City Council - Regular Meeting

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Vice Mayor Mosley, you're muted. I'm so sorry. Apologies. Good morning. I'm Antanette Mosley, the Vice Mayor of the City of Asheville, and I'd like to welcome you to the May 7th, 2026 agenda briefing work session. All council members and staff are participating virtually. This meeting is intended for discussion purposes only. No formal actions or votes will be taken. In addition, no public comment is taken during this meeting. The live meeting will be streamed on the city's YouTube channel, accessible through the YouTube icon on the city's website, or via the live stream. You also have the option to listen to the meeting live via phone by calling 855-925-2801 and entering meeting code 6699. Mayor Esther Manheimer is presenting at the North Carolina League of Municipalities City Vision Conference and is unable to join us today. In addition, Council Member Maggie Ullman will not be joining us. Assistant City Manager Jade Donnis is out of the office and unable to join us as well. At this time, council members and staff, when I call your name, please say a quick hello. Council member Kim Runyan. Good morning. Council member Bo Hess. Good morning. Council member Sage Turner. Good morning, everyone. Council member Shanika Smith. Good morning. Assistant City Manager D.K. Wesley. Good morning. Assistant City Manager Ben Woody. Uh good morning, and I'll just say real quickly, D- D.K. is our city manager, so that was probably uh Oh, apologies. No worries. It's Jade's, but yeah, good morning, everybody. Hello. City Attorney Brad Branum.

Good morning, everyone. City Clerk Maggie Burleson. Good morning. And now I will turn it over to City Manager D.K. Wesley. D.K. Good morning. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Good morning, again, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our agenda briefing work session. On today, we're going to review the agenda for Tuesday, May 12th, as well as a committee meeting which is scheduled for May 11th, our Planning, Economic Development, and Environmental Committee. Uh today, Assistant City Manager Ben Woody will be facilitating this discussion, so I'll go ahead and turn it over to Ben. Thank you, Ms. Wesley, and good morning, Vice Mayor, members of the council. Uh I'm going to cover your agenda for next week. We have uh a lot of information, a lot of items on this agenda, so it's a pretty big agenda. Uh the good news is you don't have a work session, so we will start our meeting on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Uh you do have five proclamations. Uh I'm not going to review all those, but I do want to note that two of those proclamations are related to our city employees and you know we always like to pay tribute to and recognize our public works and capital facilities employees that do so much um to help this city provide service and kind of help things keep moving. So looking forward to seeing the staff there for that. So moving on to the consent agenda item consent agenda excuse me. I'm going to cover a few items and as always just stop me if you have questions or if you want to go back and discuss something I didn't cover. So I'm going to start with item C. Item C is actually a good news budget amendment and basically revenues and expenses are both over budget over projections for the Harrah's Cherokee Center Asheville. Actually that's a good thing because

ultimately what that results in is a net positive of $600,000 of revenue and we're able to move that revenue over to the HCCA capital reserve fund which of course supports the maintenance of that facility and more importantly is an alternative to having to move general funds over to do that. So that's a really good reflection of kind of the success that we've been having with Chris Corl's team operating that facility. Item E is a three-year extension of an agreement with the Mills River partnership and that partnership provides or the city provides financial support to that partnership to help improve water quality in our Mills River watershed. We just completed a previous three-year agreement. This would be a new three-year agreement. It's been successful to this point. They've been able to do stream restoration projects that have resulted in improved water quality conditions in that watershed. So we're excited to maintain this relationship. One of the things that this new agreement will have will be a little more information and requirements around reporting requirements. So we hope to continue to demonstrate the effectiveness of these types of agreements for our water quality. Item F is another um water-related item. This is the issuance of long-term debt to fund our Mills River water treatment plant expansion project, which is already underway, uh neighborhood-based uh distribution water system distribution enhancements, and finally, this is going to allow us to refinance our 2015 water revenue bonds, which actually will save on interest costs. So, again, this is just long-term debt financing to continue to allow us to move forward with water system improvements. And I'm going to move down the last consent item that I'm going to cover today is item I, and this is You've seen a couple of these recently. This is a contract to

support design and engineering services for the repair of Helene-damaged bridge and culvert infrastructure. So, this contract totals over $7 million. Uh bridge engineering and repair is very expensive, as council knows. Uh this is funded through the FEMA public assistance program. So, if you remember, council, you saw similar contracts at your last meeting for stormwater repairs. Uh this is for bridge and culvert repairs, and you're going to see in future meetings these types of PA contracts for landslide mitigation, road and sidewalk repairs, and stream gauge repair. So, this is just We're beginning to see the PA money flowing into the community for the design and engineering to start making these improvements. So, that's all I'm going to cover on consent. Any questions or any items council wants to discuss? Okay. Seeing none. Um we have a manager's report scheduled for your meeting. Uh you will receive the manager's proposed budget. I know council's been working hard on that through a number of work sessions and so this will be the actual managers managers proposed budget so you'll receive that council as well as the community. Um just a reminder this is not a public hearing that will actually be scheduled for the next meeting on May 26th. Okay. Moving on to public hearings, we have a number of public hearings for your meeting. Uh the first one item A is pretty straightforward. This is the issuance of $40 million of debt through limited obligation bonds. What this does is it creates cash flow to support our steady state CIP program. So this is just us doing the things that we have in our CIP. Um this cash flow lets us do projects or continue to move forward with projects such as the municipal building renovation, uh improvements to other city

facilities, parking garage maintenance, street resurfacing, large vehicle purchases. So this is just kind of the way that we cash flow and move forward our typical CIP projects. But it does require a public hearing. Public hearing item B is a really straightforward street closure project. It basically was requested by a few neighbors. Um it will close the western portion the western boundary of a portion of St. Dunstan's Road. Um it's all residual right-of-way that's never been put into use. Effectively it's been used by the adjoining property so staff does recommend approval of this closure request. Item C and D, uh these were at planning and zoning last night. I understand they had a long night last night so I do have I'm going to hit the highlights on these and council mayor may not have questions but I've got a couple of planning staff on the call in case you do have questions. Um but item C we'll start there. This is a conditional zoning for a vacant parcel of land. Um it's off Caribou Road. It was in the southern portion of the Shadowood neighborhood. Uh, what the CZ does is establish 100 rental units, of which 100% of those will be affordable at 80% 80% AMI or less for a period of 20 years. Um, the project is located on the transit line, has an overall density of 10.5 units per acre. Um, P&Z considered this item last night. They had, I think, my understanding multiple split votes, so they weren't able to provide a majority recommendation for approval or denial, so it just it left the meeting as a split vote. Um, I will note that planning staff, however, is recommending approval of this item. So, I'll pause there. Yep, thank you, Council Maroney, and I'll uh we'll take your questions, and I'll ask the planning staff to maybe turn their cameras on in case you have technical questions.

I think I do have a technical question, cuz I attended the planning and zoning meeting last night. And one of the conditions or recommendations was around a second access point. Um, that from my understanding visiting the neighborhood, um, the suggestion that it would be for emergency vehicle use, it it doesn't seem like that road is ready for something like emergency vehicle use. It seems more like a maybe a driveway at best. Um, what is that something we can legally consider as a condition? Hi, good morning everybody. Uh, Brad Branham, city attorney. I I think before we answer the legal part of that question, it might be good to have staff actually give some context about that particular roadway and and how that would figure into the proposal of the applicant. So, uh, if if we have someone on here, I can't see them on my screen, but maybe they could give some context, and then I'm happy to weigh in to close the loop on that. Sure. Uh good morning everyone. Uh this is Will Palmquist with Planning and Urban Design. I'm the uh staff planner on the conditional zoning review. So, um yeah, the street in question is Ardmore Street, which is towards the southern side of the site. Um Ardmore Street is a city-maintained street that dead ends, and then right-of-way continues even once the street itself ends, and it does touch the project site. The project as proposed does not propose a connection, uh vehicular or otherwise, to the site on Ardmore Street, but it was raised last night as an opportunity to connect through uh to provide more connectivity, make it easier for folks to access Caribou Road and and the bus uh stop at that section of Caribou Road. There was some discussion about whether it could be vehicular, emergency access, or pedestrian only.

