Regular City Council and Housing Authority* - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome to the study session meeting of Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. I now call the meeting to order. Please stand and we'll do the pleasure of allegiance together. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. So, Madam Clerk, could you please do the roll call?

Mr. Mayor, the record will reflect that all council is present except for Mayor Pro Tem Chavez.

Thank you. Would you please read the title to our study session item?

Measure Q, Ordinance Revenue Fund Discussion. Thank you.

Okay, and we're gonna do a presentation by staff. We normally do with study sessions, it's a little bit more casual. If we choose, we can call each other by our first names and dress a little bit more casually. And then in terms of, we're gonna do a presentation, and then we'll hear from the public, and the public can have three minutes.

um and then uh we'll go around and get some thoughts from the closing thoughts from the council and then we'll adjourn so with that uh who's gonna do the presentation anna you got the floor thank you i'm just gonna thank you mayor and good evening city council i'm just gonna kick us off tonight um back in june um the city council um overviewed an item for the first time home buyer program And during that discussion, the City Council directed staff to come back with a broader study session topic on the Measure Q ordinance, as well as bringing back the first-time homebuyer components of the program for ongoing consideration and some additional information on the Housing Trust Fund. And so that's the topic tonight. Just because of the expanded topic that we're discussing tonight, we will be co-presenting with the Community Development Department and Finance. So Anna Acosta, who's sitting next to me, Finance Manager, is going to do some of the presentation, as will Nancy Suh, Grants Administrator. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to the team, but we're all here to help answer questions that you have to help facilitate the study session. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Sorry. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmember, City Manager. I will begin with a brief background on Measure Q ordinance. In November 2020, Costa Mesa voters approved Measure Q, establishing the city's retail cannabis tax. In May of 2021, the City Council directed that one half of 1% of Measure Q revenues be allocated to support a first-time homebuyer program. In April 2024, Council provided direction to establish a housing trust fund using $2.5 million in available ARPA funding. Those funds have since been committed to other affordable housing projects. By July of 2024, preliminary analysis determined that there was insufficient funding available for the first-time homebuyers program. And I'll turn it over to Grants Administrator and Ms. Nancy Zoff.

Back in June of this year, staff presented a proposed pilot first-time homebuyer program. The program was presented following the requirements outlined in Measure Q. At that time, we requested council's feedback and direction on eight core program elements and recommended that council approve the implementation of a pilot program. During the meeting, council discussed other potential uses for the Measure Q revenue set aside and voted to receive and file the presentation and schedule a study session to discuss the Measure Q ordinance and consider amendments, as well as to discuss the Housing Trust Fund.

Turning specifically to Measure Q ordinance, it provides that funds be set aside and directed towards the implementation of the Culture Arts Master Plan and the First-Time Home Buyer Program. For the First-Time Home Buyer portion, these revenues are accounted for in Fund 140. The City began receiving Measure Q revenues in fiscal year 2022-23. Since that time, approximately $616,000 has been allocated in Fund 140. Here is a table that shows the allocated revenues by the fiscal year.

Today's study session presentation includes three options for Measure Q. These options are based on prior Council discussion at the June City Council meeting and is meant to help guide the Council's discussion tonight. Option one is to maintain Measure Q set-asides as they are currently approved in the ordinance. Option two is to allocate the Measure Q tax revenue set-asides to other programs or funding opportunities. And then option three is to allocate the entire Measure Q revenue fund to the general fund.

Here is option one. Since its inception, we have allocated approximately $616,000 as of June 30, 2026. Additionally, we have estimated $242,000 for the current fiscal year.

