06-26-1996 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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JUN -20 -1996 13:1? NfC INTRODUCTION The City of Little Canada is a community located to the north of St. Paul. The City has a complex development pattern which grew out of a free standing settlement to become considered a "first - ring" suburb. Owing to the community's history, housing in Little Canada consists of converted lake cabins, large lake homes, mobile home parks, long standing residential grid -type neighborhoods, contemporary single family subdivisions, medium density developments and a significant number of apartment and condominium complexes. The City of Little Canada has elected to participate in the Metropolitan Livable Communities Program whioh onoourages the development and maintenance of affordable and life -cycle housing in the Twin Cities. The Metropolitan Livable Communities Act, being administered by the Metropolitan Council, was enacted in June 1995. The act establishes a Metropolitan Livable Communities Fund that has several funding accounts available to participating communities to help pay for various housing related activities in the community, This document is intended to be utilized by the City as the housing implementation plan for the soon to be completed Comprehensive Plan. Implementation of the goals and policies outlined in the Comprehensive Plan must take into consideration the range of available programs and resources based upon market and economic factors. This Action Plan should be used in organizing the pursuit of programs, initiatives and actions most applicable to the meet goals and needs of housing in the community. Tt should be stressed, however, that the City intends housing related actions to occur cooperatively with, and be stimulated primarily by, the private sector. 612 595 993? P.02/03 PAGE 1 LIVABLE COMMUNITIES BENCHMARICS AND GOALS The Metropolitan . Livable Communities Act requires participating communities to negotiate goals for affordable and life -cycle housing based upon current indexes and regional benchmark goals. Housing is considered "affordable" if it costs not more than 30 percent a family's annual income. For owner - occupied housing this income amount is approximately 80 percent or 50 percent of regional median incomes for low and moderate incomes respectively. In 1994 dollars, a home costing approximately 5115,000 would be considered affordable based upon a moderate income. For rental housing, this expense equals tsppivaimattly $500 per month, based upon a moderate income. Life -cycle housing is housing available to accommodate the changing needs and housing preferences of people throughout their lives. The City of Little Canada has established future housing goals for affordable and life -cycle housing through negotiations with Metropolitan Council Stag as illustrated in the following table. Little Canada's diverse housing stock composition complies with or exceeds all of the Metropolitan Council's regional benchmarks for affordable and life -cycle housing. Currently, 76 percent of the City's owner - occupied housing is considered affordable whereas 38 percent of its rental housing is considered affordable. The City's future housing goal regarding affordable housing is to maintain the current indexes for affordable and life -cycle housing. Based upon this goal, the Metropolitan Council has projected that the City will need to maintain its existing tenter and owner occupied housing supply and create an additional 268 affordable owner- occupied housing units by the year 2010 in order to remain within the regional benchmarks. This projection is based upon the Metropolitan Council's Regional Blueprint CITY OF LITTLE CANADA HOUSING ACTION PLAN Page 105