2nd Annual Affordable Housing

Rodrigo Afanador [0:00] We're going to go ahead and get started and run through the quick agenda so you sort of know what to expect. front and center. So, we're making quick change, or maybe a long term change, depending on the feedback after tonight, if you guys notice, we've added 15 minutes there that says table discussions. And so one of the things that we're gonna try to do moving forward, again, if it's received well by you guys, and you find like it's beneficial, so let us know afterwards, is table discussions, have some conversation with groups of people around the topic at hand.

Because there is a lot of good knowledge that's in the room, that's not just from the panelists, and a lot of good experience from everybody who's out in the world doing work and being part of the real estate scene here, and so we want to make sure that we create some focused conversation around that. We'll have a quick table discussion, before we get to the panel, and then, obviously, there'll be Q and A after the panel discussion. So get your questions ready for that. As you all know, first, is anybody your first time, I guess? Probably a few people. So thank you all so much for coming. Our goal is to bring together the movers and shakers of the actual real estate scene.

And so if you know movers and Shakers, please invite them. If you don't know people and they're not movers and shakers, share the audio with them. Yeah, we got one in the front. And we always say is there's always a good opportunity to meet somebody in this room, so if you keep inviting good people, then the chances of meeting more good people and to have that positive reoccurring impact is going to exist. So please invite your friends. My name's Rodrigo. This is Zach. He'll introduce himself in a sack and fight. I've been buying houses here in the Asheville area since 2012, so I always like to say, if you have a house nobody else wants, Please let me know about it.

I might be the one interested in buying it, or if you have money that you're looking to put to work, let me know, because I'd be interested in using that money to buy said house.

Zac Ruiz [2:02] So, Zach, awesome, and with that great introduction, my name's Zach Ruiz. And tonight, I'll be your co-host in the capacity of the keeper of the datas. We're gonna be going over last month, actually, Zurie's report, because we're two days before the next one. And so we're gonna do some predictions and kind of give a little bit of a training class of how to interpret the data. If you don't know already, right? So we are about the net profit philosophy. And so, to us, the net profits philosophy means that you will profit from the sum total of your networking, education, and then transactions, right? So the first step to that is networking, and you're all in the room doing that right now.

For the networking component, usually we have a little bit different crowd mix up. But since this is more of an issue that affects Asheville as a city, we can see how many realtors are in the room, just raise hands. All right, a few, a few. Well, so, of the people who checked in, right now, in the room, we've got 10 listings for value at about 7 million bucks, and in the 12, the last 12 months, we've had 15 million in production done. So maybe you didn't check in, too. But generally, we'd like to get people to check in because we use that data. Maybe you took the poll as you were coming in. We'll bring that up, as well. The community is strong.

Also, for networking, if you take pictures of everything, if you could tag us, that would be great, and then it helps other people find you as well. So moving on to the education component, this is the 19th AVO meetup that we've had. You'll see here, also highlighted, number six was affordable housing. So we are trying to do this on an annual basis. This is an issue that affects, you know, Western North Carolina, but certainly Asheville, in a very real way. And so even though tackling affordable housing is kind of a very large problem, right? We firmly believe that we could probably solve that for one family, someone, if we show people how they can maybe incorporate that into their business.

And this is about being actionable, boots on the ground, grassroot movements one at a time. So you can see here, we've done just about 2,400 training hours, combining all of the ABL meetups and the people who have gone and everything. So we take training very, very seriously here. If you want to volunteer to help this happen, as you can see Scott over here on the ones and twos, you hopefully got checked in by some smiley faces and everything. Just send us an email, volunteer at AVLmeetup, a great way to network, and hopefully get more transactions down the pipeline.

Rodrigo Afanador [4:16] So the last piece is the transactions. I was very excited to talk about that part. And always say is part of the transactions is talking to the people, and, again, bringing good people to the same room, so you can network with good people. And that's always just going to happen after you do good networking education and transactions. So, one of the things that's important to that piece of the puzzle is knowing who has something that you have to offer or who has something that you need. As I mentioned at the beginning, right? Like, I'm oftentime looking for houses and money. And so, it's important for me to say that's what people know.

And we have something that makes it a lot easier, because I have to say it out loud, and maybe you don't want to stand in front of people and say it, and so you have the opportunity. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, sometimes you have the opportunity to look up in our member directory who's offering something. So this isn't just about, like, a product or service, it can also be about knowledge.

So there's people here who have a wide array of knowledge, and if you go to our members' directory, you can look up and say, oh, there's somebody who's experienced it, as you can see, there's a list up here, lending mobile home parks, multifamily, whatever the case might be, and it's a good opportunity to shortcut who you can ask that question to, so you can get a better answer quicker. So that's only going to work if you fill out your profiles, if you want to be a resource for people, or if you want to find out who might be a resource for you, fill out your profiles and take advantage of the member directory. Because as we say, more data, more better.

Zac Ruiz [5:41] Awesome. And so we're going to be releasing a video in a couple days that does all the usual house cleaning and cleanup that we do, just so we can get right into the meat of the data. But the one thing we didn't want to give up is community wins, and we've got some good ones this week. So since the last meetup, we had Parker, who had a baby? Parker with Plum Dog, who was one of the sponsors for our event. They just had their child. Also, Scott Elliott. You'll notice they're not here, 'cause they are new fathers. They had a baby as well. Um, we got an intern. There she is. She's gonna be helping us write some articles. Um, so that's super cool.

Rodrigo Afanador [6:18] So we also do audio, but not everybody wants to sit down and listen to an hour audio. So now, hopefully, you can sit down and read a five minute, or however long it takes to read something.

Zac Ruiz [6:28] And if you don't like it, direct all the questions over there. I got that from Jay Z. Ray Ray usually helps with all of the volunteering, and everything is on a mission right now, so we wish her the best, and hope that she's doing the good work out there. And then, if you didn't know, we had this thing called the Net Profit Summit, and it was awesome. We are gonna be releasing a video and sending out an email, so, um, everyone, yeah. We have to figure out how to share. We have some people right now. Check out the video. It's only, like, two minutes long or so, a minute 30. Give you a recap of what happened. It was incredible. It really, really, really was a good time.

We're gonna have the videos and audios of that coming out, sir. We also had our first mixer. was last month, and it was awesome. And Scott over here got two deals from that mixer. So come to the transactions and talking to the people in the room. We got some friendly faces there that we can see in the crowd as well. That was awesome. Anyone else? Does anyone else have a win they want to share with the community?

Unknown [7:24] Nobody else is winning?

Zac Ruiz [7:25] All right. Suit yourselves. Once. Suit yourselves. Well, from now, we're gonna move into some hardcore data. So that was your chance to have fun. Um, but so, my name's Zachary Reese. I run the Ruiz Report. We're gonna be going over June, like I said, July comes out on the 3rd. But we've been doing this 40 months. So this month's gonna be a little bit different. We're gonna try to do something a little bit different here. Seeing as we have a couple days until the actual July report comes out. So even though the month's basically over and we could probably get 99% accurate, let's have some fun and predict, right? So at the region report, our mission is twofold, right?

