Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

the land use environment committee the olympia city council today is thursday august 27th 2026 i'm your chair robert vanderpoel paul would you like to introduce yourself all right can i get approval of the agenda

I move that we adopt the agenda as proposed.

Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. We have an agenda and we have several public commenters starting in person.

If you want to.

Greetings.

It is indeed unfortunate that state law prohibits temporary zoning law as that would have been a simple solution to how we can protect our biggest trees till there is a new ordinance. I do object to the statement that was made at the last meeting that a look at permits reveals it is just not possible to both build and protect these bigger trees. When I, for example, look at the permit for Spring Creek, I see that in a two block area that is being developed, there would only be three trees over 40 inches DBH that would have needed to have been saved. I certainly think that some adjustments could have accommodated it. I think one advantage to trying to do something different in the next two years is doing the experiment that can inform your ordinance writing experience. We feel that protecting the largest trees by keeping bigger setbacks actually creates more affordable and livable housing. Houses built out to small property lines are simply more expensive and don't help with affordable housing stocks. Whole developments done this way create long-term housing without shade for cooling, pollution removal, or stormwater management against flooding. Two possibilities for consideration. One, speed up the way too long two-year timeline for creation of the new tree ordinance. Or two, adopt permanent language such as the county has that requires every new project to do a tree survey and submit a tree plan with the initial permit application. This would in the short term allow CPED to encourage preservation of the big trees and it will be necessary part of any updated tree ordinance. So it would not be premature or prejudicial to pass it now. Many modern tree codes have two tracks, one for development and one for already developed properties. This allows a lot of flexibility and rulemaking. Right now, our largest trees are on older, already developed properties and will need a way to not, like Tumwater, lose them all in a two-year short period in which they've lost almost all of their 10 largest trees. This past weekend, I visited Olympia's oldest tree. Well, biggest tree. It appeared that the old man who lived there has died or has been placed somewhere. A younger generation was clearing out the house. This means that this largest tree is now in danger of redevelopment. The urgency is real. We do not want to lose a 10-foot DBH tree, not inches, foot. We do not have two years to figure this out.

Thank you.

Next up we have Charlotte Persons.

Hi, I'm Charlotte Persons, and I live in Northeast Olympia. I am here today to remind you of the benefits that trees provide us, especially mature trees. You may be most aware of the climate benefits, a major reason why tree protection is part of Olympia's comprehensive plan. As they grow, trees absorb more and more carbon until they're about 40 years old. However, because of their large canopies mature trees continue to absorb and capture more carbon dioxide than smaller trees. Some people think that all that carbon dioxide just goes back into the air and it's true about 70% is transpired but in in in the vapor that they give off. as well as oxygen, but the rest of it actually is still being sequestered by the tree, the 30%, into either the tree structure itself or into the soil around the tree's roots, which is why mature trees, even though they're not growing as fast, are still absorbing a lot more carbon dioxide than small trees. Similarly, mature trees provide more benefits than small trees in stormwater management. Large tree roots absorb and sequester more surface water. Because they have more leaves, mature trees are more effective at removing from the air the particulate pollution that causes asthma, heart conditions, and cancer if the trees are planted within 100 feet of the residence. One of the easiest benefits of mature trees to demonstrate is urban cooling in summer and heating in winter on 7.28 I was able to go on Tom waters tree tour. A bus ride through different subdivisions to learn the effects of past regulations and have proposed new ones. One of our last stops was running 10 drive subdivision built in early 2000 under Thurston County route codes. Tumwater's urban forester, Brian Coughlin, told us that this was the coolest area of the city because of 20 years of tree growth. His heat index survey of Tumwater showed that in summer, this area is 12 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the city average. In winter, because mature trees protect against wind, Bronington Drive subdivision is six degrees warmer. Because of the benefits of retaining older, more mature trees, I urge you to include an Olympia's tree code, incentives and regulations that will preserve existing trees in current housing areas and especially in new subdivisions. You can look for ideas in the proposed changes for the Tumwater tree code and in Thurston County's residential tree code. This is your opportunity to provide health and economic benefits for Olympia's residents for decades to come.

Thank you so much, both of you. We have a few online. I think three signed up. say no. Okay. There was someone online.

There was.

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you both for commenting. If you want to email us a copy of that, I can also share it with Clark, or you can give me a copy too if you have it on you right now. Thank you. Yeah, if you have any write-up of it, I can share it with Councilman Gilman because he's out of town right now, so that for next week or next month when we have this conversation, I can be

Thank you. Okay. Appreciate you.

All right. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for coming.

All right. So now we're to approval of minutes. Can I get a motion to approve?

I move to approve the minutes from the July 23rd meeting of the Land Use and Environment Committee. Second.

All in favor, aye.

Aye. Aye.

Alright, we are at community business discussion of land banking strategies.

And right and Ashley is online.

Good evening, can you all hear me OK?

Yes.

