2 PIMA COUNTY HOUSING COMMISSION

3 PUBLIC HEARING

8 12 September 2005

10 5:30 p.m.

11 Kino Teen Center

12 2805 E. Ajo Way, Room 102-103

13 Tucson, Arizona

Reported by: Patricia Calabro, CSR, RPR, CR

21 Certified Court Reporter

CA CSR No. 7906; RPR No. 20010; AZ CR No. 50047

22 ____________________________________________________________

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C.

23 549 North Sixth Avenue

Tucson, Arizona 85705

24 520.798.1808 800.538.6692

www.calabroreporting.com

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

2 Appearances:

3 Commission Members:

Ken Anderson

4 Kathleen Buske

Steve Craddock

5 Tim Escobedo

David Greenberg

6 Frank Moreno

Jon Miles

7 Ed Taczanowsky

Frank Thomson

Staff:

9 Hank Atha

Gary Bachman

10 Margaret Kish

Daniel Tylutki

11 Betty Villegas

Marcos Ysmael

Also present:

13 Patrick Cavanaugh

Richard Elias, Pima County Supervisor

14 Emily Nottingham

Samantha Romero, Intern

15 Gloria Soto

Maria Soto

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 PROCEEDINGS

3 MR. MORENO: Time to get started.

4 First of all, I want to thank you all for coming.

5 My name is Frank Moreno. I'm the chair of the Pima County

6 Housing Commission.

7 We'll start off by introducing the rest of the

8 members; David Greenberg is the vice Chairman. At the end

9 of the table we have Kathleen Buske, Steve Craddock, Tim

10 Escobedo, Jon Miles, Ed Taczanowsky and Frank Thomson.

11 You know what, she was at the end of the table.

12 Sorry, Ken Anderson. I said Kathleen.

13 The purpose of this hearing is to discuss or hear

14 your comments on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. We have

15 Pima County staff to make a presentation, and we will open

16 it up for comments, so I would like to introduce Betty

17 Villegas, who will take it from here.

18 MS. VILLEGAS: I'm going to use the podium. Betty

19 Villegas. Can all of you hear me?

20 I would also like to take this opportunity to

21 welcome all of you and thank you for participating in this

22 public process.

23 I would also like to give a little bit of

24 housekeeping. For anyone that needs to use the rest rooms,

25 go out that door, they're to your right.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 And if you could please turn off your cell phones

2 or turn them to meeting or mute, or something we would

3 really appreciate that, as well.

4 I would like to start by introducing County staff

5 and I believe I just saw an elected official walk in. Did

6 I? I thought I saw Richard Elias coming in through the

7 parking lot, but I guess he hasn't made it in yet.

8 First of all I would like to introduce Hank Atha,

9 he is our deputy county administrator. Up against that

10 wall.

11 And Margaret Kish is our community development and

12 neighborhood conservation director.

13 And the rest of my housing staff is Gary Bachman,

14 Marcos Ysmael, Daniel Tylutki. And our high school intern,

15 Samantha Romero.

16 And we have a couple of volunteers from another

17 department, and I'd like to thank them. Maria Soto and

18 Gloria Soto back in the back. Thank you all.

19 I'd like to turn your -- excuse me, he just walked

20 in. I thought I saw you in the parking lot. I would like

21 to introduce and acknowledge Supervisor Richard Elias.

22 I'd like to turn your attention over to the

23 agenda. We've already done number one and we're on number

24 two. Then we'll open it up for public comment and close it,

25 and then the commission will discuss and possible action on

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 the adoption of the contribution schedule and then the

2 adjournment.

3 Next is the presentation that my staff is going to

4 do. We're going to take about 20 minutes of your time to do

5 a short presentation. We're going to start with the

6 background of the Housing Trust Fund and then the Affordable

7 Housing recommendations, with the housing strategies

8 addressing housing issues and needs, what the public benefit

9 of Affordable Housing is, the schedulings and then the

10 analysis of the schedules.

11 And I'll go ahead and start with the background.

12 In May of 1997, the voters approved $10 million in general

13 obligation bonds for neighborhood reinvestment. Of that,

14 through the bond implementation plan, $5 million was set

15 aside for affordable housing programs. This initiative got

16 on the balance through a lot of hard work through a lot of

17 community members that came to the Board of Supervisors and

18 asked for something to be done about affordable housing.

19 The Board of Supervisors listened and it was put on the

20 ballot. And the community was very instrumental in getting

21 this initiative passed.

22 Once it passed in April of 1998, is when the Board

23 of Supervisors made the appointments to the Pima County

24 Community Housing Bond Oversight and Advisory Committee. At

25 that point, I was in the private sector and was appointed by

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 then Supervisor Raul Grijalva to sit on this committee.

2 In June of 1998, the committee started meeting and

3 discussing the Housing Trust Fund because that was one of

4 the goals of the committee was to start the Housing Trust

5 Fund. We found out right away that in order to have a

6 Housing Trust Fund in Pima County, we needed to go to the

7 State and change legislation. So we did that. Through the

8 great leadership of then Richard Elias, without the

9 supervisor in front of it, he started as a volunteer and

10 then staffed the committee, and he was very instrumental in

11 leading the committee which is an ad hoc state legislative

12 agenda committee. So he kept us in contact, moving it

13 forward. He worked with the county attorney, the lobbyist,

14 and found some great sponsors to sponsor this bill, Bill

15 1482, at the State.

16 And it's very interesting that when all that was

17 happening, and I look now, I see there's actually three

18 Board of Supervisors that sit on our board right now that

19 had something to do with this initiative, actually. It was

20 State Senator Ann Day and State Senator Ramon Valadez. They

21 were two of the sponsors of this bill. At that time they

22 were State senators. It's very interesting to me it was a

23 bipartisan effort back then, and we are very lucky in Pima

24 County to have the political will at the Board of

25 Supervisors level to make sure that affordable housing

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 remains at the forefront.

2 So, on March 26 of 2000, the bill was approved.

3 We were very happy. And now I'm going move you forward a

4 few years to November 16th of 2004. And at that meeting was

5 when the Board of Supervisors made several recommendations

6 through a board and adopted this initiative. We're going to

7 discuss some of those recommendations today. I'm going to

8 go ahead and turn this over to Gary Bachman, who will be

9 talking about the affordable housing strategies and he will

10 then turn it over to Marcos Ysmael.