The uh condition in the motion to approve, which did not pass, uh had the option as pedestrian only access. I think would be easier to administer. Um I believe the applicant's going to check into the feasibility of that on their end of the project, which could also include checking with city transportation and other staff to understand the feasibility of that. But as far as a technical perspective, I think having a pedestrian connection, whether it's a sidewalk or a path through their site to that right-of-way, would probably be easier to um to administer than than a full roadway connection. I think some clarity on how that was woven in an update. Um I'm just getting, you know, a lot of community questions around how that actually landed in the text. So, I'm assuming that'll come in the staff report. And is it actually in the text since it didn't pass? It is in the text of the motion as noted as not passing. So, it's not binding at this point. It's not in the project conditions nor reflected in any site plan drawings. It may be that the applicant comes to the meeting with some more information about the feasibility of that and and proposes it, but we can work ahead of time to iron out any of those details and and come with a more fully fleshed out idea regarding that proposal. Okay. Really last night. I want to encourage anybody Council, if you haven't seen last night's meeting to um watch it. It was must-see TV. Um Will, can you remind me what the Shiloh plan I think it's 2025 had in mind for this parcel in particular?

Sure. So, staff took a pretty comprehensive look and analysis at the Shiloh Community Plan 2025. Um there are there is a section of the plan that speaks to kind of these opportunity areas for development around the Shiloh neighborhood. So, like larger tracts of land that were vacant at the time of that plan's adoption in 2010. I can pull up the specific language. It's in the planning and zoning staff report which is linked from the Council staff report. But essentially, it envisions single-family development in this specific site. Okay, like maybe cottages or something. I'll look at it. I'll look at it.

Yeah, cottages cottage development would be like a cluster of single-family houses in a specific kind of arrangement. So, that that would definitely fit within that description, I would think. Okay. Council, do you have any more questions for Will on this one before Brad gets to the legal part? Okay, Brad. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And to uh Council Member Rowney's initial question, which is, you know, is this something that you could legally include? I think that the short answer is certainly this is a viable condition to the extent that we would be requiring the applicant, the developer, in other words, to upgrade and make the connection on the property that they control. Uh as Will said, this will connect into a a city-owned street. There are greater limitations on us in having them as part of a condition to approval improve a city street or any road that's off of their property. Now, there are some allowances for improving the infrastructure structure if it's necessary and appropriately related to the development itself, uh but we can work out more of those details as part of what would be a final condition if the developer is willing to do that. As each of you know, all these conditions have to be mutually agreed upon, but I believe that a condition along these lines is legally feasible. Brad, can you remind us what factors we can take into consideration? Um cuz I know like rental rates and one. But yeah, what can we consider? What's that?

Yes, thank you for that question, Vice Mayor. So, to repeat that question, um what factors is Council permitted to consider in terms of making a final decision on the conditional zoning application? So, by law, there are a number of things you can absolutely consider. Where you are going to have to make a final decision about whether or not approval of this particular application is reasonable and in the best interest of the community. That's the primary uh decision you're making. The factors that you are allowed to consider are are very wide-ranging. So, perhaps it's easier to say some of the factors that you're not allowed to consider. The first one that I think is most applicable here is the question about how the property is actually owned or rather rented. So, a model that would include a residential use the council is specifically prohibited under state law from making any distinguishing characteristics between whether or not those units are for rent or for ownership. In a land use context, you are not allowed to consider ownership versus rental, no more than you're allowed to consider one particular owner over another particular owner. So, it is the land use rather than the specific activity or the individual or the way that they are occupying the property which matters. In addition to that, it is something that council should consider when taking a final decision about a land use decision, how it conforms or is consistent with the local area plans. But, it is also important to remember that you are not required to approve or disapprove something because it is not consistent with the area plan. As the legislative body for the city of Asheville, you have the authority over all of these area plans and these land use decisions, which means you should take it into consideration and make a

determination about whether or not any decision is consistent or inconsistent. But, you are not required to approve something if you decide it's inconsistent or excuse me, if it's consistent. Nor are you required to deny something because it's inconsistent. So, you can deviate from area plans. The other things I think we won't go into an exhaustive list that you're not allowed to consider, but it's it's things like that you you imagine. You're not allowed to consider race, gender, protected characteristics of the applicants or owners. But in this particular case, I think the most important one is the rental versus ownership model, which under state law is specifically prohibited. Okay. Thanks. Any more questions? Okay. Brad, I have a legal question. Oh, I'm sorry. Brad, I have a legal question unrelated to that legal advice. Thank you. Um and I don't know the validity so this is more of a request of you. I received a concern from really complaint that one of our planning board members perhaps should be recusing themselves from these votes. And I don't know I'm I'll go watch the meeting but there was a concern that someone needed to be recused and if that that may impact votes and I'm not sure if that's something that we can look into legally if there's any issue there. Yeah, I I appreciate you bringing it. Certainly. As is always the case, we ask commission members, we ask any third parties, we ask council members always to bring potential conflicts of interest to our attention. As each of you know, all people who serve on these public boards have a duty to vote. We don't have the right to recuse, but there is allowances to be recused and in fact you should be recused if you have a conflict of interest. With the planning and zoning commission for votes regarding land use development decisions such as a conditional zoning, the standard for needing to be recused

because you have a conflict of interest is if you have a close familial, business, or associational relationship with the applicant or the landowner. Um that is technically the standard here. Now, there are some additional details which we should and could take into consideration, but I want to make that clear to the public. There are different standards based upon the type of vote for what constitutes a conflict of interest, but we would certainly encourage everybody to bring us that information and let us take a look at that. Thank you, Brad. I think the concern was that the applicant was voting on their own application. And in other cases, perhaps speaking against competing applications. If that helps. Well, we we certainly want would not want someone voting on their own application. I think that is a close association or relationship if you are the applicant. So, that should never occur.

I can't confirm this. I just think it's something that is as these votes come up and they're tied and they're you know, that we need to do our just due diligence to make sure that nothing's improper there. That's all. We we would certainly be happy to have that Yeah. I would invite you please let's have some additional conversation. We can certainly include planning staff to see what how that issue either came up or was handled. But, we always encourage you to bring those things to our attention. Okay, Ben. Back to you. Thank you, Vice Chair. Good discussion. Glad we have the planning staff and Brad here to answer questions. So, item D is our other conditional zoning public hearing. Item D is off of Sweeten Creek Road. So, it's on the east side of Sweeten Creek Road. It It is also located kind of in the southern portion of the Shiloh neighborhood. This application proposes 126 rental units, excuse me. Of which 100% of those will be affordable at 80% AMI or lower for a period of 20 years. So, it has the same affordability requirement. The project is also located on a transit line. It [clears throat] has It's a much denser project, but it's also on a corridor. It has an overall density of 24.4 units per acre. P&Z considered this item last night as well and they unanimously recommended approval. Planning staff is also recommending recommending approval of that item. Any questions on item D? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you, planning staff. So, I'm going to move move on. [clears throat] Excuse me. I'm going to move down to new business. We have uh two items under new new business. Item A was a resolution uh to authorize the

award of CDBG DR funds for multi-family affordable housing projects. We had a pretty robust discussion on this item at our last HCD meeting. So, I know we've got three of those members on the call today. Um real quickly for everyone else though, the the DR multi-family um housing allocation we put out a note notice of funding opportunity. Um that closed in February of this year. A lot of demand, a lot of interest in those multi-family funds. Um I think we had initially what we advertised $10 million of availability. Um there is additional funding available within that program that can be awarded at council's discretion. Uh we had 12 applications for funds that were eligible. Um those 12 applications would produce over 1,400 housing units, uh over $483 million of development cost. Uh and of course they asked for $70 million in DR funds from the city, which is much more than we have. So, a lot of interest in these funds. Um we discussed this at HCD, but staff is recommending the award of $17.89 million of DR funds that would support 331 multi-family housing units across three projects. Um those projects are the Terrace at River Hills, District East Commons, and 319 Biltmore, which is a project we've previously worked on in the past. Um HCD had a really robust and good conversation on these awards and they recommended approval of the staff recommendations on a two-to-one vote to move forward to council. So, this will be before you Tuesday to make the final awards. Nikki's on the call if you have technical questions. I do know that you know, because of the deadlines around tax credit financing, I think council does have to act on this pretty quickly in

terms of making awards to make sure that syncs up with the state's process. So, I'll stop there and any questions on new business item A. Councilwoman Roney. Yeah, I guess um my question is more just a general ask about how we're looking at the whole picture of CDBGDR funds. Um in our policy and finance work session, we were discussing some of the administrative and planning funds. And um that was supposed to be the last time that we were talking about that. Um but now that we better understand the demand and need for home repair funds, um it's still like uh not unlike my allergies this season, it still itches a little bit that I think we were talking about some of the planning documents maybe need to actually move into implementation, not planning. And I wasn't getting the sense from that conversation that we were all moving in the direction of still going forward with some of those plans. Now, the reason I'm bringing this up in the zoom out is I'm also having allergic reaction to pulling funding out of our water system. Even though it's the planning side, having our water system secure and reliable is a public health issue. And I don't think anybody on this call would disagree with me that it's a high priority. Um but while we need to move funds like it's it's not clicking for me that it should come from our water system cuz I'm expecting the demand to secure our water system to be higher than what we've already been able to fund. So, I'm still just like, well, wait, why aren't we talking about the planning funds? And what I'm getting a sense from the community is that they're also asking, "Why is the priority not water and home repairs as the top two?"

