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| | 1. | | Review and approval of the July 9, 2018 minutes.
Minutes note: The minutes were not approved due to a lack of a quorum. | | | |
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| | 2. | | Communication from the Dept of City Development, Neighborhood Services, Mayor's Office, Fire and Police Commission and the Fire Department relating to policies and practices on placing placards or other signs on buildings relating to building vacancy status.
Minutes note: The buildings were being placarded without Common Council notice prior to beginning the procedure, per Ald. Bauman. Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing said that beginning in 2009, Chief Holton began a vacant placard program in an attempt to address dangers to fire department staff entering vacant buildings. In 2011, DNS was in the process of marking vacant structures and categorizing them as "1", "2" or "3". On March 1, 2018 the Chief issued a memo to implement a revised vacant structure placard program. In late July, 2018 there was the first mention of placarding vacant buildings before any Council meeting or before this body.
Mr. Mishefeske said in January 1, 2010 the vacant building ordinance was passed and vacant buildings were posted via a flexible postcard. That was done by DNS in 2010 and 2011, but many of the cards were removed by either individuals or the weather and Council members were also concerned, so this was discontinued a couple of years later after hundreds of postcards were affixed. DNS also updated MFD on the status of buildings. The posting was done on both public and private buildings. The Fire Department now affixes plywood signs to the structures. Ald. Bauman is concerned that this body was never told about this being implemented.
Chief Rohlfing said that is hard to read a computer screen as an officer is driving to the scene and then to communicate all that information to all the firefighters from the scene, including those from other jurisdictions.
Deputy Chief Dave Votsif said that placarding a vacant building is much safer for firefighters. The signs are on vacant, condemned, set-for-demolition buildings. They have put 178 signs. There are 428 buildings on the city demolition list; they visited all of those and placarded 178 of them of which 29 have the "x" which means there is a huge danger to firefighters. The other 149 have one slash, which means there are hazards that will hurt firefighters. DNS does rank buildings on the raze list, of which there are about 600 buildings. Eighty percent of fire injuries occurred at vacant buildings in Flint, Michigan. In 2009, this marking of buildings was a nationwide initiative and became the standard in 2015. In 2016, a hole was found that prevented Milwaukee from meeting the national standard. Those with a blank box are not being put up at this time as that is standard firefighting procedure.
The Fire Department is also looking at placarding light frame construction and would be fine with codifying this program so a penalty could be applied for removal of these signs.
Paul Mozina - 3612 N. 79th St. - doesn't see that the Fire and Police Commission is doing its role in this matter. He is concerned that FPC wasn't involved in the discussion.
Ald. Stamper moved to make Mr. Mozina's statement part of the record. There were no objections.
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| | 3. | | Communication from the Department of City Development on Housing Infrastructure Preservation Fund Activities.
Minutes note: Mr. Yves LaPierre, Dept. of City Development, said the HIPF is working on four projects and updated the Committee on these projects. They do have a fair amount of carryover from previous years. | | | |
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| | 4. | | Communication from the Department of City Development on the Lease-to-Own Program.
Minutes note: Ms. Rhonda Szalli, Dept. of City Devlopment, said 61 homes have been closed on since inception. The rehab quotes are coming in much higher and the ceiling might be increased to $30,000 from the current $20,000. Milwaukee County is the 11th highest city in percentage of renters to home owners; with over 50% being renters versus homeowners. Ald. Bauman is concerned about declining homeowner rates. Ms. Prioletta said that these numbers are based on occupancy units, while looking at one- and two-family dwellings only would be more accurate. Since the foreclosure crisis, we've lost about 10% of owner occupants (moving from 80% to 70% owner occupancy rate among one and two-family dwellings). | | | |
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| | 5. | | Communication from the Department of City Development relating to the Rehabilitation to Rent Program.
Minutes note: Ms. Amy Turim submitted a report, but was not available to report in person. | | | |
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| | 6. | | Communication from the Department of City Development on the Strong Home Loan Program.
