Travis County Commissioners Court

May 22, 2012 - Item 9
Agenda

View captioned video.

9, consider and take appropriate action on the following items related to the community development block grant available through hud: update on current projects; substantial amendments to the 2011-2013 consolidated plan and py06, py08, py09, and py10 action plans; c, overview of the program year 2012 spring public engagement process; and d, potential projects for the program year 2012 action plan.

>> good morning, christy moffitt, Travis County health and human services.
we will provide to you something today we do annual, which is provide you update on where we are with current projects, to also provide you an overview of the public earn gaugement process that occurred in February where we gathered names from people to determine what their interests were and any project ideas they might have.
also, we are going to discuss with you substantial amendments that we would like to move forward with, as well as the recommended projects for funding from the program year 2012.
so first the project update.
currently we are implementing several projects.
the first is social work services expansion.
it began in October of 2011 and we served over 200 people in the first six months.
this was a programmatic design change from our previous years with in project.
originally, this project served people in precincts 1 and 4.
this was the first year we expanded that to all four precincts.
the project is going well.
we are a little behind in our spending simply because it took a while to get fully staffed up but they are fully staffed now and they have a plan to get back on target with drawing down their funds.
the state street improvement project, this is a project that has been on rar since 2008, the community had to complete a primary survey and last year or this year was the first year we funded phase one, a three-phase project and so right now we are under final negotiations with a design firm.
they will have a design finished likely in November, will go out forbid for construction, if you approve the construction phase for next year and that construction will be completed in July of 2013 and then come back for phase three to finish all of the streets in that area.
also, the land acquisition for affordable housing infrastructure development, that land has been acquired.
this is a partnership with Austin habitat for community humanity.
two houses have been completed and they have until September of 2015 to complete the other 29 houses.
additionally we wills have a plain view water connection project and this is from our american recovery act funding.
we are almost done with this project.
we connected about 17 homes.
we have a couple of other houses we are trying to get their eligibility in and so we anticipate that all of that will be done by the end of June, finishing that project.

>> the end of June of this year?

>> of this year, yes, sir.

>> and the -- and the other affordable housing thing that you brought up, we are actually acquired the land with Austin habitat humanities involved in constructing that to ensure we bring some affordability, that is the given lane subdivision?

>> yes, yes.

>> so that is one way how we are addressing the affordable housing situation here, in that particular area, and of course the gilbert lane and gilbert lane situation is -- basically not the gilbert lane but plain view estate situation.
is those particular persons in that arrest are looking for a source of acquiring water and of course we end up in the -- going through the contract situation and ensuring those lines and all the other kinds of things are connected, where these persons could actually -- but having to qualify, also, eligibility for where we end up hooking up their homes to hook ups for about where they would be able to have water in that area.
whereas before they were on a well system, and of course now they are actually able to acquire water in this area and that's right in the entryway of the apartment bend renovated going into Austin colony so I want to make sure people understand exactly what we are doing and making a lot of progress using cbgd funds for qualified eligible persons in this area of bringing are affordability and also water resources so an area, I want to make sure it is laid out in how it is happening.
is that correct?

>> yes, sir.

>> thank you.

>> additionally, we have funded a homeowner rehabilitation project.
we anticipate that we will identify a nonprofit this summer and the provision of services will begin the fall of 2012.
we also have a home buyer assistance project.
the rfs is released in March of 2012.
we have identified a nonprofit and we are wrapping up negotiations and anticipate a contract will be on the Commissioner's court agenda purchasing office in June.
also, there is a youth and family assessment center flex fund project that we are going to recommend.
for deletion.
it was originally funded in 2009.
we will get into more details as we go through the presentation, but due to prioritizing larger funded -- projects that were funded at higher levels and trying to get those things done, we are going to recommend that project be deleted.
and then, finally, we have the administration and planning project, which supports some of the thing cbgd staff and the costs related to that and that is spending funds down very well and also began analysis of impediments to fair housing choice and anticipate that document to be finished in October and will be visiting with you about that document over the course of the next few months.
in terms of funding availability, for program year 2012, which spans from October 1 throw 2012 to September 30 of 2013, h.u.d.
provided county $896,341.
65 percent of that must be spent towards community development activities, 20% could be spent on administration and planning, and 15% may be spent on public services.
additionally, we have some project savings, from projects over the years, and that totals down to $227,937.96 so it came from project savings from lava lane and administration and planning dollars we hadn't spent and also project savings from the social work expansion project from 2010.
land acquisition phase two that we had reallocated funds, didn't need all of it and then finally the yfac expansion, the project we are recommending for deletion.

