[0:02] okay we're live um Mr

[0:08] Anderson Miss Capel here Mr McDade here miss MCN here Mr

[0:17] Norton Mr oconnell here miss Ray here and Miss Stubblefield here you have cor

[0:25] all right um and we've been asked to approve the minutes from the July 1st

[0:29] meeting which is on the second

[0:34] page sorry all in

[0:40] favor good or do you need to call the RO good or do you need to call that's good

[0:45] no that's good good for that any citizen comments

[0:55] yeser um if you would please it is reporting

[1:03] three minutes John mland I 1780 CH Circle in

[1:08] Charleston I want to tell you that I watched the July meeting on YouTube so I

[1:12] have some idea what you talked about last time uh I only had three minutes I

[1:16] want to focus on the survey you've probably seen the the survey that's been

[1:20] suggested I haven't but these are ideas that I'd like to mention to you first of

[1:24] all when you survey the hospitality workers I like the idea about that was

[1:28] mentioned last time about full-time employees I suggest you consider

[1:31] full-time maybe 30 to 32 hours considering the kind of people that work

[1:36] here and uh while you're doing the survey I think it wouldn't be a bad idea

[1:41] if you ask these uh employers how much parking they need during the day so when

[1:48] you make this report to the city council you can mention those twoo because I'm

[1:52] hoping that you'll Focus most of your attention on housing for the city

[1:58] employees but I think it would be nice if the city knew how much housing they

[2:02] needed for the workforce housing and parking and maybe could focus the city

[2:07] could at least try to get some decent parking the other survey for Public

[2:11] Safety is important because if you don't know how much housing you need there's

[2:15] no way to be able to plan so that's a big deal uh this I am a landl I have

[2:22] four long-term uh rentals already and if you sent me a question and we wanted to

[2:27] survey for instance my annual L raid the number of bedrooms the number of

[2:32] bathrooms I also suggest you ask about the HVAC of HVAC systems whether

[2:39] they have those in Windows it'll give you an idea how old the property is and

[2:44] uh the square footage and the rental rate per month frankly if you send me

[2:48] that letter and ask me I'm not sure I want to send it back to you because I

[2:52] consider some of this s proprietary my suggestion to you is when you send me

[2:57] the letter you also send me four post post cards so I can write down from each

[3:02] one of my units exactly these questions put down the information and send it to

[3:06] you anonymously I know that's 105 postcards or whatever how many people

[3:11] there are but I think you will get a more accurate survey I'm probably not

[3:15] the only person that doesn't want to actually divulge how much they pay

[3:20] whether it's high or low mine are probably low but I still don't think you

[3:24] have a right to see all that stuff so think about that when you do the survey

[3:29] probably just about our time uh I think you should focus on city

[3:35] employees and I made a proposal in 2017 as to how to do this and if you haven't

[3:41] seen that proposal you should at least read it to give you an idea of how you

[3:45] might be able to do that if I have another few seconds the only problem

[3:50] with doubling down on density is trying to figure out whether or not you're

[3:55] going to do any harm to the environment if we're going to add some

[3:59] extra housing in the single family for special special pilot program the

[4:04] question should be who does the who uses the most water an istr with five or six

[4:11] bedrooms or a single family who's got a garage apartment for a police employee

[4:17] that information is available to you through the water department and if you

[4:20] can solve that problem and say it's less than these people then it would be

[4:25] easier to convince the city council the mayor and the general public that this

[4:29] is a good idea I think we done thank you very

[4:35] much thanks

[4:40] CH okay I don't have to go over there now I'll introduce our speaker uh I have

[4:46] a friend who works in the zoning department for the city of charlon so I

[4:49] reached out to her and asked who should I be asking to come speak to this um

[4:55] this committee about affordable housing and and second she suggested Giana Shaw

[5:01] Johnson um Miss Johnson is an employee of the City of Charleston she's the

[5:05] director of the Department of Housing and Community Development there she has

[5:09] a presentation for you and then she'll also be available to answer

[5:14] questions at least I hope so sounds like the gentlemen that just sat down might

[5:19] have the answers though so thank you all for the opportunity to be with you this

[5:24] evening um always um good to share information uh we believe even best

[5:30] practices meaning if we have some idea of what's working in our community we're

[5:34] glad to share it with other communities so um we don't want to recreate the

[5:38] wheel as they say so um Jenna made it clear that it was a 7 p.m. start time

[5:45] and I said oh my God close to my bedtime kidding but anyway glad to be here with

[5:50] you this evening uh as you all know mayor cogwell is now our mayor of the

[5:54] City of Charleston and he likes to say he's still drinking from the fire hose

[5:59] but doing a really good job so far um so a little bit about the Department of

[6:04] Housing and Community Development um we are one of 14 departments in the City of

[6:09] Charleston our mission is to facilitate the creation of affordable and Workforce

[6:14] housing preserve existing housing through three Rehabilitation programs

[6:20] create wealth opportunities through our firsttime home home buyer program or

[6:24] home ownership program is the find here provide housing and related services to

[6:30] the unsheltered and vulnerable in the Charleston Community as well as admin

[6:35] administer federal state and local funding and those funding sources and I

[6:40] have to remind my staff not to use acronyms it's so hard not to do that but

[6:45] federal dollars include the Community Development block grant funds home

[6:49] investment partnership program funds housing opportunities with persons with

[6:54] AIDS as well as other funding sources that we have pursued and attain all

[6:59] around this issue of housing creation and pres uh preservation that's a little

[7:05] U snapshot of my staff I think a few more have been added since then but that

[7:10] gives you a sense of who we are it's about 14 to 15 of us in the um

[7:14] Department of Housing and Community Development we support um what we call a

[7:19] spectrum of housing literally everything from your homeless shelters we've given

[7:24] to that annually uh as far back as mayor Riley being in service so so that's been

[7:29] a number of years transitional housing is one that the federal government does

[7:34] not support very strongly now but we find it critical for those that are

[7:38] unsheltered and homeless because it orig it absolutely gives them a place to get

[7:43] off of the street public housing are those that are managed by your public

[7:47] housing authorities and I would just say public housing authorities manage public

[7:51] housing but in many cases they also have private housing uh especially the City

[7:57] of Charleston theirs is literally located

[7:59] throughout the City of Charleston itself then what we call permanent multif

[8:04] family rental housing is anything really permanent permanent from the standpoint

[8:08] of typically there is an afford an affordability restriction excuse me or

[8:14] Covenant that is attached to that housing as little as 20 years sometimes

[8:19] as long as 90 I'll talk about that more later on and there then fair market

[8:24] rental housing which is essentially um housing that is is um priced at the at

[8:31] the market levels and then of course home ownership or for self housing and

[8:36] even though I'm from Charleston I talk fast but y'all if you need me to stop at

[8:40] any point I'm glad to do that um so some of the information I have um or I'm

[8:46] presenting to you this evening is straight from our comprehensive plan

[8:50] that was done last year and I think honestly those are the more recent

[8:54] pieces of data although we are pulling some from specific places um today 42%

[9:00] of Charleston's households are cost burdened and I think Jenna may have had

[9:05] that term in some of the information she's presented to you previously it

[9:10] essentially means they're paying more than 30% of their income on either rent

[9:15] or on their mortgage and so that's essentially what 30% means that term has

[9:20] come from the federal government it also is associated with your private sector

[9:26] financing because typically your seers don't want to have

[9:31] you pay more than three times your income in a mortgage and so one of the

[9:35] things that is pointed out here neighborhoods with the majority of

[9:38] blacks or Africans African-Americans are more than twice as

[9:43] likely to be cost burdened what you see here on the screen gives you a sense of

[9:48] in the City of Charleston what's happening West Ashley Peninsula which is

[9:53] downtown John's Island James Island a portion of K Hoy Peninsula is also City

[9:59] and then Citywide and so yes we like many other areas in our community have

[10:05] challenges when it comes to cost for the other challenges that many communities

[10:11] across our state and Nation oh thank you I appreciate that um household incomes

[10:17] often are not keeping up with the cost of um housing costs as you all know

[10:23] we've seen a rise in housing costs especially over the last 3 to four years

[10:27] Co exacerbated some of the costs that we're seeing with the cost of

[10:31] construction the lack of supplies that are available so it um it caused a

[10:36] ripple effect that did not affect us in a positive way and so many times we have

[10:41] seen that um prices increased at 54% while income was at 30 31% so naturally

[10:49] it creates a gap and so then the question becomes how is that Gap filled

[10:53] and so often times persons like yourself and other elected officials have to Gra

[10:59] with that bring in folks and look at strategies that might um enable us to

[11:05] address that for your information this is the the income ranges that we look at

[11:10] when we're determining um who we can assist so literally the area median

[11:16] income for the City of Charleston when you look at a family of four making 80%

[11:22] of the area median income that family makes $84,700

[11:27] um now my planner friends would say gaana that may be true but when we look

[11:33] at incomes in our community they aren't actually there and so how do we help

[11:38] them when they're trying to buy housing and so one of the things we do is we

[11:43] look at subsidy we look at firsttime home biyo programs we look at Financial

[11:47] packages with banks so that they can give lesser interest rate there are

[11:51] strategies that are deployed in order to address that and I will just say when I

[11:55] saw these numbers and I saw a family of four at 100 % of the area median income

[12:01] making $105,000 I was like oh my God we will

[12:05] never be able to um get people in housing but it it's happening um and we

[12:10] are doing things that are working at the level we want absolutely not um but we

[12:15] are still pressing forward to um ensure that home ownership happens as well as

[12:20] rental and I do have some handouts so before I leave I'd like to share that

[12:25] with the commission you can go to the next slide um so as our planning team in

[12:31] the city looked at our comprehensive plan and I said last year that was

[12:36] actually late 21 early 22 when city council approved the comprehensive plan

[12:42] as you all know that's done every 10 years and so what they shared with us is

[12:47] they did an analysis of the housing component is that we needed

[12:53] 16,31 units by the end of the decade or by 2030 essentially more you need that

[13:00] many more or you need total total more than what we have now um in addition to

[13:06] that so you lead me right into my next statement um based on the incomes of the

[13:12] current population based on that analysis there were 7,000 lowincome

[13:17] housing units that are needed just to meet the existing need and so when we

[13:23] think about low income we think about those persons that make 50% or below the

[13:29] area meiting income can you go back to that chart right quick for me so 30% is

[13:34] the First Column here and so you're looking at a household of one that might

[13:39] make $22,000 a year and so typically that's

[13:43] the range when we're talking about extremely low very low are those that

[13:48] are making 50% and below that area median income number so when you hear

[13:54] that that's essentially what folks are talking about

[14:00] um right now in the City of Charleston and honestly I think this this

[14:05] particular slide's a little old but we have

[14:07] approximately 5,400 existing affordable homes in the City of Charleston often

[14:13] times that is referred to now is naturally occurring affordable housing

[14:18] or Noah um when I first heard that term I giggled because I thought is there

[14:23] anything naturally occurring right now in the City of Charleston if we aren't

[14:26] creating it there are ways to preserve housing um but those are our numbers as

[14:32] far as housing that exists right now that are affordable there are

[14:37] proximately 1600 units proposed or committed through our plan unit

[14:41] development so we are continuing despite some of the challenges I mentioned to um

[14:47] facilitate the development of housing through puds and other ways City

[14:51] Planning Department along with our department M created what we call a

[14:55] dashboard so we could remain a breast of all this that we're doing um literally

[15:00] from start to finish one of the other reasons we wanted to create the

[15:04] dashboard is because we have um began the implementation of an expedited

[15:09] review process so we're actually challenging ourselves to see how quickly

[15:14] we can get um developments from commencement to actually going vertical

[15:20] and then get a certificate of occupancy and I would just say y'all won look at

[15:24] us right now because we're still struggling just slightly to fine-tune

[15:28] that but we are moving forward in the right direction next slide so here are a

[15:33] few examples of what I call our firsttime home ownership and I think

[15:38] these were the last ones we have about 14 or more going up right now 10 of

[15:44] those are attached Town Homes three are scattered site but essentially we um

