Transcript

joining us for our uh hearing on the

affordable housing bond package. Um just

going to have a few opening remarks.

Just I'm really overwhelmed and and

grateful for how many folks have uh

shown up today. I think it speaks to the

the interest and the power and the

crisis around housing that our community

currently faces. Uh time and time again,

voters have said yes to investing in

affordable housing. And last November,

they did so at an unprecedented level,

approving a $500 million bond, the

largest affordable housing commitment in

our city's history. That vote represents

more than dollars. It represents trust.

And with that trust comes a

responsibility to steward these funds

carefully and transparently and in a way

that has the greatest possible impact

for the people who call Columbus home.

And what I've heard clearly during last

year's election while talking with

voters and community members and even uh

candidates for office, including the

colleague who is sitting next to me

today, is that residents want to see a

more open and transparent process for

how these bond dollars are spent. They

want sharper strategies, more public

input, and a willingness to think big

about how we address our housing

challenges. That is why last year, late

last year, I committed publicly to

holding this hearing. Today is part of a

broader effort to do robust outreach

through public hearings like this one

and through a city-wide survey to hear

directly from residents and stakeholders

across our housing ecosystem. We wanted

to create a space not just for experts

and advocates, but for people most

affected by these decisions.

At council, we believe outcomes are

stronger when the circle is wider, when

more voices are invited in, and when we

when lived experience is valued

alongside technical expertise.

So today, we are here to listen. We will

hear from deputy director Aaron Proer,

from invited speakers and advocates, and

from members of the public. And just as

importantly, we want to hear from

everyday residents, people who know what

it's like uh to rent an apartment in

this city, to try to buy a first home or

to hold on to a home as costs rise

around them. And I want to be clear, I

come to this conversation with ideas,

and some of them are big and audacious.

But I want us to build more public and

transparent process for allocating these

funds, and to pursue strategies that use

every dollar as effectively as possible.

I want us to be laser focused on

preventing displacement, whether driven

by re rising rents or skyrocketing

property taxes or a lack of housing

supply. I want to see our circle of

partners expand. Bring in minority and

emerging developers, faith-based

institutions, educational institutions,

and nonprofits that own land to be a

part of the solution.

I want us to diversify the types of

housing opportunities we invest in and

to continue to push Columbus to

innovate, including exploring models

where the city is an early investor and

a partner in projects. I recently laid

out many of these ideas in an opinion

piece in Columbus Underground, outlining

what I see as nine big opportunities for

these bond dollars. But while the

administration and city council can and

will put forward ideas of our own, today

is about partnership and hearing from

the community. This is this hearing is

the beginning of a shared conversation

to work alongside residents and

stakeholders to craft a plan that truly

lives up to the promise and the

potential of this nearly half a billion

dollar investment in our future.

So we are grateful that we have a

standing room only hearing. Again, it

speaks to the challenges that we have in

front of us and our commitment to do so

together. That is why I am uh so

grateful. Um, one of my first decisions

I had to make uh at the beginning of

this year was around committee

assignments and um I knew right away

what the right decision was even though

uh it was hard for me to give it up um

to give up to give the housing

chairmanship or chairwomanship to

council member Ross. Her long history uh

and her deep uh commitment to making

sure that folks are safe in their homes.

um made her makes her the perfect fit.

And so I am honored to um co-host this

hearing with you. And so I'll turn the

floor over to you, Madam Chair.

>> Thank you, um, Council President Harden,

and thank you to all of you who are here

today. And I'm going to tell you, I'm

very nosy, so I listen to side

conversations a lot, and I realize that

what Mayor Coleman told me years ago is

still true, that the only person that

people recognize in the streets is the

mayor. and the coach of Ohio State

Buckeyes. And so with that said, my name

is Tiarara Ross. I am your newest

council person if you did not know who I

was. And I am so honored to be here

today. I'm honored to see so many of my

friends who have been working in the

housing space alongside me for so long.

But I'm so honored to see residents of

Point Dexter here, community members

here to offer insight on what we should

be doing with this um historical

investment that we will have the

opportunity to steward in our community.

So, thank you again to Council President

Harden certainly for your vote of

confidence in me chairing the housing

committee. I am truly honored to stand

alongside so many committed leaders and

who have dedicated themselves to the

work of advancing equitable housing

solutions in our city. Today's hearing

represents more than just a procedural

step in advancing a housing bond

initiative. It reflects a collective

commitment to transparency, to

accountability, and intentional

investment in the long-term support of

the needs of our residents. It is an

opportunity to reaffirm our shared

values and to demonstrate that we are

serious about addressing one of the most

pressing challenges facing our community

which is housing. And now all of you are

going to look at Council Member Bangston

as he sits down. Everybody welcome

Council Member Bankston to the panel.

>> That was the first applause we got.

Right.

>> Yes. Exactly. First the first claps of

the evening. I will say again what I

said yesterday um at the mayor's roll

out of this investment framework and

that is that as we spend this do these

dollars it is truly a value statement

about who we are as a city and what we

believe our residents deserve. That in

this city housing is both a priority and

a right. The accessibility of which

should be afforded to every single

resident in this community.

that housing is urgent work because the

privilege of time that those of us who

do this work may have is not a luxury

that the folks that we serve have every

day. Housing is truly a life and death

matter and it is incumbent upon us to be

successful in how we distribute and

deploy these dollars. So today is a very

serious conversation, a conversation

that I do not take for granted and a

conversation that I encourage all of you

to engage in. Not only your brains, but

also with your hearts. Your house is

also your home. It is also your safety.

It is also the biggest way that we can

economically contribute to this

community. And so this conversation

cannot just be a performative act. It

must be the single most important thing

that we do as we deploy these dollars,

which is to make sure that the voices of

the voters who allowed us the

opportunity to spend these dollars, to

ask for these bonds, to sell these bonds

are centered in how we deploy them. So,

I am so so excited to see all of you

here today. I am honored to be able to

serve all of you, to work alongside of

you. And I think what I'm supposed to do

is hand it over to Council Member

Bangston for remarks. Any opening

remarks?

>> Oh.

>> Um, thank you, uh, Housing Chair, uh,

Ross. I don't have any opening remarks.

I'm excited just to get in, uh, to it

and and hear from residents. And, uh, I

was late cuz this is a packed house in

here. There was nowhere to park out

there. So, that's why. But, no, um, I

think echo many of the sentiments that

you said. This is a historic investment

uh in um not just housing but what I

believe to be critical infrastructure uh

infrastructure uh that is about our

residents and centers them and the the

growth that is coming but also our

residents that are here today and also

critical infrastructure to our economic

viability ensuring that uh if you work

in the city of Columbus that you can

live in the city of Columbus. I I tell

folks we are now at a place where this

is not about not about meeting the

moment. We know that we have done that.

We can win the deal. Uh we see all of

the investment that is coming. It is now

about who will seize the moment and we

have to ensure that the residents of

today and the residents of tomorrow have

that opportunity uh to call Columbus

home. So again, thank you for leading us

through the conversation and looking

forward to the discussion.

And I think now we're going to um

welcome up our gracious host uh who has

uh opened it their doors for us. We are

in this wonderful building, the Point

Dexter Village, hosted today by the

Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority.

And I want to welcome up our friend Bob

Bizenhofer, the vice president of

planning and development for CHA. Bob,

thank you so much for having us.

>> Thank you all. As as pres council

president said, my name is Bob

Bitenhoffer and I serve as vice

president of planning and development

for the Columbus Metropolitan Housing

Authority. On behalf of our board, uh

our president and CEO Charles Hillman

and our residents uh a lot of who are

here uh welcome to Point Dexter Place.

Uh this is our 104 unit fully affordable

senior community um located on the site

of the original Point Dexter Village uh

which was our first public housing uh

community here in Columbus, Ohio. Uh

thank you to President Harden and and

Columbus City Council for asking us to

host today uh and to be a part of the

conversation around the future of

housing investment uh in the city of

Columbus. Across the city, CHA has used

a variety of tools uh to build and

preserve housing and strengthen

neighborhoods, including bond financing

uh to support many of our housing

developments. We've been lucky enough to

partner with the city uh on a number of

projects where you invested your housing

bonds uh in the projects including

McKinley Manor, Broadley Lofts, which is

a veterans community, Country Ridge,

Sinclair Apartments, and most recently

Nelson Park. Um in addition, CHA has

issued over $425 million of our own

bonds um to finance mixed income

projects like Aspire, Columbus, um West

Rich, the Falls, and many others. Um, so

while there's certainly a place for

traditional financing mechanisms for

affordable housing, at CHA, we're always

looking to push the envelope and think

creatively uh about what we can how we

can best use the tools we have to serve

even more members of our community.

And so uh as you all uh discuss this

today, I would expect that um you know,

as a city, we would take a similar

approach as the city crafts its bond

strategy. There are tried and true

policies that you know will work, but

there are also can be room for

innovation and creativity that can

unlock new opportunities we didn't even

know existed. So, thank you again,

President Harden, uh, for the

opportunity to host today, and I look

forward to hearing from, uh, the rest of

the members of the community. Thank you

all very much.

>> Thank you, Brian. Thank you for your

leadership in this space. Next, I would

like to introduce Deputy Director Aaron

Proer. She is going to um give you an

overview of the administration's

framework for how um the administration

envisions the investment of these bond

dollars will look like. Um it is a

framework. I know that she's going to

tell you that. That means big big

buckets. That means big big opportunity

for partnership um as we move along in

this journey. And so, Aaron, thank you

first for the work that I know that you

do day and night thinking about um where

we are as a community and where we can

be. I appreciate all of the time that

you have spent to strategize about what

really is going to save lives in our

community. And with that, I will hand it

over to you.

