We're going to go ahead and open up tonight's special citizens bond advisory committee,
now that it's six o'clock.
Welcome here.
Thanks for coming back for another time.
Tonight is where we really start digging in.
We've got two more projects to look at, which are both important ones, but then we're going
to really start deliberating in earnest a bit as we are going to have a homework assignment
at the end of tonight that we're going to take home.
It's not something we'll do here, which is going to give you the opportunity, we'll talk
more about it, to prioritize the projects according to what you know, what you think
based on the conversations we've had today.
So prior to that, we want to have some time to be able to dig into further questions that
are yet unanswered, topics that you want to make sure we delve into relating to these
projects.
So we're going to do a little switcheroo on the agenda, just for your knowledge.
We're going to switch C, item C, and item D. So right after we hear a report on a municipal
complex and affordable housing, we're going to jump into a presentation on the city tax
rate.
Then we're going to have the discussion, the one regarding all projects and project information.
That's going to start off with an updated list of the pricing that we know of as of
today.
That might have changed from what we heard when we first started looking at these projects.
So that's going to help us get a sense of the total amount of these projects, and then
we can have some discussion as needed around any of those topics.
So humor me with that little change just so we can make sure we have enough time to discuss
tonight.
So let's get started.
Agenda item A, consider approval of the minutes for June 15, 2023.
Do I have a motion?
I move that we accept.
Mr. Thurman moves.
Thank you.
All in favor, please raise your right hand.
All opposed?
That passes.
The next item is item B, receive a report and hold discussion regarding the following
- one, a municipal complex and city hall, and two, affordable housing.
All right, good evening, can everyone hear this doesn't move that well.
Good evening, I'm Frank Dixon, one of the Assistant City Managers, I'm going to be co-presenting
with Wayne Emerson over here, we're going to go through the municipal complex.
First we want to talk about, before I let Wayne get into it, a couple of reminders about
the complex.
For those of you that went on the tour, I think you saw firsthand how some of the challenges
that we're facing right now were over 100% at capacity in the facility, ADA requirements
have not been met ever, those that went in saw how long it took you to walk in, going
around the entirety of the courtyard, so imagine if you were in a wheelchair or you were mobility
challenged, how that would look for you.
On top of that, you know, you see some of the other things were kind of limited in how
we could do any further renovations to the building, there was some renderings back when
the building was first constructed that said that there was a possibility of building onto
a second story, I think that came up at least once in the earlier discussions in here, but
to be clear about what that looked like, that was back in like 1963, 1967, so the structure
of the facility has changed dramatically over time, we would have to do another complete
structural review to see if that would even be a factor, additionally, the rooftop mounted
air conditioners, they're on what would be come the second floor, are still there, along
with there's no elevator presently, there was never plans for an elevator, so to go
in there and cut more space out to put in an elevator shaft, the potential of being
able to build onto the second floor if that's even an option, and then outside of that have
an outdoor staircases going up to the second level from outside, just presents a number
of different challenges, I think there's some opportunities to really talk about the
historical complex that encompasses not just the Civic Center, City Hall, the library and
some other things Wayne will get into, but we're really trying to forecast a very comprehensive
look on how we can make the entire complex look better, feel better, and really serve
the citizens better. So with that, I'll hand it over to Wayne.
Okay, so Frank, oh sorry, sorry, it's Frank, Wayne Emerson, Director of Economic Development.
As Frank alluded to, the current capacity of the City Hall is 107%, so we're over capacity
and you can see, forecast it out over the next 20 years, it's going to be pretty tight
in there if not impossible to house city staff, so I think one way or another, the city is
going to have to address its facilities issue when it comes to staff and getting the work
done that needs to be done there in City Hall. Once again, through the age of the facility,
it's not ADA compliant, but I think what we want to stress about the City Hall is that
it is a great building and it's a fantastic building designed by O'Neill Ford, so when
I did my interview having no nothing about it, I remember walking up into the courtyard
and I remember just kind of thinking to myself, oh this is nice, and then coming into the
building with the satelio tile, I don't know anything about architecture, but it gave me
a great feeling and I always got that feeling when I went in there and then working on this
project, learning about O'Neill Ford, that that's exactly what he was all about was being
human centered and giving you that great feeling, so I think when we talk about this, you know,
we have to understand that the city is changing, we are growing, but we can also recognize
that that's a fantastic building, and there's intention to, we are going to continue to
use that, I'm sorry, let me go back there, you know, possible uses for that, the municipal
archive, housing parks and rec out of there would be a great location right there next
to Quaker Town Park, environmental services, once again great within that area, municipal
judge and the municipal court, so that building will continue and have a purpose and a use
into the city for the near, for the future, but when we look at the entire site, I like
to just kind of do a little bit of analysis for you, so this, that site north of McKinney
is called the O'Neill Ford historic landmark civic complex, so all nestled there in Quaker
Town Park, you know, to the north we have civic center, we have west, we have the current
city hall there at number four, but to me when we think about this proposal and what
makes it an economic development proposal is when I look at it, I look at there's a
cost to the bond, but what's our opportunity cost, okay, and what do I mean about that,
is if we're presented with an opportunity, what does it cost us if we forego that opportunity,
so as we analyze this site, we look, you know, just to the south of civic center, we have
the parking lot for the civic center, it's about 185 parking space, move to the west,
we have an empty lot, some additional parking, about 53, and then we have the city hall parking
lot, another parking, 43 spaces, so we need those spaces to have our civic functions,
but we also own this property to the south of McKinney, once again, more parking, 125
spaces, so I think the first question is are we using these city assets to their highest
and best use, are we getting the best public benefit, and when we look at a new city hall
facility or a larger municipal complex, is there more value that we can have and is there
an opportunity for that, so in this next slide, I want to give, I want to do a visioning exercise
with you, and this is, I'm going to give you a concept of what this complex could look
like, and it's really meant to be a vision to see what are the possibilities and what's
the opportunities that we might be missing out on.
So if you look straight to the west, I'd like to start there, and this concept, this rendering,
we see that here's an opportunity for us to bring Quaker Town Park out in front of city
hall and connect it to McKinney, so that the park is literally on a front porch of the
streetscape there, and we're replacing parking for a park, to me that's a much higher public
benefit, then as we kind of move east, you can see number three there would be that new
municipal complex, that facility, 37,000 square feet large enough to house our current staffing
needs, but for the city for the next 50 years, right, because I think this is not just about
our needs today, but it's our needs in the future, and you know, those needs are only
going to grow, and then to the south, those number fives, this is an opportunity to maybe
add some additional commercial economic activity, could be some retail pavilions, offering places
for local small businesses to do business, and then at number two, I don't want to worry
you guys said, "Hey, we're talking about downtown, we don't have any parking."
