Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Housing Committee, Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Date: Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 0m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3614
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-31. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:04] All right. Welcome to my colleagues to the November 26th, can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving, housing committee meeting. I'm Supervisor I guess Chairman Palczyk. And we have some pretty exciting presentations today. And as you can see here, we will be covering other progress on housing initiatives and development. I think some of you will appreciate the new very visual visualizations of the work that they've been doing and that it's in the pipelines and how far we are to our goals. We will also hear about the workforce dwelling units,

[00:00:43] proposed administrative regulations, and then we will close out with the manufactured housing program. And the new manager is here with us today. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Before we get started, my understanding is Supervisor Herity has joined us remotely, so I have to make a motion to allow him to participate remotely for a medical reason.

[00:01:05] And let me first ask Supervisor Herity, can you state your name and location for the record? Pat Herity, Springfield, Virginia. Okay. I move the Housing Committee certify for the record that Supervisor Herity's voice can be adequately heard by all persons assembled here at the Government Center.

[00:01:24] And I further move that this committee approve Supervisor Herity's remote participation as it fully conforms to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors policy for remote participation in meetings second Oh, I'm sharing I thought you were gonna Do I have a second supervisor Alcorn any discussion? All right all those in favor, please say aye aye any opposed Any abstentions all right the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman I'm sorry, I was not aware we were doing that.

[00:02:03] Thank you. Thank you. So to that, let me just turn it over to Tom Fleetwood and his team to get started on our presentations. Good afternoon, Madam Chairman. Tom Fleetwood with the Department of Housing and Community Development. I'm joined at the dais here today by Megan Van Dam, Ivan Escobar, and Allison Pierce.

[00:02:24] Today, we would – forgive me. There you go. Thank you. Supervisor Palachuk has outlined our agenda for today, and I thought we would start with something a little bit different today relative to our updates, and in response to some guidance that we've received from a number of you about how we communicate relative to the people that we're serving in our programs. We're excited today to roll out the beginning of that

[00:03:00] work and or really I should say the continuation of that work and I'd like to ask Ms. Pierce our director our manager of out marketing and outreach to talk a little bit about our to talk a little bit about the work that we're doing in this regard and to roll the video. Hello everybody my name is Allison Pierce I'm a member of the team at Fairfax County Housing and at the request of the Board of Supervisors we have been actively sharing voices and information about the real stories of the real people who live and you live in and utilize affordable housing. We're doing this in an effort

[00:03:38] to build community and to build understanding about the people who we are serving. We have a new video to share with you today. It's an animation and it tells the stories of people who live in affordable housing. They are not real people, but they are certainly inspired by real people. And if you would like, go to our YouTube channel. We have an affordable housing playlist on the YouTube channel, and you can view real stories of real people who are using our services.

[00:04:12] They include Lakita, who is a retiree who lives in Oakwood Meadows senior residences. Heather, who is a mom, an active community volunteer who lives in Centerville. Yolanda, who is a student and FCRHA scholarship recipient in Alexandria, and Fatima, who purchased a home through our First Time Home Buyers program, and she lives actually really close to here in Fairfax.

[00:04:39] And so with that, I'd like to introduce this new video, and please encourage all of you to share all of this forward into the community as well. It's 8 a.m. in Fairfax County, and life is buzzing.

[00:04:59] Janet waits outside her home with her six-year-old, ready to wave goodbye as the school bus arrives. After drop-off, she'll head to her job as an accounts payable clerk at a local hospital. Mary enjoys her morning coffee, gearing up to help her neighbors at Oakwood Meadow Senior Residences organize food donations for the community pantry.

[00:05:23] John is an aircraft mechanic at Dulles Airport. He's got a long day ahead, but his mind is on his son's championship soccer game tonight. And Darren has a 12-hour shift at the nursing home. He looks forward to talking with Betty, a chatty resident with great stories.

[00:05:40] Although their paths are different, Janet, Mary, John and Darren share a commitment to family and community, all while benefiting from housing that is affordable. Affordable housing programs in Fairfax County support a diverse array of individuals and families, from new employees to seasoned professionals navigating a challenging market.

[00:06:01] Learn how these programs help residents obtain safe, affordable housing. Janet earns around $80,000 a year. She recently purchased an affordable dwelling unit through the First Time Homeowners program. Mary, a retiree on a fixed income, relies on affordable housing to stay in the Alexandria neighborhood she helped nurture.

[00:06:25] With a Housing Choice voucher, she remains close to her grandchildren and peers. John's income stretches thin for his family of three. Thanks to affordable housing, his family has a vibrant place to call home at the Ovation at Arrowbrook. and it's a short commute to his job at the airport.

[00:06:43] Without this help, his family would have to live far from the community they cherish. Darren is a certified nursing assistant who is working on his bachelor's degree. He resides at one university through a project-based voucher with the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program. Affordable housing not only helps him pursue a degree, but the convenient location makes it easy to walk to class.

