Affordable Housing Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

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. We

can do a reordering then.

Yeah. I think we should go ahead and have the presentation. Is that okay? Do we need to if we can't vote on anything until we have a

sixth person, is that right?

The manager's agenda, so

But we can go ahead and okay. Yep. Alright. Great.

It's all you, Ryan.

Awesome. Okay. Well, that was the first time I've done a virtual pledge of allegiance, so that was cool. Let's see here. Alright. He

was saying microphone for you, Andrew, if you speak.

Can you all see that okay?

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Yes. Awesome. Alright. Well, good evening. It is great to be with you all. My name is Ryan Kinwiss. I'm policy analyst with the Florida Housing Coalition. Some of you may be, familiar with what we do, but we're a statewide nonprofit, that provides technical assistance, training, on all policies, programs related to affordable housing. So that can touch on land use, funding, more programmatic things. So, so yeah.

And before, I've been with the coalition for about a year now. I work primarily, within land use and policy and some legislative affairs. But prior to coming over to the coalition, I was with the Florida Housing Finance Corporation for, about eight years. That's the state's, HFA or Housing Finance Authority. Working in multifamily programs, kind of on the finance side of things, and then doing some public policy work there as well.

So been in affordable housing for a good bit now most of my career. So, the reason why I'm here today talking with y'all is to give an overview of where the Live Local Act stands as of now. So to just kinda take it from the top, right, Live Local Act was originally passed in 2023, a huge piece of housing legislation. I can't overstate that. It was a generational piece of state, housing legislation.

And part of what we do at the coalition is, you know, we we contact and work with, other groups that work in affordable housing policy, in different states of the country. And, you know, come to find out that the Live Local actually was, an exemplary, piece of legislation that has gotten a lot of national attention. So where we're gonna start off here is, well, you have property tax policies, and you also have land use policies to live local. Right? And where we stand right now is, passing 2023, we had some amendments to live local last year, what they called the glitch bill, live local two point o.

And then this year, as some of you might know, the legislative session is now, in full swing. We, had our opening last week here in Tallahassee, and, to say the least, there has been a lot of legislation proposed so far that relates to housing. I won't get into that now, because there's a lot of information out there that's flying around, but happy to maybe answer some questions on that later on. So getting into the content here, just a snapshot of what we're seeing with LiveLocal. So let's start on the property tax exemption side of things.

So one of the property tax exemptions that was provided by the LiveLocal Act is called the multi family mid middle market property tax exemption. And at a high level, what this property tax exemption does, and bear with me here, there are two tiers to it. There is a lower income tier that goes from zero to 80% area median income or AMI. And if an affordable housing development, meets certain eligibility requirements, meaning, at least 70 units, and has units that are affordable at or below 80% AMI, they are entitled to a 100 property tax exemption on that unit. It's on a unit, it's on a per unit basis.

That's a 100% exemption. And then the second tier of it is the 80 to a 120% AMI. Those units are entitled to a 75% property tax exemption in state law. Now when the amendments to live local came about last year, there was significant amendments to this property tax exemption from local governments, because they raised a lot of really fair talking points, and it was a really, you know, unproven, mechanism. And depending on the market you were in, going up to a 120% AMI, for some local governments just wasn't the affordability that was worth the property tax hit to them understandably.

So, the legislature granted the opportunity for certain local governments to opt out. So far, we have been keeping track of this. There have been 29 local governments, as of earlier this week that have opted out of providing that 80 to 120%, that upper level threshold, property tax exemption. So you can see there on your screen, that's the local governments around the state who have opted out so far. Now the eligibility for local governments to opt out, is that you have to have, well, this this property tax exemption is a little in the weeds, but, I'm gonna try to explain it fully.

So to be eligible to opt out, a local jur a jurisdiction needs to be located in an MSA, or a metropolitan statistical area, that has a surplus, that's shown to have a surplus of housing, at that 120% AMI level, basically showing that you don't have a need for it. And that's determined by the Schoenberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida. They have an annual report that the legislature provided that they put out each year in December. So, per that annual report, that's how you determine which local governments can opt out. Happy to answer more questions on that later because I know that was kind of in the weeds.

Three local governments have enacted the local option property tax exemption at or below 60% AMI, Jacksonville, Saint Petersburg, and Saint Lucie County. And as a quick, reminder, that local option property tax exemption is for, what it's it's exactly what it says. Local governments have the option to enact a, local affordable housing property tax exemption multifamily developments that provide a certain number of units at or below 60% AMI. And really quick, that's just a snapshot around the state of some of the towns and cities and jurisdictions that have enacted local policies or ordinances in the books, for the land use mandate for the Live Local Act. Now land use mandate for the Live Local Act is what has gotten the most buzz, the most news, I would say, from the Live Local Act since it passed in 2023, and that is what allows, that's what allows multifamily development to occur, just through administrative approval process in areas that are zoned commercial, industrial, or mixed use.