>> Thank you. Thank you, Chair Ross,

Council President Hart, and Council

Member Bangston. Um housing partners,

community members, advocates. Um, I'm

really excited to be here this evening,

uh, to be able to join you all for this

important conversation. Um, I'm going to

make my presentation relatively quick,

uh, because I too am excited to hear

from the community members and kind of

get this conversation started around the

opportunity um, that this historic bond

package uh, provides for all of us doing

this important work. And and as we know

in Columbus, we have um, changed a lot

over the last couple years. And so, as

we look at, let's see if I got this

right.

Okay, apologies. Uh, so, oops, I went

back too far. There we go. Um, so just

to kind of level set the conversation, I

know we all feel the change tremendously

in our community. Columbus um is a

growing place, which is really amazing

for economic opportunities and and the

the growth that we're seeing in this

place that we've all called home for a

long time and loved for a long time. Um

but we feel that change in accessibility

to afford our housing. There's two

primary reasons for that. One that we

talk about a lot. We are growing a lot.

We are adding a lot of households. Um a

lot of folks see us as a place of

opportunity and a place to have a good

job. So they're coming into our

community. We have not kept pace with

the housing construction over the last

10 to 15 years as that's happened. Um in

the last 10 years, the house number of

households in the city of Columbus grew

by about 15%. our housing stock only

grew by about 10%. And we see that

reflected 10 years ago. We had a really

healthy little over 5% vacancy rate on

our rental, which allowed us a lot of um

flexibility and elasticity in that

marketplace, a lot of choice for

residents. Um by the time we get to

2024, which is my most recent census

data, we're down to just 3.6% on the

vacancy. We feel that constraint. Um, as

you look at the graph that I've put up,

the scarcitydriven price increases go

beyond even what it costs to build the

new housing. That scarcity allows for

some of that opportunity for

exploitation, for rising prices. That is

certainly something that we're dealing

with. And I'll talk a little bit about

the progress we're making on that front

as we all partner together to build the

housing infrastructure we need. Um, but

additionally, the thing that we have to

be really clear about is it has gotten

exceptionally expensive to build new

housing. The cost of construction, even

if we had enough housing to build new

housing and make it affordable to low

and middle inome families, is

prohibitively expensive. And therefore,

that is where our bond dollars become

just a incredible tool to be able to

build that new construction, but make

sure that it's affordable to low and

middle inome families and not only less

expensive, um, but also incomerestricted

and protected. That means the families

that live in those units meet those

income qualifications, right? They're

not just less expensive, but we make

sure that the family in that unit meets

that income restriction as well.

So bad at this. Here we go. Um, and as

we look at Columbus, you know, I think

we I if you've seen me present recently,

this is something that I put up a lot.

We talk about the need for pricing at

all h housing at all price points. And I

just want to make clear why that's so

important. If you look at the graph on

the left, we've got families earning

above 75,000 in our community. That

scarcity, what it ends up, we're looking

like for them is lack of choice. And

what that does is they make choices then

to identify housing in different

neighborhoods or in older homes or

smaller homes, places that were

previously affordable to our low and

middle inome families. That lack of

choice, they're going to solve for

scarcity by expanding their options,

right? They've got the resources to do

that and they're going to be able to

solve for that scarcity by looking into

other places throughout our city. What

that means is our families earning

between 35,000 and 75,000, our middle

income families, they end up lacking

opportunity then, right? They have to

solve for that scarcity by making pretty

significant compromises. compromises

that keep them from being able to build

skills, add extra education, increase

their um employment abilities and their

wages, their ability to um live close to

work, right? They're going to make

decisions to move quite far away. Um

they're going to lose time with their

families and being able to be um active

members of their children's PTA. All of

that opportunity and certainly lack the

ability then uh to save for home

ownership, right? all of those

compromises, they're going to find a way

to solve for that scarcity, but it will

be at the cost of opportunity.

The final category of families, those

earning less than 35,000 in our in our

community, those are the most

vulnerable. Um, they don't have a way to

compromise their way out of this housing

scarcity. They are going, that down

pressure system is going to push on them

to the place where they are going to be

at high risk for exploitation,

substandard units. They're going to make

um less stable choices like couch

surfing, staying with friends and

family. They're going to be solving it

in real time on a day-to-day basis to be

able to stay housed and keep a roof over

their heads. And they're going to be

extremely vulnerable for experiencing

homelessness. That is why it's

critically important to look at housing

at all price points.

However, in terms of those families

above 75,000, as we think about building

out that housing infrastructure, this is

a very large graph. But what I really

want to focuses on on the far right,

when we look at the opportunities to

build just more housing and increase

that choice for those families above

75,000, we do that through tools like

zone in. We do that through tools like

adjusting our regulatory framework. We

make it easier to build the housing we

need. This is not a place where we put

resources um like the bond into these

deals. This is where we really are

allowing more housing to get built. You

can see that activity at council on a

weekly basis. You can see that through

the big initiatives like zone in. We

need to build more housing, but that's

really where we enter that conversation

for those families above 75,000. Um and

we're seeing the fruits of that. We're

seeing stabilizing uh rents over the

last year. We're seeing that slow of

that really immense increase. We are up

over that 10,000 mark for the annual

construction for 2025. That puts us on

the trajectory to meet our goal of the

city of Columbus providing a 100,000

units to support that overall housing

infrastructure. Um we see a decrease

from 25 between 25 and 24 um in our

eviction filings. It's not a significant

decrease. It's nowhere near enough, but

we're starting to see those those really

steep uh indicators start to flatten out

a little bit. We will keep doing that

work. We partner with our with council.

It's again, it's an every meeting

conversation that we have um but also in

these bigger initiatives that I know a

lot of community members have come out

to support.

So, this is the worst slide that I have

to show you

and so I apologize ahead of time. I

tried to make it as simple as possible,

but I do want to kind of walk through

how do we use invi in these bond dollars

to invest in affordable housing. On the

top part of the graph, I want to just

call out all of this process. This

conversation will be an ongoing thing

that we do. The market changes

regularly. The challenges facing our

community, but also the opportunities

that we get to invest. These dollars

will change over the next few years as

we as we get them out the door. Um, that

will result in that ongoing community

engagement. It will result in continuing

to watch to make sure that those

trajectories do remain flat. Do we see

things that are um creating additional

challenges to our community? We want to

be nimble and flexible as we deploy

these dollars underneath that framework

and with that connectivity with the

community. So, there's two primary

drivers about getting these dollars out

the door. Uh I think if you've heard

anyone talk about the bomb package,

there was no uh moment where a large

amount of cash dropped into a bank

account that we are now able to deploy.

Uh what the voters gave us in November

was the authority to sell bonds and we

do that in conjunction with partnership

with department of finance in the city

but also the city auditor and

understanding what is our capacity for

bond sales and that's balanced against

some of the other critical

infrastructure like roadways and making

sure our utility infrastructure is where

it needs to be. Um those are ongoing and

annual conversations about how best to

utilize the capacity we have. Um we've

had a really uh robust um engagement

with our our teams around those bond

sales and to date we've generally been

looking at around $50 million a year

that we've been able to sell and deploy

in those dollars. So we're looking at

least for the $200 million bond package

um where we're able to deploy those

dollars again on that annual basis. So

the top we identified the needs that was

an activity that we went through last

summer u with a lot of our housing

partners really asking questions of

we've deployed a lot of these dollars on

the two on the both the 2019 and the

2022 bond package. What are the impacts?

What are you seeing? What are the

additional challenges? As we headed into

that that vote um with with in November

um we were able to really identify yes

of course there's still an additional

need. What we really understood was that

the way we were investing was certainly

adding affordable units, but there were

still additional strains on what

people's choices were in this community.

So, we'll talk a little bit about what

we found during that um process last

summer. Voters uh authorized the bond

package. We established a broad

framework. We did this in 22 as well.

You saw that yesterday. We talk about

those kind of broad priorities and

they're based on where we see the

housing market and where we see not only

what we need but also the opportunity of

this this really robust investment that

the voters gave us. Um while we can

still continue to do a lot of the work

we've been doing, we now have the

capacity to truly look and see what else

we could be doing to support much more

uh much broader and much more specific

needs for the community. um at which

point we establish the framework and

twice a year our team in the housing

division which does an amazing job

working with our partners on the housing

uh provider side they will issue a

notice of funding opportunity twice a

year and that historically we've coupled

um with other state and federal funding

uh processes so that we can maximize the

amount of dollars that we spend right we

have um the what we're going through

right now we're in the middle of the the

notice of funding opportunity

application process right now for what

we call the 9% low-income housing tax

credit process and that aligns with

where Ohio Housing Finance Agency is

going to release their money. So, we

would like to pair our dollars with

those dollars. I'll talk a little bit

about why that impact is so important a

little bit later on. Um, and then in the

summer, we release another notice of

funding opportunity aligned with Ohio

Finance Ohio uh housing finance ay's uh

Ohio low-income housing tax credit

process and their bond gap financing.