[00:07:06] Teaching assistants, nurses, hospitality workers, retail workers, and many more are included in the spectrum of affordable housing, which meets people at different income levels. Homes look the same as any other in Fairfax County, but feature more affordable rent for working families.

[00:07:23] By preserving existing homes and creating new opportunities, we can ensure that families from all backgrounds thrive together. Scan the QR code to hear real testimonials from residents in affordable housing. Visit the website for more information on our programs, services, and properties.

[00:07:40] Let's continue to work towards a community everyone can afford. Madam Chairman, we just wanted to show that as an example of some of the work we're doing to help all of us communicate better about who is served, who benefits from Fairfax, from our affordable housing, and why this is so important in our community.

[00:08:04] Thank you for giving us the time to have the debut. Well, thank you. We're thrilled. And as was mentioned, looking forward to seeing the testimonials online of the work. So thank you for your work. And I know this is a continued project that we'll be able to continue to share out.

[00:08:24] Thank you, Tom. And so to that, let me send it back over to you for the development of homelessness response. Madam Chairman, we're going to just carry on briefly with our updates across a variety of our programs. Start out today with our homelessness response.

[00:08:42] A few highlights we wanted to hit here. Of course, the temporary overnight shelter in Reston is now open, and we are at the same time preparing the former extended stay property for use as a new family shelter.

[00:08:59] Again, we are working closely with Supervisor Alcorn and Supervisor Stork, respectively, on the replacement of the Rucker and the Kennedy shelters. And we are also working full out to deliver a substantial number of new permanent supportive housing units in the community.

[00:09:18] We're also continuing to work towards the implementation of the new state permanent supportive housing program. A little bit more about that. As you know, there's a partnership between the Housing Authority, the state, Pathway Homes, and our sister agency, the Community Services Board, that will provide 300 new slots for permanent supportive housing.

[00:09:39] There have been some challenges with respect to the negotiation of the MOU with the state that have been resolved. There are a few other remaining issues, but we're optimistic that we'll be able to begin leasing in the spring.

[00:09:55] So we continue to move forward there on that important new resource. Jumping now to our collective efforts to develop 10,000 new affordable housing units by 2034, As you can see from this chart, we are, if you count what we've delivered, what's under construction, and what's in our immediate pipeline, we are approaching 35% of our goal here with approximately 10 years left.

[00:10:24] We're very excited about the progress we're making, but we have certainly a tremendous amount of work in front of us as we move forward. A little bit about our progress, again, we've delivered 1,149 new units in the community since 2020.

[00:10:43] You can see from the map there something that we're all very proud of is not only are we delivering new housing, but we're delivering new housing in every part of Fairfax County. Similarly, under construction, we have over 1,400 new units under construction and, again, locations all over Fairfax County including right here now in our in our very front yard as far as our pre-development pipeline we have almost a thousand units in our pre-development pipeline and are expecting those to continue moving forward through the process here in the coming months and

[00:11:22] years and just conceptual in terms of sort of a look around the corner we've We've got over 600 units in our kind of conceptual pipeline that you see here, and we're looking forward to moving those forward as well.

[00:11:41] And this is all of those just aggregated here so that you can see and so the public can see the diversity of locations in which we're developing affordable housing and the progress that we're making in terms of delivering affordable housing in locations that contribute directly to uh to our economic growth and sustainability uh thanks to thanks to the support of of the board in in the in the current fiscal year we do have our notice of funding availability out

[00:12:16] and have funding available for projects moving forward um these this is in direct support of our 10 000 net new unit goal uh and as well as preservation uh and very importantly uh the preservation of or the production of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals our preservation activities continue apace we are anticipating having our market affordable survey done uh here by this coming summer we have there are a number of plan amendments uh as we understand

[00:12:51] it that may involve the preservation uh the preservation policy uh and i also can report that our updated relocation guidelines for multifamily housing have been released for public comment so we anticipate bringing those forward to the board for your review at your housing committee meeting in march as far as manufactured housing goes you'll receive a more fulsome update from ms escobar here shortly but we wanted to you know to just highlight that we are still waiting for the for the price grant award that we applied for during the summer and

[00:13:29] we're working towards convening the manufactured housing roundtable and we expect the RFP for the repair pilot project to be out within a week's time a look at our inclusionary zoning we have since 2020 we have had 261 new units that have been produced under your policies, and we have 185 that are expected to be delivered over the course of the next year.

[00:14:02] And you can see in the chart there the income breakdowns of the affordability of those units. In terms of home ownership, we're continuing to reform and streamline our first-time homebuyers program and for implementing additional down payment and closing cost assistance.

[00:14:24] And then just to look at timelines for our policy initiatives, you're going to receive the update, a briefing on the WDU administrative guidelines today. The relocation guidelines have been issued for public comment. Again, we'll be back to the housing committee in March.

[00:14:43] The manufactured housing pilot program, the RFP, will be out within a week. And we're also moving forward on the manufactured housing plan amendments and associated relocation guidelines as well. And with that, Madam Chairman, I'll be very happy to answer any questions.