Perfect well. Good evening council members Vanderpool and Barron. It's wonderful to be here tonight. For those who haven't met me in the room, although I think I've met both of you as council members, I'm Ashley Chambers. I'm the city's new housing director and today is exactly one month since my start date. So how opportunistic that it's my first presentation to you all as well. Tonight I am talking with you all about land banking and the strategy development around that project. concept. And it's important to know that land banking is not new to Olympia in any way, shape, or form. We've long been using this as a tool. However, I think tonight's conversation is really structured around creating a more intentional approach to land and our property as a tool for affordable housing and other uses as well. Tonight is really about creating a framework that tells us or potentially creating a framework that tells us when we should intervene what role we should play how to evaluate opportunities consistently and whether or not our limited housing resources are better used elsewhere so it probably is less about should olympia create a traditional land bank and more about should we develop strategic framework on how to do this well next slide please Before we really launch into talking more about land banking, I think it's really important to know, as I mentioned, that we have already adopted several key work areas within the city that have highlighted land banking as a tool. One is under the Olympia Comprehensive Plan, and this really speaks to using city surplus land for low-income housing and reducing development costs. The housing plan also under several strategies lists land and or buildings and resources for the use of affordable housing. The one community plan also focuses on reducing costs to barriers and producing housing as well as adjusting codes and facilitate affordable housing policy. CDBG, it's important to mention that under our consolidated plan, we do have key primary goals of increasing affordable housing supply and expanding permanent housing for homelessness, as well as supporting infrastructure for low and moderate income housing and neighborhoods. And then last but not least, while it's not a housing specific document under the Olympia Strong Plan for Economic Development, we do have housing and sense of security, which both addressed purchasing vacant and or using underutilized properties for housing and housing stock and incentivizing vacant office spaces and using rehab and other methods for increasing opportunities. And then also creating regional resources of affordable housing tools with a goal to rehab and redevelop. Next slide. So I think first where we should start is defining what is land banking. Land banking can be many things depending on the specific policy and state. So in its most basic form, how we generally use it in affordable housing terminology is that it's acquiring or utilizing land that's already owned, managing it, and or transforming vacant, abandoned, foreclosed, or other properties into productive use. So this looks like a variety of ways across many communities, especially when it comes to using foreclosed or abandoned or taxed properties for productive use as well. So it kind of comes in three stages. One is identifying land. So whether that's vacant land or land already owned by the city or other public entities, or it could be acquiring land as well. And then who will manage or partner that land. So it could be managed and the city maintains ownership. We find a development partner to maintain ownership or someone approaches us as an owner as well, or we maintain partnership And then transforming those pieces of land or formerly used buildings into productive use, again, that benefits our whole community. I think a really important part of this is not necessarily who holds the title, but also using land strategically and utilizing and or finding a resource. So whether it's the city taking the lead on this or someone else, that it can be a a useful tool in a variety of different ways, depending on the role. Next slide. Thank you. So some key benefits to land banking, as I'm sure you already ascertain, is that one, and this is probably the most historically used resource, is that it prevents loss of strategic properties. So anytime there's a an open space or land that is a hot commodity, especially in Olympia, it prevents loss of strategic properties. So it is one benefit to acquisition and or holding on to land. It does remove land cost barriers, which we'll talk about in just a moment. It is, as you know, land continues to go up in price, especially as vacant land or underutilized properties become more and more prominent. And so it creates an opportunity to use and act before those costs rise or even Some communities use land banking as projections into the 10, 15, 20 years. And so they hold onto that land knowing that the land value will go up and later when affordable housing or other uses are needed, that land is too expensive for those uses. Land banking does allow a significant amount of time to prepare for success. So as I'm sure you know, affordable housing takes a long time and having land at the beginning of that does allow a longer hold time for that process to take place. It does secure long-term community benefits overall, and it can help reduce development costs as well as improve competitiveness when land is already accomplished and many of the studies and resources are already done. It helps reduce that time overall. And then also it can make better use of land that doesn't currently have a use, whether it's city owned or public or a private property. Sometimes those properties have just been sitting and we can make better use and more productive use of those. And then also it really achieves a better on partner and pipeline readiness. One of the key things I think I've heard several times over the last month is we really need to recruit new developers to our community. And so one way to do that is to offer land and to have a land bank opportunity or even a periodic RFP of a specific property and really get the word out there and allow for that information to go out to the greater affordable housing or other developers for use. Next slide. So tonight we're primarily focusing on housing and how it can be used to impact housing. And so I want to just spend a little bit of time talking about what that looks like. Land is traditionally in a capital stack and I've given you an example here of how that works and the development costs associated. Land can cost anywhere between five and 15% of a capital stack. And so simply by offering land, you've reduced those costs exponentially right from the get-go and helped achieve also early commitment to a project which can help the remainder. It can help with a developer fee It can help access grants or public funding. And it really speaks to LIHTC and other equity partners to show that there's an investment in this site and in this property and that it really is a community benefit. And so not only does it affect cost, but it also can help reduce the time. So anytime a property goes under contract for housing, you know, that timeline can be anywhere between 30 days on up to several years, depending on what currently is happening with that land. So the most... Helpful processes, of course, when it's zoned correctly and when it doesn't have to go through any other changes, but often even when it does, just by having the land, it reduces the total acquisition timeline. It also can help with infrastructure or environmental constraints when land is adjacent to things that already exist, so sewer lines, electric lines, those types of things, it can greatly reduce the access and infrastructure costs needed to develop that property. And so there is a strategic method to helping ensure that our infrastructure and transportation systems are, one, it's more cost effective for the development, but two, it actually improves the use of those things and helps reduce traffic overall. Obviously, if you're land banking, you're looking at the availability of land and you're finding land that's either able to be purchased or we already have. And so the availability of that parcel is really key in affordable housing. And then also it does help. reduce competition for strategic sites, and so one of the benefits is that we've already identified sites we'd like to see housing and then we are working towards reducing competition between developers over that site or other sites around the community. And then also it can help again with the timing to assemble specific financing packages or partnerships. Next slide. There's also several other benefits beyond affordable housing, and I think it's really important that we talk about some of those things. So often, even with housing, when you bring housing into an urban core, it tends to revitalize and create new opportunities and economic growth. It also can help improve public facilities and infrastructure, transportation. It can catalyze redevelopment in the area. Whenever there's more people, you end up catalyzing additional other spaces. It does support our workforce goals and increase access to jobs. I think just this week, it was mentioned in council about transportation and the impacts of transportation and how many commuters are living in Olympia and working elsewhere. And so it does, whenever you reduce transportation costs and or time, you're helping improve our workforce overall. And then any area where You can increase opportunities for mixed income and mixed use redevelopment and create opportunities for our community to live, work, and play in the same space. You are creating a vitality and resource for our community. Next slide. One thing to know is land banking is not always a great tool. It really is dependent on a few things. I'm not going to go over all of these tonight, but I do want to highlight a few of the things that could create or when it may not be the best tool. One is if there's already several projects in the pipeline that are at key pivotal points, What we don't want to see in our community is over competition and financing. There's limited financing opportunities and most financing sources won't fund that many projects in one community at the same time. And so it's really important on timing that we're not offering land at a time in which we've already identified maybe resources are constrained. There's also... if, if a very short timeline is the goal, there are key things that have to happen with land. Um, and affordable housing particularly is a long timeline. It is shortened by having land available, but if we identified a project tomorrow, we're still looking at a three to five year timeline, which may not be an ideal scenario for the use of that land. Um, in general, we may need to move faster. Um, additionally, uh, One of the things, as I somewhat mentioned and alluded to, was that the timing of the pipeline and where projects are, if there aren't developers currently looking for land and or the sites aren't ready for development, that timeline can be extended and or the timing of finding a developer can seem frustrating when land is offered or available and underutilized. Additionally, when... When there is significant risk to the property, it always is, you know, in affordable housing, there are key things, so like environmental concerns or proximity to certain structures or placement. Those are all key things that often you have to weigh the cost to develop that land, but also the risk and political feasibility of the site as well. And of course, one thing to be certain of is whether it's us or another partner when there is no clear path for how that property would be used. So we have no concept, no partner, no strategic plan and no real proposal. It's probably not the best use of the land for land use sake, but rather it may be time to hold on to that land and wait until those things do appear. Next slide, please. So typically there are several ways to approach land banking. The most common ones that municipalities use is to acquire property. And so they can identify an opportunity individually. Maybe they just see that that's a great place to have housing developed or perhaps a partner. has identified a property that they would like to see developed for affordable housing and approaches the city. So that requires opportunity and funds available to be able to acquire that property. But it could also be utilizing and leveraging public property or land already associated with the city or other public entities. So it begins with really identifying city assets and or other public assets, evaluating best use and determining if housing or what uses are best for that site. And then really looking to activate it in the best way possible. So that could be through an RFP process, it could be through a letter of interest process, there's several different methods to use and leverage public property. And then there's kind of a third option that's most commonly used. And that's a little bit of both. And that's really where Olympia has somewhat maybe unintentionally or intentionally sat with how they've utilized land banking is really evaluate and create the most opportunistic approach and to see whether it's acquiring or leveraging and seeing what is the best fit for the right moment and then selecting the approach and delivering the product towards the end there.

And so next slide, please.

So really, I kind of went through these steps already, but regardless of what process is utilized, there really are sort of those five key things at the bottom. So creating more housing opportunities and options, economic opportunities, thriving neighborhoods, a stronger community, and then overall just community benefit for taking underdeveloped and underutilized properties and turning them into more productivity for our community. I do think one of the things to know is that Each of these do take a different level of resource, whether that's financial and or staff time and energy. And so we have further outlined in the coming slides what that could look like. And sorry, I lost my place in my slides here.

All right, go to the next slide, sorry.

So one of the key things to know is, and I mentioned this in the beginning, was that we have already been land banking and utilizing acquisition as well. And so really some key questions are around the framework for doing so. How do we want to develop or do we want to develop a framework? Many communities and sort of best practice is really to look at a framework around specific evaluation areas. So that includes strategic alignment Is this, does this advance the goals of the community, whether that's housing or economic development, redevelopment, infrastructure, neighborhood? Does it really align with city priorities in this moment? Again, what is public benefit, or the valuation area is public benefit. So would city involvement produce a benefit overall than would occur through the general market alone? It's really important to evaluate the site and development feasibility. Again, zoning, infrastructure, environmental conditions, building conditions, site constraints, and anticipated costs. Is this a realistic future use or are the costs too prohibitive for the type of use specifically? Another evaluation area is the market opportunity. Is it time sensitive? Is it strategically located? Would it delay an opportunity being lost or becoming financially infeasible? What is the cost to the city or what is the cost to the market? Which falls also under funding and capacity. Do we have the ability to do an acquisition? Are there funds available? Is there due diligence needed for the site to determine if it's even feasible? What are the holding costs? What remediation is needed? What does pre-development look like? And who is managing the work? Whether the city or another partner, do they have capacity and is this the best timing? And then also finding those partners. Whether the city wants to develop or we want to find a partner who develops, is there a realistic path? Are the funding sources in alignment for the development project? Is the timeline feasible? Do they have the experience? And then also determining who would be the partner. So is it a nonprofit or a for-profit but affordable housing developer? Is it a private developer? Do you use a land trust model or do you try to find someone altogether different? One other thing that is a really key component, and it falls somewhat under market opportunity and strategic alignment, is also identifying what type of housing would be best suited for the site. And so as you're looking at a framework and decision making, one of the things you want to know is, is there, for example, Several more permanent supportive housing, but no homeownership opportunities, because that may be a criteria that you want to prioritize certain housing types on the site and or the site may be best suited for homeownership. So, for example, if a smaller parcel like one acre is available, that may develop three to 13 homes. you know, homes for sale, whereas a multifamily developer may not be as interested in that small of a site because it's really hard to develop a multifamily without a larger project. Next slide. So some of the city projects that we have identified and sort of utilized, and many of these use multiple parts of this. They may have been acquired for housing and use city funding and also maybe were land that was owned already from the city and maybe it was purchased previously. So please note that on these, just because it says one thing does not necessarily mean that other methods or a combination of those methods weren't utilized. And so Unity Commons was acquired by the city and then transferred to Lehigh at a reduced cost. Lotus Court, also part of the same property, was city land and was used for that project to support permanent supportive housing. The landing was a partnership funding provided for acquisition financing. The Franz Anderson Permanent Supportive Housing site, which is currently underway and in the early stages of financing and hopefully going to be breaking ground soon, was city land and will be used to facilitate permanent supportive housing. And then the 3900 Boulevard site was city land that used a competitive process and Habitat for Humanity is the one who responded. So that will be and is developing affordable homeownership opportunities. Next slide. I should add that those are by no means all of the projects or we actually have quite a longer list, but for the sake of brevity, I gave you a shortened example of those points. So some things to know about opportunities in pursuit of kind of developing a more strategic framework is there are several potential funding sources that could be utilized for either acquisition and or land banking in general. So several house bills give opportunity for funding acquisition or pre-development activities. The Regional Housing Council has an opportunity fund, so they do and are voting on creating an out-of-cycle funding opportunity. Currently, it's discussed at $3.5 million of the annual fund balance set aside for the opportunities that come up for acquisition. CDBG can support acquisition and development overall. as well as housing revenue bonds or municipal bonds or PAB as well. Private activity bond financing can help fund part of the financing and or capital stack. And then there's also the fee in lieu or related housing revenue sources as well. When we're looking also at a city process for how to evaluate city funding, One thing that could happen is developing an annual process for reviewing either acquisition and or land banking opportunities. And so that would really start with evaluating fund balances and or creating an opportunity to have proposals in before the budget process for the year and highlighting projects or recommending projects for consideration in the annual budget process. It would be assessing projects based on capacity and priorities within the budget and capital planning cycles, and then recommendations for allocation and adapting based on those priorities and capacity within the city. Next slide.

