okay folks it's three o'clock and we'll probably get an influx of council members in the next few minutes but i want to thank everybody for being here i appreciate it very much important issue and we're going to have public comment for about 15 minutes two minutes each i've got some cards here but first we'll go around the dais and introduce ourselves and there'll be other council members here later so if you want to wait i'll try to have some public comment as we get to the end of the meeting if we have some time left we're we're bumping up against i think 4 15 so they can get ready for the council meeting at five so i'm gonna try to do everything i can to get everybody uh introduced and i see we have a candidate here for city council uh katie hathaway would you like to wave your hand or stand up or do we have any other candidates or any other elected officials okay i don't see any all right uh phil you want to start phil peterson council auditor brian parks council auditor's office ron salem group two at large and i'm matt carlucci group four at large i want to thank councilman salem for being here let's go ahead and start with our um our comments and i um councilman salem i'm going to let you speak as early as i can so you can speak uh while there's some council members here after the bill signing is up can i make a suggestion uh sure are you uh here to support the proposal that mayor deegan made to put in the budget or have you altered that in some fashion are you asking me that yes i am um i'm um a little of both okay all right sure thank you okay chris folds name and address please yes sir uh chris folds 40 east adam street suite 200 jacksonville florida 32202 i'm the uh ceo of first coast habitat uh you guys probably know us a little better by our former name habit jacks um thank you guys for putting this group together and for your public service um i just did want to make a few quick points about the housing funding that was cut particularly the down payment assistance funding um i believe these programs will be very effective that they can address real barriers we're seeing every day and that the public gets a real return on their investment at first coast habitat um our problem isn't really barriers to building we've seen real improvements in city permitting and red tape and the neighborhoods department has been a valuable partner um if we had enough qualified buyers we could build 150 homes a year the challenge is increasingly on the buyer side particularly among families earning between 81 to 120 percent a very immediate income in fact we've only recently begun serving families at these income levels historically they weren't families coming to habitat for help but as home prices interest rates insurance costs have risen housing affordability pressures have moved further and further into the workforce so these families often make too much money to qualify for traditional down payment assistance but increasingly they they need help getting to sustainable home ownership i mean these are our workforce so just for us our clients 34 percent of our clients work in the health industry 11 percent work in education 11 percent warehousing logistics 11 percent the service industry and we're about to complete a development for five military families for families like this down payment assistance helps bridge the gap between what they can what they earn and what it takes to achieve sustainable home ownership um and we know there's a return because we see it every day when a family buys through our program the housing cost their housing cost decreased by about 200 per month on average and they begin building equity and wealth this creates breathing room for health care education child care emergency and savings they also become property taxpayers since 1988 our clients have paid nearly 40 million dollars in property taxes and today contribute two million dollars per year thank you very much thank you that was a great presentation uh next speaker is uh joy and the last name is going to be pronounced by her my name is joy vo and um i live at 89 71 hampton landing drive east in jacksonville 32256 district 11 i want to thank you for convening this meeting today this is a very important topic to the people in jacksonville i'm speaking today in support for a housing trust fund for legislation to establish it like the sometimes controversial kids hope alliance it would be a commitment to our values as a community the current plan to cut 10 percent of the services to our vulnerable youth in the hope kids um program and the continued resistance to create a more resilient and a flexible affordable housing resource are both short-sighted in my opinion if city leaders sponsor support and oversee both these key resources we will see results in the next generation of jacksonville citizens hopefully pun intended reaching vulnerable kids and creating more sustainable homes for their families will result in less stress for seniors parents and children better school performance through resources directed at keeping them in their homes and in the long run less need for law enforcement intervention in the future we can identify the pods of violence in our country and our in our city but there are so many what ifs we can explore as a community if creative minds and service providers collaborate one big advantage of the hope kids alliance is that there are opportunities for funding outside government my hope is that we can have a sustainable resource for housing initiatives that offers the same opportunities for donors who want to invest in the future of our city we have great non-profits in jacksonville working on homelessness relief and housing if they work together great