I'm going to provide a quick overview of the first-time homebuyer program that was presented at the June City Council meeting. So back in June, we presented a pilot first-time homebuyer program with eight core program elements that we requested Council feedback and direction on. The eight program the eight core program elements are listed on this slide and the following slide and they include three different grant amounts What the eligible uses of funds would be and who'd be eligible to receive funds? And then we also included options to restrict the eligibility by household income, which is not a requirement of measure Q But it was presented for council consideration Additionally, we recommended that cash assets be removed from the eligibility requirements and presented on which housing types would be eligible for assistance. And then we also recommended implementing residency requirements for households who are assisted to ensure that the home is being used as their primary residence and then presented on our recommended application review process. Should council decide to go with option number one tonight, we would recommend that you provide us with the feedback and direction that we requested back in the June meeting. The second option for council consideration is to consider funding alternatives for the Measure Q revenue set aside. The four options included in the table on this slide are from council discussion at that June meeting to help with tonight's discussion. Council may consider setting aside measure Q revenue set aside for tenant based rental assistance programs for different types of affordable home ownership opportunities To assist with affordable housing development or to direct funds to the city's housing trust fund for tenant based rental assistance the city currently provides federal home funds to the nonprofit families forward for their tenant based rental assistance program and We provide about $200,000 annually, and this assists about 12 to 14 households. For this option, Council may choose to expand our existing partnership with Families Forward, or we can provide the funding to a different agency to assist a different population with tenant-based rental assistance. The program with Families Forward only assists low-income families with minor children, so if we wanted to broaden the types of households we were assisting, we could choose to do that. For the second option, the city could consider different ways to expand our affordable home ownership opportunities. That's different from the first time home buyer program that we presented. Some options could be purchasing land or property to be managed by an organization that provides home ownership opportunities like Habitat for Humanity or providing funding to affordable for sale housing developers to assist with things like gap financing or pre-development costs. Council could also provide gap financing for affordable housing development projects. We currently do this with other sources of funding like federal home and ARPA funding. And most recently, the city issued a request for proposals for two affordable housing development projects. And the council approved gap financing to two different housing projects back in March. One was for Jamboree housing for the Costa Mesa Senior Project. And the second is to American Family Housing for the Avon River Project. The Measure Q funds could be used to increase the amount of funding available for these types of solicitations. And then lastly, the council could choose to direct the funds to the city's Housing Trust Fund to address housing affordability for different income levels. On the next slide, Anna will go over the Housing Trust Fund in a little bit more detail. And then finally, as option three, The council may choose to direct all or some Measure Q revenue set aside back to the general fund instead of identifying specific programs for set asides.

The city established the Housing Trust Fund, Fund 226, in April of 2024 pursuant to city council direction. As outlined in the city's budget book, it was established for the development of affordable housing with the initial allocation of $2.5 million in ARPA funding. Since its establishment, the fund has been used to support several housing initiatives, including the relocation of tenants at Shalimar, rehabilitation of the James Street properties, and the senior affordable housing project with Jamboree Housing.

And finally, staff recommends that City Council conduct a study session tonight to review the revenue set-aside provisions of the Measure Q ordinance and provide direction to staff. And that concludes our presentation, and staff are available for any questions.

Any questions, Council? Council Member Reynolds? I'm sorry, Arliss?

Yeah, I'll just start with a few. Can you go to the slide, slide four, where we show the anticipated Revenue I assume this is this these numbers are the the one-half percent so this is the the revenue that's going into this Fund okay, so it you know it starts small builds the last couple years. It's at about two hundred and thirty thousand I Know we can't guarantee the future, but is our best estimate that we expect about two hundred and thirty thousand each year going forward Or are there new shops or new revenue? Continuing to come online

I think most of the revenue that we're anticipating in this range are probably going to come from renewal of business licenses. So this is probably pretty accurate. I think we're kind of at the max capacity of what the market can maybe hold at the moment in Costa Mesa for cannabis. So we're not seeing any more new applications that would, you know, incite more, you know, cannabis sales tax revenue potentially than this, but it's a best guess. Okay.

So best estimate about 230,000 a year. would continue moving into the fund absent changes on our end, but from that source of revenue. OK. And then I know that we get our annual allocation of CDBG and home funds, and we've used those for tenant-based rental assistance and other housing-related programs. Are those funds allowed to be used for home ownership programs? I can't recall off the top of my head.