11 MR. BACHMAN: Gary Bachman.

12 Thank you, Betty. Thank you to your all for

13 coming tonight.

14 I'm going to focus briefly on the specific

15 affordable housing strategies the Board of Supervisors

16 recommended in the November 16 memorandum. There are three

17 strategies and these were not elaborated on or were not

18 elaborated on specifically in great detail.

19 The first one is providing down payment assistance

20 to first-time home buyers. Down payment assistance has been

21 the flagship of our department for at least 15 years or

22 maybe longer and we've assisted hundreds of citizens to

23 become home buyers throughout Pima County.

24 Two of the substrategies we've used, among others,

25 combining down payment assistance with mortgage revenue

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 bonds and that's using a local resources. And the other is

2 working, combining the down payment assistance with the

3 secondary market, and one example is with Freddie Mac and

4 also Fannie Mae. This brings resources into the community

5 that may not have already been there.

6 The other housing program, I'm pleased to announce

7 that a small piece has been initiated with Habitat for

8 Humanity, combining with Tucson Medical Center I guess

9 yesterday announced the first home that would be sponsored

10 for an employee of that hospital, and we hope to work with

11 Michael as he expands that program. We think it's very

12 exciting to be able to work with local employers to solve

13 the affordable housing situation.

14 A second strategy is promoting effective

15 collaborations between nonprofit and for-profit housing

16 developers. And the first photo, the top right, is the

17 Chicanos Por La Causa, Shanta Valley Estates. The County

18 will receive an award for the innovative project. The

19 second excellent example, Corozon del Pueblo, Habitat for

20 Humanity paving the way with a very ambitious collaboration

21 with for-profit developers. Those are two examples and we

22 hope there will be many more that we leverage with the

23 affordable housing fund.

24 Third, implementation of housing conservation and

25 rehabilitation programs is a somewhat, not a long list but a

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 list of programs that we've identified particular needs in

2 the community. And we have administered these for a number

3 of years, acquisition rehab and resale and assisted housing,

4 emergency home repair. We certainly have done that for many

5 years. Emergency rent and mortgage assistance to prevent

6 homelessness. Programs targeted to the elderly and disabled

7 owners and finally, rehabilitation of rental housing to

8 guarantee sustained affordability for our low income owners.

9 I want to talk about some of the specific issues

10 and needs that are addressed in the strategy. Realizing

11 this should be and could be a much more lengthy

12 presentation, I'm only going to highlight a few.

13 First I want to highlight the cost of housing.

14 And the figure up here is from the July housing newsletter,

15 the median new house sales price, which is now at $217,000.

16 As you can see by the table, that indicates the July figure

17 for the past ten years, price has escalated over the past

18 five years.

19 Wages, as you can see in the lower line, wages

20 have been rather level, increasing only 9 percent in the

21 last five years. Wages have clearly not kept pace with the

22 cost of housing, so that's one issue. And as you can see on

23 the bottom, the mortgage for a low income household, that's

24 80 percent of median income. There's a significant gap if

25 they can only afford a mortgage of $150,000.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 Second important issue is cost-burdened households

2 in our community. HUD considers you cost burdened if you

3 pay more than 30 percent of your income for housing and more

4 than 50 percent means you're severely cost burdened,

5 according to HUD again. These figures are for all

6 households in Pima County, also renters and owners.

7 This is an important issue because if you're

8 spending, especially if you're poor, if you're spending a

9 significant portion of your income for housing you have to

10 make a decision on a monthly basis whether you're going to

11 buy food for your family, clothing, as well as meet your

12 transportation needs and perhaps have a little bit left for

13 entertainment. That's an important item to consider when

14 we're talking about affordable housing in our community.

15 The next issue is the age of housing. We think we

16 live in a community with a lot of new housing. Most of our

17 housing has been built in the last 30 years. However,

18 there's a significant number, you can see the figure in the

19 upper corner there, 63 homes will be 50 years old by the

20 year 2010. If you're like me, you live in a house that's

21 about 50 years old, you realize that you're rebuilding your

22 house maybe once or twice.

23 This is certainly a significant and a critical

24 factor for elderly and disabled owners who are living on

25 fixed incomes.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 Finally, I just want to talk about the benefits of

2 affordable housing. Some of these points are somewhat

3 obvious, I think, however, it needs to be considered when

4 we're talking about implementing a strategy. And I think we

5 could also expand this list somewhat, as well.

6 First is the work force needs affordable housing.

7 And if we look to the Gulf Coast as an example, we'll

8 realize the recovery down there will be very difficult

9 without adequate housing for the people who are doing the

10 work, so it applies in our community as well.

11 There's a benefit to the local economy of having

12 affordable housing. If your residence and your owners and

13 renters are cost burdened, that means they'll have less

14 money to spend on those items that they need; clothing, food

15 and so on. As everyone knows, housing is a significant part

16 of our local economy. Construction trades as well as

17 maintenance and management are an important part of our

18 economy.

19 Finally, affordable housing provides stable and

20 viable neighborhoods in our community and certainly that's

21 not something to be overlooked.

22 I'll turn it over to Marcos Ysmael who will talk

23 about the contribution fee schedules.

24 MR. YSMAEL: Thank you, Gary. Good evening

25 everybody.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 I'll start first with the contribution fee

2 schedule that was recommended by the Board of Supervisors on

3 November 16, 2004. The table you currently see up right now

4 represents what they approved with the exception of two

5 columns. We have factored in the new construction building

6 permits that were issued during 2004 in the second column.

7 And then the last column we have the estimated revenue that

8 would be generated based on the volume we saw in 2004.

9 Taking you to the first column on the left, Pima

10 County Building Valuation, it's important to note that when

11 this was adopted last year, we were looking at these numbers

12 starting at $135,000. Back then that was meant to be

13 representative of the full sales price, including the land

14 and the building.

15 As Gary mentioned, costs have escalated in the

16 last year such that these numbers are outdated and now these

17 numbers are much closer to the building valuation excluding

18 land. And that was the intent of the recommendations passed

19 in November was that the fee would be collected at the time

20 the permits were issued.

21 The way the building codes department does that,

22 is using a building valuation model that's been adopted by

23 the international building codes and in many communities

24 across the country. Keep in mind when you're looking at

25 these numbers, they represent the building valuation and it

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 excludes the land cost.