So, yeah, I guess I'm just still like a little stuck on the planning administrative funds um because the vote that's in front of us involves moving some of that 10 million into home repair and out of um building multi-family into home repair. I don't I I would just assume that we would have a bigger conversation before we just move forward. So, Kim, do you have a a suggestion where money could come from? Or and this question is assuming that you believe additional funds should go to single-family uh home repair? If I'm wrong, please correct me.

home repair is like is water and home repair. Number one, number two, right? Um for me. And so, when I'm looking at that, that's why I'm going to the planning fund and it and the planning and administrative fund and saying, "I don't know if we can afford to do that level of planning and administration um because the 225 million was never enough to fill the over a billion dollar in damages." So, that would be my recommendation we move some funding out of planning and administration. Apologies. DK, can you remind us just so we'll know how much was the planning from the last meeting. Um I don't have it in front of me, but it's about $3 million $3 million or so and currently the recommendation is for four awards. One award is the UDO update and comp plan update. The second one is the D review master development plan. The third is emergency shelter development plan and then the final one is the um economic development strategic action plan. So those were the four awards before you at the last meeting. You all asked for additional detail around um the economic development strategic action plan as well as the emergency shelter. We provided uh additional scope and detail around all four. Um and our intention is based on the feedback we got from you all to move forward with the UDO uh update plan as well as the D review and then have some additional discussion on Monday about the other two plan awards. Uh so more discussion will happen uh with regards to the planning fund allocation. But then also later on in this agenda there is a presentation from Nikki Reed. Nikki Reed is going to provide a presentation around the conversation

about uh the substantial amendment to move additional funds to uh single family uh allocation. So that will allow you all to get more information, kind of understand the timeline that we're working against and the assurance the the additional information that we have that allows staff to be uh comfortable with the $10 million from infrastructure. So I expect that we'll have more discussion uh later on in this meeting around that. Well, I watched the HCD meeting. It seemed to me the part that's a disconnect is that I thought the email we got from the Archer Collaborative was recommending that we actually use some of our um more flexible uh bond funds maybe for home repair so that we can actually see local contractors eligible um to do some of the smaller home repairs. Um so I just wanted to make sure that we were clearing up that fuzzy part of the HCD meeting, too, cuz we do have it in writing from Archer what they're asking. So can we continue that conversation later in this meeting when Elma gives us the presentation? Okay. Thanks. Okay, Ben. Thanks, Kim. Uh Councilmember Turner, did you have a question on new business item A? I did, and it sounds like we're going to talk more about this later, so I'll be brief. Um just to echo Kim's concerns about housing and infrastructure before apartment complexes and affordable housing. Um and I you know, I appreciate the the call to cut and zoom out because I want to I don't think we'll have a chance to talk about this later, but when we originally were in chaos mode, we had just um approved, you know, a ref running for bonds, so we had 20 million for affordable housing bonds. We took 10 million right off the top and put it into a loan fund recognizing that there would be LIHTC applications we wanted to

bolster, right? So we set aside 10 for LIHTC, and then this recent move of allocating the 25 million we set aside another 10 for LIHTC, and now we're getting to 27, 28 all together, and I'm concerned that we are not going to get the unit count we deserve from that level of investment and so few projects. It's not it's so far above our average unit count. I feel like we're doing a disservice to the community in that regard, and there's nothing on those projects. The projects are great, the developers are great, but it doesn't the math doesn't work for me, and when I have put that next to my concern around unresolved single family funding, it only escalates it. Um and we have this double whammy issue of the NC Renew program's restrictions on the 100,000 and the rebuild threshold. And what we did in those emergency emerging months was give I think 1.5 or 1.6 million to local providers to just start doing repairs. So, while NC Renew's program is slow and costly and has all these crazy thresholds, our local providers have fixed over 60 homes for 1.6 million already. So, my understanding is that money can't come from that we're either in Renew program or not. So, to Kim's point about bond money, I want us to talk about that again. I want us to talk about that 10 million we gave to, you know, etc. So, it sounds like we'll get to that later, but we I think we're missing a broader stroke at how all of this should be orchestrated. Okay. Now, Bo, is that a question or just the general thumbs up in agreement with Sage? Okay, Ben. Thank you. So, our last item on the agenda is new business item B, which consists of two resolutions. So, item B1 Uh and again, this was previously on a consent agenda and it's been moved to new business. Um item B1 was is, excuse me, a resolution to accept community project

funding award through Congressman Edwards' office. And that award uh $1.1 million would support uh a city-owned real-time intelligence center. Um if item B1 is approved, then item B2 uh bundles, fuses, and some of our other agreements with Axon into a single contract. So, I think the the action on B2 is really predicated on the action on B1. So, any questions on new business B, Council member only? [clears throat]

Yeah, it comes to my attention that I I had hoped that we would put the Axon and Fusus contracts in our staff report when the agenda goes out so everyone in the public could access them. Um but since one of my colleagues has already shared one of the contracts with members of the public, um I definitely think that we should include the contracts in the staff report. The tricky part is that the way I'm reading what staff shared with us, um the Flock contract looks very different from the Axon contract um in the sense of the Axon contract doesn't read like a purchase agreement, and we're already getting some feedback around that. Um so I realize that in the past we've talked about how we don't have a contract with Axon, but surely we have some sort of data sharing agreements, and that's why I worded my question contract and data sharing agreement. So maybe you could help me understand um why we don't have some sort of purchase agreement or why it looks so different. And then also can we confirm that they're going to go out with the staff report so everyone in the public has access? Um I can start off. I think um Interim Chief Staff is on the call. What you received in the follow-up um document is the current agreements that we have uh with Flock and Axon, and those are not I would say contract agreements, but they're agreements through Source Well to be able to utilize their services. What we're looking to do in B2 is uh work through a negotiated comprehensive one agreement with Axon for all of those different components. Uh so that does not exist yet, and that is why we haven't um shared that. That hasn't been finalized and has not been executed. B2 will give me authorization to further

negotiate and finalize that contract with Axon. Um, and Brad may be able to share more legal lease way of saying that, but generally speaking, that's that's what we have here. Uh, thank you, Madam Manager. I think you covered it pretty well. It's important to to note that we have utilized what's called purchase orders in the past to uh access some of the equipment, which is is common practice. For software services, we usually do not do that. That is not the plan going forward. Uh, but what has been provided is essentially all that we have currently. Uh, so all of those are available. They're certainly public records. Uh, we've given those to council. I I I I I won't comment on on the process of of putting them out more publicly. Um, but I will say that in terms of any additional agreements, there are none. Uh, the additional agreements are essentially purchase orders, which don't further define terms. Okay. I realize that you said you're not going to comment on it, but since some members of the public have the contract, can we make sure that all members of the public have the contract so that we have a fair access? Um, just as a procedural start, and then I had a follow-up question. Are you referring to the current agreements that we provided in the follow-up? I believe those are public documents. Um, that we can we can share.

would a member of the public Okay. So, how would a member of the public access them if it's not through us? Is Is there a way maybe to put those on the uh transparency page where we have the location of the Flock cameras by chance? Yeah, so they are My understanding, they are public documents so there's no reason why we cannot ensure access to that. So I work with um Steve uh Chief Staff and Brad to figure out whether we attach it to the agenda or we update it on the transparency page, but I don't see any reason why we can't uh ensure access for that. Those those Mhm. same thing like engagement. And then my um follow-up it is I want to be really clear that given all of the issues with Flock cameras I would support us not continuing the contract with Flock at all. Now when I did um the tour with APD and Chief Staff and her staff, um I understood that we were headed in the direction of moving away, but maybe keeping one so that we have access to the network. All that to say I I think even having one of them isn't good for our community and that's what I'm hearing the biggest support around. So having some more information, I think we'll need to be prepared for that because the community will be bringing that concern. I just want us to have an answer around timelines. Thank you uh Councilwoman Roni. And I'm sorry I'm having technical difficulties here so I'm on my phone, but thank you for bringing that up. Uh there we we have had discussions about uh moving toward Axon uh away from uh Flock. However, uh we do intend uh to uh continue uh having access to the Flock system.

