everybody. We're going to get started. Um, the mayor is on his way. Um, and so is commissioner Herbst. So, uh, commissioner Sorensen, can you hear us? Good afternoon. Yes, I can. Can you hear me? Good afternoon. Just so you know, at your chair, we have a little monitor and there's your face and. Oh, wonderful. Unbelievable. Unbelievable technology. Thank you. All right. Welcome. So, um, we'll have the roll call for the commission and then I'll let Susan do the roll call for her board. Vice mayor Herbst, not present. Commissioner Glassman. Here. Commissioner Beasley Pittman. Here. Commissioner Sorensen. Here. And mayor Trentalis, not, not present. Okay. Thank you. Well, we have a quorum and Susan, can you call roll for the board? Um, commissioner Hamley Beasley, Beasley Pittman. Here. Uh, William Condon is absent. William McKay is absent. Roderick Newkirk, not here. Arminda Figueroa, not here. Rich? Not here. Thank you. Um, Amanda Wilson. Here. And Agustina Sklar. Here. We do have a quorum. Excellent. Thank you. So thank you very much, um, to the committee and Susan for your work as chair. Uh, we'll turn it over to you, Naya. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, members of the AHAC, city leadership and members of the public. My name is Rachel Williams, and I'll be doing a quick overview of a slide presentation. I won't be reading directly from the slide. I'll be summarizing the information to facilitate the discussion that will follow. Okay. As I said, again, for the record, my name is Rachel Williams, housing and community development manager. Excuse me, Rachel. I'm sorry. Right. We have the display on our monitors on the floor, please. Thank you, commissioner. I was just going to mention, we, we can't see that in front of us. Thank you. We got it. Thank you. Okay. As you're aware, state law requires us to annually review and adopt affordable housing incentives. Today's workshop covers two affordable housing incentives recommended by the AHAC in the 2024 in incentives report. The first, um, incentive is the use of accessory dwelling units. The second incentive to be discussed is establishing a measurable affordable housing goal for the next three years. The focus of this workshop is to discuss how these strategies will directly address the Fort Lauderdale's affordable housing needs. We will highlight tools, services, and policies the city's already, the city already has in place and identify concrete next steps for each, each strategy. As part of the 2024 affordable housing incentives, the AHAC identified the development of ADU's accessory dwelling units as a key strategy to expand affordable housing options. Since the approval of the 2024 incentive strategy report, city staff actively participated in a statewide work group to find practical solutions and incentives to boost ADU production. Through the work group process, staff developed an action plan which was attached as an exhibit in the presentation and identified the city's zoning regulation is permissive and supportive of ADU's. Current city zoning already allows ADU's in eight of 12 residential districts. Currently, there are 798 ADU's in existence, yet we have 5,100 parcels that could host them. The main barriers we identified during the work group were lack of awareness, cost prohibitiveness, rather than zoning restriction, as we already have a zoning policy that allows ADU's. We also identified that there were key considerations to discuss, deliberate, or consider when making a decision. That was one, parking, lot width, and unit access. Strategies of the ADU action plan that we identified as potential strategies to increase the production of ADU's is one, to educate. That means we will launch an education campaign explaining ADU regulations. Simplify the process. Simplify the process. The process can be simplified with pre-approved architectural plans to reduce cost and complexity. Protect. Establish deed restrictions to keep new ADU's affordable when public funds are used to support the production of these units. And of course, last but not least, create a tracking system to monitor growth and effectiveness of ADU's. With commission, based on the guidance commission provides today, staff will partner with the AHAC to implement these strategies. These strategies are supportive of a long-term goal to make ADU's a practical and popular affordable housing option in our city. The next strategy that the AHAC will discuss is establishing and reporting goals for new affordable housing production. The AHAC is looking to identify measurable goals to track progress towards affordable housing. The discussion will also seek alignment with the upcoming Broward County new dashboard reporting requirements that will be rolled out shortly. The AHAC believes that having a measurable goal builds transparency, accountability, and increases public trust. This will also support long-term planning and attract resources to our community. Now, the next upcoming slides will describe some resources the city currently have in place. There is a dedicated webpage outlining zoning incentives. It includes downloadable guides and key resources and links to support developers as well as residents. The slide that is displayed now is a snapshot of a