Thank you. It's like we go these long periods of no signature. Since this is being weak, there will be other than that. So this one. Oh, no, she worked. Today's meeting of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee is called to order on this day, August 11, 2026. Welcome, everyone. Agendas of today's meeting are at the entrance to the meeting room. Please remember to turn off your cell phones. To ensure a complete record of the committee's actions, we ask that each individual wishing to speak clearly state your name and spell your last name for the clerk. We ask that you limit your comments to three minutes. This committee is appointed by city council annually. Most of us served on this committee last year, but we do have a couple new faces. This committee is tasked with some very important work. Because of the professional work each of the committee members do, we are all very aware of the issue of housing affordability. Plain and simple, we need more housing that is affordable to our citizens, and unfortunately, there are a lot of reasons why capable developers choose not to build it. The job of this committee is to identify strategies that reduce barriers to development of affordable housing and strategies that incentivize the development of affordable housing. I will ask each of the committee members to introduce themselves and the industry they represent, and I will start all the way to my left, Mr. Moon. Thank you, Madam Chair. Clearwater City Council Member Mike Menino. Pleasure to be here. Thank you. Chrissy Bond, representing low-income and the homeless. Frank Cornier, labor involved in the development of affordable housing. Sherry Sidori, affordable housing. Kelly Bettsford, homeless advocacy. Sherry DeBlair from St. Petersburg College, representing essential services personnel. Todd St. John Fulton, real estate, affordable housing. And I am the board chair, Robin Thiel, and I represent residential lending as it relates to affordable housing. The only item on today's agenda is to participate in a discussion led by Mr. Baird from Wade Trim. We have a lot to discuss. Mr. Baird would like to get us started. Thank you, Robin. Thank you, board members. So today, we will be going over the 2026 update to the local housing incentive strategy document. And there's some familiar faces on here that have served in the past and some new faces that will give you a little deep dive into what we're going to be doing. Again, my name is Connor Baird. I'm with Wade Trim, the city contracted employees to update the 2026 LHIS. So to begin, provide some background of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and what you guys will be doing. So the history started in 2007 with House Bill 1375. At that point, it was not annually. In 2020, it went annually. We had to update the LHIS every year from 2021 to 2025. We've been updating that every year. And today, we are at the 10th AHAC, which is all of you guys. And we'll be updating the 2025 LHIS with new 2026 incentives that you all decide on. So the duties of the AHAC are to review the previous LHIS report and local government policies. That's ordinances, regulations, comprehensive plans. And then recommend to city council any actions or incentives to facilitate affordable housing within the city of Clearwater. So our meeting requirements, this is one of our meetings. We are to facilitate meetings and public hearings for the adoption of the LHIS. All meetings are public meetings. All records are public records. And then staff and administration and contracted employees are here to help facilitate and move that process forward. So our LHIS update schedule for this specific update, we've already designated the staff. That's in the AHAC. That's you guys. So we're going to begin updating the LHIS report. That will go into around October. And then eventually, we'll move that forward to adoption and then submittal to the FHFC. So our meetings schedule, all meetings start at 9 a.m. Today is our first meeting, August 11th. Our meeting number two will be on September 8th. Number three will be on October 13th. And then finally, meeting number four will be on November 17th. And so for some definitions of affordable housing as it relates to Clearwater, and I'll just go ahead and read these out. And then the next slide will provide some more information. But monthly rents or monthly mortgage payments, including taxes and insurance, do not exceed 30% of median annual gross income for the household. Any residential dwelling unit leased or owned by a household with a household income of 120% or less of the adjusted area median family income for Pinellas County, as defined by HUD. For rental units, shall not exceed a rate for annual maximum rent by number of bedroom unit. And then published, sorry, that's a typo. I apologize for that. But that's for the Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Metropolitan Statistical Area. And then finally, for non-rental units, the sales price may not exceed 90% of the average area price for the Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, NSA. And then to provide some more information from HUD, Pinellas County, the median family income is $104,700. 