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Item No. 15 TO: Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council Members Robert G. Vine, Interim City Manager FROM: Osei Amo-Mensah, Director of Planning and Community Development SUBJECT: Resolution Revising Guidelines and Criteria for the 5 in 5 Housing Infill Development Program. DATE: January 13, 2025 BACKGROUND: City Council adopted the 5 in 5 Housing Infill Development Program (Program) in January of 2022 with the aim of incentivizing the redevelopment of neighborhoods in the City's core, and that area is designated as the Program Area. Among the incentives available is the conveyance of properties which the City holds as Trustee for the other taxing entities when the properties have been acquired for back taxes. Said conveyances are for $1.00 per Trustee parcel. The Program has guidelines and criteria (Guidelines) that determine eligibility for participation. Later in 2022, Council amended the Guidelines to allow the City to enter into agreements relating to properties that are directly contiguous to the Program Area. Council authorized a third -party housing assessment in 2024 to determine the actual housing needs in the City and to inform future planning. Council declared a moratorium of the Program so that the consultants could complete the assessment and staff could review the results and revise the Guidelines if necessary to achieve the goals set out in the consultants' final report. On August 26, 2024, Council adopted revised Guidelines that in some respects made the Program more flexible, but also made any developer with an existing and active agreement ineligible for a new agreement unless at least 80% of the construction under the original agreement is complete. The aim of this limitation is to keep the City's inventory of Trustee properties available and to keep any single developer from tying up Trustee properties that it may not ever develop. STATUS OF ISSUE: The 80% requirement as written applies to any developer whether the active agreement provides for the conveyance of Trustee properties or not. In practice, most of the Agreements approved under the program have involved properties which have previously been acquired by the applicant. In those instances, the City is only providing incentives—tax abatements, reduced fees, etc.—when construction is either completed or imminent. Making such an applicant ineligible for a new agreement does not advance either the goal of promoting