City Council - Special Meeting

And this is the city of Prescuit special meeting. Um, roll call please. Mayor Rousing here. Mayor Proen Fworth here. Councilwoman Frederickson here. Councilman Gambboji I am here. Councilman Garing here. Councilman Grady here. And Councilman Ruby here.

All are present. Okay. And our uh next item will be a proclamation for National Vietnam War Veterans Day that will be read by our Vietnam combat veteran Councilman Jim Garing. And before he reads his proclamation, I'd like to make an announcement to invite everyone to the Vietnam War Veterans Day Official Wreath Lang. It will be this Sunday, March 29th, at 12 noon at the Courthouse Plaza on the west side at the Vietnam uh War Veterans Memorial. Thank you. So, hope to see you there. Okay, Jim.

Okay, you further down. Okay.

Are we live? Okay. Vietnam veterans front and center. Some of you may not know that both Councilman Garing, you don't have to hold it. Just don't push the button. Just hold the microphone.

You need to turn it back on because you turned it off. So, turn it back on and then don't push the button again. There we go. So, uh, how many of you know that military men and women often wear garters? Garters. And in fact, I'm wearing garters right now. I never wore a guard.

They're called blousing garders for blousing your trousers. And uh with those in place, you can slow crawl through the jungle and not have to worry about a snake crawling up your pant leg.

So this is a mayoral proclamation for National Vietnam War Veterans Day today, the 24th of March, 2026. Whereas by an act of Congress signed into law by President Donald J. Trump on March 28th, 2017, the first federal statute specifically to honor Vietnam veterans created National Vietnam War Veterans Day to be observed on March 29th of each year. Whereas on March 29th, 1973, the last American combat veterans withdrew from South Vietnam and after more than 9 million men and women had served in the military services during the Vietnam War era. Whereas March 29th, 2026 marks the 53rd anniversary of the full withdrawal of Vietnam veteran troops. Whereas 58,000 724 men and women died during the service during their service during the Vietnam War. And whereas due to the divisive nature of the Vietnam War, few returning veterans were properly welcomed home and were were not honored for their service and sacrifice to the founding ideals of our nation. Whereas the city of Prescuit prides itself in value valuing its many mil military veterans. And whereas the only right and proper thing to do is that the city of Prescuit and its residents recognize and honor all of its Vietnam War veterans for their service and sacrifice.

Now therefore, I Kathy Rousing, mayor, not me. I've lost my Okay. The mayor of the city of Prescuit, on behalf of the city council of the city of Prescuit, encourage all citizens to display the flag of the United States to honor Vietnam War veterans and do hereby acknowledge March 29th, 2026 as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. In witness thereof, I have here put my sign signage to this document on the 10th day of March, 2026, signed by Mayor Kathy Rousie. So, thank you guys. I I guess we'll try to get a picture.

Tighten it up. Tighten up. Break a seam. Come on in close. What do you think, Daniel?

Okay, we got it. Well, thank you very much, Councilman Garing, and thank you, Mayor Rousing, for putting this um event together today so that we can properly recognize our Vietnam veterans. I mean, our uh experience doing this when Harry Oberg was mayor, uh he and I decided we uh were going to do our own Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day. So, we put that together at the same time as the Tonkan Gulf Resolution was signed in August. And then two years later, um there was a federal effort to make a national day of recognition. So, I think it was great that Donald Trump signed that in into law and made it an official day. And I was just reflecting on the fact that we've probably got a whole generation of um men and women who weren't even born when we came back from Vietnam. So not understanding the discrimination and the shunning and the u personal attacks that we had to deal with because uh it was a very unpopular war and they decided to take it out on the veterans instead of the administration that got us tied up in that and put us in a position where we weren't able to win that war. So, it's so heartening to see a change now that our veterans are honored. And of course, we're in another Iranian war. Uh that hopefully will be

one of the shortest ones on record. I hope that it'll be that way. Uh but it's necessary and sometimes when we have to fight to keep our freedom, um that's why we have a strong military. and we appreciate the community's support for all these vet Vietnam veterans. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

I get that for Oh, yeah. I'll tell them about when I came home. what happened if you want me to. Thanks. Thank you. Oh, yeah. I'd like to tell you about what happened to me when I came home 1969. Um,

we got out of the buses and we were walking over to another bus to take us to Long Beach and uh, this lady with a sign that said baby killer whacked me over the head. And I immediately went into my Vietnam wound. I was a corman with the fleet Marine Force there. And I immediately stepped out of the line and I was going for a throat and this corporal in uh in the uh Marine Corps, thank God, was in back of me and he reached out and grabbed my neck and pulled me back and he said, "No, doc. This ain't worth it. Not here, not now." And he literally saved her life cuz I was in Vietnam mode and I was going for a throat. And if it hadn't been for him, I wouldn't be here standing. I'd probably be in some prison someplace. So that's what happened to me when I got back from Vietnam and it just wasn't pleasant at all.

I'll say it stays with you, doesn't it? Yes, it stays with you.

I had a similar situation coming back. I lived in Boston. And I was in San Diego and there was this serviceman walking beside me and we passed a a key coffee kiosk and he was carrying a seabag 85 pounds and a woman tripped him and then she started yelling at me and I'm in my dress blues and then she threw a cup of coffee in my face not nearly as bad as his problem. So I went to the restroom started to clean up as best I can with my uniform and when I come out there was a guy in a three-piece suit and he looked kind of angry. I says, "Oh, no." And she get she mad at me. She turned me in. Am I in trouble? And he says, "You're the serviceman bend that got caff thrown at?" I said, "Yes." And he says, "Come with me." He says, "Oh boy, I'm in trouble." He takes me over to American Airlines. He says, "Give me a first class ticket to Boston now." So, I got to ride on the first class right away instead of waiting 10 hours. I ate as much steak and drank as much champagne as I possibly could.

I think I earned it. said, "Oh boy."

Yeah. I wound up in a hospital straight from where I was in Thailand, uh, doing things in places we shouldn't have been. Nonetheless, I woke up in a Navy hospital, not knowing how I got there. three weeks I got a chance to put on a uniform and go out Veterans Day. I'm going to go watch a parade. We go up to Berkeley, me and a couple other guys. And we got thrown at we got garbage thrown at us. And that wasn't the first time. It happened again in Los Angeles. Same three guys coming out of the airport headed home. People throwing garbage at us, killing us, swearing. We were rescued by a taxi driver. He uh bought us lunch and he drove us home from LAX to San Fernando Valley, no charge. That's a long drive. Uh thank you for your support. I want to thank those vets who I have breakfast with every Friday for their support. Um I went through a tough time. These guys helped me out. Thank you. Okay,

thank you all for coming. You don't have time for my stories. Oh, really? I am a good

Okay, while we wait for Councilman Garing to come back, I'll move us on to our agenda items. So, first up, we have a presentation, discussion, and possible direction regarding the city's workforce housing strategy and implementation plan.

All right. Good afternoon, mayor and council. Amber Fraser, management analyst with the city manager's office and staff liaison for the workforce housing committee. So, on March 10th, we brought the workforce housing strategy and implementation plan to council. council approved it with the direction to come back to further discuss where to start on that plan. So today we'll highlight what we heard at the last meeting and hopefully gain some direction regarding where to start on the plan as well as direction for the workforce housing committee. So this is a slide that just shows all of the initiatives that are in the plan. On the next slide, I've put the initiatives that we heard some interest in starting with, but not necessarily consensus. So, I will make a note that initiatives one and three are already covered under the current contract with a consultant. So, there won't be any additional costs to those. And then for initiative four, five, and seven, those were additional ones we heard from council that there might be interested in starting with. We did get a quote from the consultant that those would be about $41,000 for those three initiatives, including public outreach and getting those started. So, I have more information on those on the next slide. But before moving forward, I wanted to open it up to council on if there were any other initiatives you wanted to start with or if this was a good starting point.