There's so many agencies you know, not only far away from us, but here locally that utilize that system. So it's just imperative from um you know, a a crime need and investigative tool to be able to retain access to the system.

I see Maggie's message about those contracts being already online and I think DK was like great, but I didn't get to see if you posted where they were online. Yeah, Vice Mayor, I was going to pipe up and ask Maggie to share. Um, that's great. I'm glad they're already online. Maggie, if you can share a little more information about where the public can find those documents. You're on mute. Apologize. Every time city staff sends out to council follow-up documents, they are posted online under the final agenda documents. And those contracts are under final agenda documents located from the April 28th agenda and they are all they're they can be found on the city council materials page. So, as soon as those are made to council, we posted those online as well. Okay, great.

That is such helpful information. So, anytime they're in our follow-up documents, we could go back to the meeting where the question was asked. Okay, thank you.

That's fantastic. Thanks. Sage. Yeah, I don't think I knew that either. That's helpful. I don't know how many times I've dug through my email. Um, the Flock. So, I just want to echo a little bit of what Cam was saying and then, um, I'm hearing a lot of input from constituents. You know, sometimes we have issues that matter to some, this one is matter to a lot of my constituents. It's very much in my inbox. And what I'm boiling it down to is the heightened concern around just Flock and Flock the company, Flock their policies, Flock vulnerabilities. It all of these things that are really just around the Flock contract. Not to say I'm not hearing concerns about, you know, cameras in general, but the most upset majority seem to be concerned about Flock. So, I love that we're moving away from that and um, Chief Staff, I would just I was just going to ask you to maybe be ready to speak to more of that at council. So, the public is really informed. There's been so much information, some misinformation out there. You know, we've got YouTube videos, got other cities being looked at and there's just a lot and it's a lot to understand, but when I have explained to people that we were starting to move away from that, there's a lot of relief. So, let's I just want to encourage us to really hammer out those details and be overly sharing on Flock and our intentions. And what I think I heard you say, Chief, is that really keeping one it just means that we have some kind of access to the interface so that we can use those that are out there that aren't even our cameras, but because they're out there and they're collecting information and a crime happens, we might need to access them and therefore we have this somewhat relationship. Yes.

kind of right? That's exactly right. If you if you take the example of the uh Chapel Hill shooting where he drove down to Florida, you know, that was intercepted by Flock cameras. So, that that's just important. That was a police officer who intended to commit a mass shooting uh down in New Orleans and it was intercepted by those cameras. So, uh it's just that so important to to keep access uh to that database, but what I would ask uh council is to to just really try to stay on topic. Uh there's no vote here for Flock. Uh this is about Fusus and a real-time intelligence center. Uh so, any support I could get to stay on topic around uh what's on the agenda uh would be helpful, but I will be ready uh to answer any questions at the end around uh any other concerns. Understood. Bo, do you have a question? Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you so much. And thank you, Chief, for explaining that the ask from council right now is the integration software Fusus, which just integrates the infrastructure that we already have out there. And also the public needs to be aware that Flock is used by residential homes, it's used by businesses, and is also used by many municipalities and localities that are all around us. So even if Asheville got rid of every single Flock camera in Asheville, there would still be Flock cameras that you would be in contact with all over Western North Carolina because other agencies are in that system. What getting rid of all of them does is actually puts our public safety, every single 100,000 residents at risk because if a crime happens here and they flee to another jurisdiction or state, we don't

have the ability to track them and apprehend them and bring them to justice for creating mayhem in our city. And although I'm very pleased that we're moving away from Flock, I do understand that until Axon has the type of database that we can access like Flock, keeping that one Flock camera is a strategic public safety move. And I appreciate you explaining that a little bit more, Chief. Thank you. Thank you so much and thank you for for pointing that out, Councilman Hess. I think it's important like you said to know. We we have 11. There are many, many more in the city of Asheville. Uh so, you know, we have 11. I just thank you for pointing that out. Sage, do you all follow that? Well, it was just about that. So we have 11. Is it our 11 or the county's 11? I got a little confused on who is using there, who is paying them. We have 11, but we have 11 I I Buncombe County has 22. And we own a lot. Okay, thank you. Okay. Counseling, more questions for the interim chief? Okay, then. DK. Mhm. I bet I might be getting ready to say this, but I just wanted to check in with you all. We um Brad provided a proposed resolution for you all. So, before we get off of these topics, I want to make sure we have direction on whether or not we need to include anything additional along with uh item B on new business. Um Council member has I haven't I haven't looked at the proposed one, so I apologize.

asking us if you want it on or what are you asking us? Yes, so we would need to know uh today or as soon as possible uh whether or not to include a resolution. Uh Council member has has his hand up, so he may want He did initiate this conversation, so he may want to share some information, some additional context. Okay, then. Thank you, city manager. Thank you, vice mayor. Yes, um I just think kind of like Council member Roney and Turner have said, you know, there's a lot of misunderstanding, there's a lot of misinformation. There's just a quite frankly a lot of confusing because this is a confusing topic. You know, I had to sit with public safety officials, IT folks, tour the place. I had to like hear things over and over before I really started to understand it. So, I So, I I completely get it. But, what I wanted to do was really just show that we were hearing community concerns and we have a commitment as a city, as a government to protect uh our privacy and protect our civil liberties, and that's what this resolution really is um and I was hoping that we could pass these at the same time you know affirming our values to privacy civil liberties not using facial technology and not using AI. Okay, so we need to circle back to DK at some point today to let her know our thoughts on that. Whether we want it on the agenda. Okay. Okay. Mhm, Ben. Thank you Vice Chair. So I am now going to move to

[clears throat]

our Council Committee agendas and we only have one Council Committee to review today and actually Miss Wesley has already covered some of this in response to a question but we have two items on on this month's PEDE which is April 20 or excuse me which is scheduled for May 11th and those two items are kind of follow up from the PFI meeting so when we just when Council discussed the CDBGDR planning allocation awards and Miss Wesley reviewed those four awards two that got particularly got a lot of discussion was the proposal for the economic development strategic action plan and the proposal for the emergency shelter development plan. So we're going to bring both those items to PEDE. We're going to have the staff do a little more in-depth presentation on the scopes of those planning items and what the outcomes will be. So we'll have a more of a robust discussion at PED on those two planning grant applications. Any questions on the PED agenda? Okay, so that takes us to the eight week agenda. A couple items I want to flag on that. Um We talked about this earlier, but May 26th, you have your budget public hearing. So, we'll you'll hear from the public um following the manager's proposed budget. Another one I want to flag is you'll have your public hearing on the FY 26-27 CDBG and HOME annual action plan. So, that is our HOME funds and CDBG funds kind of steady state uh every year Council has a public hearing and approves the action plan for the use of those CDBG funds. So, that public hearing is coming up. Uh moving over to June 9th, this is a pretty big exciting topic. We um the city was awarded a Mellon grant to do some work in in downtown around Pack

Square and around the block. And so, um we have a budget amendment scheduled to actually move Mellon grant funds into a project uh for Eagle and Market Street enhancements. So, this is some uh gateway work, uh streetscape work, ADA work. So, this is really some critical investment in the block area. Uh to accompany that budget amendment, we're going to have Dana Frankel uh provide Council with really an update on the project and just where things are at. So, I just want to flag that as something we're going to talk about um in early June. And then of course lastly, I'm just going to plug this every time. You've got your uh ordinance adoption for the budget scheduled for June 9th. And of course, as Council knows, you have to adopt the budget uh before the end of the fiscal year. Any other items on the eight-week agenda? Okay. Uh I am going to turn it over to Ms. Wesley to introduce us into our other items and updates. And we're going to um have that conversation on single-family home repair. So, Ms. Wesley. Thanks, Ben. Um similar to the uh committee conversation that we you're all going to have on Monday, we've already kind of talked about this next item. We've had quite a bit of discussion around the need to reallocate our CDBG DR allocation to ensure that our residents in Asheville get the appropriate assistance with single-family housing. Repair reconstruction. And so we have staff from the Housing and Economic Development Department who's going to come here and do a deeper dive into that information. And then a lot of the Hopefully a lot of the questions that you all had earlier will be answered here and we'll take additional questions from there. So I believe it's either Elma or Nikki who will be presenting.

