Agenda - Council - 09/30/1980 - Special

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The present criteria place heavy emphasis on the affordability of a city's housing stock for. low- and moderate-income persons and on the number of subsidized housing units in a community. The revisions do not eliminate the criteria, but they do place reduced emphasis on them within broader criteria that deal with housing affordability and diversification. A new criterion which awards points based upon a community's achievements towards its subsidized family housing allocation plan goal has been added. This revision will allow all communities to receive the maximum number of points for this criterion even if its allocation plan goal is small. Achievement of the allocation plan goal was not included in the 1976-version as a criterion because numerical goals were a new, untested concept at that time. These revisions would also eliminate the criterion which awards points for creating or participating in an ~{RA. This criterion was origially intended as an incentive to communities to ~form or join an HRA. Now because-almost every community has or is in an HRA, the points have little significance. In addition, to new criteria pertaining to modest-cost housing, diversification of a'community's housing stock would also begin to be rewarded. The basis for determining t. he number of low- and moderate-income affordable and modest-cost ownership units will be 1980 market value as compiled by the counties, while census data remains the only uniform data source for rental units. There are only two substantial, changes in the criteria that deal with codes and ordinances. Fewer overall points will be awarded in this category because some criteria are being incorporated into other areas, and because the criteria dealing with s-ingle- family and multifamily development requirements have been separated. The proposed revisions in_ the goals and implementation programs section are an attempt to respond to requirements'~of the Land Planning Act and the subsequent amendments to the Housing Chapter of the Development Guide made necessary by the law. While the general category of local efforts contained in the existing criteria will be worth about the same number of points, the proposed revisions will require communities to take more initiative in addressing the issue of housing affordability in order to receive points. By awarding points for each activity or initiative, and having the points for each expire in two years, there will be an incentive to communities to continue these efforts to explore fiscal devices and use official controls to promote lower-cost housing. The remainder of this draft contains a copy of the present evaluation criteria, a comparison of each of the existing criteria with the proposed revision and an~ explanation of the change, a reorganized version of the proposed revisions, and a summary table of the point distribution as proposed. 3