This is a parking structure, and in this rendering, there's 350 spaces, which if you add up all
that parking that I said north of McKinney, we're actually netting out 70 additional parking
spaces, so to me, just on the north side right there alone, we have our city assets, and
we are utilizing them to their highest and best use, we're adding public benefit, we're
bringing economic activity, bringing more people to downtown so that they could visit
the other businesses down there, and we're generating revenue for the city by having
some commercial activity there.
Then, in this concept to the south, when we look at economic opportunity, this could be
some sort of mixed use development, just depend on what sort of partner, if we start this
as a private partnership, whatever the market would dictate that could be, you could imagine
to its highest use that could be office, could be some more additional retail, some residential,
and then of course, there's plenty of space to add a parking structure there as well.
In this particular example, you're getting 200 spaces, which is a net 75 on that piece.
All of that being said, I think we still go back to our original piece of this being a
historical site, Quakertown Park, O'Neill Ford's Municipal Complex, the Civic Center,
Emily Fowler Library to the North, and our current facility, and seeing this new development,
does that take away from the historic character?
Well, I want to show you this right here, this is our neighbors to the south, San Antonio,
the campus of Trinity University, so some of you may be aware of this, but O'Neill Ford,
fully designed that university campus and the buildings on it, and they too are experiencing
growing pains just like us, and they realized that they needed to grow and create new facilities
to house those new students, and so what they did is they came up with this new building,
Dickey Hall, and when they went out to the architect there, is that architect studied
O'Neill Ford, and it really encompassed a lot of his concepts, you know, it's modern,
it encompasses nature, using this wood paneling that I'm sure we're all very familiar with
in our current facility, and so really this is modern, and it's in the same vein of O'Neill
Ford, and can still give us that great feel, and harken back to that history, and so what
could that look like for us?
Well, here's a conceptual rendering of the new, what could be our new council chambers,
so you'll notice the wood paneling that we're all so familiar with, but what I really like
about this one, which makes it modern, is bringing in some natural light, and in this
particular piece it's actually overlooking Quaker Town Park, so our government's outlooking
over there, the nature and the light is coming in as our council is doing the business of
the government, or the city, okay, so all that to be said, all that great idea, ultimately
though we have to get there, and that, to get those additional uses, those private uses,
we're gonna need a public-private partnership, so what is that, and what does that mean?
I think it means a lot of things, and it's confusing, and I work in economic development,
and sometimes I can even get confused about this, but there's really two distinctions,
and they're used interchangeably when we talk about public-private partnerships, so there
is public-private partnership as a procurement method, and then there's just a public-private
partnership as a deal structure, and I think in this instance what we would see is that
we're probably talking about both of these things, when we talk about as a deal structure,
this is probably something you're more familiar to, the city's gonna partner with a private
developer or a private business, and we're gonna have specific deal structures, we're
gonna define that risk allocation, the financial terms, incentives, and the performance standards,
and each of those things are gonna be tailored to the specific project, but there's also
this idea that kind of started in Canada, it's a procurement method, and what this is,
this involves the public sector contracting with a private entity, and then the private
entity is in charge of designing, building, financing, could be operating, could be maintaining
the project, and it's primarily used for infrastructure projects and public facilities.
Okay, that being said, P3s can take many forms, there is no definition of this is a P3 and
this is how they are all done, the exact structure and distribution of responsibilities in a
P3 can vary significantly, and it's wholly dependent on what the arrangement of that
agreement is, so for us, when we think about this project, it's about finding the right
partner that has the same vision and the same goals that we're looking for, and making sure
that when we go out and we find that partner, that's exactly what we're looking for.
So we take a step back and we look at a traditional procurement method, public sector is solely
responsible for initiating, planning, designing, financing, construction, operation, and the
maintenance of the project, and the process is usually fractured, involves separate contracts,
it's kind of broken up, it's designed in phases, and I think most importantly is the
public sector is going to assume most of the risks, and we got to rely on our own resources
and capabilities to deliver that project.
So what would be an advantage of doing this as a P3 as a procurement method?
Okay, well, one thing is increased cost efficiency, risk sharing, which I'll talk a little bit
more about that here in a second, increased quality and timeliness, which is kind of related
to risk sharing, which I'll show in the next one, but also when we engage the private sector,
they're motivated to help us stimulate some of that business activity, which could create
additional revenue for the city and create jobs, so what does that kind of look like?
I like to think of this orange here as like the deal zone, right, and these are things
that we can both benefit off of.
So if we had sort of like that municipal complex I had before, the city would benefit from
any property tax from those privately owned facilities, the private sector would be able
to get some rent from those buildings, and then kind of there in the middle, any sales
generated off those private uses, we're both going to benefit, right, because they're going
to get those sales and then the city's going to get taxable sales as well.
Cost, so in the traditional method, there's really a lack of innovation, there's no incentive
once we go out in that contract to really lower the cost, so as that example I showed
you earlier, there's a couple different parking structures, and really there can be an incentive
where the two uses aren't always parking at the same time, right, so there may be more
need for parking in the daytime for our uses, but more need for parking on the private sector
in the evening, and so in this sharing model, they get it for the mixed use facilities,
we get it for our municipal facilities, and we're really sharing the cost on that garage,
which can help lower the cost.
This to me is I think the biggest benefit is when you look at the risk.
So for this city, we're going to say, hey, we're going to issue some bonds, bonds is
debt, there's an inherent risk any time you issue debt, but I think the biggest risk in
this is any delays or cost overruns, so I think you could probably just look to any
other city project, especially now when there's a delay, there's going to be cost overruns,
and those cost overruns are high, and so with a P3, we have the ability to say, hey, this
is our budget, and any delay or cost, that risk is offloaded off the city and it's on
the private sector, and so they are incentivized to make sure that this project comes in and
under budget, and when I say under budget, that's contingency costs, any budget's going
to have a little bit of cost overrun, and that's a risk that we could probably share
with both parties, and if we come in under budget, we both benefit from that.
Okay, so once again, we talk about a public-private procurement, it really exists on a spectrum,
so going back to there's no one public-private partnership model, it all depends on who your
partner is and what's the best deal you can get, so if you look over here to the left,
this is that traditional procurement model that I spoke about earlier, they call it design,
bid, build, and then over here on the right, this would be maybe how they do it in Canada,
where it's build, own, operate, the private sector is even owning and maintaining that
asset, and the city is renting it from them.
