OREGON STATE HOUSING COUNCIL

Minutes of Meeting

Oregon Housing & Community Services

Best Western Black Bear Inn Conference Center

Santiam Room

1600 Motor Court N.E., Salem, OR 97301

9:00 a.m.

February 23, 2007

MEMBERS PRESENT

/ STAFF PRESENT

Buz Ortiz, Chair

John Epstein
Stuart Liebowitz
Maggie LaMont
Larry Medinger
MEMBERS ABSENT
Scott Cooper
Jeana Woolley / Victor Merced, Director
Rick Crager, Deputy Director
Bob Gillespie, Housing Division Administrator
Lynn Schoessler, Housing Finance Section Mgr.
Craig Tillotson, Residential Loan Specialist
Betty Markey, Housing Resources Manager
Shelly Cullin, Loan Officer
Becky Baxter, Loan Closer
Vince Chiotti, Regional Advisor to the Director
Bruce Buchanan, Regional Advisor to the Director
Betty Dominguez, Regional Advisor to the Director
GUESTS
Kate Allen, Enterprise Community Partners
Rolanne Stafford, Armstrong/Stafford
Neal Beroz, Cascade BHC
Sharon Nielson, The Nielson Group
Megan Lenahan, The Nielson Group
Katy Patricelli, WFB
Tom Benjamin, Tualatin Valley Housing Partners
Rhonda Brown, Tualatin Valley Housing Partners
Loren Clark, US Bank
Dave Castricano, US Bank
Rob Roy, Pacific Crest Affordable Housing, LLC
Rima Wilson, Pacific Crest Affordable Housing, LLC
Jeff Hawkins, Emerald Pointe
Gordon Brown, US Bank
John Lape, Emerald Pointe Architect / Jack Duncan, Regional Advisor to the Director
Robert Larson, Debt Management Mgr.
Vicki Massey, Housing Resources Asst. Manager
John Fletcher, Policy Advisor
Larry Dillenbeck, Communications Manager
Nancy Cain, CFO & Interim CRD Administrator
Frank Silkey, Architect
Kim Manie-Oskoii, Regional Advisor to the Director
Marlys Laver, Asset & Property Management Administrator
Jo Rawlins, Recorder

Page 18—Oregon State Housing Council – February 23, 2007

GUESTS

Melissa Peterson, Enterprise Community Partners

Harry Seabold, Seabold Const.

Craig McKinley, US Bank

Max Liebreich

Patricia Day TenEyck, Habitat Oregon

Victor Merced, Director of OHCS, announced that he wanted to recognize Betty Dominguez, Regional Advisor for the Metro Region, stating that today was her last day with the department. She has accepted a wonderful new job with the Housing Authority of Portland and she will be sorely missed. She has been the ultimate professional. If there is any one word that I could use to describe Betty’s tenure with the Department, it would be that she has been passionate about the work she does for the department and she is very much loved in the agency and will be sorely missed.

Dominguez responded: I don’t know if there are words to express the pride that I have felt in working with this agency all these years. This is a most remarkable group of people and remarkable agency that does exceptionally wonderful, good things for the community and, to tell you the truth, I don’t think I could work for government if it wasn’t this agency. I have just loved this job so much for so long, it’s a very difficult decision to make. I’m not going that far, and I will still be working with the agency. I just want to thank the agency and all the staff for all the help and support and cooperation over the years and even some of my customers that are here now. Thank you.

Chair Ortiz: I know I speak for everybody on the Council. We will very much miss you. You have been a lightening rod, and we will miss you very much Betty. Thank you for everything you have done for the agency.

I. CALL TO ORDER: Chair Buz Ortiz calls the February 23, 2007 meeting to order at 9:15 a.m. and asks for roll call. Present: John Epstein, Maggie LaMont, Stuart Liebowitz, Larry Medinger, and Chair Buz Ortiz. Absent: Scott Cooper, Jeana Woolley.

II.  PUBLIC COMMENT: Max Liebreich introduced himself and stated that he has a 20-unit elderly project in Eastern Oregon, and he is concerned about the expiring Section 8 contracts with HUD and the affect it will have on his senior residents. He says he has no idea where his twenty tenants will go if he isn’t able to stay in the program because he doesn’t think there is any other available housing. He says he hopes the Housing Council will start looking at other alternatives.

Page 18—Oregon State Housing Council – February 23, 2007

III.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Chair Ortiz asks if there were any corrections to the December 1, 2006 minutes. There being no corrections, the Motion was read:

MOTION: Epstein moves that the Housing Council approve the minutes of the December 1, 2006 Council meeting.

VOTE: In a roll call vote the motion passed unanimously. Members Present: Epstein, LaMont, Liebowitz, Medinger, and Chair Ortiz. Absent: Cooper and Woolley.

IV.  CONSENT CALENDAR: Craig Tillotson, Residential Loan Specialist with the department, asked if there were any questions on either the loan or the single family monthly report.

Chair Ortiz asked if the department received very many loans that were below the threshold brought before Council. Tillotson explained that it has been slow, and part of the reason is the time of year, and also because during this period of time, from mid-August until after the election, Measure 48 prevented the department from taking reservations. That cut down on the pipeline and that is usually what feeds new loans coming in for review and purchase. So during the month of January, there were just 67 loans. In prior years, in good weeks the department has actually had that many in one week’s time. He said he hopes things will begin to pick up in early spring so the department can at least equal or exceed the number of loans it did in the last year. Epstein asks if the department has recovered with regard to the effects of Measure 48. Tillotson says once the lenders were told that we could not take reservations, and that we were even wondering if we could make loan purchases, lenders shied away and it took a while for them to start making reservations again with our program in November. There is quite a lead time between when they actually get a viable candidate in for our program and make a reservation until the time that we actually get the loan for purchase. Epstein asks if it is correct that the department’s pipeline is at a level that is acceptable historically. Tillotson says he thinks the pipeline is a little bit lower than normal and it is increasing, but it does take time.