The first part of the mission is to equip realtors with this data driven report, which is the Ruiz Report. It's only 10 slides. So the first thing on that is the first slide of the report, for the realtors in the room, and if you're dealing with one, is your slide. It's just marketing that says that it's coming from you, right? And the second part, which is what we're going to cover tonight, basically, is providing that industry leading training so that you can become the local economist of choice. And if you're not a realtor in the room and you pay very close attention to mine, you might know more than your realtor, next time you talk to them.

This is a very data driven approach to the market that's just kind of common sense we like to see. So for the training, there's really only one thing you need to know. It's how to read this little graph here. And so for the first three slides, we're going to go over that. The number on the left, the big number is what happened in that report month. And since we're going over June in Buncombe County, the number you see, not this number, but the number you see on the Lex slides is gonna be, what happened in that month? The top number on the right is going to be your month over month change. So what happened versus the previous month? And then the bottom number is year over year.

So we're going to get to see the month of a month change, and then the year over year change for all of these metrics, and that's it. It's that hard. Right? Then we got our colors and our arrows, right? So red is generally something that's declined, and green is something that's improved, that does not always correlate with up and down. Right? So if homes take longer to sell, then that is going up, that would be red, right? That would mean the market is getting harder. stagnating. But if prices go up, that would be green, right? Because all of these numbers are from the perspective of who controls the supply, which is the list. the listings, excuse me.

So at a glance activity, we have three things. New listings, how much new supply is going on. Under contract, how much of that supply is being taken off during the month, and then home sold. Home sold is an important metric to think of, because that's a lagging metric. We're going to go over that. Even though a home closed in June, it actually went under contract, most likely in May or previously. So, the homes that close in the month is a lagging metric from what happened. We'll see shortly, 60 ish days before, depending on your price range, all that fun stuff.

All you need to see here is that the bottom line, the year over year, is down, and pretty significantly, but that kind of makes sense, right? If you're coming off the highs of all highs, eventually something has to happen. So you have to think holistically on what's going on. We have an interest rate environment that's been dynamic. And so keeping that in mind is how we're going to go forward moving to this. So, for most people, what do you think is gonna happen? More new listings or less? Any guesses? All right, so of the vocal people, we're about split. That's awesome. That'll be fun. We're gonna send out an email on the third of what happened based on what everyone's saying here.

Right now, we're split, but we'll go with more for fun. Under contract, do you think buyers are still gonna think it's a good idea? Do you think buyers are gonna place those offers? More buyers? Less buyers? We got more buyers. And then home sold, lagging metric, you think more gonna sell, or down? You got it, we got down.s. All right, so moving on is velocity. This is the next slide. This is how quickly is inventory turning over? What's happening? We've got our median days on market, and from your stats class, I'm sure you all remember, the average is, if you take everything, add it up, and then divide it by how many, that's the average.

But the median days on market is, we're going to line up all the homes, from those homes that sold on the first day, to those homes that took forever to sell, in order, and we're just going to pick the middle one. Right? So the median days on market is telling us that 50% of the homes across all price ranges in June, when under contract in nine days, or less. We're gonna come back to that shortly. That's an increase. Now, these look like big percentages, but of a small number, so we don't get as scared about that. Month active listings is how much real estate is actually happening.

Even though you might log on and say, hey, well, there's only 10 homes in my price range, that's true at that moment. But if you were to count up all the homes that were available during the month, it would be a much larger number. So we can see that month over month, more inventory has been happening, right? More real estate has been happening, excuse me. And that's, like, kind of expected for this summer. And again, down from last year, but expected from record highs. And then month inventory is kind of your gauges supply and demand.

Months inventory is a super simple way to say that is if no new homes were added to the market, and homes continued selling at the rate that they've been selling, how long would it take for there to be no homes left? If you think of it of opening your fridge and you go, hmm, how much food do I have left if I don't go to the grocery store, that's how you would think of months inventory, right? Five to 7 is a medium, so let's call it six months, that's neutral. Above that, the buyers have more advantage, and below that, the sellers have advantage. So we are very, very, very low inventory. And that's kind of what's happening. That's kind of the story of what's happening.

We'll be talking later on about that. Right? So, do we think it's gonna take longer, or homes are gonna sell faster? Anyone brave enough? Faster. Do we think there's going to be more real estate or less going on in the coming months? We got less in the back. And then month's inventory, so supply, do we think supply is gonna increase or decrease? All right, decrease. Look at that. Fun. So, quick question before the next slide. Does anyone know the difference between the list sale and the original list to sale ratio? Seth. Well, he knows. So he's not gonna yell out.

All right, so I'll tell you, look, the average list of sale ratio is the average list of sale price, at the time the offer was made, that is a very, very important distinction. The original list of sale is the average list of sale price compared to the original list price. We're going to go over a really quick example of that, right? So home's listed for a billion dollars. And nobody buys it. But then that price is reduced to $100,000. And it closes for $100,000, which we now know is 100% list to sale. It got exactly, at the time the offer was made, They got what they were asking for that home. But the original list to sell, Well, that's less than a percent. Right? So why is this important?

Because this metric reveals how accurately realtors are pricing their homes. How well do they have a sense for the market? Or, like, how much of a sense of the market do they have? excuse me. So, going over this, your average list of sale, it looks like we're still basically getting the asking price, for the most part, across all price ranges, if we were to keep it broad. The average sales price in Bungum County was $595. That's not nothing. And talking about affordable housing tonight, that is one of the issues here. We have a very, very high cost of living as far as housing is concerned. And then the original list of sale, well, we're taking haircuts, right?

It's your provocate, or it's your, uh, you are allowed as the listing to push the market, to not leave money on the table, but they're adjusting in order to get sold. So it looks like there's about a 3% haircut, more or less, across all price ranges, for that first offer, if they haven't had a price reduction. So do we think the average is going to go up or down? Homes will be more expensive. Or list of sales, excuse me, are we pricing accurately? We're going to go with yes. Right? Sale price? Do we think it's going up? Up. Basically, everyone thinks up. An original list to sale, are we going to get better at pricing homes? Mixed reviews, but 97% is not too bad, guys.

So this month, we have a new thing. We added a column, which is the percentage under contract. And that's cool because it shows the demand with Enterprise range. Right? So of all the homes that's sold in June. We could see that 14% of them came in between $500 and $600,000. That plays into the average and median price, right? That makes sense. But you could see how much demand there is in your price range, and that's another good little tool to have into your belt. Just so you know, if you ever get one of these reports, If you click any one of those slides, it'll take clients to your website, keep them in your lead generating stuff, and it just looks like that.

So if you're looking at a Bunkum website and you click a price range, it'll filter it. So, great way to talk to clients on the slot, on the spot. If you're interested in, like, acquisition loops, how sending content to clients brings business and everything, if you go to the recording for the profit first, meet up that we ran, we give a whole class about acquisition loops and how to make sure that people stay with your funnels and your drip campaigns and everything. So now we're going to move on to the next part. And we call this the pretty shapes and colors, right? If you don't like math and your eyes glaze over well, you can look at this.