[00:15:02] Well, thank you so much to Tom and the entire team and Megan and others who've all worked on this. Clearly, as you can see from slide 17, these are just, I think, five of your policy areas. And I think it's very helpful to understand the progress of where you all are coming on those.

[00:15:21] I also want to thank you and your team for the visuals. I know you only had about a day heads up to visualize where the projects are, and I know that as we continue to see these projects come through the pipeline, I, for one, find it very helpful to understand where they are geographically, where they are in the process, so that we, as a board, can also continue to support your staff's work in ensuring that we have them across the county and especially in areas where they're most needed and close to transit.

[00:15:57] And I think this, for me, is really helpful. I look forward to hearing from my colleagues on that. And I know Ivana has, I think, just started very recently. Ms. Escobar on the manufactured housing.

[00:16:23] I don't know why that word wasn't coming to me, but I appreciate the work on that. So I will pause there. I will turn to the – no, Chairman. Just thank you for the update, Tom, you and your team. I mean, some of us were out at one university, and, you know, we were mentioning the complexity of these.

[00:16:42] And so they might be one line on here, one dot on a map, but the amount of work that goes into making each one of these happen is just incredible. So I just want to thank you and your team for all that you're doing. And these updates are really helpful to us. Absolutely.

[00:16:57] Thank you. And especially on slide six, I know we always want to know where we are in our goals. So 10,000, and it's helpful to see where we are. So I saw Supervisor Beerman and then Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you.

[00:17:13] Thank you, Madam Chairman. On slide 15, I'm just trying to understand the numbers. It says, in total, 261 new units affordable to households earning 50% to 120% of AMI have been delivered since January 2020 in the ADU-WDU programs, including 877 new rental units, 384 new for-sale units.

[00:17:40] 877, 384 seem to be more than 261, so what am I missing?

[00:17:53] I believe there is a digit missing. Ah, okay, okay. It should be 1,261. Hey, that's great. That's an even better story. OK. I thought I was – I mean I was never very good at math. But anyway, great.

[00:18:08] Got it. Got it. Well, that's excellent. One question just for the next presentation or maybe just in like a side thing to us. It would be great to know like the locations of those 1,261 units.

[00:18:29] We've got them mapped out. with respect to our sort of all affordable locations. But it would be nice to know where we're seeing growth in the WDUs and ADUs on a geographic map. I apologize. I didn't introduce myself.

[00:18:48] Megan Van Dam, I'm the Planning and Inclusionary Housing Division Director. So I'll just put a plug in at this point for the upcoming release of the 2020 affordable housing dashboard, which we expect by the end of the year, and that does have additional mapping components to it, including the ADU and WDU.

[00:19:11] Terrific. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, and good catch there. I didn't even look at the first numbers. I was looking at the next two. Go ahead, Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, and a couple quick things. First of all, on the data dashboard, will that allow for affordable housing production by Supervisor District to be produced?

[00:19:31] Okay, good, because I think we have some very friendly competitions perhaps going on amongst some of us. Some of us have lost precincts, and it's made it harder. But yes, that's still... Good point. Fair point. We'll take you on. And my one question is on slide six.

[00:19:52] And this could be a budget question because you may not know the answer now. I guess, do we have an estimate? How much money per year do we need to plan or should we be expecting to make this goal? Is that something you know now or is that something that we should do as a budget question?

[00:20:13] I think we can certainly provide a more fulsome answer via budget Q&A. Okay, great. Then I'll just make that a budget question. Thank you. I will say, though, and thank you, Tom, but I will say that, I mean, all of this in that timeline of 2034 is in alignment with the board's stated goal of the two pennies.

[00:20:32] Good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. And I think that's a great question. And when you answer that, if I can add on how that funding is leveraged, I think it's really important for us to fully understand, which I know Anna's not here today, but your team do an excellent job braiding and leveraging the funds we put forward.

[00:20:53] And I, for now, for one thing, it would be helpful for us to see all of that as well. Thank you. I saw Supervisor Lusk. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I'll start by saying I really appreciate the video. I think the video helps humanize and show the stories of those who live in this housing.

[00:21:12] And I think more and more need to understand and see that these are folks who are serving, helping, and assisting all of us each and every day. Second, I wanted to thank you for the information on the manufactured housing.

[00:21:28] I'll defer my questions to that part of the presentation, but just really excited about the progress that's being made as it relates to manufactured housing and looking forward to seeing that continue. And then next is under home ownership, acknowledging the importance of trying to create ways for members of the community to be able to purchase their own homes and really looking at this as a way to create generational wealth and transferring opportunities for those families.

[00:22:04] I just wanted to see if there's anything you can share now about kind of where we are in terms of the assistance that might be provided through the down payment or closing cost program. Supervisor Lusk, thank you for your question.

[00:22:21] A couple things. Number one, our down payment closing cost assistance currently provides $10,000 per home buyer, and it's administered by our first-time homebuyers program at HCD. We are looking at opportunities to expand that through different sources of funding potentially.

