Louisville Housing Authority Agenda and Packet 2013 05 28

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Post Office Box 471 Boulder, Colorado 80307 (303) 441-3929 TDD Colorado Relay 1-800-659-2656 Annual Report to City Council On April 9, 2013, Heather Balser, Deputy City Manager, presented the first Annual Plan on Housing and Humans Services in Louisville to the Council at their Study Session. The final plan provided to Council had been refined with input from the LHA Board at the February 26, 2013 meeting and is attached. The Council was particularly interested in the Alkonis purchase and development plans, and had a few questions regarding the opportunity for a local preference for Louisville residents. We are advising against committing to a local preference at this time, and provided the following explanation to Council in follow-up: Via Email 4/16/13 Dear Mayor and Members of City Council: I apologize that I was unable to attend the Study Session last week during the snow storm. Heather Balser shared that Councilors had a question regarding the possibility of local preferences for future affordable housing in Louisville under the four party Intergovernmental Agreement. During the IGA negotiations, the issue of a local preference was raised by LHA Board and Louisville City Council. A local preference was ultimately not included in the document, due to concerns in the legal review by LHA, City, and BCHA counsel. Because local preferences have been used as a tool for racial discrimination, they are heavily scrutinized in Fair Housing law, and highly discouraged by most affordable housing funders such as HUD and the Colorado Housing Finance Authority. We understand Louisville’s interest in serving long time members of the community when new affordable housing resources become available. We find that generally happens, even without a formal local preference. With our most recent project at Josephine Commons, we saw 71% of new residents resided within Boulder County prior to moving in, 46% came from Lafayette specifically, and 92% came from within Colorado. Only six out of 74 households came from out of state, and they had family ties in the local community. We are open to discussions on getting an exemption from the HUD Office of Fair Housing and/or other funding sources, but believe these conversations should occur on a case by case basis, when the specific project demographics and funding strategies have been defined. It is unlikely that HUD's Office of Fair housing would grant a local preference for Louisville given the demographics of Louisville relative to surrounding communities, specifically Longmont, Lafayette, and Broomfield. However, we can pursue such a request at the time we make an application for a specific project. Please be in touch if you have further questions on local preference or anything else related to the LHA/BCHA annual report to Council. Sincerely, Willa Williford Habitat for Humanity Parcel update At the last meeting, Commissioner Oehkers requested an update on the Habitat for Humanity parcel, which LHA donated to the non-profit in July of 2010. Willa Williford met with outgoing Habitat Co-Executive Director Lisa Gills and incoming Executive Director Susan Lythgoe for an introduction and general discussion of collaboration between the entities. The Habitat staff also provided an update on the Louisville Parcel: Infrastructure costs have increased from Habitat’s initial estimate of $50,000 to $170,000, based on refined engineering drawings and contractor input. 4