[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Re: Housing

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Morzel, Lisa

PS
When added comment: The city must address this issue of funding for affordable housing grants and how the number of units are predetermined before the city or the housing agency contacts any public process.  This basically circumvents the whole reason why we have public process. We need to allow the community to be more involved at the outset before any determination is made a number of units, types of units, intended users, site configuration etc.

Lisa

Lisa Morzel
Member, Boulder City Council
303-815-6723 c
303-938-8520 h


> On Jan 10, 2017, at 9:13 AM, Morzel, Lisa <MorzelL at bouldercolorado.gov> wrote:
> 
> Greetings council members
> 
> I apologize for not being able to attend Tuesday's meeting but due to a work conflict I cannot. 
> 
> Comments:
> 
> 1. The city needs to stop doing cash in lieu program and start requiring all required affordable housing to be constructed on site. This current program is creating more problems than it is solving, creating increased (and I think justified) opposition to affordable housing throughout out community. I think it is also creating pockets of isolated housing where we have the haves and the have nots. This has never been the intent of the city's affordable housing program but we are creating a certain type of ghettoization in Boulder that pits people against people and isolates those in affordable housing. Our aim should be to integrate various housing types and levels of housing throughout Boulder. 
> 
> While staff finds this program successful, it may be so in terms of numbers but not in terms of integration into the community.
> 
> I still don't understand allowing developers to only pay the 75% of the cost of a unit off site when they pay 100% on site. Maybe we should examine in greater depth the S'park rentals. 
> 
> 2.  Given the recent federal election, I doubt the city will receive increased funding from the Feds and, in fact, I anticipate those funds will quickly decrease or diminish. I think we need to revisit discussion of amount of commercial linkage fees which now have no basis; only that the chamber "thought" $12/sq ft sounded good. What kind of policy is that? We should be at least at $15, if not higher. 
> 
> 3. Given that the preferred option of developers is to build rentals (and I understand why), the city council may want to consider looking at some sort of local construction defects ordinance that would encourage builders to construct for sale units. 
> 
> As this is a study session and no votes are taken, I hope staff does not act on that discussion tonight. As I've commented often in the past, study sessions are just that, nothing more.   I plan to raise this issue at our retreat.  
> 
> Thanks. 
> Lisa
> 
> 303-815-6723
> 
> "We interact with one another as individuals responding to a complex haze of factors: professional responsibilities, personal likes and dislikes, ambition, jealousy, self-interest, and, in at least some instances, genuine altruism.  Living in the here and now, we are awash with sensations of the present, memories of the past, and expectations and fears for the future. Our actions are not determined by any one cause; they are the fulfillment of who we are at that particular moment.  After that moment passes, we continue to evolve, to change, and our memories of that moment inevitably change with us as we live with the consequences of our past actions, consequences we were unaware of at the time." The Last Stand, Nathaniel Philbrick
>