Thread by @socialistdogmom

packed house here at the joint session of the city council & the housing advisory committee!
i’ll have to duck out a little before 8 for another appointment, so i may miss public comment, unfortunateQnr3

“we have a significant number of folks who are paying far more than they should be” for housing

(the full memo is here: charlottesville.org/Home/ShowDocum… )

on a personal note, i’m somewhere between “extremely low income” and “very low income” and am among the over 3000 households in charlottesville that is cost burdened when it comes to housing.

a committee member notes that even $15/hour puts you at around $30k, which is still “very low income” for the area.

the vast majority of cost burdened households are earning 50% AMI or below (which is, of course unsurprising... but remember the local ordinance that requires developers to build “affordable units” defines that as accessible to folks at 80% AMI)

a committee member notes that this is not A PLAN, but an initial stab at getting to the 4000 units we’d need to get to where the housing needs assessment tells us we should be.

sunshine mathon notices there’s a mistake on the slide - the 300 figure listed as new units planned for friendship court actually includes the planned *market rate* units, not all affordable. he says the tool they’ll show later has more accurate unit counts.

this isn’t being said at the meeting, but i’d like to note that incentivizing accessory dwelling units won’t do shit about our affordable housing crisis without some effort to prevent people from using them as airbnb’s.

oh the meeting is being livestreamed, but not from the usual place. you can watch from home on facebook, here:

facebook.com/cvilletv10/vid…

they’ve got a detailed spreadsheet that can be used to estimate costs... but sunshine mathon adds the caveat that the sheet is based on rough estimates on things like average unit size. (i would really like to get my hands on this spreadsheet!!!)

i can’t get a good angle on the screen, but here’s a screencap of the facebook livestream

“i know you all want to start the conversation, but these things have a way of sticking,” cautions nikuyah.

acting city manager mike murphy asks why these projections overshoot the mark re: need for units at the 30% AMI range. (the sheet is a 15 year range plan... i’d say it’s safe to bet there will be more poor people in 15 years 🤷‍♀️)

“you all made some comments that were pretty insulting last week” about city staff’s work “and i don’t find this to be that much more helpful or scientific,” says mike murphy to the HAC members. (goddamn i’m upset i missed the HAC meeting!)

“i don’t understand the math behind that at all,” murphy concludes.
“i just want to remind everyone, this is a tool and not a plan,” a HAC member says (sorry, all men are identical to me and i don’t remember his name)

mike signer has been half heartedly raising his hand for several minutes and is looking increasingly distressed that it isn’t his turn to talk.

“you grow into regionalism. we could grow into cooperative regionalism with housing,” signer says. he points out, correctly, that the cost per sq ft is significant cheaper in the county.

mike murphy says doubling our production of affordable housing would lead to population growth. we’re currently at 50k. our water system can accommodate 70k. what does growth look like for infrastructure, schools, etc? there’s cost “beyond the sticks & bricks” of construction

oh this is peak passive aggressive. murphy tossed out a future population of 90k. one of the HAC reps asked, condescendingly, if that population boom is based on construction of 4000 additional housing units.

(my quick math: the spreadsheet shows approx 1200 new affordable units. if that were 20% of all new units (double the current rate), that’s 6000 new units - which would probably not put the city population over the rating for the water supply. but 4000 affordable units would!)

this is a very valid point

https://twitter.com/mtgillikin/status/1085690346317725696?s=21

one of the HAC members also points out that most new affordable units wouldn’t be home to new people who moved here, but to current residents who are currently in cost burdened housing. (but who moves into the market rate units they move out of?)

nikuyah asks where the figures for cost are coming from. “history,” the hac rep says. “history of what?” “of what’s been built.”
“but it hasn’t been being built,” she says.
(this sheet really does lack any kind of concrete, correct data or clear assertions of any kind)

the spreadsheet assumes it would cost the city $15k per unit to produce affordable accessory dwelling units, but apparently other conversations in the city are centering around $30k incentives to build those units

https://twitter.com/rorystolzenberg/status/1085684389596540928?s=21

correction, the conversation is now about $15k incentives. still, the numbers in this spreadsheet are so hypothetical as to be nearly baseless?

https://twitter.com/rorystolzenberg/status/1085694212656582657?s=21

wes says it’s really hard to have these conversations without UVA at the table to ask them how they’re going to help address the issues

“they utilize a lot of our services,” “we have to figure out what we’re going to get back from them.” “they rarely if ever put in” in terms of input & financial support on issues like this, wes says about the university.

“they’re giving us crumbs. we need to ask for the steak and potatoes,” wes says.
nikuyah tempers his remarks somewhat.
heather points out that the county is also a partner in this.

“we can’t force anyone else to do anything,” nikuyah says about regional partnerships. “we need to get our house in order” and focus on doing our best.

unfortunately i have to leave now because i have a call to be on at 8... it looks like @AnnieWords is posting updates from somewhere behind me in the gallery, though!
and the livestream is still going here:
facebook.com/cvilletv10/vid…