And all this is saying is the height of this bar is how much real estate is happening. And we can see that it dipped down, right? It dipped down coming into the winter months, and that makes sense, and then started rebounding into the summer. Every graph has this month, so that's June in the right, you could see, and then June on the left, with two months coming in. So that gives you some seasonality. Last year at this time, it looked like there was going to be more activity, and this chart kind of looks the same. So it suggests that coming into these final summer months, we will see more activity, but we won't know until it's over. Listing impendings, this is my favorite slide.

All right, so I even put a little pro tip down there. And I'll just read it. Keeping an eye on the difference between homes added to the market, which are new listings, and those taken off by going under contract is the best way to gauge supply and demand. So let's dig into that a little bit, right? This slide tells the story of supply and demand. So when the red bars above the green line, we can see that we added more homes. And when the red bar is below that gap, that's how many excess homes we took off, we did not replenish supply by that many homes. So going back to what happened, we can see that, even though there does seem to be a trend of adding a little bit more supply.

If you look between 431 and 438, like 100, you know, 100 homes is not gonna make a difference in this market, basically. It's showing us that supply and demand is very tight, and supply and demand directly affects prices. So even though we know that interest rates have been going up tremendously, right, the prices have not been going down, as you might have expected, because there is no other supply. If you have demand for a house right now, you just kind of have to pay what it costs. That's what's happening.

So even though this isn't up until the right, hockey stick like it used to be, if you look at our median, from one year to the next, we are still sloping upward to the right, prices are still appreciating. Now, what they're doing is decelerating, but every time you see a listing, have a price adjustment, no one agreed to buy it at that price. That's not the price coming down. Prices come down based on closed prices. What actually happened? What did the market agree to? Moving on there, we've got days on market, and that's how quickly our home selling. So back to our average in median. We always have reminders on all of the slides of what that means.

But the red is the average and the green is the medium. So we can see that across all price ranges, 50% of homes sold in 9 days or less when they were priced right. If not, they stagnated a little bit and went up to 26. We could see that we had a peak in the winter months, and that coincided with the rates rising, so it kind of made sense. We also do this in real time. So the software that we use to get the active listings from everybody, is called REMC.co. So this was as of this morning. As of this morning, in the 450 to 550 price range in Bunkum, which was there for our median, right? Of all the active homes, the median days on market was 58 days. What does this tell us?

That's telling us that 50% of the active homes have been listed for 58 days or more. Another way to say that is 50% of the homes that haven't sold yet have been on for at least 58 days. That is the story. So is the market tanking? Like, what's happening here? That seems like really, really high, even though we saw the median was nine. Well, let's look at those under contract homes. The under contract homes right now. Had a median of 15 days. So 50% of the pending homes, wind pending in 15 days or less. They priced according to the market. Now, back to the list sale. We don't know where they're going to end up. Maybe they aggressively price, they underpriced to get under contract quickly.

But the point is, they did it very quickly. So maybe things aren't dying just yet. Right? This is a data point for buyers and sellers. If you're a buyer you go, hey, you're stagnant. You've been on a long time, maybe you should consider a little bit of a haircut, a below ask price. And if you have a listing, you say, hey, you're stagnant, you've been on a long time. Maybe you should consider reducing your price. And you can go and show all the other listings that have sold. Contract to close. This is kind of out of everyone's control. It's once you're under contract. How long until the process is over? Right? And so right now, back to the homes are closing. It's a lagging metric.

Right now, it's about 50 days across all price ranges, and that's your inspections, your surveys, your closing attorneys, all the great lenders we have in the house tonight. They're the ones that are gonna give you the accurate number for your specific situation. And then contract to cash is, Hey, from the moment I list my house, how long till I get paid? Fun thing to say here is, the average was 76 days, but 50% of homes, as we know, with our median, right, did it in 47 days or less.

So if you're in communication with your realtor, if you're negotiating deals and everything like this, you know, hey, if I play the game right, if I listen to the market, I can list and then cash the check in 47 days or less, across all price ranges. Right? So the only formulas we have are this, and it's just adding and dividing. This is very, very accessible. If that was fast, we have trainings on our website. So we have it over an hour of on demand videos. Each side is explained individually and how it links to everything. Each graph is clarified, and agents are taught how to interpret the common patterns, and you learn these conversational scripts to use with your buyer and seller clients.

Right? So social media graphics. Anyone have any questions? Market related questions. Oh, Mr. Romero. So the question, we're going more comment here. And it's about the distinction between new construction homes and homes that are being resold, essentially, right? And so that is an important distinction. Those are not the same product necessarily, other than being housing. But that's why we use the average and the medium. So the median kind of takes care of those outliers. That's one of the ways you do it. Obviously, you need a large enough sample size. So if the median price in, like, $2 million price range, well, if only four homes sold, that's no good.

But across the whole county, where you have hundreds, even though, so that's, like, the shape of the graph, right? Even though it's skewed to the right, right, that's where it messes with your average, the median takes care of that with a large enough simple size for the most part. The question was about days on market being really high and not really represented what's going on, because new construction homes sit there for a bit. That's kind of like the show home. A talk for an offline time, but yes, absolutely. All right, so look, we're actually gonna let you talk amongst yourselves, right? So we're gonna give you five minutes. We're gonna flash the lights.

Everyone's gonna be so respectful and come back when that happens. And so, basically, look, do you think the second half of the year is gonna be up until the right, flat or down? All right, so we'll start the timer for five minutes. We see you in a little bit. Talk amongst yourselves.

Rodrigo Afanador [22:37] All right. So really quickly, just so we can take advantage of everybody having this conversation. We're gonna do a show of hands. If you think it's one, we're gonna raise our hands. If you think it was two, raise your hands, et cetera. All right, so, if you think the market in the second half of the year is gonna go up into the right, raise your hand. So very few people think it's gonna go up into the right. All right. If you think the market's gonna stay flat this year, raise your hand. And if you think the market's gonna go down this year, raise your hand. All right, lots of optimism. So, we are going to, um, oh, there's a recap. I always forget the slides. All right.

Overall, everybody feels optimistic, flat or up into the right, that's a good place to be. So, we are going to do these table topics that are going to be based around affordable housing, and picture's worth a thousand words. So instead of prompting you with the question, we're gonna do the very high level thinking, and we're gonna prompt you with a very good meme and stud. So, the idea is, we're gonna give you two memes. We're going to do one each, but we're a little bit behind schedule. So we're going to show you two memes. Please, like, in the group that's around you, take an opportunity, talk about what you think the meme is saying, whether it's true or not.

And what your opinion is of it, and then we'll come back in five minutes, as we're having our little meme more at our table. If the speakers want to come up, that would be awesome. We can kind of start getting that process started. So, meme number one.

Zac Ruiz [24:32] And then, so the undercurrent of this one is zoning regulations, right? Is it zoning regulations that are actually preventing us from building this middle housing and the affordable housing? Or is it the horrible investors that keep going for those single family spec home?

Rodrigo Afanador [24:47] And then Q to meme tooth? it is. So, obviously, a lot of conversation around affordable housing centers on supply. There's also other components of that. So take it where it goes. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Why? We'll probably go three minutes, go. Discuss. And then panelists, please come on up.

Unknown [25:11] All right.