2 Again, the second column, we see the number of new

3 construction permits that were issued in the last year in

4 the various price ranges.

5 In the third column, we have the contribution

6 factors as they were approved by the Board of Supervisors in

7 their recommendations last year.

8 And the next column represents the fees that would

9 be collected for the low and with the price ranges that you

10 see in the high end, going down to the second to the last

11 category there, you see 500,000 to a million. For a

12 $500,000 building valuation, we collect a fee of 5,000. We

13 had no building valuations at a million. The highest would

14 have been about 791,000. As you see that would generate a

15 fee of $7,900 roughly.

16 The last column would be the estimates, and again

17 this is based on 2004 activity. The above contribution

18 guidelines are subject to all new rezonings or specific

19 plans for new construction. As mentioned before, this would

20 be calculated at the time the building permits were issued

21 and the fee that would be collected at that time would be a

22 one-time fee. And again, the estimates are noted in the

23 bottom right there.

24 Carrying into the next slide, our housing

25 commissioners came up with an alternative that is being

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 presented to you all tonight. I'll just cover some of the

2 key differences here. Starting with the sales prices this

3 actually would be the full market sales price including the

4 land and the finished building product. So this would be

5 your sales price that you would see at close of escrow.

6 The next column would be the contribution factors

7 as our housing commission proposed them. So that would be

8 multiplied by the sales price.

9 And then here you have the estimated dollar amount

10 that would be collected for the various price ranges.

11 Unfortunately, we don't -- we didn't have -- access to the

12 data for home sales is not as readily available to us as the

13 building permit data, which of course comes from the County

14 monitor staff, but the sales prices data we were not able to

15 get correlated in time. We apologize for that.

16 And then along with the proposed schedule, there

17 were some additional conditions that the housing

18 commissioners wanted to recommend for your consideration.

19 And the first one, and the other main difference I think,

20 one of the other main differences between what was proposed

21 in the recommendations from the Board and this schedule is

22 that this fee would be collected at the close of escrow. So

23 the closing agent would forward a check when the home is

24 sold basically, or when escrow closes that check would be

25 forwarded to the Housing Trust Fund.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 The next condition is that funds contributed by

2 this new home construction fund would be designated for down

3 payment assistance for new home purchases.

4 The third item, up to 25 percent of the funds

5 contributed by new home construction may be designated to

6 the contributing project at the time of plat, at the request

7 of the home builder.

8 The fourth condition, affordable housing programs

9 of the Pima County Housing Trust Fund, other than down

10 payment assistance for new home purchases, will be funded by

11 sources other than the new home construction contributions.

12 Fifth, the home builder/developer may submit an

13 alternative proposal in keeping with the goals of the Pima

14 County Housing Trust Fund and the intent of the contribution

15 recommendations that were made to the housing commission.

16 And the last item is, would be to establish a

17 policy for the recapture of funds when the homes would be

18 resold. At the first resale, there would be provisions in

19 place to collect the assistance that would have been

20 provided. The down payment assistance provided would be

21 collected back if the homeowner sold within a certain number

22 of years.

23 That takes us through the table and conditions

24 that were proposed by the housing commission. Now I'll turn

25 it back over to Betty, who will summarize. She will go

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 through a summary of the two recommendations that we have

2 before us. Thank you.

3 MS. VILLEGAS: Thank you, Marcos.

4 I believe I missed Patrick Cavanaugh from

5 Supervisor Ann Day's office is here. I wanted to

6 acknowledge him and also Emily Nottingham from the City of

7 Tucson is here.

8 The two tables that you saw, one, as Marcos said,

9 was in the November 16th memorandum by the Board of

10 Supervisors and the second was from the Housing Commission,

11 and we wanted to show the differences between the two

12 tables. That doesn't limit what we want from you today.

13 The purpose for this meeting is to get input from

14 you, the public. If any of you have other recommendations

15 or if you have something to add to what we have here, please

16 feel free to let us know. And everything that we collect

17 here today will be part of the record, and it'll be taken

18 into consideration by the Housing Commission before we make

19 our final -- or they make their final recommendation to the

20 Board of Supervisors.

21 I wanted to go through the analysis of the

22 contribution fee schedule just to point out the differences

23 on what the Board of Supervisors recommends through the

24 Housing Trust Fund strategies and what the Housing

25 Commission is offering as an alternative.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 On the far -- if you're facing left column, the

2 strategies, the first one is the collection of the fund

3 methodology. The Board of Supervisors recommends that it be

4 done at permitting and the Housing Commission would like to

5 see it at escrow, at the time that the loan is closed.

6 That's for collecting the funds.

7 The second one, down payment assistance for first

8 time home buyers available for both new and existing homes,

9 the Board of Supervisors recommends that yes, this is what

10 they intended. And the alternative, the commission

11 alternative is specifying that it's designated for new home

12 purchases only. Collaboration between nonprofit and

13 for-profit housing developers. The Board of Supervisors

14 recommends that, and the alternative is that it would be

15 only at new home construction sites.

16 The other is housing conservation and

17 rehabilitation programs. The Board of Supervisors

18 recommends it and the alternative does not.

19 The Housing Commission also made other proposed

20 conditions that were not addressed in the board memorandum

21 and those are that there be a cap on the contribution fee.

22 The Board of Supervisors did not address it and the

23 alternative says that they would like a cap of $10,000.

24 And that 25 percent of the funds contributed by

25 new home construction be designated from the contributing

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 project at time of plat at request of the home

2 builder/developer. That was not addressed by the Board of

3 Supervisors. And the commission would like that in the

4 alternative.

5 And the last one is for the developer to be able

6 to submit an alternative proposal in keeping with the goals

7 of the Housing Trust Fund, and that was not in the

8 memorandum but the Housing Commission has put it on their

9 alternative table.

10 So these are the comparisons of the two tables.

11 And we just again emphasize the importance of your feedback,

12 your recommendations, your findings. And again, I want to

13 thank all of you for participating in this public process.

14 And I'll go through and give you some direction on

15 how we're going to present this public comment period. You

16 have a three minute maximum time for comment. And Marcos

17 will be sitting right here and he is going to have the

18 green, yellow and red and that's the three minutes. Then he

19 will let you know when your 30-seconds are up, when you're

20 at 30-seconds and then the stop. Okay?