So, again, trying to couple as many of

those other public dollars in with our

dollars. so we can stretch them as far

as possible. The goal being getting as

many affordable units out into the

community as possible. Um at which point

we issue commitment letters after well

we do an initial underwriting and make

sure the project is delivering what we

expect around affordability

developer has the capacity to not only

build what they say they're going to but

they can operate

um and really provide the housing we're

looking for for the community. Uh we

then included in a capital budget that

we put before councils for passage. We

do that on the annual basis. Then we go

into final project underwriting. Again,

I think the housing providers in this

audience may be uh well aware of the

strenuousness of that process. Uh we go

through and we really want to make sure

that not only can you build what our

community needs, but the residents, the

folks who are going to be living those

units have high quality, good units

under good management. That that's

really part of affordability. It's not

just cheaper housing, but making sure

that it's of a high quality and safe and

stable and habitable. Um we then enter

into a housing development agreement

which we do in partnership with our with

council. Um and then we finally get to

the bond sale. Um once we've kind of

aligned and said these are the projects

that we have um in the pipeline that are

ready to be funded, we go and work with

our partners at finance and the

auditor's office to initiate that bond

sale. Again, historically they've been

um able to do that for us and then we

are able to come back to city council um

for the actual funding allocation. Um,

when we allocate that funding into the

project, it comes in a series of draws

over the course of the project. We

retain some amount of money until the

very end so we can make sure that that

developer is delivering what they

promised. Um, and we do not follow

through with the full funding until that

commitment has been fully made. Um, so

again, this slide is a little bit

chaotic. There's a lot to unpack there.

The headline being we, you know, it is a

very

it is a complex process and it is part

of making sure that we are diligent with

the dollars, making sure we're getting

what we want out of it and that that it

truly is a long-term affordable housing

project that not only benefits the

residents in that community, but also

make sure that it's a benefit to their

neighborhood that they're moving into as

well. Um, so I can answer any questions

on this later on. I will not go much

deeper into it. Um but as we've gone

through those processes again we've had

these bond dollars. Initial uh

allocation from the Columbus voters was

in 2019. Um we have been deploying those

dollars every year across time with

partners in the community. Again really

pairing them with those other public

funding sources. Uh allows us to stretch

our dollars quite far. It allows us to

make sure that those affordability

periods are met. There's a lot of

infrastructure that comes with those

other dollars that's very helpful to us.

Um, to date we have more than 6,000

incomerestricted and protected

affordable housing units for those

earning below the 80% AMI. Back to that

original diagram again, we don't invest

these dollars to meet those choice needs

of those above 75,000. They're really

targeted for below that 80%. Um, we have

300 permanent affordable home ownership

opportunities. Uh, these are where we

invest in not just the person to be able

to get a enter home ownership

affordably, but that affordability stays

with the property. So the subsequent

buyers also get to realize that

affordability. Um we have amazing homes

in really high opportunity neighborhoods

um where the price point is affordable

to those folks and allowing them entry

into a place that they would otherwise

be shut out of.

We've added nearly 700 units of

permanent supportive housing. This is

the most challenging and difficult

housing to bring into the community. we

need we need to make a capital

investment and that's what we do with

the bond dollars along with some of our

federal funding. Um but we also have to

be uh aware that they also need

operating uh subsidies as well. So

building those deals is among the most

complex. Um but adding 700 units is

really remarkable and making sure that

we have those that housing for those

folks that earn below 30% of the area

median income. We've also deployed more

than $7 million in emergency and

critical home repair for the existing

low-income homeowners in our community.

So, this is critical in emergency

repair. These are critical systems that

make the house habitable. Uh things like

uh heat and um making sure that they

have water and just and we also have a

roof program. Things that will really

make sure that that low-income homeowner

again remains in that affordable unit is

affordable for them, but it's also safe,

stable, and habitable. Um as I mentioned

before, we are pairing our dollars with

these other public uh and private

dollars that they bring in from other

financing uh mechanisms. And in just the

rental alone, we've leveraged more than

$1.4 billion of investment in the

community through the deployment of

these dollars. Um that is really

impactful. It takes that original 2,

we've spent about 200 million so far of

the 250 that's been authorized. We've

stretched that into a $ 1.4 billion

investment. Um that's extremely

meaningful and allows us to expand the

number of units that we get to market.

Um but also make sure that we are um

being diligent and and and responsible

with the funding that we have. 65% of

the projects we funded are open. Again,

when you think back to that pipeline I

showed earlier, we have a lot of

projects that entered the pipeline a

number of years ago. They now have

residents living in them. We also have

projects that are still making their way

through the pipeline under construction

or about ready to get to to welcome

their residents. And about 78% of the

projects are new construction. Um, we

have been investing also in making sure

that we're shoring up that addition that

existing affordability in our community,

extending those affordability periods

for places um that were invested in

years ago and making sure that those

stay in the community.

So, going back to the beginning part of

of the slide I showed earlier in

identifying the ongoing needs, this was

the conversation that we were able to

have last summer ahead of the bond

package, working with a lot of our

partners, not just those delivering

housing, but also making sure we were

talking to those serving those

experiencing a housing crisis. Um, what

were those folks seeing? What were what

were the pressure points? What were the

opportunities? Knowing that if we were

going for the 500 million, we could

continue to do what we've been doing,

right? that really um diligent work of

making sure that we're pairing our

dollars with those other funding

sources, getting those affordable units,

but also having an incredible amount of

capacity to expand that. None of these

bullet points, I think, will be

surprising to anyone in this room. Um I

think we know that we've got rising

housing costs that continue to pressure

our low and middle inome families. When

I talk about some of those big numbers

and the trajectories kind of starting to

level off, that's really for the whole

city. We know that each different group

of folks in our community are

experiencing that very differently. We

also identified there's a mismatch

between the location of affordable

housing and where we find opportunities

like jobs, education, amenities,

services, and even the upcoming civic

infrastructure like link us. How do we

pair those together so that

accessibility to affordability is

available throughout the city? Um again,

we talked about high uh the high cost of

construction. Um we know there are

limitations on other those other

dollars. Um, as we continue to monitor

what happens at the state and federal

level, we'll continue to make sure that

we have ability to adjust um, as those

other funding streams may fluctuate over

the coming years. Um, and then we

certainly know that there's operating

constraints. I mean, again, as we think

about new construction, that's something

that we've we can use the capital

dollars for, but we need to be mindful

about how do we build housing that's

also really efficient to operate. um so

those rents don't have to go up to make

sure that they can continue to to pay

their insurance and and keep the lights

on. And so those were a lot of what we

heard last summer and led to what is a

very very as council member Ross

mentioned a very broad framework of kind

of the opening understanding of our

priorities around how we expend the

dollars. And so the the first one will

be to continue to invest in affordable

housing. Again, the way we've been

investing with partners, making sure

that those units come online at a very

quick clip every year. We're continuing

to open doors, we're continuing to add

those apartments, not just in rentals

for those earning between 30 and 80%,

but also for the folks who are

interested in affordable home ownership

and then continuing uh to work with our

partners to deliver the permanent

supportive housing that we know we need

in our community.

And this is where we start to see some

opportunities beyond what the way we've

invested. And that's why this important

conversation um is coming at the perfect

time for us to be able to talk about

these other three buckets. When we talk

to partners, as we have these

conversations out in the community, we

know that housing stability is a

significant challenge.

>> Oh, you're good. You're good. Um

>> just housekeeping. I know this this

continues to be a uh yeah um we know

that housing stability is a really uh

significant challenge and as I mentioned

part of serving those most vulnerable

those folks earning bel those households

earning below 35,000 is it does not

historically it's not just about the

capital investment but it's also about

that operating expenses and making sure

that we can keep those um places in good

shape. Um we know that there are ways to

invest our capital dollars to support

housing stability. We know that the

comprehensive shelter system that we

have today doesn't really reflect the

challenge of homelessness that our our

residents face and we want to make sure

that we're aligning it with the needs.

We have really amazing partners. Um

historically we've kind of looked at

emergency shelter as one component of

our infrastructure and housing as a

separate one. And we'll talk a little

bit about the kind of interstitial space

between what does it look like to not

need emergency shelter but also not be

ready for permanent housing and how do

we fill that gap. And these dollars are

really something that can help us be

more surgical and and really responsive

to the needs of that population. Um, we

will continue to invest in our

low-income homeowners. We want to make

sure that they can stay in their homes

and again they're safe and stable. Um,

and we will continue to invest in that

permanent supportive housing for our

very low-income households.

We want to invest in access to

opportunity. As I mentioned, one of the

things that was really identified was

that spatial mismatch between where

affordability is and where opportunity

is. We know that it's extremely

challenging to even identify land right

now, right? To be able to go out and do

an affordable project and be able to

purchase land in high opportunity areas

is is very expensive. Um, and it's

highly competitive. And so, how do we

show up in that space to say that we

want to do that strategic acquisition

aligned with these civic investments so

that we can make sure that there's

affordability aligned with those big

investments and that access to

opportunity is not just for our highest

earners, but available to everyone in

our community.

And then finally, we know that we can

continue to deploy these bond dollars.

However, we also know there has not been

enough innovation or disruption in the

housing space in construction,

management, typology, diversity of

housing types. We want to make sure that

we set aside resources so that we can

start to work on some innovation and

think about how do we build things

better? How do we build it faster? How

do we use these dollars to spur some of

those conversations? How do we look at

different financing options so that we

can make that financing piece less

expensive too because that gets passed

along to our our residents as well? And

that'll be a space where we really um

think differently and and are able to

sort of supercharge some of those ideas

that folks have. Um again, this is a

framework very high level. It's based on

what we have heard from community

members. It is meant to be the opening

of this conversation. Each one of these

pieces, as you can see from even the

bullet points that I have on the slides,

lack a good deal of specificity and that

is really where we get to have the

conversations over the next few years as

we deploy those debond dollars across

time as we continue to figure out what

that pipeline looks like. Um that will

be the opportunity for this conversation

and so I'm very excited. I think the one

more slide I always I you know this is a

slide I always like to end with. The

bond dollars are really critically

important. Um, however, they have to be

part of a larger strategy and we have to

be thinking about continuing to keep our

foot on the gas of adding units, right?

