Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 8, 2010,
Item 1
1. Consider and take appropriate action on the following items related to planning for and the use of community development block grant funding from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development: a. Update on the current projects and timeliness; should i read all of them or -- b. Results of the needs identification from the spring public engagement process; c. Potential projects for the program year 2010 action plan; and c. Other related items. D other related items.
>> good morning, christie moffat, travis county health and human services.
>> good morning.
>> today we're here to give you a semi annual update on where we are with the currents projects as well as provide some recommendations to the court for consideration for the -- for the py 2010 funding that we get from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development. We're anticipating to receive approximately $942,749. 20% of which can be used for administration and planning, 15% could be used for public services traditionally what we consider social services and at least 65% must be used towards community development activities, which could be things like infrastructure, supports or affordable housing development. Moving to give -- giving you an update on where we are with our project, with our sociowork expansion service where we provide case management services to -- to pardon me people in the unincorporated areas of precincts 1 and 4, we have assisted approximately 75 individuals within the first six months, and we have a goal of serving 120 people. So that project has been underway since october 1st and is going very well. Apache shores street improvements. I'm happy to say that construction is actively occurring. It began in april. And we are anticipating a conclusion at the end of this month. So -- so we are very excited about that and we will have pictures and provide all of that to you at a later date.
>> question, is that going to meet our guidelines as far as timeliness on the grant?
>> we will get into that a little bit later. But essentially we're hoping that we will be able to draw down a substantial amount of money and then the final moneys related to that project in august. We can get into that conversation a little bit. In terms of land acquisition for affordable housing development, we -- we are anticipating acquiring the land from austin habitat is anticipating acquiring the land in september of 10. Right now we are working to engage a consultant to assist us with the environmental assessment. We anticipate that will be finished in july. We're additionally anticipating receiving release of funds from h.u.d. In august for that. And then as soon as possible set up the closing date for the acquisition of the property on gilbert lane. Currently we are under -- beginning june 12th we will begin the public hearing or 30 day public comment period for the location of that land. Assuming site approval from commissioners court, as well as environmental clearance, we anticipate that to be acquired by september. Street improvements for lava lane. We are in the process ever designing -- process of designing. We have started the process of acquiring right-of-way. The project manager has met with the staff to start those details and you will see in our project recommendations that we will be requesting funding to construct that road next year. Homeowner rehabilitation, because we've been trying to move forward with our timeliness, we have been pushing two projects, large dollar projects, apache shores and land acquisition. Because of staffing we've had to push some projects back a little further than we anticipated. So we are hoping to be able to push the home rehabilitation and the home buyer assistance programs and -- in the summer and fall. And also the youth family assessment center flex funding, which is a flexibly funding to use for youth, also this summer as well. In terms of administration and planning, we are undergoing a -- a request for services, we're developing that document right now so that we can start looking at creating an analysis of impediments for housing choice. Anticipate that will be done sometime in the fall. So getting to the issue of timeliness. H.u.d. Requires that we have no more than 1.5 times our allocation in our line of credit. 10 months into our program year. For us that means that we must draw down as much funding as we can by july 31st and then on august 1st h.u.d. Will use a formula to determine if we are timely in our spending or not. We received a delay back in 2006 where h.u.d. Provided us an erroneous allocation amount, that delayed the program year for the first year. That has had a ripple effect over the last two or three years. So we are not anticipating to meet that timeliness by august 1st. But we are anticipating meeting it by september 30th, which is the indiana of the program year. -- the end of the program year. With thank you all very much means that apache shores were be primarily billed down and as well as the land acquisition will be completed at that time. We are hoping that will be satisfactory to h.u.d. We are keeping them up to date. In your backup we have all of the information, the latest report. We report that monthly, all of that information is in there for you. Moving on to the participation process in a assists us in developing project recommendations for your consideration. Back in february and in march of this past year, we held five public hearings. I'm happy to say that we are improving in our public participation feedback. So we had 28 pars pants at the public -- participants at the public hearings, that's actually a low number. We had a huge turnout at the precinct 4 hearing, not everybody signed in, some people left a little early, but it was a very exciting meeting. There was a lot of organizing of people who were interested in getting their needs met. So we had 28 participants there. Additionally, we had started last year participation form which allowed people to participate in a public hearing process without physically having to be there. Because in the unincorporated areas there are a lot of people who may have transportation barriers, so we provided a forum that basically just provides the same information for feedback that you would if you were at a public hearing. We can mail it out to people and it's also available on the website. And so we had 34 people submit those. And thin we also received -- then we also received four program proposals for projects, three were from agencies and four were from travis county departments. So in terms of looking at high needs. This is not in its totality everything that we received. In your backup there are medium and low priority projects that were recommended and those are all in your backup as well. But we're just going to focus on the high priority projects. For the presentation. So we received two additional communities that had issues or concerned about water or wastewater, three additional road improvements projects, also more discussion about rehabilitation of existing housing units.
