City of Santa Fe Community Development Commission met Sept. 1.
Here are the minutes provided by the commission:
1. CALL TO ORDER
Start time: 3:31 PM
2. ROLL CALL
Members Present:
Councilor Renee Villarreal
Member Ken Hughes
Member Carla Lopez
Member John Padilla
Member Rosario Torres
Members Excused:
Member Paul Goblet
Member Willie Marquez
Others Attending:
Alexandra Ladd, Director - Office of Affordable Housing
Toniette Candelaria-Martinez, Attendee
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
07/28/2021 Minutes
MOTION: Member Padilla moved, seconded by Member Torres, to approve the 07/28/2021 Minutes as presented.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call vote:
For: Councilor Villarreal, Member Hughes, Member Lopez, Member Padilla, Member Torres
Against: None
Abstain: None
5. DISCUSSION AGENDA
a. Review and Recommend Approval of Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Review (CAPER) on uses of CDBG Funds for the 2020 – 2021 Program Year, as Required by HUD (Alexandra Ladd, Director, Office of Affordable Housing: agladd@santafenm.gov , 505-303-9868).
MOTION: Member Hughes moved, seconded by Member Lopez, to approve the CAPER as amended.
VOTE: The motion was approved on the following Roll Call vote:
For: Councilor Villarreal, Member Hughes, Member Lopez, Member Padilla, Member Torres
Against: None
Abstain: None
Questions:
Commissioner Torres asked if there is a limitation for what the reprogramming of these funds cannot be used for? Mrs. Ladd said they can be used for any eligible CDBG activity. Commissioner Hughes recommended edits to the CAPER. It was decided that the CDC Members would email edits to Toni.
Commissioner Padilla asked Director Ladd what would be an example of a project that would meet the criteria as described by Mrs. Ladd where one big project would utilize all CDBG funds in one swoop. Mrs. Ladd said generally using the funds for acquisition is great because its a discrete expense; It happens really quickly and it’s easy to document. We do know of a group led by Enquorum Foundation trying to buy another hotel property and do two things with it: (1) Use it as a winter shelter through the winter months this year.
(2) Renovate it and convert it to long term housing. This would be an ideal first choice option for Office of Affordable Housing.
Commissioner Lopez brought up a map called, “Percent of Block Group Population that is Hispanic in 2010 and Percentage of Block Group population that is Non-Hispanic White in the City of Santa Fe.” Commissioner Lopez commented that this shows a segregated City and pointed out if we can lean on people to get affordable housing on the opposite side of the town. Mrs. Ladd said that one of the issues is a little counter-intuitive -there’s more subsidized rental housing in District 2 than there is any where else but that’s because it’s where all Public Housing Units are located. There are some in District 1 as well because back in the 1960s & 1970s when the housing was being built, that was on the outskirts of town. The land was cheap; it was flat/easy to develop and didn’t have neighbors to complain which was also an issue back then too. The undeveloped land happens to be on the south and western edges of Santa Fe (away from down town/away from the expensive parts of town). This helps us understand why all of the development is happening in District 3 and District 4, some in District 2. This is part of the unavoidable development reality we face. Mrs. Ladd talked about ideas how to offset this reality and that could be where the City could be aggressive about modifying zoning categories. One step that’s been taken is to increase the flexibilities on ADUs in existing neighborhoods and this is a way to densify. Particularly, neighborhoods that have guest houses. And the other way to support it is through the funding that this group supports.
Commissioner Hughes suggested that CDC can be a part of the group of body’s that oversee/review and approve the growth management plan that’s coming up next year and add a touch of asset social equity into that.
Mrs. Ladd also talked about the grand opening of the Hopewell Mann Community Health Clinic which CDBG funds were a part of that project. This demonstrates we’re not just about housing anymore. It's about access to opportunity and quality of life which are just as important as new development.
Commission Torres recommends that now might be a good time to email Landuse Department and notify them that the CDC is interested in joining the growth management plan process. Mrs. Ladd said she will bring this up at the next Senior Leadership Meeting with the Community Development Department heads and will report back to the CDC.
Madam Chair said she’s going to lean on Alexandra to mention we have members of the community that are interested in being part of the structure they’re producing for the growth management plan.