>> the lava lane project came under budget?

>> yes.

>> all right.

>> so in terms of the substantial amendment, we are wanting to substantially amend 2011-2013 consolidated plan which you approved last year and theni amendment, action relatedo that is adding village of webberville to the cbgd area so we will be updating the maps to demonstrate it is now part of the urban county and also to include the population statistics and those kinds of things.

>> will there be another opportunity for any other municipalities to do as webberville, folks have done in this particular case, as far as applying and becoming a part of that or was that the last bite in the apple?

>> no, sir.
sherry fleming, executive director for accounting service and veteran service, this is something we will understood take each time we prepare the new consolidated plan.
so the current consolidated plan will take us through 2013, and about then we will begin the process again of preparing consolidated plan which at that time one of the activities will be to send out letters to the municipalities inviting them to join our urban county.

>> okay.
knew.

>> we will actually start next year, so plan for all of that.

>> all right.
thank you.

>> and then for py06 and py10, we would like to reprogram the project savings that has -- that has occurred and then finally we would like to delete.
the youth and family assessment center flex plan project.
right now this project was an expansion that had been funded previously by other dollars, and so what we have found is that in prioritizing other projects they have been able to meet the needs of other dollars so we feel like we are not causing any harm by going ahead and deleting these funds.

>> this is just matter of rearranging the furniture on where the money comes from on reduction of services?

>> exactly.
exactly.
so we feel like it's a good move at this standpoint from our priorities.
in terms of the public engagement summary, we held five public hearings in February.
there were 46 participants at those meetings.
we had participation forms for people who were not able to attend a public hearing.
that participation form mimicked structure of the public hearing, so we do that to allow people who may have transportation issues, those kinds of things, to be able to still participate.
those forms were available in english and spanish.
we had 32 of those submitted, additionally, we had 7 project proposals submitted.
again, those are available in english and spanish as well and four proposals for neighborhoods or individuals and three proposals for the Travis County department.
so in terms of efforts to broaden participation, we have the city of manor and also the lake living network news in Leander put ads on our website.
we found some of the smaller newspapers we have traditionally used have gone out of business so we had to try to find alternate methods to try to get access to the information.
so that's the reason for those two things.
additionally, we did some more in depth outreach to independent school districts, so we took a look at all of the different school districts that serve people who live in Travis County and so we have Leander isd, del valle isd, marble falls and manor isd put everything on their websites and also put flyers up in their administration offices and all of the different schools that served kids from Travis County in order to try to better outreach to those populations.
and then additionally we added the electronic listserv for one voice.
so just in general speaking, in terms of the needs that we discovered through the participation this year, they tend to align with everything we found.
people want better infrastructure, whether it's streets or water.
they are looking for better connection to services.
they would like improved conditions with their current housing, or they would like some affordable housing options.
so things tend to just remain the same in terms of what people have said in previous years.
let's move on to project recommendations.
so the project screening criteria that we have used pretty much every year since doing cdbg and look at each and see whether it addresses a priority for the consolidated plan and whether it is feasibility which means completed in 12-18 months and whether it impacts significant amount of people and benefits low to moderate income households and whether it leverages funds.
so in the 2011-2013 consolidated plan, three priorities which are infrastructure, housing, community services and three medium priorities, populations with specialized needs/services, business and jobs and public facilities.
high priorities basically mean we will likely invest in those areas and medium means we might but we are not required to.
so this is a summary chart of what staff recommendations are for projects.
we are recommending five different projects and we will go through those in more detail.
so the first is the find phase two of the lake oak street improvement project and this will fund about half of the roads in that development as well as the easements related to completing phase three.
this project in total will cost about $805,000.
we funded -- design this current year and so phase two would cost about $326,598.
it is in the high priority area of infrastructure.
this project will be phased over three years, this is the second year of that.
it impacts 126 people and they completed primary survey around it determines 85.7% of those people are low to moderate income and doesn't leverage any funding as we are funding the whole amount.
one mention about that, if we don't continue on with construction because we have funded design, then we would have to pay back all of that money related to this project, because h.u.d.
doesn't see the project as meeting a national objective until you actually construct the road.
the next project we are recommending is homeowner rehabilitation.
this project provides a five-year forgivable loan of up to $24,999.
to improve homes for low to moderate income homeowners which are people living at 80% median income or less.
currently we have 45 people on the waiting list so we believe with this investment, plus our current investments of $636,000, that will help take care of that list.
now, the list we are maintaining doesn't assure that everybody on that list is qualified or that their house is eligible.
it will simply help us move through that list.
so we are proposing $256,024, again, in a high priorities area which is housing and it will be able to be completed twelve months and impact would be 10 houses and this would be 100% benefit low to moderate income people because you have to be income eligible to receive this service and in terms of leverage funding it will be determined.
and the next is the social work expansion.
it provides funding for 1.5 f.t.e.s plus operate ago costs and its case management to people who are living in the cdbg service area and the different precincts.
funding $106,000 and a high priority in community services and it will take twelve months to spend the funds and benefit 400 people and the benefit would be 100% low to moderate income people and leverage about $205,000.