Now, the minimum requirements for that are that 40% of the units have to serve at or below 120% of the area median income. That's it. There are no minimum size requirements, just that 40% of the units serve at or below 120% AMI. So these numbers that you see here, they're the best bet we have right now to show impact so far, and that's because, right now, as it's currently in state law, the Live Local Act, does not have any tracking requirements. There's no state agency, right, that's, required to oversee how this is being used where.

There are no requirements for local governments to report this or really keep keep tabs on it in any way. So, keeping track of this has really been a, you know, kind of a a grassroots, informal way of, taking in information. So it's just hard pulls of data from news alerts, word-of-mouth through our from our partners, around the state, and combing through, local, agenda items for local governments. So this is not in any way conclusive, but at a minimum, if anything, it's it's more than this. This is what's being provided around the state, as a result of this tool.

And, this provides a little overview of specific jurisdictions in the state that are seeing the highest utilization so far. And, you know, it's not conclusive. There there may be jurisdictions out there that have more proposals than this that we're just not aware of. But, not surprisingly, South Florida has seen, a bulk of these proposals, Miami and the Miami Dade County area, as well as Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, Hillsborough, really the areas of the state that you would expect to see, the most activity on that front. And, again, that's just a a quick little overview of jurisdictions that have at least one, application for approval for using that land use mandate.

And, again, after this, I I'm happy to, I've already provided a copy of the PowerPoint to, to Andrew, but I'm, more than happy to send this to anyone who's interested, and I also have some more resources that I'll get into later. Here's a just a little, look at some of the specific examples of proposed affordable housing developments that are seeking to use this land use tool. There's nothing to really read into too much here. I just wanted to find some, you know, kind of neat examples for you guys to get an idea of, kind of the diverse uses we're seeing of this around the state. So as you can see, you know, Sarasota, Miami Dade has a few enormous proposals.

Just a huge amount of units that are being proposed, especially near the Palmetto Metro Rail Station as you see there. Osceola County is a good example. Especially what they're doing there is really neat is that they're having it located near SunRail Station, and it's deeply affordable. So it's all gonna be for seniors at or below a 100 or 80% AMI, excuse me, with a forty or a fifty year affordability commitment. So we are seeing examples of developers using this tool and providing affordability that does go beyond, the minimum that's required in law, which is a 120% AMI.

We are seeing examples that go below that. And here are a few more examples around the state. That Walton County one is a a really interesting one, especially given its mixed uses. And innovative sale funds. So, I guess, really quick, what is the sale program?

It's a state apartment incentive loan program. It's a it's a Florida based, funding program. It comes from the Sadowski Housing Trust, and that is tied to SHIP. Revenue, Doc Stamp Text tax revenue, portion of that goes to fund, the SAIL program. What the SAIL program does is it's a multifamily affordable housing funding resource, that's administered or put out by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.

So I used to play a role in getting some of the sale funds out the door, in Tallahassee. And the legislature, as part of the Live Local Act, for a period of ten years, is allocating a total amount of a $150,000,000 in sale funding for FHFC to get out there in the world for certain purposes that were put out there by the legislature. And this is an overview of what we're seeing so far, FHFC is funding with these units. And we are seeing that a good portion of these units are serving at or below 80% AMI. Getting close to the end here, try to give a, you know, a really quick overview and leave a little bit of time for questions.

But really where we're at right now is that there's a lot more research that's needed, especially on the land use mandate because, like I said, there's no reporting requirement, and it's difficult without a reporting requirement to really measure the impact that this, this new law is having around the state. So one thing that we're doing at the coalition, right now is we're working on, trying to look at site analysis for these proposed low local projects to see, hey, you know, are these being located really in places that are conducive, for housing, away from high risk areas, whether that's, environmental, is it close to community based resources, things like that. And, of course, pro form a analyses, how it pencils out, and then local, political implications for broader housing policies because how does this affect everything else that local governments do around affordable housing that remains to be seen. And really quick, the, Sadowski affiliates, which, which we work with closely, every Friday right now during legislative session from 11:30 to noon, They do a quick hit update on the housing bills and other legislative activity that's related to housing that's going on in session. So if you wanna register for that, I think it's a really good resource for people to have an idea of what might be coming down the pipe when it comes to housing.