things can happen importantly government funding and oversight can enhance this programming as we move forward i came here as a navy wife in 1993 when jacks was less than a million people i raised my children here grew a business here and retired here there's no this is no longer a town and we have to pull together for future success right now we're way behind thank you very much appreciate that uh our next speaker is robin uh salzgraf that's close it's good um okay i worked on it before you got here i just want you to know that's okay i said i was married a couple years before i didn't know how to say it um good afternoon my name is robin false graph and i'm the executive director of the jacksonville community land trust located at 1225 west beaver street suite 125 in jacksonville 32204 i'm here to ask you to restore the full 4.9 million dollars proposed to establish an affordable housing trust fund for for sale owner occupied homes i understand the finance committee face difficult decisions because of uncertainty surrounding the property tax revenue but this proposal was not one vague new program it was three targeted investments addressing three of the largest barriers to affordable homeownership in our town the proposal included 1.5 million for down payment assistance 2.4 million to help build attainable homes and 1 million to assist with utility tap fees at the jclt we see all three barriers firsthand we can assemble land work with builders secure financing and bring qualified buyers to the table but rising construction costs and utility fee increases the amount of subsidy required to sell a home at a price worth working working families can afford even when the home is ready a qualified buyer may still need down payment assistance or closing cost assistance to complete the purchase removing any one of these investments leaves part of the affordability gap unresolved that is why we are asking you to restore all three not simply one portion of the proposal we also ask that community land trust and other non-profit developers such as our partners at habitat for humanity be expressly eligible to participate public investment in a community land trust has lasting value a jclt home is sold to an income qualified family at an affordable price when the family eventually sells the home remains affordable for another qualified family the city's investment does not disappear after the first closing it continues to serve jacksonville families for generations council has supported individual affordable housing development and those investments matter but project by project appropriations do not replace thank you thank you um miss cindy trimmer told me you'd be here so i'm glad you got here uh she was unable to to get here though uh next speaker is linda allen i am linda allen and kind of shorts so um i live at 1604 arcadia drive number 310 uh zip code 32207 i'm here to speak about the affordable um uh the affordable housing fund um i i've never been homeless i i've never there's never been a time in my life when i was concerned that i would have a place to live um and i've been very fortunate but i know that there are people who work at winn dixie and check me out or who serve me food at uh at a restaurant or who help me at target uh who maybe um pick up my trash that these folks struggle and are maybe not able to my grandson who graduated for unf has moved back in with his folks uh because he can't he's out of a job and he's in his 30s uh and he can't afford an apartment um my thought is this of all the money that we have in jacksonville and all the places it can go um we're all part of the city those trash picker uppers the checkers the helpers the servers they're just as important in our city as you folks are up there or all of us back here are we're each part of this community and my my hope is that we take that into consideration and building our community and make it stronger and more appealing to folks coming in as we grow thank you thank you very much and i agree with uh your assessment there miss allen and then we have adam gray good afternoon i'm adam gray i'm the pastor at riverside church at parking king 2650 park street i'm also the co-president of icare the interfaith coalition for action reconciliation and empowerment i want to tell you today how icare got started working on affordable housing every year we do these house meetings where we get together almost 800 people 8 to 12 people at a time in living rooms in church fellowship halls in little sunday school classrooms and we ask them what is bothering them about their city what's keeping them up at night what's making them think they might have to leave what's making it impossible to live we have people from every single city council district we have people from every walk of life people who are rich people who are poor people north side south side at the beaches arlington on the west side and over and over and over and over again they told us i can't find a place to live that i can afford my parents can't find a place to live to live that they can afford in their retirement and my children even those who are college educated can't find a place to live that they can afford this is not a problem that just affects any one demographic or any one city council district this is a problem in jacksonville that touches the rich and the poor the black and the white everyone has to have a place to live and so we are here asking for you to restore the funding to the budget for the affordable housing project because this is the way to make jacksonville better for everyone not just for one group not just for another group but for everyone and we want to see jacksonville be a place where everyone can thrive thank