Or both. I think I'll get started and then pass it over to Nikki when we get into the areas related to the bond funding. So thank you so much Council and City Manager for your time and for having us here today. As mentioned, we're going to talk a little bit more about the single-family housing updates that we have and sort of that overall funding landscape is where we'll start. Next slide, please. In terms of the agenda, we'll go through an overview of the CDBG DR programs and allocations to date, our single-family program considerations, the timeline and process for a substantial amendment to reallocate funds to the single-family program, and then the timeline and process for the affordable housing bond allocation for home repair where Nikki will brief us. Next slide, please. So here you can see the CDBG DR program overview. Our CDBG DR program as a whole is divided into eight separate programs. And here you see each of the program areas and then the program initiatives on the right. The ones in bold are the ones that are more or less underway, um, where the ones, um, unbolded, um, are still either in design or under discussion. Um, so under the housing program currently an allocation of 31 million, we have the state of North Carolina reconstruction and rehabilitation program and the currently $28 million affordable multi-family housing program. Under infrastructure, we have the $125 million infrastructure program comprised of the, um, 21.375 million French Broad River program and the 9 million Azalea Parks program and then the $89 million North Fork Reservoir resilience program, um, with, uh, about 2.125 million set aside for potentially, um, uh, resilience hub investments. Under the economic revitalization portfolio, currently 52 million, um, of that, that's divided into three separate economic revitalization programs, the small business support program of 17

million, the commercial corridors program at 30 million, the workforce development program at 5 million. Um, after that, we have the public services program at 2 million and the planning program currently, um, allocated 3.7 million, um, and of that, we have, um, as mentioned, the discussed programs at PFI, uh, comprised of about $2 million of, uh, proposed projects, um, comprised of these four projects, uh, and plans. Uh, following that, we have the administration, um, component of the program, um, and that's not considered a program, it's just the administrative costs. It's capped at 5 percent for every CDBG-DR grant and that is the that is true for our ours as well. Um, next slide, please. Here you can see, um, as I mentioned on the on the last slide, you can see the current program allocation on the left, um, and then the amounts committed per, um, program area here and then the amount in consideration under that housing area since that is the area under discussion today. Um, and of course, I I understand that there will be many questions. I think I'll keep going unless there are any currently, um, into the single-family updates available.

[clears throat] Um,

I do have a question if you don't mind. Of course, Vice Mayor. So, I see 125 under infrastructure. Are we saying if we took what is, um, recommended from infrastructure, that number would go down by 10 million? Exactly. And then that would result in a total of 115 million, and that 10 million had been proposed to be a pulled out of the, um, North Fork water program. And so, and we can Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. And that's on subsequent slides related to the substantial amendment that we are, um, proposing for consideration. Yeah, I was just noting how much more we're doing for infrastructure to begin with. I mean, it's considerably more. So, okay, go ahead. Council Member Hess? I'll wait. Oh, sorry, but I didn't see your hand. Sorry. It just popped up. Um, sounds good. And I do want to wanted want to just indicate that the unmet needs assessment that was completed in April, um, resulted in in findings suggesting that the infrastructure impact in the city was the of the greatest need, hence why the allocation allocated so much of the funds to to that program area. Um, next slide, please. So, now we'll, um, share some updates regarding the single-family rehabilitation and reconstruction program. Next slide, please. So, you all are very familiar with this program at this point, I think, um, but just to recap, the Renew NC program is a rehabilitation, reconstruction, or replacement program that prioritizes low to moderate income families, and further prioritizes households that have seniors age 62 or older in the home, or children in the home, or disabled household members. Um,

and of course, there must be tie back to the storm, so households must have been impacted by Tropical Storm Helene. Um, this program includes single family and manufactured homes. It must be the primary residence of the applicant, and eligible homeowners who are awarded the grant are expected to remain in the home for 3 years. Um, as mentioned, the program prioritizes low to moderate income families. It takes on a phased approach of first prioritizing those of 60% area median income or less, followed by 60 to 80% of area median income, and then after that, um, all the way up to 120% of AMI. Um, so 60% or less, 60 to 80, then 81 to 120. Um, next slide, please. So, some updates, um, since this program, um, since this agreement was signed in January, some updates have taken place. So, to meet the rising construction costs, um, the maximum reconstruction award per property was increased from 375,000 to 450,000. And in response to, um, feedback that we received and the state separately received in the other 29 counties, um, in which they're working, the rehabilitation threshold also increased from 50,000 to 100,000. Um, you may recall that any, um, assessment that results in, um, costs greater than this rehabilitation threshold kicks the property over into the reconstruction zone. So, that's why it's very critical to think through, um, the impact of that threshold having changed from 50,000 to 100,000. Yes, Vice Mayor. You know, I I have a question that I hadn't considered before. So, the award per property is 450 50 max. How do they determine which type of home is built if it's a reconstruction? Like how do they determine whether you get a two-bedroom, one bath, or someone else

gets a four bedroom?

It's How is that determined? It's determined based on the number of households in the home now. Okay. Um it's not necessarily based for like a like-for-like. So if they had a four-bedroom and they would like a four-bedroom, it's not necessarily based on that. It's how many per like how many household participants do they have now, and then what bedroom size would that necessitate. Okay. Thanks. Now, not at the time of the storm. Now. Yes. Um another change that occurred um between when we executed the contract with the state and now is that temporary relocation assistance is now available um to support families while their homes are being rebuilt. There was a question during HCD about the amount that the state has. It is across all 29 of the counties in which they're operating, but the amount is 60 million that they've set aside for temporary relocation assistance. Um and of course um applicants need to demonstrate that they've exhausted any other potential options before that um is undertaken. Um such as staying with family or friends and and so forth. Um in terms of application status, Renewal and Recovery did receive two did receive 285 applications for homes in the city of Asheville, but only 124 households have been deemed eligible for the program. I do want to note that applications are still being evaluated, so these amounts remain subject to change. Um but of those 124 eligible household households, 87 have been deemed as phase one priority one. What that means is they are 60% AMI or less with an individual in the household who is disabled, elderly, or a child. Um the current $3 million allocation can likely serve eight to 10 households. Seven projects are currently authorized under the initial funding allocation, and one project was completed in April, which we're really excited about, and a second is in active construction. Um, I I do think it's important to note that we can't leave any projects partially funded. So, that's why a conservative

amount of seven projects have been authorized to date. Um, next slide, please. I do have a question again, sorry. Are most of those that we're talking about reconstructions? Yes, good point. Um, because we understand that there may be other funding sources available for applicants to the ReBuild NC program, we asked the state to prioritize households not just at the phase one priority one level, but also those that are very clearly reconstructions because our understanding was that there is um, it's least likely that we'd be able to find another or funding source to address the needs of those homeowners. Okay, thanks. In terms of the regulatory framework for repairs that ReBuild NC is following, HUD regulations require the removal of all deficiencies that make a house substandard under local definitions. So, ReBuild NC must address the entire condition of the home, not just storm damage, and that does cost more. Um, so in order to comply with these regulations, ReBuild NC must bring the entire home up to decent, safe, and sanitary conditions, addressing both storm damage and pre-existing necessary repairs. I do want to just make the point that of course there must be tied back to the storm, so no homes that weren't impacted by the storm are under consideration. Yes, Vice Mayor. Sorry, I'm just on one. No, it's great. So, since those are HUD regulations related to the use of these funds, if we moved them over to another entity, that entity would also be required to not just do a repair but get those homes. Yes. If so, so basically they would be required to do reconstructions as well essentially. If they're using CDBG-DR dollars, they need to get it up to that

DSS state decent safe sanitary standard and that would likely necessitate that reconstruction element given yeah, the condition of the home. Yeah. So, I do better when I hear like practical stuff. So, tree falls on a house, damages the house, we need to repair the roof, we go in and there's lead paint and asbestos. Must be abated according to HUD rules. Yeah.