Um, let's see, Patrick.

Yes. I want to start off by echoing some comments Councilwoman Furworth brought up regarding initiative 4. Um, I liked her idea of turning that into a home ownership initiative and community land trust is is a tool to um focusing on that particular initiative. I think that when we've looked at and that the committee has looked at workforce housing, there's been a focus on home ownership and rental of course, but I think home ownership is one of the areas that more folks are comfortable perhaps in starting with. So that's my comment on that. So, as I understand it, we have um 75,000 left over from the grant and to implement a couple of initiatives, it's going to take twice that much.

No. So, these were just the ones that we heard from for council. And for initiatives four, five, and seven, we received a quote from the consultant for 41,000 including public outreach on those. So, there's actually a bit more that we if council is interested in adding some initiatives, there is a little bit more room in there.

Um, I totally do not support um putting this in the code. I think that it'll just uh be very difficult for us to manage and I think it'll open us up to um uh possible uh legal issues. Um, and I I think it's better to just keep this as a uh as a policy. And also, um, when uh our next agenda item, the Wuda Cooper, um, development agreement, had some really, uh, good points in it that I think, uh, we could probably, um, talk more about later. um incorporating some of the wudoo go um Cooper um parts of the DA into um this uh some of their criteria into this policy. Thank you. Any other comments, Mr. Ruby?

This is the five initiatives there. What was synthes excuse me synthesized from the larger document. Correct. Yes. These are the ones that based off of some of the feedback we received at the last meeting. These ones were ones that more than one council member had said they had interest in.

And the 41,000 out of the $75,000 grant is there to take initiative four, five, and seven and flesh it out, create a policy proposal. Is that correct? Correct. So on my next slide, which I didn't want to jump ahead from this one in case there was more discussion on that, but on the next slide, it would be next steps for those items if that's the direction council would like to go towards.

Um, so it would be drafting a workforce housing section and related LDC updates if there was consensus for that one. Um, develop workforce housing certification and review process. The community land trust based off of council's feedback at the last meeting. it may be more appropriate to do a request for qualifications rather than the city establish their own because that takes it's a bit of a heavy lift with staffing funding. So request for qualifications would allow the city to find out who's out there, who's doing it and not have to build that framework for ourselves and lead to a contract with that. The consultant would help build the framework for that relationship as well and then outline the framework for an infill incentive district and then continue research and early implementation for employee focused housing concepts or tools. Did you say initiative seven is in there? Because I think that should be our priority. Explore housing resources for city employees. I mean, if we're going to go through all this time and expense, I think we should prioritize um our own.

Yes. Oh, sorry. I I wasn't quite finished. Oh, I'm sorry. So, there's there's 34,000 still left in the grant, and we could use that to also flesh out other initiatives. Is that a possibility today? Is that what's being presented?

Yes. So, I have this slide that has all of the initiatives that were listed. Um, we would have to get quotes because this is a grant. It all has to be approved by ADO to move forward with certain ones, which is why we can do initiative 7, but we cannot only do initiative 7 because it's supposed to be general housing, not just specifically for city employees. So, we could not only move in move on with initiative 7. We'd have to partner it with some other that benefit the community at large. Mhm. So, this is an opportunity today to see if there's another initiative or two that we could include because what else would we do with the other 34,000 from the grant?

Yes. If we don't use it, it would go back to the state and they would use it for other items or So, what we have is the possibility of using the rest of that 34,000 to develop policy in a couple other directions. Correct. Great. Any other comments, Patrick?

Yeah, in that light, I was going to bring this up a little later. Um, but I think that we ought to look at initiative um, hold on one second. Initiative nine. Um, I think we've heard concerns about whether or not we have the resources for for um providing staff uh to this this initiative, this set of initiatives. Um, so I think it would be really helpful to spend more time looking at resources that might be available. um other models of how other communities are implementing their programs and their policies. And I know we've done some good work, but I think we could drill down deeper and see if there's a model out there that would work for us. May I ask if that's a feasible use of the grant for what Patrick just mentioned? Yes,

I like that idea. Well, like I expressed myself um previously, I'm very concerned about the section in policy that um it basically spells out that this is going to be very expensive to implement if we have to hire extra city staff and have like a complete different housing department. And right now, you know, we're working on an economic uh development strategy and developing an economic development team and uh director and I think that's where our resources should go. But I just think that if we uh implement this uh policy with the um requirement for us to manage this program ourselves, I think that's just is just going to be very expensive and it's just going to keep growing and become a uh I'm afraid it might just become a open pit for money. Um that's why I was disappointed that one of the initiatives that wasn't uh included was for uh exploring uh turnkey operations where people that this is all they do and they come in and take care of it and we don't really have to uh run a program or anything. But that's just my opinion. Lois.

Um, yes, I do agree with the mayor um, regarding we're going to have some pretty big challenges ahead of us in the next few weeks going through the budget and staffing. And so, right now, I'm not willing to um say we're going to work on this when I think we have we're going to have some really tough choices with existing employees and other things that we're going to have to deal with in the coming weeks. So, I'm definitely interested in seeing if there's, you know, third parties or others that we could combine with other communities and try and figure out how to use. But to, you know, what's been confusing for me, honestly, Amber, is that as I've moved through, I don't know, eight presentations over the last two years, initiatives titles change. And so, what I was aligned to a few months ago, I may not be aligned to now because the names changed. the context changed. And so I really do think right now I'm with Kathy. I don't want to say we're going to provide additional resources um until we can get through the budget and know that we can provide all the current services and resources that our constituents are expecting today. Um I'm going to once again back up what Patrick said. If I go back several when we approved the framework and um other things, it was not establish a community land trust. That was one of the two initiatives underneath the broader umbrella, but the broader umbrella umbrella was about single family housing and and figuring out how we're going to do that. And so I'm open to multiple tools under exploiting single family housing. I'd love to see more employees of the city of Prescat be able to move back to the city of Prescat. Um so that's where my priority is and it

whether it be via a a CLT which is a very interesting um you know opportunity or whether it's via some other method. I um I'm not aligned to saying that outright we're going to establish a community land trust. I am aligned to saying we're going to work on single family housing options.

Yeah, land trusts are very expensive. Uh and then there's the care and feeding that you have to take on afterwards. But if you go to page 11 of the um the plan strategy 9.1 and look at all the bullet points and then it says once the program is established providing de developer and stakeholders support monitoring the progress of housing projects coordin coordinating with developers and or owners on qualifying applicants for housing units ensuring developer accountability and I I mean It's total policing and it's this is like some HUD HUD develop HUD housing program that we're trying to implement and I don't think we have the resources or um the money and the the talent to you know support a whole new development just to for what we're going to spend on on the uh hiring new people. we could actually develop a program where we could loan money to our employees for housing and then they could pay us back, you know, for down payments or something like that. Um, I'm just going to say that Pollock um that did this uh this plan, this strategy and all the research, that's what they do. you know, they're a research company and they come up with uh data, statistics, re research and strategies and it's directed towards the real estate and building community. And so I wasn't surprised when all of their uh recommendations are just towards the developers and uh and it puts all the responsibility on the shoulders of this governmental entity

and you know we're just that's not our job to be uh an arm of HUD here when we're trying to do economic development and that should be taking up um a lot of our resources to do that because that'll have a better payoff in the long run. Um, Mr. Ruby. Yeah. I have a couple questions for the city attorney. The the money that would be used to create this policy proposal. Does that come from our general fund? Part of it does, but we're also referring to part of the grant money. So, but yes, anything that the grant money doesn't cover would be general fund based.