>> [reading graphic] back in january we requested that the commissioners court approve certain scoring criteria for your consideration for us to come back with you to kind of help you understand how projects fill out. So this is just a review of what y'all had approve backed in january. The same criteria that we used last year, which is addressing a high priority. Whether or not a project can be completed in 12 to 18 months.
>> [reading graphic] again considered based on economic conditions housing market a medium level project related to home buyer assistance. These are the seven priorities for the 2006-2010 consolidated plan that the commissioners court approved back in 2007. I will not go through those for you but they are listed there. Moving on to the recommendation of the summary of projects. We are recommending four projects for you this year. The detailed backup is in tab four for you in terms of considerations and recommendations. The first project is lava lane, the construction of lava lane for approximately $400,000. The total construction of lava lane will be more than that. But we're anticipating that apache shores will come in under budget and the commissioners court approved previously rolling those dollars over to assist with the funding. This is the last and final phase for the lava lane road extension. Also we are recommending $285,000 for home buyer assistance. And this would go to supplement the $528,000 that has already been provided from last year's funding.
>> okay. Do we -- how are we -- in terms of spending last year's funding for home buyer assistance.
>> we haven't started that project yet because we were prioritizing the land acquisition and the appear apace shores project. It should start this summer.
>> land acquisition is under home buyer assistance?
>> no, it's not. The home buying assistance we haven't started that project yet. Snoop home buyer assistance will be implemented through the housing finance corporation very similarly to -- to other home buyer assistance programs. So we are working on a contract with the corporations right now.
>> the home buyer assistance is part of the plan the coming plan year whereas the land acquisition is the current plan year. Am i understand thank correctly?
>> land acquisition was funded with py 2006, 2007, 2008 money. '09 we founded $528,000 for home buying assistance, for down payment assistance as well as gap financing. This is an additional allocation to continue to support that. This is based on information from the housing finance corporation about their neighborhood stabilization program and their experience with that. And knowing that there will be enough interest to support additional funding.
>> okay.
>> here's what i was getting to --
>> okay.
>> -- if we have not begun the 2009 program, where we allocated more than $500,000, why would we add another 285,000 to the same kind of program for 2010? We are looking at $800,000 that -- do we think that we will be able to spend $800,000 bit end of the next year -- by the end of the next year?
>> yes.
>> the housing finance corporation people say that?
>> yes, i checked with them and based on their estimates of what they can spend, based on their nsp program, they feel comfortable with that. For us, we will get that contract done once we get the land acquisition behind us, we will get that contract done this summer. And i have somebody coming in to help us with some underwriting experience. And so they will be able to help forward that for us. What will end up occurring is that we can amend the contract with a much shorter process than having to go through learning a new program and how to implement it.
>> may i make one recommendation?
>> sure.
>> which you probably should not respond to at this time.
>> okay.
>> why don't we look at documentation that we have gotten in support of our ability to spend the $585,000, make sure that the documentation for the 285, if it's the same, we need to get an explanation of why we would expect a different result. Can you understand me?
>> yes.
>> i mean i know we're familiar with those managers and i know that they are looking for the benefit, best interests of travis county residents. But this is a whole lot of money. And h.u.d. Is real firm on timeliness. And so i guess i'm -- we really ought to confirm or ability and the housing finance corporation staff's ability to spend this money and the -- in the prescribed time.
>> okay.
>> is my point.
