City Council - workshop

All right. It is 545. We have Councilmember Algi is out. Councilmember Cunto is out. But Councilmember Martinez should be online. Justin, if you can hear us, can you just say hello?

Hello, everybody. Can you all hear me?

And now. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Are there any questions about the update agenda? Any questions about the formal agenda? We have a lot on the agenda this evening. So who would like to read the land acknowledgement tonight? All right, we have a resolution for John Eller's retirement.

I can do it.

And we have a resolution for Disability Pride Month, which I have you down for. 7C is Parks and Rec Month. I'll do that one. Okay. Then we have a public hearing. 10A is annexation into Ward 3. Well, there's four of them. A1, A2, A3, and A4.

A1 out. All right, there's also another one.

Yeah, the next one is in Ward 4, and there are three of those, B1, B2, and B3. Tag team, who wants to go first?

Sure, I'll take the long one.

All right, you'll get the first one, Drew gets the second one, and you'll get the third one. All right. Then we have a bunch of action items. 14A is the TAF. I'll do that one. 14B is a budget amendment. I can do that one. 14C, well, these are all ordinances related to council policy. So we have C, D, E, P, and F. Anybody else wants one?

Yeah, I'll take one too. It doesn't matter. Just whatever.

All right, I got Russell, Byrd, you want E, Salazar, and F. All right. And then Justin, you remember you can't participate in the quasi-judicial public hearings, right?

Yeah, that's correct. I'll probably just sign off at the beginning of the public hearing.

You don't want to stick around for the action items afterwards? Come on. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. All right. We'll just make a note of that when that time comes that you'll have to recuse yourself.

Okay. Yeah. Sounds good.

All right. Tansy, anything from you? No, thank you. Tammy, anything from you?

Nothing tonight.

All right. We'll jump right into the state legislative summary.

Yeah, so we've got Kevin Forget and Peggy O'Keefe coming forward. So this is just a little bit of a look back at the state legislative session in its entirety. We do have one federal issue that we'll just spend a bit of time on while we've got you tonight. So I'll give the floor to Kevin.

Great. Thank you, Tansy. And good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of council. So the purpose of THIS UPDATE TONIGHT IS JUST TO PROVIDE A RECAP AND SUMMARY OF THE 2026 STATE LEGISLATIVE SESSION. IT DOES FEEL LIKE IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE IT'S BEEN IN SESSION, BUT WE'LL JUST PROVIDE A QUICK SUMMARY WITH SOME SESSION HIGHLIGHTS.

SHUT YOUR MOUTH. SAY THAT AGAIN. WE WILL WAIT FOR IT.

AND IT'S A LONG TIME COMING FOR NEXT YEAR'S SESSION. WE'LL GO THROUGH THE POSITIONS THAT THE CITY HAS TAKEN OVER THE LAST YEAR AND THEN JUST ASK FOR A BIT OF COUNCIL FEEDBACK. So again, just wanted to review some of the highlights and some of the themes that came up during the 2026 session. So I will pass it over to Peggy to go over some of the key highlights.

Sure, thank you. Good to be with you all tonight. We had over 720 bills, resolutions, referendums that were introduced this last legislative session. We had many repeats, particularly around land use, housing issues. And we also had a slew of bills that were a new discussion around criminal justice. Those were those law enforcement technology bills we talked about several times. Senate Bill 70, 71, and 1037. Senate Bill 70 created or limited law enforcement's ability in terms of investigations requiring a warrant for accessing information that may be critical to solving crimes or locating missing persons. It had a 30-day data retention on information. And it was really that warrant requirement, particularly for license plate readers that caused problems for law enforcement and local governments. We took an opposed position on that bill. It died on the Senate floor. I am meeting with Senator Mobley actually tomorrow. to start those discussions again for next session. I think she's committed to bringing the bill back. I'm hopeful she will be more interested in having a discussion around that warrant requirement and seeing if there's a place for compromise or negotiation there. I know CML is also looking at potential legislation in that space for next year. There was also a bill, Senate Bill 71, that restricted law enforcement from using surveillance technology, including warrant requirements, facial recognition systems, and limitation on drones, also limited data retention of technology. And then 1037, which was the search and seizure bill, this bill also died in its first committee, as did Senate Bill 71. In terms of housing, we did see several bills coming from the governor's office. Interesting, it seemed that the legislature last session may have reached their limit on the mandates on local governments. They did kill 1308 lot splitting and 1114 minimum lot sizes. I am hopeful that under the new administration next year, there will be more of an effort to collaborate and come up with language that isn't so much of a hammer on local government and instead tries to work with local government. I do think there's a potential that construction defects will be back on the table for potential reform legislation. And I wouldn't have thought that a couple of months ago, but it does seem like that's something that we might see next session. In terms of the budget challenges, as you know, last year we were $1.2 billion in the hole. Similarly, this session, there is perhaps a small light at the end of the tunnel that the economic forecast shows that we might be in a little bit of a better spot moving into next session. I'm not holding my breath. We have several more forecasts before the session starts. So we'll see what that shows up as in the December forecast, because that'll really influence what the budget will look like down at the Capitol. We also saw legislation around data centers. As you recall, there was a bill that was more incentive focused that some of the business community brought. And then there was legislation from the environmental community that had more guardrails restrictions on it. That too, there's a meeting tomorrow for the first stakeholding on data center. So again, I am hopeful that this year we may be able to have some more conversations before session starts. Last year, neither one of those camps really involved other people. And I think it was a big mistake. A couple of bad rumors I've heard is that we may go back into special session on data centers. I think that would be a terrible mistake. It would be similar to the AI special session because everybody's still stuck in their camps. I think it would be a disaster. The other issue that potentially we'd go back into special session on is around ballot initiative 175, the transportation ballot initiative. As you recall, the very end of session, the legislature passed House Bill 1430 to try to put limits if ballot initiative 175 passes. 1430 would really limit some of the money that would go towards roads and bridges. I think because it was drafted so late in the session, There are a lot of holes in that language. So the thought is, do we need to go back into special session and address it, knowing that 175 is looking pretty good in terms of polling right now for its potential to pass? Politically speaking, I think there's a real hesitation to go back into special session. not sure the governor is anxious to go back into special session um so we will see i'm hoping they're just all bad rumors at this point but um we'll certainly keep you posted and um and share information as we get it related to the special session but um Now that the primaries are over, I think everybody is anxious to get moving and start discussions on legislation for next session. So I think things will start moving pretty quick.