We can use home funds for home ownership programs, The requirements around it are very strict.

Can you remind me?

Yeah, so there are income limit requirements. There is home purchase price limit requirement. There are requirements on how we administer the fund. So it's pretty administratively burdensome. Okay.

I can't read my own writing on question number three, so I'll come back to that. And then in the options, if you go to slide nine, there... sort of presented as different options, but really the housing trust fund is something we created and can define how it's used, right? So funds in the housing trust fund, if we do option number four, doesn't mean those funds couldn't be used for a number two or a number three, right? Okay, okay. Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

Mike? I thought we were going to public first, but since I've got a couple, I've got a couple. Looking at the presentation, we saw the .5%, I think it was the slide four, and what we're here talking about tonight is this allocation to the first-time homebuyers program. And although there's the other 5% that we allocate to the arts. and just so I'm clear on the presentation or the study session, we're kind of just, when we talk about we could allocate this either to the general fund or allocate it to the housing trust or whatever, we're just talking about this first time home buyer's 0.5%.

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay. So we could do something with this, and I just want to make sure we're not contemplating touching the arts. Right now they've got their same amount, roughly 230,000 years going to the arts. And we could allocate this 5%, or 0.5% over to the arts as well. We could go any place with this right now. Okay, and I'm just... I'm curious, the 7% that is generated from the cannabis resale tax, where's that other 6% go? Is that just poured into the general fund?

Yes, that's correct.

And would we have the flexibility to We could either do this 0.5% into the areas that you guys have identified, pour it back into the general fund. Could we specifically designate it to go to parks or CIP or something like that?

I can answer that question. If you change the ordinance to delegate that money to a different specific use, yes, you could do that.

And just more of a comment, just seems first time homebuyers program, when it was first presented to us and which led us to this site, it just seems so cumbersome. And the dollars that we're looking to allocate to a first time homebuyers program hate to sound somewhat crass, but it really can't help that many people or have that broad of an impact it seems like. Whereas in the dollars that we're dealing with could conceivably have a pretty broad impact on improving a park or improving some specific, it would impact the quality of life for a large number of the community that enjoys that park or enjoys that city asset or whatever. That's just a general thought. We're in a study session. Okay, that's about all that I have right now.

Real quick, John, or did, okay, all right.

Mike, okay, you're done? Okay, Jeff.

All right, I just have, I think I have this right. So the first time home buyer fund has approximately 600 grand accumulated with 242 projected annually. Staff projects 842 available after 26, 27 revenue. Proposed assistance 25 to 30 or 35 per household at 600 grand. That theoretically assists only about 24 households at 25,000, 20 at 30. and 17 at 35 before admin costs. So I guess my question is what is the estimated administrative cost per successful home buyer and what percentage of total program expenditures would actually reach the residents versus administration?

um so that's a great question thank you councilmember pettis there are definitely um there are some costs associated with setting the program up that would be done by staff so we wouldn't be using any funding from the measured queue where would we we would be using funding as just the um some of the income eligibility requirements so utilizing a consultant to help vet those applicants and make sure that they comply with the eligibility requirements And then I'll look over to Nancy to see if there's anything else that she can think of that would also be an additional cost.

Any other administrative costs that I can think of is just depending on how council wants to structure the program. So if you wanted to do a loan versus a grant, there are definitely more administrative costs to administering loans, right? There's loan servicing fees that we'd have to take into consideration versus a grant is just, here's the grant, go use it for what you have to use it for, and there is really no servicing fees for that.

Okay. Just to dovetail a little bit off Mike, would the 0.5 require a ordinance change if we wanted to throw that over to arts, the 0.5%? Or could that be done administratively, Kim? If we wanted to move 0.5 of Q to arts, would that require an ordinance change? Yes. It would?

Correct. Right now the ordinance provides for the 1.5% to the arts, 1.5% to the first-time homebuyer program. Any reallocation would require a change to the ordinance, which is a supermajority vote.

