Receive a staff presentation, and hold a discussion on requested data related to Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) projects, and provide direction to staff.
Item 01: Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Projects
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JHughson
CoSM Members
Three of the decision points seem odd to me for this topic. How are these related to the LIHTC topic? Seems to me that these are/should be underway anyway.
- Continued work on Neighborhood Area Plans
- Staff to kick off Strategic Housing Action Plan Update
- Policy and Plans reviewed with equity lens
More questions:
Page 25, slide 21. What is the purpose of this slide?
Page 28, slide 24 fire service calls. The statements: "21-25% of all calls are to Multifamily properties and 1-7% of all calls are to LIHTC properties." are not enlightening unless we know the full population of each group. How many people in San Marcos live in multi-family housing? Do we know?
Similar for police calls.
Page 34, slide 30. What criteria was used to "compare" us to others? What is the median income in each of those cities?
Page 36, slide 32. What is the One Mile Three Year Rule?
Page 38, slide 34. What is OUR mix requirements?
Page 43, slide 39. Regarding the waitlist - is this for the Housing Authority?
All LIHTC projects?
Page 44, slide 40
Is the SMHA preference to residents of Hays County in effect for ALL properties owned by the SMHA?
"Wrap around services can’t change without State approval & can never drop below the required points" - Does this mean the state can change the services approved by CoSM?
Who said "3-bedroom unit requirement in City Policy seems arbitrary and does not align with need" and why?
Who were the external stakeholders in this discussion?
Page 46, slide 42
Regarding "Cost of service to LIHTC housing is not disproportionate to cost of service for other multifamily housing." - I don't think anyone said that. The concern is regarding those that are property tax exempt, there is no income to support the services. Please explain why this is here.
What is the point regarding "Comparison Cities don’t have policies but have fewer developments." ???
Regarding "TDHCA compliance is important to developers." - isn't it required?
What is the overall point that is being made?
Can we require a PILOT every year? I recall one or more offered an amount to be paid out over multiple years.
Please attach the current policy.
How does an apartment manager make a request to raise the rent? What data/proof is needed?
- Continued work on Neighborhood Area Plans
- Staff to kick off Strategic Housing Action Plan Update
- Policy and Plans reviewed with equity lens
More questions:
Page 25, slide 21. What is the purpose of this slide?
Page 28, slide 24 fire service calls. The statements: "21-25% of all calls are to Multifamily properties and 1-7% of all calls are to LIHTC properties." are not enlightening unless we know the full population of each group. How many people in San Marcos live in multi-family housing? Do we know?
Similar for police calls.
Page 34, slide 30. What criteria was used to "compare" us to others? What is the median income in each of those cities?
Page 36, slide 32. What is the One Mile Three Year Rule?
Page 38, slide 34. What is OUR mix requirements?
Page 43, slide 39. Regarding the waitlist - is this for the Housing Authority?
All LIHTC projects?
Page 44, slide 40
Is the SMHA preference to residents of Hays County in effect for ALL properties owned by the SMHA?
"Wrap around services can’t change without State approval & can never drop below the required points" - Does this mean the state can change the services approved by CoSM?
Who said "3-bedroom unit requirement in City Policy seems arbitrary and does not align with need" and why?
Who were the external stakeholders in this discussion?
Page 46, slide 42
Regarding "Cost of service to LIHTC housing is not disproportionate to cost of service for other multifamily housing." - I don't think anyone said that. The concern is regarding those that are property tax exempt, there is no income to support the services. Please explain why this is here.
What is the point regarding "Comparison Cities don’t have policies but have fewer developments." ???
Regarding "TDHCA compliance is important to developers." - isn't it required?
What is the overall point that is being made?
Can we require a PILOT every year? I recall one or more offered an amount to be paid out over multiple years.
Please attach the current policy.
How does an apartment manager make a request to raise the rent? What data/proof is needed?
Response provided by Director of Planning & Development Services, Amanda Hernandez:
Three of the decision points seem odd to me for this topic. How are these related to the LIHTC topic? Seems to me that these are/should be underway anyway.
- Continued work on Neighborhood Area Plans
- Staff to kick off Strategic Housing Action Plan Update
- Policy and Plans reviewed with equity lens
The bullet list on the last slide is Staff’s proposed next steps. Some of these could speak to where LIHTC is appropriate (area plans) and how much more we need (housing action plan). We also wanted to be sure to capture Council’s previous conversation about ensuring we look at these documents with an equity lens. The Decision Point is – does council agree with the list on the slide and/or is there something else we should do.
More questions:
Page 25, slide 21. What is the purpose of this slide?
Being on the topic of property tax revenue, we want to show how different land uses bring in different amounts and how a balance of land uses is important.
Page 28, slide 24 fire service calls. The statements: "21-25% of all calls are to Multifamily properties and 1-7% of all calls are to LIHTC properties." are not enlightening unless we know the full population of each group. How many people in San Marcos live in multi-family housing? Do we know?
