Fall River Housing Authority 4 10 23

good evening everyone it's Monday April 10th 2023 and it's 4 35 pm is the regular Housing Authority meeting

the language of the open meeting law is as follows first one to the open maybe you want any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or they transmit the meeting through any media attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made by the procedure on perceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible percent of our divorce ment

seeing none item two is resident input nothing today unless you want to talk about the week in our office exactly uh no I think we'll pass on that you've discussed that with maintenance I'm assuming yes thank you item two is the minutes of the postpone to regular meeting held March 20 2023 do I have a motion to accept make a motion to accept the minutes all in favor aye and increase bills and Communications

vouchers voucher packages in your packet

emotionally accept vouchers second any questions or concerns with regard to the vouchers hearing none all in favor item three is the management reports you have included the applications the occupancy reports your tenant accounts receivable reports the work order report you'll see monthly Section 8 voucher activity report the monthly Personnel count report the director of modernization's monthly report as well

as the Bank investment and bond debt balance reports do I have a motion to exp accept these reports foreign except second thank you any questions with regard to any of these reports hearing none all in favor aye item three is your financial reports this is the operating statements through February 28th 2023.

it's the 11-month statement so I have a motion for approval of the financial reports motion to approve

hearing none all in favor Item B uh the federal write-offs for the quarter ended 331-23 the amount is 151 473.82 cents the details included in your packet thank you do I have a motion to approve the write-offs make a motion and I just have a question answered a second second thank you question please for the people tuning in um because this is a decent size number where do the write-offs come from if you

could just explain it for everybody you know who are tuning in to uh understand where it comes from so uh former residents who vacated for whatever reason eviction um just so you're fully aware it's jumped up again as we exit the covet era in all a lot of the third party uh that paid the areas for many of our residents and also the eviction moratorium so it's getting back to normal if you look

back a couple years two three years ago to where it was you'll say that 2022 was 80 000.

um 2021 was 86 000 in 2020 was 92 000.

yeah similar sometimes my questions are just to make sure that everybody tuning in understands what we're looking at sure and looking at the documents so excellent thank you I appreciate it thank you all in favor hi item C is the state write-offs for the same quarter quarter ended March 31 2023 and the amount of 32 921 dollars and 39 cents ocean approved the questions with we add to the state office

hearing none all in favor aye item six is an update thank you madam chairwoman um just a couple of things um I want to acknowledge uh Martha Galaga for 36 years of service to the housing authority and also Carrie farius our leased housing director 37 years of service to the Fall River Housing Authority so I wanted to thank them and acknowledge them for all their hard work and dedication to the Fall River Housing

Authority and the other thing I have is over this weekend uh the Housing Authority through resident services Joey dasilva we collaborated with citizens for Citizens for Easter egg hunts at five of our sites so that went pretty well we hadn't done it in a couple of years due to covet but now we're picking picking that up again thank you any questions for my director next item is old business

item a is the temporary associate director of property management position the recommended action is to ratify the appointment of Timothy Burke to I have a motion motion to ratify appointment of Timothy Burke second author roll call please commissioner Medeiros yes commissioner Underhill yes commissioner Burns yes Mr Bentley yes yes congratulations next item on the agenda is new business

item one a is modernization it's a change order number one for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at 40 Apartments they change order number one is an increase in the amount of two thousand six hundred fifty four dollars and ninety five cents to the contract for the installation of multi-sensor camera and mounting hardware due to vandalism do I have a motion to approve this

change order most improve the change order second any questions with regard to this change order hearing none all in favor Adam B is a certificate of substantial completion for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at Fortney Apartments the motion to approve motion to approve substantial completion second any questions hearing none all in favor item C is certificate of completion consolidation

for the security cameras and surveillance equipment project at Fortney Apartments I make a motion to accept the certificate of completion Consolidated for affording security cameras at 40. sorry any questions all in favor aye item D is certificate of substantial completion for the security cameras and surveillance equipment project at North Rod Rock Cliff Apartments most improved second any questions

all in favor all right item e is certificate of completion consolidation for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at North Rod Cliff Apartments motion to approve a certificate of completion Consolidated for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at North Brooklyn Apartments second any questions completion for the security we have to take a vote on that right

