Affordable Housing and Community Equity Development Commission - Regular Meeting

respond. I'm um sitting in for Nancy Lipson tonight who's our who's our chairperson. Um so let's get the meeting is September 25th of the Housing and Community Equity Development Commission and why don't we take uh a roll call. Go around. Karen Britain here. Eric Patrick Sheridan here. Halbertson present. And I think Eric um I think that uh Elijah Eric Blaine is not here tonight. He couldn't come. So I think that's everybody that's present. Great.

Um now the minutes of um two minutes we haven't approved April 24th and June 26th. Can I have a motion to approve those? So approved. A second. Second. Thank you, Patrick. All right. All in favor? I I. Anybody opposed? Great. It passed. So, we have next item is new business and Oh, everybody's here. Eric's here. Great. So, and thank you Harry for coming tonight. Um, hey Harry, congratulations. Yes. Yes.

Thank you very much. I'm coming to you live from Blazer Bourbons and Cigars at the FA House. Oh, that's great. That's pretty much fun. Um, I have to say how excited we are about this bill. I I don't know um if you know that last year we tried to do something um a little more complicated and it didn't get very far. So, we're really glad that this ordinance has been I'm speaking for me, but I think I'm speaking for the commission as well that it's that it's been um proposed. So, with further ado, I'll just let Eric and Harry take over and talk about the bill.

Sure. Well, Eric can maybe give you the slightly more technical version, but let me talk a little bit from the heart and give you the story version of it. So, I grew up in a duplex and uh when I was three years old, my parents bought both sides of a duplex in Baltimore, one of which had been renovated recently and the other one was on the verge of collapse. And so first uh 10ish years of my life were fix helping fix up that house, you know, watch my dad put in copper pipes or this that the other. Um it's a really great way to build wealth. It's a great way to have additional housing types now that they have uh fixed it up. It's sort of one side of the house is where they live, the other side is split into where my mom has a business and an apartment. So, I understand this need for Annapolis to reallow the kind of historic housing that we've had because that's not unique to Baltimore. In fact, it is much more common in Annapolis. Uh for a long time, we've had this paradigm where the duplexes that used to be where working families would live could get combined into one rich single family home. And there was no way for them for single family homes to get split into duplexes. So, we had this terrible ratchet strap that was destroying so much of our affordable without a capital A housing stock or workforce housing. Uh, which I think is what you were alluding to there, Terry. So, one night I was perusing the city code as I do and uh literally came across this part in the R2 zoning code that says duplexes are allowed if they meet the essentially all the requirements to look like a single family house, right? The setback requirements, the bulk requirements, these things that we think are important for neighborhood character. And they were built before 1970. I thought this

is a very minimal change. This is a very simple change. Let's strike those four words that say built before August 13th, 1970. And so that's really all this bill does is uh say that we're going to reallow within the R2 zone this historic land use. Uh R2 zone is about 60% of the city. It's if you walk around Murray Hill, if you walk around Germantown, if you walk around some of the R2 parts of Eastport, you see once you have an eye for it, duplexes are all over the place. We just don't allow any new ones. So, the goal of this bill really is to say that ratchet should be able to go in both directions, right? If we want to convert duplex into single family homes, should also be able to convert those single family homes into duplexes. It's just giving that allowance. Um and then uh partially at the planning and zoning department's suggestion and partially for some you know reasons of not freaking anybody out too too much we've limited it only to double lots only to lots that are twice as big as is required for one house. So that means that um this is does not apply to every lot in the R2 zone. It only applies to those particularly big ones. That's still potentially about um gosh, I think the staff report said something like 800 lots across the city. So that's potentially 800 housing units that could come online. And and again, we're not talking about subsidized when I say affordable housing, but the type of housing that's a starter home, the type of housing that a young family that a young professional could actually afford to buy and that historically has been what the working class in our city. So, that's the story and the uh heartwarming side of it. Happy to turn it over to Eric if he has anything else to add and then I'm I can give you take any questions.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Alderman. I I don't have too much more to add. I'm not coming to you all from as exciting of a place. I'm just in my car. Um but uh I just reinforce that the idea behind this legislation was was thoroughly in our comprehensive plan that was adopted. We had a lot of content in that about the kind of character of housing, the housing diversity that has historically defined Annapolis which includes uh wide variety single family homes, attached, detached, duplexes, triplexes, forplexes, so forth. Um and the idea of legalizing a duplex is um I would say uh very anapapolis you know it's it is part of our history and um it's a very incremental uh change to our zoning code that as the alderman said it it won't impact every property in the R2 zone about 800 out of the 3,000 or so properties. Um, so, you know, we see this as just another another tool to enable us to address our housing goals. It won't um uh it won't be enough, but it's one thing, you know, and and we need more policy changes. This is just one policy change that could have a a measurable impact. And um you may remember a map that was in the comprehensive plan that showed just how much of the city um is zoned for residential use that does not allow for a duplex that extends beyond the R2. I mean that includes other zoning districts. It's a very significant part of the city. Um I mean