There's a link to register. And like I said, I I sent the presentation to to Andrew, but happy to to send it to whoever needs it. And, there's my contact information. And I guess, I'm not sure how how much time I've taken up here, but I will say really quick just this legislative session right now has been, very active, like I said at the beginning. We are seeing new proposed, amendments to the Live Local Act here in 2025.

So what they're kind of calling in Tallahassee, the quote, unquote, Live Local three point o. So just like last year, they're gonna look at, some of the property tax policies. They're gonna look at the land use mandate, and all of that stuff is, pretty much under wraps right now, and we're trying to keep track of, what makes it in the bill and what doesn't. And, if you guys need any resources as far as, you know, this proposed legislation, I can't off the top of my head tell you exactly point by point what each of these proposed bills do because they're pretty massive, and we're still kind of soaking it in ourselves. But, my colleague Cody Blazer, who's our chief legal and policy officer, he did a a very quick, once these bills dropped last week and the week before, he did a a quick, summary, for all for each of these Live Local amendment bills that have been proposed, and I'm more than happy to share.

Those are publicly on our website, for anybody to look at, and I'm more than happy to to give you guys the links to those as well to to give you a better idea of, what potential amendments to the Live Local Act, could be coming. So, I'll stop there. I know that was, a lot of information, but but, yeah, I just wanted to take a chance to see if you guys had any any follow-up questions.

Quick one. I saw there were some of the cities in Palm Beach already participating on this program, but there have been no noise, positive or negative, toward the appreciation or use of this program. So is it very subtle? Is it very, you know, under the table? Or

Oh, no. It's it's it's not it's not under the table in any way. It's it's through so the land use mandate, I think that's what that's what you're referring to. That it has to go through an administrative approval process, but it still requires a, you know, a pretty hefty amount of local government staff oversight and and approval. It's it's definitely not, you know, under the table or anything like that.

Yeah. I think the the land use planners in this county are well aware of the provisions of live local and they're they're incorporating what they can when they can. I saw a presentation earlier today by a group. Think they may have used one of the provisions for live local for development they wanna put in Boynton, but

Boynton Beach in

this list. Right? It's it's not tracked. So, you know, without the feedback, how do you know? Yeah. Ryan Ryan, I I have a quick question. First of all, thank you very much for the presentation. Yeah. I deeply appreciate it. I haven't had a chance to dig into the tweak bills here. I I forget what they are. It's house bill nine twenty four and forty eight or something like that. I I forget exactly.

But Yeah.

There's a there's a taxation bill, and there's a land use bill. So the tax bill is HB nine twenty three. The land use bill is HB nine forty three.

Well, the question I have, I'm not sure which if either of those bills this is in, but it was this is just I'm asking out of ignorance because I was having a conversation with somebody earlier, and they were telling me about a provision in in some legislation for ship funding for hold harmless. And I don't know if it's part of this or not, but I know that legislatively you're probably aware of it. And my understanding is that this, this provision would possibly take ship funding from some of the larger counties, in favor of some of the smaller counties. And I just I don't understand the implications of it, but I I thought that you might know, so I'm asking.

Sure. No. That's that's a great question. So that is something that's separate from Live Local. It's part of so senate president, Ben Albritton, he has made it his priority going into this legislative session, to pursue what he's calling his, rural renaissance initiative.

And, the ship distribution changes that you're referencing there are part of that proposed rural renaissance initiative that, senator Alburton has put forward. And what yeah. So so, basically, in short, you're right. What would happen as proposed right now is it would raise the the minimum SHIP allocation for smaller counties from $350,000 to $1,000,000. So that could be, you know, that like, the the effects of that are ship allocation formula, you know, obviously diverts more resources to the to the larger counties, the more populated counties.

So if this isn't if this isn't supplemented from GR or anything else like that, if it's just taking from what's already in the Sadowski Housing Trust and giving more to rural counties, then then, yeah, by extension, it would be taking away shit funding from some of the larger counties. That is correct. But it is, still, still ways to go. We're we're not sure how things are gonna shake out as far as the budget goes, and we'll see.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. And I hope that that kind of answers your question.

It it it does. It gives me a direction to go so that I can, you know, suss it out a little bit more thoroughly. But I'm personally frustrated because we only get back part of the Sadowski funding that we ship up north anyway, and that wasn't the original intent and etcetera etcetera. But thank you, Ryan. Know you share my frustration.

You bet.

