Workforce Affordable Housing Information Session
Dear Church Family,
In worship on November 20th the pastors and a special Study Team shared an exciting, inspiring, God-sized dream to live out our call to shine God’s love into our community: meeting our community’s great need for workforce affordable housing by using the underutilized part of our church’s land to build housing for the working families and seniors in our city who need it most. This is a God-sized dream that has the potential to transform thousands of lives for generations to come and put love for neighbor into action — just like our church has been doing for 165 years.
In each service that day as well as in an informational session of November 27, members of the Study Team working on this project joined the pastors to share about the vision and the dream and the real possibilities of making a God-sized difference and truly being the Heart of the City. It was an uplifting and inspiring day together that reminded us all of what makes First United Methodist Church of Denton special — and why we are so grateful for all who are a part.
Would you like to know more about the workforce housing project FUMC Denton is exploring?
A second informational session will also be held on Zoom on Thursday, Dec 15, at 7pm. You’ll hear more about the project, find out why we think this will have great positive impact on our community and on our church, and have a chance to submit any questions or insights to the Study Team.
Join us on Zoom, 7pm, December 15. https://us06web.zoom.us/j/2796052169
Ahead of the meeting, if you have questions, comments, or ideas, please send them to workforcehousing@fumc-denton.com so that we can ensure we get the congregation the best, most accurate information. Also, see the included email below for more information and for some FAQs.
We are honored to be part of a FUMC Denton, a church that truly seeks to shine God's love into every life!
Grace and peace,
Don Lee
Senior Pastor
&
Jonathan Perry
Executive Pastor
More Information and FAQs below:
_____________
Approximately 15 months ago, as we began preparing for our church’s God Dreams worship series, Pastors Don and Jonathan began to enter into conversations with the congregation to consider the fundamental question: How is God calling us to to make disciples and to transform the world in which we live? At that time, we had no idea what power those eighteen words held to transform the future of our community and our church.
One thing we heard over and over was the hope and the call to once again be a church working at the heart of the city to care for the needs our neighbors and transform our community for the sake of all people, just like our church has been throughout its deep-rooted history.
Today, we introduced a God-dream plan to do just that: After hundreds of hours of work and discernment by staff, laity and trusted partners we announced today that FUMC Denton has begun a process to gauge the feasibility of and to pursue the development of an approximately 185-unit workforce housing complex in Downtown Denton.
Now more than ever, the most urgent need our community faces—and the one we find ourselves in a position to address—is the creation of workforce housing that is affordable to those persons whose labor makes our economy flourish, but whose limited. full-time wages make living in the community a challenge. The United Way identifies these families as ALICE families—Asset Limited, Income Constrained, but Employed. More information about how prevalent these families are in our community and the challenges they face can be found at www.unitedwaydenton.org/alice.
The current market rate for a 1-bedroom apartment in Denton is $1,450/month. A 2-bedroom’s market rate is $1,750/month. These rents are simply unattainable for many in our community. The workforce housing development we anticipate at FUMC Denton would make rents affordable to ALICE families, with 1-bedroom rents at approximately $905/monthly and 2-bedroom units at approximately $1,052/monthly.
If our church could make a dent in that…freeing up more than $500 of income for a family every month, it could mean the difference between groceries or not. Between healthcare or not. Between transportation to a job—or not. In the longer term it could translate into a down payment on a house in a couple of years and create a path to build generational wealth and opportunity. And for 185 households that becomes a million dollar impact in our community every year through the ministry of our church.
Both The United Way of Denton County and the City of Denton have identified a lack of access to affordable housing as a top priority for our community. We encourage you to learn more about their findings using the links below.
United Way 2022 Community Needs Assessment
City of Denton 2021 Housing Needs Study and Market Value Analysis
Some of their key findings:
ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, comprises households that earn more than the Federal Poverty Level but earn less than the basic cost of living (the ALICE Household Survival Threshold).
With poverty and ALICE households combined, nearly 100,000 Denton County households earn below the Survival Threshold, meaning that one in three Denton County households earn below the Survival Threshold and experience day to day financial instability. Combining households in poverty and ALICE households provides our community the most accurate measurement of total financially fragile Denton County individuals and families, which translates to critical unmet gaps in housing insecurity, and food insecurity due to under-employment because of a lack of adequate workforce skills.
Over 40% of Aubrey, Denton, Lake Dallas, Lewisville, and Sanger households are estimated to earn below the ALICE threshold. Over 45% of Denton households earn below the ALICE threshold.
Single female headed households in Denton County have the highest combined poverty and ALICE rate. Over 55% of all single female headed households earn less than the ALICE Survival Wage.