oh all in favor all right thank you item f is certificate of substantial completion for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at Benny Costa Plaza Apartments make a motion to approve the certificate of substantial completion for security cameras at Bank Austin Plaza second any questions all in favor aye item G is certificate of completion Consolidated for the security cameras

and surveillance equipment project at Benny Costa Plaza Apartments I'll make a motion to approve the certificate of completion Consolidated for security cameras at Pentecostal Plaza second any questions all in favor aye item H is certificate of substantial completion for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at Riley Plaza Apartments motion to approve certificate of

substantial completion for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at Riley Plaza Apartments second all in favor nmi a certificate of completion Consolidated for security camera and surveillance equipment project at Riley Plaza Apartments motion to approve certificate of completion Consolidated for the security camera and surveillance equipment project at Riley Plaza Apartments do we have any questions

I just wanted to remind the commission is this was done through a 250 000 Safety and Security grant that we received from HUD and a bulk of that money went to the four TurnKey sites to replace the camera system and uh the difference went to father defario to replace some DVRs so thank you item J is a change order number one for the fire alarm control panel upgrade at

James a I don't think we voted all in favor I'm sorry hi hi item J is a change order number one for the fire alarm control panel upgrade at James a O'Brien Apartments change order number one is an increase in the amount of four thousand one hundred two dollars to the contract for the upgrade motion approved second any questions all in favor Adam K is certificate of substantial completion for the fire alarm control

panel upgrade at James a O'Brien Senior Apartments motion on proof second all in favor all right email is certificate of completion Consolidated for the fire alarm control panel upgrade at James a O'Brien Senior Apartments

any questions all in favor item two on the agenda ice miscellaneous a is the kitchen appliance contract the recommended action is to award a three-year contract to the loan bidder hair appliances solution DBA GE Appliances with two separate and distinct yearly options to renew at the sole discretion of the housing authority and the amount not to exceed 490 942 dollars motion to award

three-year contract to hire Appliance Solutions second questions I'm sorry I just have a question is this to replace them is this to replace the appliances as as needed yes as needed over the course of three years yes okay all in favor Item B is the in tegrated Pest Management contract the recommended action is to award a three-year contract to the loan responsive bidder Waltham Pest Services

with the affordable housing authority option to renew for two additional years at the sole discretion of the authority and the amount not to exceed 748 thousand forty dollars

post no approved second any questions with regard to this award hearing none all in favor aye item C is for a 2023 Ford F-150 pickup truck the recommended action is permission to purchase a truck from Empire Ford of New Bedford in the amount of eight thousand six hundred and fifteen dollars most improve and a question once it's uh on the floor a second 2023 Ford F-150 for 8600 just explain it

for uh everybody is that uh because we dropped the cars down with the other items in the past that we've we traded in yeah that we had we actually did better than expected yeah and so then the net to the Housing Authority was 8600 which was better than expected so the trade was forty thousand two hundred because it was just eight thousand six hundred dollars and I might sign up for one

is the window replacement project at father Vincent defario Village the recommended action is to award the contract to the loan bidder Door and Glass Innovations in the amount of twenty three thousand five hundred and eighty nine dollars um I'll make a motion but I do have a question on that second um just my question is how how many is this for this is foreign well it's repair replacement so

um our last react inspection um we had health and safety failures at the management building we have the security mesh screens that protect the windows from people and they weren't operating properly they're the original security screens from when the building was constructed so these were major deficiencies so this is I don't know uh commissioner how many there actually are Ed I don't know if you have that number

for the security screen we're having them installed so that they can be removed for certain offices so they can escape in case of a fire we had about 35 Windows 36 windows that needed balances they were just dropping those with deficiencies also and we also had two windows that were actually changed to escape

as part of our react inspection so that when we get another reaction react to share will be completely compliant that's a good price I thought it was yeah yeah there's a lot of work a lot of Windows yeah it is just a management still that's a good price I think thank you thank you thanks Ed all in favor all right item e is Community Housing and Development organization at choa

um Mr Dan you're here to discuss this with us Mr Dion did uh make copies of some handouts I think you may have already gotten them through Matha but in case they're different you have them also this is a friendly meeting here I'm used to City Council meetings so if you could get we know um just an overview first and then yes questions first uh again my name is Michael Dion I'm the director of