120% of that would be $125,640. And then the cost burden threshold, where 30% of your income is going to housing costs annually, that would be $37,700. And then monthly around $3,100. And then to provide an overview of the entire players in this game, we have the AHAC, which coordinates with city council and city staff to provide incentives to the suppliers, which are developers and affordable housing offers. And then that is to provide to the clients. And, of course, the commodity is affordable housing. So the values, principles, and visions of the previous LHIS, the 2025 LHIS, we have – those are some of our components. And then finally, we have the incentive strategies. We have the incentive strategies that are defined by Florida statute. And then we have additional incentives that previous AHACs have come up with. And these are the previous values. And I'll just read these again. And in the future, in future meetings, we'll have the opportunity to work on these and adjust them how you see fit. But A is to support a dynamic and competitive economy. B, improve social well-being and build a sense of community. C, aspires to have housing that fits the city's residents. And D, everyone deserves a safe, affordable home. And then our principles are, number one, affordable over the long term. Number two, diverse supply that provides for a mix of income levels and the diverse needs of residents. Three, designed to be sustainable, energy, and cost-efficient, and to minimize physical barriers to accessibility. Four, an aesthetic character with the surrounding neighborhood. Five, strategically located and pedestrian-oriented with access to mass transit, open spaces, educational institutions, and employment or workforce training opportunities. And finally, number six, incentivize to promote incorporation of affordable housing into all housing developments. And then finally, the vision is the city of Clearwater will incentivize the development of a diverse supply of housing that is safe, accessible, affordable, sustainable, and energy and cost-efficient. That blends into the aesthetic character of all the city's neighborhoods, proximate to public amenities, and employment opportunities, which supports an inclusive community and the diverse needs of residents. And again, like I said, we'll have the opportunity to edit those and change those how we see fit in the future meetings. So part one is our inventory of the incentive strategies. And again, we have our barriers to affordable housing. That can be a number of things, not just things listed here. We have cost of production, public perception, financing, codes and regulations, and then many, many others. And then your job will be to look at incentives to... So our incentive areas, we have 11 that are mandated by Florida statute. And you can read those there, the expedited review process, modification of fees, flexible densities and capacity, accessory dwelling units, parking reductions, flexible lot configurations, modifications of street requirements, pre-adoption policy consideration, inventory of public proximity to transportation and employment. And then we have five additional AHAC-initiated strategies that are adaptive re-adoption and marketing of housing, financing, and parking. And then for the final part of our inventory section, what you guys will be to do, we'll be procedures, the policies, and the regulations of the city of Clearwater, and then to use those to update the incentives that we have. And in conjunction with that, I'm going to be followed by Rebecca. Dylan Mayhew, I'm the housing manager. So this year, I want to go over what we're actually utilizing our SHIP funds for. There's some major categories. The first one is down payment assistance. Our down payment assistance program is a $75,000 loan program. It will help income-eligible households overcome some of the larger barriers to homeownership, which really is the down payment and the closing costs. Our second is our housing rehabilitation program. That's where we assist existing homeowners with deferred maintenance, necessary repairs to address health and safety concerns, and then also code-related issues. And a good example of this would be we can provide a 0% interest loan for roofs, windows. It could be plumbing issues, it could be a broken door. And actually, after the hurricanes, we actually transition that program into an emergency relief program for smaller emergency repairs as well. We also have a dedicated ADA rehabilitation program. This provides accessibility improvements to eligible homeowners. This can include ramps, accessible bathrooms, opening up doorways for wheelchair access, those kinds of things. These are grants, and they're approved up to $15,000. SHIP also supports homebuyer education. That helps prospective homeowners better understand the homebuying process. And these courses are required for our down payment assistance program. We do partner with local nonprofits to administer those programs. And then finally, we utilize SHIP to support the development of affordable housing. It's one of the larger categories for the funding. So this can be utilized for single-family home development or for multifamily. For single-family homes, we will provide a 0% interest deferred construction loan that will be paid back at the sale of the property. And a lot of the time for multifamily or when we're utilizing federal