Agenda - Council Work Session - 02/27/2018

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Housing & Economic Development A policy plan should allow for ongoing research and analysis by the Metropolitan Council to provide communities with timely and updated information on regional and local housing needs and market trends as regional and local needs change and evolve. Metro Cities supports the solicitation and use of local data, inputs and analyses in this work and local government review of data and analyses. Metro Cities supports continued city representation in additional developments or updates to the housing policy plan. 3-E Allocation of Affordable Housing Need The allocation of affordable housing need methodology determines how many affordable housing units will be needed in the region, and distributes the need by assigning each city its fair share through an affordable housing need number. State law requires cities to guide sufficient land to accommodate local shares of the region's affordable housing need. Metro Cities supports the creation of a variety of housing opportunities. However, the provision of affordable and lifecycle housing is a shared responsibility between the private sector and government at all levels, including the federal government, state government and Metropolitan Council. Land economics, construction costs and infrastructure needs create barriers to the creation of affordable housing that cities cannot overcome without assistance. Therefore, Metro Cities supports a Metropolitan Council affordable housing policy and allocation of need methodology that recognizes the following tenets: • Regional housing policies characterize individual city and sub -regional housing numbers as a range of needs in the community; • Cities need significant financial assistance from the federal and state government, as well as the Metropolitan Council, to make progress toward creating additional affordable housing and preserving existing affordable housing; • Metropolitan Council planning and policies must be more closely aligned to help ensure that resources for transportation and transit are available to assist communities in addressing their local share of the regional affordable housing need and to ensure that all populations have adequate mobility to reach jobs, education and other destinations regardless of where they live; • Absent significant resources to assist cities, the Metropolitan Council will not hold cities responsible if a city cannot meet its affordable housing need number and the Met Council will reassess biennially the range of needs to recognize the deficiency; • The Metropolitan Council, with input by local government representatives, should examine the allocation of need methodology with respect to the relationship between the regional allocation and the local share of the need. The formula should also be routinely evaluated to determine if market conditions have changed or if underlying conditions 2018 Legislative Policies 22