Community Development for the city of Fall River on tonight what I'd like to speak to you about is um the Housing Authority establishing what we call a choto which is a community housing development organization um we normally typically receive uh almost two million dollars in housing funding per year and money needs to be set aside to be spent through a total um organization we also have received close to 3.5

million dollars in home op money uh through the reinvestment Recovery Act that needs to be used for the development of housing in the city of Fall River in discussions with the mayor and your deputy director and your executive director we had a meeting a couple months ago concerning uh this this uh um non-profit type of tag or organization um what it does is uh chotto is the only

organization that can use HUD funding to purchase and rehab or build new housing in the city with HUD funds I have several uh two or three chotos right now some are a couple of them are not operative um what we're looking at the housing authority and the discussions that we had was based on the expertise of the Housing Authority in running in um you know working in the affordable housing field

so what we're looking to do is we have several projects that we've been looking at throughout the city the projects that um are good projects that would be some you know game changes in the in the housing uh development and we're looking for the housing authority to see if they would join forces with the Community Development agency and see if we could bring some of those units online where in the

negotiations right now for those uh properties so I wouldn't want to say where they're at but they are in the city of Fall River in the past what I've done so you know we've built multiple single-family homes throughout the city so I think it it could become very very beneficial to the housing authority to in your self-sufficiency program to maybe be able to get some of your qual tenants to qualify for those

single-family homes I know in the past that we've um we've made you guys part of the lottery process um to do that uh the other thing the other aspect of this is um I don't know if you remember the original legislation for the watapa heights says that the property has to be turned over to a non-profit agency um this would probably be beneficial in in determining how we go about redeveloping what type of heights

um in the future uh so I'm here tonight if you have any questions um You probably do there's that chotos are a little different than your regular non-profits uh they're they're set up with um low-income representation so in some of the documentation that you have the Board needs to be one-third represented from low-income people um it's would be separate in terms of operation from the Housing Authority you

could have some of your bought from the housing authority on the board of the nonprofit they require you to have staff on the nonprofit agency you could use certain staff from the Housing Authority until you build up your choto um I have a chotos that started 10 years ago that have over 150 units now in the city they have a full term full-time staff executive director um and they're they're bringing in

somewhere around a million and a half to a little less than 2 million in rents per year so it's just another I look at it as another tool in your toolbox to provide um uh uh you know housing opportunities for people in the city thank you don't all asking at once a question so uh step up because that's how I am um so as a Housing Authority it is within

our purview to make sure that we are providing the resources for people who need it right so I'm on board there are people who need it I want to figure out how to help them there's another side of the city that looks at Fall River providing more of an opportunity for a low income or no income opportunities more than anybody else in the state so we're saturating our Market we're kind of

skewing the balance of what our housing is in the city so I'm trying to figure out I guess on a few prongs you talked about the benefits what are some of the repercussions of that and and really are we talking about single family homes because I like that idea I like giving people the opportunity of um kind of progressing through this process and having single-family homes and having some type of ownership or a

duplex and kind of it's different than your standard uh the way we're operating right now which I think we're saturating the market so so um on one side of me that's what I'm supposed to do and provide as much of that as possible but I also am asking questions on whether or not that's you know the best case scenario well it does really two things in terms of um residential rehabits bringing

properties that we know we have an older housing stock it's bringing them up to um compliance with uh code Codes um you also have to realize that the housing that we do through chodo's is um offered to people making sixty percent of the area median income it can go sixty percent all the way down to below 30 percent um the first time home buyer you know buying their first home is 80 of the

area median income we have a big uh housing problem right now in the city we have a very very low vacancy um people are being priced out of the market uh they're they're uh there is very very little uh affordable housing um I'm seeing rents increasing for 500 a month people who have been paying rents at 700 a month now going up to 1200 13 14.

um and I'm assuming you guys probably have a waiting list that's a mile long to get into public housing that's the first thing we usually tell people go down to the Housing Authority they come back and they say yeah Alyssa's like five years Alone um so I I just I just think it's it's um we're not looking at taking uh housing and clustering it and making it into you know low-income housing what I'm looking at is

um you know doing a single family a duplex doing uh uh a three family a six family um right now I've been looking at a property that has about 11 units we won't go over 11 units um we're required to to uh pay Union wage over anything over 11 units um so I don't see it as a further saturation um I see it as providing the housing that is needed right now