Even though there was lead paint and asbestos before the storm. Yes. Right. And like if the rise and the run of stairs aren't right, do they have to replace those? All of that kind of stuff. I don't know if that is a decent safe sanitary requirement, so I can't comment on the stairs, but yes on the lead and asbestos abatement. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thanks. And I think it's real two codes, so your rise and run would fit under that I would assume. Like it I understood it to be like it needs to be brought to full code. If you don't have a GFI behind your kitchen sink, you will get one. Kind of stuff. Up to full code, yes. I Unfortunately

Yeah, so the rise and run would rise and run would probably play into that too, especially if these are those first group of disabled etc. So, this is why I'm going to bring up the bond money later. Okay. Makes sense. Um so, Renew NC requires reconstruction of up to $450,000 per unit if repair costs exceed that $100,000 threshold including storm storm damage, code issues as mentioned, lead abatement and other livability factors. And again, this covers all costs for associated with construction, elevation, reasonable accommodations, environmental assessments, mitigation and abatement, historic preservation as the case may be if if necessary for a particular site, and then site-specific costs, essential appliances, and again, code compliance and permitting. I do want to emphasize that mitigation is a key component of the program. HUD requires us to repair and replace road and bridge access, slope site stabilization, and landslide prevention and elevation as well when that's applicable. So, the mitigation pieces, of course, also contribute to the cost that we're seeing. Next slide, please. So, in terms of Housing Recovery Board feedback, we've tried to attend Housing Recovery Board meetings and HCD meetings along the way since approximately December and January to provide some updates, and we've gotten some really excellent feedback for staff to consider when weighing the portfolio across the housing portfolio. In terms of multifamily, we understand that this maximizes investment per household served and allows for long-term affordability with 35-year affordability through gap financing and tax credit layering. In terms of single-family, we understand that this can preserve generational wealth, prevent the displacement of residents in existing neighborhoods, and support residents directly impacted by the storm. And as Ben mentioned at the beginning of this call, we know that there was a high volume of applications received for the

notice of funding opportunity in for the multifamily affordable housing construction program, and that demonstrates that developers are not just ready to build, but that the demand for city subsidy far exceeds the current budget available. In terms of the immediate need, we know that single-family repairs address the exit address the exigent need of residents currently in temporary or unstable housing that experienced damage from the storm, but we also understand and and acknowledge, and as did the board, that we need to rebalance the portfolio to ensure meaningful impact across both housing types. Um And there was an acknowledgement at the Housing Recovery Board regarding that challenge and needing to to think through um how to balance across those needs. Uh next slide, please. In terms of the proposed reallocation to single-family, the final cost of serving all Asheville applicants to renew and see is yet unknown. Um it's still subject to change the numbers are, but it's estimated to be between 30 to 40 million and that's confirmed by the state as well. Um the state um sorry, staff proposed pursuing a substantial amendment to the CDBG DR action plan to reallocate 19.2 million to the renew and see program. That would be comprised of 9.2 million from the affordable multi-family housing construction program and 10 million as aforementioned, um from the CDBG DR infrastructure program. Um I I want to be sensitive to the conversation earlier in this call regarding um the water project and how it critical that is. Um but the city did identify staff identified 10 million in estimated design costs for the North North Fork project as funds likely to be rein- reimbursed first through HMGP and therefore believe this would be a safe place from which to reallocate to the single-family home repair program. Council member Roney. I thank you for bringing this up. Um I know you've been so in the weeds on this and really helping us to understand the

nitty-gritty. Can you remind me what the need was for infrastructure cuz I didn't think we fully funded it? Absolutely not. We did not. So the infrastructure need from the unmet needs assessment was 911 million. Um and we funded it to 125 million. Um in the interest of full transparency, the housing need in the original unmet needs assessment was 33 million and our updated unmet needs assessment that's being submitted in our new proposed um action plan amendment is 222 million, reflecting the evolved need that has become clearer using the same HUD frameworks. So, I know that everybody on council we're getting so many emails, um but one of the emails that we got is from a resident who was part of the flood damage reduction task force after the flood of 2004. And they've been sharing some information with us about um the recommendations that were implemented, any that weren't after the 2004 floods, things like an auditory alarm system for evacuation, drawdown schedule for the North Fork Reservoir, um early alert systems for residents below the North Fork Dam, and land use suggestions in the flood plain. Now, one of the things that is uh raising a red flag for me about moving funding out of infrastructure, um instead of something like planning, which is part of it, um is it's my understanding that the probable maximum precipitation, so our ability to plan for intense rain event um has been reduced from 34 in to 28.4 in. 4 in. 4 in. 4 in. And I think we would agree that we'd want to be prepared for the next storm. That's

scary. So, that's why I'm hesitant to move it. Even though it's like, "Oh, this planning document, I think we'll be recovering the funds for so field flexible." Pulling it out of water is causing red flags for me. Again, that, Kim. is there another another place to move it over from? Kim. that you would suggest? If not, that's fine.

Well, I'm I'm interested in hearing what other folks have to say um if it's not going to come out of the planning side and I said Maybe we got to put it all on the table. Okay, Sage. How about we let the presentation continue and I'll bring it up cuz I'm going to speak to that later. Okay, sounds good. I'll note. Thank you. Um just a couple more bullets on this slide. Um the single family home repair and reconstruction program with this proposed um reallocation would be allocated 22.2 million um which the state estimates would serve 55 to 65 Asheville households and the next steps for a real reallocation are at the end of this presentation. Um next slide, please. Some knowns and unknowns um that we wanted to raise for your attention. Um in terms of knowns, we know that city residents eligible within the Renew NC program are among our most vulnerable and at greatest risk of displacement from Tropical Storm Helene. Investment in this program provides impacted residents with the ability to build wealth and equity within their home and data since December has confirmed that the cost and demand for single family home repair requires a more robust commitment to meet our community's recovery goals. And transferring additional funding now will ensure verified eligible program participants get in their homes before the full cost of the program is confirmed. Essentially, it allows us to um move um instead of having to hold applications while we sort out um some of the funding conversations. Um as mentioned, we were able to um authorize the the sort of seven homes, but this would allow us to authorize many more to proceed. In terms of the unknowns, the full cost Yes, Councilmember Ronnie? Oh, sorry. Um in terms of the unknowns, the full cost for city residents in Renew NC won't be known until later this year because applications are still being evaluated. Staff has identified alternative funding which we believe to

be at the lowest risk, um, but it we do not yet know if HMGP funding will be approved to any degree for its city infrastructure applications and we likely, um, will not have new information about that within this year. Additional CDBG DR programs outside of infrastructure may need to be reevaluated to support single family home repair as, um, a couple of the council members have suggested. Yes, council member Roni? Yeah, I think, um, to provide some more clarity. I can get behind us moving the 10 million out of infrastructure into housing in order for us to expedite the home repairs because I think that's really important. But then I think as a follow-up we need to figure out how to make sure that the water system become the higher priority if we're pulling that 10 million out. It doesn't signal to the community that I think that we're fully behind it. At least for me. So, move it now would be my suggestion so we can get moving on single family repair, but find the 10 million. Jamie? Yeah, uh, thanks for that, Councilmember Roni. I just want to add that the, um, HMGP applications, as Elma said, we will know not know for sure. However, the water application did move from uh, the state to FEMA giving us some assurances that the state is supporting that application and that we will get the pre-award for that design funding which is that 10 million dollars. So, that's why we're suggesting that amount at this time. We have some support from the state and it has moved forward, uh, through the HMGP application process. Okay, that's great to know. Okay, Elma. Oh, Bo. Sorry. Okay. you, Asmera. Um how much were we putting towards the resilience hubs or

kind of looking at that? What was the dollar amount there? 2.125 million. Okay, got it. Thank you. Sure thing. Next slide, please. We'll discuss the substantial action plan amendment process and timeline. Next slide, please. Um well, first to recap the allocations, um this proposed reallocation would result in the housing category um moving from 31 million to 41 million and then the infrastructure category um going from 125 million to a reduced 115 million. Next slide, please, we can get into the detail about the that 41 million. So, you can see that the 41 million would be comprised of 18.8 million remaining under multi-family to cover the three projects that are under consideration next Tuesday and um any project delivery costs inclusive of underwriting, loan closing, staff time um uh and support being received. And then 22.2 million would move into the Renew and See program. Next slide, please. Here's the timeline. Um so, you can see that um the housing update to council will be delivered on May 12th inclusive of the multi-family affordable housing construction vote um on May 15th, we plan to publish the draft amendment should we have the support necessary to do so. That would start the required 30-day public comment period um after which point we would come back to council um for first a public hearing on the 9th and then for a vote on the 23rd after that public comment period closes. So, um we wouldn't want to request your vote until after we have