dollars, we'll be required to match either with local funds or some other funding source. And so we utilize SHIP dollars to match federal dollars in order to get larger projects done. So a good example of that would be Indigo Apartments, where we utilize approximately 60% CDBG and 40% SHIP for a total of $1 million in subsidy. And that was in the form of a deferred 0% interest loan. One of the objectives that we started to talk about this year is to institute a process for the reduction of code liens. I've been working with Rebecca on formulating a program where, essentially, if a homeowner or if a property is identified by a developer has code liens on it, then a stipulated agreement could be formed to address those liens, assuming they're going to utilize our programs to rectify the property. So we're still working through that process, but we are in conversation with our legal department, and eventually that will go to their code board for evaluation. So, again, to kind of go over, you know, I went over this. This is a little bit different than previous years, but I wanted you all to know up front, this is what we're utilizing the SHIP dollars for. And I think that will give you a better perspective going forward as you evaluate the rest of the incentives. And with that, I'll introduce Rebecca. She's here to talk about what Planning and Development is doing. Good morning. So I'm Rebecca Mulder. I'm the Assistant Director for Planning and Development. It's my first time at this meeting, so it's nice to meet you all. And as Dylan mentioned, I'm here to talk about some of the incentives and the ways that Planning and Development partners with Economic Development and Clearwater. So some of the ways we do that are through expedited reviews. So if a project goes, it'll get designated, let us know, and then we expedite that process so that they can get the review, address comments, and get the construction started as quickly as possible. Another area that we offer is through our pre-approved plan submissions. So a developer could get a general plan, sort of like a master, submitted to and approved that they could use again, and then they would just have to get the site work approved case-by-case for that part. So they wouldn't have to process if they're utilizing the same design in multi-tations. Currently, no one has ever utilized that option, but it is out there as an option that could be taken advantage of. We offer pre-applicant meetings to coordinate construction, either for mixed-use housing projects or if there's a community or a string of properties or parcels that want to be developed, we can do pre-applicant with that. Another area that we've done, we did a code amendment in 2024 that allowed for accessory dwelling units. So now within the city of Clearwater, it was June of 2024, we allow accessory dwelling units within the city limit with certain caveats and parameters around those to offer longevity of their space. So place, multi-generational living, can share the mortgage or rent, things like that. You can't use it for short-term rental. The caveat is you have to be a primary, it has to be your primary residence, so you have to live in the primary residence and vice versa, whichever, if you want to have, you want to move out to the ADU and have your family live in the main house. Yes, but you have to be a primary resident in that, some additional making sure that there's parking to accommodate that so we don't end up with congestion, things of that nature. But that's also an opportunity that's been put in place recently. And we've had a handful of people go through that process, and it's a newer ordinance, so it's one that we, as we look at how people are navigating through that, and we get feedback and complexity or areas of opportunity for us to tweak the ordinance to make it more attainable. Residents and developers to that. Another area that we are with development are density bonus, so not sure, in a general sense, a density bonus is just going to allow for the more affordable housing units in a mix, you have the greater density bonus up to 25%, so if you have 25% in your, you get a fit that goes into that. If you went above 25%, there's a cap, so if you were 25% or more, density would cap out. Best of my knowledge on what I could find in the history of utilizing density bonus, we haven't had anyone take advantage of utilizing it. Developers either go for development, so still affordable units development still gets that 20% density bonus, but seems to be the developer's pick, but that is an allowable option within our program. So those are some of the ways that planning is continuing to try to collaborate with economic, the furtherment and more options out there. Existing properties to establish as well as to, and we are working a populated agreement that, so we can get process, so there, if there are parcels that are encumbered by relations that have been of light, developed, willing to take an affordable route with those, then we can build an agreement, so that if they take within a certain amount, it should alleviate, and therefore, of those lawyers' norms. So unless you guys have any questions on any of that, that's kind of just in a nutshell of how it's working. How many ADUs are currently in Clearwater? How many ADUs? We have, say, a handful, give or take, we've had several applications come through. I would say probably, now it is, I would still have to go, I would say, we're still figuring and still realizing that I've developed the space, so that's why I said we're, it will, a certain amount of the system, a certain amount of the system, we always like to refer or make sure they're still meeting. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rebecca, similar question regarding ADUs, in speaking to a lot of residents, you identified complexity with it, and I think what we're seeing is the complexity is a lack of understanding in the community, and understanding this option as a tool to fill this gap. Can you just speak briefly to what we're doing as a city or staff to educate our residents on this being a viable path? Because that seems to be the big challenge, not the interest, but the lack of understanding. Well, from a planning side, when someone comes in, if they have questions on it, we sit down, we go through what the applicability, what their law mandate, their size restrictions associated with it. You can't have accessory units as a house, so there's a limitation of 750 or less setbacks. So we kind of take the time, anyone that is inquiring, we take the time to explain that. Beyond that, then just working with the community to try to expand those, we go to various associations, planning organizations, we can explore, promote, or educate out there further. Thank you. I think what I'm kind of seeing in the last year is there's a couple consulting businesses that have established themselves. They see this gap in understanding and a need in the community, and they started almost a concierge ADU service where they're coming into families, helping educate them, and almost holding their hands and white-gloving them through the entire process, which I thought was extremely interesting. But there's a couple in our community that actually do that work. They're very interesting, but to help educate in that gap. Yeah, and we don't limit, it doesn't have to be built on-site, you know, ADU's, we don't limit it that way. So there's lots of options to dwellings and the resources to help them kind of resolve. Do we have, like, because I'm imagining after the hurricanes, they just couldn't make the repairs to that violation. So we have these resources available to that population to kind of help them pay for that. But do we have a large population of, you know— How many properties do we have with liens for code violations? Is that what you mean? Yeah, that we are going to, like, that we reach out to and say we've got these resources. Well, anyone that has a lien on their property for a code violation or work without a permit or various ways, some of the means planning issue a lien. We send out notices in operation with the clerk's office, twice each notices, to remind them that you've hacked us and we can work with you. We do lien reductions through the code board to try to offer. You can get us into the end of the week and times to work through their lien balances at time of sale and sort of my exchange about to take place. So we try to work with them ahead of time. We go through our lien line. We're currently trying to establish if a transaction takes place in cash, they worry about what's on the title. And so we try to check, drive through, evaluate, is it still an evaluation daily, provided a service, and there's a cost to do with that service to a violation. Or if it was you have daily shed, didn't have decided not to stack them. And so there's legislative limits on how much that we collect, right, is the value of them. So we reevaluate. And our intention is not to collect as a tool to collect funds, but as a means to prevent a pretty owner and to work with them to get it, bring it to them, to get into it. We have, there are funds. We try to work with them annually to try to reevaluate that. Oh, no. So they know the resources available that they can work with? It sounds like you guys do a lot. Yeah. Between planning's work and what the clerk sends out, we try to make sure that when there's a violation, we figure out where they are. So we collaboratively work to try to get those resolved, hopefully, before any leave is settled. Thank you so much. And we'll go through the Live Local Act, which is going to be fun. And then we'll open it up for some discussion between the board members and stuff. So some updates to the Live Local Act. Live Local Act, if you're not aware, allows cities to approve affordable housing projects, including mixed-use projects or land zone for commercial, industrial, or religious institutional, if at least 10% of the units being proposed are affordable. It requires a city to allow multifamily and mixed-use in any area zoned for commercial, industrial, or mixed-use, including PUDs and excluding farms, which is new of this 2026 update, the excluding farms section. And property owned by a county, municipality, school district, or religious institution, if 40% of acres are affordable for at least 30 years. For mixed-use developments, at least 65% of the square footage must be residential. If less than 20% of the city's land is designated for commercial or industrial use, the city is required to approve a multifamily project. What the city cannot