21 We don't have any buttons to press, you know, like

22 at the board hearing room. So if you could just keep that

23 in mind as you're speaking. We do want to make sure that we

24 give everyone their three minutes and no more than three

25 minutes.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 And if you can please state your name and address

2 for the record, so that our transcriber can make sure that

3 she gets it correctly.

4 We'll go ahead and turn it over to Frank, to our

5 chair, Frank Moreno at this time while we prepare the

6 podium.

7 MR. MORENO: Before we open it up for comments, I

8 just wanted to reiterate that this is an opportunity for the

9 public to voice their comments and recommendations.

10 Whatever you might have, this is not the -- the format is

11 not for a question and answer session because of the time

12 restraints.

13 I think -- do we have cards, Betty?

14 MS. VILLEGAS: Yes, we do.

15 MR. MORENO: At this time I would like to open it

16 up for public comment. Our first speaker is B.C. Robinson.

17 After will be Catherine Daniels and then Michael McDonald.

18 MR. ROBINSON: My name is B.C. Robinson. And I'm

19 at 2305 South Park.

20 I came over this afternoon to put my support in

21 for the Board of Supervisors' recommendations because of the

22 elements that are put there. I think they were thought

23 through clearly and that it is what is needed for the

24 community to continue to have affordable housing available

25 to them.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 One of the things that the, that I think is

2 crucial for the affordable housing component here in Pima

3 County is that we allow neighbors, our community, to have an

4 opportunity to be able to get the education that they need

5 before they go and get the mortgages. And the reason why is

6 because we see what happens to those that are unprepared and

7 the number of foreclosures that are occurring today. All of

8 that is not because of people that are going into predatory

9 loans. Most of them occur because people are not prepared

10 with what they could have been prepared for if the education

11 was presented to them. So I think that education is a very

12 crucial element for home ownership.

13 And it should be something that is not looked at

14 lightly, because in order for a person to be successful, you

15 have to have a path that they understand and a path that is

16 reasonable for them to be able to follow.

17 Another thing is that the price of affordable

18 housing here in Tucson now, we see that month to month, that

19 number jumps. I can remember when -- I'm at 30-seconds

20 already?

21 Okay, well, I want to give my plug for the -- that

22 the education be looked at not lightly, but as a crucial

23 part of the home buying process and that it should not be

24 something that we think can just happen.

25 Thank you.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

2 Next we have Catherine.

3 MS. DANIELS: My name is Catherine Daniels. And

4 I'm here on behalf of the homeowners trust fund. I, too,

5 agree with Mr. Robinson, being a new homeowner and being

6 made president of the homeowners association for the Mission

7 High Homes I have not had the experience or the education

8 for the position that I hold, so I find it very interesting.

9 I do stand in the gap for present homeowners and future

10 homeowners, that the educational program is something that

11 we most definitely need. And I seek contribution and, you

12 know, the -- this is my first time and I'm nervous -- the

13 contribution and sources of revenue that would be open to us

14 as new homeowners.

15 As Mr. Robinson was saying, without the education,

16 you know, it's like we're thrown in. It's either drown or

17 swim when you don't know the revenues and avenues of what to

18 do or how to get this information.

19 I think for Habitat, that's where my home is

20 through, when I get in a bind being the president of the

21 homeowners association, I can call and they can refer me to

22 someone in that position, with that title to kind of guide

23 me through.

24 Thank you.

25 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 Michael McDonald, followed by Sandy Fagan.

2 MR. McDONALD: Good evening. Michael McDonald,

3 director of Habitat for Humanity, Tucson. 621 West Lester.

4 I probably proudly have the privilege of offending

5 everyone equally, our partners in the County as well as our

6 private partners because I think there's, there are good

7 components to either of the contribution proposals.

8 As Gary referred to, Habitat and other nonprofit

9 builders are working on collaborative models for new home

10 construction and rehab, so we definitely support

11 collaborative partnerships. I think with the Commission's

12 recommendation the partnerships probably should be

13 incentivized.

14 Through those partnerships perhaps that could be

15 considered in terms of the contribution schedule. That's

16 the way I can tick off my friends at the County. And then

17 for the for-profit partners and investors, definitely we all

18 know the core of the city is aging and rehab is going to be

19 a big part of our future. Down payment assistance for older

20 homes, rehab work, collaborations in rehab, there's market

21 potential there.

22 Many other large communities our size and larger

23 and older are going through a huge building deconstruction,

24 and that's a big market. There's money to be made there and

25 certainly Habitat wants to get into that rehab work with

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 you.

2 I would like to encourage the Commission to

3 consider that aspect of the County's proposal, Board of

4 Supervisors's proposal.

5 Finally, we know that we do need to invest in

6 affordable housing not only for the economic development

7 reasons but for the character and for the quality of our

8 community. It's the people, our neighbors, it's the folks

9 that you came out and built with this weekend, 800 of you to

10 build 11 more homes, it's folks like Catherine Daniels. I

11 have hot off the press stories of some of our homeowners

12 lives, how they have been changed. We need to work together

13 and thank you for the opportunity to do that.

14 I'm going to give each of you a copy.

15 MR. MORENO: Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

16 Next is Sandy Fagan, followed by John Strobeck.

17 MS. FAGAN: I'm Sandy Fagan, and I'm representing

18 Southwest Fair Housing Council, 2030 East Broadway, Suite

19 101.

20 First, let me be sure that I acknowledge the

21 Commission, and thank you for your service to this

22 commission. Certainly it's taking your time and your effort

23 and consideration. We appreciate it.

24 It's our contention as an organization that

25 programs that cast the broadest net possible and

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 comprehensive and strategic best served our community. For

2 example, while down payment assistance for newly purchased

3 homes is critical, a comprehensive program might offer

4 similar assistance for purchaser for rehab. In addition,

5 pre and post purchase education and counseling are

6 invaluable in equipping the first time home buyer and needed

7 to commence and to sustain the successful home ownership

8 experience.

9 The concept of full and fair access to housing

10 isn't new to our area. The consolidated plan put together

11 by the County and City on a five-year cycle includes

12 analysis of impediments to fair housing choice. And that

13 document looks at barriers, not just acquiring homes in

14 housing, but to be able to enjoy them and sustain them as

15 well.