That is not the intention of this, I think what we're talking about is something right
here in the middle, and in this next slide, I've kind of done my own analysis, and I think
this would be a potential way that this could work for us.
Once again, not to say that this would be the model, but I think this is a realistic
way that it could be, so this is called the design, finance, build model, so what happened
in that first phase is we'd go out to that private sector partner, they do the design,
so really get that design piece in, making sure that all of those different mix of uses
are synergenic, working together, and they'll have that incentive to make sure that all
the pieces work together, but at the same time, it's going to have to meet all of our
requirements that we're looking for, so we're in on that process in the very beginning.
Then, this is going back to the, I think the crucial piece here is when we look at the
finance, is we would want to look for a private sector partner that's going to finance it
through the construction phase, so if you talk to any developer, that is where all the
risk is, is during the construction phase, that's where we're going to have the cost
overruns, and if they are the ones financing it through the construction phase, the risk
is on them, and of course, they're actually going to get it financed, then they're going
to build it according to our design, and then at the very end, we come in with the permanent
financing, which would be this bond, we're going to issue those bonds, and we're going
to finance it permanently throughout the rest of the asset.
All right, so what's the recap, what's proposed here?
We're proposing a public-private partnership to get a much-needed city hall facility.
We're going to expand Quaker Town Park down to McKinney.
We're going to be actually a net positive in park space of Quaker Town Park there, provide
a mix of retail focused on local and small businesses.
We're going to add additional public access to parking in a parking garage, and the new
facility is going to house an emergency operations center, all these facilities, repurposes that
I already talked about, and so I think that's what's being proposed.
Thank you.
Remind us on the process here, and I imagine with this topic in particular, there's a lot
of big thoughts, which is great.
This section of it, what we're going to do is have an open time of Q&A, so let's restrict
to questions so that we can get staff feedback on this.
Then we're going to come back.
You have some time at the tables to debrief.
Then we're going to open it back up to the large group to have questions, comments, whatever.
That would be a time if you're wanting to make statements that don't have questions
for them.
So this portion, let's restrict it to questions, starting here with Mr. Crouch.
Okay, I need an elevator speech for the voters on what you just said.
Sure.
I think the elevator speech is that there's a need.
We need a new city hall.
We're growing.
Our current facility is, A, not suitable for our current uses, but it's certainly not going
to be suitable into the future.
The opportunity we have right now is we have property that's being underutilized, and there's
an opportunity to create more.
I've gotten off the elevator about three times, so here's the problem, because you haven't
even gotten to the public-private partnership, which I think is a very difficult thing to
explain to the voters at this point, and I'm still not sure what you're building.
So I'm really confused as to what the plan is and how this thing's going to work, and
most of all, how to explain it to the voters, because you haven't explained it to me.
Sure.
I'll try to simplify it a little bit more.
So there's an opportunity to add, in the complex, a new building that will centralize a lot
of our current services, we can utilize more park space, and then we can help utilize more
local and small businesses to be a part of that partnership and those retail spaces that
we talked about.
Well, and the flip side of this is, as we continue to grow, the reality is we're going
to be having to go out and rent office space, so we're in this city to house city workers
at some point in the near future, because we are kind of maxed out on facility space.
That's the truth of the matter, right, so we're looking at an opportunity to have this
utility space, which is mutually beneficial for not just the city, but for the community
as a whole, and then, like I said before, to support those small businesses within our
community.
Got a question over here and then one back here.
I have two quick questions.
First, has anybody done a study with the Quaker Town Park traffic?
You're talking about expanding that park quite a bit, do you have any idea how many people
use that park per day?
And then the second question I have is you're talking about building a multi-level parking
lot, and is that going to be free parking?
You're talking about increased tax revenue for the city, well, is that going to be on
the backs of the people that are just using that facility to park, or since there's increased
revenue, will that be spread out to pay for that parking lot?
Yes.
So if I'll go to your first one, so the city right now is in the process, and I think tomorrow
the City Council is going to hear about this, is our downtown master plan.
Within that downtown master plan, they're going to be conducting a master plan for Quaker
Town Park.
So I think the great thing about this is that all of this ties into those broader plans
of the downtown master plan.
Is there a definitive plan that you have to focus on that?
And also with all of these new shiny retail spaces that are going to come in, I'm assuming
they're going to be as expensive as everything else on the square and around the square,
or even a little bit more.
How are we going to make sure that local and small businesses can actually afford to rent
those spaces?
Well, so I think that is the exact advantage of it being a public-private partnership,
right?
Is that when we structure deals, we can say that this is the deal, and then this is what
we want to get out of it.
Versus, if we're not a partner, and some other development comes in, they get to set
the terms.
So in a public-private partnership, that's the deal, is that we get our own terms.
What those terms look like, I can't tell you, because the hard part, right, and where the
work is happening is finding a partner, finding a willing partner who has the same interests
as us, and making sure that in that deal zone, we get what we want, they get more where they
want, and we got a win-win situation.
I've got a question back here.
Yeah, so with the public-private partnership, what split are you foreseeing in terms of
city investment versus public investment, private sector investment, sorry, with $70
million being the city portion, what would you expect for the private portion?
I did some back-of-the-envelope math, and excluding land cost, I identified about $220-250 million
in those parking garages alone, or sorry, $22 million to $25 million.
Yeah, so I think the biggest piece that we bring to this whole project is the land cost.
So what that, once again, what that investment split is going to look like, I can't tell
you because this is conceptual.
So we go out to the market, we find ourselves a private partner, we put out a request for
proposal, and we are presented with proposals.
What it's going to look like, we won't know until those proposals come in.
But the ask right now is the city's investment is $70 million.
Most of that investment is going to be our own asset of the city hall.
And then hopefully what we want to see when we partner on that is we're actually going
to be leveraging that investment.
So that investment is going to be leveraged with private investment, and then with the
private investment, the benefit to us is that it's taxable.
And so we will get those taxable revenues off the property, and we'll also get the
taxable revenue off the sales.
So I wish I could tell you everybody hears exactly what that deal structure is going
to look like, but we have to go out to the market and find out what it is.
Oh, yes, I think one of the things that would help out, you said a word, and it kind of
like, and you lost me, and you know, I once was briefing a four-star general, and I said
the word "never," and he said, "sit down."