Ashley? Yeah.

Paul has a question on the slide. Is that okay? Do you mind if I just ask? It's related to the last two bullets on the potential funding uh, list. And I just didn't quite understand what MFTE fee in lieu of related housing revenue is. I understand how MFTE works in a, in a, uh, oh, in a, in a, in a hundred unit apartment complex where we're setting aside a portion for, uh, uh, subsidized housing or, uh, or, low income rental levels. But could you explain that to me just so I understand it?

Yes, I can explain it in general terms. However, I'm not quite sure yet in depth. Again, I'm in my first month, how it works within our own guidelines here within the city. But in general, a fee in lieu, if people, for example, have to sit aside a certain portion of the units, Many municipalities I'm assuming ours does as well, where you could essentially set aside funds in a specific amount instead of building the units. And so those funds are set aside and then could be used to acquire a site for specifically affordable housing. Some communities also use the fee-in-lieu system as an opportunity. Oh, good, I see Krista coming up. Some communities also use that for homeownership. So, for example, if there was a subdivision coming in and they wanted to set aside a specific number or a specific amount of parcels, you could actually use those parcels to either develop or donate the funds from those parcels to acquire or utilize. But I'm going to let Krista speak to our specific program.

Crystal Linson here from the Housing Program. Just to add on to and kind of give a little bit of more specific context for Olympia. So, we have our eight-year market rate multifamily tax exemption. And so, rather than building affordable units, in the past, there was no cost. People could build market rate and get that eight-year exemption. But when we revised the program a couple years ago, we actually charge a fee in lieu of building affordable units. So in order to get that eight-year multifamily tax exemption for market rate development, they pay into this fund for affordable housing instead of building affordable units.

So just so I understand, so I build 100 unit units market rate housing fund, they are able to charge market rate, but for the benefit of the tax, MFTE tax break, they're essentially paying into a city fund.

Correct. Yep.

Okay. I didn't realize that was an option, so that's very helpful. And I asked that question about MFTE when we had a presentation. Is that being done in our city at this time? I noticed that there were some market rate housing units that received MFTE in Olympia. And I asked the presenter, I said, why would we do that? Is this program currently happening the way you've described it?

Yes. Yeah. So we did a couple of years ago, we had a consultant do a study, um, and provide some recommendations about restructuring the program. So, you know, you might be aware of projects in the past, um, that, you know, they, they received that eight year tax exemption without paying that fee. Um, but within the last couple of years, um, that new fee in lieu has taken effect.

Thank you. That's very helpful, and I learned something this evening, so that's helpful. I had a second question, Ashley, and that was regarding HB 1974. Has there been a land banking district – I don't quite understand – how the land banking authority would work. Is that like a junior taxing district?

Yeah, so I haven't dove too far into what this looks like, so I'll just speak in general terms specifically. But usually opportunities come where cities can create a separate authority that can hold and manage and sort of decide for themselves. Usually those are set up where you have like a council member and you have appointed people that are sort of adjacent to so housing authority is one type of authority in that way so this one specific to land banking but the city and the county can both have their own sort of authorities if you will and certain benefits are passed to those authorities so when they own or acquire or hold onto property that automatically gives them certain benefits so tax exemption It can also in some cases reduce fees or eliminate fees altogether. So there are some benefits to that as well as the ability to hold on to the land and offer those through like a partnership agreement. So instead of the city being the partner, we would give the authority to our land banking authority or to our housing authority specific to Olympia. And then that authority would then hold the land and create that tax exemption. And it could also be a revenue source because you can special limit partners so you can maintain the ownership. per se, but not be the developer, not be the manager. And that developer would pay for that option. And so you sort of create a partnership, if you will, that gives them certain benefits, but then also creates a revenue source through that partnership, either as an equity partner later in the project or from the get-go with a fee for that service. And so there's opportunities there. It's very expansive, very complicated. I don't want to dive too far into there because probably the more I say, the more you have questions. But there is opportunity there to create sort of a separate entity that can work in this space.

And just as a short follow-up, are we aware of this existing any place, a land banking authority?

I see Jacinda. It's popped in, but I also I I I know that the the Seattle social housing program functions similarly to this. It that way that so that the City Council or County Council and King County does not can help fund programs but cannot take it away so it can continue to function outside of government. OK, just send it.

I believe Tacoma has one as well, so I think Jacinda. That's her experience. I don't know, Jacinda, are you there? I know I saw your hand up for a moment.

Yeah, I'm sorry, y'all. I don't think it was quite connected. I tried to help with the MFTE question as well. So thank you, Krista. Yeah, Tacoma, City of Tacoma has the Tacoma Community Redevelopment Authority, which has been in existence for quite some time and in some ways acts as a land banking authority. Also, they have in the past developed. And then Pierce County has also has a similar structure and it's escaping my brain at this moment. But yes, these do exist in other jurisdictions and neighboring jurisdictions.

Male Speaker 1 Thank you. Male Speaker 2 All right, Ashley, if you want to. Continue on. Thank you so much.

Perfect. Thanks. Next slide. There's some potential next steps that we've sort of developed for you. Of course, these aren't the only ones, but probably in identifying sort of where we are and where we could go, these are sort of the key next steps. I apologize. My alarms are going off on my computer as I'm talking to you. So there's sort of a 1A and a 1B that can happen simultaneously. One is staff could create an inventory of city owned property and really create a planning level inventory. So identifying and evaluating potential uses in its current zoning, potential future zoning opportunities, if there is any, what are the infrastructure needed and or what's already there to benefit the project? What constraints are there to the site? What does access look like to the site and then suitability overall for different purposes? And then we can classify those units as high, medium or low, or really, you know, this would be a high use for maybe affordable housing, but maybe a low use for something else or high use for commercial, but low use for housing just simply because of some of those key factors. And our recommendation would be if we just did and focused on the city opportunities, staff could develop that within six to nine months. If there was an add-on, if you will, around other public-owned land, because of the sheer volume, you know, that would add significant time onto that. So our kind of potential next step would be let's start with the city, but know that that's an option in the future. And then kind of simultaneously, we could, as a staff, develop and bring back sort of a structured program framework. How would a program work? We would work to establish goals based on feedback received and evaluation criteria for when is it best to move and what properties would we want to use and how would we evaluate projects or proposals? that came forward and then really working to define an internal review process and what that looks like as well as where council decision points along that process and then also identifying funding sources, financing options and partnership models. Sometimes if you over structure it, you don't get the most opportunistic use of it. Sometimes less structure means slightly more. Uncertainty about what's going to come forward, but there's sometimes a balance in the middle, And then also creating the tools for acquisition, disposition and partner requests and helping our partners understand what those tools are as part of this program framework. The second thing is sort of after those two things happen is really looking at building opportunities and partnership pipeline So I do know just on feedback I've heard in several council presentations since starting that we have a desire to find more developers in the community. And so what does that partnership look like and how do we get there? I think land banking or land acquisition is one of many tools that can work to help build a stronger capital stack and work as a recruitment tool to get more affordable housing and different types of housing built. And then really, again, where our staff would work to identify these projects and partners early in the process And be ready. The beautiful thing about having a framework and having a plan is that when strategic sites become available or when a parcel is identified, then we're ready to roll and we don't have to necessarily wait around and build those things. And then, of course, if those things were all accomplished, then the process would really be to implement and refine and help really that project just continue more in a maintenance and monitoring role. Next slide. So I've kind of given a couple prompts. By no means do we have to answer all of these today, but just thinking through the presentation, we can have general discussion, we can answer a few questions that might help us think about these strategies and implementation differently. So I'll sort of let that discussion lead happen through our two council members in the room and take your lead on that. Would you like questions or just have a general discussion? Happy to answer any questions back in the slides or just in general.