Ryan, thank you for the presentation. Again, I echo Elliot Elliot's comments on that. One question that I had in terms of the restrictive covenant conditions and penalty conditions that exist in the act now for the There's the penalty provisions are triggered back to the January of the financed amount by FHFC. What portion of the capital stack does that play into? And like on what proportion of properties in terms of the compliance to maintain the affordability?

And then also my question was going to be, who is I mean, certainly the property owner developer would be responsible for making sure they comply with whatever the requirements are. But is there an outside agency that's in charge of sort of fact checking what that the units remain affordable? So two part question there.

No. No. Great question. So just to clarify, which aspect of Live Local are you referring to? Because compliance is it has been a huge talking point. Are you referring to the property tax exemptions or the the land use mandate?

No. So this was from the property tax exemption. It was the ninety nine year affordability. It's on Page four of well, the present the written presentations that we had had on the overview of Live Local. But it's under that section. Actually, page five is where Yeah. He discusses

The the ninety nine year Yeah. For nonprofits?

Yep.

Yep. That is being overseen by FHFC. That's under their rule.

And are there other organizations that are that also oversee? Different elements

of For the

for that for that specific one, no.

No. Was talking about for other elements. You know, in terms of because I think, like, some of the risks we we had one particular in in the village of Wellington, I think we had I'd seen some press that we had one unit where they had failed to continue on the on the units that were carved out for or that were supposed to to be designated, that they had, I don't know, they had failed to stay within the maximum rents allowed for those units. And so just a question. Obviously, people get concerned about when you're giving concessions to somebody for the sake of delivering affordable units, that the units remain affordable.

And so I was just curious across the legislation, what what checks we have, you know, third party for to make sure that they're remaining affordable. And then also that, what the penalty scope is, you know, absent absent the participation of as in a loan participation or providing some kind of equity that the other organizations would have. So

Yeah. No. Great question. So on the property tax side of things, that that multi family middle market property tax exemption that I'd mentioned earlier that local governments have the ability to opt out of. That compliance piece is handled by, the local property appraisers.

So they're the ones who are, confirming that the affordability is being provided as should be. But outside of that, one of the holdups or well, holdups might not be the right word for it, but, one of the issues with the local since 2023 has been, a lot of the provisions, don't provide, compliance help for local governments. It kinda puts the burden on local governments to, develop, you know, the policies and the infrastructure to be able to monitor and maintain compliance for some of these affordability provisions. And, you know, that's hard. That's that's hard for local governments, especially when, you know, they don't have the staff, they don't have the the manpower, the the the bandwidth to to be able to to take that responsibility on.

So that's something that, you know, has been, an issue for local governments trying to, set up the infrastructures, to be able to monitor affordability compliance. Now, in the past, we have provided, you know, some assistance to local governments in the forms of, you know, some sample draft land use restriction agreements that can be that can be utilized to, to maintain affordability, to kind of have a, you know, a stick, so to say. But the the punishments, I I can't actually really speak to. I I can't answer that part of your question. I apologize.

No. It's okay. One other one other question around the property taxes, where there was was was is there any incentive for the counties to actually remain, you know, to remain inside granting the exemptions? I mean, obviously, the there would be an incentive of driving more affordable product in the market, right? And so hopefully, it would help it would be a help to the residents. But I'm just thinking that in terms of the foregone revenue that might come from the property tax receipts, Is there any offset to that? Or is that just simply something that that the county has to make a business decision on that it wants affordable new affordable units sufficiently to with to forego the the property tax receipts?

Yeah. There's there's really no offset baked into it. It is a decision that comes down to the local government.

Okay. Thanks.

You bet.

Any other questions? Our chair is here, so I'll just take back after.

Oh, have no idea. Forgive me.

No. You're

good. Ryan, thanks a lot. I I didn't realize that it was up to me to thank you formally. Do do so so, you just asked whether or anybody else had any questions, and presumably, there are none.

Ryan, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Absolutely. Great talking with y'all. I will, follow-up and send some some of those resources to Andrew if they're helpful. And, yeah, you guys take

care. Alright.

Thank you anytime soon.

Yeah. It's starting to warm up here. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright.

Were you running things?

Well, we just kicked it off. We haven't

We we punted on the rest of the agenda so we can start from the beginning.

We still need the approval of

Oh, we have ten minutes. And we have a quorum.

We do now.

Have Outstanding. Okay. So I guess we'll call the meeting to order officially. And have we had the pledge yet?

We did.

Okay. I apologize for my tardiness. And I apologize for missing the pledge. I guess has everybody had a chance to review the agenda? Any discussions? Yes. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

Motion.

