Recommendation to Accept the Annual Review of the Affordable Housing Ordinance and the City’s Affordable Housing Unit Fee Consistent with Section 27-1 of the Alameda Municipal Code and California Government Code Section 66001, and Accept the Annual Affordable Housing Unit Fee Fund Activity Report. (Housing 266)
Although we do have a staff member to bring the item five C. Where the station. Don't usually give way pulling member and next time to explain why he or she pulled it or I don't know. On this I think we have a staff member ready to present. Well, maybe she would just like to know my question for the sake of saving time. Yes. So good evening. I'm Debbie Potter. I'm the city's base for youth and community development director. And I'm also here with Lisa Fitz, the management analyst from the Housing Authority who works on this issue with the city. So hopefully between the two of us, we can answer any questions you might have. Member Ashcraft. Do you do you want to go ahead and just for the audience, explain briefly what this fears about. So the city has an annual well, we have an affordable. Could you back and forth. Describe the item for the audience. Let's do that. This is a consent calendar item every year because of the type of fee this is, we are required to file an annual report with the City Council reporting on the amount of money we took into this dedicated fund, the amount of money that was expended and for what the monies were expended. This is our affordable housing unit fee. It is our impact fee that we charge to commercial development that is covered under the fee to mitigate their impacts on affordable housing. So this is the annual report we're asking the council to adopt this evening. Thank you. Member Ashcroft And so I have no problem with levying the fee and collecting it. What concerns me is we had an ending fund balance of $144,609. And the and there's certainly a breakdown in Exhibit One of the expenditures, but and there's certain specified uses that can be made of these fees they include, but are not limited to pre-development or development loans to develop affordable housing grants, to develop affordable housing participation leases. Other public private partnerships, and they may be used may be expended for the benefit of rental or owner occupied housing. And I just wondered, in a time when we've seen so much need for housing in our city, were there not some other sources where I would prefer not to see a six figure balance sitting there? Unless you're going to tell us that maybe it's more prudent to let it get up to a certain number and then a certain amount, and then you can do more with it. But now that was my question and concerns. So we this is a fund that fluctuates a lot because you can have a lot. When Alameda Landing was under construction, we had a lot of money coming in and we spent that money very actively and very aggressively in two years where we don't have a lot of commercial development, we don't have that much money coming in . So it does have sort of a lot of peaks and valleys. So when looking at doing more, larger projects, we look to, as, you know, one of our revenue funds that have a more steady flow of income. This fund, we tend to do special studies, special projects and administrative costs tend to be what we do because we can't really rely on this fund to be consistently the same amount of money every year. Okay. Well, maybe it's and I'm prepared to vote to approve this report now, but perhaps in the coming year and years, we can talk about if there's other pressing needs that might be that these funds might be applied toward. Because, again, we've seen what a housing crisis we're experiencing in Alameda in the the whole Bay area. But thank you for your explanation. Thank you. Do you have emotion. So moved. A second. All those in favor. I emotion carries unanimously. Thank you. That completes our consent calendar. Six. A presentation providing an update on the Veterans Affairs Project at Alameda Point by the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Administration. And we have reason members here to present an energy to them.