[00:22:43] We are also optimistic that we can begin generating additional affordable homeownership options via the P3 process and some of those other opportunities as well. So we have a number of things coming down the pike.

[00:23:01] And we do anticipate that we will provide a pretty significant briefing on the homeownership at, I believe, the next housing committee meeting. Okay. That's perfect. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. And thank you, Madam Chairman.

[00:23:18] Thank you so much, Supervisor Lusk. I was trying to go back to that question. I couldn't remember if we had that in. I believe we do have it in our state legislative program to try to get state support on that as well. That is correct. That is correct. And we do receive a substantial assistance from Virginia housing in that respect as well. Okay. Excellent. Thank you.

[00:23:43] Not seeing any other questions. I believe, Tom, we are ready to move on to the update on the proposed revisions. I believe being led by Megan Van Dan, Director of Planning and Inclusionary Housing. Thank you very much. Reza Palchuk. So today I'll be presenting an update on where we are with the WDU, the Workforce Welling Unit program revisions. As you all are aware, we presented and you all had adopted policy changes in September of this year, and now we have moved on to the Administrative Policy Guidelines, which supplement the Comprehensive Plan policy

[00:24:22] about Workforce Welling Units. So I'll go through, next slide please, I'll go through the current WD Administrative Guidelines are, what they comprise, give some highlights on the revisions that we're proposing based on the policy changes and a few other changes as well, talk about where we are with stakeholder engagement, and then next steps. So the current WD Administrative Guidelines, those were adopted, last adopted and last revised with the

[00:24:57] changes that were made to the rental policy in 2021. These are guidelines that are a tool to administer the WDU program. They complement and supplement the policy, as I mentioned. And of course, these are WDUs that are created within proffered rezoning applications.

[00:25:17] The administrative guidelines get into a little bit greater detail than the policy as that mechanism for implementation they go through the integration and dispersion of WDs within a development provide some technical requirements about the size and the term the occupancy of the units speak to the sale and resale requirements the rental sale and resale requirements for the home ownership units the rental requirements talk about the the Fairfax County redevelopment and housings right to purchase and then also walk through the required legal documentation to bring the programs into commitments.

[00:25:56] Slide, please. So as I mentioned, we are revising the administrative guidelines to reflect the policy changes that were adopted in September of 2024. Specifically, these were based on task force recommendations that related to bedroom proportionality between the WDUs and the market rate units within a development and spoke to the minimum bedroom and living room sizes and so these these are a few of the the policy changes that are sort of expanded upon

[00:26:33] within the document the I think the big question that we had on the table during the policy changes related to WDU transfers within multi-unit developments we did we took a pause because that really lives the guidance on that lives within the administrative guidelines rather than the comprehensive plan.

[00:26:55] So we did pause on that when we did the policy changes, but we did look into that further. And as we looked into it, I think we recognized that the existing language related to the transfer within buildings, phases, and unit types was sufficient.

[00:27:15] It speaks to adequate integration and dispersion within developments. So we are not proposing to change that basic policy language. There are some tweaks in the wording of it to simplify the language and to make it more clear.

[00:27:32] But we are not proposing to change that general concept and that language. And so when we have proposals that have townhouses, stack townhouses, triflexes, things like that, or units like that, those still can be negotiated during the rezoning process.

[00:27:52] The bigger question, I think, that we were looking into was when we were transferring between for sale products and rental. We do have a wait list for homeownership that's several hundred, over 400 homeowners deep.

[00:28:11] And we are only on average producing 80 homeownership units per year versus the 250 rental. And these are 80 units that are potentially larger units that can accommodate families versus rental units that might be smaller.

[00:28:28] And so this is a policy question that we're looking at about, you know, how much flexibility should be maintained for developments that are producing for sale and rental units. We are aware, and I know we've had recent discussions about high-rise construction and the cost of that and the difficulty for homeowners when they're facing very high condo fees.

[00:28:53] We understand that that can be a real problem, and so we want to keep the flexibility for in those situations. But in general, we are proposing to limit transfer of units from for-sale WDUs into rental WDUs.

[00:29:11] The other situation where we're seeing quite frequently, actually, is when, A, development is proposing a fully affordable housing. or a fully affordable building within their development.

[00:29:28] And that is allowed under the current policy with flexibility within developments for that. And that is, you know, advantageous in terms of how we're creating affordable units, and we want to also keep the flexibility to do that as well.

[00:29:45] So if a development is looking to transfer a for-sale townhouse into some type of fully affordable building, that would be rental. That's producing twice as many units as we would otherwise be getting. That's something that still could be worked out through these guidelines.

[00:30:05] So we're trying to find that middle ground between where our sort of priorities are with homeownership, but also trying to make sure that we're increasing overall the supply of housing and keeping projects moving forward.

