City Council Minutes 2019 05 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Council Meeting Minutes May 21 2019 Page 5 of 14 Councilmember Loo would like the language for mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems clarified, she did not want to be paying for high end fixtures for example Solvoski noted it had to be used for bringing those things up to code. Director Zuccaro stated the grants only reimburse approved improvements noted in the grant request and in the historic structure assessment (HSA) Councilmember Loo asked why choose the timelines of 36 months and 60 months Solvoski stated the work is based on the HSA and if there is a long time between the assessment and the application we don't know if it is still accurate Councilmember Loo stated she would like it shorter Solvoski stated the HPC felt 36 seemed to be reasonable and it would alleviate giving people extensions which has been an issue Councilmember Loo stated she thinks the loan interest rate is very low Solvoski stated it is low to get people to use it. Councilmember Loo asked if there are safeguards against losing our money Solvoski stated there is a standard process for a lien on the property so we would get the money back at sale. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated it is bold and aggressive, perhaps too much He asked what other communities are doing Solvoski stated we are unique in having this fund As far as we know no other municipality has such a fund Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked how the numbers were determined Director Zuccaro stated staff looked at the cost of construction and the historic structure assessment eligible work and tried to derive numbers from that. There were also a few recent large projects asking for extraordinary circumstances because the eligible items far exceeded the current maximum Mayor Pro Tem Lipton asked if in those case studies, what percentage the new numbers would cover Solvoski stated there is no typical project and the City may never see the final cost of the projects as it is not required Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated renovation might be $150K and a resident could get $70K from the City, we would be paying the majority of the project. Director Zuccaro said he anticipates even if we adopt this at $50K many applicants will only be able to apply for a portion of that as eligible costs. Mayor Pro Tem Lipton stated for the HSA grants he likes the increases to help people get them into the program The revolving loan fund is a fairly low interest rate, he is not sure we need to go that low Public Comments — None Councilmember Stolzmann is generally in favor of this approach, it is a step to getting some people who might not otherwise save their home rather than scraping it. The other numbers were not high enough to do that. This would allow more funding without using the extraordinary circumstances and is more clear and fair For the loan rate, it does need to be a subprime rate to get people to use it. We should task the HPC with looking at the