you thank you mr gray thank you for coming uh the last uh speaker that i have i think is um carol hawkins okay thank you for doing this mr carlucci my name is carol hawkins i live at 4535 ramona boulevard and i'm also with icare and i'm also here to speak in favor of um the affordable housing trust fund and making sure that we do fund that um i think that the reason that this is important to me is something that i want to mention is i know the city has done some things about affordable housing and many of you are aware that it housing deficit is a really big problem i think one point that we have failed to make and i think we need to make it more strongly is that the um affordability gap or the gap of people who can't get into homes that they can afford widens when you get to our essential workers the people who are living at 50 percent ami and so it depends what group of people you look at whether people have enough houses or not but for these essential workers there are not enough houses so i just wanted to kind of shine a spotlight on that a lot of the programs we have do do a good job and i'm happy for them the reason we want the trust fund is because that is probably going to be the most effective program to solve the problem for that population so i hope you all will look a little bit more closely at that thank you sir thank you well said and that's the population that we're wanting to target with this now i'm still waiting on some council members and uh bill signings tend to go for 15 20 minutes or so um and oh boy we have our newest elected council member monet holder here and monet you can clap go ahead anybody that does that that that uh get goes through whether they win or lose if they get through in that large race they deserve a hand clap i gotta tell you it's a big city but we're so happy to have you and also i want to recognize my good friend uh councilman reginal gaffney and uh and thank you for being here i always love your heart and what what you stand for okay um so um i can't really predict who else is going to be here but what i would like to do at this point that we're through with public comment um i'd like to ask uh josh hicks if he would come up and give us an idea of the mayor's affordable housing program uh maybe give some clarification as to what it does where the money would go and so forth and then um and then um and then we're going to ask the auditors to talk about a little clarification on the finance committee actions and then i will um lay out my proposal will it open up for council i need to make sure that house member salem has a chance to speak here in the next few minutes so uh as um he's got a 3 30 meeting so josh go ahead the chair thank you joshua hicks neighborhoods department um affordable housing administrator for the city of jacksonville address on file um i wanted to start uh the the mayor's proposal of 4.9 million dollars in the in the budget was listed as the the affordable housing trust and that's because we will be bringing legislation forward to deal with the affordable housing trust fund but we need to see how much money is placed into the budget to be able to do that um but that 4.9 million dollars was uh line itemed um for three programs you have your capital stack program which is a development fund um we've used that money in the past um there was one million dollars put in in fiscal year 2324 and then councilman joe carlucci made a motion to put in a match with jacksonville housing finance authority so we did two million dollars and with that two million dollars we supported two programs that resulted in over uh 200 units for jacksonville that are under construction right now um that's an important program because that deals with the supply that we need we have 47 we have a deficit of 47 000 units right now in jacksonville at 50 percent ami we need to build more we need to build more low income and affordable housing at 60 percent or lower ami we have just 42 units available at the moment for every 100 households that need it at 50 percent ami we only have 29 units available for every 100 households that need it at 30 percent ami 59 of renters and 22 of homeowners are currently cost burdened meaning they're paying 30 or more of their annual income on housing as you've heard today this impacts a lot of folks so i want to start by thanking the council first of all on funding the eviction diversion program which was line item by the mayor of 500 000 now hopefully 500 000 after november um that one million dollars is important because just there was an article just this week that shows jacksonville still leads the state in terms of number of evictions um we had 15 000 which is the most in the last five years um just in the past year in terms of number of evictions so really people are struggling right now to be able to afford housing so that capital stack fund is vitally important because it helps us build the housing at 60 percent or lower ami then you have the attainable housing program i think you heard robin mentioned it earlier that we don't control what jea charges in terms of the utility tap fees some properties by non-profits are getting charged eighty five thousand dollars just to hook up to sewer they're not going to build on those properties without some sort of support so this fund provides a little bit of support to help cover some of that gap so that instead of them putting that eighty five thousand dollars on the rents that they charge making a home unaffordable it's covered um at least up to twenty thousand dollars so that that amount does not go on to the price that they charge and then the down payment assistance program vitally important you heard it during the council discussion