The recent meeting of the City Council’s Finance Committee took up the issue of new funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, something a task force commissioned by Mayor Alan Webber in 2018 concluded must happen.
During that meeting, an amendment was proposed to an ordinance under discussion that would have established new rules for short-term rentals. The amendment would have passed on gross receipts tax income collected by those rentals to the trust fund, which does everything from covering down payment assistance to providing funding for rental vouchers and backing bridge loans for affordable housing projects.
City Councilor Joanne Vigil Coppler, who is not a voting member of the committee, introduced the idea. But Councilor Renee Villarreal got the discussion going.
The notion failed as an amendment, but debate was lively, with input from City Attorney Erin McSherry and Finance Director Mary McCoy. Councilors Carol Romero-Wirth, Signe Lindell and Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez voted against the amendment.
Every councilor expressed dismay over the affordable housing crisis, and all fervently wished they could find a way to create a permanent revenue stream for the trust fund; they just didn’t think it should come from what was proposed.
The reluctance among councilors is understandable. Gross receipts tax revenue is the lifeblood of all city operations. Thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, we are already down several pints, and the wound is still bleeding. Any drop of gross receipts tax funds we can find needs to be injected to keep essential services flowing. The next fiscal year that starts in July could project an even tighter budget than the one we’re on, which is on life support.
There also was a bit of pushback on how complicated it would be to extract the short-term rental amount from the lump sum the state gives the city for its 3.3 percent of the 8.44 percent collected. City staff members acknowledged the difficulty but said it could be done from rational estimates, which didn’t seem to satisfy anybody.
What’s clear is that funding the trust isn’t going to come from gross receipts tax, at least not exclusively.
But there is another way, and that is to do exactly what Albuquerque has done for more than a decade. That city asks voters every two years if they would approve a general obligation bond to fund its trust. The voters have never said no. The first time it was floated, it barely passed, but every cycle gets more support, and now 75 percent say yes.
They say yes because they understand every dollar into the fund leverages 10 times the development dollars spent building affordable housing. Building housing is an economic stimulus. It’s also generates large infusions of gross receipts tax for city operations.
Santa Fe is going to have a municipal election one year from now. The question of funding a general obligation bond to feed the fund should be on the ballot. Every future candidate for mayor or council would likely be for it.
Bond questions on last week’s ballot were approved by Santa Feans overwhelmingly, as they always are. We are a community that understand the needs and votes to support them.
Apparently no councilor is willing to step up and put the bell on the cat and sponsor a ballot question. Not surprising, as the political path is littered with bodies of incumbents with the fortitude to tell the truth.
So maybe the initiative should come from Webber. It’s a wining position, should he seek another term next November. Better for all to be on the same page to “find the way” rather than looking for gross receipt tax money in the couch cushions.
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November 08, 2020 at 10:00AM
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Put bond to feed housing fund on next ballot - Santa Fe New Mexican
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