Continue the efforts through zone in,

continue to make sure that we're

unlocking housing where people want to

live and expanding those opportunities,

expanding that choice, relieving the

displacement pressure, really making

sure that we're managing that overall

housing infrastructure as we grow. We

need to support families to stay housed.

This is a really critical part. It is

the best way to address homelessness is

to prevent a family from becoming

homeless. In the spring of last year, we

stood up the division of housing

stability in the city. We now have a

team that is dedicated every day to

showing up to making sure that through a

locally funded uh rental assistance

program. We can keep people in their

homes. We can keep people uh housed

through the u programs and the and the

impactful tenant uh protections that

council's uh passed over the last couple

years. All of these things help support

those families to just stay housed. Um,

we don't want you to end up in crisis.

We want you to stay housed. Um, we need

to have that homelessness response

system that meets the needs of families

who lose their housing so that it is it

is short, it is decent, and it is um not

traumatic, that we're not adding to the

challenges of your family, but giving

you a place that we can get you back on

your feet quickly. And then finally,

when we talk about affordability, it's

the question I get most often. What do

you mean by affordability? And and the

answer I have to give is I don't want

you paying more than 30% of your income

on your housing. Um it's not a great

number. It's not a a ideal number, but

we know that crossing that threshold is

when you start to see that instability.

And so when we talk about that 30%, the

key that we also have to remember is

it's a fraction. And part of it is your

housing cost. And the other the other

part of that fraction is what you bring

home in your paycheck. And so we have to

make sure that we're also balancing to

make sure that folks have access to

opportunities, education, uh,

upskilling, workforce, all of those

different components to make sure that

we don't want you paying more than 30%

and that is partially by driving down

the cost of housing, but also making

sure we're making we're also addressing

the wage issue as well. So I want to

always say the bond is part of the

strategy. Um, it is a really critical

and amazing part. I will tell you, I

spend a lot of time looking around the

country at what other cities are doing.

About a dozen other cities around the

country have initiated this level, this

kind of bond, um, and the ability to

invest in our housing infrastructure.

Among those, not many have even gone

back to their voters after their initial

bond package. Um, and we don't see a

significant number of units as we've

been able to deliver in the other

communities. Um, we have an incredible

team in the housing division that is

working hard every day to with our

partners in the affordable housing space

to get these units under construction,

built, and occupied. Um, I'm really

proud of the team. I'm proud of our city

um for stepping up in a way that I just

I can't find any other evidence around

the country of another city that has

stepped up prior to there being just an

absolute dire crisis. Right? We all

acknowledge that the minute our most

vulnerable started to feel that

pressure, we were going to act. And over

the last five, six, seven years, we've

been diligently showing up together. And

so really excited about this

conversation and the ongoing opportunity

to to work with partners at council,

partners in our in our uh housing

provider community, advocates, and

certainly the community members. So

obviously I will be here for questions.

Um but just wanted to at least give a

level set on where where the bond

dollars have gone today. What's our

process and kind of how are we thinking

about u the next few years as we develop

the the as we deploy those additional

dollars. So I appreciate it chair Ross.

I will hand it back over to you.

>> I'm actually handing it back to council

president.

Well, thank you so much uh to director

uh Proser. That was uh indepth and as

folks could hear um a lot goes into uh

the housing bond package and how they

are how it is dispersed, but even what

it is. And when uh Chair Ross and I

talked about this hearing a lot, it was

how can we also educate folks along the

way uh slow it down. She leaned over at

one point like, "This seems like a lot,

but we could actually do another hour

just on the housing bond and what it

is." So, I actually

>> we will

>> and we will. She that that's what she

said. We're going to do another hearing

just on this housing bond, what it is.

>> Uh and so um so thank you for uh being

uh going in depth. One of the questions

that I I have Aaron is around um the

transparency of the process. uh ho how

this something that we heard uh over and

over again. It's something actually that

first was peaked to me um from our

former colleague council member Batty uh

who was a is a housing builder and he

said you know there's no not a place

where I can go online and just see this

is the criteria and this is how you get

it and and this is how you how one would

go about um accessing it. I'm looking

out in the crowd I see um folks here who

are emerging developers. How how are we

leveling the playing field so that as we

have this historic opportunity in front

of us that we are making sure that folks

understand the process for how um they

can partner with us.

>> Absolutely. And I think again the the

complexity I don't want to overstate

because there is also a tre a tremendous

amount of opportunity especially with

this historic investment to expand and

and make a much bigger table. Um, as we

were um, initially looking at how we

would deploy these bond dollars and the

incredible need for affordable housing

that we really had at the beginning, we

really focused in again on how could we

pair it with those other public public

funding processes. So, we do have those

two notice of funding opportunities that

go out twice a year. Um, really built

into the existing um, structure that we

had and I think it worked really well. I

mean, I think again we've we've built

more units. There are more families with

roofs over their heads today than any

other city I can find. And I think that

was really meaningful to kind of really

supercharge that system, make sure we

got those units online. The benefit and

the opportunity of the 500 million is we

can keep doing that and we can keep

working with those partners to get those

affordable housing online, but also

expand to have a much broader

conversation and expand what the purpose

of these bonds are. And part of it is to

who's who is the developing, who is at

the table, how do we use these to

support those? We are our team spends a

lot of time in that what we call the

underwriting phase which is partially to

also make sure the deal can be delivered

and we've gone through process in the

past where we've gone through with folks

where we just can't get to that point of

of getting to funding. We keep doing

that work with folks and we keep showing

up. There's a lot to learn to engage in

this space. We are ready to um we have a

team that we actually have two new team

members that are starting on Tuesday.

We're very excited. Um, so we are

building out the team to to really

absorb that 500 million and give that

staff capacity so that there is a lot

more of that um transparency,

opportunity, clarity around what that

looks like. Um, that'll really be what

we build out this year. We will be

hiring a new housing administrator um

that will be coming online this year to

also build out that capacity just and

that what we charge um that new leader

as well to make sure that as we look

this is now part of how we do business.

Right? The first 2019 bond was really um

did this was this impactful? I think

there were questions initially as to

whether or not we could even sell the

bonds. There were there was a lot of

questions at the beginning. um when we

got to 2022 and we really got to

understand how best to deploy these

dollars to get those units built. We are

at a space now where we really do have

an in-depth understanding of how we're

going to deploy those dollars and being

able to to really expand that table and

bring more folks in. Couple follow-ups

to that and we have 511,000 speakers.

So, I'm going to try to be very brief to

give speakers time to speak, but council

president talked about notices of

opportunity when they go out. Are

notices of opportunity, do they go out

every time the city itself has dollars

to deploy or is this a different

jurisdiction that the city is working

with? And is the city kind of stuck on

their timeline? a little bit of both.

So, we do there are two notice of

opportunities that go out. One is around

late December. Um, and again, it's

aligned with that 9% low-income housing

tax credit process. That is really the

the place where we get the most bang for

the buck because those are the most

valuable of the federal funding. Um, so

it is typically where we see our

permanent supportive housing partners um

show up in that space and it allows us

to really maximize that. And then in the

summer we pair it with the Ohio housing

finance agency issues their Ohio

low-income housing tax credit and bond

gap financing. We align our process

there so that these the housing

developers can utilize all those pots of

money at the same time. So we have a

traditionally now we have we are this

past summer we was the first time that

we opened it up so that you did not have

to bring those other resources to your

project in order to apply. So that was

an initial expansion. We're looking at

moving from the two application uh

courses a year to four. So again, when

we get our staff on Tuesday, that will

be something that that will move

forward.

>> You answered my question about expanding

the the application opportunities.

Who do those notices of opportunity go

out to? And if I was a developer that

wanted to engage in this type of work or

receive this type of funding, how do I

get on whatever list that is?

>> Yes. So, we do post the notice of

funding opportunity and then we do also

keep um a database of partners that have

engaged with us, folks who are are del

who have um been partners with us in the

deals in the past, but also anybody

that's inquired, we will add those folks

to the list, but it does get posted uh

publicly as well.

>> What does publicly mean?

>> On our website.

>> Great.

>> All right.

>> So, if someone wanted to get on that

list, they go to the website.

>> Yes. I think we there's a rental there's

a web there's an email address that

people can sign up um and then anybody

that comes into any of our programs or

any of our events we everything gets get

signed up in there.

>> Very good. You mentioned um capacity of

the department to deploy a certain

amount of dollars per year. I want to

walk back that timeline just a tad. So

obviously we don't have $500 million

today. Correct.

At what point do you believe the city

will be ready to sell kind of that first

set of bonds? Um is that a one year from

now, two years from now? And then as we

prepare to do that, what are the

critical milestones that the community

should be aware of to look out for and

maybe that we can schedule some

additional opportunities to talk to the

community so that they can get prepared

for those critical milestones?

>> Yes. So historically, um the bond sales

have been relatively annual um and

pretty predictable as we continue to

experience some economic uncertainty. Um

the auditor has moved more to a

fractured bond sale. Um so we're kind of

reacting in real time as we're able to

get those projects. So what I would

imagine is as if let's let's assume we

go to those four application periods as

we build that pipeline we're able then

to communicate back with the finance

department and with the auditor's office

to say here's the pipeline the bond sale

comes really kind of late after we've

programmed a lot of that. So this year

will really be critical. We won't be in

a position to sell those bonds until we

get into I I mean conservatively I think

into 27. We have deployed 200 million.

We have capacity this year for another

50 million of the original allocation.

This will be building that pipeline

towards that 500 million this year. So,

this will be the year for a lot of those

conversations. I think we can continue

to to keep you posted, especially as we

bring the new administrator on um what

that schedule looks like and and being

more front-facing about what that that

looks like.