Okay. And the grant covers up to 75,000, right? Correct. So, and we're at 41,000. So, right now, it wouldn't actually be taking up our resources to create a policy plan. Is that correct? Uh, right. Up for the next 30,000 or whatever it would be. Yeah.

So, when I look at this, I don't think we're committing to any of these options. What we're asking is a consultant to refine them and give us guidance on how to implement them. So, I don't see how that impacts the city's current budget. And I think it would be useful for us to have a tool that enabled us to approach our housing dilemmas. And so sometimes I the the things I hear the concerns about us creating a housing authority that is not in this proposal like is this is creating a policy proposal and where it goes from there we would have further say on. Am I correct on that city attorney? the implementation. For example, with the land development code, it would be work towards the development code, but ultimately it's still up to council to approve it. So, it would pay for the work to develop it. At the end of the day, though, it doesn't make sense to do something that, you know, all of council doesn't want to do. But yes, it it doesn't the implementation overview is establishes the plans, but each element eventually has to be approved by council before it becomes uh part of our law.

Um, Mr. Gambboji.

At our last meeting on this topic, my esteemed colleague and the honorable Councilman Patrick Grady said something to the effect, "Well, we've studied this enough, we need to do something." I humbly suggest we haven't studied this enough. As you go through this proposal, this analysis basically says on page nine that we need workforce housing because the labor participation rate is below yavapai in ar and the state of Arizona. But it's calculated wrong. You don't put retirees in the denominator. So our labor participation rate is not as quoted 42%. It's in the 70s. And that points to a issue that I've been bringing up over and over. This whole I support workforce housing, but I don't support this being a one-trick pony. And what I keep seeing out of this consultant is let's build new, let's build new, let's build new. There's no discussion of compensation. We just lost four policemen to the tribe. So, they never even had to move. That wasn't a workforce housing issue. That was a compensation issue. We've not discussed compensation. We've not discussed financing. We've we mentioned infill, but I'm talking about rehab where we mimic what um Yavapai College did on Senator Highway where we keep seeing proposals and I'm a wash with proposals and they all come in around $300 a square foot. Yavapai College put workforce housing down on Senator Highway for $160 a square foot.

Um, all this what I see is on taxpayer dime. We're going to get a proposal later where it's not on the taxpayer dime. And what's missing as part of a more robust analysis is in our 2023 resident survey. We made a quadrant analysis. And in that quadrant analysis is the southeast quadrant. That's where the residents say it's really important and we're doing a lousy job. There are two entries in there. One is healthcare and the other one is the economy. I would like to see more of an effort for economic development to get students who graduate from Embry Riddle or a Yavapai College to stay here and earn money to afford housing in in this area. I don't want to build housing from here to Paulen on the taxpayer dime uh that was initially showed in the in the first rendition of the consultants report. That's why I support city manager Don's effort to rededicate ourselves to developing the economic portion of this because that's what the residents told us in 2023. And that's what's missing in this whole analysis. This is a lot of money and that's not for the residents to pay for. The marketplace is what decides and we need to rely more in the marketplace. Focus on developing the economy. Get highpaying jobs in here and don't spend the taxpayers dime. We have 1,831 units in the pipeline right now and the and

this analysis says we need 2,200. Well, that says we only need about 400. I I think we need a more in-depth analysis before we start spending money. So, with regards to my esteemed colleague, Mr. Grady, I think we need to study this more before we run out the door. Thank you, Mr. Gamboji. Uh Mr. uh before we go to Mr. Grady, how about if we hear from Mary Frederickson?

Thank you. Uh I just want to repeat uh or sign on to an earlier statement by the mayor uh referring to initiative one amending the land development code. I'm concerned that the amount of time that the staff and the consultant would take to offer up amendments to the land development code to the extent that it mirrors the language of these initiatives. My concern is um inevitability momentum. That is we've already gone through the land development code and we've made all these changes and so that's just going to happen. That's just the way it is because we've already done the work and I'm not on board with that. There's so many, as has been expressed here, uh concerns about uh many of these initiatives that I just don't think it's um ready for prime time to make amendments to the land development code, which we then live with. It has the force of law behind it. Um so I'm concerned about that. I think it's way too early to start thinking about the land development code amendments if we can't come to some kind of universality as to what direction we're going to go in. Um, and as far as u initiative number nine, that is my big concern, the resources necessary to do frankly any of this stuff. And that is we live in a world of limited resources and the list of things that the city needs to do and must focus on doing all this as much as everybody signs on to the concept of workforce housing and needing to do things to promote it. On the other hand, staff time, I don't know that the staff has extra time just sitting around

in their back pocket that they can then redirect towards developing ideas or the programs themselves. I don't want to see other important uh initiatives, priorities put on the backbench because now the staff and the consultant is focusing a lot of time and a lot of money on these initiatives. Thank you, Patrick.

Yes, I would respectfully remind everyone that we voted four to three. We had a majority vote that said we're adopting the implementation plan for workforce housing. Um earlier this year, we the city council adopted our strategic plan for 2026. Workforce housing was in there. So um it it's already an established priority. I personally am not um I'm going to put this differently. So, I agree with several of the comments regarding budgetary impacts. I know councilwoman Ferworth and I were talking about this the other day with respect to what really is our budget going to look like. However, um the consultant and others have done enough research, staff included, on public private partnerships that are effective with our neighbors, Sedona, Cottonwood, Flagstaff, probably other areas that I haven't researched any further um that provide access to non city funding that clearly we don't do very much of, particularly in the housing sector. um through charitable and philanthropic resources. So I think with that leftover dollars that Amber was describing, we ought to spend some more time looking at successful models. Um and I think our purpose here today was to give direction to staff um regarding which ones to look at. And there's been a lot of support. I remember that Lois laid out number 1, three, four, five, and seven. Uh Jay laid out four, five, six, and seven. I I made two or three comments about one and

three and four. Um so I mean I think the ones that that you all picked out and distilled from our conversation are still worthwhile to do. It's not saying we're going to amend the land development code. The land development code was highly recommended by the consultant because it doesn't really involve city funding. It involves city regulatory procedures. It's it's easier to implement, if you will, with without a an actual funding cost. So, I think we've said it's a priority. We've said and voted four to three to adopt the implementation plan. Now, we just frankly have to come to some consensus on those four or five or six initiatives that we're going to explore and get the consultant to do further work that that uh the committee wants to see um and and council has agreed upon in the past.