more probably close to 70% of the city. So, um, this will help address some of that. Um, you know, it's not, um, it's not going to impact every property, but I think in a lot of it, this is something we did the mapping. Um, every neighbor in the city would benefit from this. So, it's sensible legislation from our perspective. Um, and happy to answer any questions that the alderman can't. So,

and let I think I'm talking to fellow travelers here. If you guys are on this commission, I think you care about making housing affordable. But let me just address a few of the myths that have cropped up around this because there has been some things that people have said that are incorrect. So, the first one was that this is going to allow duplexes in the historic district. Well, first of all, within the historic district, duplexes are are allowed throughout much of this. I'm in one and it's great. Yeah, I used to live in one, too. Now, I'm slightly outside of the historic district,

but um but actually, no, there is no R2 zone within the historic district. So, this really doesn't do anything in the historic districts at all. Another was just the magnitude of the number of properties. I had someone say a thousand homes in Murray Hill are going to get bulldozed. I was like, well, you know, you heard from Eric already, this affects uh 800 properties throughout the city and within Ward One, I don't know the other wards, but it's really only somewhere between 50 and 100 within W one. Uh, and then one other thing, everybody in Annapolis wants to consider parking and understandably so. It's worth noting that duplexes are required to have twice as much parking as single family homes are. And that brings me to the last thing I have to say on this, which is my own chief complaint about this legislation is that in many ways it doesn't go far enough. Uh we're trying to take one step forward. I think it's a meaningful step, but I'll be the first one to say that it doesn't go far enough and uh there's a lot more we can do to expand the diversity of our house. So

happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Is it anybody have questions? No questions. Okay. Well, um actually thank you so much for sharing that information because

friends are telling me misinformation so I can correct them now. Um I think that's huge and and we and you know we want to work with our elected officials and our staff um to come up with ideas and legislation. So, please use us. Please work with us and we want to work with you. I guess that's the big thing. Um, we too think we'd like to go further. We've talked to Eric about ways we could some that kind of didn't make get much traction, but um it was always when the new comp plan was going to be approved. It's been approved now, so we should be able to try and move forward. Um, so thank you so much.

Well, back at you. Never hesitate to reach out if you like me have an idea in the middle of the night about how to increase housing. Just send me a quick email. It doesn't have to be anything formal. Just saying, "Hey, I was looking for this part of the code. Does this thing make sense?" And we can go from there. We can explore it. I love when I hear from people occasionally like, "Oh, I was in Paris and I saw this. Can this be legalized in Annapolis?" Never hesitate to just shoot me a quick message on those things. I'd really appreciate. Did you see our the legislation that we did sponsor? I can't even remember when it was. Two years ago. I don't remember. I think you're talking about the workforce housing, right?

Yeah. Yeah, because because the the the fear that we had is that new construction to be affordable might not be affordable unless you put some things in to help the price stay down. Um, that was one of the things that we were trying to work on and and there might and we and I think that I know Nancy talked our our chair talked about there's ways we could have improved it to maybe make it more palatable to folks. So, I um I think that that's still something that we could work on hopefully. I hope that uh I'm around in two months to do exactly that with you. I would love

We hope so, too. Anybody else? Any questions? All right. Well, thank you very much. I know you guys have are doing other things today, so we truly appreciate you stopping by and and and doing and telling us about the bill and we and we look forward to supporting it. I guess that's the question I have. In writing, come to testify. What are the best ways to show support and help? Uh so certainly any of you who can come and testify on Monday that would be really appreciated. Monday is a public hearing on this and then if the commission itself wanted to issue a letter of support I think that would be great. Uh I feel really hopeful about this bill. I think we do have a a good six or seven yes votes on it. Even some of the folks who I know have not previously been supportive I think understand that this is in line with the comp plan and is a reasonable change. So, I'm optimistic about it chances of passage, but I would love to get your guys' support adding to that course.

Well, we certainly can do that letter and I'll talk to folks here to see if the members if anybody can testify on Monday. Where is the bill in the process? Is this the first reading or uh I don't think it's the first reading. It's the public hearing, right? Correct. Yes. Monday it's the public hearing. It got introduced a while ago. It went to the planning commission. They gave it a unanimously favorable recommendation and now it's back for public hearing and then we'll go to excuse me to the rules and city government committee. Okay. Well, we'll we'll promote someone attending if they can on Monday night. Thank you.

