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Home My WebLink About2018-10-25 HRA Work Session Meeting PacketAgenda Housing and Redevelopment Authority Work Session Meeting City of Edina, Minnesota City Hall Community Room Thursday, October 25, 2018 7:30 AM I.Call to Order II.Roll Call III.Joint Meeting with Edina Neighbors for Aordable Housing IV.Adjournment The Edina Housing and Redevelopment Authority wants all participants to be comfortable being part of the public process. If you need assistance in the way of hearing ampli&cation, an interpreter, large-print documents or something else, please call 952-927-8861 72 hours in advance of the meeting. Date: October 25, 2018 Agenda Item #: III. To:Chair & Commissioners of the Edina HRA Item Type: Other From:Scott Neal, Executive Director Item Activity: Subject:Joint Meeting with Edina Neighbors for Affordable Housing Discussion Edina Housing and Redevelopment Authority Established 1974 CITY OF EDINA HOUSING & REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY 4801 West 50th Street Edina, MN 55424 www.edinamn.gov ACTION REQUESTED: None. INTRODUCTION: Ms. Hope Melton with Edina Neighbors for Affordable Housing will present their 2018-19 Affordable Housing Policy Platform to the HRA. ATTACHMENTS: Description Housing Policy Platform 1 EDINA NEIGHBORS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING AFFORDABLE HOUSING POLICY PLATFORM 2018 - 2019 Safe, secure, and affordable housing is essential to the healthy development of individuals, families, businesses, and communities. Edina is also part of a regional community. Regional vitality depends upon all municipalities assuming their fair share of affordable housing. The purpose of this Affordable Housing Policy Platform is to: 1. Support the City’s commitment to secure and affordable life-cycle housing, a diverse and equitable community, and a healthy, prosperous metropolitan region. 2.Provide speciﬁc policy recommendations that will reinforce the housing recommendations of the City’s three citizen-led organizations; Edina Neighbors for Affordable Housing (ENAH), the Edina Human Rights & Relations Commission, and the Race and Equity Task Force. GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS: 1. Create An Affordable Housing Plan within the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. This includes a) guiding principles based on equity and diversity, b) speciﬁc ownership and rental unit goals and strategies to achieve them, and c) a system of data-driven monitoring and evaluations. This plan would be a stand-alone document for affordable housing, and used in small area planning. 2.Voluntarily incorporate the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing principles into Edina’s housing policy, particularly the commitment to conducting regular empirical analysis of barriers to fair housing. The federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 requires HUD and certain HUD grantees to "affirmatively further fair housing”. This means those grantees must demonstrate that they are actively analyzing housing in their communities, and proactively seeking out ways to improve mobility, and break down barriers to inclusionary housing. This includes addressing affordability barriers and racial segregation. Although Edina is not a HUD entitlement community required to formally certify it is affirmatively furthering fair housing, Hennepin County and many of its surrounding cities are. Regional coordination would encourage Edina to show solidarity with its neighboring communities and voluntarily adopt these principles into its affordable housing planning and policies. 3.Edina should require affirmative marketing plans for affordable rental and homeownership units produced or preserved with public subsidy. An affirmative marketing plan is targeted at geographic areas or groups who are least likely to consider applying or purchasing housing in Edina, in part because of inaccessibility of information and in part because they fear they will face racial, ethnic, or other socioeconomic discrimination. Affirmative marketing can be conducted through partner groups, such as VEAP, the Edina Family Resource Center, the Edina Homeowner Diversity Initiative 2 sponsored by the Permanent Residential Mortgage Group, Inc., and other community contacts. 4.Edina should require all developers to contribute toward affordable housing while keeping the 20+ multi-residential requirement intact. Other development, including single-family tear-downs and rebuilds, commercial properties, and 10-unit residential developments should all contribute to the affordable housing fund. This tactic would more fairly distribute the ﬁnancial burden of funding affordable housing, secure more funding, and ease the expectation on this one segment of developers SPECIFIC POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS: The following recommendations are intended to promote the City’s commitment to equity and racial/ethnic diversity while a)preserving its existing affordable rental and ownership housing, b)protecting its tenant population, and c)producing more affordable housing for a broad and diverse spectrum of community members across income levels and generations. A. PRESERVE: Preserving existing affordable properties helps to conserve the public dollars already invested in the City’s affordable housing supply. These homes play a critical role in ensuring that there are a range of choices for those who want to live, work, and attend school in Edina. Preservation is also environmentally responsible. The preservation of existing affordable housing produces less waste and uses less new materials and energy than new construction. 1. RENTAL: a) Licensing & Inspections. Register and license all buildings with affordable units with the City of Edina. Quantify information for new and “naturally occurring affordable housing” (NOAH). This includes affordability categories, rent levels, acceptance of Section 8 vouchers, and housing age and condition. These parameters should be monitored on a regular basis so the City remains informed about its rental affordable housing inventory. Licensing enables the City/HRA to maintain safe and good quality affordable housing. b) Establish a city NOAH Fund with the Edina Housing Foundation to support housing preservation. The NOAH Fund provides resources for rehabilitation. It can be used to write down rents on some NOAH buildings to keep units affordable and within Section 8 Federal Minimum Requirements (FMRs), along with a commitment to take Section 8. Both sellers and buyers are able to make a community impact while achieving fair and reasonable returns. 