I mean we have a real big problem with our elderly um people are just being priced out of the market I appreciate the explanation and I tend to agree with you and I I I'm certainly um appreciative and understanding of the idea that we're looking at maybe duplexes and it's it's not necessarily all these clusters of housing the only thought is that I'm I'm in favor of this as a whole is that I

find Fall River to be bearing an unfair burden uh for solving this problem for people who do have these are not made up issues you know it's true I know it's true I see it in my day job right this is an absolute issue in my role as a Housing Authority commissioner I'm in favor of this right but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least say hey are we

taking on more of a burden unfamily than any other community state so that's that's my only Point Housing Authority Jason Byrne says we need to do it there there's a there's a role for what we do there's a need and I'm in favor of it and I appreciate your explanation thank you I want the board also to realize that um the money is granted to the non-profit agency so there's no requirement to pay the money back

um we do a require we're required to do um 15 per year of our annual allowance but um we've been doing closer to 80 90 percent uh we don't have a lot of mom and pop or single-family homeowners coming in to borrow money from the Community Development agency they just can't afford it so we've done a series of a lot of different projects we did 11 units at 64 Duffy Street the old um

Durfee tech building we did 11 units at um uh current and Lofts another 11 units at uh for the knitting Mills and then we also have a lot of small I just brought out we just brought out another 32 units through different types of chotos in the city I really have one Shoto that really works uh very well they know what they're doing um but they're they're overburdened with a hundred and something units collecting

rents and trying to do new developments so um I need somebody an organization that's more experienced appreciate it Mike thank you so quick question in terms of tenant selection criteria does it adhere to the criteria that we currently utilize or how does it differ if it does we how we do it now with the choto is through we have affirmative marketing policy which requires us to um pre-certify that uh the tenant will

meet the income restrictions we also do you know background checks and stuff like that um we uh we require a credit report um and then basically do it kind of like on a lottery basis or first in first serve you know first come first serve so do City residents get any kind of preferred status in this process no they don't we would have to look at we could put preferences on it if we wanted to

I've put preferences on several um uh for veterans housing we could also put preferences on it for City residents I mean that is one of the topics we've discussed in here right is the lack of options for our residents I would say 99.9 of every choto project I've done has Fall River residence in it yeah okay but we would have to line up those we'd have to sit down with the Housing

Authority look at what their um uh tenant selection policy is and match it up and make sure that it that it uh doesn't exclude anybody I don't think it would I think your tenant policies would probably do very well we don't we don't um one of the things that the Community Development does does not do is um uh you know you make your policies the nonprofit makes their policies we we

want those policies to make sure that they follow HUD regulations but we don't dictate um our policy on on a choto thank you is this going to create another list other than the list the long lists that we have now is it and is it going to be a separate list I would say that it will be a separate list I would say that the list is going to be very very small because we don't

do big projects it's not going to be um you know uh 25 25 person list or 25 slot list um you're probably talking about doing one project a year that like I said could range up to 11 units um I see you being able to offer those units to people who are currently in the Housing Authority people who are in your self-sufficiency program could you could you uh reduce your big list

yeah you could by by adding these opportunities um it won't reduce it dramatic dramatically but you know if you do an 11 unit property you might be able to lower You Are by taking 11 people out of the Housing Authority you could probably put 11 people off the list into the Housing Authority that's what we're seeing we're seeing housing as a chain you know what I'm seeing is and I'll

just get off real topic real quick we have we have over 100 people in our shelters in the city to move those people out of shelters you're going to get some type of what we call permanent Supportive Housing to get permanent Supportive Housing people can stay in that housing for as long as they want so I gotta I gotta thank the Housing Authority we sat down we put a program together small program called moving on

it was 20 vouchers um and now what's happening is is we're reducing our um we're opening up slots in our permanent Supportive Housing so that more people from the shelter can move into those so it might take people off your section 8 waiting list our rents are very very um they're even less than probably the Housing Authority rents you're looking at a two-bedroom apartment probably around nine hundred dollars so what

happens with a choto is for us shipping you the money to develop the property we require you to put an affordable restriction on the property the most you can go in an affordable restriction is 20 years and which is new construction so usually it's around 15 years so 15 years you have to rent to a certain income level and you can only charge a certain ring okay those properties also can accept