He said, "I don't want to hear anything else from you."
So really what I really want to say is, is it any way you can get some small wins, because
the word that was used is the ADAs have never been addressed, and if, you know, if you can
kind of like take and get some small wins, and then package it, and then kind of present
it from there and stuff, because it's like a lot at once, and it's like, well, wait a
minute, because here's my thing.
When you said that, and then you came back around, you said, well, eventually we'll have
somebody else to come in the building.
Well, guess what?
They're going to inherit that.
So that's how I got it.
Is there a question you want to ask?
Yeah, just the small wins with the ADAs, because, you know, is it a plan to address that for
the people?
Yes.
Is there a plan for ADA on the existing building?
So there's very limited things that we can do in the existing building to change the
ADA requirements without making serious structural exchanges.
If you've ever walked into our city hall chambers, our council chambers, you have those stair
steps that go up.
They're very narrow stairs, and you have the mechanical lift.
To be able to take those stairs out and to flatten that out to make it a ramp is pretty
significant.
Then you get inside the chamber, there's no way for people to get up top and come back
down without having to go down again steps.
So if you're looking at how you can make those changes just within that one small corridor,
you're looking at pretty significant changes that would end up altering the building as
it looks now, which may have some other consequences to it because it is designated as a historical
one.
Is there a question back here?
Yes, sir.
Have you looked at another location besides this one to put city hall?
Well, this is the most beneficial because we already own the real estate, right?
A big significant part of what we're trying to do is to be very thoughtful in where we
do it because we own the land across the street.
We own the land that we currently sit on.
That takes out having to go out and purchase land to do this.
So what we're trying to do is not to have to go look around the city to acquire more
land to be able to do this project.
It just makes sense to tie it all together in the same conference.
City owns a lot of land within the city limits itself.
So that's why I was curious if you had a plan B, just in case, because this would also determine
whether the senior center is raised, which would also expand QuikTown Park, correct?
Maybe I'm not understanding the question, what would be the plan B if this doesn't pass?
There is no plan B because we don't have funding, right?
Question right here.
Yeah.
So when I looked at the plan, the first question I asked is, it looks like the building, if
you're trying to sell me, right?
I looked at the building and you're over capacity now.
When the building isn't completed, you will be over capacity.
Five years, you will be over capacity, right?
Based on your numbers.
Is that true?
That's not true.
For the new part of the complex, we're talking about the new facility will not be, because
you're using more, you have more storage in the new facility, we're going to be taking
less people over than what's in City Hall currently, right?
So there's going to be room to expand, to grow into it.
Well, based on your slides, maybe I'm wrong, but based on your slides, you were over capacity.
Well, that was the current.
The current.
Where we're at now.
Oh, you were saying that if we stayed in the current facility, you would be over.
Right.
We're already over.
Okay.
The second question then, so given the growth of Denton, what would be the point at which
you're at capacity?
Is it two years?
Three years?
No.
This is focused for multi-generations.
We're talking 30-year plan for it to grow.
Because you're looking at, like I said, we're not going to be moving all the people that
are in current City Hall now over to new facilities.
So one part of this project is trying to forecast how we can leave ourselves room to grow, because
historically, that's been a challenge for almost every governmental entity.
Again, we're trying to be very thoughtful in how we plan this out to make sure that
we're able to grow into it for years to come.
So we're not coming back to the community again with another bond program in ten years
saying, "Oh, we're out of room."
I guess the question in my mind is, and I could be wrong, I don't really see the growth
expectation of Denton and how it is combined with that complex.
I think the City of Denton is going to grow much faster than we think, and then we're
going to be out of capacity again.
That's just mine.
We're not focusing all of our city departments in this one building, right?
So outside of just this project, we're looking at other projects and facilities to grow individual
departments, whether that's DME, whether that's solid waste, whether that's water waste water.
Because we know that we're about 151,000 now.
We're looking at capacity probably 265,000.
Around that number.
So city services are going to have to continue to grow along that way, but we're looking
at, just like we do with the police department, a last bond package with the addition of a
police station that leaves the police department a lot of room to grow for 20 or 30 years before
that building becomes capacity.
That's just what we're doing, again, through this thoughtful process of not trying to make
everything happen at once across the entire city, but trying to be very strategic in how
we're looking at the growth.
Okay, my question, the first thing is to say that you have this great opportunity right
now.
If the city owns all this land, unless the city is planning on selling it, you will still
have this great opportunity in two, three, five years.
So to use that statement, I think is kind of misleading, number one.
My question in regard to looking at a private-public partnership is Ross Perot Jr. commented about
two or three weeks ago that he definitely sees a recession coming and that his corporations
have been loaning funds to other developers.
With that thought in mind, do you really think that within the next timeframe, quick timeframe,
you would be able to come up with a partner?
We won't know until we go to the market.
I would say the one thing you said that would give me some hope is that if Ross Perot is
loaning money to developers to build projects, I think he would expect that he's going to
get paid back at some point.
So that's another advantage to the private sector, to partner with us.
It gives them more incentive to do a deal structure with us, is that if we partner with
them and we co-invest, that can help cover some of that financial gap.
If I had a crystal ball, that'd be amazing, and I think I'd be a lot richer person.
I might not be here, but what we'd want to do is we want to go out to the market and
find out what is there, and then once we get there, we can see those opportunities.
Mr. Emerson, could you clarify the piece where you were talking about the retail pavilions
that would come in?
You mentioned that there would be tax revenue from that and sales tax revenue, so would
the land still be owned by the city, and then the built structure would be owned by the
private partner?
That's a good question.
So I think the answer to that is, could be, the possibilities could be endless, right?
I mean, there's a possibility where the city owns that land, it could be there's an opportunity
where the city owns those facilities and the city's collecting rent.
It's a possibility that we dedicate that land in there or we sell that land to a private
developer or we're just collecting taxable revenue.
So it all really depends on that proposal that we get with that menu of proposals and
selecting the deal that results in the best public benefit for the city.
What kind of performance metrics would you tie into a deal like that, in general?
I know you don't have specifics at this point, but what might that look like and then what
would we do if that partner failed?
So I think number one, the biggest performance metric is delivering a project, delivering
whatever that retail piece is, and then putting those public benefit things in there, like
here are the types of businesses we'd like to see, here's how much investment.
And then with any development deal, there's a contract and if they fail to live up to
that contract, there are stipulations.
So once again, I couldn't sit here and tell you exactly what those would be.
That'd be something that would be negotiated and worked out with our attorneys.