[15:50] have under our firsttime home ownership initiative a process by which we engage

[15:56] um private sector developers or nonprofit Developers velers the city has

[16:00] typically acquired a land or a parcel and we transfer that land and that

[16:05] parcel via a development agreement to that entity and they have to produce

[16:10] housing for us and so in this case this is in what we call the East Side

[16:15] neighborhood six of these cute little um I wanted to say Town Homes but these are

[16:20] single family detached homes are built these are two and a half um baths two

[16:26] bedrooms I think um we call that father grants court and so the city probably

[16:32] invested in subsidy about $85,000 per each one of those houses and

[16:37] we did that in order to ensure that Gap I talked about earlier to ensure that

[16:43] that um that subsidy existed so that those who were interested in purchasing

[16:50] could do that and what does that essentially mean they still have to

[16:53] qualify for a mortgage um we are making it easier for them to remain in their

[16:58] home if they Desire by putting subsidy in the interesting part about these

[17:03] homes are and people um stare at me really intently when I say that these

[17:08] have 90-year restrictive covenants on it meaning that these homes can only be

[17:12] sold to people in the 50 to 120% income range the investment of that subsidy

[17:18] that we make follows each um individual we have a what we call a transfer

[17:23] agreement um and that subsidy follows that individual every time that house is

[17:28] sold so so if I bought it I would get the benefit of that $80,000 if you

[17:32] bought it you would get the benefit of that $80,000 and essentially what that

[17:36] does is reduce the amount of First Mortgage that that individual has to

[17:41] pursue so it increases the likelihood of home ownership for folks who haven't

[17:46] owned it before under our program for the firsttime home buyer program um you

[17:52] cannot have owned in home in three years or there's some other um um tragic um

[17:59] situation that may occur death or um divorce that enables you to come back to

[18:04] a program considered first time home Mothership um this is another example

[18:11] this happens to be a rental development um one of the things and I thought I had

[18:17] these before in pictures but anyway pictures keep everybody um interested in

[18:21] what I'm talking about um one of the things that are that's critical for us

[18:26] as we develop both rental and forell housing is money and partnership

[18:31] naturally and I'll cover it before I'm done here there are other factors that

[18:35] contribute to that but the key for us is those partners that can bring to bear

[18:40] these types of development within a specified period of time and then any

[18:45] incentives and additional cash that the city might have in order to invest in

[18:49] making that happen in this case this is what we call an affordable housing

[18:54] lowincome housing tax credit development this is in the West Ashley community

[18:59] beautifully designed um and I will just say there are no exceptions to design

[19:04] requirements from affordable to market rate in the city everybody goes through

[19:09] the same grueling process it can be quite grueling um Bulls Creek is the

[19:15] name of this one $16 million development cost the city invested about $2.6

[19:21] million and we call bond funds and I'll mention those to you later when we talk

[19:25] about um funding opportunities that help these things come to poition next one

[19:32] this is another more recently built on Peninsula Charleston um this is what we

[19:37] refer to as the James Lewis Jr Apartments this is actually named after

[19:41] a city council member that was on council at one point um this was

[19:47] actually built on a pile where we remov the old um Ravenel Bridge from so a

[19:54] portion of that land these are built upon so this was

[19:59] interesting because the city also in addition to bond funds invested Tiff

[20:03] funds because the infrastructure at this particular site was a little bit more

[20:08] expensive than what you see normally because there were pilings underneath

[20:12] the ground because the bridges spans were moved from this particular site but

[20:17] this again is another opportunity of rental housing in the community um this

[20:22] was funded through M majority of those funds came from lwi income housing tax

[20:27] credit development but again if you notice the city put about 7.5 million

[20:32] both between the bond and the Tiff funds um and I'll make y'all laugh because I

[20:37] remind my city council members of this when we first introduced this idea and

[20:41] we brought a development team in they um that was many years ago but they were

[20:47] indicating that it would cost 15 million and my real estate committee said Giana

[20:51] it just could not be that we have to pay 15 million for um affordable rental

[20:56] housing and so it did not give approved well unfortunately about 7 to8 years

[21:02] later we paid $28 million to have rental housing approved

[21:08] in in the case of this development um especially where city land is involved

[21:13] because there was an investment of city land the city enters into what we call

[21:18] an option to lease and a ground lease which essentially means that um the

[21:23] developer who built this um owns it or rents it from the city for 6 years so

[21:29] it'll be affordable for 60 years at the end of that time frame the city gets

[21:34] both the land and the improvements back so the city can continue providing this

[21:39] housing for perpetuity if it chooses or whatever it deems most appropriate for

[21:44] that time um this is another smaller

[21:48] development one of the things that we find is many of our churches and other

[21:52] faith based Partners have land sometimes they have um houses and they don't know

[21:57] what to do with it them often times they lack the technical assistance we have

[22:02] engaged an organization called Pastor Inc they helped uh New Israel reform

[22:08] Episcopal Church who owned um this was vacant property in on this particular

[22:15] site and we invested Federal our home investment partnership program funds

[22:20] which are federal dollars $250,000 overall cost was a million

[22:26] again these are rental opportunities and I think four or more total in this

[22:31] particular development um because it takes a little bit more handholding and

[22:36] we don't have staff capacity to do that we worked with a nonprofit group to

[22:41] basically help the church get this done the church is the recipient of the

[22:45] funding the rental income that comes from that so then they can invest it

[22:48] accordingly in other pieces of land or however they deem appropriate other

[22:53] Ministries that they might have so um they can be a little onerous about

[22:57] getting it done but at the end of the day they're always happy when it comes

[23:01] to fruition um next one please what I have for you here are the various

[23:07] funding sources that we use in order to facilitate the development of housing

[23:12] the bond funding was actually a Geo bond fund that the residents of the City of

[23:18] Charleston approved back in 2017 so it's taken us five or more years

[23:23] to really bring those to fruition um a lot of that was hampered by by what

[23:29] state housing did or the changes they made to the regulations governing the

[23:34] low-income housing tax credit so there are more housing to come but the bond

[23:38] funds typically um allow for a lot of flexibility um developers are

[23:43] consistently asking me now di winter y' going to do another Bond allocation

[23:48] naturally is not up to me but the citizens I think that was one of those

[23:53] um um items that were on the agenda that received like 80% um of the the vote of

[24:00] support from our community settlement funds were involved the city was

[24:04] involved in a lawsuit where we were able to get about $10 million we invested

[24:09] that in housing and are in fact getting a return on some of those dollars so in

[24:14] some instances we invest money um as a deferred loan or deferred forgivable

[24:19] loan based on what is going on with the strategy of that particular development

[24:24] and the idea is is that we have money revolving back so that we can invest it

[24:29] again um then there is what we call our fee and L funding that comes Jenna from

[24:35] our mix Workforce zoning ordinance essentially developers opt into a

[24:40] particular zoning they're required to build a certain number of affordable

[24:45] units on site if they don't they have to pay us a fee and so we have probably

[24:51] garnered over the last 10 years about $12 million in the fan Lo fund and so it

[24:57] is enable the city to both acquire land and subsidize construction um of other

[25:04] properties in many cases so it's a again a nice way to um have a a coffer of

[25:10] non-federal funds that enables you to um do the work that is required uh program

[25:16] income funds are those funds again that revolve back to us often those are

[25:21] associated with our federal funds and again usually there is a note in

[25:26] mortgage and everything that we do do and so it's just a matter of whether we

[25:30] have funding rolling back to us or the nature of that project um is such that

[25:36] we have granted those funds but what the note in mortgage is important because it

[25:42] ensures that they carry out what we've intended and if they don't then there's

[25:47] another challenge that we have to face usually successfully tax increment

[25:52] Finance funding the Tiff funding um I guess it's been 3 to 5 years ago state

[25:58] legislators allowed us to utilize Tiff funding for affordable housing that was

[26:04] not always the case um but we're glad that we're able to do that now because

[26:09] it allows for infrastructure costs to be paid as well as construction costs so

[26:14] that can be very helpful when you're putting these deals together ax funds

[26:19] are ones that they just approved this is 24 maybe last year if not late 22

[26:26] Accommodations Tax funding which is real important for our community um and so

[26:32] some communities have already secured those we are literally just finalizing

[26:36] our proposal to State housing and I believe we will receive approximately $2

[26:42] million um from that my CFO is changing that number a little on me but the idea

[26:47] again is that will go towards either acquisition or construction of housing

[26:52] in our community and then I mentioned the litech or low income housing tax

[26:56] credit that is ad administered by the state Housing Finance and Development

[27:01] Authority so they're out of Colombia they manage probably 10 or more sources

[27:07] of funds and they help to facilitate development throughout the state of

[27:12] South Carolina um federal funds state funds and uh Governor McMaster actually

[27:19] appoints the board for State housing but they um they help create housing and

[27:25] have probably done well over 50,000 units across our community the other

[27:30] grants as I mentioned previously are federal dollars um the arpa funding that

[27:36] came in a couple of years ago was also helpful in facilitating both the

[27:42] construction and where necessary the subsidy of Housing and then the federal

[27:47] government also offers what they refer to as a section 108 loan that is secured

[27:53] by your cdbg dollars and so those are some of the opportunities um there are

[27:59] also foundations that provide funding for housing so there are many

[28:04] opportunities if you will to secure funding that enables housing to be

[28:09] completed in your communities so lowincome housing tax

[28:14] credits I've mentioned that they come in what they call 4% or 9% very competitive

[28:21] um uh and I would just say it's moving in the right direction the um the goals

[28:27] and strategies around litech are always a challenge for developers because it's

[28:32] very competitive and they have a limited amount of funding and so we're always

[28:37] having conversations with them on how we can make those better they're very

[28:41] critical to the development of rental housing especially for your low-income

[28:48] families and here are examples of um developments that the city has invested

[28:55] funding in in these particular the two at the top are senior developments and

[29:01] the West Ashley and Daniel Island community um and then the one below is a

[29:07] more recent one that was just um open it's an old school so it's what we call

[29:13] an Adaptive reuse um a school that they had to leave the center of that building

[29:19] they couldn't tear it down because we are um a city that honors historic um

[29:24] buildings and so they maintain that one and then they built new all around so

[29:30] essentially 88 units of senior housing at this site and they go from 30% to 80%

[29:37] of what we call the area meeting income and supplying that housing to those

[29:42] individuals um unbelievably that senior riddle housing costs about 42 million so

[29:49] often times um they call it the lasagna of of sources of funds it took about 10

[29:55] sources of funds in order to get us to the Archer Redevelopment well worth it

[30:01] if you all are ever downtown and can go by it's a beautiful building you go in

[30:08] um inside the windows are very large the seniors that have moved in can't stop

[30:12] talking about it so um it's a really nice opportunity there and I think

[30:17] that's all one other thing that we've done again always trying to find a way

[30:22] to help facilitate funding for housing is we are working with a nonprofit

[30:28] organization um to establish what we call a petal impact fund and that's

[30:34] basically just a way where they can take private capital and we leverage it with

[30:38] the money that we invest either from Tiff from federal dollars or from other

[30:43] um sources and essentially this group um works with Employers in the community um

[30:49] they work with private investors in the community um to again bring up bring

[30:55] forth an additional source of capital that we can use as leverage towards um

[31:00] investing into the various deals with impact funds I will say some of those

[31:04] funds um need to be returned fairly quickly and based on of course the

[31:09] nature of the deal um with affordable housing and Workforce housing we often

[31:14] share that patient capital is um utmost of utmost importance when you're putting

[31:20] these deals together I think that's it so finally um how do you SEC secure

[31:26] rental housing or any housing in your community of course um determine how

[31:31] many rental homes are needed assessments are always good to have there have been

[31:35] a number of assessments done by state housing by Charleston County the city

[31:40] has done some and so um It's always important to have that data before you

[31:45] so you know what your uh what you have to encounter um identify land or

[31:51] available locations for the construction of the homes um ensure land is zoned

[31:56] appropriately for the develop vment um determine what your estimated cost for

[32:01] constructing renal homes are or any homes and that's where your development