[00:30:23] So that's been the largest of the issues that I think we're dealing with within the administrative guidelines. We did receive some comments on that, which I'll get to in a minute. There are a few other highlights on this slide about trying to also speak to comparable finishes and features within WDUs as they are in the market rate units.

[00:30:52] That's often done anyway based on how the developers are looking at these units. So we are trying to just sort of solidify that into the language. The initial sale and resale price formulas were adjusted based on the task force recommendations, and that assumes additional costs like home ownership, or excuse me, homeowner insurance, and then also looking at adjusting prices for when we have high condo fees.

[00:31:21] And then I mentioned we had some, we are making the document more readable and user-friendly. Speaking in plain English, we've taken out some of the repetitions, some of the legal ease, and we're also making the document more chronological so that one could read it and figure out how to do the process in the order that it should be done.

[00:31:44] So anyway, so those are the big highlights, I would say, for the changes. Next slide, please. We've had the document up online for the past month. We presented to, we presented, we held a couple of virtual public information sessions.

[00:32:05] We had a number of, we were invited to present to different interest groups. We sent out information notifications to all of the different groups that we met with during the policy changes. And then we had some direct communication and questions from different interested parties.

[00:32:25] Again, I think the biggest concern is still the, you know, how, you know, the restrictions, even if limited, of the WDUs transferring from for sale to rental, how that will affect, how that will affect the development.

[00:32:47] We did receive comments from NAOP slash NVBIA to that regard. And next slide, please. We'll take as far as how we're speaking to that, we would like to follow up with them, have additional discussions. Their comments were pretty high level, so we need to talk with them more specifically about the scenarios that they mentioned in the letter.

[00:33:12] And then we expect to revise the guidelines and then prepare them for public hearings. So we'll present them ideally in March so you'll have them at that point. So that is my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[00:33:31] Thank you so much. I understand why getting all this into plain English might be difficult, but there's a lot happening, as you know. I think each of us probably has had different projects that we've had to work through. I know I had a pretty tough one, but as we learned through that, I think it's very helpful to help us look at, as you mentioned, whether it's high-rise, mid-rise, low-rise, for sale, rental, there's quite a bit behind there.

[00:34:00] And so I appreciate, and I assume this will be a working document. So as we learn more, I don't know if we have a plan for how to study how, once we finalize this, how we will continue to review it based on the real market that we see coming in, coming forward.

[00:34:20] Yes, we can talk specifics about what that might look like. But, you know, we do typically have those types of reviews and ongoing monitoring. We'll be coming up on the rental WDU monitoring date shortly, actually.

[00:34:37] So, yes, we can talk about what that looks like, figure that out. Okay, that's excellent. And then I will turn it over to the chairman before I turn to my colleagues, but really just want to ensure that we're aware and that we have access to be able to share out easily the documents, the information. And then finally, I would hope and assume that once the guidelines are finalized, that we can maybe create a simpler version for people, because the guidelines, I think, have to be guidelines, right, and be very clear. But perhaps we can think about how to

[00:35:15] more easily communicate it in plain language, including in multiple languages once they are finalized. Excellent. All right, let me turn it over to the chairman. Yeah, thank you. Just I have two questions. One on page two, under sales and rental, it says about three-quarters of the way through the next to last paragraph, it says further the language about preferential treatment to those households already possessing a certificate of qualification

[00:35:47] is removed to facilitate sales i'm just wondering you know how big of a burden is that do we have this happen where we have units that are sitting that that aren't sold because of that i've just i've just never heard that before i'm trying to understand you know the supply and demand issue we have now and what the practical application of removing that preferential treatment is so So first and foremost, all of the WDUs that are sold are sold to those that are qualified.

[00:36:23] So that's number one. But what happens right now is that there is a preference for those who are already on our pre-qualified list to purchase the units. And then if those units are not sold, then they are put out for immediate release so that those then then they can be sold to or publicized for the general public to you know come in and show interest and then they would have to be qualified so I think the practical application of removing that that preference is that units will be moved more quickly right so we

[00:37:03] will so that anyone whether you're pre-qualified or not will be able to contact the the seller to purchase the unit if they're not on the pre-qualified list already they can uh go through the the cut reach out to hcd or be directed to hcd to uh to make sure that they meet the qualifications and get on the qualified list yeah i understand that i just want to make sure that you know we're first encouraging people to get the certificate so that they can get first access to these units and just don't want us to end up in trouble where somebody moves ahead of somebody

[00:37:42] else for a technicality or they weren't aware of that requirement. And so I think, you know, it's fine to have that in there. I think what our goal should be is to give people qualified in the qualified applicant pool more of them so that less frequently, potentially, that could happen.

[00:37:59] And I guess the only other question that I have is, and I think I see it referenced here, but maybe not directly, I know in the past we had some challenges with people who were refinancing for sale units and cashing out the equity, and I don't explicitly see that.

[00:38:18] I'm looking under Section 12 about the financing control and foreclosure of WDUs, which I presume is where that would be, and it's very clear in here that you can't obtain financing above the original control price.