16 It's our concern that a lack of access to

17 affordable housing is an obvious impediment to the

18 opportunity to secure and enjoy housing that creating

19 affordable housing, widely publicizing public housing

20 opportunities, and helping potential home buyers to apply

21 the skill not to just purchase a home but to sustain the

22 home ownership is an equally important and obviously

23 meaningful strategy. Housing Trust Funds preserve

24 affordable housing. Preserving housing, we think, is more

25 than bricks and mortar, it's a family's wealth and security.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 The Housing Trust Fund with features that address

2 the widening gap, and promote and sustain successful home

3 ownership, is consistent with our obligations as a

4 jurisdiction that receives federal funds. The bottom line

5 is sustaining home ownership is essential, especially if

6 capturing funds is an element of a given housing program.

7 It would seem, among other things, to be just good business.

8 Thank you very much.

9 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

10 John Strobeck followed by Emily Nottingham.

11 MR. STROBECK: The purpose of my remarks -- John

12 Strobeck, 1517 North Wilmot.

13 The purpose of my remarks is to give you a little

14 bit of perspective on what I see as an analyst in the

15 housing market on fee collection and timing of that

16 collection and present some information that I want you to

17 consider as you go through the process.

18 Basically there are two options for collecting the

19 fees, that is at the time the building permit is issued or

20 at the time the closing is recorded.

21 At the time of permit there's a permit issued for

22 every new construction home that is to be built, and that's

23 done prior to the start of construction. And the fee is

24 levied by placing a value on the home by a formula of value

25 ranges plus some additional items like driveways, septic

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 tanks. This is a structure fee based on the value of the

2 dwelling for the purpose of collecting revenue fees. It

3 does not include the land costs, hence the values of the

4 permits are usually considerably less than the value of the

5 actual sales price of the home.

6 Closings are filed whenever there is a change of

7 ownership. This is usually when the buyer gets permission

8 to occupy the home and the closing is filed through a title

9 company that will affect the entire of the cost of the home

10 including the land. This is a price that is paid by the

11 consumer with their down payment and mortgage. It is the

12 price used for appraisals, taxes and market conditions.

13 In the case of new construction dwelling a closing

14 would be filed at the time the builder, developer turns over

15 the house to the new owner. Or in the case of a resale it

16 would be at the time the seller gives occupancy to the new

17 owner.

18 Currently,the ratio of new construction homes to

19 resale homes is running about four to one. That means that

20 for every four homes built, one house is a new construction

21 home. And in the case of the dollars spent, one dollar out

22 of every $4.16 that is spent for home is for a new

23 construction home.

24 I think it's important to remember the economy of

25 Pima County is literally running on the back of the home

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 building industry at this time. In 2005, the home building

2 industry has contributed over one billion, so far in seven

3 months of this year, to the local economy in the form of

4 jobs, supplies purchased and fees and taxes. It is possible

5 that in 2005, the home building industry in Pima County will

6 surpass $2 billion in its contribution to the local economy,

7 which is absolutely huge. When you look at that,

8 Davis-Monthan contributes about 500 million and you can see

9 that's about four Davis Monthans.

10 It's important to remember also that the Tucson

11 housing market is supported very heavily by low end buyers.

12 New construction homes below 200,000 make up 39 percent of

13 the market. In resale 50 percent of the market is below

14 $200,000. Low end or entry level buyers supporting the

15 housing industry in Tucson. And it's critical this base

16 continue to be a viable entity in the marketplace.

17 I want to mention also they have the least amount

18 of flexibility, and at the present time fees on new

19 construction homes in Pima County are about $15,000 before a

20 shovel of dirt is turned to build a house.

21 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

22 Emily Nottingham followed by Peg Harmon.

23 MS. NOTTINGHAM: Good evening, I'm Emily

24 Nottingham, director of the Community Services Department

25 for the City of Tucson. Our business address is 310 North

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 Homers Park Loop Road in Tucson.

2 First of all, I want to applaud you for your work

3 on this. It is very difficult but exciting to start a new

4 program, and I know that you have worked hard to try to work

5 through all the details. As you know, the City of Tucson

6 is also considering a housing trust fund and we're watching

7 carefully, so we're hoping you do all the hard work and

8 think it all through.

9 I really have just four thoughts, and they're not

10 great detailed thoughts. The first is, I would suggest some

11 flexibility of uses. I totally understand the desire to

12 focus on construction, new construction of affordable

13 housing, but one thing I've learned is over the years, and

14 it certainly became very obvious during Hurricane Katrina

15 activity last week, is that it's real important to leave

16 yourself some flexibility. You may want to consider instead

17 of limiting the uses solely to that, you can always

18 prioritize uses of the funds but allow other uses because

19 things change over time and why not give yourself from the

20 beginning maximum flexibility.

21 The second idea is to keep it simple. I spend my

22 life interpreting HUD regulations and that's so sad because

23 it's so difficult. So the fewer asterisks you have on a

24 table, the better as you move forward.

25 Third is that in the long run, I think you know

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 this, that I think you may want to consider having multiple

2 sources of funds to support the Housing Trust Fund rather

3 than a single source of funds. And I know that the single

4 one is difficult to get and multiple ones are more

5 difficult. Times change, things change and the entire

6 community should be supporting affordable housing, not just

7 one sector of the community.

8 Finally, whatever you do, I would encourage you to

9 do it and to move forward in a timely fashion, although you

10 need to be thoughtful. And that is, it's your program. You

11 created it, you can amend it. So I would encourage you to

12 move forward.

13 Thank you very much.

14 MR. MORENO: Thank you very much.

15 Peg Harmon, followed by Maggie Tellez.

16 MS. HARMON: I'm Peg Harmon, 140 West Speedway

17 Boulevard, Catholic Community Services of the Southern

18 Arizona.

19 I want to first add my thanks to the other

20 individuals who have thanked the Commission this evening for

21 the hard work you're doing.

22 The nature of my comments are really about

23 flexibility and expansion of public/private nonprofit

24 partnerships to achieve greater access to housing in the

25 affordable housing market.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 I just want to address the four overall goals,

2 which are increasing affordable housing for those under 80

3 percent of median income, improving access to lower income

4 individuals for affordable housing, conserving the existing

5 units, and assisting low income people keeping their homes.

6 Catholic Community Services has worked in a

7 variety of areas to achieve those goals. This is suggesting

8 other ways the non-profit sector can be involved. Catholic

9 Community Services has been involved in 202 projects. We

10 have a tax credit program that we're working with the

11 for-profit sector in the City of Sierra vista. Nonprofits

12 can be very flexible.