Great. Thanks, Peggy. So next, we just wanted to talk just a quick summary on the position bills that the city took positions on. This past session, the city took a position on 17 different bills. Just for comparison's sake, I think the previous year in 2025, the city took 16 positions, so pretty close to those two years. In terms of the 17 bills, six positions were opposition positions. Of those six opposition positions, five died, and one was signed by the governor that was HB 1001, which we know is there, was one of his leading bills. In terms of support, the city took five support positions, of which three passed, one died, and one was vetoed by the governor. The city took three monitor positions. One was signed by the governor and two died. And then to cap it off there, the city did take three amend positions, of which one died in the case. So there's a list of the bills there. I'm happy to answer any questions on that. Otherwise, we did also just wanted to take a moment, you know, being mindful of the agenda here, just to kind of go through, recap the session, just looking for some city council feedback, if there's any different direction in terms of thinking about the process next year. So just thinking about... Um, in terms of the, uh, reporting structure, um, you know, we have the, the bill lists and then of course, uh, present, um, the, the frequency is on a biweekly basis. Typically the process spent at council updates. And then of course, if there's anything time, um, time pressing, um, we will then potentially bring an item to, um, to planning session. So that has been the frequency. Again, I think the city monitored over 150 bills again, which is pretty comparable to the prior year. You know, just getting some feedback on whether we you know, that's that seems high, medium or low. And then again, just just looking at bill position. So just would would would love to hear some feedback on that. And then if there's anything that felt that went well, or change, we just, you know, some feedback as we start to prepare The other thing I just did also wanted to mention is that staff had met with BTAC in the middle of session. At their request, we did provide some updates on bills that the city was tracking that had some potential impacts on businesses. And then we also provided an end-of-year summary to BTAC. I'M JUST KIND OF PROVIDING SOMETHING. WE ARE EXPLORING, YOU KNOW, OPPORTUNITIES WITH VTAC AND OTHER CITY COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONS AND SEEING IF THERE'S OTHER OPPORTUNITIES THAT MAKE A LOT OF SENSE. SO WITH THAT, THAT IS THE END OF OUR PRESENTATION.

AND WE'LL OPEN UP TO COUNSEL.

SEVENTH.

THANK YOU FOR THE PRESENTATION. A COUPLE OF THINGS. ONE, THE BILLS THAT WENT THROUGH THAT WE HAD AN AMENDMENT STANCE ON. were the amendments we asked for put in place or were they just not, you know, it was passed anyway.

So, um, two of the bills, uh, Well, one of the bills died. So I know that one of the one was regarding the local control concerns on the lot splitting and that bill died. And the other two, Peggy, I don't believe any of our specific amendments were adopted, but I don't think our amendments were very different from what CML and other local governments were. So the short answer is I don't think it was our specific ask that were amended, but I think if anything, they would have been amended more generally.

Well, we were pretty comfortable with those amendments.

Yeah. And particularly around Senate Bill 150 was the RTD bill, which was one of our amend bills. We certainly were able to make sure kind of part of the key. One of the things we wanted to do was say that these should be elected positions and not appointed positions that I think really went to the heart of the bill. So that was always going to be a tough one to do. But some of the things we were able to push for was to make sure that ridership wasn't the determining factor. So it wasn't Denver centric. It was something that held Adams County and Thornton and the communities outside of the Denver area and making sure that those communities had an impact and had influence on RTD. So that I think was successful. The one around the Lethality Assessment Act, that was one that the majority leader was bringing a bill, and this was one of the victim's advocates bill. And again, I think part of what they wanted to do in that bill was make sure that there weren't advocates that were associated with a particular legal government bill. which of course was the very thing we were trying to do. So that one we weren't successful on. But, and then the last one that Kevin mentioned, the lot splitting, you know, we talked about on that one, should we oppose it? Should we try to amend it? Good news is the bill died. And I think that was the heart of where most folks were really on that bill anyway.