[00:38:34] I'm trying to see where it explicitly prohibits one from seeking to cash out any equity that they have. So I can take a look at that further and see if, I mean, that is, you're right, that is the intent of this program.

[00:38:51] If it's not explicitly reading that way, then we would, we'll certainly make sure it's clearer. Yeah, I don't see it there. I think that's something we want to be really careful about because there were some, you know, unfortunate circumstances and certainly there were provisions that were put in place that should have prohibited a bank from approving those, but that those were carelessly ignored and, you know, were being ignored across the board.

[00:39:21] They weren't just with our properties, but I think the more we can protect ourselves from that, both in the documents that people signed, but then also in the policy guidelines so that people who might be exploring the opportunity to maybe purchase one of these units doesn't find out when they're at the table that that's something they can't do, that they know going into it, it's something that they can't do.

[00:39:44] And I would think that you would want that explicitly in the policy guidelines to announce that to them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Supervisor Lusk? I mean, Alcorn. Sorry, Alcorn. That's my brother. So just a process question.

[00:40:06] Remind me, I believe these policy guidelines do not go through the Planning Commission. Is that correct? Or do they? We have reached out to them to see if they would like to be briefed, but they don't have to take action on them. Okay. How about RHA? We also will be reaching out to them as an FYI, but these are a board-adopted.

[00:40:29] Right, so there's no other formal public hearing except the Board of Supervisors, so just confirming that. Okay, thank you. All right, seeing no further questions, thank you so much, Ms. Van Dam. Very much appreciate that, and my colleagues for their questions.

[00:40:44] And again, a reminder to my colleagues to let's push these out and continue to get information as we go through the process before we get to the public hearing. And to that, I believe we are now at the Manufactured Housing Work Program and thrilled to welcome Ms. Ivana Escobar.

[00:41:04] I believe your title is Director of Manufactured Housing, but I don't know if that's correct. If you want to correct me, please do. Yes, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ivana Escobar. I'm the Manufactured Housing Coordinator for the Department of Housing and Community Development. And I will present the Manufactured Housing Work Program today.

[00:41:23] For today's discussion, we're going to provide a progress report on community outreach, funding initiatives, our draft manufacturer housing work plan, and our active projects. For community engagement, we created a range of effective communication strategies that actively promote inclusive community engagement.

[00:41:45] We want to ensure that every voice is not only heard, but value, and we do this through flyer distributions, mail communications, WhatsApp groups, in-person meetings, direct interactions, and open communications for property owners. This work would not be done without our partnerships through the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services and the district supervisor's offices. For funding initiatives, we were awarded over $3 million in Amazon Reach funds, which is

[00:42:18] managed through Virginia Housing. As Tom mentioned, we're still awaiting decisions on the price grant. Everyone received a copy of the Draft Manufacturer Housing Work Plan, which will look like this, and these are based off the 2022 Manufacturer Housing Task Force recommendations, and we adjusted them through our current needs.

[00:42:45] You will see that they're categorized by the activities similar to the Manufactured Housing Task Force, which are community outreach and engagement, understanding community needs, provide community benefits, code compliance, and community quality, land use, and legislative.

[00:43:04] We've also split the work plan into three categories, which you will see as active projects in the front page and in the back as dependent tasks and pending analysis, as well as future activities. For active projects, I'm going to just go very high level on our projects that we have going on for community outreach and engagement.

[00:43:28] We have the roundtable recruitment and capacity building, which I will touch on in the next slide, as well as the resident survey. This survey is for us to better understand the needs of individuals living in manufactured housing communities. We also have the manufactured housing websites.

[00:43:46] This is going to be a webpage dedicated for resources for residents and property owners for manufactured housing communities. For our home repair, this summer we worked with the Office of Environment and Energy Corporation, as well as Faith-Based Alliance for Climate Solutions and other community stakeholders to successfully install 31 AC units and serve 21 households.

[00:44:10] We also have the Home Repair Program, which I will touch on later. As for code compliance, we have the Regulatory Process Assistance and Resources on Code Requirements and Regulations. We are working with the Department of Code Compliance and Land Development Services to develop a comprehensive list of codes and resources available to manufacturer homeowners, tenants, and community owners at a local, state, and federal levels. For land use, we have the preservation and comprehensive plan amendment, zoning ordinance amendment, and affordability analysis. We are working with the Department of Planning and Development to review the comprehensive plan guidance to clarify and ratify any inconsistencies

[00:44:50] related to manufactured housing communities. Our manufactured housing roundtable, we are hoping to bring together mobile homeowners, renters, park owners, and managers, trusted community partners, as well as HCD and other county agencies. This is a roundtable that will have representatives from all of the eight manufactured housing communities. We are hoping to fill up to 22 seats for residents and three seats for owners and property management. We are currently right now doing recruitment through our community conversation, which are happening. We have