Mayor, if I can push back a second on Mr. Grady uh as far as the vote goes four to three, I know I was one of the four voting up and specifically at the time stated I am voting up to capture the $75,000 that is we don't want to leave left on the table. I don't think I know for myself I was not voting for the implementation plan under the idea of I'm voting for everything in this plan. I think most people voting up at that meeting was uh or at the council session was to capture the 75,000 allowing the consultant to go forward to the extent there was direction not necessarily voting up for the plan itself the meat of it

well you can't hardly adopt an implementation plan and then disavow what's in the plan so now what we're doing which I think is totally appropriate is we're narrowing that down to what are those higher priorities for us to get a better handle on before we move anything forward under this workforce housing initiative. Uh let's see, Lois,

thank you, Mayor. Um I'm with Mary. I was one of the four votes. I was very clear that I was tired of studying and I want to start doing something. We have something this afternoon that is all about doing something. And guess what? I wish we had some of the land development code policy frameworks on how we would negotiate in an area or allow staff to negotiate in an area that we have not defined yet. So land development code for me again I've read every paper you guys have put in front of me in front two years and it keeps moving. So that's why you're seeing the confusion here across the dis because we have different understandings of what all these things mean. But one of the things I want to be able to do with initiative one is to be able to say that you don't even have to use the study session with us today. We would have had a framework for you all to evaluate Woda Cooper and you'd be coming forward with a recommendation and we don't have any of those things. That's why we're working this afternoon. So, and again, I don't want to spend thousands of hours on things like was in our package back in I don't know what, December, where we wanted to work on, you know, eliminating impact fees or negotiating impact fees and we were all crystal clear, no, we're not doing that. So, I just think we're we're confused because this has been evolving. And that's what I thought today was after the last meeting. Four of us said, "Let's move forward to work on some very concrete things. I have no need to spend every penny of the remaining $75,000. I want to spend money on what we want to actually get done. So, I want to get done programs that have to do with single family home ownership." Whether that's a community land trust or not, that's not what I voted for. I voted on the document you all put in front of me on February 11th when it was very clear that it was about prepare for single

family ownership and there was a couple of tools under there. Suddenly it came as a the tool is only establish a community land trust. That's why we're confused. That's why we're disagreeing with each other because it has evolved too much too fast. But I do want to produce something. I'm super excited about what's coming next on the agenda. Those are the kind of things where we can make an impact. And yes, we're not going to know exactly everything and we're not going to be aligned because it fell in our lap. But wouldn't it be great if we did number one so we would know, staff would know, and we would know when something falls in our lap again. Is it within our plan or is it not? Are we going to do it or are we not? So, I'm I'm going to support Kathy again. My understanding is groups up in Flagstaff are not willing to take us on. I don't know why we would spend money to go find that out again.

Thank you, uh, Jay.

Yes, thank you. When I look at this, this feels like a an investment through a grant to further the discussion, get somebody to actually do the research so that we have the things that can enable us. So it isn't just randomly popping into our laps, but that we have a housing policy that can attract that type of investment and support for programs for doing what Voda Cooper is doing because if we have if we have thought clearly through and I would agree with Councilman Gambboji, it needs to be fleshed out more. But I think this is the opportunity to flesh it out so that a consultant takes the thinking further. we can look at it and know right now we are we're like kind of swimming in just what each of these could mean. So I think it's the time for all these initiatives to be clarified and if there's a chance to add to that research on models that have worked elsewhere in cities like ours, I would support that. Um, I think I'm hearing that, um, we want to proceed with the, um, spending the $75,000, but put a cap on it and just say that's it. When the money's gone, we're done. So direct the consultant to come up with more strategies that are more coste effective and don't put such a burden on the city of Prescat taxpayers and on our budget because we have a very tight budget. We have priorities and we cannot start a housing authority here.

So, um, do we have are we allowed to have any public comment since this is a study session? We certainly can, mayor. That's at your discretion. I do think I don't know, Amber. I'm I'm taking minutes here and I'm not at all clear on what the council actually wants. I don't know if Amber is. Perhaps I'm just not understanding. Mhm.

My understanding was that what you needed today was direction on which of these initiatives up on the screen right now, the the ones that were specifically discussed at the council meeting two weeks ago, which there seemed to be at that point in time at least consensus from uh at least four of you to look into those, but no specific direction was given. So Amber needed to get specific direction on these particular ones like yes, no, etc. to have the consultant move forward. Is that correct? Yes. And I'd have to check and see if we I don't know if it's an option to use that grant funding to come up with more initiatives. I would have to check on that. But these were the ones that council had looked at. We tried to get as much feedback from council members to make sure we were going in a direction that council wanted and that's where we came up with the initial list and then based off of the March 10th meeting these are the ones that we heard the most feedback on moving towards we work at the direction of council but a clear consensus of what direction that is would

uh Mr. Garing no Mr. Gamboji oh Mr. Gambboji, I'm sorry.

I can't count the number of times where I've said this needs to be a more robust proposal. And I don't get the impression that the consultant is listening because he's selling us Sedona's or Flag Staff's solution cuz they liked it. I don't hear that it's working all that well. So, I'm not in favor of any of these initiatives and I would suggest we fire the consultant.

And I will say that we've meet we've met with many council members on the initiatives and we worked with the consultant to bring back initiatives we heard interest in. So if there were additional initiatives, we would love to hear them can work towards them. But these were ones that we did hear feedback from a variety of council members in different meetings that there was interest in. So we follow council direction, but this was changed and that's probably why some of the names had changed um because they were built off of or reformatted based off of conversations we had. Well, what I'm hearing is um should we spend the money or should we not spend the money? Should we just say we're done? If this is the best they can do, then okay, and not worry about spending the rest of the $75,000. Or should we tell them to go ahead and spend the $75,000 and find something more realistic, coste effective that isn't going to put the burden on the backs of the city.

It's obvious they're not listening. So, I wouldn't spend the $75,000. this $75,000 is not a burden on the backs of the city because it is a grant from elsewhere. Well, but they're that's a false frame. Yes. No, I'm just saying they need if they're going to spend the $75,000, they need to come up with some strategies that are going to be more coste effective that aren't going to turn us into uh trying to run a HUD program. I keep hearing that as a fear. It's like that this is going to turn into a HUD program. This is going to basically create

some thought, some thinking, doing the research that other people have asked for so we can make decisions based on that research. This is not creating a housing authority.

Well, um we're not going to take a uh a formal vote, but um Mr. Gambboji, why don't you make one more comment and then we'll take public comment. I I want to take issue with my esteemed colleague Jay Ruby, Councilman Jay Ruby. This is really our money. That money comes from somewhere. We keep thinking, well, if we get it from the federal government, it's free. No, we paid for it already. What we give in is is a lot more than what whatever we get back. I think we need to send a message to this consultant. He hasn't listened. It's he's a onetrick pony. It's the same story over and over again. Regardless of where the 75 grand comes from, we need to send a message. We want to do a good job at this and this is not a good job. So, if we have to give up $75,000 of free money, so be it.

Did the consultant prepare these initiatives or was that prepared by city staff? The initiatives were prepared by the consultant along with the workforce housing policy framework that was approved. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's uh are there any You do have one public comment. I do. Okay. Great. FIC.

All right, Ken. Good afternoon, Ken Fidik, city of Prescuit, Arizona. Mayor Rousing, Mayor Pro Tim Ferworth, city council members. The clock is right twice a day. I'm agreeing with your esteemed councilman whose last name ends in I. So, here we go. I'm not an attorney and I'm not an engineer. I've said that many times, but I am a taxpayer. I I saw a variety of concerns about taxpayer money across the board here. Yes. I don't think I don't know the details of this. I didn't look at the 30 pages behind all this or the 100 pages behind all this. Well, let me just say this. As far as city employees, I know there was some focus on initiative 7 about city employees. Pay them more money. Let people live where they want to live. People come from Oklahoma and Arkansas to California. They can't afford housing in California if they're in a certain industry, but maybe the company or the city will give them a relocation package of some kind. assistance with mortgage, assistance with housing and not building the housing, not providing the housing, but assisting them with their cash flow on living in the community or commuting from somewhere else into their job. Happens all across the country. We don't have to be special here and provide housing for everybody. I think senior citizens need more help than anybody in this community because you got more senior citizens here than almost anybody else. So if you want to focus on housing, I think you should focus on

housing for those that have been screaming up here for the last 6 months about their problems in different communities within the city. But let me get back on that on the main topic here. I heard about additional resources. If that's taxpayer money that's gone down the drain, uh us taxpayers are not for it. And I like the idea of more economics and more specific financials. If that's the consultant you have now, fine. If you need to get a different consultant, then get the right consultant to give you the specifics that you need for this overall project, which at least in theory is good. But some of what I'm hearing today doesn't sound very positive. Just my opinion. And I think I, as you know, I don't like 43 votes. 5261. So figure it out, get it right, and then have a 5261 vote on whatever direction you want to go with either these initiatives or brand new ones that are more effective for the taxpayers of this city. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