Minutes note: Mr. Larry Kilmer, Dept. of City Development, said 36 loans have been completed year to date and 102 applications are in process. He wanted to highlight that the program does a lot of community outreach and has gotten out into the community 44 times this year. He sees the demand for this program stabilizing, although it is still in high demand. Currently residents with 120% of county median income are eligible to apply for the program; Ald. Bauman asked about increasing this to 150%, but the department doesn't have a lot of applicants above the income limit and does refer individuals to private lenders. There are a couple of lenders over the past year or so who are offering more services. Mr. Klajbor asked if any consideration is given as to what the debt is (student loans, medical bills, etc); the department does consider this For seniors with low income, payments can be deferred until the property is sold. The department is still looking at finalizing the Associated Bank agreement, which is ciruclating right now and those funds will be availalble in 2019. That transaction is $1.2 million and Ald. Bauman said that the 2019 budget would remain the same for this program, with that money being used to fund a different program(s). | | | |
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| | 7. | | Communication from the Mayor's Office, Department of City Development, and the City Attorney's Office relating to activities, revenue and expenditures of the Strong Neighborhoods Plan.
Minutes note: There were no comments for this item. | | | |
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| | 8. | | Communication from the Department of Neighborhood Services relating to the Compliance Loan Program.
Minutes note: Steph O'Conoor, Dept. of Neighborhood Services, said 48 loans have been approved this year and about half of those have been closed with $658,000 spent and they anticipate spending their entire budget this year. There will probably be a wait list beginning in 2019. There are 20 applications in progress and there could be 10 going into 2019. Mr. Mishefske noted that there is always a pipeline of applicants for programs. The loan committee meets four times a year, but emergency applications are heard as they come in. | | | |
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| | 9. | | Communication from the Department of Neighborhood Services relating to demolition and deconstruction.
Minutes note: Mr. Tom Mishefske and Chris Kraco, Dept. of Neighborhood Services, said there are 6 active deconstruction projects, but there are still challenges with the city bids. The private deconstructions average about $45,000 and the majority of cost is labor. The city jobs have RPP and lead-safe requirements, and high start-up costs with no assurances that there will be more bid packages in the future. | | | |
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| | 10. | | Communication from the Treasurer's Office, Department of Neighborhood Services and the City Attorney's Office relating to efforts to pierce the corporate veil of legal entities such as LLC's that own real property in the City of Milwaukee in order to expedite the collection of funds owed the city and to expedite compliance with DNS orders.
Minutes note: Asst. City Attorney Kale Decker said Mr. Rasheed has buyers for 10 properties and 157 still pending. The judge on this case has changed and he will be back in court in November.
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| | 11. | | Response of Mayor’s Office and the Dept. of City Development to the "Cost of Living" report issued by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
Minutes note: Ms. Prioletta said the report is pretty consistent with what this body has discussed over time. Over half the TIDs created have been for affordable housing and there are 18,000 subsidized housing units in the city and one out of every 5 multi-family units in the city are subsidized and if you add in housing vouchers, about 15% are subsidized. The Cost of Living report is Milwaukee County, not the City of Milwaukee. Federal policy is also changing and making it harder to reach down to the poorest of people. Ms. Prioletta also mapped the subsidized housing in the city and will provide this to Ald Bauman.
Irma Yepez, Mayor's Office, said that this is part of the Mayor's 10,000 homes program and are working with other agencies to promote home ownership. There was a "Take Root" homeownership fair last week.
Mr. Klajfor noted that the other side of the equation is low income. Asst. City Attorney Kale Decker said it's very difficult to raise income. | | | |
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| | 12. | | Public Comment
Minutes note: There were no members of the public present who wished to comment. | | | |
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| | 13. | | Set next meeting date.
Minutes note: Oct. 17th at 10 a.m.
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| 0 | | Communication | Communication relating to the 2018 activities of the Joint Committee on the Redevelopment of Abandoned and Foreclosed Homes. | | | |
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