[00:45:27] two coming up for Penda and Whitley, and this is just to ensure that we are doing direct feedback with our community members, but as well as giving them an opportunity to let us know what representatives do they want in their communities, and we are also working with NCS to support for outreach. Our Manufacturer Housing Home Repair Program, we are hoping to get that released shortly, as Tom mentioned, will get released next week. And this will be a pilot program that we pilot in Harmony Place. We are using CDBG funds to pilot this program and

[00:46:06] hopefully expand it across all eight manufactured housing communities. And this is going to be used to support home repair and renovation services for residents. Our Manufactured Housing Residence survey our survey is going to be distributed both online and in paper formats we are really hoping to just under better understand the needs of manufactured housing residents we haven't done so in previous years so this is the first time we also don't want to overwhelm residents as you will see we

[00:46:44] are going to just briefly touch on household information ownership community strengths and from an informality to the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance We do know that our residents speak both English and Spanish, and we're hoping to adopt this in public input, so if other languages do arise, people have the ability to get it translated.

[00:47:03] That's also, we're hoping to get that up and running, hopefully by the end of the year, so residents get an opportunity to not only answer, but also as the roundtable will be developed, that will also help the roundtable decide on upcoming initiatives. Next slide, please. And that's it. Thank you so much.

[00:47:27] Wow, phenomenal. Thank you. I heard I would be impressed. And I have to tell you, I sat here and I put five stars on your community engagement slide because I think everything you listed here and then going through the manufactured housing work program, your matrix of the active projects, the different areas from the outreach to the understanding community needs, code compliance, land use, all of it, just thank you.

[00:48:02] If someone who does not have manufactured housing, focusing on the work that I know you've only been there a short time so far, but you and your team on ensuring that we do that work, right, of really engaging, building trust with the community, hearing from the community. And I believe as both Tony and Carla said, co-create with the community, right? And really ensure that we're partners at this. We're learning from them. Your community outreach and engagement, just phenomenal. And then not to mention the work that's being done. And I know

[00:48:41] EEC helped as well to kick off the home repair, the AC program, and now the home repair program. Just phenomenal. I know it's been a long time that we've waited for this, but I think you're absolutely moving in the right direction. This is how I hope to see us do engagement and really honor our community and everything that we do. So first of all, I just want to thank you and the whole team who's been working on this. The only slight question I have an idea because I have to

[00:49:15] throw out crazy ideas um is as you do the home repair program um and thinking through um the kind of the work we're doing to train our workforce and especially our our high school students and young adults i think this is a great opportunity if we can find the right partnership whether it's with our trade unions or those supporting the wish center or through our high school academies I think there's a huge opportunity here, not to slow down your work, but to think about how to also turn this into a workforce development project as well.

[00:49:51] I think there's absolutely just so much here. I will stop there because I know my colleagues who have the manufactured housing probably have more questions than comments, but just thank you. I'm very excited to have you in the county now.

[00:50:08] Mr. Chairman. Sure. Thank you very much. Great presentation. I particularly appreciate the work program because seeing that chart and all the things that are ongoing is really helpful for us to understand the totality of the work that you're doing.

[00:50:25] I guess the only technical question I had, and you mentioned CDBG funding in here, you mentioned price funding, and then what really jumps out is the Amazon Reach Award, the $3 million. And I'm just curious what the uses of the Amazon Reach Award were.

[00:50:42] I think probably the only column that's missing in the work program is kind of what we have put in the way of resources towards these things. And I'm just curious how we're using the $3 million. I know as a board we've talked about some strategic acquisition opportunities and other things that, you know, may be down in the future as we look at preserving these.

[00:51:04] and I'm just trying to understand how the funding works into the work program and, in particular, what are the uses of the Amazon Reach Award dollars. Megan Van Dam, the Reach Award dollars are very, I would say they're not very, but they're flexible.

[00:51:25] So we have some overlap with the same intentions that we are looking to do and we're looking to do in price. So it is supporting homeownership, but we also have an ability to look at replacement units, or I think it's also potentially purchasing property as well.

[00:51:47] So it is very, it's flexible. Okay. We're working through the scope of that right now with Virginia Housing. Yeah, I mean, I bring that up because like many of our affordable housing programs, you're strategically braiding the dollars in a way that the ones with the least amount of restrictions are the ones you want to preserve to the very end to make things happen.

[00:52:07] And certainly we'd all like to think the Amazon Reach Award will be recurring in the future, but we don't know that. I mean, it may be a one-time thing. We may not have an opportunity for that again. So how we use those resources I think is really important and how we leverage those dollars and stack the programs that we're doing based on preserving the most flexible dollars at the very end I think is going to be important as we hopefully get the price award and some of the other things that come in you're going to have

[00:52:42] these sources coming in from multiple areas and as you mentioned this is the first time we've really had this position and had a very well thought out strategy on how to preserve and protect our manufactured housing in the county but as a result of that also we don't have tremendous experience in how we sort out the resources to be able to make these things happen.