But typically you see clawbacks.
One tiny little more question, and that's quite a large amount of parking that this
would add to this area, and I'm curious if there's been considerations of our sustainability
goals in the city, our transportation and mobility goals that seems kind of counterintuitive
to a lot of the goals that we're laying forth in other areas and other departments.
So I think currently all of that space is parking, and it very well may be that that
much going back into that model where you're cost sharing, it could be that when our private
partner comes in here that you could be correct, it is over-parked.
But I think currently as it exists, it is all parking, and in my opinion, underutilized
and not providing the best public benefit.
I think that's the opportunity is to exchange parking for park space, exchange parking for
people to work, people to live, and people to shop, play.
I have a question back here.
Assuming that the cost on this that would go on the bond package is still sitting at
$70 million, is that correct?
Yes.
That did not include the parking garage when it was presented to Council on March 7th,
which is a work session that everyone in this room should go back and watch.
Very informative.
So who's going to pay for the parking garage?
So the way this would work, and also I want to emphasize, this is not a plan.
This is a concept of the possibilities of how this property could be used differently.
When we go out, whatever the private partner, when we work at that, we look at the design,
we look at the proposal, this, I guarantee you, it will not be this, because we don't
have a private partner right now.
So I want to emphasize, this is purely conceptual, but the idea would be if we have $70 million,
we would go out to the market and say, "This is what we are willing to invest.
What can you bring to the table?"
And then whatever that would be, that would be their investment, and then the uses, which
I would imagine a parking structure is going to be in there, and I think the question was
asked earlier.
How much is someone going to invest?
I can't tell you exactly what that would be, but we would go and we'd look at those proposals
and we'd find one that maximizes the benefit to the public.
Well when it was discussed at the Council meeting, the total package was going to come
to about $130 million, so it's almost doubled, and I just really wonder about your finding
a partner that's going to cough up that much more, otherwise we're going to have to come
back with another bond package to put the parking lot on it, parking garage.
It just seems kind of half-baked to me.
Okay, I guess my question piggybacks off of that, in your conceptual drawings and planning,
what is the total amount of money that you need to do what you conceptually planned?
Because you said the cities is $70 million, so it's not identified in here what that $70
million will pay for, but I know it says new facility parking, so conceptually in your
mind of what you all have planned, she said $130 million, would $130 million suffice today
for what you're trying to complete?
Because I think from the very beginning, the young man said, "We don't know what you're
building.
We don't know how much you cost."
Well, we see that there's a new facility in parking lots and mixed-use facilities.
What is the total amount conceptually of what that might cost, or do you have any idea of
what that may be?
So we do, and from the last presentation, the entirety of the package that they estimated
was at $111 million with the parking structure.
So it doesn't seem like there's a hard and fast rule that the city manager's office and
the city council chambers have to be in the same building, right?
There's functionalities that go together, city manager, city attorney, public affairs,
all those kind of, they ought to be co-located, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the
same footprint as the city council chambers.
It also seems like city council chambers have very specific use square footage, right?
You only use it a handful of times, maybe a couple of times a week.
It's got a very particular purpose.
You can't really use it for a ton of other things.
You can't let somebody's office in there when the city council's not meeting.
So couldn't it make sense, or couldn't it be an option that we address one issue, which
is a lack of space with a new office building that's got space for all the people, and we
address another issue, which is ADA accessibility, which we've got to address in the building
anyway, regardless of who locates there, and still keep city council in the same chambers.
I mean, can't we do both, and can it even save us some money not having to dedicate
a whole bunch of square footage to tables and chairs that we only use a couple times
a week?
If I think you're asking us a forecast cost that we have no idea about right now, right?
And then what functionally does that look like to how do you, we're going to have to
look at where are we going to have alternate city council meetings while those renovations
are taking place, if we choose to say where we're at.
Because that's not going to be like a one week deal.
That's going to be something that's going to close the chambers down for a considerable
amount of time.
We look at having to reconfigure what's inside there now.
So yes, that can be on the table, absolutely.
We have to look at what that cost benefit might be to go in there and structurally change
the entirety of inside there while we're trying to do both.
As a follow up to that, couldn't an option be funding a renovation of our other city
hall and housing there temporarily, and then we renovate the existing city hall, and then
while we have that contractor there, they're building up a new city hall annex, or office
built, or whatever it is.
I mean, aren't there kind of more options than just new city hall?
Like Wayne said, we're talking about approving from this committee an amount of money to
ask the voters to approve to borrow.
Not necessarily a program of construction or how the deal is going to be structured.
We're approving how much goes on the credit card, not what is the final product.
Right?
Absolutely.
I think one of the first questions that I answered up here was the reason why both of
those are in the bond proposal is because we don't know which proposition is going to
pass, right?
We can't forecast if City Hall West is going to go through the process, or if this is,
so at this point we have to be flexible, and absolutely everything's on the table.
So if neither one of them go through, then what do we do?
Then we have to go to plan C, right?
So nothing's off the table.
Both of these proposals are in there knowing that one may be both pass, one may be both
fail, but we have to be nimble in how we look at moving forward.
Okay, we're going to do three more questions.
I know there might be more, but just to get us moving and have some table talk, and then
we'll come back and there'll be time for additional.
So one, two, and then whoever gets the third.
I'm under the impression that this whole concept was developed by you all, and that you've
had no input from any developer.
Is that correct?
No development by any outside developer?
This is all your ideas.
Yeah, this is, basically this was just a test fit exercise to see here's the space, here's
the site that we have, what could fit on the site.
So this is a test fit you want us to approve of $111 million.
So I think that's the step that we are in the process.
Please have no discussions with outside developers.
No discussions.
No, no.
We can't.
I think it's important to know that we can't go out and have conversations with outside
developers before we're approved to do that.
But then how did you gain the knowledge and the foresight to develop this kind of plan?
This concept, this is just a conceptual plan done by an architectural firm that works in
this development.
But this is just a concept that is worth $111 million.
Well now the $111 million is the cost estimates for this, just the City Hall facility with
a parking structure.
Those are the cost estimates, that number.
And I am really confused.
I'm sorry.
I've got a question back here.
This is a question kind of from a business money person.
A, is there some type of place, a city here in Texas that you can point to and say this
P3 type of project proposal has been implemented, where there's been a public and private partnership,
we have a public space for city services, and then we have some retail space.
So once again, I don't think it's the exact same model.