13 CCS also is working on smaller scale projects such

14 as individual development accounts for homeowners. We have

15 140 individual development accounts available right now for

16 low income families for the purchase, down payment

17 assistance on their first home. We are linking those

18 resources with resources from the State Department of

19 Housing in order to increase the capacity of low income

20 buyers to purchase their first home.

21 We also help families apply for affordable second

22 mortgages, so we maintain the quality of the housing for

23 individuals who are currently in older housing.

24 And we have a program of financial literacy. This

25 helps individuals understand the long-term commitment for

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 home ownership, how to manage their funds and how to keep

2 their home in good repair.

3 Our housing program in the two years we have been

4 operating, we have been focusing on areas such as Little

5 Town, Old Nogales, Continental and Sahuarita, we have

6 assisted over 380 people at this time. Eighty have been

7 seniors establishing reverse mortgages, so again, they can

8 maintain residence in their existing home. We have helped

9 about 15 people avoid foreclosure and we have assisted in

10 the last couple weeks about five individuals who were first

11 time buyers. Over 100 people have been educated in new

12 homeowner education, home maintenance and budgeting for

13 permanent housing.

14 And finally, part of the whole mix of assisting

15 small scale individual people, which is our goal primarily

16 in addition to our development efforts, is helping people

17 understand predatory lending and avoiding the traps of

18 predatory lenders in relationship to housing and housing

19 resources.

20 Thank you. And I want to encourage you to be

21 flexible in your allocation and decisions and creating the

22 uses of the proposals for the Housing Trust Fund.

23 MR. MORENO: Thank you very much.

24 Maggie Tellez, followed by Corkey Posner.

25 MS. TELLEZ: Good evening. I want to thank you

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 and congratulate you and thank you for your hard work.

2 I'm the managing housing director for Chicanos Por

3 La Causa, and I'm here to strongly encourage you to consider

4 housing counseling as a fundable service under this

5 initiative. I don't believe that it is enough to just give

6 families money. We're just addressing one of the issues,

7 one of the obstacles, that is low income families have

8 difficulty saving money for a down payment. We want to do

9 all in our power to insure that these families keep their

10 homes and housing counseling does this. They do this by

11 providing one-on-one counseling services, and home buyer

12 education.

13 One-on-one counseling services is where we sit

14 down with families and we discuss their credit. We discuss

15 what their needs are, what other obstacles and we do a plan.

16 Families are not always ready to buy a home today, but a big

17 percentage of the families that we see and we help purchase

18 every day are families that we have seen for the last two

19 years. One-on-one counseling is the key, I believe.

20 Because without this, I don't believe all the money that you

21 can throw at them, down payment, would make them successful.

22 This is an opportunity to find out what they need,

23 what the needs of the family are and an opportunity for us

24 to make sure that these families are successful. We believe

25 that we at Chicanos Por La Causa believe it is irresponsible

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 to build affordable housing. Closing cost assistance if

2 we're not going to provide a complete package of services

3 which will allow these families to maintain, sustain and

4 retain their housing. The job of the housing counseling is

5 to provide these tools that will enable these families to

6 become successful.

7 I strongly urge you to please consider including

8 housing counseling as a fundable and valuable service to our

9 community.

10 Thank you.

11 MR. MORENO: Corkey Posner followed by Lori

12 Lustig.

13 MR. POSNER: Good afternoon. My name is Corkey

14 Posner, 1336 East 12th Street.

15 I want to congratulate Pima County for taking this

16 important and progressive step toward solving our housing

17 problem in Pima County. I want to thank the Commission for

18 its hard work in the process.

19 A couple of comments. I want to make some general

20 comments and then specific comments. I'm disappointed,

21 though, that the Commission seems to have in its

22 deliberations eroded some of the content of the Board of

23 Supervisors' presentation. Disappointed to see that happen.

24 One, I want to comment specifically on the content

25 of the proposal. With regard to the fee schedule, I think

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 it's quite unfortunate that we don't have the total to

2 compare to the 2,280,000. There's no way to compare apples

3 and oranges without those figures, and I would urge you,

4 really, it's difficult for the public to evaluate that.

5 My second comment is the paring down of the three

6 strategies of the Board of Supervisors down to half a

7 strategy. The three strategies, new and existing housing

8 down payment, partnering with nonprofit and rehabilitation.

9 Really all we have left is half of number one which is new

10 construction. If you look at the kind of housing that

11 solves the problem for low income people, to a large extent

12 it's existing housing and housing rehab. I think that is

13 quite unfortunate in terms of the effectiveness.

14 With respect to items 3 and 5, no one has really

15 addressed those but they same seem to be strange

16 recommendations, 25 percent going back into the same

17 project. Hard to imagine how that might work for some of

18 the higher end projects. It kind of misses the point to

19 solve the problem where it's needed. Here it is pouring

20 back some of that money to the developments that should be

21 funding.

22 Item 5 it talks about an alternative proposal. We

23 have no information about what an alternative proposal might

24 be, but it makes me a little suspicious that it will take

25 the form of essentially getting out of funding the trust

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 fund itself.

2 So while I applaud the County for the effort, I

3 applaud the Board of Supervisors for the really very good

4 content of the original proposal, we see a far weakened

5 proposal. We don't have a way of evaluating what the income

6 might be to compare it to the number we have for the County

7 and we have a whole series of small things that seem to be

8 chipping away at the effectiveness of the program.

9 Thank you.

10 MR. MORENO: Next, Lori Lustig followed by Richard

11 Ray.

12 MS. LUSTIG: Good evening, Commissioner. My name

13 is Lori Lustig with Southern Arizona Home Builders. We're

14 at 2840 North Country Club Road. I won't waste a lot of

15 time, but I do thank you. You'll see in the letter that I

16 handed to you we thank you for your time and attention.

17 There's a number of issues that you are going to

18 have to consider and a lot of them are raised in our letter.

19 I'm not going to go into those in detail, however I would

20 like to make two points this evening. I have to say,

21 interestingly enough, listening to a lot of the speakers

22 that I do agree with all of the speakers except for one, and

23 that is Mr. Posner, who I'm sure will not consider that a

24 surprise because we meet at a lot of meetings together.