>> Okay, last question for me and I

promise. You said there were $50

million. You still have capacity to

deploy $50 million from the 2022 $250

million bond. Have commitments already

been made for those $50 million or is

there still an opportunity to access

money from that bucket?

>> Those we have commitments for those

dollars. Again, when you think about

that timeline I showed that lengthy um

space. We're kind of in the space now of

of that pipeline has been set. Does it

doesn't mean all those projects will

come out of you know all the way

through, but that'll be kind of where we

are. And then we're looking now to build

the pipeline for the next round. And

director, picking up from there, as the

city decides which uh projects to fund,

outside of feasibility, are there other

criterias that are just are just basic

set that you that we use to kind of

narrow down to um to get even the letter

of intent that we have out for the 50

million that we have going.

>> So there's three primary kind of basic

ones that we look at. One, you have to

be able to deliver the affordability.

And again, it's not just less expensive,

but it's can you deliver the

incomerestricted and protected units. um

is there a mechanism by which we are

ensuring that those affordable units are

not only available on day one but over

the course of the affordability period

as agreed upon. Um the second we're

going to ask you to demonstrate that you

have the other financing um that you can

bring those other dollars to the table

that either through private financing a

lot of our partners are still getting

debt from banks um in order to what we

refer to as the capital stack where they

are putting a lot of different funding

sources together. we need you to

demonstrate that you've aligned those

other funding sources as well. So we

know you can and ultimately build it. Um

and then we're going to look for your

your capacity to do that construction

and that operation. Um what we know is

we want to build really high quality

units and so we're going to do some

vetting on whether or not that partner

is able to bring those to bear. Um it's

a little bit of a a balance to make sure

that you know we are

doing that vetting in a way that also

allows access for folks that may not

have a lot of big projects. But we have

a lot of partners like um this most

recent funding round this past summer we

were able to make a commitment to

Franklin Rising um which is a very small

partner that's really delivering amazing

housing in Franklin but also that

workforce development piece that's

really critical and so I think those are

the ways we know that partner can

deliver. It doesn't mean that you have

to be a big developer to demonstrate

that.

>> Okay, I'm already breaking promises. I

said one more question. I really have

two. Okay, one, from a priorities

perspective, um when the department has

dollars to deploy, we obviously know

where some of our largest gaps are to

build a healthy housing continuum, which

is in that permanent permanent

supportive housing space, that deeply

affordable housing. As we sit here in

Point Dexter Village talking about

seniors being the um most the the

largest uh portion of our community that

is going into homelessness. Are those

units units that you prioritize in time?

And I'm just thinking about those are

folks that are most vulnerable and don't

necessarily have the time for us to

wait. And so I'm hoping that if we are

prioritizing in time based on the need

in our community that we can do that.

And is that something you're

considering? Yes. And I the the caveat

being that we are it really is truly a

partnership with the housing developer.

Um they are stacking those other funding

sources. So it's dependent on whether or

not those other funding sources are

available to support those units. Um

when we think about permanent supportive

housing, they have to be able to

demonstrate that they can also do the

operating subsidy as well. Um so it's a

little bit of a back and forth in that

we have priorities, but we're also

reacting to what the other what the what

folks can bring to us to help fill

those. So it is an ongoing partnership

as well.

>> Okay. Thank you.

>> No, I I just wanted to say um Erin, if

you could also just level set because

for folks here when we say bond, right,

that means capital

>> uh which is hard infrastructure. And so

one of the barriers I think too for uh

smaller or emerging developers is that

when we hear these big numbers, we just

see dollar signs. Uh but because these

are bond dollars and capital, they're

restricted in what they can and cannot

be used for. So can you just talk a

little bit about why some of that other

financing is so important and what our

dollars typically go to in a project and

what they can't go to?

>> Correct. So the the bond is um has some

some restrictions around what it can be

spent on and we it broadly speaking is

it has to be a permanent investment,

right? So it has to be something that um

lives on after after that investment.

And I think you know those are the

spaces that um we can enter in a way

that is really meaningful but there's

also all these other ancillary pieces to

that development. Um so they're going to

be looking to stack a lot of different

capital. I think one of the

opportunities for the 500 million when

you look at that innovation bucket is

can we use them in more creative ways

around that financing piece. I think we

are extremely open to looking to

figuring out what that looks like. It's

an unclear path at this point, but it's

certainly something that we should be

exploring to understand how does it

become something that can enter a

project a little bit differently. Uh but

it is it is the straightforward capital

cash that can go into a project. We're

very careful as we enter projects not to

create other challenges with other

financing. Um so one example would be

our our uh partners in permanent

supportive housing where uh because of

the other funding they have they there's

questions around things like eligible

basis and some of these other weirdly

technical things that we're trying to

find a way to insert ourselves really

surgically so that we are not making it

more difficult for them to get the their

financing and that we're really showing

up in the most um delicate way possible

so that those units get built. Um, and

that's really where that that

opportunity is with the 500 million too

to expand. Are there other ways we could

be showing up?

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you so much uh Director Proer for

uh the presentation and for answering

questions today. One of the things that

we're really excited about at council is

making sure that we have these types of

um uh community engagement opportunities

so folks can as council banks really

understand uh this package and

understand the opportunities that uh it

may bring. So, thank you so much. Thank

you for your leadership. Uh, next I want

to welcome Paul Williams. Paul is the

executive director of the Center for

Public Enterprise and Paul is a national

expert on models of public funding for

innovative housing development to grow

housing production. Uh, the way Columbus

has historically invested Bond dollars,

its last dollar uh, in to fill gaps when

they can't make the math work for

affordable housing. But there are new

models emerging in places like

Montgomery County, uh, Maryland,

Atlanta, Chicago, Chattanooga, and

others where cities and counties in

instead invest early and upfront in the

project and get actual equity back and

it creates a revolving fund that helps

uh the dollars get used over and over

again. Uh just this last Monday, city

council entered into a technical

assistant agreement with Paul and his

team to see how he could uh help how we

could potentially replicate some of

these types of programs. So I want to

welcome Paul Williams to our hearing.

>> Paul, are you muted?

>> Can you hear me now?

>> We can. I've never seen this little

floating paw thing before.

>> No, it it it gave me the option show me

floating in front of the screen and I I

checked the box. So, we're going to try

>> um hi everybody. Uh uh nice to see some

familiar faces. My name is Paul

Williams. Um I'm the executive director

of Center for Public Enterprise. Uh

we're a nonprofit organization uh and

and think tank and we also do a lot of

work directly with state housing finance

agencies, housing authorities

um uh uh and municipalities and states

across the country uh uh helping them uh

efficiently and effectively use their

limited resources to to facilitate more

uh affordable housing production. So I'm

going to share um some slides and and a

little bit of information about um what

kind of uh what drives uh the the

solutions that we're interested in. You

know, what constraints cities and states

are under um and what the kind of

emerging best practices are um for

efficiently using uh uh new capital

dollars to get as much new affordable

housing supply um online as as quickly

as possible. Um, so I'm going to just

jump right into it.

So, um, right here you can see today's

really number one big constraint for

affordable housing production. Um, and

this is a nationwide issue and and

actually to deputy director um, Proer's

point about um, you know, Columbus is in

a really nice position of of start of

addressing this problem um, before it

gets um, uh, before it gets even worse.

So this chart is showing how much of the

um tax exempt bond authority that states

have for affordable housing production

uh gets used every year. Um so the

states that are dark colored on this map

are states where uh they are overs

subscribed right so they may have um you

know $1 billion of tax exempt bond

authority and they may have 234 billion

worth of projects coming and applying to

them uh every year for resources right

and so you can think of uh you know the

agencies you have you know certain

number of slots of projects that you're

able to do in each round of funding but

you have two three four times as many

projects waiting in line out the door.

Um and uh Ohio is not quite there yet,

right? Ohio is what's considered at par.

Uh meaning it's roughly 1 one, right? So

the amount of uh resources available um

for the tax exempt bond program are

roughly in line with the number of

applications that come in um um each

year. U but this is a problem that you

know more and more states are going uh

going into overs subscribed every year.

So, it's a growing uh challenge that the

states face. And then here's another

issue that's that's a little bit

separate from that, but kind of paints a

picture of where um housing production

is at in across the country generally.

So, what this chart is showing is um the

number of uh multif family, you know,

apartment housing units um um that get

authorized or get permitted um but don't

actually start construction. Um, and so,

you know, for about 20 25 years, you see

it's, you know, pretty flat, right? You

know, it's all kind of in this 50 to

70,000 units per year range. And then,

um, over the past 5 years, it really

spiked up significantly. Um, and part of

this was due to interest rates going up,

due to interest rates going up,

inflation causing construction costs,

inflation causing construction costs,

materials and labor, all of these prices

materials and labor, all of these prices

to go up made a lot of projects that

to go up made a lot of projects that

were otherwise viable and and needed in

were otherwise viable and and needed in

in communities like Columbus uh made

in communities like Columbus uh made

them unviable from a kind of financing

them unviable from a kind of financing

perspective. Um, and part of this was

perspective. So what this really shows

is that there's an opportunity um um for

cities and states um uh to find these

kind of stalled projects and unstick

them uh uh with you know really

efficient uses of resources uh to get

that housing built.