Good. Next question. I know at a high level, the ballot initiative is trying to be pushed, like they're trying to push it through, and it sounds like it's probably going to get put on the ballot anyway. Does that affect local municipalities as well, or is that more of just the state level road maintenance in general?

175 i do not know the impact on local government my understanding is it's very state-based um that certainly has been the discussion down at the legislature was making sure that some of those funds are going to roads and bridges um but i'm not sure if there's a if there's a local government portion of that ballot initiative but we can certainly check on that for sure and i've read through it and i haven't seen anything in government governments yeah

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

Make sure we're not on the fine print somewhere.

Yeah, right.

Do you have questions? I'll just feedback. I think timing every other week is brave. Um, first time seeing, you know, obviously sitting in the state for the first time and seeing the legislative update, it is a, it's a lot. Yeah. Uh, so it's, I think that biweekly is super helpful, uh, just to keep up, but all the information super helpful. Um, so keep that up and, you know, I think as far as priorities go for next year, we can, obviously it'll be a topic for next year, but I think there'll maybe be some adjustments in that or at least a discussion around that as well.

Really appreciate your summaries. That cranks down on a lot of information, even stuff that we're not tracking. So it's really helpful.

Good. Yeah, I'd agree. Those emails that you would send us in between meetings were extremely helpful. Good. Good. I'm glad.

Anyone else?

Thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you. Happy summer. All right. Private activity.

So we are going to hang on, try to grab you on one federal issue.

Oh, you're right. Thank you.

So, yes, just one quick topic we wanted to discuss was a grant guidance rule. The Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, recently published a proposed rule which would rewrite the uniform guidance, which basically governs nearly almost every federal grant, cooperative agreement, and pass-through award. The changes, if adopted, would be put into effect October 1st of this year. As fairly typical, I would say, with the federal rulemaking process, there definitely were a lot of comments. I think there were about 341,000 comments submitted, particularly on this rule. So in terms of what the rule itself would do, the OMB did state that their Their purpose for their proposal would be to improve transparency and accountability, elevate OMB edicts from guidance to actual formal regulations, and then hope to reduce regulatory burden on both the federal grant administrators and also grantees. So there are some concerns with some of the provisions and some of the impacts on local governments that we just wanted to highlight, particularly around the increase on administrative burden on local governments. Some of the new provisions would expand compliance on local governments regarding oversight of expectations for pass-through entities administering subawards. So it could potentially increase risk for formula-funded programs managed by both the state and local governments. So there's some more administrative burdens put on through that piece there. And then the other piece is it would allow granting agencies the authority to add or remove specific conditions throughout the grant performance period, so in the middle of the grant, based on risk factors. However, there's no real guidance on what risk factors there may be, so it's a little bit ambiguous, which makes for some potential extra burden and some uncertainty through the grant process. THERE'S ALSO SOME CONCERNS AROUND SOME UNCERTAINTY ON FUNDING. THE NEW PROPOSED RULE WOULD ALLOW AGENCIES TO TERMINATE A GRANT AWARD DURING THE ACTUAL GRANT PERIOD, SO MID GRANT, IF THE GRANT WAS DETERMINED TO NO, THE AWARD WAS NO LONGER ALIGNING WITH PROGRAMS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH POLICIES IN EFFECT AT THAT TIME. And then finally, I think there is some concern that the new proposal could potentially further politicize federal grantmaking, where it's been seen as a little bit more administrative. So one of the areas in the proposal would allow agencies to consider an applicant's history of questionable practices in quotes. They didn't really provide guidance on what questionable practice means, so it is a bit open to interpretation. And then recipients are expected to adapt to executive orders, even though they're not codified. So, you know, those could change in a performance period as well. And then finally, just it is introducing some pre-issuance review, meaning that as part of the broader merit review process, typically that is handled by career subject matter experts, but political appointees would be a part of that process now, which would potentially impact the selection of funding. YOU KNOW, WITH THOSE CONCERNS, THERE ARE ALSO SOME PORTIONS OF THE PROPOSAL THAT, YOU KNOW, POTENTIALLY COULD MAKE APPLYING FOR AND MANAGING GRANTS EASIER. SO THEY ARE LOOKING TO SIMPLIFY THE NOFO. SO BASICALLY MAKING A REQUIREMENT THAT NOFO NOTICE OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES SHOULD BE WRITTEN IN PLAIN LANGUAGE. SO, YOU KNOW, MAKING SURE THAT IT'S NOT JUST TECHNICAL JARGON. They are asking that executive summaries in the NOFOs be limited to no more than 500 words. So trying to make it a little bit more, again, a little bit more easy to read. And then that NOFOs have to be posted for at least 30 days, giving people adequate time to review it and decide whether or not they want to. apply. And then finally, the proposal is encouraging agencies to ensure that NOFOs are accessible to a broad range of applicants. So with all that being said, you know, the city can certainly submit comments to the Federal Register. we can write a letter to our delegation expressing our concerns, or we could even ask and or ask our delegation to submit our comments on our behalf. So just wanted to bring this to your awareness and then see if city council had any direction.