Section 8 certificates that are over the fair market rent also so a fair market rent right now for a two bedroom in the city under our program is somewhere around 900 where the open market I know some that just rented a two bedroom on Flint Street for 1700.

so our rents are a lot cheaper um there's other things that you can do in the choto if you're doing single family homes we can work with we work with several Banks throughout the city um but you could also have the homeowner um uh uh take on the loan for the construction and re-amortize that loan we do loans at one percent so there's a lot of different things

that you can do to make the to make the housing affordable sure well in this program will this uh limit the people that are already residents in housing to be have to be part of the FSS in order to be concerned no I'm just assuming that the people in the FSS hopefully I said that right um uh um have been building up their capacity to own a duplex or a condo or you know

something like that so that's why I only use them as an example um thank you so you referenced some other chodo's curtain Lofts foreign Tech those are developers those are the developers that did the building um we you can you can work as a developer a sponsor and an owner when you're um a turtle most of the time we do it with Developers okay but when you're referring to us you

were saying 11 units over the upcoming year is what you're proposing is that correct no what I would propose with with the Housing Authority is probably something small to to to to try first um probably either a three unit a six unit a single family unit um right now I'm looking at another piece of property that has 18 units um with commercial on the first floor and the housing on the second and third

floor currently in the city uh how many units conform to to this chodo program um I want to say right now there's probably about 300 units in the city that are owned by churros 300 okay yeah the main chotos are the Community Housing Resource Board Community Action for better housing Pike hand which is People Incorporated um people improving neighborhood communities and neighborhoods or something like that

um and uh we just brought on the preservation Society to look at doing preservation projects in the city if you have a chance go buy um 95 June Street it's a four family that was just done by the preservation Society um it's the uh it's a four four unit building um and it's uh on the historic register I think the house is like a hundred and something years old I'll take it right

by there that's one of the ones that's been done thank you Mike I had a couple of questions um first thank you for attending tonight uh the first question is uh could a board member on the Housing Authority board also serve on the the choto non-profit board yes okay and we set up a non-profit uh the non-profit can contract with the Housing Authority for admin work for maintenance work and we yeah at some

point they usually give you a year year and a half you that show that non-profit will have to have its own um staff so what I've done in the past with like People Incorporated is they've they've um taken a couple people you uh made the choto some of their responsibility kind of used the percentage of of their hours towards the total and and we've paid for that what we also do on every

um on every project that we do we pay a developer fee which is anywhere from 15 to 20 percent so if you're doing you know like math if you're doing a five hundred thousand dollar project uh we'll pay the non-profit agency about a hundred thousand dollars to do that project they keep it they use it for whatever they want the rents that are collected on a monthly basis is not program income to

uh the uh home program for HUD you keep the rents you do what you want with the rents um we do not skimp when we do a property we make sure that it's 100 rehab new boilers new new windows new roof everything so that the main systems in the house you should not have a problem with them for many many years so there's really not a a real detrimental reason to have a reserve

account but some people do but um we we always do the entire property Windows Doors all of that stuff so Mike we would be responsible for the 501c3 we would theoretically have our own board the 501c3 would file its own taxes to its own annual reports when you're saying we all the time in terms of the development of this who is the we so are you paying to but away this new non-profit going to have to

hire the developer remodel the property I mean you're funding it but who's doing the work correct what usually happens is that um when we're doing a project we will use the Community Development agency's architect to do all of the plans okay we will um we will send it off a bit through our office uh in conjunction with the choto the choto will sign a contract with the um with the construction firm

the separate and separate non-profit that's not for a Housing Authority correct it's the separate entity correct um you'll make sure that that person is licensed and insured and all of that stuff we would give you money for soft costs up front which means you wouldn't pay for any of the insurance on the property you wouldn't pay for any closing costs for the attorney's offices any of that

stuff if we were if we were doing a land purchase or if we were doing a purchase of of um a building that's already there um if you built a single-family home you sold it we would pay for the um uh the real estate sales commissions okay um once the contract is signed okay construction would take pot at that point the architect would be involved in making sure that the job is on track

there's a lot of paperwork to this there's a lot of contracts there's a program a programmatic agreement that would be signed from my office to the non-profit agency my office would go out on a weekly usually bi-weekly basis to make sure that the construction is being done correctly and being done on time with the architect um the payments would be done on as you well know AIA documents it's um the