[32:05] Partners come in um one of the things I am excited about that I do well is I

[32:11] know how to contact those with the appropriate talent to get us uh where we

[32:16] need to be and so that's always important having those collaborative

[32:19] Partnerships for the city being a local government um typically we are doing

[32:24] requests for proposals a request for qualification literally on every deal

[32:30] that we've ever done that has been the process for us and um establishing again

[32:35] those collaborative Partnerships the Archer deal was done by Humanities

[32:38] foundation so we have a number of Partners Charon Habitat for Humanity

[32:43] works with us um SE Island habitat works with us so a number of partners are

[32:49] important to being able to achieve your goal naturally engaging and informing

[32:54] your community and Council um we know that that's very important important to

[32:58] secure that input and everything we do is executed via a development agreement

[33:03] or some level of a contractual agreement even when there are monetary

[33:08] contributions or especially when monetary contributions are involved I

[33:13] what to think that's my last one yes so um any questions that you have for me

[33:18] and I know I went through that very quickly but I wanted to share as much as

[33:22] I could has the city had any um success with existing Property

[33:30] Owners transitioning to affordable housing we've had some of that we do

[33:35] have what we call a rental rehab program so your smaller um what we call our

[33:41] smaller developers the ones and twos they may own a duplex or a town home we

[33:46] would invest um and we do this through our federal home funding about $220,000

[33:52] per unit and we ask them to allow those things to be affordable for about 20

[33:57] years um and that's a grant that's actually

[34:00] grant funding that they don't pay back but it goes towards the quote

[34:04] reconstruction or rehab of those unit some with um usually they have to get

[34:09] some additional funding and so along with their Bank financing we will put it

[34:14] in towards the middle and the end of the Reconstruction but we do execute the

[34:19] grant agreement up front because it's of helpful for them if they've had to

[34:23] secure private financing to have that additional 20,000 available to so yes TI

[34:30] was so that's for a property that needs to be rehabbed a bit and then turn into

[34:34] a rental have you had any programming with property owners just incentivizing

[34:39] Property Owners to use existing properties that don't really need to be

[34:42] rehabilitated or renovated to turn them into long-term rentals and like how does

[34:48] if you did we have not had that much the closest that we've come to that as adus

[34:53] the accessory dwelling units where they can use a portion of their home and or

[34:58] they can build a separate unit on their land and so our planning team is

[35:04] tweaking those guidelines just slightly they've had good success with adus in

[35:09] Mount Pleasant um and so we have um copied a few will what they're doing

[35:14] just slightly to see if we can move that forward in Charleston is it similar like

[35:19] a 20year restriction on it or is it just it is actually we won a little longer

[35:24] and that's kind of why we're having to go back and tweak it cuz folk didn't

[35:27] like real long time because they said if they sell their home or they want to

[35:31] leave then they're they put a burden on the next person to do what they did and

[35:36] that may not work and so that was one of the other reasons we kind of Drew that

[35:41] one back and are revisiting the language the affordability Covenant is

[35:46] essentially what we call that to um maybe come where we do only 15 or 10

[35:52] based on our

[35:56] investment other question questions any other strategies in the works besides

[36:01] new construction cuz you know we're we're limited we don't we can't do sure

[36:06] so um one of the things we've been fortunate to do and I think mayor

[36:10] Coswell just started working with um the Bloomberg Associates out of New York

[36:17] they um Michael Bloomberg what they call Bloomberg philanthropies pays for an

[36:23] association of literal um Consultants some some of them have worked in local

[36:28] government some of them have been in the Consulting field they cover like nine

[36:32] different areas including housing we're literally working with them right now

[36:37] for free which is the really amazing part um because you get that kind of

[36:41] expertise coming in and we don't have to pay them because it's provided through

[36:45] the philanthropy um they're looking right now for us at housing how we fund

[36:51] housing for the long term and what those alternative sources might be in order to

[36:56] get us to a certain point that 16351 number that's out there I keep

[37:03] telling my planners that's not our goal that's just what they said we needed so

[37:08] um looking specifically at a goal and what we can realistically achieve over

[37:13] the next four to five years um so once if I get some more juicy information

[37:19] I'll be glad to share it with you that you can pass on um I will say sometimes

[37:24] um banks will help with certain aspects of it because they get community

[37:30] revitalization CRA credits when they're able to invest funding in housing um and

[37:36] so oftentimes engaging the banking community on the front end is always

[37:41] helpful because if they can do um or help to facilitate loans at lower cost

[37:48] um there is a credit that they get as a result of what they call giving back to

[37:52] the community so that's another source as well on the adus did you have like

[37:57] work with an environmentalist just to assure environmental impact before you

[38:02] add more density or more yes um one of the challenges with adus initially for

[38:08] the city was parking and making sure that the impact to neighborhoods was not

[38:14] worse than when we started with that process um we had L we looked at ad a

[38:19] couple of different times and so studying that one of the things that the

[38:23] homeowner or the property owner would be required to do is make sure that there

[38:28] was appropriate parking in their yard or very close to their yard so that it

[38:33] would not have an adverse impact in the community itself so that was one of

[38:38] those other harder spots with that

[38:41] one in general with the units that you do have that have been

[38:47] constructed it seems like most that I've seen are pretty like one bedroom or D

[38:55] the yeah the sizes vary so in those multi-unit developments especially those

[39:01] that are funded by litec in some cases they have larger bedroom sizes um and

[39:06] some of the senior developments they might be anything from one to twos um

[39:12] we've also worked and I think those are no longer affordable we worked with a

[39:16] developer early on that did L style and they went very quickly um but the

[39:22] affordability covenants on those were only 10 years and so those have since um

[39:27] got from the affordable realm into the market rate realm but as I understand it

[39:31] those are U very popular um in Downtown Charleston

[39:36] yeah I just wonder about what we can do and that many Working Families certainly

[39:43] would need sure and what I intended to do and I'll get this information to you

[39:48] the city um instituted an employer assisted housing program and essentially

[39:55] we provide um a loow interest

[40:00] loan one is a low interest loan one is a grant to employees who buy in the city

[40:07] we also worked very closely um under that employer assisted housing program

[40:12] with employers to encourage them to invest um one in particular restaurant

[40:19] owner I remember his one of his team members was one of the first ones that

[40:23] bought under the employer assistant program I think he gave from 2 to 3,000

[40:27] towards the reduction of his mortgage um he had some criteria of his own too I

[40:32] think they had to be with his business at least three years and those sorts of

[40:36] things but it was a good way to encourage one employees to stay with him

[40:40] um once they all found out and then two it was an opportunity for an employer to

[40:47] um I guess be the best case scenario if you will for some other employers and so

[40:52] we've in fact talked to the chamber about that to see if they can encourage

[40:56] more employers to do that um because if we can get them involved um even get our

[41:02] hospitals and other entities involved in the process we feel like we'd have

[41:07] greater success that's great and you guys Post

[41:11] website or updates on your website I will say yes to that that is not my baay

[41:16] weight but I know people who do that so yes yes but I will get my team member

[41:23] who manages that to get Jenna that information on that employeer assisted

[41:26] housing um to share that with you all because

[41:31] that might be a methodology you're interested in using sure is okay your

[41:36] presentation was great thank you and it also kind

[41:40] of one it was enlightening um and re reinforced how complicated it is and

[41:47] also just just a matrix a matrix needs and funding sources and how do you make

[41:51] the decisions and so it was encouraging to know there's so many different

[41:55] programs and funding sources that you been able to tap and sort of hodge podge

[41:59] together for different needs and I will just say you if you collaborate with the

[42:04] appropriate development Community there are folks that not only bring the

[42:09] expertise with construction but they know this stuff with their eyes close um

[42:14] Tammy Hoy is one that I think of um she can help you put together a plan fairly

[42:20] quickly Tammy Wilson not all my tamies tonight but anyway those two come to

[42:25] mind right away because they know how to help um governments and other

[42:30] organizations put together plans that can help bring this thing to fruition so

[42:36] they work for you they do not um actually Tammy did Tammy Hoy did work

[42:40] for me at one point um but I can I'll send you if you'll email me and just say

[42:46] GA what who' you say yeah and then I'll send you their information yeah but

[42:51] they're good people to work with y'all stay stay in there it's

[42:55] really important that you do what you're doing um it'll make a big difference for

[42:59] your community too I think the other thing too because we're we're seeing so

[43:03] much good work that you've done and we probably don't know how long it took to

[43:07] get there in my mind I'm having a hard time with getting over the hump to get

[43:11] started you know and I think just do something first to get going I don't

[43:16] know how long it took 20 30 50 years I don't know um it vared you know I

[43:20] started when I was really young but seriously um it varies based

[43:25] on a number of things funding is so critical um and the other process that's

[43:31] really important is entitlement I.E in some cases I think about James Lewis Jr

[43:37] we probably started talking about that one seven years ago um and so that's why

[43:42] the city is now looking at how long does it take and I said this to Mayor Coxwell

[43:46] when he came in I said you will never hear someone say it took Giana a long

[43:50] time to make a decision because it doesn't um but once they get Beyond me

[43:55] we have the you know storm water considerations which are critically

[44:00] important um there's the the building um envelope and if it's in a board of

[44:06] Architectural Review District it's going to take a little longer so all of those

[44:12] different criteria we have in this city we're trying to make sure that those

[44:17] don't become in hindrance or a barrier to us getting housing up in a faster way

[44:22] because the longer it takes the more money it costs and so that it come

[44:26] becomes cost prohibitive and so in some cases we've actually lost deals um

[44:31] they've either gone to the market rate or the developer said I can't carry this

[44:35] any longer and they cut it off which makes sense right because they're in

[44:39] they're in that business to make money as well and so if it doesn't work um

[44:44] then it becomes prohibitive to the community long term and so we are

[44:49] studying that very closely now to see how we can fine-tune that and make that

[44:55] better for Bond funding you said that one was one of the more well received

[45:02] forms what are some of the obstacles that you have what are some of the

[45:06] issues that have come up with Bond actually none as it relates to actually

[45:11] utilizing it and then getting it to the development Community um most of the

[45:16] funding sources that we manage we do what we call a request for applications

[45:21] meaning they have to submit a deal to us in order to facilitate it uh go Bond

[45:27] basically goes against the um the the the funding that the city has on hand

[45:33] because the city is then responsible for paying that money back and so um my CFO

[45:39] has looked at me nicely the last time I mentioned a go bond fund um because I

[45:45] think when we did the first one it was 20 million back in

[45:49] 2017 I was asking for about 40 then and so we're looking now to see if that's

[45:54] going to be possible in light of um the full Financial picture for the

[45:59] city because the owner is is on the city to repay those bond

[46:04] funds so that's probably one of the and and how they get renewed each

[46:09] year or or well and how so once the the funding itself is allocated then the

[46:16] city has a responsibility for paying that back essentially to itself really

[46:21] but that's a responsibility of those bond

[46:24] funds and that's I would say on the development and um awarding side those

[46:30] funds were very easy to deal with um but there are you know that obligation that

[46:35] the city had made it a little bit difficult for the city to go beyond that

[46:39] 20 million in that first round and what are some of the more recommended since

[46:45] it's new in terms of the ax funds what are what's some of the feedback that

[46:50] you've gotten so far in terms of what's working um so far so good um as a matter

[46:56] of fact the Tammy Hoy Hawkins has helped either Buford or Hilton Head I think it

[47:02] was Hilton Head with receiving their a tax funds and I think Charleston County

[47:06] also has their ax funds essentially there is a u requirement that the state

[47:12] has put out that you have to prepare a plan um a housing analysis and an impact

[47:19] plan that then you submit that plan to them and then you're then you can access

[47:23] that funding so we're working on our impact

[47:27] analysis right now we have to get it before a committee of counsel and then

[47:32] councel before we can submit it to the state but essentially once we do that

[47:37] and that was Tammy Hoy that Tammy Hoy Hawkins as a matter of fact we um maybe

[47:42] pled your rise a little and use what she did up there to kind of model what we're

[47:46] doing here in Charleston but essentially yeah so once you prepare that plan