The only thing I would add is I think many of you have seen communication from CML encouraging cities to express opposition. So CML, I think, has taken a position and is encouraging members to take a position.

Yeah, I think it's looking at it, they're making it easier to apply, but then easier to take it away right in the middle of the project. So I do think we should support CML's role in whatever we can do to make sure that we get that opposition out there.

True. Agree, letter of opposition, whatever we can do to express our ideas or dissatisfaction with certain parts of that.

Is there any objection to that approach? whatever way you think is easiest, probably it's all of the above. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.

And next up, we do have private bonds and Chelsea will bring this forward as she comes forward. This is an allocation that the city gets each year. So we'll both be talking about the applications that came in for assignment of these bonds and both the perspective things in terms of 2026 and some recommendations we have to reallocate prior allocations that were not able to be used.

All right. As Tansy mentioned, this is a little more complex than we're used to for private activity bonds, but I think we'll have an exciting finish. So... We're going to obtain hopefully direction from council on reassigning and assigning private activity bonds. I'll bring you an overview of private activity bonds. We're going to review 24 and 25 reassignments, review the 2026 assignment and the proposed projects related to those. Then we'll provide our staff recommendations and field any questions and hopefully receive direction from council. So in our overview, private activity bonds, tax-exempt municipal bonds allocated by the state to the city, and then they're issued to qualified entities like a maker housing partner to finance projects for public benefit, such as affordable housing and public facilities. Private activity bonds are not cash. They're bonds. And the interest earned on the bonds by the investor who takes them on, they're tax-exempt. So that's how they're earning their money. allowing the receiving entity, like a maker housing, to access lower cost capital, a lower cost loan. The bonds are then repaid by the qualified entity, maker, for example, not the city. They are allocated by DOLA to the city. We need to get everything packaged, approved, and submitted by September 15th. And the private activity bonds need to be used within three years once they're issued. So just a quick history, but you've got the full accounting in your packet. But last year in 25, we had 9.4 million. We allocated that to Related Affordable to renovate Dawson Square Apartments. There's 36 units existing primarily. In 24, going back another year, we had 9 million roughly. We assigned that to Maker to construct the Claude Court apartments, the 80 units there. In 23 and 22, Maker received them to do their amazing remodel and rehab of Overlook apartments. In 21, Chaffa received them for first-time homebuyer assistance. So that's a quick five-year review of the kinds of things that we've done in the past with the bonds assignments. So looking back at the recent history of 2024, those went to Maker Housing Partner again for Claude Court, but it was not approved. So they're going to expire next year. So we need to address that this year in order to use them. Then in 25, we provided related affordable developers to renovate DASA Square apartments. Maker is issuing bonds for related affordable. By July now, it looks like maybe by August of 26. And the project will start in just a few months. So they're ready to go. A little more recent history is we had federal policy changes that permanently dropped the private activity bond match requirement for LIHTC funds, the low income housing tax credits. And this is amazing. The requirement dropped So the match required was 50%. Now it's only 25%. This doubles the capacity of our private activity bonds, which is wonderful. So looking at our recommendations for the reassignments of the 24 and 25 years, we would take the 25 funds, and I get into the numbers and details a little later, and give them to Dawson Square. Because they're ready to go and they'll use them up right away. So we're not going to risk losing them. And parterre, they would get the remaining portion because they're also ready to go pretty quickly. Then because now Dawson Square, who got 25 bonds, now does not need the 25 bonds because they're getting 24. The rest would go to parterre to completely fund their request. and we can fully fund the June grass project, which I'll be getting into details on these. So there's some shuffling around, but we get them used, we get them used on time and we get it to bring in projects that were coming in this year that we didn't have enough private activity bonds for, but we do if we go back and use them this way. So a quick summary then, there's the year assigned, the original allocation amount, the developers we originally assigned them to and the project name, that's all in the green. On the orange side, we propose to reallocate them to the project name, the amount of the reallocation, how many units they would be working on, and their estimated start date. So we would take related, affordable for 6.5 million in bonds. Reuter Walton would get 2.5 in bonds, and they're going to start in Q1 of 27. Then for the 25 funds, we'll finish up what Reuter Walton requested. with the 25 funds, a portion, and then Maker Housing Partner would get for their June grass project, the 6.8 million in bonds for a 72 unit. So just looking at some numbers here, the old plan, we had 116 units. New plan, 288 units. So this is 170 unit gain. And then for 2026, we're looking at kind of a total package, just kind of as a domino effect, if you would. So we've got what I explained for 24 and 25. And then we bring in the Cornerstone project that applied also this year. And they would be bringing in 192 units of affordable housing. The total is 480 by reshuffling and reworking these three years of private activity bonds, plus the additional change in federal regulations that makes them double their value. So that's how we're getting to this 480. There's 480 new units minus the 36 remodeled units from Dawson Square. So we're not recommending, and I'll be getting to this, Maker submitted two projects. The second project is called Sheryl Wood. It's outside the city boundaries, and we're out of private activity bonds at this point. They're further out when they want to do their project, and so they do have time to apply for 2027 for next year bonds. if we wanted to pursue that one.