Rodrigo Afanador [25:13] So, thank you guys all for being here once again. It's a moment we've all been waiting for to have the panel discussion on affordable housing here in the Asheville area. Thank you all for coming out tonight, and thank you guys, audience are coming. We will do the Q&A at the end. So if you have questions, go ahead and jot them down. We'll circle back around, and, of course, try to give every buddy an opportunity to get their questions answered by the panelists if we have enough time. So, without further ado. Thank you all for being here. I'd love it if we can start. Maybe we can start with you, Sasha.

Just maybe how your organization's defining affordable housing, if you guys all define it the same way, then just say ditto, and maybe who you are, what how you guys define it, and maybe what your focus is right now on addressing it, or trying to work with the problem.

Sasha Vrtunski [26:05] Sure. This is live. Okay. Hi, everyone, I'm Sasha Vertinski. I work with the city of Asheville. I am the Affordable Housing Officer. It's not my favorite title. It sounds very officious. I am a planner by training, and I was in planning in urban design for many years. You might know me from that. We had actually thought, well, we assigned who was going to answer this question. We didn't know you were going to ask all of us for this, but I think we defined affordable housing as, um, generally how most people define it as, when someone doesn't have to pay any more than 30% of their income for their housing needs.

In Asheville, for our programs, we are focused on 80% of area median income and below. We have different programs, kind of target different AMIs, and our area median income. Sorry, that's jargon. And I'll stop there. Oh, past you.

Traci Thompson [27:02] Yeah, so our definition is, oh, I'm Tracy. Hello? Uh, I am with Land of Sky Regional Council, so I am a housing planner for the region, and to explain the footprint of Land of Sky. We have Bunkum, Madison, Henderson, and Transylvania, that we're working alongside. And um, right in line with what Sasha was saying, yes, um, paying over 30% of your income is actually what we call housing cost burdened, and we'll probably touch on that later. And, um, most of our programming is focused on housing for folks that are at 80% area median income and below.

Jonathon Jones [27:49] Good evening. I'm Jonathan Jones. I'm with the Buncomb County Community Development team. I have been with the county for about 6 months prior to that. I spent 8 years working with community development team at the city of Asheville, so Sasha and I have worked together before, but have worked on affordable housing, working on addressing homelessness in the area and federal grant programs like CDBG and home. So the definition of affordability is the same for the county, but we don't just pick that number out of the air when we're looking at 80%. We're following federal and state guidelines on who we can focus resources on basically helping those in that low mod income category.

We're not just making it up as we go along.

Rodrigo Afanador [28:43] All right, awesome. Sasha, you mentioned you guys were going to answer these questions separately. I don't want to create a redundancy loop here by accident. So if you guys have similar answers, just feel free to pass and we'll kind of work through them, but It'd be good to have an idea for maybe, again, maybe if it's the same answer for all of you, it'll be a little quicker, but what do I feel, Sasha, at least at the city and for you guys at the county and land of Sky, what's the most pressing issue, or what's the biggest, you know, brick that you guys want to lay 1st to start solving this issue?

Sasha Vrtunski [29:20] Not sure what the biggest problem is. Obviously, there's a it's complex, right? And I don't think there's any one thing, that's the answer. Financing, obviously, right now is a huge deal. It was a big deal before trying to get affordable properties built. One of the questions was about, is this a longstanding problem? And I'm sorry, I'm jumping way ahead, but, you know, when I first moved here in 1995, I interned at the Affordable Housing Coalition of Asheville and Buncombe County. So that tells you, like, for the past 30 years, affordable housing has been focus of this community.

So it hasn't, it's been a long standing problem, and it's just getting more and more attention, especially as more people live here, and it becomes harder and harder to move here. I think at the city, we tend to focus right now, our dollars on rental housing, and we basically try to fund the gap between for a developer's gap and depending. different kinds of developers, right? So we have program, a program for market developers. We've got a program, our housing trust fund, tends to be more for developers specializing in affordable housing, so it might be a low income housing tax credit program. In both instances, we are looking at the gap.

We're trying to make up that gap to make it doable for that developer to build an affordable unit, either rental or affordable, or, excuse me, homeownership. We al yeah, I'll stop there. I'm going to try not to talk too much tonight because I can do that really easily. We also use city owned land to try to promote affordable housing and get it developed, and we also have fee rebates, which is a little bit smaller tool in our toolbox. So the city of Asheville has been in this game for 20 years, over 20 years. Our housing trust fund started in 2001. So we're in it for the long haul.

Traci Thompson [31:10] Um, I can speak from more of the regional perspective. One of the data points that I found recently is that, well, in state level. North Carolina lost more affordable units than any other state over, I believe, a past, deeply affordable, or the past decade. And I know y'all are going to talk about Bunkum and Asheville, but Bunkum cost has risen over 40% over the past 3 years. Asheville's cost is near the top quarter of the nation. Um, So from our 2021 report, the Bowen needs report that projected to 2025 for my 4 counties, we needed 7700 rental units by 2025, and that's um, all the way up to 120% area median income, and um, 1800 for the region for um, ownership.

Some of our problems in the region are also that we have very low voucher use going on for my 4 counties. Also, our rural counties have a much harder time accessing state and federal funding. And an important point is that, so 19% of our homeowners are cost burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs, and importantly, 50% of our renters are experiencing house cost burden for those 4 counties.

Jonathon Jones [32:47] So a lot of that is true for Buncombe County as well. I think the area's biggest successes were a popular place to be, present some of those same challenges. People come here because they like the atmosphere, they like the environment, but it can also be a challenging place to construct housing and invest in infrastructure, especially in outlying areas of the county.

Rodrigo Afanador [33:15] Yeah, awesome. Thank you guys so much for laying some groundwork. Next few questions. Doesn't have to be for everybody, so chime in as desired. You guys talked about a lot of different ways from, you know, government level, you're trying to affect change and get involved. And I was wondering if there's any examples that you're looking at, in other cities or other municipalities that have had a successful outcome for any of the programs that you're working through right now. Whereas this kind of everybody's on the cutting edge and it's constantly evolving and there isn't somebody to look at.

Sasha Vrtunski [33:49] I will say that here, we've been looking a lot at Charlotte and in the triangle area, and I actually, I get together with the triangle folks on a quarterly basis and talk with them. In Charlotte, they do, you know, I don't know if how many of you were here, and how many of you were here in 2016? All right, so most of you. So we, our city, if you are a city resident, and you voted, hopefully, you voted on a bond. So we passed an affordable housing bond in 2016 for 25 million. Very likely that's going to happen again in next year, next fall in 24. Charlotte does those every two years, is my understanding. And they do big bonds, like $50 million bonds.

And when they did theirs, I'm not sure exactly what year, but they also challenged, at the same time, they challenged the corporate community to also raise money. You know, obviously, Charlotte's a banking center, and we don't have those big corporations, but they raised almost an equal amount of money, or maybe, or more, possibly, for another fund that supplements the affordable housing development. So they have a fund that developers are able to access. So it's not through the government, but so they can layer, you know, affordable housing developers are usually layering funding to get to their, to make the numbers work. So we look at Charlotte. We also look at Chapel Hill and Raleigh Wake.

They're doing pretty innovative things.

Unknown [35:12] I'll stop there.

Zac Ruiz [35:13] No, no, this is great. Are these general or revenue bonds, do you know?