system called Gridix. Gridix is an online 3D mapping tool. It helps us visualize affordable housing projects at multiple levels. We can see what's existing, what has been approved, what's under review, and what's under construction. This tool can be utilized to enhance public transparency and planning. The slide being displayed shows a picture of our permit solutions team. Permit solutions team is a group of employees of the city who help to fast-track permitting. They fast-track affordable housing projects through the review process. This review reduces time and cost by proactively addressing potential issues. Now, I'll hand over the discussion to the chair of the AHAC, Ms. Susan Sprague. Thank you, Rachel. You're welcome. I apologize if I sound a little froggy. So, for the first incentive accessory residential units in residential zoning districts, the report provided four recommendations. I'm going to ask you for a quick comment. I'll ask you for a second. I'll ask you for a second. We'll ask you for a quick comment. I'll ask you for questions. I'll ask you for a second. increase the supply of affordable housing units, to develop pre-approved low-cost model plans for ADUs to convert part of an existing house or a garage, make an addition to the house or garage, or add a freestanding unit. Third was to review and revise restrictions that limit the existence or viability of ADUs in all single-family and multifamily zones, including zoning restrictions, lot size, setbacks, and parking requirements. And the fourth is to develop a fund that gives grants for building or renovating ADUs. Within the action plan that was developed by city staff and one of our AHAC members, it has four goals. The first two, the education guide and the developing pre-approved architectural plans, totally dovetail with the first two recommendations in the report. The third, that of deed restriction, that encompasses a portion of our third recommendation. And it has added a tracking system for ADU production and use. And what is not covered in their action plan is developing a fund that gives grants for building or renovating ADUs. So the AHAC recommendation four is what we ask that be reviewed with commission and staff in addition to the action plan. So we would like for the commission to accept the action plan and give direction to staff to work with AHAC to implement the strategies. Any discussion questions? Well, I'll open it up. Commissioner, something, and I know that you do sit on the committee as well, and thank you for your service. Anything you wanted to add to what Susan and Rachel went over for us? Well displayed, well represented, well explained. Just as a different term, just the conversation that has been had about the need and then also the opportunity for the accessory dwelling units. I always like to share, I look at it as a scenario, an opportunity where we have so many seniors in our community that are homeowners, and it's an opportunity where they could, you know, put a ADU in their backyard or garage, and that way they can allow their children if need be or want to move into the big house and then they live on the other property. And that also helps with the problems that we have with affordable housing and also giving an opportunity for what we hear so often that our children are saying that I can't afford to live in Fort Lauderdale or Florida, and this gives a different opportunity. When I first heard about accessory dwelling units, I was like, wait a minute. This sounds so good. It's a great opportunity. And the way we have come up with these points, I do, I'm going to say I know, I don't want to say I believe, I know this is a good opportunity, and it's on the path that it could be achieved. And with the support of commission, giving direction to staff to look into this and move forward, I think we'll be proactive in being in another manner to provide affordable housing for our neighbors. Excellent. Thank you. I concur with everything you said, so I wanted to thank Rachel and also the committee. I think these are excellent recommendations. The action plan makes sense. All of the goals make sense. I wanted to ask Chris, Chris, what is the reason that we're only allowing this right now in 8 of 12 residential zoning districts? Sure. So, Commissioner Chris Cooper, Acting Assistant City Manager, the districts that we don't currently allow it in are our RS 4.4, which is our lowest density residential zoning district, as well as I think it's three of the annexed area zoning districts. I would say that the RS 4.4, those are areas that you may not want to create additional density in, that they're very, very low density and meant to be that way. The annexed area districts, I would add to this list of recommendations that we look at those and see if there's opportunities to add ADUs as a use in those districts. Of course, there's a process to implement any new zoning regulations in the annexed areas that if we do find that there's opportunities that we would need to take that path to have those added to those districts. But there's opportunities. I agree with you. I think we should in the annexed areas. If we do that, if we move forward in that direction and we just leave the RS, was it RS 4? 4.4. 