The groundwork for this workforce housing project was first laid in the 1970s, when the FUMC Denton congregation resolved itself to being a downtown church committed not only to making disciples of Jesus Christ but to actively working alongside our neighbors, our allies, and our government officials to ensure Denton is a place where all can experience the abundance of God’s creation.
Our current campus, which spans two city blocks, reflects both the vision and the generosity of the generations which have come before us. As the land was assembled to create our present-day lot, the vision was that a future generation would use it to meet the community’s need. This project is the culmination of the dream of this church 50 years ago to put down deep roots in downtown Denton and spread its branches wide to care for its neighbors.
Each year in our stewardship series we explore many of the stories from our scripture library that illustrate how God never fails to provide for our base needs. Yet, when we sensed the need to address this housing shortage for hard-working families, we struggled to imagine how our church might make an impact. Over the subsequent months, through diligent research and perseverance in building relationships, a picture began to emerge of how to make that possible. What follows is a summary of what we learned and how far we’ve come as we seek to fulfill a God sized dream that is bigger than we could have ever hoped for or imagined.
Key Milestones (to date)
FUMC Denton held conversations with Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit which advances the cause of affordable housing development and provides advisory services to other nonprofits who want to make an impact in this area, to educate itself on best practices and potential pitfalls. ECP advised us of how we might leverage public funds to help achieve our vision.
The Federal Government’s Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) programs offer financial incentives to offset the costs of building affordable housing. One of these credits, known as the 4% non-competitive credit, is structured in such a way that it specifically targets ALICE families and those earning less than 60% of area median income (AMI). In Denton county this income level is $54,214. A complementary Multifamily Bond Program provides tax-free bonds to help finance projects at below-market interest rates.
After vetting our options, we initiated conversations with Volunteers of America (https://www.voans.org/housing), a leading national nonprofit with decades of experience in developing, building and managing workforce housing projects. We evaluated projects they’ve done alongside the well-regarded, Denton County–based developer Matthews Southwest (https://www.matthewssouthwest.com/), and your board of trustees signed a memorandum of understanding with the two parties so that we could begin the process of gauging project viability.
Victor Smeltz, who represents Volunteers of America and has more than 20 years of experience developing affordable housing projects, reached out to City of Denton and other government partners on our behalf to gauge interest in our project, and received strong support from every group with which he engaged.
We met with a broad spectrum of church lay leadership, including our Lay Leaders, Chairs of Ad Board, Trustees, and Finance committees, representatives from Missions and other key leaders with experience shaping FUMC Denton projects as well as the full Board of Trustees. This group unanimously directed staff to continue pursuing the project and mission vision.
The Board of Trustees then recommended that we continue to pursue the project and advised that the church work with Denton County to enter into a lottery process with the State of Texas to be considered for the 2023 Low Income Housing Tax Credit and bond financing program that would make a project like this possible.
We then created an Workforce Housing Study Team, made up of a broad spectrum of church laity, to evaluate the information we had gathered to date and asked them to recommend our next steps. The Study Team recommended that we continue to pursue the project and began to research and advise on project details that would best meet the community needs and hopes of the church. The Study Team continues to meet regularly. Its members are Kathryn Stream, Dalton Gregory, Nancy Chadwick, Jeff Springer, Steve Cobb, Chuck Rives, Tom Grems, Courtney Banatoski, and Ross Garison.
In September we added Good Fulton & Farrell Architects (GFF) (https://gff.com/) to our list of partners. Our Board of Trustees had previously engaged GFF’s Church Works Studio to create a new master plan for our campus, and the firm’s CEO, who leads its award-winning multifamily architecture division committed to providing pro-bono architecture services for the pre-development portion of our project.
In October we began meetings between GFF, VOA, Matthews Southwest, and the City of Denton to openly discuss our project and to seek feedback from city staff. The feedback was overwhelmingly supportive.
When presented to our Administrative Board earlier this month, this project was met with overwhelming support and enthusiasm and questions and feedback were gathered.
On November 9, our church received a favorable bond lottery ranking which made 2023 funding a possibility.
On November 9, we held a pre-development conference with representatives from every division of the city’s staff that is involved with development and construction.
Future Timeline (projected)
Congregational information sessions on November 27, 12:30pm in the Sanctuary and December 15, 7pm on Zoom. To facilitate accurate information, send any questions or comments to workforcehousing@fumc-denton.com
Continued architectural development to confirm feasibility and understand project pricing through January 2023.
Build-out of 40-year financial models throughout January/February 2023.
Conversations with potential funding partners, including Texas Methodist Foundation and others throughout December/January 2023.
Regular meetings of Workforce Housing Study Group, with monthly updates to Board of Trustees and others as appropriate.
Additional informational presentations made to congregation as developments warrant.
Church Conference anticipated by the end of Q1 2023, with at least 10 days notice given.