Real quick before we move on, Justin had a question.

Yes, I was just, could you remind us real quickly what qualifies as affordable, like what the AMI range is on ones that qualify for these private activity bonds?

You bet. Typically under 70%. When I go through each project, I'll have their spread of, usually it's between 30% and 60% of area median income. but I've got each one identified as we go forward.

Okay. Thank you.

Sure. All right. So we have a process to this. We get the allocation from DOLA early in the year, and then we advertise, we send out for letters of interest to come in. We directly invited 76 affordable housing organizations and developers to Those letters, and we advertise in other locations, but the letter of interest were due in April. Three organizations responded with four programs. Staff then reviewed those project descriptions, benefits to the city, timeliness, financial packaging, risk levels to the city, organizational experience, and then we scored and make recommendations. So the scores wound up like this. So Cornerstone scored the highest at 100. This is out of 145 total points. Parterre Garden North 97.5, Junegrass 87.5, and Sherrill Wood 65. And in your packet, you have a very detailed analysis of each. um, scoring matrix and how they were scored. So let's take a look at parterre North. This is the Reuter Walton project 5.1 million. It's located at East, uh, or not East E four 70 in Quebec street, 180 units, two to four bedrooms. So two, three and four bedrooms will be serving at least 540 residents. I think they underestimated that. And they're looking to, um, serve residents with a 40% to 60% area median income. Many of these include clubhouse, swimming pool, fitness center, playgrounds, dog run, pet-friendly outdoor areas, locational advantages, easy E470 access near the golf course, close to Orchard Town Center, premium retail outlets, and also near Trailwinds Rec Center. Their project will begin, like I mentioned, Q1 of next year. Here's a map.

Go ahead. Cheryl, thanks for this presentation. Quick question on Garden North. I'm assuming this is the case, but it didn't specify. Are these apartments?

Yes.

Are all of them apartment buildings?

Sherwood has a blend of uses, and we'll cover that. All of these are apartments, yes. Two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments. So looking at the Rudewald and Parterre Garden North project, the red dot there, that's the 23 acres. They'll be working on the left side there. Master Plan Community partnering with Maker on this one to help issue the bonds and some other benefits they can receive. This is in the northern part of the city, which is a desire of the city to kind of not concentrate these more affordable units. And they're larger. units, four units, a lot of them. And that helps with larger families and multi-generational families. They received the score of 97.5. Cornerstone, they asked for the full 2026 allotment, 10,637,000 in bonds. They're at 142 in York, west of the tracks, 192 units, family focus, one to four bedrooms. They anticipate serving over 1,000 residents with an AMI between 30% and 60%. Amenities are significant, community room, business center, elevators, fitness center, picnic areas, pot lot, dog parts, sport court, playgrounds, bicycle parking, rentable garages and storage, washer, dryer in each unit. And they also, their history over the years, they provide through their management company EMPOWERMENT SERVICES, EVICTION PREVENTION, BUYING A FIRST HOME, THOSE KIND OF BUDGETING, THOSE KIND OF SERVICES FOR THEIR RESIDENTS. IT'S CLOSE TO I-25. WITHIN TWO MILES OF A LOT OF RETAIL, RESTAURANTS, GROCERIES, AND SERVICES ADJACENT TO THE FUTURE RTD LIGHT RAIL STATION, CONSTRUCTION IS LOOKING TO BEGIN Q3 OF 27, SO ABOUT A YEAR. So this is their site that they're looking at. This is part of the city's transit-oriented design. It's going to be three stories. It has, of course, near RTD bus stops. And they will be holding, and this is fairly unique and good, in my opinion, a few units for households that are at 20% and above. So if we have some special circumstances with folks who need affordable housing, but they have a very low income at this stage, this would be, this is a great set aside for those apartments, a few units. And they scored 100. Real quick, Ben?

They're estimating 1,092 people. Residence in 192 units. And they're one through four bedroom as far as? One through four, yeah. Averaging like five people per apartment, it seems like a lot.