4.4. If we leave that alone, then how many residential zoning districts would we not allow this in? As opposed to four of them. Yeah, if the annexed areas were in play, if those make sense, then it would only be that one. Okay. Well, I don't know how you feel the same. I think we should look at the annexed areas. Yes. It increases the opportunity. And, you know, with this opportunity, we may not see 100% participation, but, of course, it gives that option. And wherever we have the opportunity to build that inventory, I think we should definitely embrace it. I agree. Commissioner Sorensen, did you have anything to add to that discussion? Yeah. Thanks, Commissioner. Thanks for the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee's work. Thank you, Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, for your work on there. Yeah, concur with everything you're both saying. We have folks in my district that are working on ADUs right now in partnership with Chris, and that's really going well. And it's going to be some great opportunities for more affordable and workforce housing. So all in favor, and I love the idea of expanding it further. So thank you, Commissioner Glassman. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner, what I would also ask, Chris, any thought or any ideas? I know that one of the ideas was to develop a grant fund. What would – oh, there, you're over here now. I'm sorry. Okay. There you are. Like magic. Keep me on your toes. Wow. I'm telling you. So what would have to happen if we did decide that we should have some sort of grant funding opportunities for this? So a couple things. One, I think one of the primary sources would be our entitlement grant funds and our state housing funds. And what that would mean is if we don't already have these as potential uses of those funds written to our action plans and consolidated plans, we would need to have that updated, which would come to you for approval and ultimately sent to the state and HUD to certify. Aside from that, our affordable housing trust fund could be a source. We currently don't have much of a budget, if anything, in that, but we do have expectations that that trust fund could be funded. It's typically funded through the sale of city-owned residential property or non-residential property that's sold. Those funds are contributed to the affordable housing trust fund. But also the payment in lieu of fees for those projects that have used the Gellar Amendment, if they pay in lieu of those funds are deposited into our trust fund. So those would be my two recommendations of sources and paths forward to create some sort of grant program for that type of use. And what do you see as a timeline for that kind of a program to be established? So depending on if they're in our action plans for those grant programs now, that would be something that we would need to update. I think we may ask Rachel Williams, who manages those programs, what her thoughts are on that. Good afternoon. It's not currently addressed as a strategy in neither our consolidated plan nor the LHAP, but it would just take a simple amendment, which would come before the commission for approval. So I'd say anywhere from 45 to 60 days, we could have it amended. And I would just add to that that those programs, especially if they're funded through our trust fund or those entitlement grant programs, we would restrict those to an affordable tenant as they use for a period of time. So that's one benefit. We may also be able to add additional restrictions as a grant recipient that they not be used for things like short-term rentals. So those are the types of things we'd like to work out in that strategy to make sure they're actually being used for the intended purpose. Excellent. And if I could just ask about the educational component of this, how do you see that playing out in terms of what would we be putting together? Who would be doing that? And how would we be rolling that out? Because that obviously is going to be really important here. Right. So, I mean, we'd want to strategize more fully on that. But what I can envision is that that's a project to our Housing and Community Development Division, which is part of DSD. So there would be an effort through that department. We'd create educational materials, talk about what the paths forward are, where it's applicable, you know, what people may need to consider. When we have grant programs, we'd want to include that information, as well as what those recipients would need to abide by if they were recipients of that grant. Things like promoting on our website, civic associations through our great strategic communications department, you know, the typical ways we reach out, but also more targeted if there's opportunities to target that communication. Excellent. Thank you. Susan, did anyone on the committee want to add to anything that we've heard from in terms of what Rachel's told us or what you've told us? Anyone on the committee wanted to add a few words? Okay. Thank you. I appreciate your embracing our recommendations. I think we're very eager to move forward with you and work together with you in getting all of these goals accomplished. I see no reason why we can't. And from what we've heard so far from Chris