myself. I'm blab over the internet. All right, 6:30 on the dot. Going to go ahead and uh call the meeting to order. Uh we'll start with just a quick roll call on attendance. Uh Joe Graalisi
>> present. >> Annayo Osuk >> present. >> Deborah Frank. >> That's right. It's not here. Yep. Uh Dean Harris >> present. >> Uh Llaya Petri >> present.
>> Lori Manzo >> present. Um, and no, oh, and Judy Goslin >> present. >> Sorry, you weren't on my former list. Um,
cool. Okay. And I think we'll we'll open up with a finances update if you want to update the group. Uh, good evening everyone. This is the current budget provided to me by Sutton who is the assistant budget director of the city of River. The current balance of the affordable housing trust committee is
$879,6323. This balance is reflective of the approximately $167,000 that is encumbered for the next two payments to the neighborhood developers. Interest posted for this period is $3,52367.
Also during this period, a payment of $5,000 was made uh toward a senior homes repairs program. Thank you. And I'll also add, even though it's not reflected yet because it just happened on I guess Monday, uh we had another
$10,000 down payment assistance recipient. Um so subtract that from our total, but for a good reason obviously because we love seeing, you know, people get that and have that paid out. So good news. Uh but just factor that in when thinking about the numbers.
>> Great. Thanks for the uh the note, Joe. Um, and the next item we had on the agenda is a budget update. Um, me and I worked uh this week to kind of update the long-term budget that we had put together last year. Um, we do have one
um material outstanding item that we're still waiting to confirm uh the timing of the one-time payment from Modera for $250,000. Um but exclusive of that kind of the
high level numbers are, you know, we right now have uh $643,000 of commitments through the end of the year. Uh and that's inclusive of one more uh 110 ocean payment to the
neighborhood developers of $83,000. uh $50,000 allocated to the RDU program, $60,000 remaining to be handed out um as part of the down payment assistance grants, which, you know, great news. We've got another $10,000 going to work
there. Uh and the last two items we have that make up that $643,000 total are new initiatives, money that we haven't officially committed or or spent yet. Uh, one of them is the buy down program, which we're going to be
discussing in more depth later today. Right now, we've got that earmarked for $300,000. Uh, and the last is the open call proposals, the $150,000 that we have allocated there. So,
uh, inclusive of the roughly $200,000 we're expecting in city free cash, we have, uh, $1,79,000 of money to invest this year. Uh, minus what we've already allocated for. We've
we've got like a net uninvested capital balance of $436,000. So, that's kind of the rough headline of the budget. I think once we confirm uh the placement of the MOA payment and um we also still want to sharpen up kind of
our uh interest acrruel estimation. Right now we've got a placeholder assumption in there and we're working with the Treasury Department to verify the actual amount. So I think once we tidy up those two items, we'll we'll send kind of a final um budget as of you
know um midappril around to uh the board members. Um, but in the meantime, those are the the high level numbers. >> Yeah. And so a couple things I'll first of all, thank you for this. Great job. You know, much appreciated the work that you guys did to just kind of lay this
out and help us get an overview. Um, so updates or or commentary related to this. Uh, it's for the open call proposals. You know, we haven't received one yet. Uh, we'll do another round of um, publicity and we'll set a hard deadline like we talked about. um you
know, we last voted on this. Uh but we're going to keep that, you know, budgeted rather than pull it out because we want to make sure that it's there and and accounted for, you know, in the event that we do get proposals and if we don't, then we don't and we just carry the money forward and
acrew interest on it. So that's fine. Um we do expect uh so as far as the free cash, that's an estimate. Um we don't know you know the city's financial picture is kind of still coming into into focus for the year. Uh we did get you know the mayor is going to continue
to ensure that we receive support similar on a percentage basis as we've received uh last couple years. So we have a decent estimate that we can make but that's still kind of to be to be confirmed but I think we can put that in there as a placeholder. Um, we are
expecting an additional $50,000 incoming from a state earmark in support of down payment programs. Um, so we can add that to inflows if it's not there yet, which I don't think it is. Um, and I think those are all my notes. And then when we talk about the buy down
program, that could potentially come with other inflow as well, but that's a separate conversation. We won't we'll we'll save that for another day. But I think this gives us a good Oh, not another day for another agenda item. But I think this is a good overview. You know, it shows that,
you know, we're not just sitting on the money. We're trying to commit it and do useful programs and do things that are going to be beneial and helpful to people, but at the same time, we want to, you know, preserve some level of a healthy um remaining amount. U you know, I think we
look at, you know, next year we start looking at like we have a smaller starting balance. we might want to think about smaller programs. Uh but we also have the potential to you know get additional state earmarks to hopefully raise some private funds which I know is on the agenda uh for moving forward.