Thank you, Ashley. I'm going to let my counsel, Paul, kind of answer some of this. I brought some of my own notes, and I think some of it will help answer some of this, but we'll come back around and make sure we have all the information you need. So please let us know if there's a question that is not quite answered along the way. Go ahead, Paul.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Ashley. I think I'm so happy that we are discussing this because I think this is really a crux, not just for the development of affordable housing, but a vision for our city and what all the resources that are available to, to, oh, develop the kind of city that we want. And I, one thing, actually, I do think we need to begin with an inventory. You know, you, and actually the second to the last slide, you had an inventory period, but I would like to see the inventory be beyond city-owned property that I think we should do a complete assessment of state-owned property within the city limits, school district properties within the city limits, port properties that we may not be fully aware of, and any other junior taxing district that has acquired property because time and time and time again, as I, as I move around the city, I come across a parcel. Well, you know, that's a publicly owned property. And I don't, I don't know. It's set dormant for a long time. There, there are other properties that are, um, falling into public ownership through tax, uh, failure to pay property taxes are essentially abandoned properties. There are abandoned properties. So, um, I think this assessment of not just city-owned properties, but all properties is something I would love to see us move on right away as a part of this plan. And I don't know, Ashley, do you have any thoughts about expanding it beyond city properties and all public properties? Theoretically, you could go to the assessor and they might even be able to print out a list relatively easy of just all of the public properties that are not owned. And I don't know, Tim, you may have given this thought too, but well, yeah.

Sorry.

Oh, go ahead.

Sorry.

I was gonna say with our with our GIS database, we would be able to do that in house. Yeah, identify those properties of state port school district. Certainly, there are opportunities with the state, you know, as they recently sold a couple buildings that they no longer need, and they're retracting, trying to consolidate. And so office to residential conversion is real. We saw the Gibson go, and that developer's anxious to do more. So there's a lot of opportunity there.

County property, too. I went to an economic development process conference a better part of a year, nine months ago or so, and there was someone raving about the possibilities of redevelopment of the capital camp or the county courthouse campus up on the top of the hill. And I hadn't really thought of it, but there is a lot of land there that with some vision could be utilized. And I think city engagement with other public entities is a real possibility. So let me just say, you know, one one thing that I would like to request is not just our city properties, but every every entity and designated kind of what those properties are, including abandoned properties that I don't know if they would have, what entity they would fall into ownership, you know, just a abandoned residences.

Like a furniture store downtown that's been vacant for a long time.

Well, something like that. So that's a comment. I also see this as a powerful tool beyond the great use of developing low-income housing. But These products can be used for 100 different things. And so really understanding what assets are available in the city, I think, is a powerful tool, whether it's for parks or for, you know, public use, our ability to build a public use building, whether it be, you know, We don't need a new library right now, but a library or a fire hall or a food station, you know, just all kinds of public use. So I think that's something that I'd like to think beyond just low-income housing, which is very, very, very critically important. And I don't want to diminish that, but I think there's an opportunity to really look at these in a lot of different ways. Um, even small parcels can serve as leverage for projects. Um, and that's why I was thinking of, of, uh, abandoned houses that are on a big lot. You know, that if, if that is a cornerstone project that you could cobble together two or three other, um, lots in that area, you could suddenly build maybe a 25 unit apartment building or something. Um, One thing that I don't expect, Ashley, for you to know this, and I don't, Tim, you might have some knowledge of this, but how does a public ownership of property in Olympia, what percentage of public ownership compare, how do we as a city compare to other cities? I just, you know, are we, do we have more properties? You know, I hear about lots that the city owns downtown and, you know, properties that we own. Are we, do we have more land currently that is, could be put together into these projects or do we have less? Do we need to, I think this assessment begs the question, do we, Uh, do we need to buy more, you know, do we need to float a bond and buy, buy, buy more property or are we sitting on tons of properties that we just aren't managing to their capacity right now? You know, I mean, I, so, um, uh, I, I don't, um, I don't know what's readily available for information, but I'd like to see a comparison between Olympia and other cities in, um, uh, where we stand on, uh, ownership of our, of, of, of, of our properties or overall general public ownership. Um, uh, and just, just finally, uh, one other thought that I have is, um, as we develop our city further, um, the health, the financial health of the city is really important to me, just the financial health of the city, meaning being able to collect tax dollars from entities that can be used for the public good. And so what, uh, uh, anytime we move from it being a public property to being, uh, oh, a big apartment building or maybe 20 housing units, suddenly we're moving from being a property that is not collecting tax dollars that maybe is sitting dormant to one that is. And that, I think there's an intrinsic benefit to the city when that is done in such a way that it serves the public good. And so, so this is something that is important to me too. Are we losing tax dollars because we're, Oh, we have too much, you know, um, dormant property sitting around. Um, I don't know what the answer to that is. So, uh, anyway, I, I think this, I love this project. I, I want to see, um, uh, Strategies addressed to. So we really have an intellectual understanding of the assets of the city that can be rallied to for low income housing projects for, you know, transitional housing for workforce housing and for other public uses, other public uses also. whether they're little postage stamp parks, you know, and other uses. I don't know if this is very helpful. It wasn't necessarily driven by the discussion prompts, but I just had a lot of ideas that I wanted to share.

Yeah, I do have a question to follow up on that just so that I'm kind of understanding and providing clarity to sort of our next steps is what I'm hearing you talk about is a comprehensive inventory of all properties. And I'm happy to do that. I think just a list of those is, I think that's the easy part. I think the secondary piece to that is really then going into each of those properties and really determining what is zoning infrastructure and really evaluation of those for what potential uses, that takes a lot more time. And so I just want to make sure I'm understanding, are you wanting us to do both sets of that or just come forth with an entire list and then start evaluating how should we approach that as staff?

And I'm happy to answer that. Let me just say I'm willing to give you tremendous leeway on putting together kind of an assessment that makes the most sense with your staff resources. A listing, certainly knowing whether it's developable or not would be helpful. There's going to be a lot of properties that have critical areas on them that we may not be able to do much with in the city, for instance. that we don't need to spend too much time on other than to know that that is a community asset as a green space in itself. So I don't know, Ashley, I'd like you to kind of think about this and, you know, I'd like more, as much information as possible, but I don't want this to turn into a, Kind of too complicated of a process, I guess.

Can I jump in and maybe make a recommendation about this? So when I think about the land inventory, I think of what is, I guess, maybe tiered approach. Like obviously, if we own the land or the school district owns the land, that is like a tier one. If it is owned by a a secondary like a state and it's not, it may go in the market one day, that's a lower tier, right? If it's vacant, right? Like those type of things, right? Or it'd be really nice to have affordable housing. So like if that part of town, if we look at like rents and that side of town, there is no affordable housing in that section of neighborhood of a part of the neighborhood and would really like, like I would love to see a cooperative five over one downtown to match the high cost of rent and some of the development downtown that we've seen over the years, which I'm glad we're seeing the development, but kind of match that. And you see, and you say, okay, that's a need, right? That's beyond land banking, but that's a need. So yeah, I agree that I really, I would love to see looking at the whole entire city, but I understand where Ashley's coming from about the need to... Because if you go into every single property, that will take a lot of time. We have quite a few sections of town where you'd just be looking, you would just be marking on a map, on a layer in GIS, where it would just be essentially like you would see... very low tiered properties all over the place. But I do agree that even small parcels may not be opportunities for housing, but maybe opportunities for other things that we do as a city, right? The conversation about small commercial and neighborhoods, an ADU sized business, or a smaller parcel for a smaller developer in the community, a builder perhaps, This developer I like to talk about, that's the three people in a van developer. That's the type of thing that they would be interested in doing if it made sense for them. But I think as we're looking at land banking, we're looking at medium to larger projects, I think. And so in my mind, I'm hoping I'm helping navigate that because I don't want us to be doing an inventory that takes us a long time, but it's good to do that because we have all these other phases afterwards that we have to approach. So I hope that answers your.