[47:51] submit it to the state then you can receive a tax

[47:54] funding and it I think it very IES based on jurisdiction I have not asked that

[48:00] question I've just been told by our finance office that um we could get up

[48:04] to two

[48:07] million another question so your so many units and so much housing has been put

[48:14] out there and I see the income level is a criterium was there any other filters

[48:19] of like public housing Hospitality like how did you determine and does this even

[48:23] get involved after it's done in who it gets rented

[48:27] to so the only requirement typically and the requirements come based on the

[48:32] funding source so with low income housing tax credits you can um typically

[48:38] go up to the 80% threshold um but unless it's for seniors there are no other

[48:43] requirements So a family unit could mean a family of one or a family of three um

[48:49] and and you have to be very careful about that because you don't want to

[48:52] violate fair housing laws so if you say it's a family unit that means could be

[48:57] rented to anybody who fits that criteria um but usually that is the only um

[49:04] that's the only requirement if you will with most of those units under our

[49:08] Workforce units usually it's right at the 80% criteria that um they're renting

[49:16] to and those come usually in our private sector development one group I think did

[49:22] maybe 60% in one of their units um and they went like hot

[49:27] they were rented before we could blink an eye but they worked in the city so it

[49:31] was part of we had that was one of the criteria and so honestly really trying

[49:36] to get folks to focus more on you know our Hospitality workers where um we have

[49:43] 55 units coming this is 24 hopefully by the end of next year um that'll be

[49:49] located on the low line but it's essentially right off of King Street in

[49:54] Downtown Charleston so we anticipate that a lot of folks that will rent from

[49:58] that will be the the folks that work on King Street in the restaurants and that

[50:02] sort of as a matter of fact they've already started calling about whether

[50:06] we're taking applications then we aren't naturally because the develop the

[50:09] developer group will will manage that process but that just shows us how great

[50:14] the need is down there especially for those who work

[50:18] yeah when does Tiff funding like let's just say you had a strip of land but

[50:24] beside it there was city land that was that was undeveloped completely but

[50:29] there were barriers to using that that particular area would that be an

[50:34] opportunity for Tiff funding it could be yes so how do you find out for sure um

[50:41] what when Tiff would be so um Tiff it's a somewhat complicated process but

[50:49] essentially uh you're your your Council has to approve use of Tiff funds because

[50:55] then what you have to do is go to your Banks and determine what kind of rate

[51:00] you can get on borrowing Tiff funds based on the amount of development that

[51:06] you anticipate happening in a particular area um and so normally I defer this to

[51:13] our CFO and assistant CFO uh but essentially I know they have worked with

[51:19] Bank of America and other Banks to look at rates um because the city is

[51:24] borrowing against the value that they anticipate will come in that

[51:29] Tiff and so we've done a tiff for $14 million and I just know that because

[51:35] that was an area where the James Lewis Jr building was um and so not only on

[51:41] housing but on parks on sidewalks on other infrastructure needs in that area

[51:46] so it covered probably a four to five mile area but those Tiff funds not only

[51:52] went towards the housing but other improvements that needed to be made in

[51:55] that community I'll have to get you a better

[51:59] explanation

[52:02] though thank you for coming oh you're welcome glad to be with you all yall

[52:07] have a big job ahead of you yes I'm for

[52:12] it give me just a second and I'll come back and talk about survey questions do

[52:16] you want to take a break s minutes ni up yall so thank you so much

[52:24] you're I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of followup questions for Jenna to

[52:29] follow up with you

[52:38] want city council got this before you guys start me every one of them was

[52:43] going to copy oh thank you and I think we're going to have more than one public

[52:49] hearing yeah [Music]

[52:57] it's pretty high quality paper

[53:02] serious earlier you said something about okay so you've got

[53:07] four you got four rental unit rental

[53:13] units let me find my notes hold on see postcard ask about the H fact

[53:20] system because that'll determine how old the property is the square footage the

[53:25] rental right per month but you're saying that you would not appreciate getting a

[53:32] survey that asks you how much you rent it out for per month not if I have to

[53:37] put my name so you'd be okay with online survey that was Anonymous though Sor

[53:42] would you you'd be okay with an anonymous online survey when you said

[53:46] the postcard I don't think I'm going to be the only one I understand that but a

[53:51] lot of money I don't think they want to disclose it but if it's anonymous you

[53:56] might get a more accurate number you can also but how would we verify the

[54:01] accuracy you can take how much they pay for a business license per year and you

[54:05] can divide by 12 and that'll give you some more accurate ACC you can match

[54:09] that up too so there's more than ways to get it and just by a survey yeah because

[54:15] if they're all Anonymous then how how would we know that there aren't

[54:19] motivated parties that are willing to fill out anonymously just for the sake

[54:25] of dis

[54:28] you're mailing it directly to them and you're you're explaining why you want it

[54:32] but the postcard oh the return will be

[54:37] anous information yeah okay okay but are we playing to mail anything not sure I

[54:44] think that's what he's saying is like an online When anybody part I get now you

[54:49] have only addresses and everything already so putting together 100 letters

[54:54] 105 letters shouldn't really be a big deal

[54:57] and that that is what we did um to get a guess of how much people are renting

[55:02] right now we took the B the um Li from the yeah how much they report an income

[55:08] divided by 12 now that's not always accurate they could have certain amounts

[55:11] they did not rent and we don't know that and so that's just a guess that that's

[55:18] helpful all [Applause]

[55:22] right so in the remaining packets that you have there a a one pager I'm going

[55:27] to go over that real quick and then the um at the bottom you have the survey

[55:33] which is a compilation of what y'all sent me and I put it together edited a

[55:38] little bit and and I think um it this reflects what what you want to

[55:43] ask the one pager um this is more details specifically I think somebody

[55:49] asked this who is receiving the public safety stien right now so this is $3,600

[55:55] a month that's available to firemen and police

[56:00] officers who live on Folly or in the geographic boundaries of James

[56:06] Island and there are zero people right now in fol and there are five people who

[56:11] are doing it who live on James Island and there were two on there were in the

[56:16] beginning of this year there were three people fulltime workers using it okay so

[56:22] that's so if you've got 600 a month for folly

[56:26] or 300 a month for anybody living in James

[56:32] Allen and last time we spoke you said we had or here it is right here

[56:41] $365,000 no that's that's ax EXC spoke it was then it was 3600 a month it was

[56:47] 3600 a month and last time we spoke it was pretty much full and it it is not at

[56:52] the moment but I asked and they Le normally is used so a public safety

[57:00] worker would have uh a salary of of say like anything from what 20 in the 20s or

[57:08] 30s on up to start about 50 to what 100 150 to the the highest would be the

[57:15] police chief and you can't like when you have it's not differentiating I guess

[57:23] income level this is not based on income employee of Public Safety can get so if

[57:29] you have $120,000 salary and then you have a

[57:33] $50,000 salary they could each get that same number correct so should there be

[57:39] should there be an income level limit if we've only got x amount in the bank to

[57:45] give out for to think about I mean that you can put that in

[57:50] your recommendations if you would like but right now there is no income what is

[57:55] one 20,000 what what does that put if you're at a Max of 120 to 150,000 what

[58:02] what is that is that in terms of the 30% what's the average I can figure that

[58:12] out I can figure out what these numbers mean and I think Public Safety wasn't it

[58:16] $68,000 yeah so 30% of 68,000 is 1,700 a month they that would be 30% that was

[58:26] what they should be spending and the whole point of that no

[58:32] matter what their income is is getting Public Safety close on the island so to

[58:37] me it doesn't matter make 50 make 100 we want they're expected to answer calls

[58:43] off dut yeah exactly do you think this number is low

[58:48] as much to why it's zero right now or is it just we've had some people

[58:55] leave and just some people leave which is why it's happening but I think yes I

[59:01] do think it's 11 than 600 doesn't make a huge

[59:06] difference not make up that g 600 only brings you to 2,300 if you're making

[59:11] 68,000 so you average rental is 3500 that's I say it used to be rentals were

[59:16] 1,200 1800 or even less than that for individual properties are taxable

[59:22] properties are they're unfall is it 23004

[59:26] 2400 but we're potentially going to have 10 times the amount of funds available

[59:32] than we currently have why or what the Apex money okay so the last line I

[59:40] doesn't have to do with that's separate okay this is how much the city is

[59:43] allowed to spend from aex money on Workforce Housing Development okay but

[59:48] not on the stien I don't this is the new law that just allows this we're not sure

[59:56] what it can be used for if it can be used for a s or not I would have to

[1:00:00] figure that out but we can't just arbitrarily say Public Safety workers on

[1:00:05] the island should get $1,500 a month like that money you can suggest that to

[1:00:10] council and the council can they have we still have to find funding for it okay

[1:00:13] funding and and for funding council's going to worry about that we have to

[1:00:18] we've specifically been told on the workforce housing or affordable housing

[1:00:22] we don't have to work on the funding side of it to present the

[1:00:28] options on the $3600 a month that we have right now available for these folks

[1:00:32] that's like $43,000 so that is a number that Council

[1:00:37] can add to or take from the budget so we can discretion so it might still be the

[1:00:41] same number of people at the end but make it more attractive by increasing

[1:00:47] that 600 or 300 to make it more I guess right do you know off the

[1:00:55] top of there your head if there's any stipulation that they have to have been

[1:01:00] employed x amount of years before they can apply I don't think so okay

[1:01:06] definitely if it is it's a month oh okay to could it be worded as a percentage of

[1:01:12] their income like instead of a 600 flat dollar fee for someone that makes x

[1:01:18] amount could it could it be a percentage of that

[1:01:27] 600 based upon their income sure anything's on the table that you don't

[1:01:30] want that would be something you would include in the survey like if we sent it

[1:01:34] to employees you know City fly Beach employees is this something how you how

[1:01:38] is that how you would like it structured is a percentage of the employee of our

[1:01:42] salaries or is it a flat thing right like cuz if somebody was making 150 and

[1:01:48] I was only making 50 Mak like people that work for the city make a lot of

[1:01:52] money no I'm just saying that every little bit helps and if working with

[1:01:56] everybody and one person's making 150 and the other person's making 50 and you

[1:02:01] get the same exact stien that seems a little unfair so those are things for

[1:02:06] y'all to think about and when it comes time to do the recommendations um flush

[1:02:10] it out and figure out what if you want to include an income limit and what that

[1:02:13] might be or how okay and this stien is not available

[1:02:18] to any other City staff it's just Public Safety currently just fire and um

[1:02:23] full-time fire and police the second question here is how many

[1:02:28] city employees there are someone asked that just so everybody has that

[1:02:32] information what department they work in and then the third one so the law

[1:02:38] that was passed this year or last year that allows the city to use a tax money

[1:02:42] allows the city to use 35% of the a tax money and so I think I gave you a back

[1:02:47] of the envelope number last month said this is just this this comes from Lee

[1:02:51] you did a projection based on our last five years I think of a tax income how

[1:02:57] much would 35% of that be that could be available to use on Workforce housing

[1:03:04] develop it's yeah it sounds like it's just for de like building new yeah like

[1:03:09] I've seen Greenville the city or the county um bought some land recently so

[1:03:15] yeah acquisition seems to be what I've seen I would like more details on that

[1:03:20] because that if we don't have to build more what it sounded like from Tiana

[1:03:24] that it was also because she was saying that you had

[1:03:29] to have like a plan for how the development would be used to yeah that

[1:03:35] would be a follow up to know for sure all right y'all want me to put this

[1:03:40] up on the screen you have in front of me how many

[1:03:45] questions are there are we going to go through every single one as a whole

[1:03:47] group or there's a lot of repetition shoot the first four are basically the

[1:03:53] same thing okay so I was want to do want to have time with this to

[1:03:59] digest huh she asked have time I didn't know if we were talking about another

[1:04:03] hour or two or we don't really have a time limit but no I this won't take

[1:04:07] another hour or two and the first question the first four are the same it

[1:04:11] just goes to different people whether you own or whether you rent or don't

[1:04:14] rent want need to ask one more question about this why is it that only five