Um and then you know hopefully in the long long run things like um community preservation act and other tools that hopefully could exist to you know that's out of our control but if it does happen you know that gives us an opportunity
raise some more sustainable funds. So, um, that's just a good overview. I really appreciate you, uh, Matt and I are putting this together, and I think that's all I got, you know, commentary-wise on it. >> Any other questions or comments before we move on?
>> Great. Okay. Next up on the uh, agenda is a report out from the fundraising subcommittee. >> Thank you again. I wanted to provide a quick update as to the activities of the US fundraising committee. So just a uh quick review of what we did last. We met
March 5th of this year and we had three main idea items on the agenda. Uh one, we summarized the Habitat for Human Habitat for Greater Boston meeting that happened earlier in our year January 13, 2025. uh we talked about capacity building and also we discussed upcoming
activities including attending a grant writing workshop uh held at Boston public library in CPPley which Judy and I did um this this past Monday. Now in this workshop it was comprehensive was very informative and we're able to use a lot of the information that uh we
learned from this workshop to apply directly to the grant that we're actually writing. Uh I'm gonna allow Judy to explain or discuss her experience at that event. >> So I know nothing about grant writing. So this was going to be some some new
learning for me. So before I went, I looked at what we were doing here in Revier with the uh Next Stop Revier and the housing plan and used that information as a source to figure out what we could do for the for um grant writing. And so I went to Claude and I
went to ChachiBT and I kind of did some homework through there to come up what would be some good grant writing um frameworks and things like that that you could use and it was very informative. Um, so I took that information, I took it to the class to see how close it was
to what this instructor, who was very good, was going to uh educate us on. And I was pleased to see that it it was very informative. I thought we got a lot of good ideas out of it. And I think uh my takeaway from the class and the
information for what was generated that I think we can use in a lot of different formats is that it gives a good framework. It gave some good information for putting um some proformas together, be it for lenders or investors. But for me, I I needed to know more around the
compliance and um some Massachusetts based partnerships we could explore more, but also as we're pulling that together, what information would be critical to create a real good framework as we move forward to measure ourselves
in how well we're doing to do more fundraising opportunities. So, I was trying to look at it from that perspective. So there's a lot of criteria that um I'd put together to move forward on you know exploring the
way it could fit into making this a measurable work type thing to do for future investments. >> Absolutely. And following up, well, thank you about that, Judy. Following up with Judy's work, uh we've actually since uh put together a frame, actually
put in the paper, we have a proposal, a framework of sorts. Again, as Judy mentioned, we took a lot of the best elements uh from that workshop, applied it directly to it, and uh now the next steps are the following. So we'll meet again with our uh subcommittee and in
this meeting we will introduce we will tell the subcommittee about where we are with this uh proposal and there's lots of opportunities for brainstorming to take add track to this work to this particular u uh draft but the draft is just one part of this effort for uh this
uh funding assistance request. We will try to touch base with community partners involved in the project. Uh I kind of alluded to it earlier that we had a meeting uh January at the beginning of the year with some community partners and we'd like to touch base there. Another component
that's we'd also like to build on is the relationship with Tom and the city of uh planning and uh planning and community development. Uh we would like to build on some work that he and his team is doing regarding fundraising activities or grant writing. That's something that I will reach out to Tom directly and
bring to the group uh uh to the group when we next meet. So yeah, that's our objectives. Those are our goals and our summary of what we've done thus far and hope uh next meeting we can provide more in terms of our progress on those uh fundraising activities. Thank you.