I think conceptually, if you were to think about it conceptually, is if you look at South
Lake, they have a town center, and if you look right around there, they have all of
that retail piece.
So it's kind of this town center where people come to gather, they do their business function,
and then around you have the commercial activity.
So it's a great example, but it was not done under a P3 procurement process.
It's relatively new in the state of Texas.
So probably the closest would be to Travis County Courthouse was done under a P3 model,
which would be the closest to what we're talking about, but once again, not all of those elements
because the proposal kind of here is a combination between that P3 procurement model and a public-private
partnership.
So certainly those two things have happened within the state, but not necessarily right
there together at the same time.
The purpose of that question was getting back to the business aspect of it, that there's
a chance that that business retail space doesn't work, that money has been spent on that, and
for whatever reason, that doesn't work.
The market predicts winners and losers, not people in this room, not people in City Hall
or anything like that.
There's just a concern that I'm not against the proposal, the P3 proposal, or the amount
of money spent so much as I am, that the partnership fails in some level.
And sure, and that's the risk, right?
And so that goes back to when we talk about risk sharing, right?
So we want the private sector to come out there and do that due diligence and share
that risk with us.
So that investment possibly, once again, can't tell you the exact details of it, but we'd
look for them to have skin in the game so that they're at risk too and it's not just
the public sector at risk.
And then once again, could we reuse those facilities?
That would be a good deal structure to have if that retail doesn't work out, we can reuse
those facilities for a public purpose.
Should we need more growth and need more public facilities?
That was two.
Is there a third?
We can move on to table talk.
Let's do that.
Table talk.
So let's spend some time after you've heard those questions and answers, reflect, debrief,
and then we'll come back and have some time for additional comments and questions as needed.
[inaudible]
I think this discussion about the public private, the bit of the concept, not only of the city hall, but everything that has been presented to us.
I'm not sure in regard to what the, and this isn't, well I don't know if this is a question or not, but it's an overall understanding.
City council gave us a directive to hear from staff what they see as the requirements to put on a bond.
Is part of that going into the micromanagement minutiae of okay, it's public private, you do the notatorium, you can put in an HVAC and you can do more flat water, but don't do this.
You do city hall west and you fix it so you can do this, but not that.
You can move the library, you don't move the library, et cetera.
Personally, and if anyone agrees with me, fine, if you don't, I apologize for taking up your time right now.
But I think we're kind of getting a little bit into the micromanagement, the minutiae, and one of the reasons we're doing it is because so many of the proposals when we do ask a question, well, we'll tell you later, we'll do this or that.
So if I'm coming from the wrong and this gets me off the committee, so be it.
But it's really hard, you know, if I want to build a house and I say I have X amount of money, I want to know what is going to be done.
So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Sarah Hensley, I'm the city manager, and the answer to that is no. We are not oh well this, oh well that, no. I told you from the very beginning, we're going to give you the facts of what we are doing.
The answer to this is you can take $70 million and do what you want to with it to build a new city hall and we get what we get out of it.
You do not have to do a P3, period. You have that choice. You can say put $70 million on the bond, don't put any dollars on the bond for this project.
You are the group that picks the projects and the money associated with those projects.
You are asking us questions in detail. We're answering those questions the best we can.
When you do a P3 project, you will have to have partners. That's why it's called public-private partnership.
We don't know who those people are. Because it's so confusing, I would highly recommend that maybe you don't focus on that. Maybe that's not what you want to do right now.
And if you don't want to recommend $70 million, don't recommend $70 million. That's your responsibility, not ours.
All we're doing is answering your questions, giving you the best information we can, the factual information.
We're not trying to hide anything. We're not trying to cover anything up. We're trying to give you facts so you can make an informed decision.
And that's what we do every day with counsel, facts, so you can make an informed decision.
So I do take it a little bit of offense that you kind of accuse staff of stuff like that because I work with them every day and they're the most transparent people I've ever seen.
And I personally take offense to that. I'm sorry.
I apologize. I did not mean it as an offense.
Okay, let's get some other comments on here. Let's take two more comments on this topic and then we'll move on.
I think part of the problem is too many ifs and buts. We don't know, well, it could be this or it could be that, and that's frustrating.
It's frustrating when we don't have some clear sense of where we are.
To me, it almost feels like, and I know this is not what you're thinking, but it almost feels like it's a sacrificial lamb.
We'll throw this one out there for the voters to pass other stuff because this is too fuzzy.
It's not what you're thinking right now the way that you have presented it to put it to the voters.
Another comment. Mr. Davis.
So I just want to kind of let staff know, especially kind of where I'm falling on this after the whole conversation.
That we need more work space, the work-a-day space, the places where people actually are 40-plus hours a week.
What I worry about is if we put all of this in front of the voters without more of a plan, and I understand part of that is because you get a partner and then the plan flexes, right?
But instead of doing that on the front end and then asking voters for the amount of money it's going to take to get that deal done,
and they do it this way and they reject it, we don't get to use COs to build a new city building.
We don't get to use other alternative methods of financing.
We're stuck until the next bond issue or until that time expires where we do get to use COs and other stuff.
If we put just what we have something of a plan for, we need space.
X number of square feet at X number of dollars a square foot, and we put that in front of the voters.
That's something that can pass. The rest of it, the who's involved, nobody's involved, what's the plan,
we don't have the full plan yet because you can't have a full plan yet in this method of procurement, all that kind of stuff.
I think it puts on a bad footing to pass and makes it hard to finance what we really, really need,
which is more square feet, more bathrooms, more work space, and all that kind of stuff.
All right, well, now's the time when we're going to leave a controversial subject
and move on to another controversial subject with affordable housing.
Good evening. I'm Dana Shaw. I'm the director of community services here for the city of Denver.
I'm here to chat with you guys about affordable housing.
Not all of it.
How's this? Any better?
Is this better? You wouldn't know I used to be a camp director.
My name is Danny Shaw. I'm the director of community services here for the city of Denton.
I'm here to chat with you guys about affordable housing today.
So the city has done a comprehensive housing needs assessment and a market value analysis,
and it won't be any surprise to you all that the market analysis and the needs assessment said
we need more rental housing for people, especially those folks who are below 50% AMI,
that we need more affordable mortgages for people to be homeowners,
and that we need housing support for seniors.
We have an aging population. We need to make sure that they can age in place
and making sure we have supports for them to do so,
as well as being able to interact with services around them and more access to that.
We also do need a permanent supportive housing, additional housing units,
and transitional housing for people with disabilities and people who are experiencing homelessness.