Commissioner Torres asked Mrs. Ladd to explain the chart on page 8 of the CAPER, regarding the ethnicity breakdown. Are Hispanics categorized as White? Mrs. Ladd explained that many years ago the Census Bureau started looking at Race and Ethnicity as distinct but also overlapping concepts. So the way the Races are tabulated is every Race has the option to also say whether they are Hispanic or non-Hispanic. Mrs. Ladd explained the numbers in the table never add up because some people don’t provide that information.
Madam Chair stated the edits to the CAPER as follows:
First page under Goals and Outcomes, there are typos which are the words: addressing; and accomplished. For the chart on page 3 where its talking about the Goals, we refer to CDBG-CV, but we never define what CV stands for in the document. It’s in the chart twice. What does this mean and where can we define this? Mrs. Ladd asked Toni to take a note of this and explained CV is CARES ACT. The Office of Affordable Housing was provided through the entitlement, $361,227 from CARES ACT directly. This was in addition to the normal entitlement amount. HUD requested that and is using the nomenclature CDBG-CV and did this so that they can keep track of how they’re using the federal allocation it came from. The Recovery Act funds in 2009 were called CDBG-R.
On page 1, we referred to the Midtown Campus that we converted student housing and I think that we need to say that it converted former student housing. Later in the document (on page 6) it says vacant student housing but it needs to say former student housing. On page 11 under Affordable Housing, when we look at the actuals they look really low. Is that because we realized outside of the time frame of this reporting period? Mrs. Ladd explained its focused on unit production and rental assistance which we don’t use CDBG for. For example, everyone who was receiving assistance through one of the Public Services that focuses on the homeless was reported under the number of homeless households to be provided affordable housing units. HUD pointed out we weren’t providing them with affordable housing units and therefore cannot report them there. So, there’s no place to report on how many homeless households are assisted through public services. This is only about units. Mrs. Ladd said we will be updating the Consolidated Plan next spring and we will figure out that number better. Madam Chair said on page 22, the section that talks about St. Elizabeth’s (the whole paragraph) is in their voice, not ours so this needs to be changed to “they.” Last, on page 25: the word ‘notifications’ is a typo.
Madam Chair asked if we had to talk about reprogramming funds in this document? Mrs. Ladd says we should mention it but at this point this document is only about what happened up to June 30, 2021. It will matter when we Amend the current year Action Plan to add those funds as reprogrammed funds back into play. HUD will have to go through the Amendment to the Action Plan.
6. MATTERS FROM STAFF
We have one vacant position. Commissioner Paul Goblet will be stepping down. We need to poll the rest of the members if you would like to continue serving, we need confirmation of that fact by way of emailing Mrs. Ladd and Madam Chair Villarreal. Everyone’s in expired term as of this point. We will advertise for two new positions.
Commission Padilla said he knows Commissioner Marquez is moving. Will Commissioner Goblet remain until his seat is filled or will he actually resign from the Board? Mrs. Ladd said believes Commissioner stays until the position is filled.
7. MATTERS FROM THE COMMITTEE
MINUTES None.
8. MATTERS FROM THE CHAIR
Madam Chair said she wasn’t able to make the official event of the opening of the PMS but asked them if she can go privately to see their facilities and she was really impressed by what they were able to build. Madam Chair encourages the CDC to take a tour. Please email her and she will connect you to the Director. Madam Chair reminded the CDC they were a big part of this project and also stated its important for this clinic to be where it’s located on Espinacitas in the Hopewell Mann neighborhood. Also, Villa Theresa will be moving there very soon. This is a clinic that supports mostly oral health and vision.
Madam Chair asked the CDC if there is a particular experience or expertise they think the CDC needs, please email your opinions and they can flag that as they look through the applicants.
Michael Barrios chimed in to thank the CDC for the work they do and also offer his assistance or technical expertise. Mr. Barrios stated he is here as a resource and is very much excited about the progress that’s been made and will continue to be made on the housing front. Mr. Barrios said he’s looking forward to following up with each of you and having continued discussions.
9. NEXT MEETING: October 20 2021
Mrs. Ladd said we will be meeting because we will be moving some of the Notices of funding availability forward at that time and starting that process to get some of the affordable housing trust funds mobilized.
10. ADJOURN
End time: 4:21 PM
https://santafe.primegov.com/public/portal