>> Awesome. So Anna, are you going to send out um invitations and times to reconvene? >> Correct. I wanted to first talk about it here in a open setting. Yeah. And then um touch base obviously with Tom first because that's a big component that's uh
that isn't part of this fundraising activity is including uh Tom in this and that's something that I'd like to initiate thereafter. So this week early next week and then thereafter I can put out some dates that we can all perhaps meet to kind of put together. and also
this concept this importance of touching base with our community partners to let them know where we are in the process and that we haven't really dropped the ball since our meeting January. >> Yeah. Uh terrific. Uh thank you for that. And then I think also you know just to give you all without going into
too much detail that's not you know for a public I think I'd mentioned to some of you uh there was a funer that I planned on you know discussing our proposal for the senior repairs program with that had gone through you know some personal matters that kept them out of the office but I anticipate being able
to pick that conversation back up soon. So, appreciate everyone's patience with that one and uh look forward to next steps and obviously would love to have the committee involved as we uh go forward with this once we kind of hit the next uh next part of the process.
>> Great. Thanks for the uh updates. Um next, we wanted to kind of spend a couple agenda items on the ADU loan program. Joe, I think you have some some updates for us. Yeah. So, uh, some positive updates. Uh, we got five applications, you know,
fairly fairly quickly. Um, the So, a few of them look like they're, you know, they have their permits and they're eligible. So, they just need to kind of go through the final steps. Um, a few of the applications were still kind of in the conceptual phase where they were interested in seeing if they were eligible, but, you know, you don't you
technically don't get um you can't get the loan till you get your building permits. So, those funds are still available. Um, so we're still keeping the application portal open. Um, you know, should those projects not come to fruition um or someone else, you know, get it tied up more quickly. But we're
certainly on track to um successfully, you know, complete the loan program and uh support five projects. So that's good news. I think that kind of flows into um the next item, which is, you know, a proposal maybe for a future modification. Uh I'm going to take a little bit of a miaulpa
on this one because I know that when we talked about uh putting together the initial guidelines for the program we had gone back and forth on the AMI requirement for the um rent for the ADU and you know I had kind of said why
don't we keep it at 100% rather than at 80%. kind of on the grounds that we want to encourage more people to apply, right? We don't want to we don't want to kind of be limiting the creation of ADUs because ADUs kind of inherently provide some affordable housing and generally
they're all renting at below that rate anyway. Uh I am going to propose and suggest that for future applications and for future rounds, we take the advice that some of you had and you were correct uh that we do um limit it to 80% AMI. I'd say maybe starting with like a
reasonable two weeks notice for the application portal assuming it's still open then. Uh my reasoning for this is that just it's based on kind of observing conditions on the ground. So part of the reason why we wanted to do this program was to encourage ADU construction in general, but it turns
out it doesn't really need encouragement. There's been a lot like hundreds, you know, of of ADUs um proposed or moved through the process in the city. So that's great to see, but um we don't need to be the ones pressing the gas on it. You know, kind of market
forces are already doing that. So um our role in this is less to do with creating these, you know, at least somewhat naturally occurring affordable units and more steering them towards, you know, below market rates. So I think that's just a ground condition that's different
than I anticipated. Um, I was worried that maybe the the cost of building might prevent some of these from being built to begin with, but that's that's not happening. So, that's the part that I wasn't sure about. The part that is not surprising, but is still, you know, usefully responsive to conditions on the ground
is that we're seeing what the average rents are. You can go look, you know, on Zillow and on Craigslist and Rent Cafe and everywhere else that lists apartments and you can see that, you know, they're generally going in this sort of depending on the square footage and the neighborhood, you know, like
2200, 21, 100, you know, they're they're generally not all the way up to kind of that max that you can get at 100% AMI anyway, which is usually like in the 24 2500 range. Um, so they're kind of coming in below market a little bit
anyway. And so if we can place that cap and, you know, ensure that it's affordable to 80% AMI or below, that probably makes more sense. So I want to uh, you know, I I advocated the other direction when we initially designed this. So apologies to those of you that, you know, wanted to go this way to begin
with. Uh, but I think that with the benefit of additional information, I think it's a sensible proposal for future applicants without changing the rules on people that already applied obviously because we already had it out there. So, I wanted to put that out for discussion, see if folks had questions, but I think, you know, my my general
takeaway is response has been strong. Uh, quite a few have been constructed and they are renting at below, you know, what's considered AMI market rent. So, good news all around. Uh but maybe some modifications for our program are in
order. So any thoughts, questions? >> Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, we we've got new information. We should react to it. I think also just some of the other programs we've been running like down payment assistance in particular in recent memory where, you know, it's maybe been harder than
expected to get applicants. I think maybe that kind of influenced our our thinking on it too. Um, but yeah, 100% agree. Uh, based on, you know, what you just laid out, it it it makes sense to drop it to 80%. And we we can always,
you know, we can always go back the other direction and change our mind if in fact we have a hard time giving the grants out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because obviously we want to award them, you know, we don't want to make it difficult to obtain. But to your point, you know, the difference with the
home ownership piece is that the income qualification for the first-time home buyer is based on the buyer. So sometimes it's a little bit harder to find the range. You know, the income qualification in the event of this is based on the the renter. Um so that is a little bit easier to kind of square that
and find that, you know, versus finding a first-time home buyer that's in that 60 to 80% um AMI range that can afford to to buy in RER even with the down payment assistance. So, um, any before I make a motion, I just want to see if other people have questions or comments or
just general thoughts on ADUs in general. You know, now that we're into our first, I'd say building season with under the new ADU um, ordinance that the city adopted. >> Joe, I I just wanted to say that I approve of your um, proposal to move it
to the 80% AMI. I think it makes sense and I think the community needs um more housing um whether it's ADUs or any type of housing uh that'll that'll satisfy those people in that that range. Um we know that the income limits are very
high in in Revier. Um you know for a single person we're talking somebody that makes you know $92,000 a year that would qualify uh for this type of of of unit. And uh there's plenty of people out there that that deserve that break.