Okay. Okay. So okay, that's all I have for now, thanks.

Any other questions? All right. Oh yeah, go ahead, Arliss.

Yeah, thank you. So I remember when we had this discussion the first time, I had asked that we talk to organizations like Habitat for Humanity who build and manage units, sort of homeowner units, but they become sort of this continual giving circle, right, based on their business plan. Did we have that discussion, and what feedback did we get from them?

We didn't have a discussion with them, but we, I wasn't here for it, but I believe we used to have a partnership with them because they do have a couple of homes in Costa Mesa that are income limited and deed restricted. If we were to have that conversation with them, I imagine it'd be similar to providing funding to any affordable developer where the city provides funding. We make sure that that home is deed restricted to certain income levels for a number of years. and then we would have agreements in place to ensure that even if that homeowner were to sell the unit or move out, that the new homeowner would meet those same eligibility requirements.

I was digging through my notes to find some prior conversations. It was independent of this homeownership program. And so I don't want to incorrectly sort of conflate the two, but I'm just going to share some of the things they said. They were estimating, I'm going to read this, a typical 850 square foot two bedroom unit would cost about $382,000 to construct. exclusive of soft cost infrastructure, parking, escalation, and contingency. I don't know what adder that brings. And then they say at 80% AMI, this is in 2025, a typical affordable sales price for a family of three would be just shy of $200,000. So there's a funding gap of about $200,000 a unit. So that's what I'm trying to think about out loud here, sharing that information, and I don't know, you see some nodding, maybe that sounds reasonable in terms of pricing. You know, a funding gap of nearly 200,000 per unit sort of matches what we have here. So I'm just throwing that out as like it seems potentially promising. I don't know what pieces of that puzzle I may be missing, but in terms of effectively using funds to support the creation of affordable housing managed by a trusted organization that I believe has been successful in helping families at lower income levels grow equity. It's something worth pursuing, I think. Okay, any thoughts on what I read? Does that seem very outdated? Am I missing something really big?

No, that sounds about right. There is undeniably a gap. I mean, and that's what we continue to hear when we do outreach with affordable housing developers. Just the amount of different funding streams that they need to put together to actually make the project work. Home ownership on the affordable side continues to be extremely challenging. One, because of what you mentioned, the discrepancy between actually building the unit and how much it can be sold for. But then also we hear that the ongoing maintenance costs are often difficult for the homeowner. So while sometimes they can qualify for the for sale price, it's those other costs like HOA costs, utility costs, maintenance of the home that tend to get them out of that, you know, we've limited it to 30% of your income. And that tends to be like an ongoing challenge in some cases for affordable homeownership. So that's what we hear in our outreach with affordable housing builders.

My recollection, so the way I'm reading this is that there's, with sort of the estimated price that a qualifying family would pay, plus about $200,000, covers the cost to construct affordable housing, to construct a home. So those two pieces are, so I'm interpreting this as the annual revenue we're getting here could actually close the gap in terms of building an affordable home, where it's built. I know that's another big question. My recollection, is that the way, or at least one of the ways their home ownership program works is the family's, I think, agreeing to a sales price, but they don't have that cash, right? And so what they're doing is paying a fixed percentage of their income based on that income towards that sales price, but actually benefiting from the equity built in the home. So they're in a better position to buy a home years down the line. So what they're actually paying, that fixed percentage of their income, is in the not cost burdened or not housing burdened category. So they do have additional income to support sort of the home maintenance and other utility needs. Is that your understanding of how the programs typically work?

That has always been my understanding. But as we've continued to talk to affordable housing developers, they have noted that that sometimes HOA costs continue to rise, utility costs, different maintenance costs, and sometimes it's not that it necessarily becomes unaffordable, but it goes above that, what we assumed was the 30% that you would pay towards the cost of housing. So when they first get income, they have their income eligibility, it's limited at that 30%, and then these maybe unforeseen costs as we go down the line end up going over that.