Sasha Vrtunski [35:17] General obligation bonds?

Zac Ruiz [35:19] And do you guys do any, like, public private partnerships or anything along these lines?

Sasha Vrtunski [35:23] Um, yes. Okay.

Zac Ruiz [35:28] Yeah, for the distinction, there's essentially 2 types of bonds, right? General bonds is with the taxing power, right? of the city or the state. And revenue bonds is kind of like, think of a toll road. The tolls start paying the bonds back. And so back to ways to kind of solve things, different ways to go about that. So, interesting. Cool. Thanks.

Rodrigo Afanador [35:47] Thank you, Sasha. Jonathan, Tracy, do you guys want to chime in on that?

Traci Thompson [35:53] Um, just examples, uh, multiple examples of uh, either universities or um, churches, sometimes offering land for land trust or land banks, um, also, um, examples of employers, assisting with affordable housing for their employees as well.

Unknown [36:17] I will say sorry. Go for it.

Sasha Vrtunski [36:21] So really quickly, Another thing that we're seeing from other cities, and not even just in North Carolina, our cities are setting up funds. They call them preservation funds, and they are funds to enable either the city or developer to buy an apartment complex before it gets sold and gets completely rehabbed and raise the price to keep it affordable. You may be familiar with the term NOA, naturally occurring, affordable housing. So that's something we want to look at. This is my big plug for the night.

If you only remember, one thing that I tell you today is that we are about to start an affordable housing plan, we are kicking it off in September, we will be looking for participation in that, and we are going to be valuating what we've been doing for the past 10, 20 years. How can we change it, how can we tweak it? What should we start doing? And then if we do a bond, how should what should it be our priorities, and how should we be spending our money? So that's my big plug for the night. I won't say it over and over.

Rodrigo Afanador [37:17] Please, yeah, great. We'll circle back on that, though, in a bit. Jonathan, Tracy, you guys want to add to anything? If not, all right, next question. So, we're gonna dive into the short-term rental conversation a little bit. I shared with you guys ahead of time, but Land of Sky did a, I guess, an assessment or an investigation throughout a 3rd party, and it came back basically saying that short-term rentals are not impacting housing affordability in Buncombe County area. Obviously, I think a lot of people would disagree with that.

And so I was just wondering, what's your all stance on that or if you have an opinion or if there's any interest or conversation from the county city or regional level and conducting a study that would maybe have a different result or have a different viewpoint?

Jonathon Jones [38:07] I think everybody's looking at short-term rentals right now and trying to figure out what the trends and what the impacts are. I think as we look at just the numbers. So, like, I think the estimate you provided said something in the neighborhood at 3%. of units in the county are being used as short-term rentals. And so if you look at how many units there are in the county, um, somewhere in the neighborhood of 130,000, a small percentage of a large number is still a large number. So you're talking somewhere around 4000 units. So that maybe across various price points, but it does take up some of the inventory.

Zac Ruiz [38:56] So the question is, what percentage of those homes are subsidized for the owner themselves? Are subsidizing the ownership.

Jonathon Jones [39:04] So leveraging the short term, that I don't know as far as funding coming from like state and local governments, those, that's mainly...

Rodrigo Afanador [39:21] There's no way that government, I would have to reread the study, but I'm pretty sure it was full house short-term rental, so it wasn't taken into account, like basement apartments that have an Airbnb or an ADU or anything like this. That's why it's not applicable to city of Asheville because nobody's going to say that. They have a short-term rental in the city of Asheville.

Sasha Vrtunski [39:44] Right, I don't think local government would ever have that information at hand. We don't collect, we've got real bounds on what we can collect from people, so...

Rodrigo Afanador [39:52] But sorry, were you just a small percentage of a large number is a large number. Yes. Did I get that? Yeah, okay.

Unknown [40:01] Tracy?

Traci Thompson [40:04] Uh, yeah, it would be interesting to see, like, the proportion of ownership that's non-residential, non-local, right? compared to your neighbor that's using it as a source of income that lives on the property, that different purposes. But yeah, I think the simple math is, you know, limited stock, if you're using it for short-term rental versus long-term, affordable rental, you know, it's pretty simple math, it affects it. And I think some of these arguments fall apart completely because of the context of our hot market, if we weren't so popular. It wouldn't be as impactful, you know, these short term rentals, but we need everything we can get.

Rodrigo Afanador [40:55] All right, so this kind of leads us to the conversation of what government does, which is legislation and rules and regulations. I think an example of that, we could look at city of Ashville, not allowing short-term rentals inside of city limits, and things of that nature, or also how hard it had been in the past to have a mobile home inside the city of Asheville. So as far as regulations like that go, Is there anything that you guys believe that you would want to see in place or that is coming down the pipeline that you are advocating for, either to implement or maybe to take the chains off of?

Sasha Vrtunski [41:26] Sure. So, just this past session in the General Assembly, there was a law, there was a bill to make some changes to the North Carolina Building Code. And one of those was to take duplex, maybe not duplex, triplexes and quadruplexes out of the commercial code, and put it into residential code, which is something we've been talking about internally at the city for a long time. It would be a great thing. And apparently, the bill, I think, got killed for a totally different reason, unrelated. Like, for something else was objectionable. The governor vetoed it, because it passed. I think both the House and the Senate.

Zac Ruiz [42:02] It's coming up for vote on the 7th again, right to representatives. They make a super majority to kick it across the line.

Sasha Vrtunski [42:08] It would be a great thing, because we know that, you know, when you're in the commercial code for people who aren't in this world, you start to have to sprinkler your buildings, which becomes very expensive. So it's a big cost burden. And to me, that's way more important than zoning in a way. I think, um, Zoning, we have a missing middle study. I'll do another plug. I said I wasn't going to do another one, but we have a missing middle workshop this Friday from 4 to 7 at Harris Cherokee Center. That study, missing middle, is not the solution to affordable housing. It's not. It's a great thing. It's important, it's density.

It could be affordable, but it's nothing's guaranteed about it to be affordable. So that's something we're looking at as a city. I really want to look at how could we get some really big numbers of units on our commercial corridors. Our neighborhoods really have a hard time with density, and I'm not saying they're off the hook at all. as a planner. But we've got some land that's got, like, low, slung, one story buildings all... I mean, just masses, amounts of parking. Like, how are we using our land? In Asheville, we're landlocked, we can't annex. You know, everybody hates us, so we're really limited in what we can do. So we got to make the most of what we have.

So that's what we've been trying to do at the city for a long time. And it really hasn't worked to just legislate it.

Rodrigo Afanador [43:35] Continue plugging that.

Sasha Vrtunski [43:36] Yeah, it hasn't worked to just legislate it. It really is going to have to involve partnerships with landowners and property. Maybe that's where some of you can come into play. I mean, it has to be a cooperative effort. Cool.

Rodrigo Afanador [43:48] Thank you, Sasha. Jonathan, or...?

Jonathon Jones [43:50] No, real quick, though, what happened to you a lot, is that the residents here have this mentality of that in my backyard.