Similar for police calls.
We don’t know the population specific to multifamily. One of the points that will be made on Slide 28 (pg. 32) is that it’s nearly impossible to generate a per person cost for services provided by the City, but what we see in these charts is that LIHTC is a low percentage of calls city-wide.
Page 34, slide 30. What criteria was used to "compare" us to others? What is the median income in each of those cities? Staff started with the list of comparison cities used in the budget presentation, There is no specific comparison criteria and staff concluded there is really no correlation between us and any other city.
Median income can be added to this slide:
San Marcos - $47,394
Denton - $71,921
Cedar Park - $118,903
Bryan - $55,234
New Braunfels - $85,827
Kyle - $85,199
Buda - $105,378
Sugarland - $132,247
Page 36, slide 32. What is the One Mile Three Year Rule? If a new development is within one mile of another development that was approved within the past 3 years, there is additional language which must be included in the resolution of no objection.
Page 38, slide 34. What is OUR mix requirements? We do not have a requirement, but there is an additional review criteria when there is a requested tax exemption. If an exemption is sought, to meet Criteria #1, 15% of all units must be at or below 30% AMI. If there is no exemption, we ask for the unit mix for informational purposes. Note that an application must meet the criteria to receive a staff recommendation of approval, however City Council has approved at least one application recently which had a staff recommendation of denial. The criteria are only a guide for decision making and not requirements.
Page 43, slide 39. Regarding the waitlist - is this for the Housing Authority?
All LIHTC projects?
The Housing Authority provided the information on their waitlist. This is not for all LIHTC developments.
Page 44, slide 40
Is the SMHA preference to residents of Hays County in effect for ALL properties owned by the SMHA? No. Only those managed by SMHA have the preference for Hays County.
"Wrap around services can’t change without State approval & can never drop below the required points" - Does this mean the state can change the services approved by CoSM? Yes, because the Land Use Restriction Agreement (LURA) is the governing document. This flexibility is important because if a service is not receiving a lot of interest / use the manager may select something else from the approved list to try to engage more people.
Who said "3-bedroom unit requirement in City Policy seems arbitrary and does not align with need" and why? This came from the external stakeholder group – SMHA indicated a need for 1 and 2 bedroom units and the developer (Streamline) indicated the bedroom mix is determined using a formula based on incomes and population.
Who were the external stakeholders in this discussion? Jim Shaw & Andrea Shields, Capital Area Housing Finance Corporation, Lana Wagner, San Marcos Housing Authority, Laura Dupont, Streamline Advisory Partners
Page 46, slide 42
Regarding "Cost of service to LIHTC housing is not disproportionate to cost of service for other multifamily housing." - I don't think anyone said that. The concern is regarding those that are property tax exempt, there is no income to support the services. Please explain why this is here. This statement came from a discussion with the internal project team and City Manager’s Office. We wanted to be sure to note that multifamily, whether LIHTC or not, will have a similar impact on city services. Yes, those developments which are tax exempt do not contribute to the City’s property tax revenue and on the next page we circle back to the need for a balance of revenue generators.
What is the point regarding "Comparison Cities don’t have policies but have fewer developments." ??? City Council asked for information on other cities, which was provided. This statement pulls from what we discovered – many cities do not have a policy for LIHTC developments and we note that other cities do not have as many developments as we do.
Regarding "TDHCA compliance is important to developers." - isn't it required? It is required. This is a recap statement.
What is the overall point that is being made? The purpose of this presentation is to provide City Council with as much data as possible, as requested on July 2nd. The overall point is that this is a complex topic and there is not one right answer. We think this data is important to facilitate future conversations which are outlined on the next steps slide.
Can we require a PILOT every year? I recall one or more offered an amount to be paid out over multiple years. The City can negotiate the terms of the PILOT agreement. Yes, the last couple developments offered a one-time or multi-year option for payment. Staff recommended the one-time payment for a couple reasons – 1) processing the payments every year takes staff time and 2) current year dollars are worth more and have a bigger impact on the City’s budget.
Please attach the current policy. See Attached
How does an apartment manager make a request to raise the rent? What data/proof is needed? No data or proof are needed because HUD establishes rent rates annually. A development must provide notice to tenants prior to raising rents. Notice is 75-30 days depending on the lease.
Three of the decision points seem odd to me for this topic. How are these related to the LIHTC topic? Seems to me that these are/should be underway anyway.
- Continued work on Neighborhood Area Plans
- Staff to kick off Strategic Housing Action Plan Update
- Policy and Plans reviewed with equity lens
The bullet list on the last slide is Staff’s proposed next steps. Some of these could speak to where LIHTC is appropriate (area plans) and how much more we need (housing action plan). We also wanted to be sure to capture Council’s previous conversation about ensuring we look at these documents with an equity lens. The Decision Point is – does council agree with the list on the slide and/or is there something else we should do.