Um so now I'm going to talk a little bit

about you know those are two of the

problems right we have you know limited

availability of these kind of scarce

federal resources that do the bulk of

our deeply affordable housing production

and then we also have challenges in the

market with interest rates uh

construction cost inflation uh and and

those sorts of things. So, um, uh, there

are a number of states across the

country that have, uh, in the past

couple of years stood up what they're

calling, um, housing acceleration funds

or production funds, um, that are really

focused on doing mixed and middle inome

um, housing development without using

those scarce federal resources that we

normally pair with uh, to get our

affordable housing production done. Um,

and so New York State, um, um, where I

live now, although I am a Columbusite, I

I grew up in Columbus. Uh, I went to

Clinton Elementary, but I do live in New

York now. Um, New York State, uh, uh,

uh, Housing Finance Agency created the

acceleration fund. Michigan State

Housing Development Authority created

their accelerator fund. Massachusetts

Housing Finance Agency uh, created a

program called Momentum Fund, which is

part of build. So, you can kind of see a

theme emerging from these housing

agencies that they really want to, you

know, they see this backlog of projects

um um both in their affordable pipeline

and the market pipeline and they really

want to find tools that can help

accelerate that production. So, they're

going with this kind of theme of speed.

Um and then there's also a lot of

programs like this uh very similar that

are emerging at the local uh municipal

level. So, in Montgomery County,

Maryland, um just north of Washington

DC, um they created a tool like this,

the housing production fund about 5

years ago. Um I'll talk a little bit

more about that. Uh Atlanta uh followed

soon after them with a a tool called the

Atlanta Urban Development Corporation,

kind of a municipal subsidiary. Um and

then the city of Chicago did did

something similar um last year with

their residential investment fund. And

all these programs are really structured

in a very similar way. Um, and as I said

and I'll get into, focused on getting

mixed income and middle income

production um, above and beyond what

we're already doing with our uh, you

know, scarce federal resources.

Um, so here is a uh a little bit of a

demonstration of the kind of uh, capital

stack that's used in in these types of

projects. So, there's a couple of

differences, but I I'm going to focus on

the on the one on the left uh today.

This is the kind of structure that

Michigan's uh housing agency and New

York's housing agency are using for for

this program. Um

so, you see here um on on the left on

the construction side, you know,

normally when you do a new construction

project that's um that's market rate,

there's a really significant portion of

the capital stack that that comes from

debt.

Um and then the rest of that project uh

you know a lot of times it's you know 60

maybe 70% and then the remainder uh

typically will come from an equity

investment and that equity investment

can be um particularly expensive and and

hard to find for developers.

Um and so what these uh housing

agencies, cities and states have

identified is um they can use their

capital as a revolving loan um that is

kind of first capital in rather than

kind of the last grant dollar in the

door. Um, and that revolving loan can

displace the need for additional um,

equity in the project and um, allow that

project to get through construction and

get through lease up and stabilization

um, um, at a much lower capital cost.

Um, and then once that project is built

and and stabilized, that revolving loan

that you put in, that's a kind a smaller

portion of the capital stack, can

actually come back out um back into your

revolving fund and can be redeployed to

another project um that's waiting in

line. So, um you know, to talk a little

bit more about that, this is really one

of the key features that I think is um

um

one of the most valuable things about

this

uh for a a uh city with um limited

resources is this is a use that allows

you to to take one chunk of your

resources,

set it aside, and it can revolve in

perpetuity um and not need to be

replenished, right? So, um, uh, you

know, to give an example, uh, in in

Montgomery County, Maryland, they

created, uh, first a $50 million

revolving loan fund. And over the course

of a couple of years, they made, um, two

loans out of that fund into, you know,

large, you know, multif family projects,

you know, I think about 900 units worth

of um, uh, housing production.

those projects are now completed and

leased up. That money has come back into

the fund and now this year it's going

out to new projects um already. Um and

then those projects will get built and

that revolving money will come back

again and then it will go into another

project in a couple of years. And so um

um the value there is that you know it's

a one-time capitalization that you can

uh kind of rinse and repeat. So

here is um one of these are the two

first projects that I just mentioned

actually. Um so the the to give you an

example of the um type of thing that's

being built and the affordability that

they're able to put into these projects

um without federal resources

um to kind of demonstrate that. So the

Laurate at Shady Grove, this is in

Montgomery County, Maryland. Um the

story with this project is I think

really interesting and and you know I

think there are going to be some

opportunities similar to this um in

Columbus. This project was uh initiated

by a private developer and was

originally going to be just a market

rate uh 100% private market rate

project. However, the developer of that

project because of um um construction

costs rising and interest rates was

unable to get financing

um uh uh to complete that project. So

that you know they were ready to build

shovel ready and titled um uh but just

couldn't get the um you know any of the

investment that they needed. the housing

opportunities commission came to them

um with this new housing production fund

that they had and said I can be a

co-investor in this project with you. I

have my revolving fund um and I'm going

to do this as a joint venture with you

and the outcome that I want um you know

to use my investment to to get is I want

to maximize the amount of affordability

that that pencils without long you know

without federal subsidy right I already

spent all my federal subsidy for the

year and what I want to do is find out

how much affordability can I get without

any of that and um uh so they built this

project it's about 270 units

And about 90 of those units of housing

um are in the 50 to 60% AMI range. Um

which uh you know for um the affordable

housing uh wonks in the room that's

about 1 to one and a half uh you know

conventional low-inccome housing tax

credit deals worth of um affordable

homes uh in a property. And they didn't

spend a dollar of low-inccome housing

tax credits. They didn't spend a dollar

of tax exempt bonds. didn't spend a

dollar of of vouchers, not because

there's anything wrong with those

resources, but because they had already

spent all of those resources for the

year, right? This was all in addition to

that. Um

um so they were, you know, thrilled with

this project, obviously. Uh the next

one, Hill Andale Gateway, is another uh

project nearby uh also in the county. Uh

it was the second one um using this

housing production fund. Um uh and it's

actually two buildings on on one site

and and it's actually much larger. Um

and that one is finishing construction

now and should open up to tenants um uh

this summer. So it's really exciting to

see that moving along. Um and I'll give

one more, you know, municipal example.

Um, the city of Atlanta, uh, pretty soon

after Montgomery County created their

program, the city of Atlanta, uh, we

worked with them to create a, a very

similar kind of copycat program, um,

they established a, um, something called

the Atlanta Urban Development

Corporation, which is a partnership

actually with the housing authority in

Atlanta. And, um, uh, they gave the

Atlanta Urban Development Corporation,

similarly, a revolving fund. Um and

again, you know, one-time capitalization

of these dollars and they'll revolve and

allow this entity to, you know, continue

producing this kind of mixed income

housing um uh uh into the future. And

what they're really focusing on uh in

Atlanta is is um using this tool uh to

put new mixed income housing on publicly

owned parcels that they have. So they

did a big study where they found all of

these kind of underutilized public

parcels

um that should be activated for

development. And so you see this this

one on the left is a they have a

singlestory fire station on a on a um

somewhat larger parking lot um in in the

middle of Midtown Atlanta. Um the fire

station needed a rebuild and they said,

"You know what? Why don't we rebuild

this fire station and put um and put a

couple hundred homes um on top of that

uh a couple hundred mixed income homes

on top of that new fire station.

Um

so just to give um another uh glimpse of

of kind of the sizing of these funds

around the country um uh there's a lot

of different sizes of municipalities

that have um created a tool like this.

Chattanooga, Tennessee. Uh obviously a

much smaller city. They created a a $20

million revolving fund um uh to do these

kinds of projects and it created a

municipal entity to kind of manage the

the program called Invest Chattanooga.

Atlanta a little bit bigger about 40

million. Uh and then there's a couple of

these state level programs.

Um uh and then there's a big city like

Chicago with a much larger fund. Um,

so I'm going to leave it there and then

open it up to questions. Um, and you

know, looking forward to uh hearing what

folks uh have to say.

>> Thank you. Thank you so much, Paul. Can

you hear us? I'm going to make sure as

we uh open it up for questions. And

>> we still have about three more uh

presenters to go, so I I think we'll

just all ask one question, maybe. Um,

darn. I have to

>> see.

Um I guess how long and what are cities

seeing in terms of the maturation of

these projects where funds are coming

back in to uh the revolving fund? Uh do

are are these programs um old enough in

cities where we're actually starting to

see um uh the revolving fund uh uh in

action?

>> Yep. Um, so in, you know, that first

Montgomery County project I showed you,

um,

uh, the Laurate, that project was leased

up in 2023.

Um, and about a year after it leased up,

those revolving fund dollars came back

into the housing production fund. Uh,

they, you know, secured permanent

financing. That money came back in and

it is now being redeployed to second

project. Um actually they're building

another uh building right next door to

that same site. Um uh this one even

larger about 400 homes. Um so you know

the revolution is is in action um with

these funds. Um

um you know one thing I'll note on that

you know there's a little bit of a

difference in in timing depending on the

market, the size of the project um the

lease up timeline. There's a lot of

different factors. And so um uh you know

in places like New York City where the

construction timeline um itself might be

3 years 3 years plus um you know you're

going to be leaning more towards five

years of uh needed for the funds to

revolve right because you need to build

the project and then you have um you

know maybe a year to fully lease up and

then maybe a year to secure permanent

financing. uh and then the funds

revolve.

Um whereas if you're doing a smaller

project that's maybe you know 75 units

in in in uh suburban Michigan outside of

Detroit um your construction timeline is

not going to be 3 years right it might

be 18 months um and your lease up might

um you know might be another 12 months

and so a a three-year uh revolved is

going to be much more feasible for a

project like that and that's what you

know Michigan State Housing Development

Authority is targeting um uh for their

fund.

Do you have a question?

>> Thank you, Paul. Um, can you talk about

So, this particular type of partnership

feels more like an equity partnership,

which is something different than what

you would see generally from a

municipality. Generally, we're coming in

as kind of gap fillers. To me that means

there's an additional risk that the city

takes on to participate in this type of

model. Can you let me know how like

other cities have tried to mitigate that

risk or counter for that risk? Have

there been any projects where increased

risk has negatively affected the

municipality and how um how we kind of

work through that?

