Travis County Commssioners Court
January 20, 2004
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Housing Finance Corporation
Now let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation. 1. Approve minutes of board of directors meeting of October 21, 2003.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. 2. Consider request for a refund of part or all of the application fee byherry mountain partners, ltd., And take appropriate action.
>> good afternoon. I'm harvey Davis, manager for the corporation.
>> harvey.
>> and this applicant has made a request for a refund of $9,000 of their application fee. A short history of this project is that they made a $2,000 processing fee to get into the 2002 lottery. Were successful. And so they paid another $2,000 to process -- processing fee to get into the 2003 lottery. Then before they got the allocation for 2003, they paid an additional $2 how to get into the -- an additional $2,000 to get into the 2004 lottery, which they were not allowed in because then they got a late allocation for the 2003 lottery. In December then they paid the balance of the application fee, $9,000, in order to proceed with their application. Then in early January they informed us that they were not going to be able to proceed with the project when was supposed to be located near the city of Lakeway. So they have made a request to be refunded the $9,000. Our policy guidelines provides that the application fees are non-refundable except for -- for the $1,000 that is for the financial advisors out-of-pocket expenses. The components of our $11,000 application fee is that there is a $2,000 processing fee, which -- which for an applicant that is going into the lottery, they pay that when they get -- when they go in the lottery, then the balance that they get in allocation. Then $5,500 is a retainer fee for the corporation. $2,500 is the financial advisors fee and then a thousand dollars for the financial advisors out of pocket fees. Our financial advisor has informed me that -- that he has not done any work on this project and accordingly would not be submitting an invoice s. Our attorney has been -- he has paid out of the processi fee and he -- he has been paid his portion of the fee. The developer, larry paul manly sis aware that the -- is aware that it's non-refundable. I kind of made a yellow mark about the relevant section, but there is a provision in the policies where the board of directors can essentially change, reduce, increase the application fee as they so desire. So -- so with that I'm hoping that any questions that you -- I'm open to any questions that you all might have.
>> haven't we had one of these before. My remembrance it wasn't zero, wasn't the full amount, it was something in between, I don't remember what it was.
>> it was $7,500, that applicant was a -- was a non-profit organization but again they put in an application and we did very little work on it. And then when they were not able to proceed on, then they made a request for a refund.
>> so that was for a non-profit. What is mr. Manly's status, is he a non-profit or for profit?
>> he's for profit.
>> thank you.
>> so of the $5,500, for the corporation services, what services are we provided and what's the value of them?
>> well, we've provided the services of -- of taking his application and processing, answering any question that's he's had and probably our staff has maybe been four or five hours. Which --
>> your hourly fee is about a thousand dollars an hour, isn't it? [laughter] mr. Davis? One of those high-paid consultants.
>> no. I am a Travis County salaried employee.
>> owe a pedometer.
>> so the total amount if we take out what we have earned is how much? We have earned about a thousand bucks?
>> well, we have -- we have --
>> how much time do we have in it?
>> I guess that you could -- you could think about what we have earned in many ways, just having --
>> what total amount of money are we looking at? $10,000?
>> he -- he has paid with the 3 processing fees and the $9,000 application fee, he has paid $15,000 to the corporation. He's -- he's requesting $9,000 as a refund. So he's not -- he's not asking for the 6,000.
>> when we refunded 7500, that was 7500 of 10,000 or --
>> that was 7500 of 11,000.
>> 11,000?
>> yes, sir.
>> pretty close to the -- so the nine to 15, 75 to 11 is -- is pretty close? Pretty close --
>> you can't look at it as being nine of 15. He made applications to get into the pool and those are like the lottery. So those 2,000, 2,000, 2,000, are not part of this deal. That's part of -- of life.
>> this -- this project had opposition from Lakeway?
>> this project did have opposition, yes, sir.
>> that's why they backed off of it, really. Originally. It was supposed to be affordable housing. Then there were issues about the view. Based on e-mails that I saw from residents.
>> right. I think that he brought up some -- some excavation and cost issues that also made the construction costs more than they had planned for.
>> so this go around it's $11,000, it's the two plus the nine? Is that correct?
>> I'm sorry, could you --
>> this go round, it was the 2,000 and then he was going to owe the balance of 11, correct?
>> the balance of nine, right.
>> yeah, sorry. For a total of 11.
>> that's right.
>> the situation with that other non-profit, not a for profit, but with the non-profit, was it also $11,000.
>> yes.
>> and we rebated back how much?
>> $7,500.
>> okay.
>> what's the deal with -- how do we get this 16, let me make sure that I understand that.
>> he was adding in previous years --
>> mr. Davis.
>> I'm sorry.
>> let mr. Davis earn that high hourly fee.
>> earn that fee, harvey.
>> he paid $2,000 for the 2002 lottery. He was successful. He paid twowndz for the 2003 -- $2,000 for the 2003 lottery, he was successful but very late. He got a very late allocation, before he got the allocation he had paid an additional $2,000 to get into the 2004 lottery. Subsequently because he got a 2003 allocation he was not allowed into the 2004 lottery.
>> move that we fund $7,500.
>> that works.
>> second.
>> on the rationale that we are dealing with 11,000 this year and the non-profit set precedent, that's the rationale that I'm using. Any more discussion?
>> and I think that's probably fair given that the other four were strictly just the lottery.
>> it was. That's --
>> and everybody knows that going into it. So it's not like -- we are not treating him any differently than --
>> no one else asked for their money back when they don't get the lottery money.
>> also based on our -- we are kind of waiting until the appropriate time to start working and when he didn't get the allocation basically that made our work unnecessary. So --
>> we will still recover some of our --
>> I think that's fair, judge.
>> super fair.
>> consistent.
>> a number of us agree, all in favor? All of us agree. That passes by unanimous vote. 3. Receive briefing from corporation attorney, give -- based on an e-mail that I saw and letter and phone message from cliff blunt it would help to give another week on this?
>> yes, sir. Just real briefly, in the e-mail letter to laura wingfield with agape last Wednesday morning, I heard back from her late Friday afternoon that she had been out at board meetings most of the week and was off yesterday for the holiday and was concerned that she wouldn't have time to get a response to us by this morning as we asked. Obviously she didn't because we don't have a response. So I would just request that we have it on for next week, I will call her this afternoon and insist that she get us something.
>> I am personally elated that she was celebrating dr. King's holiday yesterday. Will work with her. Any objection to us having this on next week? We will have it back January 27th.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: TUesday, January 21, 2004 8:25 AM