payment will also not be approved unless it's approved by the non-profit agency so it's really the Community Development agency working in partnership with the choto with the contractor to provide that you know end result of an affordable housing unit so you normally do this then with non-profits that already exist that already have staff like I said I got three of them right now so they're already familiar with the

non-profit recording and Reporting requirements as well as having their own staff they're just allocating some of their staff yeah the reporting would be completely new because we're not a non-profit correct reporting requirements are very they're very easy they're simple through my agency the only thing that you'd be taking on that's just a little bit more difficult would be you would have a

separate non-profit that would be required to do only a finances separately right so all the accounting would be separate the IRS filings would be separate correct and most of these people have staff that are already assigned I mean I'm familiar with community housing um the Community Housing Resource Board has two staff members they have an executive director and and like an office Community for better housing

community for better action we don't do any work with them anymore they they um they have a very limited staff um but we don't do any work with them the Fall River preservation Society uh hired a consultant they did their first project um a couple weeks ago a couple it finished a couple months ago it started a couple months ago they're still working on it um the main one is the is the Community

Housing Resource Board okay that's the one I've done the most with the other ones with about a hundred and I think 120 130 units um but I've I've worked with them for a long time I've been working with them for 20 years so it's pretty simple to do a project um and the projects that we've done haven't been huge projects um some of the projects that we've looked at the mayor's looked at I've

looked at is going to require more expertise in housing um more experience I would not use the other churros to to do some of the products that we've looked at but we would have Dr scare you right no no I don't want you to think I'm just still still trying to figure out the logistics of the whole thing because then we would have to if we don't have individuals that are being hired

specifically for this non-profit we would have to be able to allocate by time yeah certain individuals that are going to work for the nonprofit I wouldn't hire any staff until you get to a certain level okay um if you do two or three projects and over the next two years say and you're sitting on 250 300 000 of developer fee then I'd say yeah go out and hire yourself uh somebody that knows

Housing Development I wouldn't go out and hire somebody right now and do the first project with them I I would I would try to do it within the house labor my office would be very very involved um I don't get really involved in the Community Housing Resource Board projects as much because they have a lot of experience right um but when you start having to collect rents for 150 units

you know and it's just two people it becomes an issue you know um and the director has some health issues so um I I see us ramping down with them quite a bit in the future so I think the only the I think one of the one like I said one of the stumbling blocks is having to create your own the non-profit accounting part of it because checks would not be made out to the far

of a Housing Authority correct the checks would be made out to whoever whatever the name of the non-profit would be that non-profit would be cutting checks right um you know you'd have a chairman of the board that would be signing contracts uh you'd have to get you know usually the typical chair of board is six to eight members one-third of those members can't be can't be um more than one-third can't be city

employees um there's also a restriction on political appoint appointments to it but there's a real big push to have resident um participation participation of the low-income community um so I could see maybe uh some of your residents wanting to maybe take part in being a board member that's thank you any other questions I'm good thank you Mike Mike just just a quick who would be the record owner of

the property would it be the non-profit the non-profit would be the owner of the property after you go out you do a pns agreement if it was land or if it was a building the non-profit would would be the signature on the on the pns okay we would provide the purchasing amount to the to the non-profit we'd set up a closing you know um uh we use whatever attorney

you would want to use do the closing and then the deed is in is recorded in the name of the non-profit agency with the restrictions right of course right for a low income yes so there would be there would be the two which there would be an affordable housing restriction put on it and if anybody would like to see an affordable housing restriction I can get it to you guys if anybody would like to see

um a uh an application or or an actual physical project I could copy the um the file for you I mean we do a lot I'm really suming it up really quickly I know you do we do a subsidy Lane review on every project that we do we're doing ratios we're doing you know um it's pretty intense I'm just giving you the quick overview um and I told her I know I'm a little

familiar with it but I haven't seen it in a long time but um the insurance costs too would it be covered by Community Development yes okay yes what happens is at the time of the closing you're gonna you know you got a settlement sheet all those costs on that settlement sheet would be covered okay by the Community Development agency so what we would do is if the purchase price was 300 000 and

the closing costs would say five thousand we give you 310 000 after closing a check you'd pay the soft costs you'd pay the purchase price and you'd walk away with a little bit of money just to keep you know insurance going until we can get specs written on the project and get the project up and running usually our typical choto project takes six to nine months to do it's not a it's not a quick process

a lot of the times what we do if we're going to build a single family house also is we use diamond um uh for for labor to build the house um I mean I wouldn't be here you know we wouldn't have asked uh the administration here to do this if we didn't think it was a good thing it's it I look at it as like another tool in the toolbox for the Housing