They're very family focused on this one. So they may have come in a little high, too, on their estimations. So then this is Maker Housing Partners, Sherrill Wood Project. They're asking for $4 million. Did I do June grass already? Not yet. Let's see. OK, I'm going the wrong way. No, I'm still going the wrong way. Sorry, guys. I'll figure this out. I'm sorry. Can you get me back, Kristen? I'm not going where I think. Thank you. OK. There we go. Went through Cornerstone. OK, there we go. So JuneGrass is Maker Housing Partners project. They're at 12221 Washington Street. Do you know where the Innovage senior apartments are? They bought Innovage. They bought that building and they bought the one next to it. And they're going to manage them together as one unit. It's 72. The new construction will be for 72 units for seniors, one and two bedrooms. They believe they'll serve 92 Thornton senior residents with an income range of 30 to 70% AMI. Amenities, community lounge, kitchen, fitness center, rooftop patio, planning greenhouse, multi-activity room, wellness room, and various outdoor spaces. Advantage is it's less than a half a mile to the East Lake Rail Station and three RTD stops. It's on trails and it's very nicely located to retail and service centers over on 120th. Construction on this one will be Q3 of 28th. This is the lot right to the left of the current InnovAge building, which is now called Junegrass. And Maker is one of our historical partners in affordable housing development. It's a four-acre site, four stories with a flat roof, purchased from InnovAge, and they'll operate together. Similar neighboring land uses. To the left is another senior complex. The north is Reynolds. a score of 90. Their second project they submitted was for Sherrill Wood. Outside of the city, 60 units for seniors, 62 plus, serving 30 to 60% AMI. Playground, picnic shelter, grill, community lounge, kitchen, fitness center, rooftop patio, multi-activity room, small library, and informal media spaces are the amenities they're proposing. Locational advantages here. It is near an RTD bus stop, easy access to 25 and 36. It's near retail, restaurants, groceries, pharmacy, appliances, equipment, essential services. And we point these things out just so they're not in a food desert. They're not in a place that doesn't have transportation, those kinds of things. Construction there would be Q2 of 28. Their location is here. It's a 7.5 acre site. This is when they're breaking into three-story multifamily, one-story multiplex, and two-story townhomes. So it's going to be different construction, different units. These are rentals. The water and sewer will come through the city. It was formerly owned, this property, by the city, and it received a score of 65. So the benefits of reassigning and assigning all this We increased the supply by 480 units roughly. This is our shortage as identified in 2022 was 3,218 lower income units. This would accomplish 15% lockdown as affordable in 2026 or yeah, 2056, sorry, 2056. Housing adjacent to public transit and trails, seniors are accommodated in several of these developments. specifically housing to accommodate the physically disabled as well is an accommodation for those senior homes. Families of four that earn less than $86,400 would be able to utilize these, live in these housing units. The households of one earning less than $60,480. would be able to live in these units. Larger apartments are again focused for larger family and multifamily generation. All setups and high density housing is a goal that we're meeting and it's diffused the housing throughout the city. Another big benefit is we now have three new housing development partners that we've been working with and working on for the past year, year and a half. We have some alternatives. The first one is, of course, accept staff recommendations. The second, and this is for the reassignments only, is to allow maker to reassign the 24 bonds at their discretion. They can use for, this could be used for a project outside the city, but likely would be within the county. It could be within the city. We don't know, but the projects they've got on board right now look to be outside the city and they would have to get it done quickly. Private activity bond assignment alternative. So we, for 26 assignment, accept the staff recommendation, split the bonds between multiple projects and give them partials. Assign them to CHAFA for homebuyer assistance. We've done that in the past. Or allow the private activity bonds just simply revert back to DOLA by not submitting them by the deadline. And then they would be used at their discretion statewide. Okay. Questions in any direction?

Thank you for the presentation. My questions, I guess, were given that we have a little over 800 current available rentals, 600 houses for sale, would adding the extra 480 rentals HAB-Jacques Juilland- Really do a huge dent as far as what's needed for the public, more so than the afford like the assistance for home buying I asked because i'm. HAB-Jacques Juilland- My personal opinion on this is that in 2016 2018 2019 2021 I did the city gets more benefit from doing it as a as a home buyer assistance program instead because then. HAB-Jacques Juilland- The direct correlation there's that we have more people buying live in our city and in. building out that home equity and wealth and competing back to, or completing more of a wealth increase for our actual residents. So I think that's a more beneficial approach. So I personally would go with option three as far as reallocation. Love to hear the other side of it.

So the 2026 assignment to Chaffa? Correct. What about for the 24 and 25?

The 24, since we're going to be losing it soon now, I think that's fine to go with recommendations. But I think for the 26, I think we should reallocate for that site. It's been five years since we've done it, too, so it would be a big jump for that.

I would agree. I obviously work in real estate, and so one of the biggest things I hear from first-time homebuyers is, is that their income is okay, but they have a really hard time getting the down payment for the property they're trying to pursue. Thornton does have one of the lowest average sales presence for the metro areas. First-time homebuyers. And of course, like your trade down, you know, right-sizing, you know, senior community as well, which I know in this sense, like the down payment system doesn't apply. But I am curious because it looks like we had a pretty significant number of Jordan residents that were served through CHAFA in, you know, 2017, 2019, 21. Do you know how much of that, HAB-Jacques Juilland, House like dollar amount fun wise that was each of those years.

HAB-Masyn Moyer, That would be in the table, so let me take a look. HAB-Masyn Moyer, So for Jaffa it was 7.9 million in bonds were issued.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, Sorry to rephrase or declare my question, not just what was allocated, but how much was used.

HAB-Masyn Moyer, Out per unit I don't know it's it's there's different things that the state does with certifications for to be able to qualify for the down payment and then. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I can find out for you.