There are folks who won't ever be able to earn the incomes that they need to afford our current housing in the community,
and so making sure we have that available is important.
And then making sure that every household has an opportunity to look and find affordable housing
in areas of opportunity, where they can find good jobs, places where the schools are high performing,
places where they can recreate and do all of the things that we can do all across the city
and just making sure everyone has the same choice.
The needs assessment at the time, it was done just before COVID,
so even now as you can see the data on the top of the screen as far as the dollar amount that was projected then,
it's still the same based on incomes in our community,
but the prices are even escalating as we sit here right now today.
So from that we developed a housing strategic toolkit,
and that toolkit has five strategies and 17 activities to help us work towards
our commitment to incentivizing our private market to meet those needs in the community.
And it's fairly comprehensive, it's also looking at how we leverage the tools that we already have
and not particularly looking at big sweeping changes,
but how do we look at how do we incentivize this through the development.
So infill, making sure that we're looking at our vacant and underutilized properties
and using those for their most effective use.
Looking at zoning relief and variances to make sure our zoning code is inclusive
for all of our households regardless of income.
Looking at increasing capacity and resources, so that means making sure all of our development community,
especially our nonprofit development community, has the tools that they need to move into this space
and be developers and create more affordable housing.
And then how do we minimize displacement?
How do we make sure that people don't get pushed out of their neighborhoods
when we start to make improvements and incentives there?
And then of course we have a lot of conversation to have.
We're starting that today with you for the housing bond.
We have a Discuss Stenton page where we're starting to talk about affordable housing
because there's going to be a lot of discussion that we have to have
and some of it's going to be hard, some of it's going to be easy,
but we do have to have those conversations together and we can't wait any longer to do so.
Within the activities themselves, we're looking at very specific and targeted tools to incentivize that behavior.
And I'm not going to go into all of those today,
but I do want to kind of talk through a couple of them that we're working on right now.
The biggest one we just approved was our rental repair grant,
and that goal is to ask landlords or people who are investors to purchase properties that may not be so great,
bring them up to code, bring them up to livability in exchange for that grant, in exchange for affordability.
So they would make that unit affordable to an income renderer or buyer.
Let's see. And then we're working on a couple of things altogether at the same time.
Our developer incentive package is the biggest thing we're working on right now,
and that is really looking at how we encourage infill small home communities through the zoning code
and using incentives for developers to create such tools in housing.
I wanted to show you this not to go into a big detail,
but just to give you a better explanation to understand how income is tied to rent limits.
So when you look at this chart, this is the chart that HUD approves every year,
and this is the tool that we utilize in the department that I work in to determine
if people are eligible for programs, whether it's housing or social services.
And so you're going to hear different numbers, like Scott provided you some numbers
about what the area median income was. It was slightly different than this one.
But this is the tool we use, and so for consistency, we use this when we're talking about affordability as well.
So what this is showing you is information based on household size and income and geography.
So this is the Dallas MSA. So in New York, these numbers will look very different than this one, right?
And then what we do is then determine, based on household size, where someone is in their income category,
and that helps us determine eligibility. And then hopefully we'll make a little more sense on the next slide.
So let me break this up into kind of three chunks.
Right now, based on our census data and our consolidated planning that we're doing,
we see about 49,000 housing units in the city. Within that, about 48 percent are rental and about 44 percent are owner.
Now, again, our economic development data will be slightly different than this.
Our development services data will be slightly different because we just use some different data tools.
But we're all about pretty close to 50/50, typically in our renter and owner populations.
Of those 49,000 units, only about 6,000 are affordable to people making 80 percent or below AMI.
That's not a lot of housing units.
Nationally, there's only about 29 units per hundred available to people who are making 30 percent or below the AMI.
Within Denton, our household composition, almost 50 percent of our households make less than 80 percent.
Thirty percent of those are making 50 percent or below.
So we have enough people in our population who are needing this assistance, making sure that they have housing based on their income.
And then I gave you an example on the right-hand side to show you what it looks like for a household of three.
So this is a mom. She's a retail cashier. She has two kids.
She's making $27,900 based on the chart I showed you, right?
If we use the rent standard, she should only pay 30 percent of her income.
That means she can only pay for $698 in rent.
That's a unicorn, right? That doesn't exist.
So she's going to be cost burdened because she's probably going to now have to pay more than 30 percent or even more than 50 percent, being severely cost burdened.
That means for every other decision she has to make, she's challenged whether or not she pays rent or she feeds her kids or whatever.
So this is why affordable housing is so important in our community and why not everyone's going to make the same income, and we need to make sure there are housing options available.
So it turns out, though, that building affordable housing isn't especially affordable, right?
So what we need to be looking at, and for me, it's about bringing that development cost down however we do it.
So that means we need to lower construction costs, and that's looking at cost-effective building solutions, things that we don't typically build right now but can make available through our tools, empowering our local builders.
I talked about we're working with nonprofit partners already, Habitat for Humanity, Denton Affordable Housing Corp, the Housing Authority.
We provide grants to them to help them maintain or create new affordable housing, and that's important, but we've got to do more of that.
We also need to work with our private development community. It's important. They have the most money and the access to it.
It's not something that the city can do alone. We have to have these partnerships and these collaborations, and for us to do that means we can incentivize it, though.
The city does have a role to play. We do have some ability to make some fluctuations, lower some barriers to make sure that developers can do what we need them to do,
including creating even more market rate because that will also lessen the pressure on our housing system.
We need to, again, like I talked about in Phil, is just using our existing land and unused buildings better.
We can't leave it sitting around. We can use it. We can use it effectively, and we can reduce pressure on more rural areas of our community as well by making it happen in areas where you already have infrastructure so it's cheaper to build.
There's a lot of creative things that we can do just through incentive-based policy, and then for larger developments, we need to have a seat at the table in some way.
Wayne alluded to it in his previous presentation. I think it's important to have that. We can't just do development agreements.
We need to have some incentives that bring us to the table so that developers want to work with us and so that we can have them create affordability in everything that they do, not just some developments in the community.
Then, of course, we need to preserve those moderately priced homes that we already have.
The affordable housing toolkit that I talked about at the time that we developed it gave us a goal of 4,300 units that we needed to create.
You can see in this graphic that some of that was in rental housing and some of that was in homeownership.
The needs assessment said we needed 4,300 units. The toolkit that we developed, we have a goal to create at least 1,700 units out of the tools that we're already talking about.