[00:53:06] And so I just think that's something we need to constantly monitor. We're doing a lot of great things. We don't want to have to go back to the community a year or two from now and say, we've exhausted the funding sources that we had, because there are a number of things in here that I think are recurring long-term things we're going to have to continue to do to support these communities. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and great, great points. I do have Supervisor Lusk, and I just want to share, I know Supervisor Stork would have loved to join us. He is currently with family and was not able to get online, but I know is very much following this

[00:53:46] conversation and appreciates the work that's happening. Supervisor Lusk? Yeah, I'll just want to extend my thanks to the staff for the work that's being done here again as well and acknowledge having a new manufacturer housing coordinator is very helpful to the efforts as well.

[00:54:05] If I could, under the funding initiatives, and I appreciate the direction that the chairman was going as related to the REACH Award, I'm interested in also just clarifying, I know we applied for the price grant. As I recall, we had requested $41 million in funding for that.

[00:54:25] Is there any update you can provide in terms of the timing for that award, any new information that you can share? Unfortunately, Supervisor Lusk, there's been radio silence on this issue.

[00:54:41] We had anticipated that there would be an award prior to the election in November. That did not happen, but we have every reason to believe that we will hear from HUD on this before mid-January.

[00:54:56] Okay, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed because I think that this funding will be the linchpin for us to do a lot of the things that we have planned here in the work plan. Let me move to the, before I do this, let me thank Allison Homer specifically with OEC for the work that she did in helping to organize the installation of the air conditioning units in harmony.

[00:55:24] There were 31 homes, as Ms. Escobar indicated, that did not have operable air conditioning units during the height of the summer. And I want to say going out and helping to do some of those installations and seeing the conditions in which those residents were being subjected to, it was imperative that this be done.

[00:55:48] So I just want to acknowledge Allison, OEC, rebuilding together also were very instrumental in helping us with this effort. On the manufactured housing roundtable, you talk about there being 22 seats designated for residents and then three seats for owners.

[00:56:11] Just thinking about the distribution of these manufactured housing communities, even in my own district, I've got two. Audubon has 700 units and then Harmony has 91. What is the methodology that we're going to use to assign residents to each of those manufactured housing communities? So what I'm trying to get is the number. I'm assuming you must have a formula here. I just don't know what it is for the number of people that will be assigned by manufacturing community. Yeah. So for

[00:56:47] Manufacturer housing communities that have units under 100, they will get up to two seats. Manufacturer housing communities that have from 100 to 300 will get up to three, and then from 300 to 700 get up to four seats.

[00:57:05] And I say up to because, again, this is the first time we're going to these communities. We have to build that relationship, so we don't want to also put pressure on these communities to say, hey, you need to get four seats. So that's what we say up to. One of the things that we've enjoyed is when we go out to the community's residents, sometimes at real time we'll nominate themselves.

[00:57:27] So that also is encouraging, and we are going to release an application once we complete the final community engagement. Yeah, one thing I'll say is I was a part of the effort that you did in the Highland Valley Community Center, and it was pretty clear that there were people who, whether they were identifying themselves as roundtable members, their level of engagement made them very good candidates to be Roundtable members.

[00:57:52] So I think we probably have the ability to identify through those efforts the individuals that might be the most likely. But I just wanted to understand that better, so thank you. And then under the Home Repair Program, I'm really, really excited about this for Harmony and just want to thank Tom Fleetwood for the work here in making Harmony the first.

[00:58:19] And I think if we kind of look at the manufactured housing communities across the county, this is the one that certainly has significant need. So just wanted to maybe clarify and understand a little bit better. You mentioned that the home repair program would do both home repair and renovations.

[00:58:39] Can you talk about what you mean, maybe just so we're all understanding, what does that mean specifically in terms of types of home repair and types of renovation services? So we created a list of eligible activities. So some of the home repairs could be something simple as a repair, just doing a repair of roof. And then such as also even stairs and railings. And then for renovations, we know that AC units would fall into that as well as for water distribution pipes.

[00:59:15] And we also created a list for ineligible activities, and this is what the contractor will have set in place to identify which activities they will take on. Okay, that's helpful. And then how do we, I guess we're going to do an assessment of each of the manufactured housing communities to understand kind of what needs they might have as it relates to even the home repair component, just trying to get a sense of like the scale of it.

[00:59:44] Yes. Okay, awesome. So with that, Mr. Sherman, I will go ahead and conclude my questions. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you so much, Supervisor Lusk. I'm not seeing any additional questions.

[01:00:02] So first of all, I just want to thank you so much. I believe it's five months into the job, and we are so, so delighted to have you here and to bring the experience that you had in the community to the housing office. I believe with that, I will turn it over to Tom Fleetwood to see if he has any other business, and then we will confirm our next housing committee meeting in the new year.

[01:00:26] I believe it's in March. Only last comment, Madam Chairman, is the next meeting is March 25th at 11 a.m. Excellent. With that, we will adjourn early.

[01:00:42] Thank you all very much, and we will be back here at 3 p.m.

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