Yeah, okay. Okay, thank you.

I have a quick question.

Yes, Lauren.

So I recall having a conversation with staff. I don't know if it was on the Deus or I forget when but about 20 years ago, we had a program that offered homebuyers assistance. I don't know if it was just to PD or to first responders. Does anyone recall that? I remember asking about it and it was gonna be looked at. I know it existed because I was here when it, I lived here when it existed. My question is, how did that work? How do we do it? Was it a grant? How did it get applied? and what are our options moving forward with something like that. It's not introduced here as one of the options, and it was discussed, so I'm just curious. And if you can't answer right this second, that's fine, but this was something I wanted to learn about, if we could do that, because we had a program, and we were helping our first responders. I don't know if it was just PD or it was fire as well,

I don't know about a program for first responders, but I'm going to hand over to Nancy because we, we do have, we did have a historic first time home buyer program that we provided loans to. So she can talk a little bit about that and how we've managed that over the last 30 years.

Okay. This specifically, I don't think it was a loan. It was a, here's a chunk of money, a little chunk to help you out, to get you where you need to go, which was kind of what this was intended for. Not, anything else. So that's what I'm asking about. Thank you.

So the first time home buyer program that Ana was mentioning is, um, we did have, uh, back when we were a redevelopment agency and we had to switch over, we had some funding that we use to develop a first time home buyer program. And it was kind of more along the lines of what I think this council has had in mind where we were providing actual significant down payment assistance to eligible households. There were quite a few restrictions on it, similar to what the federal home funds require, where you had to income qualify, there were purchase price limits for the type of home you could buy, and there were compliance requirements as well. They were significant amounts of loans, and then they were deferred payments, so we don't collect on them until you meet certain requirements, like you sell the home or the deed gets transferred over to someone else. We have about seven active loans still that we're waiting repayment on, but I don't know, I don't think they were restricted to just first responders or police officers.

Okay, that one in particular that you're speaking of, you're probably correct, but I do know, I do recall that we had one, and somebody knows about this. The first time I brought it up, a couple of people thought I was joking, but no, it actually was a real thing, and I think this needs to, while we're doing this, and it's a study session, we need to be looking into this, because we did it once before. Obviously, it must have had some sort of success, and I want this to come up. I want to look at how we implemented it, and when it was, and who got it, and not specifically by name, Like the nuts and bolts of this thing, how did it work? Thanks.

Thanks, Council Member, I mean, thanks, Lauren. Okay, so let's go to the public. A lot of people looks like they're interested in speaking about this. I don't see anybody. We'll just go to the public and you do them afterwards. Okay, anybody on Zoom?

No, Mr. Mayor.

All right, there you go. Close public comment. It's Arliss, you got the floor.

Yeah, thanks. I know with, I forget which funding buckets, where we've had some funding, we've done the, posted an RFP and said we had some funding send us proposals for affordable housing developments. Is that something we could consider? Would you recommend against that for any reason to say, We want to create affordable home ownership opportunities. We've got the $800,000 and we're expecting to add to that $230,000 a year. Give us your best proposal. What would be, if we made that suggestion, what would be your response? Was that gonna raise good ideas or is that gonna be a waste of time?

I don't think it's a bad idea. I mean, you never know what kinds of proposals you'll get from an open RFP like that. There are developers that are doing really creative things out there. So we can try the RFP, see if we get any significant responses, and then take it from there. I don't want to say no, because you just don't know what types of projects people have in mind, where if they did have some sort of additional gap financing, that could help them get over the finish line.

