they're given incentives to build condos, they're gonna keep building rentals.

Uh I think regardless of whether there's demand or not.

But thank you for answering the question.

Yep.

Representative Walston, is that on purpose?

Yeah, floor.

You have the floor.

Emily, what's the life cycle of uh the people living in the BMR appointment?

I mean apart apartment.

Yeah, you mean like how long have they, how long do they live in a unit?

Is that basically, yeah.

How often do you see like them graduating out and coming in and graduating out, or they're there for a long term?

We don't see, I'll say I it doesn't seem well, and this is a good or a bad thing, however, you want to look at it.

We we don't see people going over the limit very often.

So what that means is we're not forcing a lot of people out of the program because they're over income, but that also means to your point that we're not, you know, people aren't you know moving out of the program necessarily.

So um into market rate housing.

So I wouldn't say that I know that for sure because I you know, I only see I only see the reporting every year.

So I don't necessarily know that some maybe somebody knows they're over they're going to be over income and they proactively move.

I wouldn't necessarily see that.

So um, but we don't see many people that kind of on paper look like they're over income, and then next year they'll be out of the unit.

So um that's that's not something we see much of.

But as far as people living in the unit, and this includes new units that are being built, because remember, there's units coming online all the time.

I think the average length of time that people have been living in the units is something like four years.

Um but there's people who have been living in units since buildings were built.

So you know, 10 years, 12 years, depending on how old the building is.

Wow.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Emily.

Yeah.

Um, so this is just a quick comparison of uh RBMR program compared to some local, you know, kind of regional comparisons.

So our BMR program is called an inclusionary zoning program.

It's kind of if you were to uh kind of try to find it in other cities, it would be called an inclusionary zoning program.

And so you'll see that our percentage is actually quite high.

So I said it historically was 10%, but it's gone up to 14% in some districts, which puts us kind of at the top range of all of these comparisons.

Um, affordability level is quite low, which means we're serving lower income people in comparison to most of these programs, which are serving more 60 to 80% of the area median income.

So we're doing a good job in that sense as well.

Not only are we requiring a decent number of units, but we're also requiring them at lower affordability levels.

And we talked about this earlier, but um, we require these units to be affordable for the life of the building.

So that's different than Jersey City, which only requires them to be affordable for 10 years, or New Rochelle, which only requires 30 years.

Um, and you know, even like a like a tax credit building might only require affordable units to be for 40 years.

So there's a lot of um programs that have a cap on that, and ours is for the life of the building, which um means that we're not seeing units kind of rolling offline.

Um we won't have to worry about that in the future.

Um, so that I don't know if there's any other BMR questions.

That was kind of a big category, and I know it's a it's a it's a big topic, but I'm gonna move into the more funding aspects now.

So if anyone has any BMR questions that they want to ask now, happy to take them or save them till the end.

Uh looks like representative gross has a question.

You have the floor.

Uh thank you.

Um I guess only are the BMR units that we're designating, are they only at 50% or is there other percentages like around the city, or is it sort of like blanket 50% is our like affordable unit?

Um, so 50% was always the default, kind of the required, but uh with permission, so um developers could do a different affordability mix, but most developers are just they're just trying to meet their mandate, they're just doing the 50% AMI.

Um there are some units, but I think for the privately owned buildings, it's something like 92% of the units are 50% AMI.

Um, what I would like to see happen, and the zoning board has started moving in this direction a little bit, is we need more lower AMI units, but the problem with requiring too many low AMI units is um you know, for deeply affordable units, you need more supportive services.

So I think there's kind of a push pull with that, and um, but if we were to do 45% AMI or 40% AMI, you might hit the sweet spot of being able to get lower units without needing kind of the support services.

Um so that's that's where the the zoning board has created more flexibility.

They've basically said if you want to the developer wants to bring us a plan for 40% to 50% AMI, we you can do that automatically.

We don't need to approve it.

It's it's automatic.

So that's a change.

And then the other thing that's changed is you used to be able to provide plans up to 80% of the AMI, and the zoning board has reduced that to 65% AMI.

So now if you bring uh like a redistributed plan showing a 70% AMI unit or 80% AMI unit, that doesn't even count as a BMR unit anymore.

Great, thank you, Emily.

Yep.

I don't see any other hands, Emily.

Oh wait, uh Representative Walson, raised your hand.

Go ahead, Dan.

Uh Representative Walston.

Representative Walston, you have your hand up.

I don't hear you, but I see you speaking.

Nothing.

Okay, when she comes back on.

Okay.

Back to her.

So these slides should go a little quicker.

Um the affordable housing trust fund uh is quite new.

You may know it's only about five years old.

So um the way that the city funds affordable housing through the trust fund is one through payments in lieu of BMR units going into the trust funds.

Like I said, there's sometimes partial, what we call like partial BMR units, so that extra 0.6 from the Julius that they might pay out and it would go into the trust fund.

Um and then there a developer, it's now allowed that a developer doesn't need a special permit to um pay the fee in lieu.

They can actually just choose to do that.

They don't need the zoning board's permission.

So a developer could choose not to build the units on site and they could just put the money into the trust fund.

I see there's a hand raised.

Yes, sir.

Representative price, you're first.

You have the oh, I'm sorry, representative price.

Uh representative Walston's back on, and I'm gonna go to her first if that's okay.

Of course.

Representative Walston.

Okay, um we could hear you.

Emily, I'm I'm still I'm still learning now.

I'm not saying I know everything.

What's the difference between the general fund and a housing trust fund with the developers they pay into a general fund, their monies?

Madam Sure, I have a point of privilege.

Uh yes.

I have to leave for the L and R meeting.

I have an agenda item.

I will be departing the meeting.

I will rejoin as soon as possible.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you for letting me interrupt you, Representative Walston.

I apologize.

Okay.

All right, Representative Walson, you have the floor.

Yeah.

Um