Housing Call: May 9, 2023 – North Carolina Housing Coalition

NCHC Update

Thank you to all those involved in BIH 2023!

Registered attendees can now view the recordings of each session by going to the Bringing It Home conference desktop page or mobile app and selecting the session on the agenda. Recordings will be available until August 3, 2023.

If you haven’t already, please take our post-conference surveys!

Day 2 survey (May 3): http://whova.com/portal/survey/biheh_202305/31339

Day 1 survey (May 2): http://whova.com/portal/survey/biheh_202305/31191

Federal Update

Debt Ceiling

President Biden is scheduled to meet with Speaker McCarthy today to discuss the debt limit. Shortly after our last Housing Call a couple of weeks ago, House Republicans passed a bill that would raise the debt ceiling but severely cut spending to housing programs. While projections don’t indicate that the US will reach the debt ceiling before early June, U.S. Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen warns that as we’ve seen previously, as the deadline nears, the perceived threat of defaulting may hurt the financial market.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition invites advocates to participate in their “Spring into Action” campaign from May 8 to May 19, a two-week mobilization to speak out against budget cuts and push for Congress to make necessary investments in housing and homelessness programs. During this period, NLIHC encourages advocates to creatively express the importance of federal housing resources and convey to their members of Congress the devastating toll that these cuts, if enacted, would take on their communities. Check out NLIHC’s advocacy toolkit, “Oppose Dramatic Cuts to Federal Investments in Affordable Housing,” for talking points, sample social media messages, and more.

State Legislative Updates

Only a handful of housing related bills were filed between 4/25 and today’s call. Neither one made the crossover deadline.

Stability	HB 861 – Tropical Storm Fred/Disaster Recovery Sponsor: Rep Pless This bill allocates $2 million dollars for relocation and buyouts of homes located in the floodplain damaged by Tropical Storm Fred, $1.1 million for the Cruso Fire Rescue, and $750,000 for Pisgah High School for repairs and replacements at the agricultural farm used for academic coursework. HB 884 – Landlord-Tenant Assistance Pilot/Funds Sponsor: Rep. Alston This bill proposes appropriating $10 million dollars in non-recurring funds to the Department of Health and Human Services in order to establish and administer a landlord-tenant assistance pilot program. The proposed pilot program will provide funds to landlords to cover two years of renters’ insurance and the security deposit for each rental unit. In exchange, the landlord waives a credit check of tenants. The maximum per unit assistance amount is $5,000. There is a cap on 10% of total units owned or available to rent for each landlord that applies, and tenants must have a household income below 80% AMI.
Subsidy
Supply
Infrastructure

Crossover is a deadline that typically marks the halfway point in the legislative session, and if you have a bill in the House or Senate it must pass in either chamber in order to be considered in the rest of the session. This doesn’t mean that we won’t see other bills we were eyeing come up later, but they’ll have to come up in different ways through negotiations, budget talks, etc.

Only the following bills made it past the Crossover Deadline – On May 4th

Stability	HB551/S553 Landlord Tenant HOA H422/S344 – Unfair Real Estate Agreements Act HB594 – Disabled Veterans Homestead Excl. Pre-qualification HB542 – Protect Homeowners Rights SB565 – Removing Barriers to Jobs and Housing H588 – Heir Property Study HB41/SB53 – The Hotel Safety Issues Bill – PASSED without signature from Governor Cooper
Subsidy
Supply	HB409/S374 – Regulation of Accessory Dwelling Units S275/H332 – Streamline Commercial Multi-family Building Plan Review
Infrastructure	SB438 – NCORR Admin modifications HB119 – NCORR bid threshold

You’ll still be able to see all the bills that we’ve been tracking, but we added a category that indicates whether or not the item made it past the deadline and are including a version of the tracker that only shows those bills.

State and Local Updates

Housing Trust Fund Allocations
- Asheville City Council voted to allocate more than $4.3M from its Housing Trust Fund towards 4 affordable housing projects, which will provide gap financing for the creation of 239 affordable units.
  - Redwood Commons ($1.8 million) – 70 units
  - Reimagining Deaverview ($1 million) – 82 units
  - Stewart Street Cottages ($1 million) – 10 units
  - Fairhaven Summit ($500K) – 77 units
Charlotte City Council also voted to allocate over $20M from their Housing Trust Fund to support the creation of over 700 affordable units at 8 developments across the city.
- River District Apartments – ($5.8 million) 87 units
- Union at Tryon – ($3.8 million) 200 units
- The Vue at Honeywood – ($3.5 million) 108 units
- Marvin Road Apartments – ($3.5 million) 70 units
- Evoke Living at Ballantyne – ($3.1 million) 60 units
- Long Creek Senior Apartments – ($2.3 million) 57 units
- Hope Springs Subdivision – ($1.1 million) 25 units
- Aveline Townhomes at Orange Street – ($630K)18 units
NASCAR driver Joey Logano is making a $500,000 cash commitment toward the development of affordable housing in the proposed Town 1 mixed-use development in Huntersville. Once complete, the development plans to have 747 multifamily units and over 400K square feet of commercial space.
Staff from the City of Salisbury connected with members of the community last week at the “There’s No Place Like Home” meeting. City staff connected with educators, real estate agents, social workers, housing nonprofits, city council, and law enforcement to learn more about housing, the City’s current efforts, and to brainstorm suggestions about how the city can improve from a housing policy perspective.
A recent ABC11 piece highlighted the difficulty people in Durham with housing vouchers face in the housing search. The article points out that apartments often require tenants to earn 3x the rent, which excludes many people with housing vouchers even though their portion of the rent is affordable. Further, many landlords refuse to accept vouchers. Cities and states across the country have adopted policies in recent years to protect against Source of Income discrimination. If HB551 passes in the Senate, it would ban source of income protections for developments that do not receive local funding.
Dare County Commissioners voted to approve a special use permit for a 60-unit cluster housing development in Wanchese, but it may be the last development to be approved in an area zoned for single family housing. There will be a public hearing on May 17 for a proposed amendment to the County’s Cluster Home Ordinance. The cluster homes ordinance was adopted a few years ago to provide more workforce housing, but this recent permit request ignited strong pushback in the community. At the request of commissioners, the planning board reexamined the policy and recently recommended to commissioners that cluster homes be removed from the allowable special uses in areas that aren’t zoned for multifamily housing, citing density and scale. If the proposed amendment passes, cluster homes will be removed from the permitted uses in 22 zoning districts in Dare County.

Earlier this year, the Dare County Board of Commissioners highlighted essential and workforce housing as one of their top priorities. Many essential employees like teachers, firefighters, and hospital employees struggle to acquire affordable housing along the coast and over half of all renters in Dare County are cost-burdened.

HUD awarded Wilmington Area Rebuilding Ministries $1.25M to provide safety modifications so that low-income elderly homeowners elderly can age-in-place. The funds are expected to provide modifications for 150 homes.