>> okay. We can certainly do that, judge. And we will be happy to -- to arrange a meeting with you because staff is not requesting action on these items today. So we can certainly meet with you and talk through that thought process. I -- i can say with a little bit of authority that i believe there is a -- a sort of a mix of funding that the housing finance corporation tries to use to assist residents so some residents may qualify for one pot of funding versus a different pot of funding, so this just provides a continuum of available resources to assist constituents. So we can talk through that with you.
>> i feel real comfortable having mr. Davis and mr. Gonzalez in that same meeting.
>> sure.
>> happy to do so.
>> i'll have on my hat as president of the corporation not travis county judge, okay, so that may help.
>> we know him to be a fair and reasonable man, that president
>> [laughter]
>> mr. Reeferseed.
>> thank you, sir. Ronnie
>> [inhale] reeferseed again. I'm concerned about -- i listened real hard to the details on getting funding. I've got a personal thing with my house that had a flooding problem and i'm wondering, i'm very poor. I'm wondering is there any allocation for direct funding to help citizens who need help repairing house problems?
>> we do have a project that again is in process that would assist with some repairs, not 100% of the repairs up to a certain am of resources. It does require eligibility determination, several factors that would need to meet federal guidelines, but we do have a project in the queue that could be accessed for that purpose.
>> great. Can you -- can you -- instruct me how to -- how to get in on that line or --
>> can we tell him the person to contact?
>> ms. Moffat.
>> great, thanks.
>> please continue.
>> thank you.
>> additionally, we are recommending to continue the funding of the social work expansion project. Again, this project has been very successful in terms of identifying families who are in need of resources. We are tending to find that people are fairly isolated out in the unincorporated areas and we are making great strides and helping some families get resources they may not have necessarily tapped into without us. That is to fund one position, a social worker and some -- you know, some travel or mileage or that kind of thing. For $69,295. Then finally, we are actually presenting this to you in a different way than we normally do. We normally present this project to you in two different projects, one is a t.n.r. Project for planning where we fund the senior engineer and part of his costs are funded through -- through project managing specific infrastructure projects and then, also, providing planning services like the water and wastewater plan and scoping of other projects for us. So -- so normally we separate out those costs, but we decided to combine them. Just to make -- be very clear that the -- so that you understand your full investment in administration and planning. So -- so there also is an aspect to it where health and human services will pay for about 60% of a planner. And then also the general operating costs represented to advertising -- related to advertising and those kinds of costs for the grant. So we are recommending this year to spend the full 20%. It will be a consolidated planning year. So we will be having to create a new consolidated plan and we wanted to make sure that we had the appropriate resources to be able to do that. We have additional mapping and data resources that we have to acquire to be able to get that consolidated planning done. We are also wanting the courts interests, comments, thoughts, creating a new strategy to ensure timeliness. Essentially what h.u.d. Will tell you is that you need to have a line of projects kind of in the background that are ready to go. So that should a project slow down, you have the opportunity to fund one of those. The problem is that typically that requires a substantial amendment process that can take anywhere from 60 to 90 days to complete. Then to go through the process to amend a contract or, you know, to find somebody to implement the program, those kinds of things. So it ends up not being a best case scenario in terms of creating a situation to achieve timeliness. So we have talked with h.u.d. And gotten -- received some guidance and we are recommending that we create a section in our action plan called alternate projects. And this is where we put in detail with projects that we believe are ready to fund. Or need a little bit of work and might be able to be funded. Sometime during the program year should funding become available. And so this would require an amendment to the citizen participation plan, which should the court choose to go with this option, i can provide backup for an agenda item next week. The citizen participation plan changes would have to be posted for 15 days. We don't have to have a public hearing, but we could just receive comments on it. But i could make changes to allow this alternate program strategy. So in essence what would occur is if something slowed down, let's just say lava lane, we funded it at $400,000, we would come back to court, we would explain to you that the project has slowed and -- and, you know, say to you, we are recommending that we fund this thing at this amount, this at project at this amount, by action of the commissioners court we have provided enough detail in the program year 2010 plan that we wouldn't have to go through a substantial amendment process. And you could approve that at project and we could begin immediately moving toward implementing that.