So, I think you made a great choice. >> Thank you. >> Well, if no one else has any other comments, if you do, feel free uh to interrupt me, but I'd like to make that motion to adjust moving forward. I'd say with starting with applicants two weeks
from now, April 22nd, and for all future rounds, unless we modify it, that we change the um rent requirement to be rented to someone that's considered affordable at 80% AMI or below. >> I second.
>> All in favor? >> I I >> Any opposed? >> All right, that passes. >> Thank you. appreciate your flexibility. You know, I know it's um good to be right to start with, but it's also good to adjust to
conditions and, you know, make make calls as necessary. So, thank you. >> Yeah, thanks for that, Joe. Um, next up on the agenda, we we spent a little bit of time. I mean, Joe, you gave us a little bit of a a preview of this last week, but um I think maybe, you know,
there's a little bit more to share now on kind of uh you know, impact from the federal homelessness policy changes. >> Yeah. So, there's actually not a lot more update. I I thought maybe there would be because I'm continuing to have conversations with regional partners
about this. Uh but the conversations are more like they're still in the just preparing to see what's going to happen phase rather than in the response phase. Uh, so nothing super new to add. Just to refresh everyone's memory, we're just trying to be ahead of um so there's some
changes in federal homelessness policy, you know, and funding that sort of flows through without getting into the mechanics. Um, continuum of care. Um, and um, a number of families in Ravier receive permanent supportive housing
through this federal funding. um sometimes through partner agencies like housing families or heading home or like Harbor Cove, some of it these agencies that you've heard of. Um and there is a chance that due to some changes in how
funds are being distributed, you know, some of those families might be at risk of losing their permanent supportive housing. These are folks that are considered chronically homeless and have members of the household with disabilities and are extremely low income. Um so the the definition changes
that are happening are um so there's going to be a shift of funding away from permanent supportive housing and more towards trans towards transitional housing. Um, and so that's, you know, I'll oversimplify, but it's like a two-year program designed to kind
of support someone on their way into a more permanent housing solution, whether that be like section 8 or market rate depending on their needs and their circumstances. Um, you know, I can say, and I'm editorializing a bit here, but, you know, I have seen in my professional
experience that there are families that like there are a lot of families that those types of transitional pro programs are great for. and we need them and we need them supported. Uh but there are, you know, quite a few folks that permanent supportive housing is a better support system for them. You know, that
in order to have the services they need to live independently, um a permanent a permanent home, you know, that is not transitional and that comes with wraparound services is really key for their stability and ending their homelessness. Uh so there is some
concern that with funds being shifted away from supportive housing and into transitional housing, there may be some rever families that are impacted by this um and may lose their placements. Um so we've been in touch with some of the agencies that do this work just to kind of get a heads up on that. Um and then
the other potential change is redefinition of disability to you know only potentially include a physical disability. Uh, so we have families in permanent supportive housing in River. Um, I don't know for sure, but I I can
tell it's likely just statistically based on profiles of supportive housing statewide where you know head of household may have um, you know, mental health related disability or substance use related uh, disability where you
know the family's ability to receive supportive housing is based on that and that may be at risk based on changes. So, what we're trying to do, you know, I I wish I had more of a substantive update for you because it's all kind of federal paperwork and things like that
and not actual policy change yet. Um, but if we have families that are supported by agencies like a housing families or heading home or Bay Cove that lose supportive housing, particularly ones that are, you know, in the river public schools with kids in
the schools, we want to figure out ways to help. You know, I think Dean is at the table with the housing authority and we're at the table from the planning and community development, but in the event there's a role for the affordable housing trust to try to be supportive.
