Travis County Commissioners Court
February 22, 2005
Housing Finance Corporation
Now let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation. Number one, consider and take appropriate action on results of compliance audit of the lakeview apartments.
>> I initiated a compliance audit last September of the lakeview apartments, which is located on riverside drive. It's a 504 unit apartment complex. I reported to the board November 30th that they were out of compliance with the low income and eligible tenant leasing requirement. At that time the board authorized cliff bond, our attorney, to issue a cure letter giving them 60 days to regain compliance. So I went out after the 60 days had expired, i've gone out to do a follow-up audit of the lakeview apartments. So that's the reason I'm -- we have this on the agenda item. I am happy to report that they have made substantial progress. We are in compliance with the low income leasing requirements. They have to have 101 units leased to low income tenants, which is defined as tenants whose income is less than 50% of the Austin area median income. And they said they had 114, so they had a nice cushion. I disallowed one of their files because it was not notarized, so it was not a big deficiency. So I am happy to report that they are in compliance with the low income requirement. They have made substantial progress on the eligible tenant leasing requirements. They are not in compliance at this time. I didn't really expect them to be after 60 days because there are so many units at that apartment complex that are vacant and are not classified as eligible or low income. They have 15 more units that are eligible tenant units. From my last report to the board on November 30th. So what I am recommending is that I go out there in about 90 days and do another follow-up audit to see the progress that they are making on the eligible tenant leasing requirements. Also I'm recommending that the board authorize our attorney, cliff blunt, to issue an appropriate follow-up letter notifying the owners that they have regained compliance on the low income leasing requirements.
>> so the request is for an additional 90 days on the -- are they in compliance, still?
>> yes.
>> so move. Discussion?does that get it dor you?
>> yes.
>> that's all you need today.
>> that's all I need.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Do I hear a motion to adjourn the corporation?
>> what about the second one?
>> I remove the motion a adjourn the incorporation and see a newly enlightened judge seeing item number 2. Consider and take appropriate action on request to join the national association of local housing finance agencies and to participate in the 2005 spring educational conference in Austin.
>> I'm here with jim shaw, who is the executive director of the capital area housing finance corporation. The capital area housing finance corporation serves the counties surrounding Travis County. He is also a board member of the organization we're talking about today and is the president of alfa, which is the organization that we renewed our membership last week. Nalfa is the national organization. Our corporation has never been a member of nalfa, principally because the membership fees are rather stiff, but because they're having their national conference in April in Austin, it's an appropriate time for the board to consider whether to join nalfa or not. The membership fee, the annual fee would be $780. It's based on the county's population. When I discuss the membership fee with nalfa, they agreed to take out the population of the city of Austin because the Austin housing finance corporation is a member of nalfa, otherwise the membership fee would have been $1,300. I think jim is -- can give the board a brief rationale for what we would get for the $780 and why it might be beneficial to join nalfa. Also, the cost for the -- for participating in the conference is $395 per person if you're a member, and $450 for non-members. And it might be something the board members would consider participating in this conference since it is a national conference. They also are providing opportunities for sponsorships in the conference. I think the capital area housing finance corporation and Austin housing finance corporation are contributing money to help make this conference a goal. So i've included in the backup some options for sponsors if the board wants to consider that option.
>> jim, why is this membership important? And what is the 780-dollar membership fee.
>> I wish I could get our membership dues down to 780. Well, on nalfa, like any association, it represents its members. I can tell you that nalfa is extremely active on the hill in washington, working very closely with naco and the u.s. Conference of mayors and working on legislation with common interest, hud funding levels, cdbg funding levels. On the bond side we've been very active for the last several years for workogrepeal of the 10 year rule and repeal of the national purchase price issues that we've faced for the last 10 years. They've worked for the last 10 years on purchase price limits. That was also a very significant issue for us in the rural counties. It became much more an issue in other counties last year. We have finally succeeded in breaking that log jam and the purchase price limits have been raised. That's an issue frankly that they've been working on for about five years. Particularly in today's political climate, I think nalfa is very, very instrumental in maintaining the cdbg funding levels and home funding levels. We use home fund for down payment assistance, and we're actually able to reach more first time buyers with these funds than we would otherwise. And we thought it was a good opportunity since the national conference is coming here to put our best foot forward in this entire region. Nalfa tends to be an organization and it's one of the reasons I wanted to get on that board. I've been on the board now five years. Trying to bring a little bit different perspective than they would get from someone representing new york city or san francisco or chicago. And our real push on this national conference is for this not to be an Austin conference, but to be a central Texas conference and truly a Texas conference. And try to show people what we're doing here to use the opportunity to learn. I've been -- there are two conferences a year. Most of our board members have been to the conferences and have found them very educational and very helpful. So that's -- this is to try to do our work and put our best foot forward legislatively on the hill, just like they do for the legislature here in Texas.
>> have we been able to access these fund for the Travis County housing finance corporation.
>> currently we have a home program going to provide 60 forgivable loans to first time home buyers, $5,000 each. So we received those fund through a very competitive grant process through Texas department of housing and community affairs. So we continue with capital area for those funds.
>> those are federal dollars?
>> yes.
>> the bottom line is we're going to get shamed into this given that it's in Austin. [ laughter ] it would be nice for us to join since it's going to be here in Austin. I kind of get the impression you might not be coming just this year because we've had the opportunity -- how many years have we not gone to it?
>> we've never belonged to it.
>> is it a, so is it the shaming part of it? [ laughter ] just cut to it. Is that what it is?
>> shaming into joining naco. [ laughter ]
>> we need to attend this year.
>> if the board says it's okay, I would -- I mean, my recommendation would be that we join this year, see how it goes, and assess whether it's worth the $780, which is quite a bit of money.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> what other counties do you serve? I know you represent Austin -- Austin has membership, which is in Travis County, but adjacent counties, which are you affiliated with.
>> we serve nine counties, fayette county to the east all the way to -- we serve the remaining four of the five msa counties to the east and to the west.
>> okay.
>> judge, I move that we join nalfa for the next year. We reassess in a year whether it's a valuable membership and we authorize mr. Davis to attend the Austin conference.
>> and could I add something else? We don't have at this time a budget, so --
>> and to offer the appropriate transfers to make all of this happen.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> some of us can go? Do we need to pay the registration fee?
>> yes. I'll see if they'll comp you. We'll try that. And we are really starting to -- [overlapping speakers]. We are actually -- we actually have room in there for board members. One thing you might want to give some thought too. I know my board members find it helpful to talk about things like what are our liabilities potentially. So we do have an entire track for board members. Judge, have you received your invitation to speak letter yet? That should -- I just saw a draft of that. You should be receiving an invitation to welcome everyone to Austin. [ laughter ] [overlapping speakers]
>> I hope we don't have second thoughts. [ laughter ]
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> move we adjourn.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously also.
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:
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 7:23 AM