and Steph, I think that we certainly have the tools at our disposal to do it. So it makes perfect sense. I don't see any other issues in terms of reading through the goals or the action plan of anything that we can't accomplish here, really. Commissioner, just one thing I wanted to ask Chris if you could come back. In consideration with staff looking into the possibilities and opportunities, could we also have staff to look at housing type? Because I know that there's specific zones and measurements that we have to use, but also brick and mortar versus prefab versus some other opportunities, because we know that all plays in effect with costs. So we want this to also be affordable, also to build affordable accessory dwelling. We don't want it to necessarily start off, oh, it's going to cost you $400,000 to do this. So with those opportunities, if we could look at options and types of ADUs as well. Yes, certainly. So part of the idea of having some architectural plans already done for people is that cuts down on part of the cost as well as the grant programs, which could also add to the cost savings. Commissioner Sorensen mentioned something that we'd worked on with a resident where they placed an ADU in their property. That was a prefab building, so prefab buildings are possible here. They just have to meet our building code and, you know, be compliant with those types of things. But it is possible, and it has been done, so certainly. And also, I just thought about the other one, the containers are, you know, I've heard those being used in different areas as a possibility to build out as well for ADUs. So anything like that that we could discuss and give as options? Yeah, we've had experience in that. There's some structures here that have been built with shipping containers. They're probably larger and bigger than what an ADU would be, but there is examples of how they've been used for housing options. Yes, I'm sorry. Sure. Yeah, press here. Okay. I have a question regarding the architectural plans database. How is the city of Fort Lauderdale going to handle that? Are you going to do, like, an RFP or work with – sorry. So the question was, how would we handle creating those architectural plans? Would we issue an RFP for somebody to draft those and help us draft that? We would have to. We don't have the resources in-house to create those architectural plans, so we would need to procure those in some fashion. So I suspect there would be an RFP associated with that. Good. Excellent. So, Susan, is there anything you wanted us to address or feedback pertaining to the other portion of the presentation, the affordable housing tracking and resources section? Anything you needed from us in terms of feedback there? Yes, please. The second incentive is to discuss is creating goals for the number of new affordable housing units to be developed in the city over the next three years, create a process to track progress, create reports, and publicize results. And we had recommended quarterly, but we switched that to semi-annually. As affordable housing units come through various city departments and divisions, building, urban design and development, community redevelopment agency, housing and community development, there's no centralized repository of information. So it's difficult to say how many units are in process approved, under construction, and built. And without specific measurable goals for affordable housing units, we have no benchmark against which to assess our progress and review results. So we also need to identify the gap between needed and actual available units, plan how to bridge that gap, and fill with targeted additions with measurable goals for new housing units. And as Rachel mentioned, the county is coming out with its public scorecard, I believe in August, to keep track of our affordable housing efforts. And it's looking in terms of units produced and preserved, looking at it, owner-occupied versus rental units, affordability gap, the levels of AMI and dollars generated for actual affordable housing production. So we are asking that the commission gives direction to staff to recommend yearly affordable housing unit goals and develop an information tracking and reporting system. Thank you. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, you good with that request of staff? Yes. What Susan just went through? Yes, I am. Okay. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes, definitely. And maybe I missed this, Commissioner Glassman. And I'd be interested to hear Chris's feedback in terms of especially the goal-setting portion of that and how to kind of what that would look like. Thank you. And here he comes. Happy to answer. So we do track our affordable housing numbers for projects that are developed in things like our regional activity centers and corridors. Right now, most of the large-scale, higher-density development are coming through using programs that require some level of affordable housing or payment in lieu of. So I think that tracking as we move forward is going to become a lot easier because most projects, again, that are higher density in those bigger areas, like our regional activity centers and our corridors, are going to have an affordability component or