We want to be at the table for that. So, I'm I'm still plugged into all these conversations and as soon as anything kind of substantive happens, I'll report back. But just wanted to keep everyone kind of apprised on what's going on there. And we'll stop and see if folks have questions. Cool. Thanks for the update, Joe. Looks
like no no questions from the board. Um, moving on to the next agenda item. Probably our heaviest item tonight. Um, is the the buy down program. Um, I hopefully folks have had a chance to review the proposal that Joe sent
around. I know those of us who are sitting on the home ownership subcommittee have have spent some time on this already. Um my personal review of it, it's it's a really wellthoughtout proposal. Um but Joe, why don't you go ahead and take it away and and give the
group a quick uh overview. >> Yeah. So I think to start with, I want to kind of shift all the way back to when this board started to begin with. Um so the initial kind of charge and the initial idea behind kickstarting affordable housing trust fund and
putting some money into it under Mayor Rigo uh was we were going to take some of these funds and maybe purchase some you know budget permitting one to two maybe three uh homes that were coming for sale at market rate um that maybe were like older homes that were at risk
of being purchased and maybe renovated and flipped or condoized or you know other things that happen in gentrifying communities uh you know and instead purchase the unit and uh income restrict it and sell it at sort of below market
rate where we would take you I'm making this number up but buy it for 600,000 sell it for $390,000 we take a $210,000 hit um but um you know that's we're using those funds to create a permanent
deed restricted housing unit um or maybe temporary deed restricted housing unit and get someone into an affordable home ownership situation. So, that was kind of our original charge. And so, most of you, I think Lori and Judy are are newer members, but for those that were around at the beginning, um we spent a lot of
time thinking through the logistics of how that might work and if it might work. And we kind of decided that it won't. Um just due to the fact that, you know, in between buying and selling a property, we'd have to hold it. We'd have to pay insurance. We'd be responsible for backlog maintenance. you
know, odds are pretty good that the loss to us would be more than $200,000 per unit, and that would probably be not justifiable, you know, within the constraints of the type of budget that we have. Um, so we looked at that. We looked at other similar types of
programs and you know this is kind of the culmination a little bit not culmination but it's a next evolution of this concept of okay what we want to do is we want to help people that might not otherwise be able to afford it who are rever residents um access market rate
you know single family or two family or three family homes uh for themselves and their families and be able to buy at an affordable rate and have it be a deed restricted unit. So that's sort of the the backstory. Um, and then the specifics and the mechanics here are instead of buying and reselling property, what we would do instead is
sort of do it works a little bit um, legally like a supercharged down payment assistance program. uh but we would buy down essentially the cost where we bridge the gap between uh market cost of the unit, list cost of the unit and what would be considered
the affordable price for someone at 60 to 80 to 100% of AMI eligibility. Um, the details of what those numbers are and what they look like are probably familiar to a lot of you at this point because we talk about AMIs a lot, but they're in the in the
document. And, you know, the the idea behind this is the amount that it would cost subsidy wise. We'd have to, you know, we'd have to cap it. So, we couldn't be like, someone can buy a $1.2 million home and we'll subsidize it down to, you know, the affordable price of
390,000. We're not going to do that. So, we'll set a cap on it. Um, If people have the funds to go over that, that's that's fine. But, you know, we try to kind of ideally find uh homes that are in that price range, we offer that, you know, significant
subsidy. Probably the most we'd be able to do is like three in a year. So, the downside is the upside is we're able to make incredible kind of bang for our buck, put someone in a incomerestricted home ownership opportunity um that is a home that's theirs, right? So, it's it's
theirs. It's not government housing. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some people are looking to, you know, find build go into a home of their own like single family, two family. Those those opportunities are pretty rare. So, we have the opportunity to do that for Revier residents that are um
median income or below. Um so, that's great, but you know, money doesn't go super far. So, we can look at doing like maybe two, three, maybe four of these in a year, depending on what the cost is. uh the breakdown of the cost kind of per the AMI range is in the proposal. Um and