That's all, mayor. Um, I'm also hearing that we have um two of those four votes are reconsidering because they were under the impression that they weren't actually adopting the policy at the moment. They thought they were just uh voting to continue it and look at some of the strategies. So, I find that um somewhat troubling. And I think one of the reasons why we're having such a hard time with this, we're trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Uh we all want to support workforce housing, but we're looking at um some strategies here that aren't very, I don't know, straightforward or clear. So, I think that uh Mr. our manager would like to make a comment. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, mayor. Um, if I could make a suggestion on potentially a way forward for the council just to kind of narrow it um and help staff also get direction on how to move forward based on on what I've heard. Um, I would suggest maybe three initiatives to start with. um one number one um in terms of developing the the framework around which we would make decisions um for such as the item that's coming up next um that kind of policy code work um could be helpful and instructive and not overly expensive. the amended version that I heard of number four where it's more about paths to home ownership and that could be land trust that could be home rehab program of some kind that could be um you know maybe it's financial models maybe it's uh some other things maybe it's even you know infill incentive districts or other initiatives that are tools to accomplish those paths to home ownership but that could be something we explore and look at what's really feasible what's doable. And then uh number seven um which is really somewhat of a byproduct of number four is as we're looking at housing options, we're also keeping in mind that we have a number of staff who are in need of some support in that area and and so we keep that in mind as we're doing our work. Those three allow us to consider large projects. they allow us to consider um you know home ownership as kind of the the main prize that we're chasing here and then we're keeping staff in mind as we do it and looking for opportunities. Um so potentially if if council's supportive those could be three that we that we go after at least to start.

Can you list those initiatives again? Yeah. So it' be number one u focusing on framework uh number four as amended. So, um I heard it discussed as you know paths to home ownership and tools that could help um staff and public um move in that direction. And then number seven, which is housing resources for employees and a lot of that again is just keeping our employees in mind as we're working on number four.

Is there any way to just if you're going to shrink it to three to put four and five together? You actually had mentioned something around infill or home rehabilitation. Yeah. So if if number four is really about paths to home ownership, then you know maybe an infill incentive district is one of those paths to make home ownership more possible. And maybe it's not feasible, but it's something we could look at. Um maybe it's a home rehab um

program of some kind. Um, maybe it's uh financial modeling, maybe it's land trusts, maybe it's uh down payment assistance, but it's um anything anything that's focused on that just first home purchased uh would be the focus of number four. Any other comments? Uh Lois,

um I'm aligned with what the city manager just proposed, but as I was looking at the um the infill incentive district in the materials that were provided to us in the past, it was not just about home ownership. It was about rehapping as Ted and others have said, you know, blighted areas or or abandoned buildings to create apartments, to create housing, to create options. So, I I do like that it's allowed in our state in our state statutes. And I'm not sure it's exactly the same as the renewed number four. Patrick.

Yeah, I believe that the city manager has put together something I can certainly support. I think it's really important to send a message about our concern about homeownership for workforce housing and also to send that message to city employees. And I'm going to make one final comment. um doesn't need a response, but we got to stop um lambasting or critiquing what Flagstaff, Sedona, Cottonwood, our competitor cities are doing um because perhaps they're more quote unquote liberal or progressive, whatever terminology you want to use. um it is proven successful. Their comm their communities are um seem to be their leadership on their city councils seem to be supportive of what they're doing and the public private partnership that they set up to do it. So, um, yeah, be careful unless you've done your own individual research, which I have done, um, to to critique other communities because that's that's where we learn.

Yeah, I agree. It's always good to keep up with uh what other communities have been doing, whether, you know, whether it's been successful or maybe u not successful. you know, we can always learn and you know, if we could find a a program that was successful, then we, you know, don't have to reinvent the reinvent the wheel all the time. So, um I think we uh we have some direction here. Initiative uh one, four, maybe combine it with five um and uh seven and spend no more than the um allocated $75,000, please.

We can do that. And then I have one more slide that just leads to the next direction for the workforce housing committee. So now that a lot of this is implementation focused by staff and the consultant, we need to know what council's direction for the committee would be next. A poll was sent to the committee to try to receive feedback on possible options that they would be interested in. They have put a tremendous amount of work into all of the work that has been brought before you. So, we want to make sure that we respect all the time and dedication that they've put into it. Um, we did get two responses that were continue to meet monthly for updates and input and then meet as needed to review projects or programs. So, we were just hoping to give council some of the feedback from the committee on what their thoughts were and then we would like direction from council on what you see their ongoing role to be now that we're moving into implementation which is mostly staff and consultants.

Um, so how many people were on the committee? Seven. Seven and only two responded. Correct. So that to me sounds like maybe they uh they're done. the the work is uh largely completed I would say and they're ready to move on into uh implementation I assume. Okay. Okay. Um so I think we have our uh have our direction. Oh Mr. Grady

sorry. um as as the uh the layers on to the workforce housing committee. Um I agree that their work is likely done. Um personally, I would recommend we hold kind of one final meeting and have a conversation with the committee in light of the initiatives that that we're going to pursue further with a consultant and and get their feedback. How how does this look? Are you what what other um is is this meet your expectations? Um how do you feel about the process so that we can learn something from where we are now as to you know where we were two and a half years ago and just just kind of more a gathering to have a little roundt discussion.

Absolutely. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. have a little closure there. So, so sorry, Amber. I am Am I hearing that you the council wants to have one more meeting of the workforce housing committee and then disband the group? Yes. Okay. So, I'll bring back a resolution because I have you have to do that by a resolution. So, I need I just need direction on that.

Okay. Yes. Bring in the resolution. And then we already have the agenda built for the April one and it was actually to recap what happened at this meeting. So that works out well. But I appreciate your feedback and want to thank you all for all of your time for the two years. This has been a lot of work and a lot of time on your part, on the committee's part, and on the public's part. So we appreciate everything that has come to fruition with this and all of that. Okay. All right. And thank you for all your efforts hurting the chickens or cats or whatever it is. We're hurting here.

Okay. Well, are we ready to move on to the next item? Presentation, discussion, and possible action regarding a development agreement with Widow Cooper Development, Inc. and city commitments in support of the developer low-income housing tax credit application, including potential fee waiverss, infrastructure participation, or other city support. Good afternoon, mayor, mayor prom, council members. Chelsea Walton, community development director. Just a brief introduction from me before we turn it over to the project developer, WA Cooper, for the bulk of the presentation. Um wanted to give you a brief timeline uh on the project to date. Staff received the water service application January 28th for the project and per the regular process. It came in for our pre-application conference on February 12th. Uh the project went forward to water issues subcommittee on March 3rd with a recommendation to move the project's water request forward for council approval. This item is coming before council today at the request of the developer Woda Cooper to Mayor Rousing on March 3rd. That day, we received the first versions of the developer drafted documents, namely the city commitment and fee waiver letters as well as the development agreement. Staff has done its level best to research, review, and offer changes to the developer in preparation for this special meeting. The final drafts of these documents include staff's changes and are now in council's packet for review. That said, they're not finalized and they are drafts. So, that's what today is about. They may be amended as council sees fit. Um, one concern I would like to address is um something that came up that this project is subject to a development agreement restriction. So, a prior development agreement from 2004, namely the Lake

View Plaza development agreement, does encumber a part of the property. Two maps have been put at your stations and uh they reflect a 8 1/2 uh by 11 sheet from our own GIS department that reflects the entirety of the DA area. And the second is from the developer where the DA area has been highlighted on their project site plan. So you can see that the proposed building is not subject to nor affected by the development agreement area. As for what's next and the entitlements related to this project at the March 10 meeting, council meeting, the water service application was approved. Uh which was the only public meeting required for entitlements for this project. So a replplat will be required prior to building permit issuance and that's just for the parcel combination. There are four parcels uh related to this project. Um but that will be processed administratively pursuant to current code. Uh so with that little bit of groundwork, I'd invite the developer representative Omar up to uh the presentation box unless there are questions for staff. Yes.