Notice of Funding from State of Texas anticipated in last quarter of 2023, with project to be shovel-ready within 180 days.
24-30 month construction period projected to potentially begin in 2024 with parking structure complete in 6 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Below are answers to questions gathered from your Workforce Housing Task Force, Board of Trustees, and Administrative Board. These questions and answers will be updated as more information becomes available.
When could this happen?
We anticipate being notified of funds availability in the second half of 2023, but notice could come earlier (or not at all). There is high demand for Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and the State of Texas is responsible for administering these federal funds. Not all developments which receive funds are ultimately successful, and when that is the case those dollars become available to the next development in line. If we are not successful in receiving tax credit funds in 2023 we will be eligible to apply for funds in the 2024 cycle.
Does the congregation have a say in this?
Absolutely, and your voice matters. Two information sessions are scheduled to share more information and to answer your questions. These are scheduled for Sunday, November 27, immediately following worship in the sanctuary and for Thursday, December 15, at 7pm on Zoom. Because we are committed to providing timely, accurate, and well-considered answers to your questions, we encourage you to submit questions to be answered in these forums to workforcehousing@fumc-denton.com.
Will there be a congregational vote?
While the United Methodist Book of Discipline does not directly address this type of building program being pursued by a church, our District Superintendent and relevant district boards are providing us with guidance on this issue. A church conference will be called before contracts are signed.
When do we have to make a decision?
We anticipate the church conference to be called before the end of the first quarter of 2023, so that we will be prepared to move decisively should we be informed of funding from the State of Texas.
How can we afford this project?
No funds have been spent out of the church budget to pursue this opportunity, and there are no plans to do so. The Board of Trustees identified funds from an anonymous donor to cover our application costs for the 2022 lottery, which were minimal, and those fees were split evenly between FUMC Denton and VOA/Matthews Southwest. No funds are being paid to VOA/Matthews Southwest, and they will not receive any payment unless the project is built successfully. Once a notice of funding is received from the state and we decide to move forward, expenses will continue to be split evenly with our development partners, and each party will recoup its expenses from tax credit and bond financing dollars once the project is funded.
What if we need our land for church buildings?
Your Board of Trustees engaged GFF Architects earlier this year to develop a campus master plan that will meet our congregation’s needs for the next generation. Every scenario of ministry and church growth (and needed facilities) we anticipate being met in our current building footprint.
Our church facility is in need of significant repair and improvement. Will this project put that work in jeopardy?
It will not. GFF’s Church Works Studio is working with our Board of Trustees to develop a plan for our current campus, and we do not expect the workforce housing project having any negative impact on that plan’s implementation.
Where are we going to park?
The church currently uses a variety of parking strategies to meet our ministry needs, the most visible of which are the church-owned lot at the east end of the campus, and the city-owned lot just north of the church. The existing on-site church parking will be replaced by even more spaces available within the housing development’s parking garage, in approximately the same location as the existing parking lot. The housing development will include abundant on-site parking for residents and their guests. In conversations with the City of Denton to understand how other proposed Downtown Denton developments may impact our ability to use the city’s lot for parking, city representatives communicated that land being used for city parking is deed-restricted for that use.
Where will we park during construction?
There are many “what-if” scenarios related to this project, including parking during construction. We have nothing to announce at this time but are confident in our partners’ ability to meet our parking needs with minimal disruption to our Sunday routines and to our ability to do ministry effectively.
Will we lose our property tax exemption?
FUMC Denton’s entire property will retain its property tax exemption. We will work with partners to benefit from a Texas statute which allows nonprofits such as ourselves to build workforce housing exempt from all property taxes.
Will we continue to own the property? Who will be the owner of the development?
Yes, we will continue to own our property, and we will be the long-term owners of this development. The Texas statute that allows us to build the development without property tax liability will require that the land used for the development be transferred to an entity which will remain under church control.
How will we be kept safe?
The thought of affordable housing can cause anxiety to some, largely due to stereotypes perpetuated by film and television and by hurtful social rhetoric. Numerous studies show that LIHTC-supported housing developments have no effect on crime rates, either positive or negative. ALICE families are among us in our daily lives and are valued members of our congregation and our community. Our church will continue to seek to be a vibrant part of the downtown landscape, shine God’s love into every life, and be welcoming and wise about congregational safety.
What about…..?
In a similar vein to parking, there are hundreds of “What if..?” scenarios deserving of answers. For now, the answer to many of them is “We don’t know yet, and that’s ok. But we are confident our church and partners can figure it out.” Over the coming weeks we hope to share information with you in a way that inspires confidence in our church and in its partners to execute a project bigger than we’d ever dreamed or imagined. Thanks be to God for this opportunity in the life of our church and community!