Well, thank you guys for having me. I'm going to tap out and I hope you have a great rest of your meeting. You too. Thank you. Have fun. Thanks, Eric. Eric, have fun in the car. I'm actually at volleyball practice, so Oh, okay. Um, but yeah, by all means, um, you know, for boards and commissions to support legislation, you know, you should take action and and just submit a letter of support or, you know, that would be appropriate, I think. Um, okay. It would go on the record, so to speak, for the legislation. So, yeah. Yeah, happy to. Yeah, we of course we want to. That's the minimum we can do. Thank you, Eric. All right. Good seeing you. Good seeing you. Bye.

Well, I'll just follow up on that. Can anybody go Monday night? I can. Yay, Karen. Okay. All right. And then um I can work with Nancy and and uh anybody else? Anybody want to draft a letter of support? Yes. Oh, you can do it all. Okay. No, I mean Oh, sorry. Whoa. Whoa. I mean, am I interested in joining in? Yes, Rich. Anybody? I I can help start it off. And uh Okay, great. Great. And we'll bring N we'll bring Nancy in, too. She's she um we'll bring her in. So, that would be good. So, maybe I'm sure Eric would um would have question would have comments, too. So, um All right. So, I guess

Well, I am um let me just add that I am W one. I live in a duplex, but and so I'm happy to testify on behalf of the bill. So, if you have any talking points you would like me to add because I mean that'd be helpful. I mean I know I can speak for myself but anything you can have would be great. Okay. So, send them your way comments. Okay. Great. And I'm Elijah. I keep calling Elijah Eric. I apologize. Anyway, um so I know Elijah probably has some comments too. So yeah.

Yeah. I'll email him. Um all right. So, we'll move on to the next item and that's Adam Strot who's the new economic development manager and community development and uh why don't you can introduce yourself Adam and then we can introduce ourselves but if you have any goals or anything you want to share with us go ahead for your new job.

Thank you Terry. Yeah, I appreciate the introduction. Um so I am the new economic development manager. Um well it's not officially part of my title. I am taking over the responsibility of community development as well. Uh I actually come from another jurisdiction in the state of Maryland that's Alageney County. I was born and raised in Annapolis but spent four years out west um where I was uh working on issues surrounding community development as well as economic development. Um I ran a number of uh grant programs including one for adaptive reuse of historic buildings uh in our down the downtowns and main streets throughout Alageney County. And um most recently uh well most one that's undergoing construction right now but um a a large affordable uh market rate housing project uh which is a public private partnership with home builder Dr. Horton uh to develop 65 new homes um sort of an innovative model where we use surplus land and then um actually acted as a horizontal developer. So, a land developer putting in the infrastructure, all the major grading, and then conveying the lots over to the home builder with an exclusive land development agreement that requires them to sell them at um at certain prices. So, thus controlling the cost um but allowing for the developer to also uh create enough profit to justify the investment. So, it was a win-win. Um target prices on those homes are somewhere in the mid200s. These are single family homes that

That's great. Yeah, they're the same product that's sold in Frederick. They're the same product that's sold in parts of Anonda County, which could go for double or or, you know, more, 2.5 times more. So, um, I'm hoping to to maybe look at that model and see how we might be able to apply it here. Probably not to the same extent. Napapolis is a little more um you know it's significantly more dense than Alageney County which is highly rural but uh between between the adaptive reuse and uh stimulating new market rate housing and then working with Denise on the affordable housing side and our partners uh such as Hackom. Um, you know, I look forward to kind of melding those two sides, economic development and community development, creating opportunities, um, you know, for those anapolitans that are, you know, living within, you know, certain communities that have dealt with generational poverty, escaping that poverty and creating social mobility and and long-term wealth for those communities. So, that's that's the goal right now. I'm working on a um economic development strategic plan and housing will play a very large role in that as well. So um I welcome any suggestions and um and input from the members of this board and um I hope to be uh to be an asset for it as well. So thank you.

Great. Thank you, Adam. Good stuff. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So folks want to go around and introduce themselves, your backgrounds. So Adam kind of knows what resources he has available to him if he chooses to use us. Patrick, you can start.

