The regular chair of Charlotte's Housing Committee was on spring break Monday. So was Council Member Juan Diego Mazuera Arias's little sister — except she showed up anyway.
"It is spring break, everyone," Mazuera Arias said by way of explanation, as Salome Masvera Arias introduced herself from the back row of a committee room gathered to hear about the city's most significant annual affordable housing decision.
Interim Chair Kimberly Owens, filling in for the absent LaWana Slack-Mayfield, called the meeting to order with a disclaimer: "We were kidding that we're going to go rogue. We're not going to go rogue. We're going to do a good job."
Eighteen proposals. About $28 million to give out.
The city received 18 proposals requesting more than $45 million. It has about $28.7 million to give out. That is the situation Charlotte's housing staff presented Monday in the third funding cycle under the 2024 $100 million affordable housing bond — three categories, eight proposals in rental housing production, nine in home ownership, one in innovation.
Available balances: $11.3 million in rental housing production, $12.4 million in home ownership, $5 million in the Innovation Pilot Fund.
The oversubscription isn't a problem. It's a triage exercise the city runs every year. Which proposals best meet the council's priorities? Which produce the most affordable units per public dollar? Which will still be standing in 30 years? Director Rebecca Hefner estimated the previous winter round drew roughly $85 million in requests against a smaller pool — the competition is the point.
That lone innovation submission came from the Westside Land Trust, in Council Member Joi Mayo's District 3. She noted it by name.
Staff will present funding recommendations to the full council at an action preview on April 13. The council votes April 27.
The 40,000 units nobody is building
Three of the four committee members present Monday are first-term council members — Owens, Mazuera Arias, and Mayo — seeing a full housing trust fund cycle for the first time.
Mazuera Arias identified what he called a "chicken and egg" problem: one of the rental proposals in the pool, a development called Evoke Living over Laura Lake, received its rezoning from the full council on March 23 — after the January 30 application deadline. He voted against that rezoning when it came before council. He's not trying to kill the project, he said, but he wants future rounds to require that rezonings be secured before applications close. "If we're going to be competitive and as well as fair to all developers," he said, "I think it would behoove us to ensure that they are getting their rezonings in... before the application deadline arrives."
Council Member Reneé Johnson asked a more fundamental question. Charlotte's affordable housing gap, by the city's current estimate, stands at 40,000 units at 50% AMI and below. That number, Johnson noted, has barely moved since she moved to Charlotte in 2015. She described a recent development that opened with 120 units and received 1,200 applications — an immediate wait list before the building was a year old.
Her question was blunt: is the city's requirement — 20% of units in any subsidized development must be available at 30% AMI — aggressive enough to reach the people who need it most?
Director Hefner's answer was more honest than reassuring. "No, we're not building according to the need," she said. "But building isn't going to solve affordability in our city."
What comes next
On April 13, staff presents all 18 proposals to full council with scoring and recommendations. Each proposal gets a detailed review; a full booklet follows April 16. The vote, if it proceeds as scheduled, is April 27.
The Housing Trust Fund has been operating for 25 years. Hefner called it a national model that other cities ask about. It is also, by the city's own accounting, nowhere near large enough to close the gap it was designed to address.
The conversation about the next bond — the 2026 referendum amount — begins after the City Manager presents his recommended FY2027 budget on May 4. The June 8 budget adoption sets the dollar figure.
The families who will live in whatever gets built next are not in those meetings. Eighteen development groups were in this one.