The Housing and Community Development Department (HCDD) recommends the appropriation of $18,000,000.00 of Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) Affordable Housing Funds to build single-family and multifamily affordable homes, as well as to administer HCDD’s affordable home activities. HCDD additionally recommends amending Ordinance No. 2005-1395 to remove the requirement for City Council approval of administrative program guidelines and to allow the HCDD Director to approve guidelines and criteria used to evaluate funding proposals.
This Ordinance allocates funds for administrative use. For direct program activities, specific contracts will be brought to Council for allocation in accordance with local procurement rules. Following the federal requirement, TIRZ appropriations will be considered substantially amended and then brought back to City Council for approval when a previously approved amount is decreased or increased by 25% or more. A brief description of each TIRZ funding category follows.
|
Category
|
Total Amount
|
Description
|
|
Single-Family Activities
|
$10,647,233.77
|
Single family activities for, but not limited to, home repair, new construction, Down Payment Assistance and activity delivery cost
|
|
Multifamily Activities
|
$5,000,000.00
|
Multifamily rehab and new construction and activity delivery cost
|
|
Affordable Housing Administration & Federal/State Grant Leveraging
|
$2,352,766.23
|
Administrative cost for administering local, state and federal funded activities by HCDD
|
|
Total
|
$18,000,000.00
|
|
There is no estimated impact to operating and maintenance costs as a result of this project. Therefore, no Fiscal Note is required as stated in the Financial Policy Ord. 2014-1078.
On December 20, 2005, City Council approved Ordinance No. 2005-1395, which adopted certain policies and procedures related to the funding and approval of affordable housing programs. HCDD requests an amendment to this ordinance to give the HCDD Director greater flexibility in altering program guidelines as necessary to ensure compliance with laws and regulations and to respond rapidly to changing needs in the community.
This amendment will remove Section 2.C. of the 2005 ordinance, which requires substantial program amendments to be posted for 30-days and approved by City Council, and will alter Section 2.A. to allow the Director to approve guidelines and criteria used to evaluate requests for funding. These changes will not impact City Council’s ability to set overall policy and approve budgets related to the City’s affordable housing programs.
_________________________________
Tom McCasland, Director