do regarding the law is require a process such as rezoning or land use change, variant, or comprehensive plan amendment for density, height, or land use. It may not restrict the density below the highest allowed residential density anywhere in the city or below 150% of the highest allowed intensity. It may not restrict the height below the highest allowed height for a commercial residential building within one mile of the project or three stories, whichever is higher. And it may not, like a recent amendment, provides exemptions for projects adjacent to a single family or projects in historic districts. And like I mentioned, part of the city must approve the project if it meets the city's LDRs for multifamily and areas known for such use and is otherwise consistent with the comprehensive plan except for density and intensity, height, reduced parking requirements within a half mile of a major transit hub or 600 feet of other available parking, and every three years, update of city-owned lands appropriate for affordable housing. Other incentives include option city tax exemptions, property tax incentives, and sales tax refund on building materials with some stipulations. So now we will have a discussion, I guess a few discussion, regarding some barriers that you guys have seen to for housing and some continuing barriers, the things that you've seen discuss that. I mean, other than not having enough, right, which is why we're here. One of the main barriers that I see with the guests that I work with are it's the cost. You know, even though it's affordable or it's called affordable, when you're ideally starting your life over and you're making minimum wage, it's not affordable. I primarily work with single women and children, and it's one income home, and I think it's like $100 a month. So we're still running into a lot of that. I will say one barrier that we've encountered is developing on a corner lot in the MDR zoning district. For some reason, that zoning district has a different requirement for front setbacks than do some of the other zoning districts. So specifically, when you're developing on a corner lot in the MDR zoning district, you're required to go through a flexible design application process, which can take two or three months. As an affordable housing developer, we may need to bring on a consultant for that process, even if it's just requesting the relaxation of a setback, one of the fronts for five or ten feet. So that's kind of an onerous process that costs time and money. And if it could have the same application as the other zoning districts where it doesn't go through that process, then that speeds up the development of affordable housing, and it makes it quicker for us to put a family into that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, one of the challenges we've definitely seen in our community is that 9% tax credits from LIHTC. You know, within the last couple months, I've heard three or four very exciting affordable housing projects in the Clearwater community, but it seems each and every one of them are dependent on being awarded that 9% LIHTC tax credit. And while that's a little more than a lottery, as we find out, the negatives are the chances of winning that lottery are extremely low, but then we're tying up those properties that have that potential for affordable housing for sometimes three, four, and five years, hoping they get it. And meanwhile, there's two or three in our community that are competing against each other when the chances of even one getting it. So I'm just wondering if there's things we can do as a community to really identify those when they come in the door, if they are completely dependent on that LIHTC tax credit. Is there a way to help them facilitate the process through other means, you know, whether it's the Pinellas Housing Authority, whether it's state funds, or wherever it is, just so that, you know, we don't shoot ourselves in the foot? And that's definitely a challenge. I mean, the whole thing with affordability is just the cost, as you said, the cost for homeowners insurance, taxes. And I know that's all been in the news a lot lately, especially with the proposed amendment that's on the ballot. But, you know, but you don't just have the taxes being so high. You have homeowners insurance has definitely gone up a lot in the last few years. And that is keeping people from being able to buy homes or even rent because the homeowners, the landlords, their mortgage payment is so high that they need to charge higher rent because of the insurance. For many of the people that I serve, about 60% are homeless, chronic senior citizens. And they use their Social Security monthly to go into a hotel until they run out of money and then they sleep outside because there is nothing affordable for what they bring in. And I can't employ an 80-year-old. And with the voucher program, it's very limited. We just got someone housed who'd been on the wait list for four years. So you have very limited housing that's subsidized for low-income, chronic seniors. And that number's increasing as rents go up. I think I'll just jump on the bandwagon of that one. You know, it used to be a couple years ago, I would talk about our students not having it. Pasco's growing for us. Our campuses up north are growing. In