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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCF Community Land Trust WHSP ApplicationWorkforce Housing Services Program - Request for Proposals FY 2025 *indicates a required field Applicant Information Corporate/Entity Name Cape Fear Community Land Trust, Inc. Financial Fiduciary Cape Fear Community Land Trust, Inc. Organization Receiving Payment Cape Fear Community Land Trust, Inc. Type of Applicant Private Incorporated Non-Profit Agency with IRS 501(c)(3) Designation Applicant Established Date & State 2009, North Carolina Organization Principal Name and Title Paul J Stavovy Principal Email Address paul@foreverplaces.org Principal Phone Number 9102180022 Please include the name, phone number, and email address of the person that should receive updates about the status of your proposal. Contact Name Paul J Stavovy Contact Email Address paul@foreverplaces.org Phone Number 9106191074 Preferred Contact Method Email In addition to the above, non-profit organizations must provide: • 501(c)3 Determination Letter • List of Board Members with Terms • Organization By-laws • Articles of Incorporation • Current Year Operating Budget • Most Recent Financial Statement, Audit, and Form 990 501(c)3 Determination Letter CFHLT Tax Exemption Letter.pdf List of Board Members with Terms Board Roster 2024.25.pdf Organization By-Laws Final Version of CFHLT bylaws.pdf Articles of Incorporation Articles of Incorporation (filed).pdf Current Year Operating Budget CFCLT FY2024-26 Budget.pdf Most Recent Financial Statement StatementofFinancialPosition6.30.24.pdf Most Recent Audit 2023 Financial Statements Cape Fear Community Land Trust Inc..pdf Most Recent Form 990 2022 Signed 990 Tax Return 06-30-23.pdf Project Summary Project/Program Name CFCLT Revolving Land Trust Purchase Fund Number of Units/Households to be Assisted 2 homes per year into community assets Project Location/Address 221 N Front Street, Ste 204 Please upload a location map clearly indicating the project site or program service area. CFCLT Service Area.png Estimated Total Project/Program Cost 650000 WHSP Funding Requested (Maximum $1.5 Million) 300000 Are you requesting an award in the form of a low- interest loan or a grant? Grant If requesting a loan, please describe the loan terms/interest rate requested. Field not completed. Project Type Conversion/rehabilitation of existing residential and non- residential structure(s) for affordable single-family or multifamily housing units for sale or rent Project Narrative Project Timeline We anticipate that upon receiving funding, we will be able to purchase a home from Cape Fear Collective's (CFC) inventory within four months. We are partners with CFC and will be managing and overseeing the rehabilitation of their construction projects. We will rehabilitate the homes to our standards and pull one home at a time out of poor condition (these homes were previously owned by an absentee landlord who let them get into disrepair). We will use the funding to transfer the home to Cape Fear Community Land Trust, and then we will sell the home to a deserving family who is in the 80% AMI Range. We will keep the land in trust so that this will be a true community asset that will never leave the affordable market (thanks to our 99-Year Renewable Ground Lease). Upon completion of the first home, we will re-use the funding to acquire and redistribute another home to a partner family. We will do this 2 times in the first year with the same revolving funding, and 2 or more per year after that, so this is truly a perpetual gift. Strategic Goals Addressed Improving Housing Stock, Increasing Housing Access Describe how your project will address the strategic goal(s) listed above. By partnering with Cape Fear Collective, we will be addressing substandard housing conditions and creating homeownership opportunities that will be safe, stable, and constructed to high standards. We will be able to assure long-term affordability due to our ground lease and re-sale restrictions. Because we are in contact with the homeowner and have monthly interaction, we will assure that our homes are kept to the high standard that we believe all Wilmingtonians deserve. When we are finished with a project, the quality will be dramatically improved and our sale-process will assure that access to this housing is granted to those who make below 80% AMI and have typically been underserved in our community. Presumptive Eligibility Presumption 2 Explain how your project/program meets the selected presumption. Our Ground Lease guarantees a 99-year period of affordability and re-sale restrictions that limit the re-sale of this home to those making less than 120% AMI (usually 80% per Ground Lease recorded documents). This is a 99- year renewable ground lease that assures affordability in perpetuity. Immediate Impact Describe how the project supports allocation of funds by December 31, 2024 and disbursement of funds by December 31, 2026 We will be able to use the funds when they are disbursed because we already have the inventory in place to purchase from. Based on the order of restoration of the homes in the real estate portfolio, we do not know which address will be the first purchase, but