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2023-04-12 MinutesNEW HANOVER COUNTY-CITY OF WILMINGTON WORKFORCE HOUSING ADVISORY COMMITTEE April 12, 2023 | SPECIAL MEETING Committee Members Present: Sharm Brantley, Liz Carbone, Melanie James, Krysti Keser, Eric Knight, Katrina Knight, Katrina Redmon NHC Staff Present: Tufanna Bradley, Katie Burket, Rachel LaCoe, Sarah Lipkin Sularz, Theo McClammy, Jennifer Rigby, Pam Robbins, Andrew Zeldin City of Wilmington Staff Present: Abie Bonevac, Chianti Johnson, Suzanne Rogers Members of the Public: William “Bill” Curtis, 1 member of the public who did not sign in. Call to Order The meeting was called to order at 3:23PM by Chairperson Sharm Brantley and a quorum was established. Agenda Approval and Minutes Ms. Katrina Redmon made a motion to approve the meeting agenda, seconded by Ms. Krysti Keser and adopted unanimously. Ms. Liz Carbone made a motion to adopt the March 1st draft minutes, seconded by Mr. Eric Knight and adopted unanimously. Public Comments None. Old Business Presentations to City Council and County Commissioners Mrs. Brantley will be presenting the WHAC Annual Report to the County Commissioners on Monday April 17th at 9am and to the Wilmington City Council on Tuesday April 18th at 6:30pm. The committee working on finalized the Annual Report and the presentations. Staff provided an overview of the draft presentation slides and Mrs. Brantley’s speaking notes. The group will confirm by email which members of the committee will be present at each meeting. The committee will see the edited slides before they are submitted to the commissioners and council members. New Business Draft Workforce Housing Services Program Criteria and Priorities for Year Two RFP 2 County staff Theo McClammy gave a brief update about the Housing Services Program RFP Yr-2. Mr. McClammy requested the committee’s input on changing or keeping the goals and priorities from year one. County staff will be working on updating this over the next month. Reasons previous applications were not recommended: • Project proposal included higher AMI limits, • Projects not “shovel-ready" by RFP deadline • Sites already had county investment • Scale of proposal / Investment per unit The committee wants to be sure that the RFP priorities are specific enough that projects meet the mission, but not too specific or so that good projects get denied. One item to note is that the funding comes out of the County Planning Department so therefore the projects need to have site approval or be “Shovel-Ready”, in order to be considered. The committee concurred with moving forward with the same goals and priorities as RFP YR-1, and this will be discussed more at next month’s meeting. Staff Updates None. Announcements City staff Suzanne Rogers announced that the public comment period is open for the City’s Annual Action Plan for CDBG and HOME funds, open through May 16th, 2023. There will be a public hearing at the May 2nd City Council meeting. There was a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) meeting on April 11th that several WHAC members and staff attended. Housing is a top priority in the county’s Community Health Assessment, and further work will be done to define the goals of combined work between housing and public health efforts. Staff are hoping to help steer the work to not duplicate efforts. There may be an opportunity to tie CHIP’s public health education focus into the public education campaign that WHAC will be developing in the coming months. Adjourn Ms. Carbone made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Ms. Knight. The meeting was adjourned at 5:06PM.