then the other kind of wrinkle here is and um if we go forward with this I've put in a request for this to be considered for funding for REV CDBG community development block grant funds. um a certain we get a certain amount of
money from federal government through HUD uh through our status as a a community with a certain amount of people that are below median income. Uh and that money gets split up into certain community development. So it could be parks, it could be um infrastructure upgrades or it could be
housing related or um heat and fuel assistance, things like that. and I requested that there be consideration, you know, for a home ownership promotion initiative. Um, and I believe that there's a strong chance that we'd be able to receive that based on my
understanding of how CDBG works and, you know, that this would be an eligible use for it. Um, so we'd be able to bring in some funds to support this. I think that I believe and I'm confirming that we can repurpose some of the unused um payment
assistance funds because I think we we still have enough left over in down payment assistance even before the additional 50 that's coming in to pay out another four or five down payment assistance grants this year which based on the pace that they come in would be more than enough to cover us for the
year. Um and then we'd put in an additional you know 200,000 uh I believe is the amount that is sort of what we had thought talked about as being the percentage of our budget that we wanted to devote to home ownership promotion
initiatives. So it would give us a total um ranking that's in the in the document there that we could work with that depending on who we get for applicants. You know, if we get a couple applicants that are in the moderate income range, we'd be paying less. We might be able to
pay out more. If we got like two that were in that below 80% AMI range, that's probably going to cover our whole budget for the year. Um, but we'd be able to do that and restrict some units. Um, if you looked through the
proposal, you'll see that it's for a 20-year deed restriction. Uh, so years one to this is kind of modeled a little bit off the Commonwealth Builder if you remember. um but our own twist on it. So the first 10 years after the purchase of the property, it's a full deed restriction with a price cap just like
those other units that we've had, the condos that have gone for sale. Um so you they can only increase the price based on what median income raised by uh if they were to sell in the first 10 years. And then for years 11 to 20, it
would be e equity sharing. So essentially the growth in equity the growth in re in resale would be split um equally between the seller and the river affordable housing trust. So to oversimplify, you know, someone buys a
house with the help of this program that ends up costing them, you know, $350,000, say, um, the gap between that and what they resell it for in year 20. So say it's a million, you know, that that proceeds would be split equally between
them. They would make back the original sale price and then the proceeds on top of that would be split between them and a contribution back to the trust. After year 21, it would no longer be deed restricted. So it would just be open resale. So this the reason why I structured it this way in the proposal
and I'm open to ideas to modify it, you know, up or down, uh, is to try to create a balance between like we want to help people build equity and build wealth for themselves and their families. Uh, but we're also not looking to subsidize resale for someone, right?
We're trying to get people who who need support to receive some support that are moderate income people. Uh and I think that this sort of sliding scale um splits that difference a little bit. Uh where and it also in theory creates some funds back to the trust that can help
pay for this program, you know, in years to come down the road. So that's why I structured it the way I did. I think it's pretty hefty. So I don't want to like vote on a final form or anything today. I wanted to just put it out for discussion. take some more time to review it, you know, propose. I probably already am going to see some things that
I'm like, I might tweak that or propose an amendment or propose a change. Uh, but wanted to just get people's thoughts on the concept, thoughts on sort of agreeing conceptually that it's something that we want to move forward to bring to CDBG for funding. Uh, and then start to think about any changes or
tweaks or questions we have about how it's structured. So, that's a lot of talking. So, I'll stop now and see if folks have questions or thoughts. So given that thank you for this document. It's actually as as um mentioned earlier it's actually really well done. My c your question is however
is the uh oversight required from the council. Have they sort of weighed in on some of these numbers and uh you know these you know for example the 20 year or 21 year sort of like period in which they can repair whatnot. So my basic
question is oversight from uh council. How much have they sort of looked into this? >> We're the we we are the oversight authority for this if we create it. >> I see. So we would need for sort of city council to look in specifics.