Yeah, I'll just add to that. Be frank with us today. Yeah, this is a study session, so we're brainstorming options, right? You know, I will say for affordable housing projects that we've provided funding to, we've provided a bit more, like the, you know, $1.5, $2 million plus for those projects. That's typically the amount of funding that they need in order to leverage some of the other tax credit financing. So a lot of times, so that they can go seek tax credit financing. They have to show local commitment, and they have to show local commitment up to a certain point. So to Nancy's point, it's hard to say if maybe it would be enough funding quite yet, although maybe it will be in a few years, and it would be a more significant amount that we could actually contribute, so that could be an option. I think as we were developing the first-time homebuyer program, we were trying to target a sector of the community that hasn't had any other, you know, affordable housing or type of subsidy opportunities. And I think that was what the funding was originally set aside for. But since we had the first meeting back in June, we've kind of been sort of brainstorming like, you know, is there a way to add an affordable housing component to this as it originally, as it was proposed back in June? So Nancy, can I ask you to go back to the slide that shows the first time home buyer program? Um, one other thing you could consider if the city council did want to move forward with a first time home buyer program was to maybe, you know, um, if you see it under option four, there's, um, income limits and these were what we thought we would appropriately target to get to the sector of the community that's actually looking for a first time currently, um, and meet those market demands. But one thing you could do with this would be to assign like a certain percentage or a certain number, for those under like a moderate income. And so part of our program could be, I'm just gonna throw out a number setting aside 20% of those that get a grant to moderate income, those that qualify under a moderate income, and we would provide that grant as well. I'm just gonna add this as we're brainstorming and thinking. The first time home buyer program that Nancy mentioned that we still have seven active loans for, One of the challenges, because that was a loan amount to be repaid, and one of the challenges with that is that we have to continue to service and administer it. So over a 30-year period of time, we end up actually paying most of the value of the loan just in administering it and checking year on year that they still are income qualified. So that was part of the reasoning this time and just proposing a grant amount so that we weren't spending a decent portion of the funds that we have available just administering it. But again, there's different ways to go about it. Just kind of food for thought as we were putting together this item and how we were starting to think through it.

And can you remind me, um, when we did do those, uh, um, RFPs and, and provided, you know, on the scale of a million or million point four, I think you said, um, can you just remind me some of those projects and the size of those projects?

Yeah, those would be like the recent, like the Jamboree housing project, the American family, the one that's at 1400 Bristol, some of the home key projects that we've provided funding to, uh, um, It's 2274 Newport. Bristol is a Homekey project as well. So those are the recent examples that I'm kind of thinking of where the subsidy amount has been a little bit higher than what we have here.

Right.

Okay.

Higher subsidy, but also significantly higher in terms of the unit count. Absolutely. I think is the smallest of those at 70.

Yeah, that's 70 units. Right. Yeah.

But also all of those are renter based, not owner based.

That's correct.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Well, let's get everybody. If anybody wants to make a comment, now is your time and then we can wrap it up.

Yeah.

Want to go down the line? A couple questions then. Oh, yeah. You can ask questions too if you wish.

It occurred to me as I'm listening. What kind of federal, state, county first-time homebuyer programs or packages are out there? Because I know first-time homebuyers get special incentivized loans and reduced down payments. And so just in general, I mean, are we reinventing the wheel here a little bit by at the city level having our own FTHB program? And how common are these in other cities?

There are a few neighboring cities that have their own versions of first-time homebuyer programs. A lot of these are funded from state and federal grant funds. So home funds, there are different California housing and community development grant funds that they use, that they're eligible for, and they use that pot of money to administer first-time homebuyer programs. They are kind of what you'd expect from like a federal or state funding source where it's low income. There are lots of restrictions, compliance requirements, and the amount of money that they give out per program, they all range where Long Beach has a program where they're giving out $25,000 grants, similar to what we were proposing. I know Garden Grove has a bigger amount of money that they give away where they do, I think, up to $120,000 for down payment assistance. So they do vary depending on, I think, the type of funding source that they're using for the program.

And it sounds like grants is the way to go so you avoid all the administrative costs.

For us, I would recommend that. I know for some of these other cities like Garden Grove, they do both grants and loans depending on the amount that they're providing the households. But if you do a loan, again, the funding source has, they have restrictions on how you administer the loan. So there's heavy compliance and administration that's attached to it.

