Committee advances affordable-housing funding update and approves $4.13M land-acquisition loan for 5 Points
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Summary
Staff updated council on the affordable housing funding policy and the housing-trust-fund bond; committee approved staff's $4,130,000 short-term land-acquisition loan recommendation to support a mixed-income project at 5 Points, passing the motion 4—1.
Rebecca Heffner, director of Housing and Neighborhood Services, briefed the committee on the city's affordable-housing funding policy and the status of the $100 million 2024 housing bond. She said the city typically receives about $13,000,000 annually in federal housing allocations across CDBG, HOME, Emergency Solutions, and HOPWA programs and described the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) schedule and remaining bond balance of about $46.6 million.
Heffner framed the policy's three overarching goals—residential stability, neighborhood affordability and economic mobility—and five investment priorities used to guide RFPs and staff recommendations. Staff noted a rolling RFP schedule timed to state tax-credit cycles, recommendations to council in April and April 27 consideration for HTF awards.
Economic development staff then presented a land-acquisition recommendation for 5 Points to secure site control early in a two-stage TOD land-acquisition program (short-term loan, then a later full development funding request). Staff described the proposed funding mix: a $4.14M takedown where the city would fill a residual after fee-in-lieu funds (fee-in-lieu balance ~$1.74M) and an HTF site-acquisition balance; the acquisition would leave a remaining HTF site-acquisition balance of about $2.6M after the transaction.
Council considered the recommendation and a motion to invest $4,130,000 in the developer's acquisition of the Gold Line site was made, seconded and approved by voice vote (recorded as four in favor, one opposed). Staff said the land-acquisition loan would be short-term (3—25 years, up to 90% LTV) and that the full affordable-housing proposal would return to council for review in the second stage with specific unit counts and AMI breakdowns.
The committee's action advances an acquisition-stage investment designed to protect future affordability in a transit-priority area; the second-stage development application will include the HTF requirements (including the 20% of units at 30% AMI requirement for HTF projects).