Yeah, and I think one of the things we could do is definitely tier it. I think also it's important to note that as city on land, we have We have control over that, right? So we have the easiest time, if you will, finding a use. Everything else is a lot more work, too. So I think I appreciate that, Council Member Vanderpool. I think one of the things that we could do is come up with a comprehensive list, identify some key parcels and items. sort of prioritize those. But then also, you know, this could be an ongoing work. It doesn't have to be the whole list is complete. It could be start with these ones and then add to as we see fit. Or, you know, I think it's really important to know that, again, you know, when is landmaking not appropriate? And I think one of the challenges is just because we have a lot of land doesn't mean we should get rid of it all at the same time, right? I think that creates too much competition and too many financing dilemmas. And so I think part of that is really being strategic. But I also wonder if as we look through this giant list, we can identify sort of some key parcels of interest that would be like, let's spend some time on these key parcels, whether it's in the city or owned by the district, or maybe it's federal land or vacant or foreclosed properties. Maybe there's going to be something as we look at that list that someone says, hey, I know this is tier three. I know this is just a vacant parcel, but I'd really like us to move this up in a priority list. And so we could identify singular parcels or singular spaces that we move up in a priority list to kind of deeper dive into to find out what best would maybe or what could be done on that site. And so if that approach sounds okay, I'm happy. I just want to make sure I understand what you all are asking for so we sort of know next steps.

I don't know, Paul, if you want to answer it, but I was thinking there has to be a cutoff at one point. Right. It's so far down the tier that we have to have a cut off. And as Ashley's saying, we can continue to update this into the future. I don't know if that sounds.

I guess I do think, obviously, if it's a city-owned property, we should dive deeper into what information we have, we want on it. The non-city-owned properties, even school district at 10th and Jefferson, two acres, you know, even just that much information, I think, is helpful, actually. And, you know, I'm somebody who goes and looks at these things. So, when I know it's there, I see for myself. But, so, yes, I think a tiered approach, the property the city owns outright should be prioritized because it will be it will be property that we can move quickly on as needed. But I think we can move fairly quickly on these other properties too if we make an effort. So I think just knowing where those other properties are and what their dimension is, just in essentially almost a tax roll sense, but a deeper dive into the city makes a lot more sense. And Ashley, I really kind of rely on you as kind of housing professional to kind of advise us on how much information can be pulled together thoughtfully and with staff resources and whatnot, I guess.

Thank you. I know Tim has his, Pat's had his mic on for a minute too.

Yeah, I just wanted to add. So this, yeah, this is really an opportunity where I see more of an exhaustive list, more like let's look for these key opportunity sites, you know, vetting through the different ownerships that you talked about. But I also think it's an exciting exercise between in collaboration with our different divisions within the city. I mean, I think if we were to get housing, economic development, planning, and engineering in a room, we could call a list pretty quickly, knowing the area and the different areas these different functions in the city, you know, looking at it through a different lens. And so getting those groups together, I think we could really brainstorm and start a list and then that, and then we could tier them out and then evaluate and bring that back to you.

That sounds good to me. Sounds great to me too. No, I'm, I'm very excited about this. This is something I've, I've, I've thought about a lot because I've get, I get around the city and I ask people, Oh, what's that? And they said, oh, the city owns that lot. It's kind of, it's got a chain link fence around it. You know, it's just a chain link fence lot that the city owns, you know, and it looks like a place that could hold 10 apartments, maybe, you know. And so I think that doing this assessment, particularly of just this assessment of of our resources is a first step to success on developing projects.

All right.

Thank you, Paul. I agree. I like the deliberateness of this process, these phases. I think it'll be, I look forward to each step as we move along through it. I'm glad that zoning was mentioned because that was an immediate thought I had when I was reading the packet was what zoning barriers exist currently on properties. I think that's a very important look as we go through it. I'm also interested in as we go through the package, as we're looking at, I think it might be phase three of the partnerships and identifying opportunities, I think that that could provide not just outside developers, but also smaller developers and looking at tools and barriers that they may have. Because one of the things I've realized over the years is that we may have a, not co-op, but a land trust that is really interested in purchasing pre-existing housing And then there are small builders, and they kind of talk to each other. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And sometimes it's just they're waiting for us to kind of help them along through that process. Let's see. I agree, looking at other properties, mapping it out. Let's see. Well, most of those are already covered from my thoughts on it. But I do think that we both are very supportive of moving forward. beginning that planning level inventory, concerns or priorities. I don't have any concerns right now off the top of my head, but I do think a priority is, of course, affordable housing and meeting those needs. I also think that if we're looking at things like empty lots downtown that we own and we're considering building, If some of the strategy is looking at affordable housing in the downtown, I think the commercial space that often exists at the bottom could also be an opportunity for, as we bring in economic development, thinking about affordable commercial space for small businesses is kind of a thought that comes into maybe a priority around that, too, as we look at that. I also think as we're doing some modeling, partners that are interested in doing mixed income, as was shown at the top of the slides, is very important because we often see affordable housing, low-income housing, and then you see private market housing. And we don't often see a mixed income housing. And I think I'm a big fan of the social housing program because it provides that type of mixed income housing at different levels throughout the structure so that it meets different income levels in the same building. Yeah, I think broadly should staff consider relating beyond affordable housing that I think that if it makes sense for affordable housing, then yes. But if it doesn't, I mean, we have to think about what else we could be using land for. Paul mentioned parks, but I also think that small commercial and neighborhoods and communities, I think, are there any specific funding approaches, resources the committee would like to explore? I'm glad you mentioned several funding approaches to this process. I made note that Another idea has not been explored as much as impact fees for housing. I know the development world may be upset about us introducing impact fees on development to fund more housing, but that is a possibility. I know that the state has been advocates of the state for the public banking to create a rotating fund has been an idea for several years. Because we have to have money to buy the properties, ultimately, if it isn't already a property we own. So, do you have any further?

You know, this is a subject matter that wasn't covered, but are land swaps, how often do we ever do land swaps, Tim? I mean, this is more of kind of a Tim question. It just, you know, we have a piece of property that a developer wants, but maybe they have a piece of property that isn't ideal for the type of development that we want. I just...

I know of some land swaps with the school district in the past. I can't think of a specific example right now. I'm thinking that property on Harrison may have resulted from a land swap that I don't recall, but is something the city's pursued in the past.

Oh, that's funny. It's the dog park.

No, it's not the dog park. There's some vacant land on Harrison. I can't remember exactly where it's located, but it's on the south side of Harrison as you're going towards the freeway. I can't remember the address. Anyways, it's a fairly large land holding in the city has approached the school district in the past about, you know, if it's not going to be used for a school, could it be used for some other use? At this point, their feedback is that they would like to continue holding at this time. But anyway, there's just some history with that parcel.

Ashley, do you have any, do you need any more direction from us?

I think the only other thing that really wasn't covered is creating a strategic framework. So we talked a lot about the inventory. I think, you know, evaluating use of that property is really important. I think simultaneously we talked a little bit about creating a strategic framework for what then. And so it's, Is that something that you would like us to pursue at this point? Do you want to see the inventory first? Should we bring them back together and create more of a formalized structure to that process? So I'll leave it at that question. Then I might have another one, depending on what you all respond.

Yeah. I support developing the strategic property framework that's phase two, at least in the council notes or the packet here. and partnership models and financing options. Yeah, I do support working on that, if possible at the same time, because that could help us think about the land once we have the inventory. It makes sense at the same time.

Go ahead, Paul. My only thought is, we're going to need it at some point for sure. The only thought I have is, how much are we going to learn when we see this inventory? You know, I mean, we may think we know, but so I guess what I'm kind of thinking, maybe a 50% plan and, you know, kind of something a little more robust after we really see just what our assets are is a little hard to plan if, We don't know yet if we need to purchase more properties or if we have an abundance of certain kinds of properties. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts, Ashley, about this?