And even this in a grant, you still, there's a certain level of administration to check for qualifications and make sure that the application checks all the boxes. Okay, yeah, that was it for questions or comments.

You wanna just go down the line? Lauren, you got any comments? Andrea?

Yeah, look, I know staff is looking for some amount of guidance and direction right now from council. I don't feel like I know enough, to be honest, right? I mean, I'm super interested to learn more about the habitat model, particularly in high-cost living areas. Funnily enough, my brother was volunteering on a project over the long weekend in New Jersey that is a very high-cost area, and They're making habitat work, so I'm curious about what's different. I was scrolling back through our old agendas on laser fish, Brenda. It is really, really fun to look at 2004 agendas, by the way. But, yeah, I mean, we used to have a first-time homebuyer program in this city, but as you said, it was oriented towards sort of the second lien holder space to – MAKE SURE PEOPLE WERE ABLE TO COVER THE LOAN SUCCESSFULLY RATHER THAN SORT OF A CASH PAYMENT, WHICH IS A MODEL THAT, LIKE, I ADMIT MY BRAIN IS STRUGGLING TO GET MY HEAD AROUND RIGHT NOW. like given the credit worthiness and affordability issues that we're seeing overall in the market. I agree with Lauren. I'd like to find some way of keeping people in the city who are doing a service to the city. We've talked about this actually in recruiting, right? Where we've wanted to go out and find an executive level position, but the cost of them living anywhere near the city is prohibitive. And so, Like, that seems like a good idea. I also know that 60% of the city are renters, and so the idea of just putting, frankly, all of our money into some version of affordable housing, given the huge numbers we know we have to develop for the housing element, and also the real need that we see for people trying to bridge the gap. I don't know if anyone listened to the New York Times, the Daily this morning. It was all about People using Klarna, the sort of payment system, the month by, you know, week by week payment system just to cover groceries right now. Like things you would have put on a credit card, instead they're creating a payment plan for because it is actually an easier access to credit than even a credit card. So there is a real affordability issue right now. And so the idea of being able to give somebody a couple hundred bucks if it means they can stay in their home if they're a renter seems like the highest priority to me and sort of the Maslow's triangle of affordable issues. But I don't know. I'm going off of a bunch of good ideas. And so I hate punting things. But I feel like right now we should probably just let this ride. in its own fund continue whether we put it in the housing trust or not is something I'd be interested in hearing the rest of Council because it feels like we still have some amount of flexibility if we put it in the housing trust I don't actually know there's a material difference putting in the housing trust unless letting it ride in its own fund but I mean I sort of say with an abundance of options we should continue studying it and