um that's going to support workforce housing individuals 81 to 120 ami those are our teachers our nurses our firefighters our police officers especially when they're first getting started in their career before they've gotten raises and before they've worked up their salaries being able to get them to into home ownership opportunities will free up the rental market so that we can actually get more people into into renting and then move them into home ownership in the future so all these comp all these programs complement what we're trying to do here in the housing ecosystem we're trying to move people into home ownership while also making sure we're building the supply at an affordable level that we truly need to move jacksonville forward and to address the affordability crisis and with that i'll stop okay super josh good review i appreciate it um i'd like to now go to the finance uh our um council auditors to kind of set the table as to this money was in the budget and then where it was moved to and just nothing long and elaborate but just to get a little uh we're gonna keep moving because i i'll get to you though don't you worry um so uh mr peterson yes sir um to the committee um so as was stated 4.9 million was included in the budget it was cut and ultimately ended up in a public safety contingency uh that has a balance right now of 23 million four hundred five thousand and ninety seven dollars so how much is i'm sorry 23 million four hundred five thousand ninety seven okay thank you okay so that's how that uh those dollars were cut from the budget and placed in that contingency for some capital improvements for the uh uh sheriff and the fire chief uh what i want to do now is read uh exactly what my proposal will be and and this is my proposal is just what what uh i think would be well to do and then i'm going to open up to my colleagues um i'm going to allow uh councilman salem to go first because uh he asked if he could go quickly because he's got a meeting at 3 30 and that's what happens on council days so i'm going to grant him that courtesy okay uh so i want to say at the outset that i am going to read these remarks and i'm doing that on purpose because i want to be exact about what i am proposing and i don't want there to be many any misunderstanding affordable has affordable housing has been one of those top issues i have tried to push and advocate for during this my during this term my fifth and final term on city council and this might be my one last good shot uh it is important to me because i have heard from so many of my constituents about how difficult it has become to find housing they can afford and we just came through and at large city-wide council election which council member monet holder prevailed where affordable housing was a major campaign issue so i know this concern extends well beyond the people that have just contacted me personally it is also brought up routinely at at least the mayor's town meetings that i have been able to attend so the number the numbers bear that out nearly 90 000 jacksonville renter households are estimated to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing and more than 42 000 of those households spend over half we also know that tens of thousands of jackson homeowners are housing costs burdened and that's why i am proposing this budget amendment on the 22nd my request is that we restore the 4.9 million that was removed from the affordable housing during the finance committee budget hearings and place those dollars into the back in the budget for the city's affordable housing trust fund i want to be clear about what i'm asking us to do today i'm not asking the council to decide exactly how every dollar of that 4.9 million would be ultimately spent the mayor's original proposal identified several possible uses including down payment assistance helping create more attainable housing and assistance with utility tap fees those are all things we can consider what i'm asking for today is that we preserve the 4.9 million affordable housing by putting it into the affordable housing trust fund the council can come back then at the appropriate time and look carefully at our housing needs and determine exactly how those dollars can do the most good i am proposing that the 4.9 million be restored from the contingency where those dollars went when the housing funding was removed i have spoken to the council auditor about the mechanics of doing what of doing that and have been assured that this is an appropriate way to accomplish it there is also an important procedural difference restoring the money from the contingency would require 10 votes of the council rather than 13 votes that would be required if we used certain reserve dollars i know that finance committee chairman lannon who's done an outstanding job in my view i know that his goal is to bring public safety contingency to 26 million and i want him to know that i will support uh him uh in this council in reaching that goal in any way that i can if the council restores the 4.9 million for affordable housing from the contingency i would fully support using additional reserve dollars necessary to bring the public safety contingency to the full 26 million i believe that gives us an opportunity to accomplish both objectives without having one important priority compete against the other councilman salem well sir it is 326 i'll turn this over to you right now if you'd like okay we can preserve 4.9 million to address an affordable housing problem affecting a very large number of jacksonville families while still providing the full 26 million the finance committee chairman believes should be available for the public safety contingency as do i jacksonville