Yeah, I think when I'm talking about a framework and a program, it's really important. sort of encompassing that question, right? Is when do we purchase and when do we use our land or when do we, pursue other projects or when we have a parcel, what do we do with it? So how do we make that decision is essentially what I'm chatting about. So it's more that big picture overview. So that would look like perhaps if we did a land acquisition, when would it be appropriate and what would that process look like? So it's more creating how do we get there and maybe less on the specific decisions, if that makes sense.

So, yes, I think we need to proceed. There's one other element of this that I just want to get out on the table that we haven't really talked about. I'm a disciple of someone in the state by the name of Frank Chopp, who was Speaker of the House, who's developed more affordable housing than any individual in the state of Washington. He was the Speaker of the House out of Seattle And Frank Schaap never let the ownership of property that was perfect for the type of project that he wanted to do stand in the way of him moving forward and trying to make that project a reality. Meaning that he, if it was an ideal property for an affordable housing project, he put together strategies try to get those properties. Now, uh, I, I don't want to give you Ashley such an unwieldy project that you are, you know, it's beyond the scope. So I, I don't want to broaden the scope, but this is kind of how I think about this. I don't think we should just limit ourselves. This is why I was very interested in all of the public properties because they're all to me assets that, um, that if we worked hard enough at it, we can convince the school district, you haven't done anything with this for 40 years, we could do something, we'd create some tax revenue if we could build property, build something on this property, can we work something out, you know, that's mutually beneficial. And so this is kind of my approach. I just don't want to limit our thinking to just what we own as being very limiting because I think you can do these projects and make them good for everyone. You know, it's a more win-win than lose-lose. And so, just in the approach, these other properties are kind of important. in Frank Chop's case, he went after private property. He would identify private properties, too. I'm not going to ask you to do that. But he was very aggressive in identifying housing property strategies for affordable housing and pursuing that. So, I don't know. I've just had a again, it's coming back to not just our city properties, but all public properties to start with as being a possibility of entering into win-win engagements. I'm sorry if I veered this off course. No, it's fine.

I understand the need to look at our entire city and and make sure that we're not, you know, missing something, right? Nothing is more embarrassing as an elected official doing something and then some public comments about something you never thought about. But I agree about the tax dollars. To your point before, especially on affordable housing, if people have affordable housing, they will spend more money into the local economy rather than survival. And so trying to get us back to where we are right now, make sure we have all of Ashley's questions answered. We're very supportive of this going forward and being strategic. I think that the more detailed would probably be the properties we already know. But I do think, to Paul's point, even if we listed the possibilities for the future I think that even if we don't have the details of it I think it's very important to have those listed also just to ensure that we are not what is it what is the term no rock unturned right I hope that helps with direction I think so thank you any other information needed for anyone

No. Okay.

And thank you for your first presentation to the City Council. I hope we didn't scare you with our broad aspirations for a city of 60,000 people.

Thank you. Not at all.

We look forward to seeing you in person.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley. All right. So we're on to Approval of manufactured home communities preservation recommendations. And this is an item that has had many, many, many years of building up and talking to so many folks in the community. I'm looking forward to this one because there has been a lot of a lot of interest in the community.

Afternoon.

evening. My name is Krista Lenson from the housing program. I'm here to talk about some of our manufactured home community preservation recommendations. So I just want to note that in the city's housing action plan and comprehensive plan, both include strategies to preserve manufactured home parks, primarily through supporting transitions to resident cooperative ownership. Next slide. So there are about 12 known manufactured housing communities in city limits with around 800 housing units. It's one of very few options for affordable homeownership for low and fixed income households in our community. and one of few unsubsidized naturally occurring affordable housing options. Loss of manufactured housing communities not only represents a loss of affordable housing, but a loss of equity and investment for low-income homeowners. Next slide. So just as kind of a refresher about what are some of the problems we're trying to address And what are the unique challenges that are faced by manufactured housing communities? So for many communities, because the homeowner does not own the underlying land that they are renting, they can be at risk of displacement if the owner decides to redevelop or sell the property. displacement can also occur when lot rents are increased beyond what residents are able to afford and property owners may decide to redevelop manufactured home communities to a more lucrative use and close the park when manufactured homeowners are forced to relocate in those circumstances it can be difficult if not impossible to move those homes And it may be cost prohibitive for them to do so. So there is some limited relocation assistance available through the state to provide relocation assistance when a park closes. However, that does not cover the full cost based on cost estimates we've received from Rock Northwest about current costs to relocate a home. And so as a result, the residents lose not only their housing, but the value of their investment if they're not able to move their home elsewhere. And then they have to pay for that additional cost to relocate if they are able to move that home to a new location. Owners of park models, which are more commonly known as an RV or a travel trailer, are not eligible for that state relocation assistance, even if they own that even if they own that home. Some parks are still on septic systems and infrastructure upgrades to connect to sewer are costly. Some parks also have drinking water wells and failing septic system can impact their water quality. Privately owned parks may be more likely to close or to redevelop if the cost to upgrade infrastructure exceeds their anticipated return on investment. Next slide. So good news is this Washington state has taken some really significant steps in the past few years to address both economic and physical displacement of manufactured home communities. So in 2023, the state passed Senate Bill 5198, which provides residents of manufactured home communities with notice of an impending sale, and it offers them the opportunity to compete to purchase the park as a cooperative. In 2025, the state passed House Bill 1217, which caps the amount of annual lot rent increases at 5% for manufactured home tenancies. And then more locally in our region, the Thurston County Regional Housing Council created the Opportunity Fund in direct response to the state legislation that provided the opportunity to compete to purchase. After consulting with Rock Northwest and determining that that would be one really significant way that our local community could support those efforts for residents to purchase their park as a cooperative. Next slide. So there are some remaining challenges and needs. So especially for local governments who want to support this kind of work. So considering the state legislation provides opportunity to compete for purchase, not a right of first refusal, Residents may still struggle to compete with private investors. We still have an issue of, you know, if a park is closed or redeveloped, the residents will still be displaced and may lose the equity in their home if they cannot afford to move that home elsewhere. When a resident sells their home, rents may be increased beyond that annual 5% cap that was outlined in the rent stabilization bill. There is a lack of dedicated and sufficient resources to support preservation efforts, and there are competing affordable housing priorities for our limited funding that we have available. Other Washington jurisdictions have used general funds for preservation by creating a revolving loan fund for resident acquisition, so we can really see that other jurisdictions are struggling to determine where to fund this kind of preservation work, and there's not a lot of current funding available. Existing funding opportunities are also not really geared towards private ownership. So the majority of funding opportunities for resident acquisition are for resident acquisition or for parks that are already cooperatively owned. So there's not really any source of grant funding or low-cost financing for privately owned manufactured home parks to complete. infrastructure upgrades or other work like that. Some municipal actions that we could pursue or have explored a little bit really put us at risk of litigation when we consider some actions might constitute a taking of private property. So that just adds additional complications and challenge to finding solutions. Also, some municipal actions are preempted by state law. So, for example, you know, rent stabilization, we're not able to take further action on that. And opportunity to compete to purchase both of those laws, preempt local governments from taking further action to legislate on those issues.

Excuse me. Next slide.