>> Uh no. Uh so um the the thing that we do need outside authorization for would be community development block grant. There's a committee that um controls those funds. uh that's headed up by Julie Dearo and the planning and community development. So they um they
would need to buy into it in order to fund it out of CDBG. But the actual like administration of the program and authorization of the program would come from us. So just like the ADU or senior repairs program or um uh why am I blanking? Down payment
assistance. We set the parameters, we set the guidelines, we make amendments as necessary, and then modification or excuse me, tracking and ensuring compliance falls ultimately on really me. Well, it's on us as a board, but then I, you know, because I'm a
full-time employee in planning, I you generally take that to on myself to review those documents, make sure that units are in compliance, uh track how many units, you know, we have as part of these programs and things like that. Um, so yeah, that's kind of the hope.
>> Yeah, my potential my only concern is the the potential legalities or governance of the possible resale of the property. Um, given the fact that it's a variable time, right? It can be between it's presumably unknowable at this particular time if if someone if the
family would sell it, but who's going to govern that and what sort of like legal processes that we need to be aware of? >> So, oh, go ahead. Sorry. Um, so the way it would work is we would write a deed restriction on the property. Uh, that would be recorded on the registry of deeds. Um, and then it would also be
tracked. So my office at city hall tracks all the affordable units on the subsidized housing inventory. So it's ultimately our responsibility both to track and then report back to the state like how many units are restricted as affordable, what the restrictions are, how many years are left on the
restriction, and then to reach out and reertify on a given period of time to make sure that people are still in compliance with terms of the program. So like to give you an example, the ADU loan program, it'll be on our office at the city to reach out and I'll be
tracking this and you know if I were to drop dead, there'll be a tracker that my office you know carries forward that of when the anniversary date is of the loan that you'd have to check in and make sure that you know people are in compliance with the terms of leasing it to someone below uh 80% now of AMI. It would be just like
that with this. Um, and then there'd be a deed restriction, which we'd work with the solicitor's office to write, but it would be modeled after kind of what we have with the down payment assistance. So, like right now, because of the legal document that we have on the down payment assistance properties, if someone sells it within the first five
years, the attorneys will see that there's a a you know, it's on it's filed with the registry that there's a restriction on the property that the seller would have to pay back the loan that they owe the city um before they're able to sell the property. uh same thing
would happen in the event of this buy down program. So if someone were to sell the property it would be recorded at the registry and you know through the through that process even beyond the fact that we would be monitoring it the attorneys you know involved and realtors involved would see that it's it's on the
deed that um you know they'd be obligated to either follow the resale process for the first 10 years or to split the proceeds. So, we'd have to um craft that, you know, with the solicitor's office to make sure that it's legally tight, but that's the
process by which we would bind people to it. I hope that that helps. >> Yeah, thanks a lot. Sorry for belabling belaboring. I just wanted to have it just the idea of this governance and the legalities or whatnot being explicitly written. I have not had the time. >> It's a really good question.
>> Yeah, I would definitely read more into this document because I think it's well done. I just think that uh when we uh specifically put things governance and processes or accountability processes in writing, it allows us to know what the obligations are from the borrow the
borrower or the recipients perspective and this organization and the definition of we becomes important like is it the city we or is it the we collective we affordable housing trust committee with the city. So those sorts of like latigious things. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but whatnot, but I just think
that it would be it I don't know. Again, I we'll read the document, but I don't know if it's something that specifically has to be put in this document or an appendix or an adjacent document to that, but those governance. >> I agree. >> Yeah. So, I think I'll what I'll do is in addition to whatever other tweaks
either I think of or you guys propose, uh I'll also kind of more formally write up and include there how it works with uh the deed restriction. Uh you know, we have plenty of examples of deed restrictions that I can just kind of give sample language of uh where it
says, you know, this property for this period of time if it's resold, the limit is x amount, right? And I I can show you guys some of that language and include it in there. So that way we tie up any any confusion or any there'd be no room for uh
no room for you know for openness. We'll make it very tight and make sure that it's uh very clear. >> Thank you. Again, sorry we're going back and forth with this. I just wanted to making sure that we have all our is as as I saw as I see it all you know the various accountability mechanisms explicitly written somewhere or I know
it's somewhere but for more accessible for >> yeah absolutely no I I appreciate you flagging it. curious if other folks have comments, you know, especially just generally like direct I'd also like to know if anyone thinks directionally I'm way off base
like we should be maybe focusing on doing more five to$10,000 programs just because that's you know we can spread it around more. Uh but I do think this type of program um speaks to our kind of mission, our original charge of what we
were asked to do. So I I I wanted to keep the concept in front of everyone. I really like this concept and I like the fact that it is offering help for permanent residency here in River, not
just 6 months, 8 months, year leases. Um, I think it it's important to help people stay here in River that really want to stay. Great.