we anticipate being able to purchase and transfer to qualifying homeowners 2 homes within the first year of the grant. This funding will be re-cycled to purchase additional homes as they become available. We are asking for one-time funding, but we will be able to use the funding over and over to transfer homes from the private real estate market into community assets that will be affordable for generations. The land trust model assures that these homes do not out-appreciate the affordability market in perpetuity. Describe how the project will quickly deploy units to market and break ground by July 2025 We will be able to quickly deploy units due to our continued partnership with Cape Fear Collective. We will begin working through a large portfolio of homes starting immediately upon disbursement of funds. The goal is to get as many of these homes as possible into the Land Trust model quickly and efficiently. Once we are able to secure the homes and transfer them into land trust secured assets, we will sell them to income-eligible homeowners. The restrictions in the recorded land trust document assure that these will remain affordable community assets in perpetuity. Strategic Priorities Addressed Mixture of Price Points and AMI Describe the household/unit mix expected to be served by the program/project. 2 units annually to those making under 80% AMI Period of Affordability Will the units be preserved in affordability for at least 20 years? How many years beyond the minimum 20 years? Yes. The units will be perpetually affordable due to our 99- year renewable ground lease and re-sale restrictions. Describe how you will ensure compliance with the affordability requirement once the project is completed. When the home is sold, it will be sold to a verified homeowner who makes less than 80% AMI. The ground lease document that is recorded at closing assures that the home will never be able to be sold to anyone who makes greater than 80% AMI. This is a legally binding document that is linked to CFCLT's continued ownership of the land and the recorded ground lease document. Acceptance of Housing Choice Vouchers Will your project accept Housing Choice Vouchers? We are able to accept Housing Choice Vouchers through the Housing Choice Voucher Homeownership Program (HCV-Homeownership Program), which is available in North Carolina and has been utilized in Wilmington 5-times per the HUD resources website. The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) homeownership program allows families that are assisted under the HCV program to use their voucher to buy a home and receive monthly assistance in meeting homeownership expenses. The program is limited to first-time homeowners who have received housing counseling and meet the minimum income requirements. All Public Housing Authorities that administer the HCV program have the option to establish an HCV homeownership program in their community, which has been done here in Wilmington. Site/Eligibility Criteria • Evidence of appropriate zoning for proposed project, if applicable • Technical Review Committee approval including preliminary plat or site plan approval, if applicable • Evidence the site is not impacted by environmental problems such as a brownfield and flood hazard, if applicable Evidence of appropriate zoning Field not completed. Technical Review Committee approval Field not completed. Evidence that site is not impacted by environmental problems Field not completed. Describe how WHSP funding will expand existing programs and/or projects, if applicable. WHSP funding will expand our existing programs at CFCLT by allowing us to bring more homes into the land trust model each year, thus creating lasting affordability in New Hanover County. We currently are able to bring one to two homes per year into the affordable market, but thanks to funding from Z Smith Reynolds Foundation and requested funds from NHC Endowment, we are growing our organization with 2 new staff positions that will allow us to handle more projects per year. Our MOU with Cape Fear Collective has us in constant contact and we have a working relationship around this large real estate portfolio. Our executive director is serving as a construction project manager for the Collective, so the pipeline of homes is being overseen, managed, and scoped by our team. This allows us access to more houses than we can handle at once, but we plan to use NHC funds to tackle one at a time, as quickly as we can, with a minimum of 2 homes in the first year, but this is an ongoing fund that will be utilized to bring home after home into long-term affordability. Tell us if the project is supported by any other New Hanover County grant, funding, or contribution. Our organization is supported for this fiscal year by New Hanover County Non-County Agency Funding amounting to $22,871 that is being utilized for general operating support. We are currently also receiving funding from Z Smith Reynolds Foundation for capacity building support (hiring staff). This funding amounts to $55,000 over 2 years ($30K year 1, $25K year 2), and the first year was recently disbursed in July of 2024. We have an application in for review with the NHCE for a responsiveness grant to also supplement our capacity