Okay. We have some staff questions. Uh Lois, we'll go with you first. Yeah. I'm sorry. I was kneede in the piece of paper and so I missed your second point of what you were trying to let us hear.

Oh, sure. So, um really the the concern about the um development agreement and indicating the maps and then the entitlements um as far as what's next for the the project. So this project required the entitlement of the water service application. Uh council approved that on the 10th and that is the only um public process required for this development. Next steps for them are the um construction uh permits and prior to the permits being issued they do need to complete a replat to combine the four parcels. We can't have a building um spanning parcel lines. So they'll need to do that. But that is an administrative process.

And when they combine that and redo that, how will that be affect this current uh little swoop that comes right into this development?

Sure. So the little swoop um there's a couple of ways that that we can handle it. I called it a tail, but I like swoop. That's fun. Uh so there are a couple of ways. If council wants to to handle that, uh you can recommend in a um a provision in the um proposed development agreement that that development agreement either goes away or is amended to eliminate that area. But um as you can see in your in the project map, it does not actually impact the project because the building is located outside of that development agreement area. It looked like it applied mostly to common area.

Yes, ma'am. As well as parking. Yes. Thank you. And who else had a comment? Patrick. Patrick, what a surprise. Um, so I knew there was a question about zoning and the developer responded in his letter, the current underlying zoning both allows the use and the height. I'm just asking is that true? That is true. They are allowed I believe it's a 50 fight uh 50 foot height limit in that business um in that zoning district. Thank you. Yeah. Um Okay.

Okay. Before I forget, I was reviewing my packet and there's two letters that I have to sign and on the two it to whom it may concern there was a typo in the fourth paragraph. the fees to be waved and the timing of such waiverss shall be determined in the discretion. It should be at the discretion of the city and in accordance. Sure. So noted. Thank you. It and the other letter looked um looked pretty good. So let's get going here. All right. Let me give Omar the I was going to ask for that. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Uh, Omar Serie, 500 500 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215. I first wanted to take a moment to thank you all for calling a special meeting. I know you were not supposed to have a council meeting today and we really appreciate you taking the time to meet with us today as well as consider our fastly approaching April 1st deadline with the state agency. That being said, a lot of this information was presented to you all two weeks ago in our water service application. Uh with that being said, I'm going to maintain bit more of a brief presentation mostly touching upon uh the questions that were raised and sent over to us yesterday. So, uh with that being said, a little bit of background on WA Cooper. We are a completely vertically integrated developer, general contractor, and property manager. We something that I do want to note is that on the construction side we do not perform we oversee construction but actually will be hiring local subcontractors for completion of the development. Additionally and on the property management side we will be hiring somebody locally to serve as a property manager as well as a maintenance technician. Um we've been around since 1990. We have communities in 17 states going on 18. Uh you know we recognize in the city of Prescuit how uh resource conservation is a very important topic. Uh we've done a lot of greencertified developments and intend to do so um with Lake View Grove being NGBS silverc certified which uh reduces a lot of uh utility costs puts the money in the resident's pocket and also leads to uh decreased usage of water and other utilities as well. So, uh, just a few other examples on developments that we've done. So, uh, wanted to reference this. I know

there was a couple of questions on it. We've pulled a lot of this information from the housing needs assessment. It's really to emphasize, uh, the need for workforce housing. I think it's no secret. Um I think specifically there was a question about uh the last point uh the 49,000 median income for renter households and then uh the monthly rent under 1246 to avoid cost burden. So with that we are taking that 49,838 that is a statistic of the median income for renter households within prescuit. We then backed into that 1,246 monthly rent figure by using the federal definition for uh cost burden which is spending more than 30% of monthly or annual income towards housing costs. So with that being said, looking at the median renter figure in Preskit, that would be the number below that would be um avoiding cost burden. So uh want to mention we've also looked into some of the existing rental stock within Prescuit. Um specifically more towards the market rate end. We see a lot of the one-bedroom rents being significantly higher than that figure that I just mentioned. And I just wanted to bring this up. This isn't, you know, we are not mimicking these developments. This is just an uh a representation of we've looked into uh the current rental stock within Prescuit and we will be offering uh onebedrooms at significantly lower rates uh ranging from 500 to $1,236 uh dollars per month. So, just wanting to emphasize that we are uh we're proposing a truly mixed income workforce housing community and have priced our rental units as such. Uh so, getting into the plan specifically, uh Chelsea was correct that uh that development agreement does not that portion of the

development agreement does not impact our site at all. Uh portion of the playground is in that sliver, but um you know, we're not proposing a a playground that's over 35 ft. So that won't be affecting us. Um so you know provided the breakdown 41bedroom units, 23 twobedrooms and 19 threebedrooms. Uh we'll have amenities uh fitness center outside playground that will also uh be fenced in. We have seating areas and grills uh etc. So just a a brief look at uh our proposed elevations. This is nothing final. This isn't exactly uh you know our full commitment. This is just a an idea for you all to see what this community would potentially look like. So there was a lot of questions on this slide specifically. So I wanted to provide some further information on it. Uh in communicating with city staff with Michael McKinnis and Chelsea Walton, uh they really emphasized that uh council would like to see uh spelled out, you know, the number of units that we are proposing as workforce housing. Uh we do want to clarify that we see workforce housing as units falling between uh 30% all the way up to 120% of area median income. But this slide is really made specifically to tailor towards uh the city's initiatives and the city's policy around workforce housing uh falling between 60% to 120% of area median income. So, we can attest that, you know, we have 18 units here, about a quarter of our total community that will be specifically uh workforce housing, falling within that 60 to 100% uh range that the city of Prescuit has defined. However, we can attest that uh the rest of the units making up the 82 unit community, they will all be uh affordable. They will all be workforce housing uh falling between 30 to 60% of

area median income. Uh, and I kind of touched on this, you know, we we are proposing an energy efficient community. Um, we do want to clarify that this is all costs that we as the developer will incur. It does not pass anything on to uh the residents or the city itself. Um, you know, we're going through an NGBS silver certification process which will uh lead to reduced uh utility expenses for uh residents of the community that they can therefore spend um on businesses and other other endeavors within the city. Um and additionally will lead to reduced uh utility consumption. Uh another point that I wanted to make is I just wanted to also clarify that we are not requesting any tax exemption. We are uh proposing to pay full uh 100% property taxes as assessed by uh the Yavapai County Assessor's Office. Uh so additionally uh we go through a very strict tenant selection process. I think the biggest three things that we want to uh reference with this is that any potential resident that wants to live in one of our communities uh they have to provide proof of income, they have to provide uh they have to pass a credit check and they have to pass a background check. So we screen uh our tenants very thoroughly to ensure that we are getting highquality tenants within our communities. Uh so you know like I mentioned it's not a secret that workforce housing is a a big topic here in Prescuit. Um you know we anticipate so our 82 units would only be contributing uh 7% towards the goal uh stated by 2028.

