Dear City Council members and City Staff,
Please find attached (and below) comments from Menlo Together related to evaluating the RFQ responses for producing affordable homes on downtown parking lots with a focus on the resident experience.
Thank you!
-Karen Grove on behalf of Menlo Together
Menlo Together envisions a city that is integrated and diverse, multigenerational and environmentally sustainable. We believe that our city can and must build more homes across all levels of affordability, especially near transit and downtown services, for a variety of household sizes and for people of all abilities.
We support new homes on city-owned downtown parking lots because city-owned land in this transit and opportunity rich neighborhood creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to produce new homes for all incomes and abilities, including households with extremely and very low incomes. We appreciate your work to achieve this goal.
We look forward to the upcoming meeting when the city will study the RFQ submissions. We appreciate that the responses are available online for the public to read.
The RFQ requested certain information from each respondent that is important to the success of the project and to the community such as number of homes, level of affordability, an outline of a vision for design, parking and amenities. These are important considerations.
A category of information we urge the City to consider with high priority is the resident experience likely to be achieved by the developers forecasting and ongoing management.
To investigate the likelihood of a positive, stable resident experience, we urge you to ask:
* How will you set rents?
* For example, for a “very low income” unit (which is available to households earning from 30% to 50% of Area Median Income) the maximum allowable rent that can be assessed might be 30% of the high end of the range, which would be 30% of 50% AMI.
* Will you set rents at 30% (30% is considered an affordable percent of income) of the high end of the income band? of the low end of the income band? How will you set initial rents?
* Do you accept Section 8 or other rent subsidies from tenants?
* How do you set rent increases? How much notice do you give for rent increases?
* How will you handle changes to household income or size?
* If a households earnings increase to greater than their income band, what happens?
* If a households earnings decrease to less than required for their units income band and rent, what happens? Note that household income can change for many reasons including sudden illness or disability.
* If a household size changes such that they no longer qualify for the unit they are in, what happens? Note that household sizes can change for many reasons, including tragic and traumatic events (like the death of a family member).
* What support are residents given to help them stay in circumstances not included in prior questions?
* If it becomes necessary to evict a tenant, how much notice will you give? What, if any, relocation support do you offer?
* How do you communicate with residents (do you accommodate a range of languages and digital fluency)?
* What amenities will you offer to residents?
Thank you again for pursuing this important program of our Housing Element. We look forward to the day we give people their keys!
Regards,
Menlo Together