>> let me ask a question. You know, when we select projects, of course, there are certain project that's need a little -- projects that need a little more attention than others. You brought up lava lane as an example. I know some of the process as far as that was concerned was right-of-way acquisition a whole bunch of other things that may have impacted or slowed the project down. Is there any way possible, especially if you are coming in with alternatives other than that project when we select them and you end up moving from one portion of the money to -- to an amount alternate situation, until that project is ready to go, is there any way possible to determine how that can be best handled knowing that you will have certain things that you need do when you accept a project that could be time consuming. How could we make the adjustments on those projects that have a little more time consuming components to actually complete when we go into this process? How can we do that? I see where we're going here -- i'm sorry.
>> what we learned in our -- in our few years of operating programs is we need to do exactly that. That we have to phase the project so we may fund a planning phase and then come back and -- in the previous year or in the subsequent year and fund the construction for example. So roads are probably the easiest example of that. So we would fund planning in one year, we would come back and fund construction in another year. So that's been the cleanest way to break those projects apart to look at it that way. To the extent that a project lends itself to that, we can do that. The land acquisition project, however, didn't necessarily on the front end appear to lend itself to that.
>> yeah.
>> we have learned that, you know, should we go that route again, there probably are some things that we could fund in small bites versus a large allocation.
>> yeah, that's a good example i think of -- of maybe how we could proceed to -- anyway, you made your point.
>> the -- i think the point that ms. Moffat is trying to make for the court's understanding is that to amend your projects in mid year is just as expensive as selecting those projects annually. So we have worked had h.u.d. To find a way -- worked with h.u.d. To make a preplan should those situations arrive in response to the timeliness issue. That's where these alternate projects are coming in. It would help us to eliminate some of the time that it would take in public comment, public notices to -- to move new projects into our schedule.
>> okie-doke, thank you.
>> is that it?
>> that's it.
>> i had a couple of quick questions about that with respect to the alternative projects. We had a similar issue at campo with regard to having a list of alternatives that -- that are ready in the queue and there are various sizes so if you have a gap, you have a -- you have an alternative list to plug the gap with. I'm wondering, we have discussed in the past the -- the additional requirement under h.u.d. Guidelines, which is a very good requirement of having a study -- impediments for fair housing, impediments or affordable housing?
>> impediments to fair housing choice.
>> i'm wondering if that process, perhaps, is it possible that we could -- we could come up with a -- could that aid us in coming one a triage list so that we have an alternative, kind of a floating alternative list?
>> i think it certainly can. The -- the impediments to fair housing choice is a part of your planning for your next consolidated plan. If you recall i guess it's been maybe about six months ago, you approved us doing a three year consolidated plan with the goal of being on a similar cycle to some of our geographic partners being the city of austin and williamson county. And so the report on the impediments of fair housing choice will be a part of that document that is due to h.u.d. Next year in 2011. So part of your decision making over the next 12 months will be what your priority projects will be, and what your -- what your priority need areas will be and certainly any -- any information that's gathered in that -- the development of that report can translate into your goals and objectives for your next three year plan.
>> i think it would be great to -- to consider that as a possible -- one possible component of that overarching study because also i see that -- that this water and wastewater keeps coming up over and over again and they are such -- water and wastewater are very costly, last over long periods of time, make it very difficult to shoe into the cdbg money paradigm. I just wanted to put that out there as, you know, if there was some way that we could cross matrix list really big expensive projects that are very important along with the smaller, less expensive projects that are important, so that we can strike while the iron is hot when we see opportunities.
>> i would just make a note that specifically with -- with doing things to address fair housing choice, that goes under your admin cap. There's active interest in trying to move that into an eligible activity which is a part of that minimum 75% investment. But that hasn't been done yet. We are hoping there will be a change because that will help forward those interests of creating change.
>> which also creates an even greater incentive for us to partner with the city of austin, foinls, if it's going to -- for instance, if it's going to stay under the admin cap it sure would be nice to get double bang for the buck and have a coordinated triage list, wouldn't that be nice.
