Ad Hoc Housing Committee

CITY OF NORWALK NORWALK COMMON COUNCIL AD HOC AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMMITTEE MEETING JUNE 21ST, 2023 ZOOM conferencing ATTENDANCE: Nicol Ayers, Chairperson; Greg Burnett, Jenn McMurrer, Nora Niedzielski- Eichner, Darlene Young, Diane Revolus (late arrival) OTHERS: Aicha Woods (Fairfield Center for Housing Opportunity), Maridelka Fermin (FCCHO), Michelle Andrzejewski (P&Z) CALL TO ORDER Councilperson Ayers called the meeting to order at 6:05PM. ROLL CALL Councilperson Ayers called the roll call. A quorum was present. APPROVAL OF THE REGULAR MEETING MINUTES • February 15th, 2023 **COUNCILPERSON BURRNETT MADE THE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES AS PRESENTED. **ALL THOSE IN FAVOR - AYERS, BURNETT, NIEDZIELSKI-EICHER, YOUNG **MCMURRER ABSTAINED. **THE MOTION PASSES TO APPROVE THE FEBRUARY 15TH, 2023 MINUTES. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION No public participants spoke. PRESENTATION FROM THE HOUSING COLLECTIVE Ayer introduces the presentation being held tonight and that the committee is taking another look at the affordable housing ordinance after the ordinance committee had reviewed and made comments. They are now doing more research to answer some questions they have regarding affordable housing. Ms. Woods is here to provide more information so the committee can take next steps for the affordable housing ordinance. Ms. Woods introduces herself, she works for the Fairfield Center for Housing Opportunity which apart of The Housing Collective. They had an exhibit for affordable housing recently at the Norwalk Community College. Introduces Maridelka as an intern for The Housing Collective. Presentation focused on deed restriction for affordable housing. Ms. Woods covers the agenda of the presentation. Leading first into relevant definitions and acronyms. She provides some Norwalk facts regarding affordable housing. She explains the zoning regulations for the workforce housing program. Ms. Woods explains key variable in 8-30g-6 of the state statues. She continues Ms. Young asks Ms. Woods to explain further on the deed restriction affordability period, if town do longer or shorter of 40 years. Ms. Woods explains if could all depend on the regulations and program enacted. She’s seen it in many different forms. Ms. Young asks if the resale value of deed restricted units and how that works. Ms. Woods follows up that there are different formulas like adding a certain appreciation to be implemented in the ordinance. To support a reasonable increase in the resale value. There are also other formulas that assume the area median income with increase and the ordinance accounts for this incrementally in the resale value. Ms. Woods addresses the need to have a feasibility analysis of housing needs. She explains what should the target eligibility for the program or regulation. This includes resources like a affirmative fair housing plan. Next Ms. Woods covers equity programs and models. Like Shared equity cooperatives, community land trust, and inclusionary housing programs. FCCHO is a strategic partner with four non-profit organizations: Regional Plan Association, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, The Housing Collective, Partnership for Strong Communities. Presentation is concluded. Councilperson Ayers, open up the conversation for questions or comments from the Committee. Councilperson Revolus came in late, but asked if the presenter could just speak a little more about the appreciation formulas and how it incrementally adjust. Ms. Woods. Explains an example from California is what she found and she could share it with the committee. Councilperson Young explains the difficulty of purchasing a home outside of these deed restricted opportunities. She explains that it is also restrictive to many who buy in a program that prohibit them from creating equity and moving to the next step. She states that sometimes generational wealth and affordable housing do not add up in most cases. Ms. Fermin adds some more background on deed restricted resale on units and when the resell it must be sold at a reasonable price which is up to the town to decide what reasonable is. Councilperson Ayer read a comment into the record from Councilperson Niedzielski-Eichner since she started to have technical issues. She said the Councilperson Niedzielski-Eichner would like to revise the affordable housing ordinance to implement some equity capture but leave the details for implementation. This is a question for the committee Councilperson Young agree with Councilperson Niedzielski-Eichner comment. Councilperson Burnett is not sure the pluses or minuses of adding this to the ordinance vs the affordability plan. Councilperson Ayers, suggest that it should be in both places the plan and ordinance. Councilperson McMurrer agrees with Councilperson Ayers that it should be in both places that the two documents should complement each other. Councilperson McMurrer asks what is the next steps for the affordable housing ordinance? Councilperson Ayers follows up that the next step is to flesh out the language of the equity now till their next meeting. Councilperson Revolus added that this is an important topic that she is very passionate about and secondly, ask are there any programs that can work with this ordinance? Ms. Woods follows up stating that she agree it would make sense to have this ordinance be in line with other program out there and recommends having those program leaders review the ordinance and city staff. Councilperson Young, Revolus and Ayers asks further questions regarding homeownership within these programs. In particular if developer are building cooperatives and these types of homeownership opportunities. What are other example out there at the Housing Collective could share. Councilperson Ayer thanked Ms. Woods and Ms. Fermin for the presentation and joining tonight. That this was a helpful step to answer questions they had.  ADJOURNMENT **COUNCILPERSON REVOLUS MADE MOTION TO ADJOURN **THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY Sincerely, Michelle Andrzejewski