Of course, we hope that they will grow and expand over time, but that still leaves us with this remaining need of about 2,500 units based on a figure that was set pre-COVID.
I just want to keep that in your mind. What that means is for us, having the opportunity to talk to you about potential bond package for affordable housing that would give us some tools means that we would have additional funding to knock out some of that remaining need as well as expand on the need that's happening because of growth.
How we're proposing the funds would be utilized, no matter what amount you authorize or recommend, we think that about 75% of it will be in just land acquisition alone. Get those vacant properties, we'll get those underutilized properties, we'll get them in use, and then we will make them available through our developer incentive package.
That means we will say, "We've got land. You can have it if you will build affordability in those."
We'll also look at some direct financing. One of the 17 activities is to create a pre-development fund, which would give developers access to low-interest loans, reducing the capital, so it reduces the cost for them, and then they pay it back, and then that loan becomes a revolving loan that we can do packages ongoing.
We want to expand our capacity and resources to deliver, and that's grants. We want to build up our nonprofit developers to be bigger, so they can do more in the community on their own. They can be stronger. They can create more housing.
Housing assistance projects, that's what we already do. We're good at it. We just put a little more funding in it so that we can do more in the community. That's our proposal, and I will open it up for questions.
Is there a price tag associated with this proposal?
Well, we originally had proposed $10 million, but somebody mentioned that maybe you could make some more available, so it's up to your recommendation, though.
Got it. Okay, so this is the time for questions for Danny or others. Question back here.
Can you give us any insight into how $10 million was selected as a number, because we're looking at projects like $15 million, I think around $30 million, and affordable housing is one of the kind of greatest needs for the city in my mind.
I know friends who are leaving, friends who have become homeless, friends who have been priced out of their community, and so to my mind, this is a very important topic, so how is that $10 million number reached?
Yeah, I think it was the original proposal based on looking at what I talked about before. So we're not looking to pay for development. We're looking to incentivize that.
So let's say it's $10 million for land, and we use $7.5 million for land. We would make that seven properties, for example, at $1 million each that we could make available to a developer, and each one of those creates 300 units, as an example.
That would be a way that we're, you know, leveraging the developer community with a lower amount of funding. And then the original proposal in our affordable housing strategic toolkit was $500,000 for the pre-development loan program, so we built that right into it.
But that, to be clear, that's not like a cap. That's not like all of the capacity available to you if you were given more funds.
Absolutely. Okay. I'll take everything you give me. I want to be like Gary Packen and just buy lots of land.
Is the affordable housing all over the city of Denton, or is it primarily in one specific section of the city?
Right now, based on how our affordable housing tools are, so it's really just the housing tax credit program and our nonprofit developers. So a lot of our affordability is concentrated in District 1 and District 2 of the city. It does not expand out.
Go ahead, Gary.
Great job, Danny. Do any of your strategies depend on the Public Facilities Corporation, or maybe talk about how the PFC and this could work together?
Yeah, so we had proposed a PFC, or Council had asked for a review of what a PFC would look like. Our Housing Authority already does those.
We put a proposal together, and what the PFC would have done for us is create some of these other funding mechanisms, right?
And it would also, most importantly, put us at the door of those development conversations. So right now, we don't have any control when a PFC is created and what the deal is that's made.
And so right now, the PFC structure is pretty big, right? It allows for 100% tax exemption for only, you know, 50% of the units being affordable.
We would want to be at the table, both negotiating better deals for affordability, as well as then the revenues that we might make off of those deals to, you know, put back into affordable housing programs.
There's a question over here.
That did not pass, so I just wanted to make that clear.
Did that last part again?
It did not.
We don't have that tool.
Danny, do you know if there's any federal grant money that would augment what you're proposing?
Yeah, in a lot of different ways. So we're already an entitlement community, so we receive community development block grant and home investment partnerships.
But our funding is pretty limited. So our home funds is about $500,000 a year.
So if it takes $250,000 a year to create a single unit of affordable, you can see that's only going to create a couple of units.
But we've also been looking at, and I'll shout out to Ditton Affordable Housing Corp.
They got some new funding from HUD recently for additional capacity building that we were very grateful that they went out and applied for and got.
So those are examples of how we can look at different tools out there that we can seek out funding for.
I believe there's some matching grant money out there that I'll send you some links.
Thank you, ma'am. Happy to take it.
Mindy and Kim.
For the land property acquisition piece, if the city owns the land and you're working a development deal with a private developer to build, are they still able to take advantage of the state tax credits on that property?
Yeah, we use a fun term called capital stacks, so we could leverage a lot of different resources in one project.
So let's say we could put, you know, the land is a million dollars. They get to put that in their application, too.
They get the housing tax credits for some bond funding to help fund it.
We could put some home fund in to do a unit.
So there's a lot of ways we could leverage lots of funding to make even one development happen.
She just had a birthday yesterday, so we'll give her the microphone.
Happy birthday.
Quick question. Actually, I have two questions.
Number one, do you have any data on how many of these units are going to elderly disabled families that have small children?
If I could just kind of see who's going to be living there in terms of the demographics.
Yeah, we'd be on a development by development.
We have an affordable housing map right now on the city's web page where you can go and look at units are and who it's serving and are existing.
So that data is available, but I can see what we can pull just to give you an idea.
I think it would be important for us to look at priorities, right?
So making sure as we're looking at the entire development package that we're making sure senior housing gets created.
We're making sure that family housing is created.
So it's a part of it, but we don't have specific numbers on each of those targets.
I'm going to wind myself through this one.
How long do folks that are just trying to transition generally stay in affordable housing?
Oh, that's a really good question.
It depends on the population to like people experiencing homelessness is very different than people who are working and are needing just that 50 to 80 percent level.
So I'll have to look at that to give you kind of a better idea.
Tell me where you're trying to get to.
Maybe I can as a as a former teacher and principal.
And if you look at any data, the number one thing that kills the students likelihood of success is mobility.
That's if they are moving from one apartment complex to the next and then bouncing back and forth.
What I want to know is that we're going to make this investment and this mother, this cashier, those two kids stay at Sam Houston and then go to McMath and then go to high school.
And they are able to make that transition.
And there's very little mobility.
Yeah, I think that's an interesting question.
I'd like to think there, too, about how we make development agreements so that we make sure we're not seeing skyrocketing rents over time for those folks.
It stays affordable for long enough for them to stay. So those are great questions.
Thank you.
Any other questions?
All right, let's talk at our table a little bit and debrief on this and then we'll come back to see if there's anything else.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]