The City Council today needs to hear from residents, managers and developers of affordable housing to help craft a policy to guide the long-anticipated sale of 12 city-owned projects. The goal is to preserve the maximum number of low-income rentals for the future.

The public hearing before the Executive Matters Committee will provide the venue for this important conversation, which should strike a balance in meeting the needs of tenants and the for-profit and nonprofit entities who can put a roof over their heads.

At issue is Resolution 08-108, which seeks to set city policy on qualifications for prospective owners and managers of the city's affordable projects. Ultimately, the sale is the administration's duty and it's not a good idea to foreclose the city's options while discussions on the broader affordable housing strategy are still ongoing.

However, it makes perfect sense to lay out some guidance aimed at keeping as many units as possible affordable for the long term.

In general, the resolution provides a good starting point for public comment on the much-needed privatizing process. Some of its elements are hard to dispute; for example, giving preference to bidders with established history in this housing sector, or at least a business plan that explicitly deals with affordable housing, should be essential.

In theory, the stated preference for local ownership sounds virtuous, but the industry will need to weigh in on whether this guidance is advisable, given the benefits of casting a wide net.

And giving the edge to nonprofit applicants or "community-development corporate developers" may not be necessary, given the statement that follows: "The city will base the choice of a developer, either non-profit or for-profit, on the depth and length of affordability that a developer commits to produce."

That, after all, is the bottom line. The critical part of the policy would be its mechanism for keeping units affordable "in perpetuity." And, as the proposed policy states, it should be up to the prospective buyers to commit to a deed restriction specifying affordability or otherwise demonstrate how it plans to keep rents low.

If the city is ever to transition from being a landlord to a facilitator of affordable housing, it's good that this conversation about achieving this goal has resumed, finally.