needs to be safe however jacksonville also needs to remain a city where working people can afford to live raise their families and hopefully someday own a home of their own i believe we can responsibly do both and that is what i am asking the council to consider so that's the proposal i'm laying out on the table by the way i had a meeting scheduled on this last friday and that was the day before or the the last regular working day before labor day and our hard-working employees traditionally get off early on the friday before labor day so far be it for me to keep them from getting their you know hard-earned time off so that's why i switched the meeting to today so i've done everything i can to accommodate every council member and to accommodate our hard-working staff i'm sorry the councilman salem um didn't want to spend a little bit of time and in i'm sure uh his his uh appointment mike would have understood being five minutes late but nonetheless uh if he is in listening range and wants to come back down here and speak he is welcome to but um but that's why i said i'm trying to thread a needle here today with what we're trying to accomplish um so with that said i'm done with my proposal that's what i want to propose and i would like to ask uh for monet council member monet holder asked if she could speak because she campaigned so hard on this issue and this is probably more her issue than it is mine at this point and so i turn it over to you council member holder then i'll come back to mr palusa what's that i got it yeah thank you so much past president carlucci um so to your point um as i spent the last several months and even before that the last several years talking to our neighbors across the city of jacksonville the one issue that they were most concerned about is affordability specifically affordable housing you know i believe and continue to believe i've said this before i believe and will continue to believe that we all deserve to live in the city that we can afford to be in um not just barely getting by so you know we owe it as a council members who are elected leaders to represent you all i owe it as an at-large city council member who represents um everyone from across the city to make sure that we can afford housing so i am in support of bringing the affordable housing trust fund money back into the budget the full 4.9 million dollars um there are the the breakdown to me whether it's capital stack whether it's um down payment assistance or the tap in fees all contribute to what it looks like to make sure housing is affordable it's not going to fully fix the problem that we have here but it is a step in the right direction as leaders we need to take the first step and bring in partners from across the city to help continue to fund this in a greater way moving forward so um i just want to affirm and and appreciate you not only for this notice meeting and bringing me on board and definitely will um work to bring an amendment to this for our budget uh before we vote so super thank you council member holder and i was going to go to council member peluso and then anybody else i don't have a queue up here guys so i'm just going to be looking around well thank you chair um and and thank you for putting this meeting together affordable housing is not just based on the election we had but based on polling it's one of the number one issues in the city housing and and affordability and so i i'm very much in support of your amendment i'm in support of pulling dollars even out of reserves if we needed to but i know that that's a higher threshold but it's something that i believe is of of of necessity right now so i'm comfortable really with anything we we need these dollars to go to people working families now um i did want to bring up josh or travis or whomever to talk about uh the term affordable housing josh come on up um you had said 50 ami which is um uh adjustable median income right what area median income area median my apologies so i just want to make sure that for everyone in here for the news for my colleagues to understand what is 50 ami what is the dollar amount typically for for a one bedroom typically the through the chair to councilman peluso typically the dollar amount for a one bedroom while uh the income for an individual would be around 44 45 000 a year a one bedroom uh make me pull numbers without the sheet in front of me uh would be about seven to nine hundred seven to nine hundred dollars for a 50 percent ami right now at 80 percent um it's roughly 15 to 1700 for a one bedroom and at 30 percent ami you're around five hundred dollars for a one bedroom so you see the gap the universe in affordability from 30 percent to 80 percent is quite large yeah and and it's just that's important i think for a lot of people to know i mean we we we donate a lot of um of support to our developer friends and i and i i like a lot of the projects that get done but the dollar numbers that a lot of these new developments um are at is well beyond these numbers well beyond those we want less than 30 percent of someone's income to go to uh to their housing correct it tends to be so so it's just keep that in mind whenever you see apartments that are higher than fifteen hundred dollars you're probably seeing a lot of working families that really can't afford that for a one bedroom and that's usually when people need to get a bunch of uh a bunch of roommates and whatnot um point being is these numbers are incredibly important because i think some people don't always know they hear ami they hear you know a certain dollar number or they see your certain percentage numbers but then you know what the dollars are and if you're thinking to yourself i don't know