[1:04:19] employees are opting in for this amount if you the others don't live close

[1:04:25] enough to qualify they live in W only five live in

[1:04:31] James Island or the stien wasn't enough to make it affordable for them to move

[1:04:35] here or they own their house somewhere else they don't want to live here that's

[1:04:38] what it is right what it's not enough money to cover anything out it's not

[1:04:44] covering your utilities

[1:04:48] exactly okay I'm going to go through I'm not going to read every word of this we

[1:04:52] not it's Kristen I promise it's not take another another and y'all can always cut

[1:04:56] me off at any time if you want to we got to get this thing up yeah so the first

[1:05:03] page here and this will go at the beginning of

[1:05:07] each survey so that to educate the people who are answering these questions

[1:05:11] a little bit about why we're asking these questions what is the city trying

[1:05:15] to accomplish and give them some definitions about affordable housing and

[1:05:20] Workforce housing um y'all take a look at that and and see if there's anything

[1:05:24] you want I did not add a lot to this so if you want to um add something later if

[1:05:30] you think of it make a little note and let me

[1:05:33] know so survey option number one is for full-time

[1:05:40] owners these are resents these the full-time owners full-time residents

[1:05:44] residents owners who are full-time so I I I'm going to ask them to because these

[1:05:49] are words that yeah are not very clear so do you live full-time on F you may

[1:05:53] rent out your home under 72 days as an an owner occupied short-term rental or

[1:05:57] you may not rent out your home at all so this is that's the target audience for

[1:06:01] this first question how long have you lived on F how many bedrooms and

[1:06:04] bathrooms do you rent it out for that 72 day period um do you think city of f

[1:06:12] Beach should prioritize affordable housing in these different ways here and

[1:06:16] these three these are going to be repetitive um you could vote for more

[1:06:22] than one for for these three can I ask a quick question just number four at this

[1:06:27] point in time the city has prioritized this because it's with us do we need to

[1:06:31] ask owners what they think about it or is this do you think should prioritize

[1:06:37] tring think I I'll keep it as concise as possible for someone to actually do you

[1:06:43] know what I mean there this has been fled that is there an appetite in the

[1:06:48] public to fund things like this Goa and so yeah do you think that's necessary

[1:06:54] question um um so do you think the city should do these things number five is

[1:07:00] which ones would you support funding and so the first one is adus allowing adus

[1:07:08] if your property can otherwise um handle it City purchasing land in Folly Beach

[1:07:13] the city purchasing land outside of fol beach um stiens we've talked a little

[1:07:18] bit about already but that could be stiens for um general public or city

[1:07:24] employees um incentives to homeowners and these

[1:07:30] are General these aren't obviously these these aren't fleshed out policies but

[1:07:33] just in general is this somebody something that somebody would support

[1:07:37] and then annexing land um to have more room for

[1:07:42] development number six I asked if they can I ask you a question I don't see SE

[1:07:48] purchasing land but would we have what do we want to add purchasing existing

[1:07:53] properties yeah we you say purchasing land or existing properties for that

[1:07:58] exactly I mean or or existing develop yeah yeah

[1:08:08] okay buildings I guess I don't know how you want to write it but just a house

[1:08:12] that already exists or building exist y got it anybody else all right number six

[1:08:18] if you were to be able to put an Adu on your property would you do it and I'll

[1:08:24] I'll do an open comment box so they can give us some feedback on why they would

[1:08:27] or wouldn't number seven is who they think

[1:08:31] these affordable housing initiatives should um Target hold on Jen just just

[1:08:36] when it comes to aggregating data at the end of the day on number six would you

[1:08:40] want to offer like ABC or check the box of the things reasons why you would not

[1:08:46] support it so that you can see they environmental density or you know so

[1:08:51] that you can get and then leave one for other and they can fill it in so get so

[1:08:56] few you don't have quite so many things to look at and read that's good so

[1:09:01] anything else environmental density um just because my property is not big

[1:09:06] enough it's not size well the she said parking was one of the biggest issues

[1:09:11] down town yeah I would put things like

[1:09:16] environmental size you know property size parking

[1:09:23] noise privacy yeah no I I'll I'll flush that out or

[1:09:28] just the the commitment what was it five something 10 years 20 years that's not

[1:09:34] that's not on there yet you're starting off with would you

[1:09:38] consider it just would you consider it why why am why

[1:09:42] not all right number seven target

[1:09:46] audience this breaks down we've already talked about these residents of f Beach

[1:09:51] First Responders other city employees not First Responders or other employees

[1:09:56] who work on in valy beach but are not city

[1:10:00] employees and then if you choose a location to say for instance that there

[1:10:05] were um a stipend available where those people have to live anywhere 20

[1:10:12] miles um James Island FY Beach or in the city of FY Beach are people going to be

[1:10:18] able to choose more than one yeah okay I would add small business owners because

[1:10:23] there are people who don't work for another business but own a small

[1:10:27] business here that rent for number eight um

[1:10:33] number number seven okay who should be the target current residents firstes

[1:10:39] responders I would also City staff employees of businesses small business

[1:10:45] owners I could name so would that be somebody who owns property I mean owns a

[1:10:49] business but does not live here at there's quite a few of them right now

[1:10:57] okay um number two is targeting or asking people who own a second home that

[1:11:04] they do not run out at all same questions um how long you've been here

[1:11:10] bedrooms bathrooms do you think it's a priority and which ones would you

[1:11:13] support and I'll make all the changes to these that we talked about for the first

[1:11:17] one um same thing would you do an would you

[1:11:21] consider an Adu number six is new would you be willing to offer your second home

[1:11:26] as affordable housing or Workforce housing for a certain number of years in

[1:11:30] exchange for financial or zoning

[1:11:35] benefits explain the zoning benefits like we would even if you're in West

[1:11:39] Fifth Block West actually you would could be in commercial no not commercial

[1:11:45] it would be density just different ways for density so Charleston I don't think

[1:11:49] she talked about this has a one specific District that they give you points for

[1:11:54] certain um um affordable housing certain steps you take towards

[1:12:00] helping affordable housing and at a certain number of points you get to

[1:12:03] increase the number of floors of your building so that's that's

[1:12:08] that's that's for a a multi un you know instead of six floors you're allowed

[1:12:13] seven floors if you get 24 points of adding Green Space and adding the longer

[1:12:18] number of years you know 10 years versus 5 years or things like that this word

[1:12:22] zoning that was throwing me off here on this part I don't really understand get

[1:12:25] a zoning benefit um would be

[1:12:32] Zing I think that we that would be hard for somebody just in the regular general

[1:12:36] public to okay might have to explain the question I guess sure what number was

[1:12:41] that six

[1:12:49] six okay and then seven would you be willing to offer your home if you

[1:12:55] received an investor short-term rental license at the end and this would be

[1:13:00] important under the cap right so the people who can't get one right now

[1:13:05] because of the cap um would be allowed if they were offering affordable housing

[1:13:11] for a certain number of time certain period of time I guess that's good data

[1:13:15] to just find out the tolerance for it but at the same time it doesn't help for

[1:13:20] long-term affordable housing if we're they like great yeah in 10 years you can

[1:13:24] get an istr we're not it's not going to be that long you know what I mean so for

[1:13:29] one year time that just doesn't create my opinion doesn't support an affordable

[1:13:33] housing initiative where you're creating this is not yeah that's not fcking long

[1:13:40] time I also think somewhere in here we need to I don't know where you want to

[1:13:44] put it but I feel like we need to talk about a 12 month lease and right now the

[1:13:49] long-term housing it's truly defined right now is 30 days plus yes so I feel

[1:13:53] like we need to put in there somewhere about you know a true annual

[1:13:59] lease requiring annual lease well no just their tolerance for it like right

[1:14:04] now if you already if you're currently renting 30 days or more because there's

[1:14:07] you know there's probably quite a lot that are renting 30 but there's a

[1:14:10] handful probably they renting 30 days or more how could we encourage those folks

[1:14:15] or anybody to rent for the an actual well question number eight is oh is it

[1:14:21] in here but it says 30 days or more and you could change that to something like

[1:14:25] 6 months plus or something or 12 months plus just because

[1:14:30] it allows 30 days or more doesn't mean people are doing 30 days I mean most

[1:14:34] leases are for 12 months from the ones that we I look at every single one 100

[1:14:39] whatever there's maybe three advertisements out there for

[1:14:44] 30-day rentals I don't know about that I think for advertisements yeah okay for

[1:14:48] advertising um online that's what's doing right now in f that's and that's

[1:14:53] just TR probably a whole another topic to discuss

[1:14:55] as a part of this whole forum and project I think we need to be very clear

[1:14:59] that there's midterm whatever you want to call the 30 days that is not

[1:15:04] long-term housing for a Workforce you know and that's just a different I think

[1:15:08] we need to start defining defining it someone is giving

[1:15:12] one of these incentives they have to offer a 12 month Le is what you're

[1:15:15] saying yeah I that's what I think personally six months because if you

[1:15:20] look at like and I don't mean to scale back on long-term housing because six

[1:15:24] month months is not ideal for a worker to to be able to commit to their job but

[1:15:31] 6 months is also um attractive to a homeowner who

[1:15:36] wants to come in for three or four months they're going to have to furnish

[1:15:40] the house at 6 months they wouldn't be having this long-term renter come in and

[1:15:45] furnish their house for just 6 months for them to come in and have another

[1:15:50] long-term renter come through they would probably have their house furnac and

[1:15:54] have a long-term runer come in and live in our furnished house so that they

[1:15:58] could theoretically come in for three months out of the year to enjoy their

[1:16:02] vacation home if we're talking about people that own a house that don't

[1:16:06] typically live in that house so there's a there's a compromise there that we

[1:16:12] need to look at from a perspective of a long-term Runner but also of someone who

[1:16:18] is on the fence about wanting to rent out their hun and I think maybe that

[1:16:23] ends up being a sliding skill down on the road but I just I guess I feel

[1:16:27] strongly that long-term housing is not 6 months because then you aren't going to

[1:16:32] move your furniture every six months somewhere else you know but I understand

[1:16:36] what you're saying I think it's but you got to make it attractive for both sides

[1:16:40] or or if somebody can afford not to rent their home out now so that they can

[1:16:44] enjoy three months of it they sure as hell aren't going to rent it out and

[1:16:48] year that's what I ask number eight if they're not doing it is there anything

[1:16:52] else them what would Inc and so maybe it's like how are it

[1:16:58] structured in the the end of months for the purposes of the survey you could

[1:17:02] just take out the 30 days or

[1:17:06] more I think most people

[1:17:11] longterm yeah that's that's great okay on the righted I think you can

[1:17:16] structure the incentive or discounts or whatever because I think it's going to

[1:17:20] be very specific for that house and that family that wants to consider long-term

[1:17:26] rent if they still want to come to their house for 3 months out of the year or 2

[1:17:29] months out of the year you're going to have to take it Case by case so to take

[1:17:33] 30 days out or more would to keep it in is very

[1:17:37] limiting that's the what's going to be the administrative cost of this I mean

[1:17:42] this is this is massive administrative cost of managing

[1:17:47] all this once once the you know when you talk about 30 days you talk about long

[1:17:51] term you talk about adus I mean somebody's going to going to have to

[1:17:55] manage it all it's sure I mean and that's the topic is complicated and

[1:18:00] whatever the recommendations go to council may end up with a very

[1:18:03] complicated system um so I would ask you to keep that in mind so that when we are

[1:18:08] enforcing it that it is um easy for everyone to understand and

[1:18:14] consistent um but yeah I mean if if we do a program like this there will be

[1:18:19] administrative adding administrative costs yeah to the

[1:18:22] city the simplistic way of manag this entire thing would be to give everybody

[1:18:29] raises serious and when you think about it if you were to give everybody

[1:18:36] $10,000 but that's just $790,000 a year divided by

[1:18:41] 24 comes up to 27 bucks a month would I be willing to pay $27 a month to resolve

[1:18:49] this issue I would are we property owner you mean h the property owners have to