Second.

Alright. Any opposed? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Approved. And we've had the first presentation which is good staff comments.

Sure. I just had a few comments for tonight. So I just wanted to make sure everybody's aware that this is a three year membership on this committee, and we're gonna be sending out our reappointment letters to you in the mail. I believe for everybody except mister Bowers and miss Stevens because you were added at a later point. So your your term will be up next year.

So In the the back of your agenda packet, I had put summary of where we're at with our encumbrances on our ship funds. And we're doing well, actually. I'm happy to report that since our last meeting, we have now completed 28 projects for ship, and that's that's up from 14 at the last meeting. So we're we've gotten a lot done in the past few months. So and we're so we're planning on opening up applications again May 5, and we'll run that till till June 5.

But we've gotten a lot of interest, and we we keep it open for a month. But with the amount of applications we got the past cycle, it'll probably fill up in the first week or two. So we, we've been getting a lot of calls and a lot of feedback. It's first come, first served. So we just tell people to get their applications in. And we actually are partnering with the library. So instead of having residents complete the applications here, we've we did a training with the the library staff, and they're gonna help residents complete their applications. And that's about all I have for me.

Andrew, one question on the funding for the summary here. It looks like the funding award for the 2023, 2024 was the $709,000 It looks like the proposed funding for 2025 and 2026 is the $4.73. Was there a reason for the reduction in that funding? Or was that just based on the funding availability?

It's all based off the total funding. And the funds come from documentation taxes on on real estate transactions. So, you know, I would just say it's there's just been less real estate sales. Okay.

You're gonna

have less taxes going going into that.

Great. Any other questions? Comments from the board?

Oh, we do right. We need approval of the minutes. We did the agenda that we need.

Oh, did we? I'm sorry.

That's okay.

I missed it. Alright. So, approval of the minutes. Has everybody had a chance to review the minutes from the last meeting? No. Any comments? Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the last?

I'll move it for approval.

Second. Any

opposed? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you.

There is no public here. Is that correct? No. Correct. Alright.

And no metors. That was all. Alright.

So I guess we're we're we've we've managed to make this a thirty minute meeting is what it looks like. Outside of the agenda, is there any and I know this would have been part of the the board comments, but does anybody have any direction questions? When is the next meeting?

We have yet to set it.

Okay. Alright. Well, looks good.

Just a quick question out of curiosity based on the news right here going on Tallahassee and all these with the new proposals for do the home exemption for taxing and things like that? And what impact that's going to have then in the rest of the community, the county.

Are you asking me? Well Or you're just throwing it under the table?

Yes. I just you know, because I I saw that and I go, wait a minute. If they do away with the tax for the housings, you know. Who else where that money was going before? It was covering in many of the counties, it covers a big Yeah. Portion of the budget.

Yeah. And so My personal thoughts are that I'm not building a doghouse without really knowing what is going on. And and there are so many uncertainties in this market, and I don't see those uncertainties going away anytime soon. Everything is interconnected. You know, I I was even you this know, is just my personal opinion.

You know, was talking about opening up the applications, you know, for a month later on this year for for this work as a small builder, you know, to to look at this. I I don't know I don't know what kind of faith I would have in the capacity to make sure that I could, you know, get out with my skin. I just you know, the cost of materials is going up. The cost of labor is uncertain. You know, we're gonna be losing a lot of our labor force. So there's just there's so many elements to this equation that that that are driving uncertainty that I wouldn't know how to begin to answer that question personally. I don't even know if anybody else has any thoughts on it, but

But if I thought Well,

I think I think the one thing about the the specifically about the property tax exemption is that it's it's for new properties. So it's not for so you can't I don't think you can apply if you're an existing asset, right? That there that it would have to be a new newly built asset to receive that exemption. So I mean, could in the event that the property was taxed currently and was going to be redeveloped or something, then you're probably not going to be losing. It's not like it's gonna pull money off the rolls or not to the same extent, you know, because you would assume that I mean, unless it was a lart, like, I mean, I don't know, the mall or something like that, right, where it had a decent sized tax base already and then it was gonna be repurposed, then you would actually have a net loss, you know. But

There's still intensity of use though. I mean Yeah. There's the staff is gonna have

to Of course. Yeah. It's

But in the news today that I was looking was property taxes, you know, coming from Tallahassee was about oh, it's all property taxes, whether the it's new or old. Boom. And you were like, what?

Yeah. It doesn't make sense. It's all good now. Yeah. There's there's a lot that doesn't make sense right now.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So if that's it, is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion. Second.

Second. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Speak now.