Rodrigo Afanador [43:58] So that happens a lot. Can we come we're gonna come back to the question. Sorry, or else, we are gonna be here all night, which some of us might be okay with, and the rest of us might not be, so they wanted to give Jonathan Tracy an opportunity to answer that question as well.

Jonathon Jones [44:12] So, one of the tools that local government has in their toolbox is zoning, and looking at the single family zoning communities across the country, have been looking at ways to eliminate that, or reduce that, to help make those options, like the duplexes and the triplexes, and multifamily housing of all shapes and sizes, in more places in the community. So I think that's really one of the tools that could help alleviate some of the issues around affordable health.

Zac Ruiz [44:47] Are you saying that there may be some legislation that will address that or you're saying that's what you would perhaps like to see to try to address that?

Jonathon Jones [44:55] I think right now, Buncombe County only has one district that's zoned for single family, but that means that there's opportunity for those other types. And I think that's something that the city's also looked out in the past as well.

Rodrigo Afanador [45:13] All right, so I know that personal experience, I'm sure anybody who's done anything working in the counter, you're developing like public utilities is always going to be something that limits your, you know, buildable footprint or unit size. Is there anything that you guys are aware of that might have some, that might speed up some of the utility growth into the county that would allow for some of the land that is unused to be used higher density sooner rather than later?

Unknown [45:43] Jonathan?

Jonathon Jones [45:45] So, the county just, um, approved a, uh, the 2020 or 2043 comprehensive plan, so that's the document that's intended to guide uh, county regulations, and uh, affordable housing, and green space, the whole 9 yards over the next 20 years. And that will basically, um, equip the planning staff to begin looking at text amendments and ordinances and determining how is it that we make those changes happen throughout the county. So looking at utilities, sewer, water, power, and making these developments possible.

Zac Ruiz [46:32] Awesome. And for everyone at home or in the audience, in our show notes, thanks to our amazing new intern, we will get all these links from you. and be able to share with everyone.

Rodrigo Afanador [46:41] So I do want to move to Audience Q and A. I'm assuming there's some questions. Do you have questions or should we keep going? a couple of questions. Okay, so we'll come back. So we'll get to you guys very quickly. I know from a landlord perspective, conversation around rent control, I'm never really excited about it, but it'd be remiss to not bring it up and ask if what's the opinion from the county and city levels? Is that being part of the solution, or is that off the table? I hope it's off the table. Tracy is ready.

Traci Thompson [47:14] It is not legal in North Carolina. So you'd have to talk to state legislators. I met more from, like, from an organization perspective.

Rodrigo Afanador [47:24] Is that something that you'd want to see different, right? We did talk about different regulations that we'd like to see loosened around like duplexes. So same question applies here.

Sasha Vrtunski [47:33] That's where I'm gonna be the bureaucrat, and I'm gonna say, I would defer to city council on that. We haven't really discussed it as an organization. I mean, if city council had passed a resolution or discussed it and said, Yes, we want rent control. I'd tell you that, but we haven't, I'm not gonna jump out there. I think there's pluses and negative... I mean I don't know about the negatives. And I think it's complicated, right? I mean, New York City has rent control, but it doesn't mean every single unit is controlled. So I feel like if a big city like that is functioning somewhat, you know, it must work for some folks, and, I mean, I think it helps some folks stay in housing, for sure.

Zac Ruiz [48:08] Thank you for taking a stab at it. And we will say that these opinions are your own, and not representative of the organizations you are a part of.

Traci Thompson [48:17] Yeah. I mean, with that caveat, then, yes, rent control, in my opinion, is needed. I mean, I just listed off all of the numbers of folks who are experiencing cost burden. So, it's just one tool. It's none of the stuff we talk about is like the silver bullet solution. It takes all of it. So, but yes, that would be helpful, but we'd have to talk to North Carolina legislators to get that explicitly approved.

Unknown [48:50] Jonathan?

Jonathon Jones [48:52] I'm gonna follow the same response. At the county, we really focus on the tools that we can use rather than the tools that we don't have access to right now and rent control is one of them at the state level.

Rodrigo Afanador [49:06] Fair enough. So I'm going to pin you down on the tool question, because I think it's a great example. Obviously, there isn't one tool that's going to solve it. I think there's probably consensus on that. We'll go to Q and day after this, but I probably did not word it very well at the beginning, but curious to know, what is the tool that you guys are using the most right now in your organizations or you're feeling that is the most effective right now. Not even as a long-term solution necessarily, but in the moment, where are you focusing time and energy, what's the tool of choice?

Sasha Vrtunski [49:39] I mean, I guess the majority of what we do is money. Is that a tool? So, really, that's the main thing we do. You know, we have a housing trust fund, which does low interest loans, 2% between 0 and 2% loans. We have a land use incentive grant. We are opening our cycle once a year right now. It was ongoing, but we just don't have the capacity to do it on a constant basis right now. So in December, that will open up. And the decisions made by city council by April. So there's some months. The application deadline is usually in February, and we've coordinated this with the county. Our funds kind of open and close at the same time. It's very flexible.

It allows for new construction, rehabilitation, down payment assistance... So money. Yeah, some loans. And then we also have a land use incentive program where we work with market rate developers, usually, where if you commit to doing at least 20% of your units, at least has to be at least two units. These are usually bigger projects. You've probably read about, there was one in the paper just last week. So 20% of your units, affordable for 20 years, at 80% AMI. That gets you, that's the baseline. If you do that, we will grant back if council approves it, we will grant back 4 years of your taxes.

Now there's a whole point chart, and there's ways to earn more points, and you can get up to about 21 years, at the most, of taxes repaid. So the one that council just passed, last Tuesday, was 1900000 over 21 years. So it's pretty significant. Awesome.

Rodrigo Afanador [51:18] Thank you, Jonathan, Tracy.

Jonathon Jones [51:19] So yes, the 3 main tools that we've got. We've got... Just your favorite, just your favorite tool. Yeah, well, we've got regulation. We've got partnerships, but then funding is the is really the one that we hit the most home runs with right now. And in addition to the funding in dollar amounts. We also have county owned land, so we're in the process of looking at ways to take underutilized county land and find the highest and best uses, and one of those being affordable housing. Cool.

Unknown [51:53] Awesome. Thank you. Tracy?

Traci Thompson [51:59] We, I kind of look at our work in a macro and micro way, so, I mean, we offer a lot of technical assistance to local governments. So with grant writing and grant administration or site feasibility. Um, But also right now, working in a macro lens as far as acting as a convener or facilitator for, especially our rural areas that need more access to our state agencies. So trying to communicate the barriers that they're experiencing. Okay.

Rodrigo Afanador [52:36] Awesome. Thank you. All right, so we'll do Q and day. Mike, you can go first. Since I cut you off, and we'll be repeating the question just for everyone at home. But then get ready, everybody else. Okay, so the question is the lack of teamwork between developers and the city?

Jonathon Jones [52:53] The locks of my guests, where are we not helping a licensing economy, not helping any incentivizing development, to create a formulable household. Because aside from a non-house opportunity, who else is creating a very reversionally rental? But aside from a housing opportunity, who else is creating affordable housing in any sort of massive experience?