[1:18:53] pay yeah yeah that's what it would be problem is you

[1:18:56] have to also incentivize more housing stock available to be long term and

[1:19:02] that's a totally different and these can all be your recommendations

[1:19:09] yeah survey number three is investment owners people who don't live in the

[1:19:15] house and they rent it out short term how long have you owned your home

[1:19:21] how many bedrooms baths same question what should you

[1:19:25] prioritize how should we prioritize it number five if the city were to offer

[1:19:31] you a financial incentive to participate in rening your home to long-term renters

[1:19:35] would you consider again I'm sorry I'm kind of a

[1:19:40] DAT ahead though if you don't Define everybody's going to interpret long term

[1:19:43] differently currently 30 days is long term so I guess maybe we might want to

[1:19:47] break it down into 30 days or more 6 months or more 12 month lease and give

[1:19:52] them those options well if you're a short-term rental license holder are you

[1:19:58] going to rent your home for 6 months and lose your short-term rental license

[1:20:03] right then I so I mean I think it would imply that if you're going to do that

[1:20:08] you would be giving it up for you'd be doing that for the long

[1:20:12] run yes I'll work on that I just want to make sure that we're getting clear I

[1:20:17] think you're right I think we're getting data that is actually once you scrub it

[1:20:20] it's credible right like everybody's interpretation of a definition is going

[1:20:25] to screw up all the data right okay I got

[1:20:28] it uh would you be willing to offer your investment home as affordable housing

[1:20:33] for a certain number of years in exchange for financial or zoning

[1:20:38] benefits and then are there other incentives that would convince you to

[1:20:44] change from shortterm to long term um do we so 8 9 10 11 are all the

[1:20:51] same in all of these do it ask them why they current c l wouldn't do it like I

[1:20:56] I'm seeing why why would you would you do it for financial benefits but it

[1:21:01] might be interesting just to say why don't you consider it now because it if

[1:21:04] you already have an investment short-term that's most likely giving the

[1:21:07] answer but I think you're going to hear a whole lot of I want to come use my

[1:21:10] house in the summertime you know so just knowing why people don't now their

[1:21:15] behaviors and reasons might be helpful group what do y'all think and that I'm

[1:21:20] talking a lot that that's a good idea yeah

[1:21:25] there are obvious reasons but i' like to the more data we have the more it's

[1:21:32] going to help us for sure I thought I think a lot of this

[1:21:36] were just not going to be able to get because it's their business I mean

[1:21:41] meaning they don't have to tell us if they you know overpaid in construction

[1:21:47] and have a lot of reasons why they need to Str Str versus LTR right now in the

[1:21:53] short term the longterm is that maybe it would be an option for long-term rent if

[1:21:58] they can short-term rent for the next five to 10 years but that doesn't help

[1:22:02] our situation now so there's there's going to be a lot of reasons why ists in

[1:22:09] particular are not going to be interested in that be different for

[1:22:13] everybody yeah so we'll offer some of the general reasons and then also do a

[1:22:17] box to just tell us why why not sry

[1:22:23] 891

[1:22:27] same number four investment owners for long-term

[1:22:33] rentals so these are people who own a home that they do not live in and they

[1:22:37] run out I'll take out the 30 days and this will be where I'll work on that

[1:22:41] definition of long term should we be asking about an HVAC

[1:22:47] system right

[1:22:51] now to me are you going to Define longterm

[1:22:56] though getting rid of the 30 we get I mean could have a window unit our house

[1:23:01] is not very old but we still had to get a brand new HVAC I know I so I guess I'm

[1:23:05] not totally sure that the HVAC specifically is part of it but I think

[1:23:10] the goal is how old is the house or are you trying to find out like what

[1:23:14] condition the house is in and how old it is like to be honest I more or less like

[1:23:20] is is it financially feasible typically the older houses at this point should

[1:23:25] have a very limited amount of years left of paying off a house which makes it

[1:23:32] more feasible to be able to rent it out long long term and my right I mean if

[1:23:38] you have a brand new house brand new construction a lot of you just don't

[1:23:41] know when they bought it what if they just bought it and it's fully financed

[1:23:45] it could be one year you can just ask how old the

[1:23:49] houses yeah what how would that uh contribute

[1:23:53] to any of because anybody could have bought a house built in 1930 they just

[1:23:57] bought it yesterday so like how old the house is doesn't help us with how much

[1:24:01] costs and overhead there is to right but that's not the question the question is

[1:24:06] how many years have you owned your home yes so taking that asking a second

[1:24:12] question of how old the house was oh no is there any interest in

[1:24:16] that no I think it really comes down to are you in a financially stable place to

[1:24:23] be able to rent out your home and based upon the years of ownership sometimes

[1:24:29] that's a tell telling sign of whether or not somebody

[1:24:33] is equipped do you think that's a fair question and that's that's my question

[1:24:40] that's my question is that okay you're not asking them how much they paid for

[1:24:45] their house on what date they bought it and how much your mortgage is you're

[1:24:48] just saying how long have you owned your home I mean if I have a I've had a place

[1:24:55] for 15 years I'm either done paying for it or I'm halfway there um you know what

[1:25:00] I know we're talking about this on number four right the same applies to

[1:25:04] all the rest of the questions I mean at the end of the

[1:25:07] day I don't know if it matters you're probably going to see the long-term

[1:25:12] rental owners have owned it the longest I would assume because they can more so

[1:25:17] afford to rent it long term if that makes sense but are we trying to get a

[1:25:21] picture of the individual owner's Financial sit situation I know I don't

[1:25:25] know I don't think personally I don't think that should factor into this I

[1:25:32] agree well but you still have to find out what would motivate you have in

[1:25:36] order to do that you have to find that motivating factor and and and you know

[1:25:41] if well that's what is these questions about what would incentivize you number

[1:25:46] six right which if you look at it is probably the most important question

[1:25:52] period on question number four sorry on survey option number four survey option

[1:25:57] number three or five or five five five is number six well I don't see

[1:26:07] how six really applies if we're asking the question if they own a second home

[1:26:12] that they don't live in because then they might not necessarily live on

[1:26:17] Folly says they could still offer when you don't live in that you rent out for

[1:26:22] 30 days or longer I'm lost on what page we're on now we on

[1:26:26] survey four still y y we four

[1:26:31] okay thought we jumped so question number five is that what you're talking

[1:26:34] about on survey four for investment owners of long-term rentals I think

[1:26:39] Kevin was talking about survey number three I think so

[1:26:43] too you were talking about question number six on survey

[1:26:48] three was that the one you were talking about yeah as that's for survey three

[1:26:53] we're on survey four we can talk about that if you want well I think he was

[1:26:57] going back to say that that question suffices on would you be willing to uh

[1:27:02] offer your home if there's an incentive that's why he jumped ear there I

[1:27:09] think are you saying that that question should be on this survey as well because

[1:27:14] it's not well survey for they're already offering the long-term rent right we

[1:27:19] don't need them to switch I think we're still back to does

[1:27:23] the question number one on almost all of these matter I think it

[1:27:28] matters I think it matters doesn't hurt but I don't think it I don't think it

[1:27:31] tells us anything I don't think it tells us

[1:27:34] anything if you've only owned your home for a year versus 15

[1:27:39] years you you can gain a much better understanding of of where someone might

[1:27:45] be economically but you're without asking them very personal details but

[1:27:50] you're still just guessing cuz you don't know right you don't know you also like

[1:27:54] you said you could be 15 years into your mortgage you could have no mortgage you

[1:27:58] could have just refinanced taken all of that out and still have a full mortgage

[1:28:03] and if you just bought it in the last year and you paid cash for it you

[1:28:07] probably paid over a million dollars for it but you also aren't short tting it so

[1:28:12] you might be motivated to long-term in it you also might be unmotivated to

[1:28:16] answer these questions if you answer number one because then you feel like it

[1:28:19] you can narrow it down to who it is you know I mean well not that but just you

[1:28:23] know maybe that feels personal to people too but they're like you don't need to

[1:28:27] know that but I can answer all of these based on my personal situation or you

[1:28:32] know based on somebody then would it come down to whether or not we make it

[1:28:36] Anonymous or not Anonymous oh it's be to be anonymous for so then but I think

[1:28:41] people still may not trust that you know um maybe if if you you had gathered this

[1:28:48] because this is just trying to build a foundation of see what the threshold of

[1:28:51] people what it is what are they willing to answer and you know you get these

[1:28:56] back hopefully it's busy and it you get really good answers but maybe you know

[1:29:01] and with that maybe you need to do another survey after that you're like

[1:29:05] okay now we got some really good information now let's get a little more

[1:29:08] detailed you know if you can if you all these so how much do you charge per

[1:29:12] month to rent out your property get personal should that be a

[1:29:18] bracket though I charge but I think it's so important to know 1500 or below 1500

[1:29:23] 3,000 charge or or maybe you give them a range that's what I think too listen I

[1:29:29] don't respect the Anon the word the desire Anonymous if we're getting really

[1:29:35] bogged down and really what we need is just to you know try to get some sort of

[1:29:41] picture of what the appetite is we and how far are people willing to go but

[1:29:48] technically we don't even need to know how much you charge if they're long-term

[1:29:52] running we already know what they're being Char I question then I think do

[1:29:56] need to know hold on we got too many conversations I can't okay I think

[1:30:01] everybody agrees we want are going to ask how much they charge the question is

[1:30:04] for number one and this goes back for all of the Sur I want a consensus from

[1:30:08] y'all about whether to ask how long theyve own the house here's my thoughts

[1:30:13] and I will say question five that is basically saying would you support the

[1:30:18] city of f beach Wait On which not on survey 1 through three okay back to the

[1:30:24] in all of this surveying we're trying to gather an understanding of what the

[1:30:28] residents and property owners are willing to accept as an acceptable

[1:30:33] program for affordable housing so maybe they all hate ad use maybe they want to

[1:30:38] do this but whatever it may be that's the most important question we need

[1:30:42] answered because if the public won't support it it doesn't even make sense to

[1:30:45] send it to council right but if we have how many years you've lived here and we

[1:30:51] find out that most of the support is coming from

[1:30:57] people who have lived here under a year or one to four years then we may not

[1:31:03] have reached the entire audience we wanted to reach to gather the

[1:31:07] information and we may need to seek a different approach to get the

[1:31:12] information that's the only reason I would leave it there is you can also

[1:31:16] tell their level of commitment to Folly if they've been here for five to 15

[1:31:21] something years then they might be more motivated for the community itself

[1:31:26] versus their property their actual property I think we should leave it

[1:31:33] in I think what yeah I think what Paula said is like because then you can kind

[1:31:38] of gauge the you know your the the worthiness of your responses you know

[1:31:45] like are you getting you know are you getting these 10 to 14 year year people

[1:31:49] the diversity of the particip yeah the diversity yeah I think you're and I

[1:31:54] don't know how if you could say it differently so people don't feel so well

[1:31:58] that's a personal question you know like in order to make I I don't I don't know

[1:32:03] if you know if in order to make sure that question even relevant though what

[1:32:07] are you going to do that information me I don't see any relevance at all I

[1:32:12] didn't Nei until Paul said that ask from our audience I don't care whether you

[1:32:15] for five years or 20 yeah but we want to make sure we're reaching everybody like

[1:32:20] all different I think it doesn't hurt as long as it's not

[1:32:25] understand what that means well to make sure that we're you know that we're our

[1:32:28] responses are from a wide variety ofid you know it's not just the the the ones

[1:32:35] that have only have just been here for a year it's you know it's the the ones

[1:32:39] that have been here question I mean it's just you go back to number five and six

[1:32:44] would you be willing to offer your what we really want to know I mean it is

[1:32:47] you're going to run or not I mean and what would is it Adu that that brings

[1:32:51] you home I mean what I would be

[1:32:56] that's my reason why because when analytics of the survey

[1:33:02] itself who who who is this survey who is without identifying the

[1:33:09] actual person because we don't care who the person is we just want demographics

[1:33:13] about it's all electronic right it's not being mail monkey okay do they have to

[1:33:19] answer could they skip that question and still complete the survey will you me do