anyone who's paying seven hundred dollars well that's a problem that's a problem in our city um and i know in my district it's hard to find certain certain places that that are at that number that are not in really tough conditions and that's something else that we need to address too is making sure the actual quality of housing is is worth it as well so there's a lot there's a lot to peel back on this onion folks um and i wonder if 4.9 million is really going to cut it as much if we could do 50 million i'd be annoyed um i just don't know if there's appetite for that at this moment but uh but i'm just i'm just making sure folks know that thank you josh also i need to make sure to recognize that uh council member uh tyrone clark murray has joined us over there and we have the famous and great uh council member ken amaro here with us and thank you all for coming uh so uh i think councilman gaffney you had your hand up sir yes thank you um councilman carlucci i'll be brief but you know i'm all for this it's like councilman holder and councilman peluso said it this is a no-brainer um i think the issue is for me what a lot of people don't see is that when we have a affordability in the housing crisis it shows up in other areas and what i mean by it shows up in other areas you have constituents calling about lights you have constituents calling about food over the last two weeks and this is the only reason why i decided to speak i have seen that increase i'm not sure what it is being by the last two weeks but it's been an increase of hey council member can you help me with food can you help me with lights can you help me with a b c and d and it goes to show that a lot of these constituents are choosing rent mortgage over other necessities you know so we gotta figure out how can we offset this you know so i mean if it's if we could take these funds from this fund and support with the affordable housing to reduce the food lights grass i don't know whatever i mean i'm all for it so um but we gotta do something we just can't stand we just can't stand still not do anything so i want to applaud your efforts councilman college for doing this because it's definitely needed well you're welcome i wish we had a few more folks here but councilmember tyrone clark murray you're recognized thank you matt i appreciate you holding this um this notice meeting just like everyone else does it truly is just amazing this and i don't mean in a good way what our um colleagues consider um that what needs to be or should be cut from our budget so with that um josh if you would come forward mr hicks um so and i agree with the statements especially in regards to rent for um multi-family homes my emphasis and you know i sit on the board um not on the board but i'm the liaison um for jacksonville housing and the um the community portion of it go back and re-emphasize the aspect in regards to how we assist home ownership down payment and let me just say a few things i know that that benefits families because my mother 40 years ago she was able to become a part of a pro get take part in the program as a single mom we lived in cleveland arms and so she had to follow the the um the requirements of the program and she was able to purchase a home on her own so i know that it benefits families and it benefited our family she passed away and so that wealth the the uh the value of the home was able to be split among her children so it does work so just re-emphasize the down payment aspect that the city provides to those who want to own homes absolutely through the chair to uh councilwoman clark murray um great question so um the mayor is obviously attempting to bring back the workforce housing down payment assistance program we currently have a down payment assistance program funded through our state and federal dollars that is income restricted at 80 percent of the area medium income and not a dollar more um that program supports first-time homeowners um up to 25 000 dollars um that 25 000 if you're buying a 250 000 home will decrease the price of the home to 225 000 for you um which means a lower mortgage payment more money that you can put into food and health care and a car etc to go to your everyday expenses so that down payment assistance can also help someone qualify um they might be according to a bank five thousand dollars short of where they need to be having that down payment assistance will get them qualified so that they can afford the the the home and then we have educational courses and budget courses associated with this funding to make sure that folks realize that it's not just the mortgage you're gonna have to pay your property taxes you're gonna have to you have your escrow etc you trust me as a homeowner you have things that break randomly and you have to fix that right um so uh you know there's hidden costs associated being in a homeowner and that's also vitally important for them to be aware of so um the workforce housing proposal um will fund up to 15 000 for those who making 81 to 120 of the area medium income because ultimately as we heard earlier 22 of homeowners are cost burden um they need support as well um even though they might be slightly above the affordability level they're still at the workforce level where they need something that's below market rate that 15 000 with prices these days with homes you saw it surge right in in 20 21 22 they've basically flatlined at the high or just slightly below the high marks of where they searched they've never really come back down to where they were pre-covid so even our workforce housing community needs housing that they can afford in this down payment assistance program will assist that thank you so much for that once again just