25 The reason I take exception is I do not see this

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 as a chipping away, I see that as that we have a disconnect.

2 You are not hearing from the home builders that we object to

3 this, or that we have any problems applying the money and

4 paying the money at time of closing or permit, whatever the

5 Commission decides, but that so far, the only money that's

6 being raised is being raised out of this particular

7 resource. If it is to be used and applied community wide as

8 our bond money then it would be raised community wide, as

9 well. Excuse me.

10 We have yet to address any of the money coming

11 from the Multi Family Housing Association or their industry

12 or the resales. Resales, new homes are 4 to 1. We could

13 raise far more money, certainly sufficient funds to cover

14 down payment assistance, education, and rehabilitation of

15 older homes in neighborhoods if we were to spread the costs.

16 In fact, we would probably lower the burden of people who

17 are participating if we could spread that cost.

18 The other thing I would like to raise and bring to

19 your attention is the fact that every time -- every time we

20 add a fee to a home buyer, we are pushing other home buyers

21 further and further out of reach. One thing I would like to

22 say is based on a $250,000 home in what is our proposal of a

23 50 percent fee, or a half a percent, I'm sorry, that would

24 be $1,250. That exceeds just the principal payment on the

25 new home. That almost equals the PITI for one month that

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 they have to bring to closing. This has a significant

2 effect on new home buyers, so we're not objecting. What we

3 are saying is to spread the cost, to spread it fairly, to

4 spread it wisely so we have the money to do what we hope to

5 do tonight.

6 Thank you.

7 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

8 Next, Richard Rhey followed by Bob McLaughlin.

9 MR. RHEY: Good evening. My name is Rick Rhey.

10 I'm the executive director of the Southwest Fair Housing

11 Council.

12 I'm here today to express a concern that I have

13 regarding the Commission's recommendation to the board.

14 When the Pima County Housing Trust Fund was established in

15 1997, for the purpose of facilitating and, I quote,

16 facilitating housing repair and investment patterned after

17 the State Housing Trust Fund, unquote, the primary goal

18 inherent to the Arizona State Housing Trust Fund is to

19 increase the amount of affordable housing to the residents.

20 Federal law requires that public housing trust funds do not

21 segregate low income households from the use of trust funds.

22 If this were to happen, it could open a housing trust fund

23 up to a complaint or a legal action under the Federal Fair

24 Housing Act based on the premise of disparity in pay.

25 For those not familiar with the term, disparate

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 impact is when a policy or action, whether intentional or

2 not, affects persons protected under federal law such as

3 racial or ethnic minorities or persons with disabilities,

4 affect them less favorably than non-protected classes.

5 Because of differences in social and economic opportunities

6 minorities and persons with disabilities tend to constitute

7 a greater proportion of low income populations.

8 When public funds that are intended to help make

9 housing affordable for community residents are limited to

10 home buyers buying a new home, and to be honest, I'm not

11 clear exactly who the beneficiaries will be as far as this

12 is concerned, I'm not sure that has been defined exactly as

13 yet, but when they are limited to home buyers buying new

14 homes it excludes a large portion of the low income

15 population and a higher proportion of minorities.

16 Housing trust funds normally are not at risk for

17 charges of disparate impact because funds are used through a

18 range that can include housing conservation and

19 rehabilitation, mixed income developments, income targeting

20 and a development of multi-family rental housing.

21 The original recommendations by the County Board

22 included most of these. The recommendations by the Housing

23 Trust Fund and Housing Commission did not. As a result, I

24 believe that the Commission's recommendation limiting the

25 benefits of trust fund money raised through the roof tags to

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 home buyers, if adopted, could possibly be actionable under

2 the Federal Fair Housing. If the County Board is

3 considering adopting this recommendation, I would suggest it

4 would be prudent to have the county attorney review the

5 possibility that the Commission's recommendation is in

6 violation of federal law.

7 Thank you.

8 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

9 Bob McLaughlin, followed by Jill Osuna.

10 MR. McLAUGHLIN: Bob McLaughlin, 3777 East

11 Broadway, here in Tucson.

12 The only purpose for being here this evening is to

13 point out to you all that there's other programs available

14 of the type that you're doing now. Not just -- I put that

15 in the book up there so I don't have to go through, you can

16 just review it at your leisure.

17 I represent the mortgage industry and my company

18 actually has set aside about a trillion dollars of

19 commitment through to 2010 for low income and minority home

20 buyers. We also have a home buyers club that is educational

21 for the first time home buyer and so forth. And I'm sure

22 you're all aware there are other alternatives and not only

23 with my company but several members out there that have the

24 ability to do what you're doing. I just wanted to point

25 that out to you.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

2 Jill Osuna, followed by Jim Wilcox.

3 MS. OSUNA: Hello. My name is Jill Osuna. 2856

4 North Balboa. I am a proud owner of a new Habitat home. My

5 husband are so thankful to have an opportunity to buy our

6 own new home. We truly didn't believe we would be able to

7 afford a home.

8 Even though my husband works at U of A, the pay

9 raises have been frozen for years. Mainly because prices

10 for homes in Tucson have skyrocketed, so many people moving

11 to Tucson from states like California and Texas, it has made

12 it especially difficult if not impossible for low income

13 families like ours to be able to afford a home.

14 Habitat for Humanity needs help with funding or

15 ways to raise money, because there are so many good and

16 honest low income families in Tucson that need help. Many

17 of us were stuck in overcrowded or unhealthy apartments like

18 mine. We had constant mold and which caused me to develop

19 asthma and made me constantly sick. Our apartment was too

20 small to start a family.

21 We were referred to Habitat for Humanity and we ut

22 in an application. Thank God we did because Habitat

23 realized our need and we were selected to be a homeowner.

24 We started working our sweat equity which went to

25 400 hours. It took a long time for the home to be built

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 because they are built primarily by volunteers. I think

2 because selected homeowners put so much time and effort into

3 building their homes they appreciate having them even more.

4 I know I do.

5 My health is so much better now. I can breathe in

6 clean air. I have my asthma under control and feel alive.

7 And we have the room in our house to start making our

8 family.

9 We have formed a homeowners board and I am

10 president of the association because I want to help build a

11 friendly and peaceful community that we can raise our

12 family. That is why we are here tonight, to ask you for

13 your help to continue to help more families build a better

14 life for their family. Thank you.