Authority and I I can tell you you'll have my 100 commitment to making sure that if you do get into this that we do a good job that we will not fail I believe it any other questions of Mike are there any other uh housing authorities that you're familiar with that are engaged in this currently I believe that um Lowell I think Wista I've heard of several other housing authorities um becoming churros

I don't think New Bedford is you know that I don't know I've heard of Oz I'm on the board of mass Union and public auto Independence and I'm familiar with a lot of people up there and I had heard I really didn't know what it was but I had her death

I have one other question uh earlier you brought up watapa Heights uh so how is that all play into your your thoughts oh I can't really discuss what type of heights because um I know it's in litigation litigation right now all I can tell you is is that the original legislation calls for 26 single-family homes 13 that have to be available to people earning 50 or less and I think the other 13 80 or less um

and in the original legislation I think I'm right Mike would be able to tell it says that the property should be turned over to a non-profit agency um that to me is that that project is a real big undertaking is it even financially feasible to put 26 single-family homes for 30 or less and be able to sell them and be able to develop them and so um I just think it would be

you know when I look and see say you know how many non-profits are there out there that would be able to handle that type of development is there a way that this non-profit could co-owner or co-sponsor or co-develop the property um and that you know that's up to you that's up to you this those were conversations that um you know the Coogan Administration uh and myself and other people at the table

have had in the past you know who's going to develop it at what point who's going to be in charge of it I know it's not going to be Community Development uh so I mean I think a a non-profit agency that you somewhat have some control over might be in benefit it might be very beneficial When developing that property maybe it's not I don't know thank you all set all set thank you Mike thank you Mike

thanks for having me have a good evening we know where to find you if we have further questions

okay item f is the open meeting lore complaint filed by Patrick stated 3 11 20 23 and corresponding complaint allegedly filed on 213-23 with insufficient notice to the floor of a Housing Authority on the recommended action is response by the general con Council to Attorney General's office and Mr Higgins so I have a motion to provide our our general counsel to respond to the um Attorney General's office and to Mr

Higgins I just wanted to let you that the drafts for the both for both complaints are in your packet I handed them all tonight as well one of them one of them is a more of a the second one was more of a draft for the uh for the March complaint but it was a follow-up in regard to addressing with Mr Higgins while he was here um giving me a copy of the complaint so

we're not filing it so that we are filing answers in a timely manner and he has sent it to uh chairwoman zahati individually so Mike what was that one I just got tonight no okay well anything we I mean well we can address it we can address them I mean anything that comes in is being kept on a spreadsheet we're keeping track of everything making sure that the board receives the complaints in a

timely manner if it's not if the board meeting is not within the 14 days or 15 days is required by the open meeting law then I would ask for an extension to the Attorney General's office and they've always been very generous with the extensions rather than have the board meet specifically just for that particular foreign

G is amendment number six to the Cooperative agreement dated April 10 2023.

to approve the agreement optional approved second any questions hearing none all in favor all right bye item of three is Personnel a is the resignation of an employee the recommended action is to accept the resignation of algendro Maris he's the pH Administrative Assistant effective March 15 2023.

motion accept the resignation second all in favor Item B is the retirement of an employee it's a retirement of Michael Lanez effective May 4th 2023.

motion accept the retirement thank you all in favor aye item C is the temporary reception position the hcv Section 8 Department the recommended action is to ratify Daisy Perez motion describe to ratify appointment of Daisy Perez yes yes

next is executive session item a is the union negotiation update for unit a the anticipated executive session pursuant to Mass General Law chapter 30A section 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting law may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining oral litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares do I have a motion to go into executive

session all those emotions I'm sorry no worries yes yes yes at this point this will be the end of this evening's meeting we don't have any intention to come back out of executive session so thank you everyone for attending and we will see you next month promotion to adjourn favor