Clearwater, we're kind of staying flat. It has to do with the schools and things like that. But now it's the staff, right, that can't find affordable housing. It's the admins that are making $19 an hour. And, you know, they have to move out, right? They just have to move away from the college. Right here down in Clearwater, they've got to move to different cities because they just can't afford it. And the rent might say $1,600. But when they add in all the fees, it's our staff level. I mean, these are career folks. These are people that work for the college. They've worked for the college for a life crisis or whatever. And they simply can't do it. Even if it's at $1,600, then it's all the fees. It's electric going up after the hurricanes. And so they just can't stay here. And so, like I said, it used to be the students I've talked about, and they're always an issue, right? But they're willing to live four-door room, right? But it's the large population, employees, and they just can't live near. I'd like to see other housing options. You know, we hear all the time about the missing middle. You know, I think I've seen where there are duplexes and triplexes that are available, readily available on the MLS for somebody to purchase. So I would love to see maybe some incentivizing for building some of that, building some duplexes, some triplexes. We know the average family size has decreased in the last 20 years, while the average home has increased in size over the last 20 years. And so what we have is a lot of single-family homes that are bigger than people need them to be. And then we have, you know, some towers with apartments, and we don't have a whole lot in between. So I have been part of a duplex program, a doubles program in the past, where there was some municipal or government money put into subsidizing the development. Homeowner got homebuyer education. Tenant got tenant education, as well as landlord training for the homeowner to incentivize them to purchase and keep a unit for rent affordable to a family member, maybe an admin of a college or something like that. So some other options in housing besides multifamily and single-family, something in between would be great to see in this community. Yeah, in keeping with that, other incentives that people may have thought of or came to them in the night or something. No, we just want to talk about the barriers. Yeah, there's enough of them for sure, right? But, yeah, that's a good one. One last thing I don't want to leave with this on my brain is minimum lot sizes. So we are in a county that is the densest county in the state of Florida. We have a shortage of land. There are lots out there that are vacant. They got chopped up, and, you know, now it's a small lot. It might not be a buildable lot based on the square footage. So maybe if there was a way that lots that don't meet the minimum lot size, if there was an overlay district or something like that, where as long as they respected the setbacks, you know, an ADU or a tiny home or something like that could be built on that, that might help alleviate some of the issues we have around supply. So that's just a thought. Okay. Well, I think that's a good start. And so I'll go ahead and say that, you know, to celebrate the first day of school in Pinellas County. We have homework for you guys. So keeping on with what you all just discussed, thinking of those barriers and incentives and any more that come to you, what we would like you to do is review the 2025 LHIS report, look through those incentives and those barriers, and see what was proposed at the last update, and then evaluate each recommendation and then decide whether you want to continue it, modify it, remove it, dice it up, whatever you want to do with it, and then identify, like we just did a little breakout session, identify any new affordable housing incentives not covered in the 2025 report. That can be new incentives. That can be new recommendations to existing incentives and all that. So that pretty much concludes our first meeting regarding any questions, unless you have any questions or anything like that. But, you know, our next meeting will be September 8th in Councilor Changers, this building, at 9 a.m. And if you have any information, excuse me, not information, if you have any questions about information, you can contact Dylan, and he'll correspond with us if we need to. So thank you all, and don't forget to do your homework. Thank you. Does anyone from the public wish to speak on this item? If so, please step to the podium, and you will have three minutes to speak. Is there anyone here to speak on items not on today's agenda? If so, please step to the podium, state your name, and spell your last name for the record. You will have three minutes to speak on a subject that is not on today's agenda. Seeing no one come forward, I'd like to ask Dylan Mayhew if he has anything additional to report to the committee. Just a thank you for being here today, and I'll also be sending all of you an e-mail with the link to our planning documents web page, and that will have the last year's LHIS as well as our LHAP. Our next AHAC meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 8th, 2026, at 9 a.m. here in the Council Chambers. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you.