have and have responded to all public comments. Um so, again, on the 15th the public comment period would start with the drafting of the um substantial amendment to the CDBG DR action plan. We would go to the Housing Recovery Board on June 3rd for informal comment. June 9th City Council hearing um Sorry, public hearing uh on the substantial amendment. Then on June 16th the public comment period would end and we would have an HCD vote um of whether or not to proceed with that action plan amendment and then finally um Council vote on the 23rd regarding the substantial amendment. Um and should we bring that substantial amendment forward on the 23rd, we would also bring the amendment to the Renew NC um agreement as well. And I believe what Nikki will cover as well is that perhaps on that June 23rd date we might be able to proceed with uh proposals under the bond program as well. Um I'll let her speak to that in a in a few moments. Um finally, if that um substantial amendment were to pass um the Council vote on June 23rd, we would submit to HUD um for approval and I have um loose commitments to have an answer before the 4th um should we proceed with a substantial amendment. Um Next slide, please. I will pass it over to Nikki. Thank you so much for your time. Great. Thanks, Elma. Um now, I'm we talked about some of this at the HCD meeting, so I'll I'll share some more information about the alignment of the uh affordable housing bonds for single-family home repair. So, next slide. So, wanted to share where we are currently with the status of funds with available city resources. So, noting here the 2024 remaining bond funds total is 10 million. We approved with council's support the rescission of a loan to the housing trust fund for a project that did not

proceed in the amount of little over 1 million. And here we are proposing uses for these funds. I'll share that the city affordable housing projects, that was the 319 Builtmore project that was funded last summer. We have a project moving forward with Oak Hill that is also seeking city resources. So, we have uh set aside 3 million to fund those. Oak Hill is going to be moving forward to council on the June time frame as well. We had also um penciled in 5 million uh for the housing trust fund. Um really focusing on home ownership projects. And again, this is draft. So, um the housing trust fund allocation and home repair allocations are the ones that we are still working through and really seeking feedback on and and how we want to align um those programs and and these strategies today. So, housing trust fund allocation we had marked for 5 million. That includes the rescission to the housing trust fund as well as additional bond funding. Um and looking to focus that housing trust fund because we had funded multi-family rental construction previously, we wanted to then isolate the housing trust fund to be for um home ownership projects, land acquisition, really all other housing trust fund eligible activities with the exception of multi-family since we have made investments in that program through other means. Um with that, we have also um proposed an allocation of home repair um for 3 million. And so, that's inclusive of of home repair needs across our city, not just relegated to any storm type damage, but just home repair for our community. And that's how we had been speaking with council about our bond funding um um kind of following up since last summer. Um, next slide and I think we'll share a little bit more. So, I think what was mentioned earlier, too, is that so early after the storm, we authorized 1.4

million of of funds. This actually dates back to the 2016 bond funds that we had available to Helene home repair. So, we acted very quickly in partnership with ARCHER, the Asheville Regional Coalition for Home Repair, to authorize and really see that those home repair needs were were met swiftly. This was even before we knew that CDBG-DR funds were going to be coming to Asheville. Um, and as as mentioned earlier, with that, ARCHER has been able to leverage those funds with additional resources that they have been able to um, obtain to achieve 60 Asheville households being repaired with those dollars. Um, so again, yes, go ahead with question. Do we know if those were all repairs? What I mean is, were there any reconstruction projects? No. And the reason for that is that with these more flexible bond resources, we are not uh, bound by the CDBG-DR regulations. So, um, what what I'm really thinking about is with with the CDBG-DR funds, they do need to look holistically and have that depth of repair, which often may result in a whole house reconstruction. And so, you really get one type of outcome for the family with those funds. Um, I'll share that of course with this repair program that was funded by bond dollars, we did see homes being brought up to safe conditions for for healthy um, healthy homes, but it is just two very different um, outcomes. So, thank you for that.

By safe conditions, do you mean up to code throughout the home? What does that mean? I would I would really have to allow ARCHER to speak to that. I'm I'm I'm fairly certain that perhaps there are some some decisions that are made around what is needed to happen and what can be done within a certain budget for each home to be able to accomplish that level of repair. Um so that was that is my understanding is that they would need they would address those significant issues, um but it would not necessitate complete code compliance um like our CDBG DR resources require. But again, I can't speak to the specifics. I would need to really have that in follow up from a member of the ARCHER coalition.

So anybody from ARCHER who's watching, I would love to know using the same scenario I used earlier that if a tree falls on a house do you do the um roof repair? But if there's asbestos, lead paint um other issues in the home, do you leave those as is? So I would love to hear from someone from ARCHER. Sage. I was just going to share I had a great very long conversation with Andy Barnett about this and hopefully if you if you they're not watching and hear your request we should have actually heard you. Am I very I can't really hear you. I'm sorry. Try Try me. Let me check now. Um is that better? Maybe. Go ahead. Okay. Um I was just going to say I had a very long conversation with Andy Barnett about this a couple days ago and if in case someone doesn't hear your request, that's a great person to reach out to. I learned so much about how this was implemented and my I don't want to answer for them but it sounds like no, you wouldn't remove the asbestos. No, you wouldn't fix the rise and run. No, you wouldn't add the GFI if it was already missing before. It was just to make whole what was damaged. So then is the thought that is better to not repair other things?

I don't know. It's an interesting quandary and I think one that we should have a talk about because if we can only fix half of the homes because of that, then maybe it is more reasonable to bring everyone whole. Mhm, maybe we have a different understanding [clears throat] of whole. But I don't think that

that is right. What are we going to pre-store? Hold on, Shanika. I hear where the conversation is going and in the spirit of um positioning families for that generational wealth transfer, I think I'm leaning more towards HUD. Okay. That's good to know because I don't know um I'm thinking of this is one of the anti-displacements tools we may have. You know, I I shared in um the CD that I got to visit folks who had a full home construction. Um they are beyond pleased. Uh mom, two kids, one of the kids is differently uh abled. Um in what census tract? Nine. Um they're really grateful they did have to uh relocate. For a moment, the difficulty they said was they had an animal. So I'm thinking of like the actual people affected, the timeline. If we don't move these funds over to renew and see for people who've already applied, what does that look like if we moved it to Archer? Do they go to the end of the Archer list? Do they go to the beginning of the archer list? You know, those are questions I um have. Say, well, do you want to go, Nikki? I feel I just wanted to affirm that that point because yes, like what what we are seeing and this is really why we're hoping to propose what we're calling a balanced approach, which means yes to CDBG DR single family, yes to CDBG DR multi-family, and yes to bond allocation because really, if you think

back, we received 285 applications for the states and even for the states renuency program, but even of those people fell out because they were not eligible. So, if anything, that really demonstrates that we have a great need in our community for home repair. Um I think another data point that we had from our most recent Bowen report is that over 57% of homeowner houses in Asheville are older than 1970. So, I think the I think what we are seeing is this is a is a is a good time to really look at a comprehensive approach both with state renuency because we are going to achieve that really high quality outcome with these reconstruction projects and utilizing our bond dollars and making those work with our local providers that really know and can address those needs. And then also, in my opinion, really wanting to ensure that we have the multi-family option because we heard from our community how important deep affordability was, especially for our workforce. And really providing that robust approach is what we're here to represent with council today and on Tuesday. I have another question then to you, Sajana. Second. So, you mentioned that 3 million for um repairs from bond. How soon can we actually make that allocation? That is a great question and that's what this timeline really speaks to is that we are working with our affordable housing advisory committee on the draft home repair policy. They're actually meeting next week. We're hoping then to bring that forward to council on June 16th as well as the authorization to make that 3 million part of our bond program and solidify that allocation to the home repair program. Um and then for final approval on June 23rd. And I'm currently working with staff to then understand once we have the policy prepared, the funding allocated, how much time do we need to then go through a process for agencies to apply for funding and then

go into contract. So that is the work that we will do starting in July. Um and again, I'm currently working with staff to really understand how long that will take realizing um the sense of urgency and where we are with our programs. But I I don't have a timeline yet. I can work to get that um especially as we start to take the substantial amendment forward and how these two processes are moving in parallel. We will certainly have that information. So the vision is to have one stream for reconstruction going on simultaneously with another stream for repairs. Okay, Sage. Thank you. I just wanted to speak again about generational wealth. Um I appreciate that coming up. And I believe what I mentioned in HCD was that if I was being asked to spend 30 million dollars, which is what we've kind of set aside for these light tech projects across all all the sources, not just the DR funds, but the bonds too. If I was being asked to spend 30 million dollars to build a few hundred privately owned affordable apartments versus 30 million dollars to fix every home, even if it's to the HUD standards, the answer's really easy for me. So I can get behind the HUD program Renew NC and this rebuild all the homes that are severely damaged if we can fully fund it all so that we only that we do more than just half the residents. I don't know how who gets chosen then, right? And to me, it is so much more important to repair the homes. If we repair them to better status and they grow generational wealth, I'm not sure when we as a council will get that opportunity to do that again. It's a big move. So, I'm I'm really weighing these two because when I see the LITEK applications and I feel that the cost per unit is three times what we normally do and I see that the ask is three times than we intended to do. And then we've got this bucket that is partially full. I'm just really concerned. Like, I'm not going to be able to support this on Tuesday because of these concerns.