building and operational support as we grow our organization. This grant is asking for $200K over 2 years ($125K year 1, $75K year 2). This proposal should come through in the next few weeks. Our last grant application for this fiscal year is a Strategic Proposal to the NHC Endowment for $350K for a revolving home purchase/rehab fund. This would serve concurrently with this NHC ask so that we can begin to transfer even more homes into affordable home ownership, and guarantee that for the long term, with our innovative ground lease document. We hope this application will be reviewed and funded in fall of 2024 if we are successful. How will you fund/develop your project/program if your proposal is not approved for funding? If our project is not approved for funding from NHC, we will be at a slower pace for the coming year, but we will continue pushing on. We do not have another source of this purchase/transfer money besides local banks (which end up costing more money) or the City of Wilmington (which cannot keep up with the number of projects that we would like to produce), so we are really hopeful that the County will see the benefit of this one-time conveyance of funds to Cape Fear Community Land Trust. It is a true game-changer for us if we are able to have funds available to pull homes out of the private real-estate market one at a time and get them into long-term, affordable, community assets that benefit low-income homeowners. Describe how your policies and procedures give access to housing for residents with credit challenges or those who may have been involved in the justice system (or upload to the right, if applicable). Because our homes are offered as for-sale properties, we typically work with the City of Wilmington and their HOP Program (Home Ownership Pool). HOP typically provides some down-payment assistance and also requires that program participants complete homebuyer education, which assists those who may have credit challenges. The topics covered include credit, working with a real estate agent, fair housing, shopping for a home loan, and inspections. This loan program is for low-to-moderate income households looking to achieve the benefit of home ownership. Many of our homebuyers also end up utilizing a CPLP Loan. The City of Wilmington in conjunction with Kingdom CDC hosts virtual home buyer education classes that will satisfy the requirement for the CPLP program, offered through NC Housing Finance Agency. CPLP is a down payment assistance program offering up to $50,000 or 20% in down payment assistance. Both of these programs are tools that we utilize to get our buyers credit support while also providing down payment assistance. Fair Housing policies/procedures Field not completed. Tell us how your proposal supports New Hanover County's commitment to equity and inclusion. Our organization works in neighborhoods and census tracts that are atypical to the rest of the county. Our target areas feature much higher levels of renters, lower incomes, and have a much larger minority population. From studying the ACS2022 Census data, we have found that while the MFI in the City ($59K) and County ($68K) are out of line with the median 2024 home price of $400K, the picture in the areas of the city that we work is drastically different. In the neighborhoods where we are creating more affordability, the MFI numbers range from $24K to $41K (which is at best 69% of the average, and at worst 41%). To further demonstrate the problem, the City and County are demographically 16% and 12% black and have 18% and 13% of residents living below the poverty line respectively. Looking at the areas we focus on, the composition is 46%- 74% black with poverty levels between 19% and 41%. This disparity is difficult to look at in terms of numbers, but even harder to swallow when you are in these communities daily. This disparity isn’t just about housing, because these areas also show much larger percentages of renters, lower high school and college completion rates, and are facing neighborhood degradation and blight. From targeting these areas, we are actively looking to bring homeownership to the populations that have been underserved with this option. Describe how your development will comply with the Federal Fair Housing Act. Again, with most of our applicants utilizing down payment assistance from either a Housing Finance Agency backed CPLP Loan, or a HUD backed City of Wilmington program, we have oversight into fair housing items and can assure that we are in compliance. As a CHDO (Community Housing Development Organization), we are also under compliance and monitoring that assures this. Additional Information Project Budget/Pro Forma (must be the spreadsheet provided) WHP Services and Programs Budget - CFCLT.xlsx Resume of staff who will manage the project. Paul J Stavovy - Resume 2024.pdf Three examples of past experience, including project title, description, number of units/households assisted, project year, and location. CFCLT Completed Projects 8.24.pdf Letters of support from other funding sources. 2024 Award Letter - ZSR.pdf Additional Uploads Articles of Amendment - filed NCSOS 3-6-14.pdf Additional Uploads NHC Contract - To Be Signed.pdf Additional Uploads NHC Awarded Agencies.pdf