[1:33:23] that absolutely we can you could put in yeah not required

[1:33:28] or whatever right yeah maybe do that and then it's to them if they want to we

[1:33:34] would have you know if everybody answers it great if nobody were like well we

[1:33:37] didn't need to do that or something um on that note as we are making it

[1:33:43] available because we're asking property owners who don't live here so it's going

[1:33:47] to be digital available to anybody that's has a relationship to folly or

[1:33:52] property own Folly basically good and then I think there's the idea

[1:33:56] about mailing to somebody is probably a good one at least for people that here

[1:34:00] locally I don't know how because we certainly can't send it out to thousands

[1:34:04] of 2400 we know how many long MERS are out there and we know who they are where

[1:34:09] they but this is something we could you could do a mail for them for the

[1:34:13] long-term rental part yeah for wh whomever is long-term renting currently

[1:34:18] yes what I'm saying is that we've got you know that 1100 other properties or

[1:34:22] whatever it is 1,200 properties out there that are

[1:34:25] either uh that don't live here so we want to get those are the people who

[1:34:30] might have a stock of houses that we can incentivize right so I'm just trying to

[1:34:34] make sure that we're getting well I'll talk to Stacy about the email addresses

[1:34:38] that she has for investors so that we can make sure that

[1:34:42] we're reaching all the people that we want to reach just any proper so if

[1:34:45] somebody own seven properties versus two properties versus one would they fill

[1:34:52] out the electronic how would they how would you monitor them filling it out

[1:34:57] that's true four separate times I've thought about that and I haven't come up

[1:35:01] with an answer seven seven times if it's not an actual piece of Mony is so um

[1:35:06] you're able to manipulate it so much that I bet I can figure out a way to say

[1:35:09] if you do you long-term rent how many properties and if it's more than one

[1:35:15] then you know I'll get the well there's not that many it would only be the how

[1:35:20] much you charge is the only you have to or how long you I think you can set it

[1:35:24] so the same email address can't answer more than one time if there's two owners

[1:35:28] of the property then how how would you get accurate answers if your emailing it

[1:35:32] to them and they have two separate email address dat data we're looking for is

[1:35:36] appetite out there right so two we might get to but if I'm on the date somebody

[1:35:42] else is on the date and you send it to two different email addresses

[1:35:45] technically your questions should just be

[1:35:47] one email yeah one set of questions where you can say how many properties

[1:35:53] one two or three you would get a duplicate answer if you send it to both

[1:35:58] me and my spouse who own the properties spouse I thought you meant like an LLC

[1:36:03] that had two different but all that how would you regulate electronically well

[1:36:08] don't you want as many yeah inputs I don't think it matters like you might

[1:36:11] have one opinion and Chris has your spous might have different

[1:36:15] opinions on what you might support and so we would like to have your answers

[1:36:18] for both and I can't imagine that someone who's currently got a long-term

[1:36:22] rental has answer or planning to answer the question about how much do you

[1:36:26] charge I don't they probably are going to give you the same answer because they

[1:36:30] know how much they charge I don't think it matters to have more than one opinion

[1:36:33] from the same household on most of it except for how much do you charge well

[1:36:38] in Reverse if it's the tenants answering we should still how valid is

[1:36:45] this information going to be if we only get a 50% response you might get we

[1:36:49] might get 10% we're not this isn't going to be a statistical analysis of this

[1:36:53] y'all this is you an appetite of what we think of

[1:36:56] people who are who are who who hit s yeah I know it's probably just one of

[1:37:01] these things that we need to do but sometimes surveys can back people went

[1:37:08] talk to their friends and got some answers that's how this is going to

[1:37:10] benefit I keep thinking about the police officers saying about speeding and if we

[1:37:16] don't if we if we survey and we don't and we're surveying to kind of move into

[1:37:22] a direction of getting uh lower speed limit for not to say that we don't have

[1:37:28] a great speed limit here but if it if we don't get the answers it might backfire

[1:37:34] and I just don't want a survey like this where we're trying to seek out you just

[1:37:39] want numbers that fire and then you know if we don't get a good response rate we

[1:37:45] deem that as it's not needed if you don't get a good response rate you don't

[1:37:50] have to put um any Credence give it cre I think what she's saying is that I just

[1:37:55] if you don't get a lot of participation that doesn't mean that this initiative

[1:37:58] is dead right you're more concerned like concerned that if we don't get

[1:38:03] um real numbers like if there if electon if electronically there's no way to keep

[1:38:11] the numbers accurate super accurate then it could backfire and and and that a

[1:38:17] survey if you don't get enough participants it might make it seem as

[1:38:22] though we don't AFF inacurate Insight might gleam out it backfires all I just

[1:38:28] I get worried with surveys in general what is your suggestion if it's

[1:38:34] just a run-of-the-mill thing that the city needs to do to say that we did it

[1:38:37] so that we can move on to the next step that's that's one thing we need it yeah

[1:38:41] we yeah we need it we need it we as for but at the same time I I'm hesitant just

[1:38:48] like you say if they hit number one and they're like oh I don't like this survey

[1:38:52] turn off the computer well I'd rather not I'd rather get no data than get

[1:38:57] totally skewed wrong data you know what I mean like I I have to say that that's

[1:39:00] why I'm considerate of how much people are willing to answer and how personal

[1:39:06] it is I just want to be respectful because I think people who click on it

[1:39:09] decide they're going to participate are either going to answer as accurately as

[1:39:13] honestly as they can or they're going to turn it off and that's fine like I don't

[1:39:17] think anybody's going to click the link if they are not interested in completing

[1:39:21] how I move the question about how long you lived here to the end not

[1:39:26] required probably so the first question is how much do you charge per mind maybe

[1:39:32] we should look at no I think I think we can reshuffle it but like do you think

[1:39:35] we should prioritize affordable housing to me feels like a good start right I

[1:39:40] mean probably wouldn't continue if you disagree you probably click on the link

[1:39:44] in the first place or maybe you want to tell us you don't think it's important

[1:39:48] but I also just back to how this part of the conversation started I don't want

[1:39:52] somebody owns three or four long-term rentals which some people do to have to

[1:39:57] do the whole thing multiple times I think we need to add a do you you know

[1:40:01] do you own one um is very customizable that way they will not have to be more

[1:40:07] than one perfect because most of the questions you can answer once right but

[1:40:11] right how much per rent and and maybe you say in the beginning

[1:40:16] of the survey like this little cover sheet you know hey we real you know

[1:40:20] we're just we're trying to just you know get some sort of picture of what you

[1:40:25] know um those who live here work here own a business here are willing to do

[1:40:30] and interested in doing so that people aren't like oh my God this is how it's

[1:40:34] going to be you know kind of thing so maybe they can keep that in their head

[1:40:38] while they're answering these questions you know you would get more of a you

[1:40:42] know you want people to maybe dream a little bit and be like oh yeah I might

[1:40:45] do that you know that would be interesting you know because that's good

[1:40:48] info you're like okay there's a little bit of an appetite for that it's not

[1:40:51] well I'm not doing this tomorrow you know you want people to think that's

[1:40:54] what's going to happen tomorrow like you want them to kind of you know project

[1:40:57] out and think of you know what what is possible you know for that so if somehow

[1:41:03] the writing or you know the the description could somehow lean that way

[1:41:08] a little bit doing so that they're not like oh my God if I say yes this is what

[1:41:11] I'm gonna have to do or something too yeah I think it's so important say we

[1:41:15] like to hear from the voices and the ideas or not the ideas but we'd like to

[1:41:20] hear input from our business owners our property owners or residents Etc and

[1:41:25] your voice is important to us as we consider this initiative you know right

[1:41:29] I don't know if we even need to be asking how much they charge to rent out

[1:41:33] their property if we're not considering the square footage of the house and how

[1:41:38] many bedrooms and bathrooms are in here and I don't see bedrooms or bathrooms I

[1:41:41] have note on that too that we you say like per unit do you do you rent I get

[1:41:45] bedroom or bathroom number four then number one two and three do have ask we

[1:41:49] are asking bedrooms and bathrooms but I'll add it for number four for the for

[1:41:54] for four and yeah another one in there do you

[1:41:59] rent per unit per bedroom right Full House or how much do

[1:42:04] you the square footage doesn't matter it's the number of bedrooms that right

[1:42:08] number of people who are in there yeah number

[1:42:12] people all right number five business owners I think this is going to be a

[1:42:18] tough one it's going to be hard to fill out with the questions how far do they

[1:42:23] have to go how many of them are cost burden I don't know that this is going

[1:42:28] to get filled out at all for business owners but um so I do think that the

[1:42:34] average commute for employees is a huge motivating factor on both sides I think

[1:42:39] that one should at least stay that means they have to survey every single

[1:42:43] employee that's the only reason I think they won't do it is just because they

[1:42:46] don't want asking the employees themselves so we can get the actual data

[1:42:49] instead of having the manager figure it out for every employee oh yeah excuse me

[1:42:53] this is business owners business owners where's the other one what if you ask

[1:42:56] what about well like business owners thinking you know okay if you own a

[1:43:00] business out here you know what are you willing to do for your employees like I

[1:43:06] think it is kind of nice to know though that the average commute so I think

[1:43:09] again make it easy though is it one to five miles is it you know 5 to 10 or

[1:43:15] more just in general because there are going to be some people live on the

[1:43:19] island even the average I don't know if it's going to help us too much but some

[1:43:23] people live on the island that work there and 90% of them live off the

[1:43:26] island but asking if they're housing costs burdened is yeah asking them how

[1:43:32] much do you pay for itent right now and let me get out the calculator and well

[1:43:37] we don't have we don't have to ask them number five we're telling ask Define

[1:43:43] that is 30% of your monthly income means your house burden what is your househ

[1:43:47] income and what is your Brent I don't think the business you're asking the

[1:43:50] business no this is number six this is number five on business owners survey

[1:43:56] five business owners oh well maybe we should take out number five on business

[1:44:00] owners yes I think we just need to strike that one they don't have a way

[1:44:07] to I mean it's important to know but I don't think they're going to be able to

[1:44:11] answer it it's not their responsibility it's really their guess it is totally

[1:44:14] guess and I think with number six we're asking individually so yeah you're

[1:44:19] getting it there maybe we should check out number two

[1:44:24] I'm talk about the whole survey just take just take out the whole business

[1:44:27] owner survey uh I don't know if I so all right so what part tell me what specific

[1:44:33] I don't know necessarily if if if if five is you'd keep it in or number two

[1:44:38] because what does it matter how many they employ if some might live here and

[1:44:43] some might not but also some might be able to work from home well let's think

[1:44:50] about how many businesses most of them are going to going to be something in

[1:44:55] the relationship with tourism right so it's going to be mostly hospitality and

[1:45:00] you know Boutique shops and whatnot or you know what I mean so I I I think it'd

[1:45:06] be interesting to know okay I employ six people two of them live on the island

[1:45:10] the rest of them don't so that tells me that there's four people that may be

[1:45:15] interested in being closer to their job I guess is kind of where or maybe on the

[1:45:21] cusp but not being able to stay question correct correct that's actually other

[1:45:25] thing I definitely would take five out of that one though it's just not yeah I

[1:45:29] would take one out I don't think it matters how long I business I agree too

[1:45:33] okay um how many people how many live on the island does average commute time

[1:45:38] matter I think if they feel like they can answer that question you know maybe

[1:45:44] just do the it depends on how 1 to three miles and then you know three to

[1:45:51] five and then on

[1:45:55] that I I know that it's it's an important question of of of my place of

[1:46:01] work cuz the commute seems to be the the the the daily um issue as to

[1:46:09] whether or not people will show up or not this always comes back to the the

[1:46:13] commute well I couldn't because there was a wreck and took it you know the

[1:46:20] commute seems to be an ongoing issue for you could just give a range yeah just

[1:46:26] break a box for right so taking five out for business owners anything else and

[1:46:30] taking one out taking one out taking five out and then and the ranges for the

[1:46:36] I I also would be interested and I'm not going to word it right right out of my