Excuse me. Uh Mr. Garing has a comment. Sure. So on the uh slide at hand, you're saying that you're going to provide 7% of the workforce housing shortfall shown on that table. Yeah, I'm saying the 82 units that we are proposing compared to the 1,150. That's seven that's roughly 7%. Correct. So that's not 18 units. 82 units. But your private pre prior slide had said 18 units of workforce housing.

Correct. Yes. We're using our definition of workforce housing which encompasses uh 30% to 120% of AMI. So we are having just 18 units at 70% and 80% area median income. So all of the 82 units will be for those who are at 80% or below. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. Was there any other questions? Any more comments? Yep. Patrick, surprise, surprise.

Um, thank you. So, you have a number of one-bedroom units. So, seniors on social security, etc. that are not employed will still have an opportunity. Yes. Because they do provide proof of income. So, social security is allowed. Correct. Okay. I mean, that wouldn't be my definition of a workforce, but that's if that's the definition you're operating under. What we should clarify that in the body of the agreement then.

Yeah. It So, we cannot restrict, you know, if if they do provide correct that proof of income, we cannot restrict agree a senior coming in that is retired. Um, however, we do anticipate our community also catering to a lot of the workforce. Um, right. With all of the retail in the area, CVS, Fries, etc. Exactly. They could be working at those establishments as well. That's great. Thanks. Let me ask you this. What What's your cut off? Uh, who how old do they have to be to qualify for senior? Is it medic social security 65 or uh Yes. Yes.

Yeah. We don't we don't control that process at all. That's entirely, you know, their um you know, their dealings. And we um are not age restricting this community. We are not um you know if somebody is under a certain age, it's not that we are not permitting them to to live at the community because we have a lot of seniors that work part-time to supplement social. So they are part of the uh open a lot of them work as caretakers. Sure. Uh for uh other seniors in the healthcare industry. Yep. Thank you. Were there any other questions before I move forward? Yep. Councilman Ruby.

Okay. With the 82 units that are there, 18 fit into the city's definition of the AMI between 70 to 80%. What do the other 64, where do they land?

Sure. So, we have 21 of our proposed units would be at 30% area median income, 43 units would be at 50% area median income, and then 12 units at 70% and six units at 80%. And I do want to clarify that that is uh really something that is dictated by the state agency. They have uh the Arizona Department of Housing has specific requirements. And I think this was another uh question that came up was um in the letters that we had sent out uh for council's review, we have the election of average income is acknowledged and affirmed. So really what that is saying is um that is an acknowledgement on the city's part that uh we are incorporating 70% and 80% area median income units. I believe in the responses that we gave uh the tax credit program was in initially only targeting up to 60% of area median income and then was in revised to incorporate uh those 70% and 80% units. So therefore we have to go through uh the average income election to get to uh the figure uh that the federal government and then the state has also um required of us. And so that is really uh you know the inclusion of that item is really just uh acknowledgment on your end that we are incorporating units at 70% and 80% of area median income. Lois,

yes. I appreciated um in the email that we all got last evening from Chelsea at 5:16, in the email that Joe outlined, he actually wrote what you just said in terms of how many units are going to be at 30%, how many units are going to be at 50%, and how many units are going to be in this 70 to 80%. I would like to see both of those numbers written into not only the development agreement but also that other document which is starts off being called land use restriction agreement. Sure. Um and and this way we know that that that's the way we're going to operate for 50 years. Yeah, definitely. And

so I love it. I appreciate that. I think that clears up a lot because there was a lot of confusion about this slide and not articulating. people thought you were going higher and the blessing is you're going lower in a price standpoint. So, thank you.

No, thank you for that. And um I also want to clarify, you know, we have our application to the Arizona Department of Housing, which is due April 1st. We have to commit to uh these income bands and rents on our units. And once we do that, uh the state runs annual compliance checks. So uh we cannot modify these income bands or rental um designations after we submit this. So yes, we are we are comfortable with putting that in the development agreement. Uh also want to clarify that really the documents that we need for our application April 1st are uh that city commitment letter and the fee waiver letter, the development agreement uh we can still work out um you know specifics past that April 1st deadline. Yeah, that's very helpful because one of the critiques emerging from the community was less than 25% are workforce housing. So that's great.

Yep. We just wanted to show this to align with the city's definition of workforce housing. Yes. And then and then I'd like to comment that uh there's a lot of elements in this development agreement that we could incorporate into our housing um our workforce housing policy. you brought in a lot of fresh ideas like your uh affordability covenant and I like the lur. Yep.

And also under uh the tenants criteria, you start off with they must be legal US residents. I like that. And then there's four other uh criteria that I think we should implement into our uh policy and spell it out and make sure we have it in future um development agreements. I also want to clarify I believe we had mentioned this in our CDBG presentation but uh we are actually committing to 60 years of affordability. Yeah. 60. Yep. Yes. Okay. Continue.

Sure. Um, along that same note, uh, you know, it was it was on the first slide, but I didn't really go into it. Uh, we're vertically integrated. We're, um, an owner and manager, and we commit to long-term ownership and affordability. Uh, we see other groups in our industry getting through a, uh, federal designation of a compliance period for affordability and then 15 years, we'll then uh, go and convert to market or uh, sell off the asset. that is not at all what we intend to do. Uh the 350 plus communities that we've developed, we all currently own and are still maintained as affordable communities. Uh so this is kind of touching on uh what we just discussed that are included in the uh materials that are shared with council. This is coming straight from uh the Arizona Department of Housing's what they call the qualified allocation plan which uh spells out the criteria uh that we abide by to qualify for uh tax credits. And so uh listed in the in the first screenshot is uh that a 100,000 below market loan. It specifies that it can come from uh other sources from governmental agencies. And then um the state considers anything outside of Maricopa or Puma counties as rural. So that is why uh the 100,000 applies and not 500,000. Um and then additionally uh there's the fee waiverss item which in the same respect has 50,000 and not 100,000 applying as we are uh in a rural uh in a rural rural county. And uh this can be anything at the city's discretion, impact permit, etc. fees.

Well, I I like this part. We didn't have to hire anybody. Yes. To uh pass this. Yay. Yes. Create a a new department and um it's um not going to cost the taxpayers anything, but it'll be a wonderful advantage to the community and I'm very impressed with your professionalism. Thank you very much, Mayor.

Uh yes, Mary. Uh, and this may have been included within the two documents and I just missed it, but how does the project or the management deal with tenants who qualify? They get in, they have an apartment and their circumstances change and they get a better job. How do you handle that?

Yeah, certainly. That's actually probably one of the most common questions that we get asked by city staff. And the answer to that is uh the federal LITC program actually does not prohibit uh making additional money or as you were describing circumstances changing or attaining a better job. It is a one-time uh income qualification that they go through when they first lease the apartment unit but say two three down two three years down the line uh they get a better job and are now uh making more income than is capped for that unit. There is no um you know there's nothing prohibiting them from continuing to live in that unit or Yes.

But if they but if they wanted to move out because they saved enough money to buy a house and become a homeowner then uh are they are these leases on are these yearly leases that you have? Usually annual leases and that's that's another thing that we mention a lot of times is uh in many circumstances you know we see residents using this as a gateway to home ownership. You know, it could be um you know, somebody that's just an example, somebody who's getting started in their career and and wants to find um a rental option to save up to then go to um you know, move to and buy a home themselves. So, we do see that as a a potential gateway in many scenarios. Mr. Garing, did you have a comment?

I do, Mayor. Thank you. So the uh my first question is how do you handle changes in median income over the over the term? Sure. Uh so are are you stating that you know if somebody were to make x amount of dollars when they start to lease the apartment unit and then a year or two down the line they they make y amount of dollars? No. I'm saying how do you manage your rents when the median income for the area increases or decreases?