want to re-emphasize how important it is how this particular program how important it is to those if we want to we don't want to see our residents continuously paying rent we want them to move into home ownership because that's the way that they build wealth and secure their financial future thank you thank you chair through the chair if i may add one more thing about the program real quickly um so it is for first-time homeowners and it's it's we put a laura on the property for five years and after five years that loan is technically forgiven so they don't have to pay back that down payment assistance but if there's any situation where a person buys the home and after a year they decide they want to sell the home they're going to have a prorated amount that they would owe back to the city because they're then getting the wealth off of that home selling it so they're going to pay back the city that four years that they did not stay in that home so that's a very important part of the program where it's basically okay you're buying your first home we want to encourage that if you don't live in it over time um you'll pay back the the city within that five-year period okay uh council member holder you have a question josh before you sit down uh so i know this uh this affordable housing trust budget initiated with mayor deegan's transition back in 2023 and we've seen some impacts over time but can you reiterate how many families or how many folks will be impacted if we fully fund this at 4.9 million sure absolutely the the estimate at 4.9 through the chair to councilwoman holding um the estimate for 4.9 million is we would serve or help six to 700 households and how you get there is the capital stack will fund not only multi-family but single family housing programs i think that's very important to recognize that we need to support it's great that we're pushing forward these loans for multi-family side of things trust me um there's more coming um we also need to be mindful of building affordable housing on the home ownership side as well um so that'll that'll serve uh roughly two to three hundred people um the down payment assistance program at 1.5 million will serve an estimated 100 to 150 families and then the capitals or the utility tap-in program will allow us uh two years ago with seventy five hundred thousand seven hundred fifty thousand dollars we were able to do about 256 units or 35 projects with that fund so a million dollars would you know go to estimate about 300 so all together you're at minimum probably six to seven hundred units uh of housing being built or families being served with that 4.9 million dollars and as an example the five million dollars that went to campbell cove for the forgivable or the uh loan upon substantial completion is going to result in 240 units of needed affordable housing rental housing near the saint john's town center well we're going to get maybe double or triple our return on investment with the 4.9 million dollars in local dollars through these programs and that's why they're so vitally important because they're all part of the housing ecosystem and it's i like to say it it's another tool in the toolbox that we get to use thank you i had another question okay um for mr peterson so in hearing uh the 4.9 million was cut and placed into the public safety contingency fund just i guess to clarify we don't have to do either or we can do both and right we can fund continue to fund public safety as well as affordable housing correct so through the chair to council member holder so the the three projects this sounds funny to me i'm not sure about y'all um the three projects that are proposed to be funded for the public safety actually totaled 26 million and so what's in the account right now is not enough to fund those so council member layman has introduced a piece of legislation i believe it's being introduced tonight to pull the remainder out of reserves and so if that 23.4 goes down my assumption is that he will ask to have that bill amended to make up the gap because at this point that 23.4 tackles two of the three projects but it would not be enough to tackle the third so i think what you're insinuating is that if you pull down on this amount there are other ways to fully fund that 26 million and one of the uh one of the important things to i think mention is that the finance committee chair will probably have to go to reserves to make up a little bit of difference now um and what we're trying to do is get the dollars back to affordable housing that was put into that fund and so my pledge to to him here in the sunshine is that if he asked for more money reserves i would certainly support that to get to the 26 million um and and that's that's my my pledge and i think um you know look i want everybody to try to accomplish what they want to accomplish that's what i've always tried to do and um and that's why i um i read my proposal the way that i did so it would be clear any uh councilman please so how about council councilman amaro you kind of quiet over there you nothing nothing nothing to offer okay thank you thank you chair yeah just to get some clarification what are those three projects and also to the point of why we're here so is there a potential uh uh chair that if we were to say maybe tonight during council we expect for four point nine you know if the rest of us agree that we're going to pull four point nine out of this 23 then maybe it's behoo of us to already tell our colleagues that we could increase the threshold tonight if we're going to be adding more money into that pot to get to 26 million so i just want to keep that in mind but can you tell us what the three projects are phil yes sir through the chair