Rodrigo Afanador [53:16] All right, that's an incredibly hard question to repeat. So, do my best here. It seems, from a developer's perspective, that there is not a lot of, maybe, transparency or support and doing large scale development, and there seems to be arbitrary fees associated with some of the, uh, the question is, how can developers better cooperate with the government to get their projects along?

Zac Ruiz [53:55] From a concerned citizen.

Sasha Vrtunski [53:57] We started at Nimbism, and we... asking for a friend. So I guess I would say a couple things. One thing, and this is probably not the answer you want, but I do think this planning process is going to help us get there. Part of my goal for this plan is that, at the end of it, that we're all on the same page, that developers, council, staff, and the community are all on the same page. Is your project have affordable housing in it? Did your project have affordable housing in it? Okay. Um, I was just curious.

Traci Thompson [54:33] You have, right. You have to eat.

Sasha Vrtunski [54:40] So, I don't know if I should... So, I brought my rent. I brought my rent tables with me, so an affordable rent for a two bedroom unit at 80% AMI, with utilities included is $1,530 And that came out in June from HUD. So we use the HUD standards. But I guess what I'm saying is, I think we're open to talking with developers. There's a few ideas out there that have been discussed publicly, like, should there be a different threshold for going to city council for affordable projects. We've been talking for a long time internally about an expedited review process, so you can get through it sooner. I was telling these guys that people think our process is awful in Asheville, and it's really not.

If you go to Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill just created an expedited review process for affordable housing, and you want to know how long it takes, 6 months, which is what is our normal process. So for them, you know, in other communities, it's actually much worse. And I'm not saying we're perfect. But I think staff is totally open to working with folks. Now, the fee in lieu, sidewalks are a hard thing to argue with, you know, because we need sidewalks, and there's no way they just don't create themselves.

Jonathon Jones [55:58] If we don't collect money or we don't get them built. by the way, that was, you know, my wife, I think my wife was the fee in lieu of, right, because there was no sidewalk. So instead of now me, now I got to divide that $40,000 by the amount of units, because somebody's got to, it's got to come on the block. The point there is the collaborative working with. and it sounds like the city's doing the lot internally. I think what I'm trying to say is the city the there are not a lot of big developers here town, there's only a few of us is, you know, pick up the phone and call us and let's together let solve the issue.

Rodrigo Afanador [56:33] Okay, so I'm gonna jump in really quickly. I am sure that you guys are gonna hang out for a couple minutes afterwards. Think that's more of a, not a question and more of a conversation as entertaining as it might be. But give anybody else on the panel an opportunity to talk about working with developers, if you guys want to quickly, and if not, we'll move on to questions.

Traci Thompson [56:56] I was just going, is this on?

Zac Ruiz [57:01] We have someone turning on your mic. It just made me do a little. Hello?

Traci Thompson [57:05] Oh, okay. So you can produce, from what I understand legally, local governments can assist developers, but either all units have to be below 80% AMI or if you go above 80% AMI, 20% have to be 60% AMI. So just putting that out there, if that helps with numbers at all.

Rodrigo Afanador [57:32] Alright, cool. Jonathan, do you have anything to add or your second?

Jonathon Jones [57:37] I guess the quick plug would be to, you know, win local government goes to develop processes like this. A lot of times it's a public process. And so here's this like civic duty plug, attend those meetings, give your feedback. I think we want to, I think we want, we want to come to events like this and share ideas and then also be able to pick up the phone. And when something does go wrong, but like part of that's informed by a very public process. And we're asking for people's opinions. And it's usually not attended this well when we have a public meeting.

Rodrigo Afanador [58:12] Never a bad thing for more involvement from the community, right? All right, so I think there's a question around here somewhere.

Unknown [58:19] Oh, go for it, Mitch.

Zac Ruiz [58:23] Okay, so 1st there was the great plug of the night to do your civic duty and get involved in local government. Following on that, we had another incredible collaborative question from the MSR side, and it's basically, what can we do to work with you more efficiently? And I believe the last paraphrase was, is there a tool that is not in your tool belt that we can help provide? Is that about right?

Unknown [58:44] All right.

Zac Ruiz [58:46] Apparently, it's going to Jonathan.

Jonathon Jones [58:49] Forgo commission. No takers, no.

Rodrigo Afanador [58:57] Did you say run for office?

Jonathon Jones [58:58] I said forego commission on sales. I.. I was put up to that. He said run for office. No, I guess, to say, one thing to know is within local government, as you've kind of heard us touch on, is a lot of the things that we can do are defined by the state. So if there's any advocacy, if there's any sort of reaching out at the state level, if there's any associations that you're involved with that have a voice at that table, that's also another way to be involved. And it may not be, like, here's a specific tool, or here's a check with a dollar amount written on it, but sort of helping the state level legislators understand what tools local communities need.

And they may not be the same for every community, but helping helping share that message.

Sasha Vrtunski [1:00:00] I have a list of things you can do that won't make you money, but, um, that are not necessarily, so I don't know if they are what you mean, really at all, but I do think, and this was the topic last year, was, you know, accepting vouchers for your units is a huge thing. Um, I think, you know, we have understanding Asheville's history at a deeper level is really important when we, sometimes we see developers come into a community, and they want to do something, and they haven't taken any time to understand the community that they want to build in, and then they don't understand. And this is not always the case. There's nimbism here. Don't get me wrong, I know that.

But sometimes the neighborhood says, Stop, we don't want this. And if you don't understand what the history of that community is, it can be baffling, but it's really on you to understand what you're walking into. you're kind of newer to this community. Um, I think we've got community organizations here, like the community land trust, could, you know, which I was on the board of there. I'm not on them right now, but They're trying to do permanent affordability, and they can, I know, Buckshaw is a great partner and really helps the organization, but there's always room for more developers, realtors, other folks to help them. What's my last thing?

And I think there's other there's community-based groups with amazing visions, and they could really use development partners.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:01:19] Thank you. All right, so we have a little bit of a ba- Oh, yes, Tracy, you get priority, yes.

Traci Thompson [1:01:28] Developers that are in the live tech world could assist other developers that have are trying to enter that world as well. I know that's not gonna help, you know, I know it's a competitive market, but, um, if we do want to see more development in general, then that would be a way to help other folks who are trying to get into that market. But developers can't get into lie tech, low-income housing tax credit, sorry, for anybody. It doesn't know what that is. Without already having experience, so they have to partner with someone that does have experience. So, um, I know it's not the nature, maybe, of the industry, but collaboration would be helpful.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:02:11] Thank you. All right, so I think we have, like, 4 questions. They'll probably take us to time. Oh man, 7 questions now. I think, Jack, you had a question, right? You're next. So.

Zac Ruiz [1:02:24] The question is, for what I heard, basically community co-ops for real estate, is this right? Okay, is there anything on the docket, sort of? Is that something that the local governments are looking into? And not to be short, we do want to go to a point.

Sasha Vrtunski [1:02:41] Yeah, I don't think we have anything right now. I think sometimes the best thing that government can do is get out of the way, right? So, um, we're aware of that. Every time, Sasha. I know how to get applause, right? Now, we're aware of Emma, and they do amazing work, and so, um...