Sure. So we we abide by we move in tandem with um it's uh it comes from the data comes from HUD but it is then administered through uh third parties like Novagratic. We abide by uh the income limits for the county. So if let's say you know we our rents would be priced accordingly with um you know changes to the median incomes of the county. So you're not using a CPI change a consumer price index. No, we are not. Yeah. So uh that that really that process really should be in the development agreement.

Sure. The next question is, as I read through the Prescat Workforce Housing Strategy implementation plan for a median income of 50,000, which is what you're considering here, their monthly rent is closer to a,50. And the reason is they subtract 200 for utilities. Sure. And that's not being proposed here.

Yes. So the rent rental figures that we are uh that we have spoken about those do account for utilities. Correct. And I also want to emphasize that that figure that we included the 49,000 that was taken from the housing needs assessment that is the median income for renter households within Prescuit. That doesn't necessarily always align with uh the 100% median income for uh the county itself. That figure is actually higher, probably closer to 60 65,000. So you said what? So you said utilities are included like water. Yes. And water, sewer. Water and sewer. And how about electricity? Yeah, electricity, heating, etc. Wow.

Yeah, that's very nice. Uh, let me ask you this. I I saw from your elevations that it looked like you were going to have interior hallways. Sorry. Um, do you have non-smoking um, areas or could you make the whole building non-smoking because that's really a problem when people aren't smokers and there's always that one smoker that's always smoking. Yeah. Everywhere. So, it's funny that you mentioned that because that's actually a threshold item for the state in our application. We have to affirm that our entire community will be in all common areas will be non-spoken. That is fabulous. I think that's wonderful. Okay, let's continue.

Any other questions before I continue? Oh, I'm sorry. Guess who? So, um, the affordability covenant is is blank on mine. Is it's on the next page. That's that's just a cover page. It's on the next page. Okay. Thank you. Um, and so where where do you covenant the 60-year period, which had been referred to as 50 years before, but where do you covenant that commitment? Uh I guess I'm I'm not quite

where you're where you're indicating that this this project is is going to be right in our portfolio. Sure. And run like a flight tech program not for 15 or 20 years but for 60. Sure. Uh so it goes in two places. Ultimately that document would be uh recorded with the city and then additionally uh we are making that commitment in our application to the state. So, you know, we're happy to share it's it's it'll be public information once we submit that application. We're happy to share that uh with you all as documentation that we have committed to the state. The state runs very stringent compliance records. We can't

we can't do what what we want when when we tell them we say something we we have to we have to abide by it. So, we're we would be happy to share that with you all as well. So from the audience's perspective, obviously you've heard from a couple of council members that this is a really outstanding proposal given the 60-year length of the commitment. What is the typical LITC uh contract term?

Sure. So the federal compliance period is 15 years. So um yes the in other states you know primarily in Texas we see that more often that after 15 years groups will uh convert to market rate that's a very that's very common in other states but yes here we are committing to to 60 years. All right. Thank you. Any uh Lois?

So, um just to answer your question, Patrick, on the development agreement on page 47, section 413, it says for at least 50 years. We can now change that to 60 years. And then on the um the other misnomer titled a document at the end, page 63 up in 3.1, it says 50 years. in the second second line and that'll be 60. Sure. Um but I want to go back to your discussion earlier about when someone's circumstances change they make more money or they make less money.

Um what how do we treat those people as those life as long as they stay within the 30 to the 80? How would you treat them um in terms of moving units or changing their rent or or

Yeah. So, it would really be up to uh the resident's discretion. If they were want to would want to uh put in a request to um you know potentially change a unit, they could, you know, if their incomes decrease, etc. I will say it would not be in their interest to do so because all of our units, so a one-bedroom that's 30% area median income and a onebedroom that's 80% area median income will not be any different. The interiors, the square footage will be entirely the same. So, uh our units are are therefore not fixed. they're floating. So, it really wouldn't be in their interest to do so.

So, but if you had you had so many units allocated for the 30% and so many units allocated. So, that's my concern is if something changed and you're already filled at the 30% number of units, do they have to leave? No, because they would they've passed the initial qualification. So once they pass you know when they are going to lease their apartment initially they income qualify for a unit our community it would not be other people coming in would kick a resident out as long as they are you know abiding by uh the terms of their lease and have not and you know are are behaving in uh proper manners they would not be kicked out of the unit.

And so my second question was regarding the the the rent which is incredible. Um thank you. Um, so you said that includes the utilities. Um, correct. So the basic utilities, does it also include all the other kind of technology, Wi-Fi, connections, etc. What what is your full package here? Uh, it would not include Wi-Fi and it would not include trash. I think the the Yes, residents would need to pay for trash. Other than that though, it includes uh air conditioning. It includes uh heating, lighting, cooling, um water, sewer, and paying for trash. Wouldn't they just be taking their trash to some dumpster on your

Yeah, but there I I believe there will be a very nominal trash fee for that every resident will get. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Are they allowed pets? Yes, there will be a pet fee assessed, but yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other um speakers? Any comments uh from you? Um shall we um is there any uh public comment? There is Mayor Leslie Conturus. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor Council. Leslie Contras, regional development manager for Yavapai Plan, formerly known as Central Ya N. I'm just here to show support for this project. We have been working, Yaoi plan has been working with um OMR and the development group to help with their application. One of the components of the application is to make sure that there is transit service within four miles of the development. And so we've been working closely with them to um have a successful application. Um mayor, I know we updated you um at the last board meeting about this project. We're just super proud about it and grateful to be part of it and he asked me to be here to show support and absolutely I said absolutely because this is a great thing for our community.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Miss Contraras. That's all. Mayor. Okay. Well, Madame Mayor, Mr. G, I noticed that Garing doesn't even press his button request and you call on them and I press mine and wait forever. Oh, yeah. Here you are. I think this is a good example of the marketplace in action. Um, this is an address to workforce housing and it doesn't involve some Marxist uh program to take taxpayer dollars to do it. So, I compliment it.

Thank you. I'm like I said before, I'm impressed with their professionalism. this is what they do and um it's not costing the taxpayers anything here. Uh and like I said, we don't have to have a whole department to uh monitor it. And uh I just want to say thank you for uh coming to Prescuit because as you said, you could have gone to many other places. So So I think we're off to a good start with our workforce housing here. Mayor, may I ask just a question? Yes. I heard five I have notes of five different changes to the DA that's been requested and if I may just go through them to make sure that this is what's requested by

Thank you. So in section 4.11 and the exhibit C include the number of units that are at 30% AMI and 50% AMI along with those that are there for 70 and 80. um the 2000 uh provision that the 2004 DA shall be amended to remove the portion of that DA that property that's situated on the project property. uh include information regarding determination of median income and frequency of updating such determination and amend that two. That's three. That's number three.

Yeah. This relates to council member uh Garing's request that the information regarding how the determination of the median income is made and how that's adjusted over time. and then amend section 4.13 of the DA and ex in exhibit C to reflect that the worst workforce housing commitment in is 60 years instead of 50 years and include in the notices provision um the city attorney a copy goes to the city attorney of any notices required under the contract. Those are the five those are the five uh amendments I have. Therefore, Madame Mayor, I make a motion to approve the development agreement with Bulood Cooper Development, Inc., approve the city commitments in support of the developers low-income housing tax credit application, and authorize the city manager to ac execute the agreement and related documents and incorporate the five amendments as uh delineated by our city attorney.

Second. Second. Please vote.

Passes 70. Thank you everyone. Okay, I guess this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.