Yeah, and that's the goal, right? And I think that underpins all all of what we do here, but I think this would do it in an incredibly, you know, impactful way uh for folks and and really maybe make home ownership possible for some folks that otherwise it would not be.
>> Also, generational home ownership is something that a lot of people are looking into and they're going out of state for it. So to have it offered here in our hometown I think is a really good
idea. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. I'm just going to echo Lor's sentiment. Definitely agree. This is, you know, really aligned with our kind of mission on the home ownership front. Um, we've we've kind of talked about a lot of different ways to try and
approach this specific issue in a more capital efficient way and it's just tough to do that the numbers kind of are the numbers. Um, and if we want to do a program like this, um, I don't know this this is what it's going to cost. I think what I really like about this program is
especially knowing it's it's specifically for first-time home buyers, like probably, you know, odds are a lot of this capital does kind of come back and we do have the opportunity to recycle it for the same program in the future. Um, so it's it's a bigger
program, but you know, and we can't necessarily count on getting all these dollars back, but we know that at least some amount of it is going to come back over time. So, you know, the cost that we're looking at on papers, not the real cost because a certain percentage of these funds we're going to have the
opportunity to put to work again. >> Yeah. And not only that, it's an investment in the community, right? Like we're building a stronger community, helping people plant down roots, you know, be they're going to be taxpayers throughout the life of their time in the community, right? Uh and I think that
that's, you know, another another positive aspect here for sure. So, I think that um unless folks have more extensive particular modifications or questions or changes, I think what I'd like to request we do is take some time. I'm going to go through it with a fine tooth comb. I'm going to pin down the stuff
that Annio mentioned. I'm going to maybe make a few things that I might tweak or some language changes here and there, but if other folks have proposed changes, too, like send them my way. We'll compile it and try to and and deliberate through them, you know, as we move forward for the next meeting.
Okay, great. Just check up one last time. Any any other questions, comments on the buy down proposal? >> Well, just the logistics of the timeline for the program itself like or at least this phase of the development of the proposal, when would you like it done?
And for example, if we were to read it and provide some suggestions, how soon should we get those in? Basically, when would you like to finish this? >> Yeah. So, I'd say I'd say there's no rush to finish it. Like, I think that if I'd rather take our time and get it right and make sure that we meet
everyone's um you know, reflect everyone's wishes um and get it right. So, I don't think that we're in a a rush per se. I think the only thing that would maybe affect timeline is CDBG is like funded by based
on a fiscal year. So I think that we like in theory if we got CDBG funds we'd have to expend them by the end of ne of this next fiscal year coming up. So like next June. So I wouldn't want to take like six months. I think that if folks are kind of aligned with it. I'd love to
be able to vote on it next month and then put together a timeline of like you know from there as we know it's going to take time to put together an application to advertise the application to get it on. So, um, you know, we'd still be looking at a several month like ramp up, but I would love to, if it sounds like
people generally are aligned with the concept. So, I'd love to at least, you know, any substantive changes bring it to a vote next month and then if it's just minor things, maybe vote on approving the program then um would be great, but if not, I'd say at least within the next two months would be
great. Um, so that way we can shoot to kind of get that clock rolling. >> Thanks a lot. >> Does that make sense? >> Yes, absolutely. I think I know a little want it to be because you know if we flag something that we're not sure about or we want to think about more or get more perspectives on I'd
rather hit pause and take the time to do that than than jump forward. That's all I got. Cool. Uh any any other late items from anybody? And I don't see anyone present here. I
don't know if there's anybody from the public in the Zoom. Um, doesn't look like it. Doesn't look like it. Cool. Um, I guess I'll go ahead and make a motion to end the meeting. >> Second.
>> Okay. I want to share and the next April 30 I will attending the affair housing uh symposium where the new key speak the new secretary of housing uh Jana Matias will be a speaker so we'll be in the
next April 30 I will attend and I updated everything that I we sh they share with us. >> That's great. Do you do you mind um just sending that information around to the group over email in case any of the other >> Yep.
>> board members are interested? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. >> Cool. All right. We'll try again. I'm going to motion to conclude the meeting. >> Second. Okay. >> Beautiful.