It'd be interesting. I know last year with CDBG, we had issues with no down payment assistance partner. I assume those are separate issues. With this one, we had a track record of serving quite a few Thornton residents as first-time homebuyers. To Devin's point, equity building and investing in the community, this is an incredible way to do that. I am okay with reallocating 2026 for that purpose. I do have concerns with Cornerstone. I'm just learning about this development as a result of the slides. But I know that with the stamp and all those things kind of playing out, I'm hesitant to allocate money towards a plan that maybe doesn't fit the future stamp that's being updated. So I just want to bring that up as a concern of mine.

So you're saying option one for 24-25 and option three for 26?

Yes. That's what I'm thinking. Thanks.

Yeah, my question is about the discussion on allocating them to CHAFA for homebuyer assistance. So when we do that, is there a way to assure that it goes to Thornton? specifically Thornton residents who are first-time homebuyers, or does that just kind of go into a block for the whole state?

No, it would be just for Thornton purchase of homes. And just to mention that CHFA, they didn't come to us and ask for the funds, and we haven't gone to them saying we'd like the funds, so we'd have to pull this together very quickly and get it in by September 15th, so. Not sure if it's even possible, but I can check into it for sure.

I'm sorry, the first part you said CHFA hasn't come to us specifically for the funds, but they're always looking for more funds or this is something that they can handle, right?

Ongoing long-term program that we could to see if they're interested.

Okay.

So what is your suggestion?

No, I was just thinking about it. No, I think my recommendation is to go with the staff's recommendation on the plan. I think there's a lot of good elements to the plan and the You know, I am a bit concerned over, you know, doing a quick turnaround to get it in time. The concern that was just shared with us could be a problem and put it at risk. You know, I think the worst outcome is having to go back to DOLA to be distributed as DOLA sees fit throughout the state. And so I just want to make sure that we're able to get those funds to help out Thornton residents. So I think that plan that the staff has put together already ensures that and minimizes that risk.

All right. Chris or Cherish? I agree with Justin.

I think that we should do the staff recommendation, especially after she was good about the chapter.

I don't know if we can do it soon.

If we even get involved with chapter and go in that route, the deadline approaching that, you know, what would be the alternative to the funds? So if we can't pull together for chapter quick enough by September 16, 15, do the other options still present an opportunity as a fallback?

I mean, that is a legal question. If it's even available to set it up that way.

Yeah, Erica responded up.

So I guess. This is currently scheduled to all three resolutions are currently scheduled to come to council at the end of the month. We would still have August. So we could like, if council give the direction, we could proceed with 24 and 25 reallocations as scheduled. And at the end of July, and then we could communicate with Chaffa to see if, They can. And I think they likely can put something together because I think, I mean, they do this for other communities as well. And just looking back, I think Council Member Morris' question was about how many people get this homebuyer's assistance when we do give it to them. Just looking at the chart at the end of the package. 2018, we had 7 million, and that served 72 households. 2019, 7.2 million, 102. And then in 2020, which as Councilmember Byrd pointed out, was the last time, or 2021, the last time we did work with Chaffa for the home buyer assistance. That was 7.9 million and 66 residents, households were assisted. So this is a larger number, 10 million. You guys can speak more to the market right now than I can as far as if that's gonna help more people than it did in 2021 or less. But I think what we could do is we could proceed. This is a very long winded answer. I apologize. We could proceed with the 24 and 25 reallocations. And then we would still have time in August. If, if you, you wanted to consider the Chaffa home assistance or the cornerstone project as staff recommended.

Can I ask a question about the number? So I saw that number, I think 66 was in one of the most recent ones. When I look at. you know, 66 times $50,000 as like a down payment assistance, which is a pretty large number. That's only like three and a half million. So I guess what I'm getting at is how much, of the allocated funds do we actually use? Because I know we were allocated that amount. Do we use all of it or do we have to return a portion of it? The reason that number is because that helps us figure out, okay, what is there a slush fund, so to speak, that we move into something else?

Just taking a percentage and applying it somewhere else. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's really what I was getting at. So hopefully I clarified something.

Yeah. It's going to be based on the description I gave earlier. It's just the lower cost of providing this service. The down payment assistance is what's the benefit of the bonds are to the state. And then whoever buys those bonds is getting tax-free interest earned. So it depends on the interest rate. It depends on a lot of what's going on with the issuance and what they're for, I'm assuming, on that last part. You know, that's the fact that it's going to be different amounts year to year to year to year is not unusual. Sure. Okay.

Well, thank you.

And when we reach out to Jaffa regarding feasibility, I think that's a question we can ask, you know, how, how can we demonstrate how much of the 7.9 million cap was used for this 66? So we'll we can try and collect that information.

So given that, Chris, what is your leading?

I was trying to go the route of CHAPA in previous years. So being in real estate, I agree with Council Member Morris on 2026. I would like to take the shot of trying to get more homeowners because it is the biggest hurdle to down payment. My brother, when he bought his home, used CHAPA. So, you know, it's been utilized in my family. As far as the 24 and 25 that they sign it, I think except the staff recommendation, I have one asterisk of concern that it's just because part tear is part tear. So if we go this path and then things erupt maybe in that manner, now we're in a situation that we've reallocated to something that's Maybe have a stall.