So staff recommendations that I'm bringing today are really based on the research that's been done prior feedback from land use and engagement with our manufactured home community residents. And these recommendations are really focused on actions that the city can take in the next 12 months with our current resources and our current funding landscape. Staff can explore longer term actions as well. such as new sources of revenue. These recommendations are intended to address some of the remaining challenges that have not been addressed by state legislative action, as well as really honing in on our goals that are outlined in our comprehensive plan and our housing action plan. Next slide. So first recommendation is residents had expressed interest in education about their legal rights and community resources at one of the community meetings that was held back in fall of 2024. And so staff organized a training in early 2025 that was provided by legal aid attorneys. And that's photos from that training. And that was about their rights under state manufactured or mobile home landlord tenant law. So in the next three to five months, staff can develop an updated, dedicated section of our city website to have some current information and resources for manufactured homeowners. And then in the next six to nine months, staff could work with some of our community and legal partners to develop educational workshops on topics like landlord tenant rights, rent stabilization bill, the right to compete to purchase, and any other community resources that might be beneficial for residents. Next slide. So staff is also recommending that we continue to track funding opportunities on an ongoing basis. One example is I very recently learned that in the capital budget there was some funding set aside for manufactured home communities infrastructure grant for existing cooperatives and the Department of Commerce is in the process of creating that program and they expect that they will be making that funding opportunity available late this fall or in early winter. And so staff is also suggesting that we track federal, state and local policy developments and continue to advocate for expanded revenue to support preservation efforts. Staff will also track litigation related to rent stabilization, Manufactured homeowner or manufactured home property owners have sued the state, so there is litigation currently in progress. And then tracking emerging preservation efforts by other jurisdictions. So City of Lacey is going to be looking at this issue in the next year, and so we can continue to. find out what efforts that they are pursuing and identify if there's any opportunities for regional coordination or collaboration on this issue. And then in the next six to 12 months, we could further explore potential regional and local funding to support preservation activities. So this could include continued discussions with our Public Works Department And so in the past public works and housing staff created a revolving loan funds that helps with conversions from septic to sewer for low income homeowners. And so those conversations have been kind of restarted because there is a manufactured housing community that has a sale septic system that is failing. And they reached out to public works staff to determine if there was some help for that. So we have been in conversation with our public works department about our current fund balance in that program. And we can continue conversations moving forward on whether there is an ongoing funding source and whether there's interest in pursuing that fund in the future. So the city could provide this type of funding support in the form of either a low interest loan or a grant in exchange for affordability covenants continuing to operate as a manufactured home community and or a right of first refusal for residents. If we decided to pursue this kind of funding in the future. And kind of tangentially to this, you know, we could also pursue some legislative advocacy around this issue. So currently state housing trust fund and other common funding sources are typically provided to local government or to tribal governments, to housing authorities or nonprofits. And so states like Minnesota allow privately owned manufactured home communities access to apply for grant funding for infrastructure upgrades in exchange for long-term affordability covenants. And that's something that we could pursue in terms of some of our legislative advocacy. Staff could also work with regional housing council to determine whether regional funding could support infrastructure repairs in exchange for long term affordability covenants. Staff can also work on a more sustainable source of funding for tenant relocation assistance for renter occupied units. So under our current rental housing code, which applies to folks who rent the home and the lot, we do have a relocation assistance requirement in our code when homes are going to be demolished. or change to a non-residential use. So for those parks that are occupied by renters, we do have a relocation assistance requirement in place. And the real estate excise taxes, we have specific authority to use funding for that purpose. So that could be a potential source of funding for that. And currently, you know, My best estimate, but there's about 4 parks are fully rental occupied. So there's homes that are owned by the park that are rented out to folks so any of those homes closed. There's approximately 35 renter occupied units in the city which would equate to about $35,000 in relocation assistance. If we wanted to pursue you know having funding set aside in the event that those parks closed. And in the longer term, staff can research revenue sources available to the city that would support affordable housing more broadly, so not necessarily limited only to manufactured housing preservation. And one example of that would be there's an affordable housing property tax levy or general obligation bonds. And I would recommend that we really pursue that as part of a broader affordable housing strategy that would meet some of our other housing goals as a city.

Next slide.

And then staff can take a targeted case by case approach based on the needs, circumstances and opportunities with our manufactured home communities. So just in my recent engagement with two manufactured home communities, it really demonstrates that the challenges facing these communities can vary quite a bit. And that one preservation strategy, like a one size doesn't necessarily fit all. And so really working individually with these communities to determine, you know, what strategies might work best for them. So in the next six to 12 months, staff can develop a prioritization matrix to really help target our city resources and identify appropriate interventions on a case by case basis. So some of that criteria that I've already begun to look at are things like parks that might be higher risk for displacement and communities that might present as better candidates for eventually Transitioning to resident cooperative ownership. So we've learned a lot from Rock Northwest in this process and kind of what attributes make some parks more suitable for cooperative ownership and also what their lenders will support. And so we can really look at the parks that we have in Olympia and determine which ones might be the best fit for that. Staff has also learned that the Department of Commerce is in process of contracting with a consultant. And part of that consultant's work over the next year is going to be identifying criteria for displacement risk and conduciveness for preservation for manufactured home communities statewide. And so I can look at that information and also bring that in and help us determine which communities might warrant a higher level of engagement from staff, city resources and preservation efforts going forward. For one example, this is, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we do have that relocation requirement for renter occupied homes. So our approach for some of those parks that are fully rent or occupied might be making sure that we are working to determine if a park closes, whether they qualify for relocation assistance, and making sure that they get the assistance that they need to move to a different housing situation. So this kind of work could really occur on an ongoing basis as those needs and opportunities arise, but we can work to create sort of our approach to creating that prioritization and our interventions within the next year. Next slide. And then the last strategy is really, you know, looking at expanding our affordable homeownership opportunities. So because currently manufactured homeownership is really one of the most affordable forms of homeownership in our community. So looking at where else can we increase access to alternative pathways to homeownership like starter homes, townhomes and condos. And so currently we're tracking at the state level our partnership in the Black Home Initiative. The Black Home Initiative is really spearheading a starter home pilot program statewide, and that will include, they've already done a competition for a townhome plan set, design plan set. They're proposing legislation in this upcoming session to help streamline factory built and offsite housing construction techniques. And they're trying to help build resources to get the starter home supply really increased in Washington state. So in the next three to six months, kind of dovetailing with Ashley's presentation, we could look at how land banking and how our affordable homeownership strategies could support households that are in these existing manufactured housing communities. So we could explore as we build this in longer term, how do we outreach to manufactured home residents to ensure that they are able to access and they are aware of some of these homeownership opportunities that might be more affordable as we grow that supply in our community. And so staff will continue to strengthen those partnerships with some of our community affordable homeownership developers through the Black Home Initiative. They have basically a program for emerging developers of color that they're supporting through the network and helping with pre-development funds and technical assistance. And those folks are currently building in Pierce and King County, and there's interest in expanding to our area. and then continuing to work with and track the efforts of the starter home pilot program to make sure that we can take advantage of any of those opportunities as well. Additionally, in the next five to 12 months, staff could research financing options and other resources that might help folks who already own a manufactured home to either make necessary repairs or to upgrade their existing home. So we can support their preserving their existing homeownership opportunity. And last slide. So really, as far as next steps, I'd really just appreciate any feedback you have on staff's recommended approaches. If you'd like me to pursue all of those recommended actions, if you have any priorities, And if there is any information that you'd like me to bring back, if I bring this presentation to council, is there anything you'd like me to have prepared when I speak to them?

Thank you, Krista.

Thank you.

Paul, if you want to start, I'll follow you. Thank you. Well, Krista, one thing I just want to say is I think this is a really difficult time. difficult one. And so my kudos to you for, you know, diving into it. I think that the education of residents is certainly beneficial to them and should be pursued. The funding, you know, money is tight in a lot of these and a lot of these programs are ancillary, but yes, please pursue, you know, funding. And intervention strategies, I think, is kind of important.

When...

So often... there's some triggering event that results in a crisis for these folks. So to the extent we can have strategies to be on top of it in advance or be in a position to act quickly when a triggering event occurs, meaning a sale to, of wall street banking firm or whatever. I think that that is it. So, um, you know, I think you, um, done a good job of outlining a number of things that on a really tough issue and, um, the, the, the items you, uh, identified or, uh, are solid.

That's, that's what I, yeah.