>> if I can say briefly this project has really done a lot in helping us to identify needs in unincorporated areas.
you may recall when we introduced this project several years ago, the primary focus of the staff in this project was to bring services outside of our community centers and actually into the neighborhoods and homes of your constituents, and so a lot of the referrals we have for the home repair program that's about to come online came through interactions with the social workers, but they are really the finger on the post of what is happening with residents in the unincorporated areas.

>> and sherry, let me say this and we will -- everything everything we are doing here, we are being aggressive and taking care of these situations as far as needs are concerned, but I would like to make sure that -- and let me ask this question.
to ensure that the services are rendered accordingly after the particular homes, needs of the the low income families, they are located and of course we say, okay, you qualify.
you are eligible.
at that point, how can we ensure that the -- as far as bringing out the needs for the home, as far as the contractor, the providers, doing the repairs on board in line ready to serve so that we will not get behind on anything.
we have the people right there aligned and ready to go to work?
how is that portion of it working?

>> well, we -- you know, we -- there is extensive preparation ahead of time.

>> I understand.

>> with these programs. We also looked adds these programs in other communities.

>> right.

>> and so it certainly is our contract that is binding upon our sub recipient who ultimately lends this contract but also, we have a responsibility to monitor our sub recipients in the same way that we, ourselves will be monitored on this project going forward.
so certainly we would love for that process to be 100% but I believe that the structure of our monitoring is such that, you know, we can certainly try to identify any problems up front as best we can, you know, without having eyes in the back of my head.

>> I understand.

>> sometimes we have to have eyes in the back of our head, right?
anyway, I want to make sure that the hand and foot of this operation are basically doing the -- going in the same direction because that's why --

>> absolutely

>> extensive contracting process.
it took us a while to get this together, but I can assure you that we are very much aware of the county's responsibility in ensuring that this project comes off flawlessly.

>> okay.
thank you.
all right.

>> you want to proceed, you have something to say?

>> yes.
thank you very much.
I have a question about the great presentation, you covered a lot of information obviously, rapid fire, but trying to keep up with everything, it sounded to me like there was some funding and building of roads paid by the taxpayers for developers, and that seems constantly like in my neighborhood, for example, we -- the owners -- even though it is a county road, we had to come up with the money just to improve our own roads.
and is that a normal -- is it based on income or?

>> the neighborhood did a primary survey and what we found is that this neighborhood generally would not be able to -- they wouldn't be able to leverage any of their own funds through the substandard road project so generally what we do is we -- this is our third road project.
we generally help neighborhoods that, you know, have a significant amount of low to moderate income people living there who would not otherwise be able to improve their roads on their own.
even going through the substandard bid process because they don't have the funds to leverage.
so this is the instance with one of these neighborhoods.
it is 85.7% low to moderate income and if my memory is, you know, is correct, I believe most people on the lower end of the income scale in this neighborhood as well.

>> okay.
so, yeah, that was my question.
so that's really the mechanism for road improvement, is you do check out the income level of the people?

>> yes, sir.
we are required to.

>> and if not, then the people are subjected to go find it themselves somehow?

>> yes, they can go through the substandard road process or whatever their options that are available for them.

>> great.
thanks so much for the info.

>> let's assume we have a full five minutes to complete our presentation.