3 c) Provide property tax reductions for NOAH Housing in return for keeping units affordable at 60% or less of the area median income (AMI). Under state statute, if the City records a use agreement for 60% AMI rents and incomes, the property may be eligible for a property tax class rate reduction, which helps keep rents low. (www.housingcounts.org) 2. OWNERSHIP: Preserving the affordability of Edina’s single family homes without disadvantaging current owners is perhaps the City’s greatest challenge. But absent public intervention to preserve modest, middle class homes and neighborhoods, the city will become a de facto gated community, open only to very wealthy households. This would contradict the City’s equity and diversity goals. The existing ownership housing stock is typically the most affordable housing stock in a community. Affordable housing options are critical for those living and/or working in the community, or having children in Edina schools, to transition from rental to home ownership. Ensuring that the homes are maintained is critical to providing safe and good quality housing stock for new and growing families. a) Establish Housing Improvement Areas (HIA). This is a deﬁned area in a city in which housing improvements in condominium or townhome complexes can be ﬁnanced with the assistance of the HRA, and/or the Edina Housing Foundation. a) Tie strong housing code enforcement to resources for home improvement. Expand the Edina Housing Foundation Senior Community Services’ H.O.M.E. (Household and Outside Maintenance for the Elderly) program to help preserve the older housing stock. b) Expand and Widely Publicize Come Home 2 Edina with the Edina Housing Foundation. Affirmative marketing plans apply here. Target families currently renting and/or with children in Edina public schools who want to own homes in Edina and older homeowners who want to continue to afford home ownership in retirement. This could be done through Edina Schools Community Education. c) Establish an Edina Land Trust with the Edina Housing Foundation. City ownership of the land will help to preserve affordable single family homes. 4 Perhaps the City could appeal to Edina businesses, charitable donors, and the wider philanthropic community to help fund the Land Trust. d) Offer Homeownership Education and Counseling Homeownership education and counseling offers important beneﬁts that help families to both attain homeownership and sustain it once they're in place. B. PROTECT Protecting tenant populations preserves family, neighborhood and community stability. It protects businesses by fostering workforce stability. It protects enrollment stability in schools. 1. Tenant Protection Ordinances a) Adopt a 90 Day Advance Notice to Sell and Tenant Protection Ordinance (TPO). This requires property owners to give tenants and the city a 90 day advanced notice prior to the sale of the property. It provides more time for preservation buyers fo amass a ﬁnancing package and submit a competitive offer on the property to keep it affordable. Service providers have more time to assist tenants in ﬁnding replacement housing in case the building is not sold to a preservation buyer. In some cases it may enable children living in these units to complete the school year. St. Louis Park and Golden Valley recently adopted the TPO. When a NOAH property is sold, the new owner can’t increase rents or evict without cause for the ﬁrst 90 days, unless the owner wants to pay relocation beneﬁts. Combining the two effectively provides tenants with six months notice. b) Adopt a Section 8 Protection Ordinance. Prohibits discrimination against Section 8 vouchers and recipients of other government funding programs. If it is within a human rights act ordinance and has to be moved because of a recent court decision, the Housing Justice Center suggests moving it to the rental licensing process. c) Extend Just Cause Requirements A lease can currently only be terminated for a just cause. However Minnesota State Law allows no-fault nonrenewable leases with only 30 days written notice. This causes involuntary displacement of tenants with positive rental histories. Extending the Just Cause Ordinance enables renters in to stay in their housing as long as they are in good standing and respect lease guidelines. C. PRODUCE 5 1. Edina will develop, at a minimum, the Metropolitan Council forecast need for affordable housing units by 2030. That is a total of 878 units; 365 at 30% AMI, 234 at 31%-50% AMI, and 279 at 51%-80%AMI. 2. Change the Edina Affordable Housing Policy to read: a) “The City recognizes the need to provide affordable housing in order to create and maintain an equitable and diverse community.” b) The required minimum number of affordable units is 20% of total building units. Affordability categories are 30%, 50%, and 60% AMI. Half the units will maintain affordability for a minimum of 30 years. c) Affordable housing, both rental and ownership, including single family homes, will be integrated within neighborhoods throughout the city. Transit availability and walkability are important, but care must be taken not to concentrate affordable housing near commercial or industrial areas. 3. The Affordable Housing Section of the Comprehensive Plan will follow the Housing Justice Center “Comp Plan Housing Element Matrix”. 4. Adopt the Edina Human Rights & Relations Commission and Race & Equity Task Force Report housing recommendations. This material was taken from ordinances and information provided by the Suburban Hennepin Housing Coalition, the Housing Justice Center, the Edina Race & Equity Task Force Report, the Edina Human Rights & Relations Commission Housing Recommendations, and the website www.housingcounts.org. Will Stancil, with the University of Minnesota Law School’s Institute for Metropolitan Opportunity, provided the information regarding the federal Fair Housing Act and a coordinated regional approach to affordable housing. Timothy Thompson, President and Senior Attorney at the Housing Justice Center provided suggestions regarding the 90 Day Advance Notice TPO and Section 8 protections. Hope Melton 9/25/18 Coordinator, Edina Neighbors for Affordable Housing