to councilman peluso it's 14 million dollars for a lease buy down of jso's lease at the florida blue building there's 10 million dollars for a jso uh warehouse consolidation cip project and then two million for a jfrd co2 removal system thank you for that i mean to to the point of the the warehouse i i wasn't sure if jso had talked about that during the cip um conversation here do they need all that 10 million right now or is it possible to break it up five million five million something like that through the the chair to councilman peluso it is for the purchase of a warehouse and my understanding is they have worked out a purchase price with the entity so it would all be needed in a lump sum understood yeah chair i don't know if you councilman carlucci i don't know if you had any thoughts on because if we were planning on getting the 4.9 out of that 23 and tonight we have a council a council colleague that was expecting to do three million out of the reserves do we just not throw in an extra 4.9 million on top of that as an amendment i i you know i have was not planning to make any budget changes tonight and it just passed a tentative budget and then take these up like we traditionally do at the uh at the budget meetings at the end of the month that's the way that we've done it traditionally look it it doesn't take but just a little more reserves to uh help council member in finance committee chairman who's done just such an outstanding job i just got to tell the folks here he has done such an outstanding job and i want to help him any way that i can i just don't think we have to pit these two com these two worthy um issues against each other i think we we could do it and we got plenty of money and reserves to make up that that difference and part of the the 23 million that they have is the housing money that's why i thought it would be appropriate to pull from that takes less votes for us to pass that he needs to go back to reserves for additional dollars i'm happy to support him on that and i believe most people probably would i don't think that's an unreasonable ask but um but at any rate um uh anything else go ahead thank you yeah back to philip so i just want to so on council night if we were to pull money out of the reserves that mean the final vote must be 13 votes or if we try to pull from reserves for that particular vote is that just 13 votes it's 13 votes for the whole thing in it through the charity council member peluso so the budget as it currently stands right now only requires 10 votes if you were to pull out of reserves and add that into the budget that then triggers a 13 vote requirement on the budget so so is that the reason why tonight will is doing this action and i i wanted to address that so he is intro introducing a bill tonight that is going to run a normal cycle so with the concept of if something is to happen to this 23.4 million throughout the budget process that his bill would be up the first week in october and adjust accordingly okay that that makes me feel a lot better that makes me feel a lot more comfortable because i wasn't sure if we were already going to go down the road of having 13 votes on count clearly we're all trying to avoid that and that's evident here all right this makes a little more sense to me and i understand your your intent yeah okay and i'm willing to do this any way that i can and i'd be happy uh just to uh i don't want to do anything to disrupt uh the finance committee chair's budget and how he wants it to to move through he's worked hard on that i don't want to disrupt it however it's not such a sacred cow that i as an at-large council member cannot try to change it to meet the needs of so many of our community uh so i'm trying to find the balance of of working with our chairman of finance in helping him attain his goals and hopefully you know he'll help uh me and in others many of the people that are here today who have been pushing for this for years and years uh to accomplish their goals that's that's working together and that's how i've always tried to operate um i just wish we could have had a few more council members here but it's council day and everybody's got last minute meetings and i get that uh so if i feel like i need to i'll i'll try to hold another meeting like this friday if that's got the right number of hours necessary to invite other council members to come because next week my wife and i are going in search of 60 degree weather somewhere and i won't be here for committee i'm going to be in hendersonville north carolina it's a thriving community i got to tell is it's a bustling uh metropolitan area not really it's just a small little north carolina town and we we had that uh vacation planned well before but you know i've got this week to work in and if we have to have another meeting if i if i feel like there's an appetite and council members want to show up i'd be happy to do it if i'm the only one that shows up then so be it um but uh we we get this job but we do what we think is important for our constituents and this is something that i have felt been important for my constituents for a long time and if i might get my soapbox just a little bit i have seen my proposals go from nine million down to nothing and then at the last minute come back with 900 thousand and um and so you know you but you don't quit you just keep working at it and that's what i'm trying to do here and so i i so thank my colleagues here because they care about this type of thing and i appreciate it and um with that i'm off the soapbox and is there anybody else on the council that's here tonight today would like to say anything okay folks thank you for being here today and um and uh meeting is adjourned