June 9, 2025: How Floral Hill CLT got $200K without a City Council vote

Presenter: City officials explained why they would be working to secure $200,000 for the Floral Hill Terrace Community Land Trust, even though no funds were actually approved by a vote of the City Council. At the Council meeting June 9, 2025, Mayor Kaarin Knudson and then-City Manager Sarah Medary:

Mayor Kaarin Knudson (June 9, 2025): I will now turn to the city manager to introduce our fourth agenda item.

Sarah Medary (Eugene, city manager, June 9, 2025): Thank you, Mayor. Tonight you have an opportunity to approve funding for two new development proposals and a gap funding request for a previously awarded project, all submitted in response to the 2025 affordable housing trust fund request for proposals.

Recommended funding prioritizes development starting in the coming 12 months and includes Legacy Park by a Cascade Housing Association, Park Run by Community Development Partners, and gap funding for The Lucy by Cornerstone Community Housing.

This funding will help create 205 new affordable homes and ensure the financial stability of an existing development. And staff are here to answer any questions you might have. 

Kaarin Knudson (Eugene, mayor, June 9, 2025): Thank you. Any questions from Council? 

I have one quick clarification for the record. And, as many of you know, I participated as a member of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund when it began, and departed when I became a candidate to be the mayor of Eugene.

And this year’s discussion and the work of that advisory committee working with staff to bring forward a recommendation, it’s always a very robust conversation and there are always great projects. And of course, this is working to meet a priority goal of this council and a goal of our community.

Staff, I’m wondering if you could just speak a little bit to the Floral Hill Community Land Trust Project and the support that the committee had for that project. And also the fact that there was some additional information and support from the state and federal LIHTC (Low-Income Housing Tax Credits) funds that came to the Park Run project.

Could you just speak a little bit to those two and how it is that this recommendation has come forward to Council as it has, and what we will be accomplishing in totality (we hope) with this decision and future work?

Laura Hammond (Housing Tools Analyst, June 9, 2025): Sure. Thank you, Mayor. 

My name’s Laura Hammond. I work with Community Development on affordable housing protection and I will speak to the Floral Hill proposal, which proposed to create some very valuable, affordable home ownership opportunities in our community.

And it’s an excellent proposal. It is in the very early stages of its development, so it’s still in the process of attempting to acquire the site. It will be doing some land use applications. It will be doing some site development, and then it will be able to start constructing housing probably in 2027.

So, with the Park Run development, which was the one that has been recommended, that development actually, is ready to start construction pretty much this summer, late summer, maybe into the fall. They were awarded some competitive time-sensitive state funding, including low-income housing tax credits, public bonds and LIFT (Local Innovation and Fast Track) funds.

So they got about $54 million worth of state funding that has to be spent, basically, by starting construction at the end of this year. That project was prioritized. 

It will create 158 new units that will be open by 2027, and 29 of those units will serve our lowest income household at 30% AMI and below.

So, our committee has a very challenging job in that we typically we get far more proposals than we have funding to supply.

This year they did recommend Floral Hill for a $200,000 award. The staff recommendation prioritized Park Run because of the number of units, the time sensitivity of their state funding.

And we also wanted to say that if for some reason they’re not able to make that state funding deadline, then that funding would come back to Council to be awarded potentially to Floral Hill, if you decide to do that.

In the meantime, we are going to be working with Floral Hill to secure $200,000 to help them keep moving forward on purchasing their site.

So that is in the works and we’re working with them and had that conversation and they are supportive of that. 

Kaarin Knudson (Eugene, mayor, June 9, 2025): Thank you. And just to clarify that process of working with the Floral Hill Community Land Trust, that $200,000 that you just mentioned, that’s equal to the amount that was also recommended by the committee, to move forward?

Laura Hammond (Housing Tools Analyst, June 9, 2025): It is, yes. 

Kaarin Knudson (Eugene, mayor, June 9, 2025): Thank you.

Presenter: Councilor Alan Zelenka:

Councilor Alan Zelenka (June 9, 2025): Thanks. I was going to ask the same question, so thanks for that. 

The Floral Hill Community Land Trust is kind of a different model than we’re used to, where we build affordable housing and people pay a modest rent to it.

But this is a little different. This actually involves ownership. Can you describe that and why it’s different from everybody else and how it works?

Laura Hammond (Housing Tools Analyst, June 9, 2025): Sure. Thank you, Councilor. It is called the Community Land Trust because the developer, which is a local nonprofit called DevNW, will continue to own the land underneath the houses.

And by doing so, that reduces the cost of the actual house. The homebuyer is buying just the house. The land underneath stays in the ownership of DevNW so that they can keep those units affordable long-term.

It’s an ownership model, so they buy the house, they do pay a small land lease each month toward that land that their house sits on, but they will gain the equity in their home over time, so that as a homeowner, they can take advantage of that equity should they ever decide to move.

Councilor Alan Zelenka (June 9, 2025): Yeah, and it’s a pretty low threshold. It’s 80% adjusted median income, which is $71,000 for a household of four that will be able to buy a house. And what we desperately need is actual affordable housing that people can purchase. And the price range per unit—?

Laura Hammond (Housing Tools Analyst, June 9, 2025): I think each unit’s around $250(K), $275(K). That would be what the homeowner would be looking at for a sale price.

Kaarin Knudson (Eugene, mayor, June 9, 2025): With no further questions from Council, I’ll turn to the council president to put a motion forward.

Councilor Greg Evans (June 9, 2025): Move to approve the use of (a) $373,832 of Affordable Housing Trust funds for Legacy Park by Cascade Housing Association; (b) $200,000 of Affordable Housing Trust funds for Park Run by Community Development Partners contingent upon on maintaining state funding awarded in 2025 and (c) $136,047 of affordable housing trust funds for The Lucy by Cornerstone Community Housing. (Second).

Kaarin Knudson (Eugene, mayor, June 9, 2025): Thank you. Any further discussion from council? Seeing none, I’ll now take a vote for this motion. Counselors, please lock in your vote on the tablets in front of you. The motion passes with a vote of 8-0. Thank you, City Council.

Presenter: During public comment, John Barofsky:

John Barofsky (June 9, 2025): I’m here to talk about the Affordable Housing Trust Fund allocations. As a member of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee, I would just like to thank you for moving that forward.

As you know, affordable housing is a problem in our community. These funds help to build affordable housing that may not quite have enough money to get there. We had several projects this year that we looked at.

There was about $780,000 that was allocated by you earlier this evening. There was almost $2 million worth of asks, all good and excellent projects that were deserving.

So as a committee, it’s kind of like picking your favorite child, which is something that is very difficult to do. The committee had a robust discussion about all of the proposals that were put forward. We proposed something a little bit different than what staff put forward, but everybody on the committee was in favor of the changes.

One of the things that we were advocating for was the Floral Hill Community Land Trust option. It’s a new type of model, and that’s one of the things that as a committee we are looking at, is being able to help put new models into our affordable housing system. So I’m looking forward to that project moving forward in the coming years.

The one thing that I would also like to say is that we had $780,000 to allocate this year, but of that, $500,000 was out of the city’s general fund. The actual amount that was collected from new properties was only $280,000 this year. The need is bigger than there is.

And if it weren’t for the fact that the city is kicking in a half million dollars in the proposed budget, which is an ongoing thing and I’m thankful to the city manager and you guys being able to figure out how to do that, but we need to keep building more things ’cause every building that gets built puts money into that fund.

So thank you for moving it forward, and continue the good work.

Presenter: During a City Council meeting in June 2025, city officials explained why they would be working to secure $200,000 for the Floral Hill project.