Traci Thompson [1:02:57] If there are lenders in the room, um, kind of stretching your, uh, thinking outside the box, like, for land trust, cooperative housing, they have a harder time receiving, uh, funding. So that would be helpful to consider. Okay.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:03:17] All right. So Behind, sorry, yes, you go, not Chris. Oh, no, ladies first, please. Yes.

Zac Ruiz [1:03:28] The provocative question was. What are the top three things you would change, if you could, at the state level, yeah? I believe so. Three short things.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:03:40] Who's jumping on that one?

Zac Ruiz [1:03:41] One each.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:03:43] Oh, Mr. Larson. here with...

Unknown [1:03:46] Give the man a mic.

Sasha Vrtunski [1:03:47] I will answer this just for myself, not for the city of Asheville, but I would say inclusionary zoning, where inclusionary zoning, it doesn't mean we'd have to do it, but at least give us the option to do it.

Unknown [1:04:00] Cool.

Traci Thompson [1:04:02] So that's one. For rent and for sale. Sorry. Oh, Lord. Well, the building code for duplex, Triflex, Quaplex. That would be helpful.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:04:18] Cool. And then Jonathan? Fifth Amendment, full effect here.

Jonathon Jones [1:04:27] You could change to the home rule. I mean, that's the differences between our state and other states where what local government is allowed to do is defined by the state legislature rather than delegated to the community. that it serves.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:04:43] I'm sorry, what can you do?

Jonathon Jones [1:04:45] The home rule. So, the North Carolina is not home rule, meaning... Dylan's rule. It's Dylan Trule, which means local government's half can only do what the state specifically permits them to do.

Unknown [1:05:01] Right. Got it. Cool.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:05:04] All right. Great question. Thank you guys. Thank you, Chris. All right.

Zac Ruiz [1:05:08] I think we had, oh, we're just going to the other side of the room. Sorry, guys, it's been monopolized. But we'll come back. Does anyone mind if we run over? Is everyone somewhat interested in this?

Rodrigo Afanador [1:05:17] We do want to keep some time for everyone to network, but it seems that let's run over by 5 minutes if that's okay with everybody, and that'll give us the opportunity to hit the last few questions. So yes. That was a mouthful. Go for it.

Zac Ruiz [1:05:34] The question is, is the city looking into rezoning non-residential properties to address the affordable housing issue?

Sasha Vrtunski [1:05:47] We, you know, the city actually did a rezoning just a year ago called Urban Center rezoning, and it didn't really turn out the way it was supposed, ideally it was supposed to. And then it was an attempt to make urban commercial, some parts of our city and commercial coorders or nodes, if you will, more urban in form, and it tried to force that, and it had some affordable housing things in there. So that's really not maybe what you're asking. I would love to see it happen.

I'm hoping that our affordable housing plan recommends that, and actually, we're looking at getting a NC State intern this fall, who could, like, map our commercial corridors and really look at the density possibilities there. I haven't told planning this yet. So I'm telling Hunter this, but, yeah. So I'm working on it.

Unknown [1:06:38] All right, yeah. Julia? Well.

Zac Ruiz [1:06:45] There was an incredibly well chosen meme that said one does not simply solve affordable housing with supply, and that is very much the other side of the conversation. The question was, All right, supply notwithstanding. There's an issue with the economic side of it, the lower wages that bring your own jobs and stuff like that. Is there anything that you're distinguished organizations and government agencies are doing to address that issue?

Jonathon Jones [1:07:08] So when we look at affordable housing, There is the other side of it. There is creating new affordable housing, and then there is also making existing affordable housing affordable. So some of the partnerships that the county has with local nonprofits, Emma being one of them, where we're looking at the naturally occurring affordable housing, and doing emergency repairs on those to make them more affordable, sustainable for the families that are in them, so that they aren't displaced. The other component is funding tenant-based rental assistance.

So for extremely low income households, providing them with some of those short term, or even longer term rent assistance, and supportive services, especially when we're talking about people who have been experiencing homelessness. Um, I don't want to dominate that, but those are 2 examples of how we're trying to address that.

Sasha Vrtunski [1:08:10] So I'm a part of the community and economic development department, so the other, so there are economic development folks, which is kind of what, also what you're getting at. So we, the city of Asheville, and also through our CDBG program, we fund nonprofits that try to get at some of what you're talking about. We also, um, like helpmate. That's my on track financial counseling, some other agencies like that. We have a strategic partnership fund, which is looking to close the opportunity gap and create programming for young people. So trying to make sure young people are staying here and getting educated to get better jobs and kind of helping that whole chain of things that happen.

We actually have job openings coming for an economic development specialists that kind of getting at some of what you're talking about as well. So we work with the county and the economic development commission to do big economic incentive grants for bigger employers to try to get those higher wage jobs here. Some people might say that just attracts more people here, and it's kind of not working. But so we're trying to work on it, I guess is what I'd say.

Rodrigo Afanador [1:09:16] Thank you. All right, last question. If somebody wants. I know you've had your hand up. I will give you the last question. I am sorry, guys.

Zac Ruiz [1:09:27] The question is, given that Asheville and this, well, so given that Asheville has turned into kind of like a beacon for the remote work phenomenon, as we'll call it at this point, is there anything being done in the region to kind of make the rest of the region as attractive to that business model? Do we have anyone from the region on the...

Traci Thompson [1:09:51] Uh, we also have a separate department that's all for economic development. Um, I know a lot of the other counties are experiencing the, um, they're filling the lack of affordability from Bunkum. So they're long, you know, longer commute times. Um, I don't have an answer to that one. Are you asking what makes it more...

Rodrigo Afanador [1:10:20] How do we how do you make other counties? Western North Carolina have the same design. How does stickiness that actual has?

Zac Ruiz [1:10:27] How does Canton benefit from this? How do the surrounding cities and areas benefit from what is drawing Asheville? Because it's the same mountain, same trails?

Traci Thompson [1:10:34] Ben, I don't know if they're benefiting or experiencing the cost of, like, most of the employees being in here in Bunkum, but not being able to afford to live here. So, um, Do y'all need a rephrase? I missing something?

Unknown [1:10:49] Is that your question?

Zac Ruiz [1:10:54] Just because everyone at home is listening to dead silence right now. I think it's kind of a good way to close out the night, basically, all right? So at the beginning, we started talking about how affordable housing is this massive issue that we probably canceled tonight, right? But we can start doing something about it and put things in action today, right? So, two points to that that I would ask that maybe we'll close it out with there. One, we've skirted around a lot today, all right? And that point is that we live in a representative democracy. All right? Do your civic duty and vote in people who have views and goals that align with what you're trying to do.

The second part of that is be that person. And if you don't wanna run for office, then that's great. Put your money where your mouth is and start developing in this ways. We've had a lot of conversations tonight about how to partner better with local government to do that. I think it's been an incredible form. And I hope you all come and stay and speak with everyone on stage and everyone else. So with that, we'd like to thank you for coming. Hopefully, we'll see you. Oh, there you go. Our next meetup is actually on tenant landlord relationships and law. It's going to be great. And please...

Rodrigo Afanador [1:12:01] Well, on that note, we do have representatives from Pisgal Legal. We got a landlord, attorney, and we've got magistrate Joe Knight, who's gonna be joining us as well. So very well rounded. Thanks again.