>> Great question. Um, yeah. So, you know,

the way that I think about this is is um

when we put grant dollars um into a

project um we're also taking risk um

right that you know when we're putting

grant dollars or or soft debt into a

project, we have, you know, very little

prospect of repayment, right? That money

is going into that project and it's

staying in that project forever. Um and

so when you structure an investment like

this um you know you are taking risk

right you're you're you know partnering

in a uh in a project you're you know

adding um you know providing this kind

of subordinate loan um or preferred

equity or some other type of vehicle. Um

but in this case you are uh also

participating in the re you you do have

a prospect of repayment right these

projects are going to repay that loan on

a on a you know three year or 5year term

um and you know you may have uh uh a

risk of um non-repayment or default um

but typically when we put grants into

projects we have a 100% risk of of

non-repayment

um so you know The way I look at it is

this is a um this is an improvement on

that type of risk. Um and I think that's

the way that the housing finance

agencies uh view the program too. Um um

you know they're able to um uh they're

able to activate development and create

additional supply um you know on top of

their scarce federal resources just by

making a loan that has a strong prospect

of repayment. Um, and they're, you know,

they've been very happy to do that from

a risk perspective.

>> Yeah, Paul, I have really more of a

technical question on that revolving

loan piece. What is, and I'm guessing is

that interest rate on that revolving

loan lower than what one would find? And

then if that be the case, then what is

the mechanism in place that makes that

developer seek that permanent funding if

in fact the permanent funding would have

a higher interest rate?

>> Yeah, great question. So um so the way

to think about this is is

think about a market rate, a pure

private market rate development. So if

I'm a market rate developer, I want to

do a project that's you know $100

million. I'm going to go to a bank and

ask them for a construction loan. And if

they like my project and it looks like

it pencils, they might give me 60 65%

loan to cost, you know, $65 million

check. Um, but I have a $100 million

project, so I need to go find, you know,

3540 million, you know, additional

dollars.

Most of the time what you're going to

have to do is go to equity investors who

are going to um you want to look at your

project and they're going to want to see

12 15 18% um return prospect on a 7

9-year timeline um or they're not going

to cut you a check. And so what this

revolving capital is really doing is

saying um wow raising you know 35% of

your costs or $ 35 million for $100

million project um from an equity source

like that can be really challenging in a

market um where you have a high supply

need but you don't have these like you

know where you don't have New York City

rents

and um so if you can uh create a you

know this kind of subordinate

construction piece um in between the

senior financing and the equity and call

it you know uh 20 25% of the capital

stack then the amount of equity that you

need to raise for the project um um is

is much lower uh and um and that means

the amount of you know uh return that it

needs to generate to that equity

investor um does not need to be so

significant.

And then to your question about um and

the way you do that is you you have that

um uh subordinate construction financing

um at at an interest rate that's more

comparable to your debt financing

interest rate.

Um and then to your question about uh

who's coming in for the permanent

financing.

So once when you want to revolve that

investment right you need to um uh you

want to pull it out and you need to put

some uh investment in its place in the

project once the project is built and

leased up and stabilized and performing

um it's much easier to find that

mezzanine financing to come in in its

place um because all the you know um the

reason that the interest rate is higher

for the equity investor at the

is because they want to get paid for the

um construction and lease up risk,

right? Once you're built and leased up,

that risk is no longer there and it's

much easier to find that mezzanine

capital to come in in its place for the

for the perm phase.

That answer your question?

>> Yeah. Yeah, it does. Thank you.

>> Great.

>> Aaron, do you have a question?

>> Well, thank you so much, Paul. uh as we

talked about and even yesterday the

administration and the mayor talked

about an innovation uh component. Um

innovation is about doing things that we

have not done before. We have not done

or seen a a model like this in this

market yet and just appreciate um the

city's willingness to look at this model

but others as well uh to to bring more

housing uh onto the market uh as soon as

possible. So thank you so much sir.

>> My pleasure. Talk to you all soon. I am

trying to uh continue to move us along

in a timely manner. We had uh a portion

where we had five uh we wanted to go

over the responses of council's survey.

We like I said received over 500

responses to um that survey. Jessica, do

you want to do just the top lines of of

what you heard or?

>> Yeah.

Yes,

>> just just the top lines of the top two

or three things that we heard so that we

can get to next up will be Carly Booze

uh with the Affordable Housing Alliance.

>> Thank you, Council President. Yes, as

you mentioned, we conducted a survey

over January and February to understand

uh public feedback uh from the larger

public on the affordable housing bond.

We got over 500 responses primarily from

residents um also local community and

neighborhood leaders, some nonprofit and

housing advocates. Um and this survey um

was analyzed by our legislative research

office, so Dr. Katie Fallon. Um, and

what we saw kind of the top line was

that more than a third um would like to

see a focus on um more deeply affordable

uh housing options. Um and a a quarter

wanted to focus on high utility costs

and growing homelessness. Um overall we

saw a large focus on the high and

increasing costs of all housing um

types. Um and what we also saw was uh

about 70% wanted to see housing that is

close to transit and amenities. Um and

we also saw folks wanted to see a

greater uh focus on um like I mentioned

the very deep deeply affordable housing

options. So those were kind of the the

highlevel um responses but this is also

something we can we can share later on

um the the analysis of the survey. So we

can post these somewhere.

>> Yes, we can post it. And we also have a

one-pager that I'm um able to share with

stakeholders so that they can see kind

of a a breakdown of all the different

survey responses from, like I said, over

500 uh residents.

>> Thank you so much.

Next up, we're going to have Carly Booze

from the Affordable Housing Alliance of

Central Ohio come up uh and uh

brief us. Thank you and welcome.

Well, thank you and good evening, uh,

Council President Harden, Chair, uh,

Ross, and, uh, Council Member. I want to

thank you all for hosting this evening's

conversation and for inviting the

alliance to participate. Um, as we've

said before, these bonds are a really

essential tool to protect and expand

affordability. From A Hakaco's

perspective, any deployment which is

informed by public engagement, backed by

research, and which meaningfully

advances affordability for lower earning

households is a good one. Uh with that

said, we are always really conscious to

note that bonds are just one tool and

that they are really most powerful when

they're acting in concert with other

strategies to meet a whole range of

really diverse housing needs that are

present in our community. Conversations

like tonight let us understand what

those underlying pressures are that our

neighborhoods are facing and how they

impact people on the ground so that we

can build these kind of multiaceted

solutions around them. Um tonight I'm

going to use our testimony and a few

moments of your time to illustrate what

some of those are bigger picture

challenges are. These are illustrative

if it's certainly not exhaustive. Sorry

if you couldn't hear anything I said.

Just pick up. We're good. Um, so I I

think we're going to talk just very

briefly about some of the challenges

that we are facing, these holistic

issues that our our community has in

front of us, which are certainly

challenges, but they're often

intertwined with opportunities. It's

always two sides of a coin. Uh, and

these are likely issues that require not

just bond financing, but operational

support, public policy change, and

community partnerships to really be able

to tackle them. uh and with such a great

list of speakers that are coming after

me, I think it's fun for me to be able

to play that wide angle lens a bit for

you. Uh so one of these challenges that

we have in front of us is the advantages

that we are expected to gain through the

link US transportation investment

balanced by and juxtaposed against the

risk of gentrification that come along

these transportation corridors.

Columbus's use of bond funds to secure

land and to build affordability in those

areas is a really smart way to reduce

displacement risk and protect our

existing residents. Delivering equitable

transit oriented design as that strategy

is envisioning also requires nimble and

responsive land use laws which zone in

is poised to deliver. addressing things

like strip mall revitalization,

the demand for walkable neighborhoods

and live, work, play neighborhoods, and

the demand for duplexes and other more

naturally affordable housing styles.

Moreover, KOD's ETOD action plan

articulates other goals like

strengthening community development

corporations with predictable funding,

evaluating the right of first refusal

laws that can help renters achieve home

ownership, and allowing accessory

dwelling units throughout the corridors,

which Beexley uh the city of Columbus

and Whiteall have already moved to do.

Columbus uh separately uh from Linkus is

also assessing how we can nurture

healthy human sector services such as

affordable housing and how that can be

integrated with things like senior

services, child care, economic mobility,

and healthcare. Bonds can create housing

in amenity rich areas which connect our

people to these existing resources. They

can foster collaborations between

housing and other missiondriven partners

which can create new amenities that

don't exist today. and bonds can help

expand deep affordability, stabilizing

our families and our young people

upstream to avoid the need for more

intensive services later. Monday's

Yiggby ordinance uh is a really

wonderful example of how adding process

efficiencies to this bond toolkit can

help our grassroots organizations take a

more active role in neighborhood

development. By further adding proono

legal services and pre-development

support, our faith and nonprofitled

housing projects can really flourish.

Once again, zone in can play an

instrumental role in this conversation.

Converting exclusionary zoning into

mixeduse spaces allows these trusted

social service providers to co-locate

with the clients they are trying to

serve in holistically affordable

communities. And complementing all of

these strategies are programs like

Resiliency Bridge, which was documented

to increase household income by 900% in

less than a year, the shallow subsidy

program for our senior citizens hosted

by COA, which reduced emergency room

visits by 55% for households that were

affected, and housing counseling uh

where clients are 70% more likely to be

able to resolve a mortgage delinquency

and avoid foreclosure.

Finally, and most briefly, we are always

constantly monitoring the step up, step

back problem, where the creation or

expansion of a resource stream subtly

signals to other funders that they can

reduce their role. We want to be really

purposeful about creating incentives

that keep all of our stakeholders at the

table so that we are expanding the pot

of funding that is available and not

just shuffling around responsibilities.