a payment in lieu of component. I can tell you that over the last approximately five years, about 30% of the projects in those areas that were approved that are either in the development process or a construction process or completed, about 30% of those were affordable units. So we do have a track record. We are tracking those numbers. So we agree with the committee that we could promote that and provide that information in a better way and set those goals going forward. I would like to take some time with staff to analyze what that appropriate goal might be along with the AHAC. I think a percentage-based goal makes sense. I think to set a hard number would be difficult, but I think if we shoot for a certain percentage of housing each year that's either approved for development or constructed would make sense. So we'll go back, analyze that, find out what that correct number is, work with AHAC to come to a consensus on what that number will be and certainly bring that back. I do want to add, Commissioner, although we have projects that are slated to have affordable units or even workforce units, I don't know that on an annual basis we are following up to determine if those units are being rented to income-eligible households. And so that's sort of an auditing type of activity. So although we could have a number based on approvals, knowing what's actually happening is a little bit more challenging. Well, it might be challenging, but you think we can get there? I think we can. I think we just need to have that discussion that Chris mentioned to see all the opportunities and all of the methodologies that we could use to sort of track these numbers going forward. That makes sense. Just to add on to that, I agree with the manager completely on that. What we are working on with housing and community development staff is implementing a software program called Neighborly. It's something that you all approved, I think, maybe about a year ago. And one of the key features of that was to do what the manager mentioned was to generate that audit information to verify. Right now we rely heavily on deed restrictions and annual affidavits, but that software will increase our capacity to track that information. Excellent. Thank you. Is that good, Susan, for you and for the committee, what the city manager and Chris have just told us? Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, I'm sorry, was there a question? Um, my understanding is we do have, um, the neighborly software, but it isn't, hasn't been ramped up yet for any of this type of compliance or tracking. Correct me if I'm wrong. That's correct. We're currently implementing and we'll have that been running. We'll get a date to the commission about when we expect that to be functional. In addition, I think the naturally occurring affordable housing that we have in the city is something that we could try to capture. And I don't know that the neighborly software will allow us to, but perhaps that's something we can look into as well. Thank you. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, any other thoughts or questions or concerns? Um, comment. And I am, I'm excited in the direction that the committee is going, the advisory board, doing an amazing job. I'm, I'm honored to be a part to sit with you all and go through the discussions to the point where we are today. So to the commission, again, I know we're on the right track and I'm, I'm grateful that we are making a, a unified decision to continue and to support what has been presented through this report. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Sorensen, any other thoughts or concerns? Yeah, thank you. I really like where we're heading on this. This is great. Um, Raquel and Chris, just one other idea, and this would probably be hard to quantify, but maybe aspirational is, can we have an aspirational goal of workforce and affordable housing units that a city of our size, economically similar might desire? And I know that's very subjective, but I'd, I'd, I'd be interested a little bit of research around that to see how we, uh, might be stacking up against peers and, and where we might want to try to head eventually. Yes, we can definitely have that aspirational goal and we can include it in our comprehensive plan to memorialize that goal. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Raquel. Thanks, Commissioner Beasley-Pittman and Commissioner Golasman. Excellent. Thank you, Commissioner. Um, well, I, I think that we've covered everything that was in the presentation and I, I also want to concur with my colleagues. I, I think we are headed in the right direction. Uh, we've made a lot of great strides over the years and I, I, I think that with today's discussion, uh, we're going to add to those accomplishments. Uh, Rachel, thank you for your work. Um, to the committee, thank you very much for your work and Chris and city manager. Um, and, uh, I, I think we know what we need to do now going forward and I'll look forward to our next joint meeting. Susan, thank you for your service. Thank you. We're good. Well, let me do this. We're adjourned. All right. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. We're adjourned. 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