Understood cuz there's really never going to be enough money um compared to the unmet needs. Uh Kim. Yeah, thank you for saying that, Antoinette. I think um I keep coming back to the point that we don't have enough funding because 225 million sounds like a lot, but it's not 1.1 billion. Um so, I'm not surprised that we're in this scarcity moment. The thing that I'm still unclear on is it seems like, based on my back of the napkin math cuz we're not looking at this holistically yet, that we still have 16 million in home repairs that we haven't allocated funding for and don't have a plan for. So, that's why I was hoping we would zoom out and look at the whole picture again um together to check we're going to have to look at every nooks and cranny of the CDBG DR funds to see um how the priorities are going. Good news.

Another part of the equation we is who's benefiting from these repairs? Like, when the um the average age of construction workers I'm understanding is like 54 years old, so we're getting a lot of folks that are entering into retirement. And my understanding is that there was some lobbying at the state that prevents local contractors from being eligible to do these repair rebuild and repairs. So, is there any way for us to advocate for subcontracting local like to to do some of this work? Because that's the economic recovery that I was hoping that we would connect and it's not clear to me that we're doing that that the most that we could to make sure that it's not just folks from Florida that are rebuilding the homes, but if the youth build program can be subcontracted, why can't it be? And are we doing our due diligence to make sure that's a the tie between rebuilding repairing homes is also hiring our local folks to do it. So, the good news is we're not going to be asked to vote on this at the next meeting, right? So, we'll have according to this until what? June? So, those are considerations that staff can take up at that time. I want to make sure we get through the rest of the um presentation if that's okay with council. Elma? Let me add one more question since staff are going to get back to us on Kim's answer. Um Well, I'd like to know if those same out of state or out of non-local agencies are the ones that did the estimates cuz one of the conversations I had with our local Archer team was they said, "Well, we know when we come and do the estimates, it's not as high. So, if you send estimators to do these bids and the threshold is a hundred thousand in repairs, your numbers might also be off."

They felt they could do fairer estimates. Understood. Okay, Elma. The The one thing I was going to speak to with regard to Council member Rooney's um comment and we can come back with additional detail is that, you know, we are responsible for monitoring the state um and covering all hard construction costs, but they are the ones managing the contractor relationships and they are the ones taking on the admin cost and burden of of all of this. So we can, you know, have the necessary discussions and see what we can influence there, but ultimately we're not managing that program and and I want to be transparent that that is an economy of scale that we are benefiting from because all we're ultimately paying for are the hard construction costs. Um, but absolutely understand that we need to consider those factors, the cost factors that maybe a local versus a um out of town uh developer might result in. One other piece I just wanted to share is that that first home that was completed was completed in 67 days. And so um that it was completed in 67 days while being compliant with all of the hub regulations. And so that is just something that I want to flag as um a something that we're proud of and grateful for that the state was able to to make that happen, but then also something that um we would need to vet um developers for the ability to be able to do that um as swiftly. Um, I understand that the fact that the sorry, the longest timeline they've had across WNC has been 100 days um if the renewal and C program as a whole. So that's just something to for us to be mindful of too as we're thinking through um you know, uh who we'd be engaging um and our influence of that decision. Excellent. So I'll I can I can finish up these slides. I know we're we're getting close to the time. So um but thank you for all this feedback. That really helps staff to be able to then come back with good information for council to make decisions. So just a couple more slides

and then we'll we'll be complete. Um next slide we'll share that um again what I said earlier really speaks to this slide. Really how to to look at a comprehensive approach um given that the storm really exacerbated the vulnerabilities of our aging housing stock. So there's that quote from the Bowen report um which was done um, last year about 57% of homes uh, in city limits being built before 1970. So, it's really just a a data point there to to demonstrate the the great uh, severity of need for home repair in our community including, um, storm damaged homes. Using the State Renew NC program provides that opportunity for these rebuilds, but then the opportunity to partner locally using bond dollars can also help us address the comprehensive need. So, um, excited about the opportunity to keep this conversation going with our public comment period and with council to really get us to, um, a place, um, at the end of June where we feel, um, ready to make a decision. So, last slide are just some key takeaways that reflects, um, our overarching themes today. Really looking at those um, total estimated need for home repair through the State Renew NC program between the 30 and 40. I think we all, um, acknowledge that. Being able to to to utilize those funds, um, from the what are resources infrastructure allocation to move into the program. And then also looking at how we utilize our bond resources, um, to do that. So, again, strategy really looking at combining multi-family to really assist with displaced renters and deep affordability with homeowner repairs to stabilize residents, preserve general generational wealth and prevent future displacement. So, again, thank you for the comments. This really does help help us to um, get to where we need to be. So, yes, happy to answer any questions as we wrap up. Sage. I'll try to be quick. I just, um, want to share since we've been talking about where would the money come from if we wanted to fully fund single family.

I'm wondering about since we reacted very quickly in earnest around the, um, bond money and quickly distributed 10 million to a loan fund that would be to bolster light tech projects. And then receive the 225 225 and three more. at if we call call back that 10 million from the bonds and we put it in home repair? It's our most flexible money. I'm just not sure like at the moment we had the best intention. We need to bolster light tech development, great. But now we've we've done it twice, maybe three times, you know, we've got more money than we as a council ever said we wanted to set aside for it. And now we're being requested for more. So, maybe the conversation is how much do we want to spend on these affordable housing light tech projects ahead of rectifying our single family issue with repairs because I would support taking that 10 million back from the loan fund that was intended for these purposes that we're now doing with DR or to repurpose for home repair. That's just one idea because I want us to kind of keep in mind we do these light tech applications all the time. This isn't our first year, it's not our second. We've been doing it a long time. You know, these clean funds are extra, but we would be doing light tech applications anyways. We would be getting these potential awards and people and building them. So, this isn't you know, but for Helene these would happen. But this home repair situation absolutely is. Oh, thanks for sharing.

an idea we we can do. Thanks for sharing that. Your sound is going in and out again. So, but thanks for sharing.

All right. I hate to hear that. I'll I'll email you guys cuz I really and I'll bring it up Tuesday, but I really want you to be able to think about this before Tuesday. So, I'll just email you everyone as well. Okay, thanks for that. So, Nikki, are you finished with this part? So, Yes, I am, Mayor. Thank you. DK or Ben, anything else? No, nothing else from us. Thank you for this conversation. We've We're noting all of the feedback. Appreciate it. Okay. You know, I had There was only one thing I didn't get to say that I asked Brad to research. I think he'll be emailing us and that is can these recipients, if they are awarded Tuesday, can they then also apply to our other pot of money in that loan fund? Did we you know, are we setting up two funds for the same applicants? And will they be eligible with I think Brad's going to get back to us. Hi Council member Turner. This actually might be a good time to ask some of the experts that we have online with us if they have any response to that here. We've been trying to look at that, but with Nikki and Elma online, maybe they could respond to some of that as we have the full council available. Sure. I have I'm just pulling up the notes. I think we um shared a summary with regard to how um we're obviously subject to duplication of benefit rules. And I want to just um share that as clearly as possible. And I think there's an email that I um

I can I can address that. So really I um currently nothing prevents um the developments that have applied to apply for the self help ventures fund. And keep in mind that it's an investment of not only city bond dollars, but also Dogwood Health Dogwood Health Trust funds as well as private capital that has invested into that loan pool. And each loan, as I understand, is structured as a a 15-year loan that the principal is due at the conclusion of that 15-year period. So we have seen that a majority of applications, so over nine of the 12 applications that submitted for our multi-family funding for CDBG-DR also applied for the self help ventures fund that includes that mix of capital. And the reason why that they are applying for the self help ventures fund is that that lower interest larger first mortgage. So in doing so, they're able actually to tap into a larger amount of private capital to sit in first position. And so ultimately what that trans access to the DR's additional pot. That is an RDR pot. So, there's additional funding sources and yet the ask are higher. And I know there's inflation, but their asks are significantly higher than inflation. What I would request is on Tuesday all of the applications I can't We can't really hear you. So, can you email those questions? Thanks and sorry about that. Council, any more questions or comments? Okay, hearing none. Uh meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Have a good day, everybody.