>> that would be great. Moving on to the time line of the development of the py 10 action plan. June 15th next tuesday is the last day the commissioners court can approve the project so we can approve it into the draft for the action plan for public comments. That means that we would come back to the commissioners court on june 22nd requesting approval of the draft document for public comment. The 30 day public comment period, which includes two public hearings, would occur from june 23rd to july 22nd. August 10th, or no later than august 10th, we would come back to the commissioners court to approve the final document, which would include any comments that we have received during that time. And then our action plan is due to h.u.d. On august 13th.
>> so what action is required next week?
>> next week i would need y'all to approve the project so that we can include it into the action plan.
>> okay. So do we need a --
>> we need an item --
>> agenda wording to do that?
>> yeah, we'll --
>> looks like 1 a, right?
>> right, well --
>> 1 c.
>> let's just have appropriate wording.
>> we will -- we will.
>> mr. Reeferseed.
>> i'm just --
>> [indiscernible]
>> one of those seats in the audience may be a whole lot comfortable than that, mr. Reeferseed.
>> sorry, okay.
>> so is that it?
>> we do have one item under other related items that we will sort of quickly give you a summary. Since we filed our backup, we did receive in writing our monitoring report for this project and so we wanted to share with you since this is our first monitoring of this project, that there were no findings in that report and one concern related to our timeliness and so we certainly can distribute that report to court members so that you can read the detail of it. But we are happy to report that there are no findings in this report and that your program has been commended for its implementation. Certainly h.u.d. Is very much aware of the challenges with the land acquisition project that has affected our timeliness and so they certainly i think went through our program implementation with a fine toothed comb to determine if our management in some way contributed to the timeliness issue. So the report speaks to that, if you have interest in -- so i just wanted to let you know that report is available. We will provide it to you and we're happy to report that the county has no findings.
>> great.
>> since we have the benefit of a few years of experience, with land acquisition,projects, are we able to put together sort of a checklist prerequisites to our serious consideration in the future? You see what i'm saying?
>> yes, sir.
>> i mean, i think if you have got land in the floodplain, we ought to know that at the time you make your request. But you have to do certain work in order to be able to make that determination.
>> right.
>> see what i'm saying? Why wouldn't we shift to the applicant responsibility for doing that? Because what we're doing is -- is jeopardizing funds for other projects. And the bigger the project seems to me the more important it is that we -- that we do that. And if you are talking about, you know, acquiring multiple -- sites -- then you get up into hundreds of thousands of dollars and you really eat into our maximum. So if there is a problem, you know, it can be painful. And so, you know, we can't change history. But it seems to me that in the future, you know, we ought to know right now, hey, you know, your project is not right for this year, but between now and next year, why don't you do this for you and give us this certification. And so we ought to know what -- land acquisition probably teaches this lesson, i don't know that the other ones would. But the thing that stands out to me, too, is that on some of those road improvement projects, if we cannot do them in house immediately, maybe we ought to have some contractors on board, maybe a rotating list, where we can contract out the work.
>> uh-huh.
>> see what i'm saying?
>> yes.
>> when i look at some of these projects, they are really fairly small, but if you are a small firm that does this kind of work, it would be attractive to you.
>> we have been very effective using this small projects rfq for design. And so we've had -- we've had excellent experience with that, that i think will help us move forward in coming up with different ways to -- to speed up our process. So i really feel like we've learned a lot.
>> but our
>> [indiscernible] is listed as a relevant party here on some of those small construction projects and if we could incorporate them into the t.n.r. Work plan, so be it. But if we are full of county projects and can't get to them quickly, then i wish we could immediately turn to a contractor to use a -- the federal dollars to get the project done. So us first, but if we cannot do it in a timely manner, use an outside contractor. Just food for thought.
>> no, i think that's a tremendous plan and then i would just close by saying thank you all very much successful monitoring report is not solely the responsibility of health and human services. The county purchasing department, the county legal department, the auditor's office, all have a stake and of course transportation and natural resources has almost -- we almost need to combine the two departments and say health and human services and transportation and natural resources because we have worked so closely together to implement the projects that fall under this grant. So we would be remiss in not thanking those departments for their assistance in making sure that we have an effective program.
>> i'm so pleased that we worked together as an effective team. See y'all next tuesday.
>> thank you.
>> thanks so much y'all.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 2:35 PM