Epstein says that if the department’s sense is that it has lost business because of Measure 48, then he suggests that right now would be a good time to be more aggressive with marketing the program to the brokers again. Tillotson says he agrees and explains that one of the biggest goals of Dona Lanterman, Single Family Programs Manager, is to get out every week this Spring and rally the lenders behind our program to get back to a level that we were a year ago. Merced recommends to Council that Dona Lanterman present a report next month to Council on what her marketing strategy is throughout the state. Chair Ortiz agrees.

Medinger comments that it has been his peripheral perception that there are a lot of areas of the state where there is no penetration. If you look at the lists, there is always one lending company in several areas taking a third or a quarter of the product, and so it seems there is a lot of openness in the market that is almost boundless, and perhaps the department has not marketed the program in all areas of the state. Tillotson responds that even more narrowly focused is the fact that just certain lenders use our program. There are specific loan officers within the lenders that really like our program and he is surprised sometimes to look at how small of a group of actual loan officers there are within the thirty-plus lenders who really do the majority of the loans. If by chance they start to leave, or not be interested in our bond program anymore, the department really sees a production cut. Medinger points out that the obverse of that is that there are a lot of people who really need to be brought into the fold more. Tillotson says that education of the lenders and new loan officers within the companies that participate in our bond program is certainly something that the department is always working on to try and get them up to speed with regular lender trainings.

MOTION: Maggie LaMont moves that the Oregon State Housing Council approve the Consent Calendar.

VOTE: In a roll call vote the motion passed unanimously. Members Present: Epstein, LaMont, Liebowitz, Medinger, and Chair Ortiz. Absent: Cooper and Woolley.

V.  SINGLE FAMILY REPORT: LaMont comments that she likes the report and thinks the department has done a good job putting it together.

VI.  SPECIAL REPORTS

A.  Greenbuilding. Kate Allen, Portland Director, Enterprise Community Partners for Oregon and Southwest Washington, introduces her colleague, Melissa Peterson, Green Communities’ Coordinator for the Northwest Region. She reports that Enterprise was founded in 1982 by the real estate developer, James Rouse. It was originally called the Robin Hood Foundation because of his belief that poverty in this country could be eradicated in one generation, and that affordable housing was the means by which it could be done. Enterprises’ goal is to advance Mr. Rouse’s pioneering vision by defining fit housing as he saw it 25 years ago, and healthy, efficient and sustainable housing. Enterprise launched the Green Communities initiative in the fall of 2004 as a five-year half-billion dollar national initiative to mobilize capital, training, and policy advocacy to create, at the beginning, 8,500 environmentally sustainable affordable homes across the country. Green Communities is a program of grants, loans, equity, policy and communication efforts aimed at project planning, technical assistance, and specifically training around green building features.

The basis of the Green Communities’ initiative is the Green Communities Criteria, which is a set of guidelines for the design, construction and operation of a project. They have found, after two years into the national initiative, they are having an impact collectively that is far greater than their original goal. They have seen public policy changed in more than 20 cities and states, trained more than 2,000 housing professionals, and invested $350 million into Green Communities projects. It fully expended their original grant pool and they are continuously refilling that pool. They have issued $15 million in loans, which was the original goal for the five years, and they are closing in fast on their half billion dollar commitment to place tax credit equity in green projects. That translates into 7,000 sustainable homes under way in 150 developments across 23 states. They have been successful thus far in having the state of Washington and the city of Seattle adopt the Green Communities Criteria as the standard by which they will require affordable housing to be built. They have raised more than $1.5 million locally. They have had trainings that have involved more than 350 housing professionals and are seeing the training take effect across developers, designers, architects, engineers and the construction trades. In the northwest, they invested more than $75 million into Green Communities projects. In Oregon, that has translated to more than 500 sustainable homes completed or under way in 12 developments across the state. One of the big challenges has been changing old habits. Green is actually a resident health and an asset building strategy in any project they build.

Lessons learned are that the criteria in and of themselves are the most valuable aspect of the Initiative. The criteria is what will transform the way affordable housing is built. If the developer gets our criteria and does nothing more with their program, they will build a better, longer lasting, healthier, and more efficient home utilizing those criteria. They have also learned that the integrated design process is their biggest stock in trade to encourage developers to utilize an integrated design process with their architect, contractor, and development team at the beginning to capture low cost and no cost measures that can advance their goals.

Next Steps: They look forward to working with the Department and other local jurisdictions and developers to adopt the Green Communities Criteria as the standard for all affordable housing projects. They are also actively involved in developing a fully integrated Green Preservation Program. A publication published by New Ecology, Costs and Benefits of Green Affordable Housing, reported in virtually all cases energy and water utility costs are lower than conventional non-green built counterparts. The 25% energy efficiency in all tax credit developments would be the equivalent of 40,000 cars, 60,000 tons of waste recycled and 1,500 acres of forest preserved from deforestation every year.

Liebowitz says he cannot emphasize strongly enough how important greenbuilding is and urges her to continue the effort and expand if possible. He asks if the size of housing is a consideration when looking at the overall impact on the environment when evaluating projects. Allen says yes, and states that they are two years into their initiative and they have a gallery of projects that have been funded by OHCS that nonprofits have built, that are accomplishing these goals. She says it is not too expensive to build green. Enterprise’s incentive that has gone into the projects has been no more than $50,000 in any project. Their grants are sized at $1,000 per unit, so some have not been the full $50,000 grant. She would like to begin working with the Department on how to integrate greenbuilding standards into the allocation process and look for ways to incentivize developers to come into greenbuilding.