>> okay.

>> this is all so fascinating.

>> I can move really fast.
okay.
so this next project is a new project.
it's a public services project and also an administration project called fair housing counseling.
I want to make sure that -- a project proposal was not turned in for this.
staff want to do this project to be able to start to invest in fair housing and to make sure that we understand fully and begin to address some of the types of discrimination that may be happening out in inincorporated areas, so this contract would be with Austin tenants council which does public work, 43,451 from the public services cap and remaining from the administrative and planning budget -- for a total of 43,451 and serve up to 35 people with fair housing, which help them determine if they have a complaint, do testing related to the complaint and get them through the process as well as provide training and out reach.
training for health and human services staff who interact with clients frequently to help them identify when this may be occurring as well as outreach to people who li out in the cdbg service area for them to understand what their rights and what this thing looks like.

>> I would add quickly as an entitlement community.
we take on certain responsibilities as it relates to affordable houseling and fair housing and so this would be an opportunity for us to demonstrate that we are providing these services to the community.
as a part of our cdbg program.

>> I appreciate y'all anticipating the results of our impediments to fair housing study by implementing this.
the statistics are 37% of Travis County residents are low income and 41% of Travis County residents are spending more than a third of their income on housing.

>> the next project and the last project is administration planning budget.
this is to partially fund the cdbg planning and seen your engineer, fair housing activities and related costs, it is proposing funding $179,268.
and the final is the cost savings from 2006 to 2010, we had $2,227,937.96 of money to reallocate and we are recommending we put this in homeowner rehabilitation, the same project that we are recommending earlier.
it just adds and helps us address that list.
additionally, we have alternate projects.
two years ago bewe began including@inate projects in case we have project savings midyear, two of them are typical projects, home buyer assistance, allocate up to $300,000 and the details on that project is in your back-up.
also, adding more funding to the homeowner or home rehabilitation project, up to $200,000.
we wouldn't anticipate that it would likely need that but we just put in there in case.
our final one is a water connection project for las lomitas, up to $480,000.
we are completing a primary survey for this neighborhood right now.
this is a new project.
it is a neighborhood that does not have water to it.
there is -- I think it's 15 ten acre tracks and they are currently bringing water in to storage tanks and supplying the water themselves and so what we are looking at here is the project is just not ready.
it is not ready to fund.
it is not ready for us to recommend as a current project for next year.
so we are providing it as an alternate so that should it get ready and should we be able to free up funds during next year, they won't have to wait for us to come back to and say that we have these dollars and we don't have to go through a substantial amendment process.
so the $480,000 is to start design services and also to look at any septic tank, you know, and installation and those kinds of things.
again --

>> so the detail of staff's recommendation will be available on the Travis County website.
also, you can contact the health and human services department to receive either by email or in hard copy of the project information as well as the public comment period announcements.
they will also be hard copies available at the community centers throughout the county and all of the projects that staff identified today will be a part of that back-up and that is what we will be seeking comment on from the community so we would appreciate any feedback and we will come back to you at the end of the comment period to request your final approval of these projects has well as offer up any comments that come in.

>> we have discussed a lot in a day.
but in closing, can you basically, nor those who do not have access to computers -- you mentioned -- is there a telephone number that the residents can call to look -- to gain access to the information that we have supplied the public this morning?

>> they can call me at 854-3460.
my name is christy moffitt.
854-3460.
also, if they are familiar with any of the 7 Travis County community centers, there will be the final -- the public comment draft will also be available there.
and just one quick note, we actually generally request the approval of Commissioners court on the projects before we load them on the final -- to the public comment draft, so what we have presented today in terms of the project recommendations, we would request that the court make a decision about whether or not you would like us to move forward with these projects and we have until June 5th for the court to make that decision.

>> was it worded as an action -- be it worded as action item, when do we need to take action on it?

>> June 5th as well.

>> do we need to temporarily bless these today?

>> it's up to you.
you can do it.

>> let's just wait, then.

>> okay.

>> if it's up to me.
thank you very much.
this is fascinating.
the reports more than 130 pages.
residents who want to see the full report, so they can read it at their leisure can contact you or any member of the Commissioners court and get it.

>> yes.

>> I can hardly wait for our next visit.

>> yes.

>> [laughter]

>> thank you, thank you.
good overview.

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.