Thank you, Paul. Um, I appreciate this. This is clearly years of building and working on this. This is... We're really trying everything we can despite preemption, despite barriers. I think you should pursue all of these as you can to answer that question. But I am going to point out a few things that I think are... of interest to me, not to say that you shouldn't pursue all of them. I think you should, whatever we can do to create stability in folks' lives is, is, it's very important. Um, but I think that the things like the, um, uh, commerce infrastructure grant stuff is very interesting. I think that could provide a lot of opportunity for folks. Um, I, um, the revolving fund around septic, those types of things, um, Because I often see that if a property gets sold and gets flipped, if those things do get repaired, all of a sudden that cost is just multiplied on to the tenants. And if there's a way to avoid that, I also think of that as kind of maybe even laying the groundwork for if they end up becoming cooperative. Because you have the cost of converting and switching over at the opportunity fund. But then if it also turns out that the sewer needs to be installed and and there's roofs that need help, and there's all of these other things that the, for whatever reason, the current land owner, local or corporate or whatever, regional, it doesn't matter, could not, didn't get repaired over the years, right? Either in order to keep the rent down or because it just never was done. I don't want us, I don't want these folks to be hit by two waves of things, and so I appreciate that, and I appreciate the idea of having a prioritization matrix, thinking about which parks are at the most risk. They have a variety of sizes. Some of them on the map are, I think the biggest is 84, and some of them are very small, like 10 units. I also think that there's a lot of opportunity looking at what Lacey's trying to get involved in this too. Sharing with them what we've learned and And having them help us, I think, is a very good idea. A lot of them are right on the border of Lacey, right on the, like, you know, less than a mile. You can probably, you know, turn on the corner and you're right there and you're Lacey, right? Especially, I think, colonial states is right on there. And, you know, I've spent a little time speaking with these folks over the years. And it is a big issue because, you know, you have folks at fixed income, state workers, people who had been worked in medical in the past, people that are you know, of, of variety of backgrounds who, um, you know, they're on retirement fixed income and we have to make sure that they, they can live the rest of their lives in stability, um, and, uh, continue to have that support, uh, because it is a, it is something you don't see new construction in anymore. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I don't want them to feel that the bottom's falling out underneath them. Right. We've seen a couple, um, parks get flipped in recent years, and every time I talk to them, it is concerns about utility overexpansion. It's concerns about the rent going up each year. I mean, they may get a nice office building with some extra utilities, but the rent went way up on them. So I think there's a way for us to help any way we can around these things. But again, I think a lot of that is laying the groundwork to help them become cooperative into the future. Because if it becomes cooperative and eventually they may end up not being just senior, they may end up just being any folks of any income into the future if it's cooperative, if they allow that in their governance structure. But I really appreciate all that's here. I support all four of these broad and detailed strategies, I think, uh that uh um it may not solve everything but we are definitely trying absolutely i i can see that we're trying everything we can um it has been uh uh years of working on this and i really do again i appreciate all this work you've put in because it is a um um it is a big issue and uh and it's a statewide issue and we're learned quite a bit and I, and we continue to advocate the state to help us as much as they can. And I appreciate, and I'm glad that it, I'm glad it's not, it's also like notifying people and educating people on what is, what is their rights, which is very important. So I hope I gave you enough direction.

Yeah, I think so. Is there anything that you would want me to bring back for council in terms of scheduling, kind of bringing this package of recommendations to them.

Yeah. I mean, there's quite a bit in here and I think that I'm aware of it. I know Paul's probably aware of it, but, uh, um, depending on how the schedule is with council, I think, uh, uh, maybe a, um, ask Paul, do you think, do you think this is a study session thing or do you think this is a, uh, agenda of other business council meeting thing? Because I think it can be gone over in a regular council meeting. It doesn't specifically need to go through a study session because these are all things that have been worked on. I don't want to delay them.

I personally don't think that it needs a study session. I think we can proceed. And just Just to, again, I'm in agreement with Councilman Vanderpool. All four are great. I think the meatiest things we can do for the consumer is kind of this education and having a firm plan for intervention if we're involved in those things. By all means, let's identify funding. There might be things we can do here and there to help people. But I'm just kind of thinking if we can really provide solid education of people's rights and what they need to do when this all happens. And kind of a plan for how... um, how people can, uh, uh, defend themselves. I think that would be, um, that would be great. I, this, it kind of goes without saying, but so many people who are already financially stressed move into, um, these manufactured home communities thinking, oh, I can afford this. And then, um, after living in the community for seven years, suddenly their, their, their rent doubled and they, uh, they're in crisis because, uh, that's like 90% of their social security check, you know? And, um, uh, so, um, when, when I'm thinking, when I think of like funding opportunities, I, I, I'm also thinking of is there a social service element of, of funding? You know, I, you know, I, I can't think of one, but this is to me, the crying shame of this is that when the crisis hits, it really hits people hard because they've, they've gone to these communities because it's the absolute cheapest place they can, they can live. And, Suddenly it isn't. Yeah, please proceed. I think education of the residents and this intervention strategies in particular would be solid things we could do.

Tim, I saw you put your hand up before.

Oh yeah. I was just going to recommend probably this go to a regular council meeting, other business. Uh, for one reason, I don't know what the study session schedule is before, but it's fairly full and it could be early next year. We could probably get this on an agenda in October, November. I talked to Chris on her availability, but we could, we could shoot for that. Sounds good.

Good.

I think.

Yep. And I agree with what I'm hearing from, uh, from Paul about this because, uh, Education is very valuable, especially all the changes that have been made. One other thought I did have is that, and I mentioned the Lacey relationship, if we are looking at that funding, and Paul did, I could tell it's like if funding is available, right? We're looking at if it is available to do the rotating fund with Public Works particularly. I think that if we mentioned some of these with Lacey, I mean, we have done joint funding of things before with our jurisdictions. I think that if we're both kind of like, eh, we're not sure if we can afford that, if we both jointly work on stuff like that, I think that that's another opportunity.

All right. Anything else you need from us?

No, I don't think so. Thank you.

Appreciate you. All right. And I think... That's it. We're at reports and updates. Tim, do you have anything for us?

The main thing I wanted to talk about was the next meeting. I sent out the email about moving it to Friday the 18th. I know that both of you responded. Council Member Gilman has not. It'd be at 1 p.m. It's on a Friday. The reason we set that was to make sure we get done by 5. In terms of agenda items... We have potentially four, and I think, you know, I'll give it some thought, but I think when I have my next check-in with Chair Vanderpool, I may want to look at maybe dropping one of those off that's not as urgent. But because in October, we only have one agenda item, so we could push something to October if necessary. But the four items before you next time would be, one is the code concepts to implement the climate element, and that's some work that Pamela Brass has been doing with her team, and they'll be able to present some of those concepts Moving forward, you know, to get feedback from this committee, we have the Home-Based Business Code Update recommendation from the Planning Commission that we'll probably be able to discuss. We'll have the letter from the Planning Commission at that point. We also have the Olympian Municipal Code and Engineering Design Standards, potential changes related to ADUs and middle housing. This is really policy work about when we provide utilities to ADUs, for example, because the Current policy is that when someone builds an ADU on their property, this is an example, you don't have to provide a direct line to the meter. You can get a lateral off the main line so you don't have your own separate water service. It's part of the home, right? Well, under new subdivision laws, specifically unit lot subdivisions, an owner would be able to come back after building an ADU and then seg it off and sell it. At that point, the ADU would not have its own water meter. And so The question is going to be about timing. Do we want to change policy to require individual hookups at the time of the ADU building? Or do we want to continue our current practice, in which case an owner would have to retrofit later to get their own water service? So those are types of policy questions we need to bring to the committee for direction. And then the last item on there is the tree protection measures. And this is the stuff that we've been discussing the last couple of months about how we want to proceed in terms of protecting trees with development until such time as the UFMP is developed and we have co-direction on some changes. And so those are the four items that are all potentially fairly involved, but that's the current schedule for next time. The first one was code concepts to implement the climate element of our comprehensive plan. Climate staff has been working with a consultant to identify areas for code changes to implement climate strategies within our code. Look at barriers to things such as, there's a number of them in there, but they'll be ready to bring that list to you next time.

Sounds good. I'm also going to have Chair Quinn from the Planning Commission is probably going to zoom in. I'm going to ask him to have the home-based codes be the first item so he can zoom in during his lunch, and then provide some feedback. I'm going to be meeting with him before our next meeting, and I'll send you both, all of us, an email about that feedback. I suspect that we may have to send it back to the planning commissions and have them work it more, but we'll see where that goes so that we can get a clearer picture because historically I've never seen a 6-0 vote against a staff recommendation and then come back to us. It's kind of a... I've never seen it happen. So I feel like it needs to be worked a little bit more and get a better, clearer picture, but I'm going to be meeting with him soon and getting a clearer picture and have him come in public comment in addition to the letter. So... Clarity is important, particularly about things the community cares about. So, yeah. Anything else, Tim?

No, that'll do it for now. We'll set our next check-in because we only have three weeks until the next meeting. And so staff reports will be due at dinner next week. So it comes around quick. So that's one of the reasons why I mentioned the issue of the OMC revisions for middle housing issues. I currently also have Nicole helping me with some budget presentations for the finance committee that next week. And so her capacity is kind of in question, but I'll talk to her about, you know, whether or not we can be ready for that in time.

Thank you. Paul, do you have anything for the night?

I have nothing more. I have some things I could report, but I think I'll. Oh, yeah, that's fine. Okay. Thanks. Cool.

All right. I'm going to adjourn the meeting then.

Have a good night.