15 MR. MORENO: Thank you. Jim Wilcox followed by

16 Nancy Niclowski (phonetic).

17 MR. WILCOX: Hello, I'm Jim Wilcox, 4832 East

18 Elmwood, representing the International Sonoran Desert

19 Alliance, a nonprofit working in Ajo.

20 Under your program there would be no dollars in

21 Ajo. There's been no new house built there in 25 years.

22 Our organization is renovating the historic school. We have

23 raised $8 million to put in 30 affordable housing units. We

24 just received another award to try to make 15 units of sales

25 houses in the rear portion of the school. Under your

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 program they would not be eligible for the subsidy. A full

2 rehab is equivalent to a new house and I really wish you

3 would look at some flexibility in the way you consider these

4 funds available for new home buyers.

5 Ajo has no new housing. I don't see a builder

6 coming over there, doing that. Houses in Ajo are built one

7 at a time and they are going to people out of state market

8 because they are over $200,000. They are going to that out

9 of state market that thinks 200,000 is cheap compared to

10 California or Washington state. Thank you.

11 MR. MORENO: Thank you. Nancy Niclowski.

12 MS. NICLOWSKI: My name is Nancy Niclowski. I

13 live at 675 South Gollob, this year's chair of the Tucson

14 Metropolitan Housing Commission.

15 I would like to say that on behalf of the Tucson

16 Metropolitan Housing Commission that we do support the idea

17 of the creation of a housing trust fund by the County. This

18 is an idea whose time has certainly come and the City, as

19 Emily Nottingham pointed out, our commission is looking at

20 the feasibility of a housing trust fund. We are in our

21 infancy stages so I cannot say on behalf of the commission

22 we agree with all of the detail because we're at the point

23 looking at the different sources of funding and uses of

24 funds.

25 I can tell you that we look forward to the

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 potential of working with the County in the future on this

2 very important project. So thank you very much.

3 MR. MORENO: Thank you very much.

4 Pat Bentrik (phonetic) followed by John Majock

5 (phonetic).

6 MR. BENTRIK: I'm Pat Bentrik. I'm with COPE

7 Behavioral Services. We have an affiliated affordable

8 housing company, 82 South Stone. I just wanted to thank you

9 also for your work on this and for the Board of Supervisors,

10 and the staff for what they are moving forward with here.

11 I think it's really important to maximize the

12 number of affordable units that we create in this community

13 and because of that, I think we need to keep this simple.

14 Simple because already if we would just focus on new

15 construction rather than rehab and other types of programs,

16 it makes it easier to set up. And I think we've got to

17 start up something that will get the maximum number of

18 affordable units into the market. The greater that we have

19 with varieties of programs and types of housing, the larger

20 the bureaucracy will get that needs to oversee and manage

21 this. I think we need to really keep this simple.

22 There are other types of affordable housing

23 programs that provide a number of things. Believe me, I'm

24 not saying there is enough to go around for what the need

25 is. For us to create a very, very complex system here, it

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 may slow down the process. New affordable housing can be

2 done at a market rate that we all know what it is. When you

3 get into rehab, all of a sudden, the expenses go up and

4 affordability slips away.

5 I encourage you to keep up the good work that

6 you're doing and keep this as simple as possible with the

7 goal of maximizing the number of affordable units that we

8 put into this community. Thank you.

9 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

10 John Majock, followed by George Pettit.

11 MR. MAJOCK: My name is John Majock, representing

12 Metropolitan Pima Alliance, 310 South Williams Boulevard,

13 Suite 110.

14 We share the fact that Pima County has created the

15 Affordable Housing Committee with diverse membership and it

16 is troubling, the Housing Trust Fund's effort to make

17 additional funds available to the local community and

18 address the challenge of affordable housing. Metropolitan

19 Pima Alliance is concerned that housing prices for new homes

20 and resale homes are escalating at the rate that exceeds

21 current earnings and wages in this community. This fact

22 provides existing homeowners with substantial equity and

23 opportunity for profit in their homes while making it

24 difficult for first time home buyers to purchase either a

25 newly constructed or existing home.

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 Our membership organization requests the Housing

2 Commission and Board of Supervisors to acknowledge and

3 incorporate the following statements and suggestions. One,

4 the lack of affordable housing is not caused by new home

5 construction. The solution to the lack of affordable

6 housing should not be borne solely by real estate developers

7 and new home construction industry. Other sectors of the

8 local community should be considered for funding sources to

9 the Pima County Housing Trust Fund.

10 Two, numerous variables influence the price of a

11 new home. In addition to home builder profit MPA asks the

12 Pima County and the Affordable Housing Commission to review

13 and understand and to the extent possible influence the

14 following areas in support of affordable housing: A,

15 availability of developable acreage. B, price of raw land.

16 C, government procedures and permitting costs. D,

17 cumulative impact and development fees. E, cost of

18 construction materials.

19 Regarding the report by Pima County in 2004, MPA

20 believes that no contributions to the Pima County Housing

21 Trust Fund should be assessed on entry level market priced

22 homes.

23 Finally, MPA encourages emphasis on community

24 economic development, job creation, and earning increases

25 which is an important component in finding solutions to

CALABRO REPORTING SERVICES, L.L.C. 520.798.1808

1 increase local home ownership. Thanks.

2 MR. MORENO: Thank you.

3 George Pettit followed by Peggy Hutchinson.

4 MR. PETTIT: Hello. My name is George Pettit,

5 5341 East 10th Street. I was one of the commissioners on

6 the first housing commission, and I was really proud of our

7 work. John Miles was on there. We did a lot of hard work.

8 I worked at Casa Maria Catholic Worker Community

9 for the last 19 years. We proudly serve the people in this

10 community who are desperate for food. We do that on a daily

11 basis. We are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas because

12 other people provide that. At Casa Maria we are members of

13 the Pima County Interfaith Council. We are looking out for

14 the common good in our community. As such, we support the

15 fee schedule from the Board of Supervisors. Actually, we

16 would support the schedule that provides the most money for

17 housing, whichever schedule that is.

18 I would have to agree with the last speaker, I

19 think we need to look for more sources on top of that

20 funding to be able to do what is necessary in this community

21 to provide enough housing for everyone. We find all of the

22 conditions attached by the Commission to the spending fee

23 schedule as unacceptable. All of those conditions. They

24 eliminate flexibility.

25 I think eliminating the rehab component is just