[1:46:39] mouth but something about would affordable housing on Folly help you

[1:46:43] recruit Talent or help you recruit and retain across the board I would think so

[1:46:48] but like you know what it you might hear people say I don't really have that

[1:46:52] problem you know or it doesn't it's not a decision for me well I guess you're

[1:46:57] kind of asking that with number six is would you be willing to participate in

[1:47:00] affordable housing true say yes then they think it it would allow them maybe

[1:47:05] like so maybe you could read into it a little bit if you get yeses or knows

[1:47:09] true well it says would your business benefit if there's no I mean why

[1:47:14] wouldn't they want to participate yeah because participating in afford housing

[1:47:19] program might make them sign up to pay for

[1:47:23] right I was going to say participate and think want want the city to do it or

[1:47:27] this one here is Folly Beach offers well it says would you be willing

[1:47:32] to participate in an affordable housing or workhouse program we don't have any

[1:47:36] of those developed yet but in that program we could say in order to be a

[1:47:40] participant in this the business owner needs to pay out this much and then the

[1:47:43] city will match it or whatever the city will contribute so it it it is a that's

[1:47:49] an important question question that we'd need to to know if they if be

[1:47:53] willing to match or contribute match or contribute or something like that to

[1:47:58] yeah when you say participate participate pay into it well I I think

[1:48:03] participate is a yeah would you it's a non-scary question if you so are we

[1:48:09] talking about number seven changing or is this adding a second another question

[1:48:12] I think if you say participate then it will it could be

[1:48:17] defined later as to what participate means if you if you ask them if they

[1:48:22] want to participate in paying out they're going to say no until they know

[1:48:27] all of the details and we don't have all the details so if you say participate

[1:48:30] it's not scary well I think there's are two different things though would I love

[1:48:34] to encourage my employees to take advantage of a of a city offered program

[1:48:38] that the city's paying for or you asking me to contribute from my business well

[1:48:44] that's why we leave it as willing to participate and an affordable house

[1:48:47] until we have that program worked out they could say yes for many reasons and

[1:48:53] it still wouldn't backfiring them saying yes could mean one thing or saying yes

[1:48:58] could mean another again we just want to know what if you just put like an aster

[1:49:03] by participate and kind of said you know like you know elaborated a little

[1:49:08] bit like this this may come in many ways you know whether you contribute whether

[1:49:13] you just have employees or pay into it we're still defining what this means but

[1:49:18] you know but that's where you might hook them into not wanting to answer that

[1:49:25] right then they don't have I like it just how okay we'll leave it like that

[1:49:29] it's another one of those where you participate John wants to say something

[1:49:33] can we invite just use the word initiative instead of all those you're

[1:49:37] talking about put initiative means well we're talking about the the

[1:49:43] word the misunderstanding that it might be would you participate or would you

[1:49:47] pay into and contribute just use the partipate is in there it's would you

[1:49:54] participate in the inititive right that's we already have that word in the

[1:49:57] would you participate in the initiative all right I I get

[1:50:02] it let's talk about workers on yes would you be willing to participate in same

[1:50:09] thing yes um so this one gets to what is your

[1:50:15] commute time I add ranges for that one would you consider moving we could add

[1:50:20] ranges for that one too this Ed those two miles for what would be

[1:50:27] um I definitely do the bullet points like ranges for you we'll do ranges for

[1:50:33] those what you say within a 15 to 20 mile radius I have to say that I think

[1:50:38] there's going to be a lot of people that are in 15 to 20 miles that I don't think

[1:50:42] are going to think that's a Folly Beach initiative 15 miles is like Costco in

[1:50:48] West Ashley like I I think we need to would you be willing would you be cons

[1:50:54] consider moving 15 minutes yeah 15 minutes it's very different I mean

[1:50:58] literally think about how far it's only day three miles to four miles to ro

[1:51:04] Costco is 9 and a half miles the connector is seriously so I mean I knew

[1:51:10] sure you know Connor is seven miles so just the connector is seven miles from

[1:51:15] there so just to get so take out the 15 to 20 and and and say five mile radius

[1:51:22] one mile radius what do we want to say and I think we really need to know

[1:51:26] somebody's understanding the difference between are we we're trying to help you

[1:51:30] get closer to folly or live on Folly because living just AC over the bridge

[1:51:35] and here is folly and that's what people think of they don't think of living in

[1:51:38] Seal glass apartments on James Island is living on Folly so I think we and more

[1:51:44] importantly that's not um a resident that pays taxes that not taxes cuz if

[1:51:52] renters right well they they still a they're still a resident of yeah they

[1:52:00] put pay taxes in some realm little sales high but with this we're just trying to

[1:52:05] determine the cost burden number of people who work on the island in

[1:52:12] particular that's our only goal really and on this one and how far they commute

[1:52:18] if they commute less would they be would they be willing to work to participate

[1:52:25] in the program if it meant a smaller commute time and I think it also is

[1:52:30] important to know not how many bedrooms and bathrooms they have their current

[1:52:33] residence doesn't matter to me as much is how many bedrooms and bathrooms do

[1:52:37] you need because you may right next that's the third bullet under number

[1:52:41] three okay yeah I don't I guess I don't know if number four is necessary like

[1:52:46] how many they have now wherever they are we just need to know how many they need

[1:52:49] yeah that's true that was just from the rest of them

[1:52:54] over and then on five I would do the brackets again

[1:53:00] because privacy I guess sure and then number six I know this

[1:53:07] says rank 1 to five this was a submitted question that only had

[1:53:13] two answers but then asked as to rank them so do you want to add something

[1:53:19] more to those or do we take the ranking out and just say you could put in um

[1:53:25] somebody forgot to elaborate on that there's

[1:53:28] only well you could put in um getting some kind of assistance type thing

[1:53:34] wherever you live if you work on that kind of

[1:53:40] thing I think we should maybe either scratch that question or try again huh

[1:53:45] or just add that one and one to three one to three

[1:53:52] I was the level of importance I think you might want to also just add get my

[1:53:58] cost of living down or like reduce my cost of

[1:54:02] living because you may have someone that's here for three

[1:54:08] months bad example but someone who can't afford to stay they might be here right

[1:54:13] now and they just can't afford to stay so but if back to the public safety

[1:54:17] people right 600 bucks a month that's just not enough for most people so I

[1:54:22] I don't know the right way to word it but you know reduce my cost of living

[1:54:27] something like that might be

[1:54:32] helpful okay Jenna I also think did we already say on number going back to

[1:54:35] number five here say city is interested in whether you pay more than 30% of your

[1:54:39] monthly income and housing isn't that sufficient why do I need to why do I

[1:54:45] need to know what their monthly income is or what their mortgage is cuz well

[1:54:50] people aren't going to be able to figure this out I think we're going to have to

[1:54:53] do it for them but also we want to know the people who work on the island that

[1:54:59] helps us with what the median income is right I

[1:55:05] yeah how else the workforce but not okay instead of asking the 30% part like can

[1:55:12] we just ask two different questions optional if you're willing to share what

[1:55:17] is your monthly household income X tox X tox X tox click a box and and then what

[1:55:23] is your monthly rent or mortgage is it this range this range that range then we

[1:55:27] can kind of just do our best to figure it out for that's fine the reason I did

[1:55:30] that was just to give them a a reason why we're asking that why does it matter

[1:55:34] how much their income is you know I want to kind of explain it why we're asking

[1:55:38] actually I think it's a great idea maybe instead of asking that question you

[1:55:41] could say the average you know income Target is standard of living whatever I

[1:55:48] don't know the right words but and so we're asking this so then like you can

[1:55:52] set it up instead of asking the question to set it

[1:55:55] up I don't know I would it's the city's interest is one thing but why is the

[1:56:00] city interested and where do we come up with 30% I think just clarifying that a

[1:56:04] little bit better as to what's defined as affordable housing what's

[1:56:10] average one last category I thought of that we don't I don't think we really

[1:56:15] are addressing there's people who work on the island but I think it's really

[1:56:18] fair to hear from the long-term renters Who currently live on the Island because

[1:56:23] there's a lot of you know there's a lot and there has been a lot but they don't

[1:56:27] all work own the island they own businesses on the island maybe they do

[1:56:30] work on the island maybe they don't but they've just been here for 20 years I

[1:56:33] think that would be a good idea really helpful plenty of them are scared that

[1:56:38] they won't be able to continue living on that th% okay and I guess would

[1:56:45] you ask oh never mind I would say how long you Liv on the island do you work

[1:56:51] on the island um you know how many same as number five

[1:56:57] people who work in the C find out about 30% if we can

[1:57:03] yep um you know again I think how many bedrooms do you and your family need or

[1:57:09] something like that too because again you've got single people and you've got

[1:57:12] whole families

[1:57:14] and I wouldn't be surprised as long as it's Anonymous that we get really

[1:57:19] because I think we say what is it now I think need to say what is your budget

[1:57:24] that you can afford to live on the because there are people who pay

[1:57:28] $800,000 who always have pay that and there's people who are really struggling

[1:57:32] to pay 25 253,000 now so just honestly

[1:57:37] understanding not not just what you pay but kind of what is your what is your

[1:57:43] budget you know and somebody might say I paid $1,000 but I could I could

[1:57:49] stay on the island for500 do you know what I mean

[1:57:53] gotcha I think we'll be surprised at how many people live on the island that do

[1:57:58] work on the island but maybe don't don't work at

[1:58:02] Hospitality yeah or people that long-term rent that don't work on the

[1:58:06] island yeah I think so too and those those those are going to be people we

[1:58:11] see I think that have we're going to see have lived here the longest or lived

[1:58:14] here a long [Music]

[1:58:16] time I have one more question on that one what else do we want to

[1:58:22] email me let's say let's take until Friday if you have any followup

[1:58:27] questions if you think of something you want to add clarify whatever give me

[1:58:31] until I'll give you until Friday and then I'll certain the survey out next

[1:58:35] week um we generally do a month to get encourage more responses so that means

[1:58:44] you will have the results back at the November meeting and what's our resource

[1:58:49] for pushing it out all of our stands on um social media uh the website we'll

[1:58:56] mention it at Council meetings we'll put it on the sign we'll put in

[1:59:00] sanser Stacy's list perhaps

[1:59:09] all great so we scrapped them we didn't scrap any of them in the end right A Lot

[1:59:14] the business no I mean one whole survey we didn't scrap the business owner one

[1:59:18] we just got okay so next meeting is October

[1:59:23] oober so I will work up the tree um suggestions recommendations and have

[1:59:28] that to you to vote on and I'm not sure what you'll talk about for um this longm

[1:59:34] having a public hearing what do you want to do that in we we can talk after about

[1:59:40] well I just meant with no like agenda to make any decisions but just to hear

[1:59:45] anyone who wants to come if the email or survey is going out

[1:59:52] in another week well I guess that's only going to

[1:59:56] be like two weeks before the next meeting it'll go out on the 16th so

[2:00:00] it'll be two weeks before the next meeting so maybe three weeks it's

[2:00:04] calendar how long are we going to leave the survey open a

[2:00:08] month a month but if we did a public hearing next month it would just give

[2:00:12] anyone like Mr McFarland who wants to come and make a comment and say I have

[2:00:16] these ideas or I have these questions those kind of things okay so public

[2:00:21] hearing o % and nobody May them you never know but yeah and we're always

[2:00:26] taking um uh suggestions or they don't have to become the person to to give

[2:00:31] their comments they can also email me so what percentage do you think we're going

[2:00:35] to get back on any survey you send out so on our average is about 200 200

[2:00:43] people so for something like the um what we should do with the new park horz park

[2:00:49] that's there on here we got about 200 20 um that would I think be a maximum for

[2:00:56] all of these combined would be my prediction the the senior survey two of

[2:01:03] those just went out each one got over 200

[2:01:06] people yeah I'm impressed the senior one did because the The Avenues to reach

[2:01:10] them aren't the same it's and it's a smaller population

[2:01:16] yeah great is there a motion to a sorry sorry I have a very early

[2:01:23] morning

Planning Commission Regular Meeting 09.09.2024

Transcript