Yeah, I'm Patrick Sheridan. Uh retired but uh a lot of interactions with local housing activities. I'm a board commissioner for PACA. Um, also on Homes for America's board, uh, and also another national nonprofit that does housing, you know, uh, nationwide. Uh, 23 years with the federal government and rural housing service. Uh, the last position I had there, I was running the multifamily housing programs for them. Also a couple years with CBA, uh, housing management director. Uh but then I kind of finished my career uh to EVP for housing for Volunteers of America. She's the one I'm on the board of now for uh the Nationwide Housing. So the one thing I do have to add to the group that I hope Melissa doesn't get mad at me is that uh we heard this morning that they got an award of 9% tax credits for Robinwood uh for the redevelopment of that. Uh so that is huge as far as funding source far as going forward. So really good to hear.

Well, I have to congratulations. The other thing I have to say is for a man that's retired, you're awfully busy. I started to say that man is not retired. Thank you, Patrick. Semi-retired, I think, is what it is. Yeah. Rich, you want Rich, you want to go ahead?

Sure. Uh Rich Albertson um originally from California, actually graduated from Navy. I have 20 year reunions in about a month. Um and retired from the the Navy and moved into industry um primarily um in kind of affiliate companies spent the last five years uh running a public benefit corporation I founded to improve access to housing and home services for military families across the country. Uh, and I'm uh currently settled here in the area with my wife and young daughter. Thanks. And we're lucky to have Rich. Thank you. Yes, for sure. Now Karen, you get to go.

Oh. Um, unfortunately, I'm kind of out of what you know this this commission was. But um I got into it because in North Carolina I worked for the United Way and I was a landlord engagement specialist. was all about housing and started a program where we created housing and helped people create their own housing and then I worked with the lighthouse shelter here in Annapolis um as the landlord engagement coordinator. Um, but now I am not so much in that industry, but still definitely interested and involved in staying committed to creating affordable housing, which I think is super important, especially, you know, trying to bridge that gap from what people think affordable housing is because they think it's subsidized housing and say like, "No, no, no. I work for the United Way. I work for Lighthouse Shelter. This is the housing that people that do this work need. Housing, you know, nonprofits, firefighters, police officers, teachers, all that. So happy to hopefully bridge that gap.

All right, last but not least, Terry,

you lie. Um anyway, Adam, I was a planner. Um my career I came back east to go to get a master's degree at GW. Um I worked for the county for a short period and then I moved on to Prince George's and park and planning commission and I worked there for over 30 years. Whole and did a lot of different things. So, I try and bring some zoning expertise, so to speak, to the group because I understand zoning, although I think most people on this commission understands understand zoning almost as well as I do. So, and then we have great staff. So, so that's that's the resources you have to work with. Um, and we really want we've we've been talking a long time about trying to work more closely with, you know, with elected officials and, um, hopefully we can do that together. And so, use us as a resource, please.

I will. And it's a pleasure to meet all of you. Yeah. I look forward to Denise. Did we get Denise? You did. Well, go ahead, Denise. I work with Adam every day, so he knows all about me. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Maybe not. Hey, Denise. It's nice to meet you. Yep. Yep. I feel I feel like I've known you so long already, Denise. And you know, we found out tonight before we went live that she has another job. She's the mayor of Main Street. So, um, you know, now see, Adam didn't know that. I know, but he does know. If you need to find her, it should be right outside Chicken Rose. Yeah.

No, sir. That's not where you saw me. You saw me at the corner of Gordon G uh uh Gorman and and and and um at the Peppa Palace. Yes, you're right. Don't be Don't be saying I'm hanging at Chicken Roose, but then I guess I saw you the next time at Chicken Roose. my back. So anyway, Denise has kept us together over the last couple years, so we greatly appreciate her. I've learned a lot from them, Adam. Patrick and I, we we kind of crossed paths but never met each other till I got to Annapolis. Gotcha. Yeah. I hope to learn I hope to learn just as much. Denise is a font of information. She's been helping me with this, you know, settle in and with the transition. So, um hopefully I'll be able to learn

um not only from her, but from everybody here on the board. So, it's pretty great that you're native, so you know a lot about the town, the city already, which is wonderful. Yeah, I've been I've been away for a while. Smart. He's super super smart. He's just putting on this. He's really a wealth of knowledge cuz I've been learning things from him since I I we've been working together and he he's just a breath of fresh air in the office. He really is a lot of ideas. Love that. Thank you, Denise, for the kind words. We look forward to that. That's great. All right. Any any other questions or ideas or things you want to talk about, folks?

No. Well, I guess we could adjourn. Folks, want to adjourn? Somebody want a motion? Thank. Okay. Second. Second. Great. All in favor? I. Great. Well, thank you all. It was great meeting. learned a lot of new