know we can pull the thread on any of the things that i just mentioned i'm just cognizant that we're running out of time here too at least this council yeah that's that those are my ramblings thank you no that's good so um we're just going i'm just going to go next just going down the line so um i'm in favor of number one uh maintaining the set aside um i think we all We didn't all vote for it, but it was a majority vote of the body back in 2021, and now we actually have the money. So I think we should move, if it were me, my decision, I'd move forward on some form of a program to help people in a first-time homebuyers situation. You know, hearing this, For what it's worth, I think the grant makes more sense than the loan. I was in favor of the loan before because it's regenerating, but I'm convinced with the idea that if it costs too much to administer it, then that cuts down on what people can get. I just did a little rough math. I think it could help. This amount, this pot that we have right now, pardon the pun, did you guys get it? You could help, and I'm including 2027 fiscal year in this. With that amount, you could help anywhere from 17 to 28 families. Moving forward, assuming that the prices go up a little bit on cannabis, you could help on an annual basis between five and eight people on an annual basis. That adds up over time. I'm not going to tell you the starfish story. You can Google it. I told you my story about how I got into my house last time. I'm not going to repeat it. But I did need a little boost. People need boosts to stay in Costa Mesa, to buy in Costa Mesa. I would be okay with some type of affordability criterion. But I do think, although I was... hopeful that we'd be able to put a pilot program together and we'd be able to administer it and cut a big check and everybody would be able to stand there. We'd bring the families up and the whole thing. I had this dream, but the dream is not going to happen. It's going to go to another council and if it does get If this program in some form does get administered as a first-time homebuyers program, it'll be under another administration, and that's okay. I hope that's what happens. That's certainly the position I'm gonna take if I had a vote. And so I'm not sure if this is gonna come back before November. If it does, that's my position. As for Habitat, it's a terrific program, but If we're concerned about the number of people that we impact, it's a wonderful, wonderful program. We have one home on, I think we have two homes in Costa Mesa, one in particular on Delmar, right down the street. And it's a duplex, so they're building out another one. And Manny and I went to the opening. It was amazing what they do. And what they do is they buy the house. And just quite like Arliss said, they right-size the payments based on the income of the folks that are going into it. There's a whole process that they go through to qualify that person. It's a real commitment for those folks. They help build it. They maintain it. And there's a beautiful family that lives there in the really neighbor of City Hall. They get groups like HomeAid comes in and helps with the building of it. And it's a beautiful program. Helps one family. I'm glad for that family. But I just think my intention was this would be something different. But nothing against Habitat. As a matter of fact, if you're interested, they're having their gala is coming up. I just got an invitation for it. So anyway, that's all I have to say. Arliss?

Yeah, I think my I'm in a similar place to Council Member Maher on this, and I wish I knew more. I wish there was something that sort of rose out as the slam dunk, most effective way to use these funds. I really want to see them stay aligned with our housing goals. I really want to, you know, I like having them allocated for the homeownership piece, because that is also one of the goals that we had in addition to addressing homelessness, supporting our renter community as well. And I think letting the fund grow, which may be beneficial to more impactful opportunity going forward, Your team has been very, very busy, right, and will still be very busy with all of the efforts to support the rezoning and support opportunities to build more housing as well. So I don't know that there, I think there may be valuable, been waiting on that front too to see what gets built. And also for you all to get the other work done, I mean, to ask you to start another program right now also feels a little bit irresponsible on our end, given how much you all have on your plate. And so for those reasons, I'm sort of leaning towards letting this grow as a sort of a future fund to help home ownership in the city in the future. Certainly open to moving the funds to the housing trust fund if that makes opportunities for those funds more flexible. I'm open to that, but I do really wanna see them, those funds sort of reserved for our housing goals and specifically for home ownership goals. I'm going to dig in a little bit more. I apologize for not doing this more since our last meeting. I want to get more educated on the different models, and maybe I'll be back on that side advocating in the future. But I think I'm not ready to make a vote among one of the specific options.

Jeff?

Jeff? okay thank you john so to me this like a lot of things that we talked about it's really starts with a bigger i guess policy question um is it are we doing this permanent city program to make us feel better or is it a true program that's not just Benefiting a relatively small number of housing beneficiaries rather than returning it to a tangible thing that we can See and know we know where the shortfall is. I mean for me to get on board with this I'm not saying I wouldn't entertain the idea, but does 25 to 35 grant actually change the outcome The staff has said a reviewed comparable programs Costa Mesa home prices and local housing needs but the packet doesn't demonstrate with a representative transaction that processed or proposed subsidies and converts otherwise unable to buy households into an actual homeowner. So my question for me, I would need, like Andrea was saying, I would need to know a lot more. I need you to show us the math on an actual representative Costa Mesa purchase. What's the purchase price, household income, down payment, mortgage payment, debt to income ratio that you're assuming, and how does our 25 to 35 grand actually turn an otherwise unqualified buyer into a sustainable homeowner. I would need to see all that in order to vote yes in this. Otherwise, I know that the arts is woefully underfunded, and if we were able to change the .5 over to the arts, that is a tangible thing I can get my arms around for public-facing art in the city. Thank you.

All right, thanks. If there's nothing more, we're adjourned.