More questions:
Page 25, slide 21. What is the purpose of this slide?
Being on the topic of property tax revenue, we want to show how different land uses bring in different amounts and how a balance of land uses is important.
Page 28, slide 24 fire service calls. The statements: "21-25% of all calls are to Multifamily properties and 1-7% of all calls are to LIHTC properties." are not enlightening unless we know the full population of each group. How many people in San Marcos live in multi-family housing? Do we know?
Similar for police calls.
We don’t know the population specific to multifamily. One of the points that will be made on Slide 28 (pg. 32) is that it’s nearly impossible to generate a per person cost for services provided by the City, but what we see in these charts is that LIHTC is a low percentage of calls city-wide.
Page 34, slide 30. What criteria was used to "compare" us to others? What is the median income in each of those cities? Staff started with the list of comparison cities used in the budget presentation, There is no specific comparison criteria and staff concluded there is really no correlation between us and any other city.
Median income can be added to this slide:
San Marcos - $47,394
Denton - $71,921
Cedar Park - $118,903
Bryan - $55,234
New Braunfels - $85,827
Kyle - $85,199
Buda - $105,378
Sugarland - $132,247
Page 36, slide 32. What is the One Mile Three Year Rule? If a new development is within one mile of another development that was approved within the past 3 years, there is additional language which must be included in the resolution of no objection.
Page 38, slide 34. What is OUR mix requirements? We do not have a requirement, but there is an additional review criteria when there is a requested tax exemption. If an exemption is sought, to meet Criteria #1, 15% of all units must be at or below 30% AMI. If there is no exemption, we ask for the unit mix for informational purposes. Note that an application must meet the criteria to receive a staff recommendation of approval, however City Council has approved at least one application recently which had a staff recommendation of denial. The criteria are only a guide for decision making and not requirements.
Page 43, slide 39. Regarding the waitlist - is this for the Housing Authority?
All LIHTC projects?
The Housing Authority provided the information on their waitlist. This is not for all LIHTC developments.
Page 44, slide 40
Is the SMHA preference to residents of Hays County in effect for ALL properties owned by the SMHA? No. Only those managed by SMHA have the preference for Hays County.
"Wrap around services can’t change without State approval & can never drop below the required points" - Does this mean the state can change the services approved by CoSM? Yes, because the Land Use Restriction Agreement (LURA) is the governing document. This flexibility is important because if a service is not receiving a lot of interest / use the manager may select something else from the approved list to try to engage more people.
Who said "3-bedroom unit requirement in City Policy seems arbitrary and does not align with need" and why? This came from the external stakeholder group – SMHA indicated a need for 1 and 2 bedroom units and the developer (Streamline) indicated the bedroom mix is determined using a formula based on incomes and population.
Who were the external stakeholders in this discussion? Jim Shaw & Andrea Shields, Capital Area Housing Finance Corporation, Lana Wagner, San Marcos Housing Authority, Laura Dupont, Streamline Advisory Partners
Page 46, slide 42
Regarding "Cost of service to LIHTC housing is not disproportionate to cost of service for other multifamily housing." - I don't think anyone said that. The concern is regarding those that are property tax exempt, there is no income to support the services. Please explain why this is here. This statement came from a discussion with the internal project team and City Manager’s Office. We wanted to be sure to note that multifamily, whether LIHTC or not, will have a similar impact on city services. Yes, those developments which are tax exempt do not contribute to the City’s property tax revenue and on the next page we circle back to the need for a balance of revenue generators.
What is the point regarding "Comparison Cities don’t have policies but have fewer developments." ??? City Council asked for information on other cities, which was provided. This statement pulls from what we discovered – many cities do not have a policy for LIHTC developments and we note that other cities do not have as many developments as we do.
Regarding "TDHCA compliance is important to developers." - isn't it required? It is required. This is a recap statement.
What is the overall point that is being made? The purpose of this presentation is to provide City Council with as much data as possible, as requested on July 2nd. The overall point is that this is a complex topic and there is not one right answer. We think this data is important to facilitate future conversations which are outlined on the next steps slide.
Can we require a PILOT every year? I recall one or more offered an amount to be paid out over multiple years. The City can negotiate the terms of the PILOT agreement. Yes, the last couple developments offered a one-time or multi-year option for payment. Staff recommended the one-time payment for a couple reasons – 1) processing the payments every year takes staff time and 2) current year dollars are worth more and have a bigger impact on the City’s budget.
Please attach the current policy. See Attached
How does an apartment manager make a request to raise the rent? What data/proof is needed? No data or proof are needed because HUD establishes rent rates annually. A development must provide notice to tenants prior to raising rents. Notice is 75-30 days depending on the lease.
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