Travis County Commissioners Court
October 27, 2009,
Item 9
9.
consider and take appropriate action on proposed substantial amendments of the community development block grant for program years 2006 through 2009 provided by the u.
s.
department of housing and urban development.
>> good morning, Travis County health and human services, we development community development block grant funds to Travis County.
we received funds for program years 2006 through 2008 and we anticipating receiving our grant agreement for funds for 2009.
annually, staff takes a look at each of the prompts, see how they are flowing, see if there are any programmatic issues that need to be resolved or if we need to reprogram any funds to another project.
our citizen participation plan that was approved by the Commissioner's court back in 2006 is what kind of directs us in determining what is a substantial amendment so what that is is any time we increase our decrease a project by 25% of funding, if we change the beneficiaries or if we create a brand new project, we have to do what is called a substantial amendment.
that substantial amendment has to go through a 30-day public comment -- or 30-day public comment period and have one public hearing here at the Commissioner's court.
back earlier in the month, the court approved the public hearing dates and the public comment period for the substantial amendment and so we will be needing to put the substantial amendment -- we will be needing to bring it back to to the Commissioner's court for final approval of the draft on November 10th so the public comment period can begin November 11.
for us to be complete to complete that drafted document we need the court to approve substantial amendment projects for inclusion into that document.
so that's what you have in your backup today.
what we did was we organized it by program year because that is typically how you approve the projects, so there are -- there are substantial amendments for program years, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.
i will go over those briefly, just to give you some highlighted information and then we will be happy to take any questions that you have specifically about any of the changes.
>> okay.
>> so we are wanting to make some program design changes for 2006, for the land acquisition project, that basically allows us to use a forgivable loan for ten years.
this provides an opportunity to get some program income should people who are purchasing a houses that going to be built by habitat for humanity, if they sell that house within ten years, that gives the county the opportunity to recapture some of those fund and reinvest them into affordable housing in the future.
for the apache shores street improvement project, we would like permission for the end of the project, which we are expecting it to be completed -- construction completion in the summer, if there are any funds left over, we would like to reprogram those into the lava lane construction which we are amendmenting funding for for next program year.
also, in 2006 we approved funding for the design of lava lane.
if there are any funds left over from that portion of the design phase, we would like to roll those into the construction of the project.
for 2007, we are actually wanting to do similar actions like we did with 2006, so making a forgivable loan for the land acquisition dollars that habitat will be using for ten years and so that we can have additional program income to reinvest into affordable housing and then, also, apache shores was also funded by py07 money so if there is any cost savings, roll that into lava lane construction.
for program year 2008, I am going to talk about home rehabilitation first, in 2009 the court funded home rehabilitation but we changed the design and moved from $5,000 of assistance per household to $24,999.
we would like to make that same adjustment with the program year 2008 money so it is just making those programs align, and then also in September of 2009, habitat had identified some land and the Commissioner's court considered the land that they were interested in and did not approve it.
as a result, we need to reprogram $500,000 in infrastructure development that was intended to support the land acquisition from the py06 and py07 money, and so what we are recommending we asked habitat if they wanted to reprogram the money into land acquisition so they are able to provide the same amount of investment in affordable housing and keep that level of assistance consistent and they agreed that is what they would like to do so we are recommending to the court to move that half a million dollars into land acquisition.
>> did they indicate how long it would take them to do that?
>> well, they actually already started looking at a particular piece of land, and they have a couple of others they are looking at but they do understand they have to spend that money by July 31st of 2010 and they feel like they can meet that commitment.
>> okay.
>> and then for 2009, again, we haven't received the grant agreement for this yet, but the housing finance corporation was provided $528,000 for home buyer assistance and because of the cdbg program is structured a little bit differently than the home downpayment assistance program, they -- the staff went ahead and did a survey of lenders and realtors to ask them what they thought was the program design that was presented originally and as a result of that survey we are going to be requesting that the gap financing that originally was set for people at 60% of the median family income be switched to 80% of the median family income, so somebody who needs gaap financing to make the house more affordable f they are at 80% of the median family income or below, they can get that assistance and that is because of the changes in the lending market right now, it would be hard to find people who can benefit it at 60% msi or below.
>> we have every reason to believe that hud will approve that change?
>> yes.
and this actually isn't necessarily -- we have talked to people across the country, the changes that we are making are thing that is -- other tools people use that have been doing this for a while and so, yes, we feel like it's allowable.
it is eligible and it is a mechanism that hud wouldn't have an issue with.
>> okay.
>> so we are requesting that the court approve the substantial amendment so we can include them into the draft document which we will be bringing back to you on November 10th so it can go up for public comment on November 11th.
>> approve.
>> any questions, comments?
>> second.
>> any discussion on the motion?
all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote.
>> and if I can just say the substantial amendment will be available on the Travis County website beginning November 11th after the Commissioner's court approves document on the tenth and it will also be available at Travis County community centers and you can also call 854-3460 and is to speak with me, kristie moffett and I can provide you a copy if you need it.
>> thanks.
>> thank you.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 1:40 PM