And this is something that Columbus is

fantastically well positioned to be able

to continue doing. Uh, in closing, I

just want to express our gratitude uh

most uh importantly, I think to the

people of Columbus for putting housing

as the top priority for us and giving us

the ability to look at bonds and be

creative with our funding strategies,

but also to council and to the mayor's

administration for allowing us to be

part of that conversation, represent a

segment of our community. I really look

forward to hearing the other ideas that

come out tonight, and I'm happy to

answer questions if I can.

>> Well, thank you so much um for your

presentation. you are uh and Hako is a a

longtime uh permanent partner with the

city and we're grateful for um all all

that you uh give to us uh uh in terms of

housing support. So, thank you.

We have so many folks that we that um

there's so much information here that we

want to get out to folks, but we also

want to hear from residents. So what we

are going to do and I ask for um uh a

little grace uh from my presenters is

take a few community members for for a

second and then we'll hop back to um our

presenters and kind of do three or four

uh community members and then uh hop

back uh back and forth in between. So,

with that, we're going to go to uh

community representative uh and just so

that we can get through as many folks as

possible who signed up, if we really

could limit your uh your testimony

tonight to three minutes. Uh and uh and

then open we'll open up for questions.

So, the first speaker to come before

council is Rob Loenstein.

Rob, welcome to council. And where are

we taking Eric? Uh,

>> good evening. Um, I was I was not

expecting to be called on so quickly.

So, there we go. Um,

>> so quickly.

>> Um,

all I I I heard a few things today that

were positive that I I'm glad to hear.

Um

the

the main thing I wanted to try to get

across was as somebody who's a

practitioner in the field for like just

about 50 years now. We need to turn this

money if not all of it then a lot of it

into what I would call a program.

Programs have rules and they have I'm

not saying the program hasn't had rules,

but I'm the rules have to be ones that

everyone understands. So, for example,

if you're looking for GAP financing,

there should be a maximum that you can

apply for, a maximum on a per unit

basis. There should be terms that are

understandable and transparent. So I I

think having four rounds in a year that

sounds good because um projects come up

at various times. The other thing though

that I think is really important is I

think we need to split the program off

from so much of a tie to the Ohio

Housing Finance Agency. Um we've had

mixed results with that over the years.

I worked with this program uh when I was

doing consulting work for homeport and

it the it's it's fine. It it except that

we we really can't predict what projects

are going to get approved through

competitive application rounds with OFA.

We might get one or two OITC projects in

a year and we might get a couple of 9%

ones. The 9% ones for the most part

don't require a ton of money and the

other projects that might get approved

through OITEC might require some

assistance to make them feasible. What

we really have though is a backlog of

larger projects that don't get

competitive resources from OFA that

people need to know if I that the city

of Columbus could be my gap financing

partner. And we're only going to do a

few of those in a year, but at least the

ones that we do, people need to know

that's a source I may be able to get and

what its terms are. The other thing I

want to say real quick is just there are

a lot of smaller projects and I heard

some things about that today um that

that were encouraging. I I just want to

say we have a lot of developers in the

city that can do smaller projects that

are real I I see this in my role as

zoning chair for the nearest area

commission. We have people come in who

want to do a forplex or eight units or

something like that. And if they could

get access to some money from the city

of Columbus, um they'd be able to make

more that more affordable or some of the

units they're doing fully affordable.

And we have a tremendous

capacity to do that. One last thing I

want to say is don't overlook the need

for housing that that aren't tax credit

projects for people with special needs.

We have a tremendous backlog of need for

people who are developmentally disabled

and other populations that we don't

provide anywhere near enough housing for

in the city. And so we just need to be

flexible about what we're making this

available for, not just the biggest

developers, the biggest projects. Thank

you very much.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you, Mr. Loenstein. And uh you do

the the hard work of being a zoning

chair. So thank you. Thank you. Thank

you. So we're going to take Stevie

Pasamante, Amanda King, and Tes

Lee, and then we'll go back to uh our

presenters uh and then go back and

forth.

So Stevie's out. Okay. Amanda King.

Amanda, welcome.

>> Perfect.

>> Um, great opportunity here tonight. Um,

I'm Amanda King with Spatist. I'm an

affordable housing uh, uh, development

consulting firm here in Columbus. Um,

wear a lot of different hats. One of my

favorite ones is working with uh

nonprofits

um who are getting into affordable

housing development, working with

emerging developers, minority

developers. Um and so I'm here to

advocate for using some housing housing

bond funds for these smaller

neighborhood scale projects. Uh what we

call missing middle housing um that is

neighborhood scale. Um that's usually

very easy to approve. uh can be done on

a couple of land bank lots or smaller

lots and they're a great scale of

project to get um emerging and minority

developers and contractors um into this

work um and get projects funded for

them. Um so one of the neighborhood or

one of the nonprofit organizations I

work with um is called Motherfull. They

serve a collective of 12 over,200 single

mothers here in central Ohio. Um and

what they are um looking to do is

provide uh co-housing for single

mothers. Um that's not just affordable

housing, not just four walls, but it's

wraparound supportive services led by

Motherfull or organizations like that,

but also led by the moms themselves. Um

reducing their housing costs, but also

reducing their child care costs by 40 to

60% because you have a neighbor that you

know that you live amongst. um that when

an emergency comes up, they're they're

there uh to watch your kid and they know

your kid and they're watching them every

day anyway. Um so looking for some of

these more intentional co-housing

communities um that um can stretch uh

city bond dollars further by reducing um

not just housing costs but uh food,

transportation, energy, child care costs

for our moms. Um we probably know that

single moms face like the biggest

housing burden in the city. um you know,

we had could rattle off a lot of

statistics, but one of one thing

recently that one of our moms

experienced was um she was able she was

uh she's a teacher on the far east side.

She's been a teacher for 20 years. She's

in about 50% AMI. She has four kids. She

signed a lease on a home. She shows up

with the U-Haul all packed. Uh someone

else is moving into the home because

they found the landlord found somebody

else that's willing to pay more. That

just happened. That's real. That's going

on in the city right now. We need to

think about housing for families and not

just multiple units, tons of leverage,

liite tech projects to get those units,

but thinking about um how we're housing

our families. So, uh cooperative

co-housing where uh folks can be sharing

resources, those bu that built-in child

care, residents are staying longer in

these communities. Um this is a

different kind of project than we see

co-housing in Columbus, but they're

doing it in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh,

Madison. and we visited some of these

places and what we're what we're seeing

and what we're analyzing with our

project is we're going to put yes

affordable units uh for moms, but

they're going to have an extra $500 to

$1,000 a month in their pocket um

through those additional savings, not

just the housing costs. Um so obviously

they're buy, you know, able to buy food

and clothing, but they're going out to

restaurants. They're putting that money

back into the community. Um, so I would

advocate for housing bond funds to be

used not just for LITC projects, but

some of these smaller projects where we

can see some of those additional

community benefits and stretch those

dollars in that way. Um, obviously this

funding is once in a generation. I've

been in Columbus for 20 years working in

affordable housing and never seen

anything like it. And it's so exciting.

Um, so happy to be um, working with so

many in the community to to make sure

these uh, funds are done right. So,

thanks so much.

>> Thank you. Thank you so much, Amanda.

That was good.

>> Director, do we have we uh received any

applications that were like that co-op

model that uh Amanda was just speaking

of? And how would we um uh

how would we uh what kind of criteria

would we use to see if that was a m you

know, anything that we could invest in?

>> Yeah. and the conversations that we're

having around a lot of these different

spaces. I love the phrase intentional

housing. I think it's, you know, we talk

about transitional and it there's that's

not really what we mean, right? We mean

kind of servicerich spaces that are um

more tailored to specific populations.

The challenges facing um victims coming

out of domestic violence situations will

be different than um youth aging out of

foster care, right? And so, how do we

get a little bit more surgical about how

we respond? And I think that's where we

envision that housing stability space um

and the ini ability to really use this

500 million to look at some of those

opportunities to do that type of more I

hate to use the word creative but uh

more responsive housing to what those

needs are. And I think those are all

things we can look at this year. I know

I've had conversations um with lots of

partners that we have this historically

there's sort of an emergency shelter or

there's been affordable housing that

interstitial space in between of where

does it look like for us to support

those families get them stabilized but

in a way that's not short-term but

really meaningful and I think those are

opportunities we'll be exploring

especially under that stability banner.

>> Okay. Um, yeah,

>> let me ask one more question because I

do think that I I've heard and seen a

lot of interest in this space and and

smaller developers wanting to do this

work. If there was a way to provide

information to developers who haven't

maybe set their heart on the type of

housing that they're going to provide or

the um people in which they're going to

serve in that housing, they just want to

provide just affordable housing

opportunities. How can the department

kind of partner to provide that

information to say here's where our gaps

are as a city? It would really be

helpful if we could have housing for

this space or this space. And I think it

is that ongoing conversation. I know a

lot of our folks who are serving people

in those spaces are meeting today and

understanding kind of what that looks

like and being able to go back and forth

and understand what is the need, what

are the other resources we could bring

to the table, how would we design it? So

again, it's that long-term

sustainability to support those

families. But I know those conversations

are pretty robust at this point. Um, and

and something that we're definitely

seeing as the need that we'll need to

answer with this bond package.

>> Thank you, director. Next up, we have uh

Tasha

Tisha. I is right here. Tisha Tisha Lee

from Accari Properties. And then we'll

have Ian Labatu uh come up and do a

presentation.

>> Good evening, council president, members

of city council, and housing

stakeholders. My name is Tisha Lee and

I'm a founder of Accari Properties, a

black woman-owned affordable housing

business rooted right here in Columbus.

I currently own 13 rental units. 12 of