Travis County Commissioners Court
October 21, 2008
Housing Finance Corporation
Let's call to order the Travis County housing finance corporation, one item. Consider and take appropriate action on results of compliance examination of travis station apartments project.
>> good afternoon, my name is mike gonzales for the corporation. Back on September 26th, 2008, staff initiated a compliance audit of travis station apartments. The development is located on 6600 ed bluestein in northeast Austin. The compliance examination reviewed for requirements set forth by the regulatory agreement dated April 6, 19194. Specifically we looked at 20% of the units were lease to do low-income tenants not exceeding 80%. Off the median family income. And 90% of the units were lease to do people who met the eligibility requirements. Typically we like to do a sample file of 30 tenant files. However, after reviewing 20 it became evident there was a management systemic problem in the record keeping and not documenting the income properly. This is out of the 20 files that we reviewed, 18 were found to not have either the income documentation in place or the income certification fully completed and signed. At that time we advised management on some of the requirements and kind of pretty much coasted on what documentation had to be in place. We did recommend to issue a cure letter and that's in your backup. Staff is recommending we give them 20 days to get in compliance. We ask that they restate their latest quarterly compliance and forward to Travis County. At that time we would recommend staff do a followup examination within six months. Pretty much it was management turnover, but they were not following quite a bit of requirements set forth so it's a little bit of staff acting as a coaching or mentoring as far as what the requirements have to be and what documentation has to be included in the files.
>> so the management team is aware of of the recommendations that you are bringing forth to us as far as 60 days to come in compliance as far as the recommendations. And I guess at that time it will probably come back to the board members to see if they have come within compliance within the 60-daytime frame.
>> that's correct. That's why we made a specific effort of making sure they were aware of all the requirements and what they have to put in place. They seem pretty willing to do the followup action. Once restated we'll go back in six months and test that restated quarterly report to make sure always the claims are actually low-income and they have all the documentation for that.
>> judge, I move approval of staff recommendation.
>> mr. Gonzales, just to clarify, in your review both of the documents and also of the facility, does it appear that all of the inhabitants are low-income tenants or eligible tenants, it's just a record keeping issue with management?
>> it appears -- because the requirement is fairly low, 20%, they cannot exceed 80%, which is pretty high threshold or I'm sorry pretty low threshold to cross it, it appears they will have enough tenants to meet the low-income requirements, it's just they are not able to document at this time. I don't think compliance is truly going to be an issue as far as meeting the requirements, it's making sure they have the documentation in place to be able to prove that to us.
>> that's good news. And it's a management issue and not a -- and not having met the goal of the low-income housing opportunity.
>> so what action are we taking today?
>> today is just to approve the report and to authorize us to issue the cure letter from cliff blunt to the owners of the property. At that time the letter is going to instruct them with that 60 days to come back and update the report saying they do meet the low-income requirements. After that we'll do a followup examination of the property.
>> motion by Commissioner Davis to approve. Discussion? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 1:38 PM