And then I think Devin's point, you know, now we haven't reallocated within the timeframe to a useful project.

So that partner is what scares me a little bit there, but I don't, that's a whole nother executive session in order to get to that answer.

If I could, you certainly don't have to give all 10 million to a bonds to Jaffa. We could do enough to satisfy part tears request and the rest to Jaffa, which would be, high $7 million in bonds.

And the development partner in this case is a developer we have not worked with in the past, right?

Correct. They've been in business throughout Omaha, Nebraska, and they've been in business for 32 years. They've got projects here for Arvada, Colorado Springs, and they're taking a look at the Arvada one. They're very nice. But they've worked in Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Texas. This is Cornerstone that you're talking about. Cornerstone, yeah.

And you asked Parterre.

Parterre, the Parterre partner. Parterre, okay. So Parterre is out of Minnesota. They work also in Montana. They've developed 48 ground-up projects spanning 5 million square feet and 5,500 units, over $2 billion in value. And they came to us in February for this project. So I did a cursory search on them, and they didn't find anything hugely negative. But that's all we really have on Ruta Welton.

So just to be more explicit, because I think these are, maybe Cheryl's not, Heinz was the master developer and then they have sold, they're selling off pieces of that to other developers that are developing sub pieces. So this developer, again, would be a new developer in the context of development at Partair. There's multiple different developers doing different parts of the project of Partair.

So final answer, because you threw a wild card out there, of splitting between Chaffee and Cornerstone. Cornerstone was the highest scored on our positive scoring as well.

So that is one option. But I was saying related, a Reuter-Walton's project would need to be satisfied. because they would only receive half of what they're asking with the 20, let me think for a sec, 24, and then the other half out of 25. So I guess it would be satisfied. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I was thinking they had to come out at 26 as well.

I'd be open to that too, throwing some to CHAPA and then partially supporting those highest scoring projects that we had as well. instead of throwing off into them. Satisfied needs across the board. Thought on that comment.

We have two others that have hit their button too. I hate buttons, Drew. Roberta?

I like the last idea that Chris just said.

Cherish?

I think the apartments will provide assistance to more people. And so let's split it.

I think that's a novel idea. I would like to know, because again, if we're giving money to Chaffa, we want to make sure that we're giving enough to actually serve even higher number of residents that we have in the past years that we've done the Chaffa assistance. Before agreeing to the new or additional proposal, I'd love to know what is that kind of number that we need to hit with Chaffa to make it seem like we're exporting as many or more Thornton Road stuff potentially with Chaffa down payment assistance. And that could be $8 million, you know, and then $2 million is what goes to, you know, a big course number or not.

So to wrap it up, and I know you want to jump in too, is that it seems like there's agreement on the 24-25 allocation to go with option one. There's a few more outstanding questions on what those proposals could be for the 2026, but some combination between CHAFA and the cornerstone look likely. Is that what you were going to say?

Yeah, what I was going to suggest, we actually end up in August with National Night Out having limited times for future meetings. Cheryl, we'll be back with you next Tuesday to talk about Community Development Block Grant. So we may be able to refine an option. It will be a pretty quick turnaround. It's unlikely we could get any of that into the packet for Thursday. but we could try to have potentially at such point with Jaffa and potentially some more nuanced options that you could discuss when Cheryl is here next Tuesday. And part of the CDBG recommendations also speak to some potential first-time home buyer opportunities as well. So that will be an opportunity to sort of thread that into the conversation as well.

That sounds like a reasonable plan. Thank you. Thank you. All right. And we have about 14, 13 minutes left and we need to break before we get to the chambers. So Council Policy 4.2.

Yes. So this is a second discussion for you. So we can actually, much of this presentation is the same as we saw it previously. So just a reminder, the Mayor Portem asked us to discuss the dust off of a policy that hadn't been updated for quite a while and just reflect the current practice that exists. So there were some outdated references, things that were called different things and the other points. We did get a lot of feedback and some questions the last time that we discussed this. So we did make some refinements to this policy to try to be even more intentional and explicit with references to processes that exist. So I'm wondering if you could just jump ahead to some of the changes that we made and then ultimately we can answer any questions. Again, the intent here was just to record what actually exists in practice today. Ultimately, if there's direction to the council, this is your policy and I articulate your expectations for each other and for staff. And so we're happy to reflect any direction that the council would like to give. Not to cut Rob Kolstad, deputy city manager, out of his presentation and his hard work.

What she said.

In the interest of time.

Any questions?

None. I read through it. I mean, Honestly, it's what we were practicing since I've been on council. So this is just putting it into writing. I was unaware of the old one. That was the first time I saw that when I looked at the packet. So I was putting it in writing how we've been operating for the last few years. So I don't have any issues with it. That's all I know.

Any objection to the changes? All right, so we'll bring it forward at a future meeting.

Why are you looking at me, Rob?

I ain't looking at nobody. Bless you.

I think that was the fastest presentation on record. You need your homework. All right. Is there anything we need to do before we break? Anything that anyone wants to bring up? All right, we will break and see you, Chambers, in 10 minutes.