HRA 08/03/2006 - 29602?�
_ *
� CITY OF FRIDLEY
HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY CONIlVIISSION
August 3, 2006
CALL TO ORDER:
Chairperson Commers called the Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting to order at
7:35 p.m.
ROLL CALL:
Members Present: Larry Commers
Pat Gabel
William Holm
Members Absent: John Meyer
Others Present: Mike Jeziorski, City Accountant
Paul Bolin, HRA Assistant Executive Director
Gay Cerney, HRA
Jim Casserly, Development Consultant
� APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
1. Housing & Redevelopment Authority — June 1, 2006
MOTION by Commissioner Gabel, seconded by Commissioner Holm, to approve the minutes
as presented.
UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON COMMERS DECLARED THE
MOTION CARRIED.
CONSENT AGENDA:
ACTION:
2. Approval of changes to Gateway West Development Agreement-requirement for
letter of credit.
Paul Bolin, HRA Assistant Executive Director, stated as they were preparing for the June 20
closing on the first three lots they were turning over to Blueprint Homes, it was revealed there
were some technical problems with requesting a Letter of Credit from Blueprint Homes. As they
(ooked into this, quite simply, Blueprint is really too small a builder to have much other security
^` than land for a Letter of Credit. In this case the HRA actually owns the land. It does cause some
�
�
� concerns for staff and for legal counsel. Working with the First Bank of Elk River, they really
cannot issue a Letter of Credit to the HRA unless they hold a mortgage on that property. That
would mean we would give up our first right of reverter. The way it stands now he would think
their goal is to see what is built on those sites and if something were to happen with Blueprint we
are unable to do that, the agreement is currently set up where if they were to waive that Letter of
Credit and not give a first mortgage to the First Bank of Elk River, we would sell them the land.
Probably would be a little troublesome finding a new builder for those lots, but he is sure they
could probably turn around and sell the lots for more than what they agreed to sell them to
Blueprint Homes for. They had counsel put together a memo that each of them were provided
with a copy of tonight. He thinks Gay Cerney did a nice job of presenting the facts and really
there are two options. Attorney Cerney recommends concurrence with legal counsel's Option
No. 2 and waive that requirement for the Letter of Credit on the future closings as they move
forward.
Commissioner Holm stated he thought attorney Cerney did an excellent job of providing the
options available to them, and he concurred with her recommendation. His only question is what
procedure needs to be followed in order to implement this change? Any change in the agreement
or any legal procedure?
Gay Cerney, Attorney for the HRA, replied she recommended the HRA submit a letter to
Blueprint, signed by Mr. Commers, as their Board Chair saying that they waive the requirement
the Letter of Credit be furnished. She did not think they have to go through the formality of
�,,,� actually amending the agreement.
Commissioner Gabel stated she does agree and thinks they can achieve their final goal without
putting themselves at any large monetary risk which she thinks would be their greatest
consideration. Maybe it is simply a matter of the next time they need to have someone prove
they can furnish it rather than just tell them they need to furnish it, depending on the situation.
Attorney Cerney replied, right. Technically they are in default of the agreement so they could
take more drastic remedies than they are doing and they could exercise our right to not sell them
any more lots which they do not want to.
Chairperson Commers asked if staff got any financial statements from Blueprint Homes?
Mr. Bolin replied, no, as they went through this they did not get any financial statements.
Chairperson Commers commented they probably figured as long as they have the Letter of
Credit, they really were not necessary.
Commissioner Gabel commented she thought they had that discussion, whether they were
going to have a Letter of Credit, and they were not going to go that route.
Mr. Bolin replied he really thought attorney Cerney really hit it right on the head. Because
Blueprint Homes has not done redevelopment projects before they were not familiar with the
� complexities of obtaining a letter of credit.
2
�
� Chairperson Commers commented they just have to make sure it does not happen again;
otherwise, they might have to enforce their rights and nobody would be very happy then.
MOTION by Commissioner Holm, seconded by Commissioner Gabel, to waive the Letter of
Credit requirement for Blueprint Homes.
UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON COMMERS DECLARED THE
MOTION CARRIED.
3. Gateway West-Addition to street project.
Mr. Bolin stated what brought about the change is as they redid Third Street, they were going to
do the entire section between 57�' and up through the project. What happened when the bid
specifications were put together, was that the city engineering deparhnent put it together like any
other street project, and somewhere along the way the portion of Third Street in between the
southern and northern block was dropped to save some costs and because technically they were
not necessary from an engineering prospective. It had always been their intention to try and tie
the entire neighborhood together; that it would look kind of odd to have this patchwork quilt look
up and down the street where you would only have nice new street in front of the brand new
homes. Likewise with the fencing project, the fence ran the entire length of the project to tie
� everything together. Midwest Asphalt has already been out and they have taken off the
bituminous where the street is going to be completely reconstructed. Mr. Bolin presented some
photos.
Mr. Bolin did mention in the memo in their packet he was waiting to get a bid back from
Midwest Asphalt to have them go from the northern edge of the project all the way to 61St Street.
For some reason the street is about 4-feet wider than it is to the south. Roughly the lineal footage
is fairly similar but they end up with quite a bit more square yards because of the bituminous
needed for the extra 4-feet of width. That explains the price difference between the two bids. It
was $23,000 to do that block in between the projects and, if they added that block to the north, it
is almost another $39,000 for a total of $62,724 to mill and overlay those two sections of street.
He did have a conversation with Jon Haukaas, the Public Works Director, about this and they do
not have plans to come back in on that street and do a mill and overlay. The soonest they would
do it would be maybe 10 years from now, but could be as long as 20 yeaxs from now before they
would see new bituminous on those pieces if we were to skip them.
Mr. Bolin stated apparently that section of street already has the concrete curbing and it has the
3-inch lift of asphalt. While the standard in Fridley now is 3 1/z-inches, over half the City has
only 1%z-inches. In the next three or four years they are going to finish reconstructing the streets
that do not even have the concrete curb yet and then and, once they get to that point, then they
are going to prioritize and start doing these mills and overlays on those streets that only have the
1'/z-inches. This would not be a case where if they spent this almost $63,000 to tie the entire
street in so it has the look of being new from 57�' up to 61 St, at the end of two years from now the
�1
� City would not be rebuilding those sections. It would be 10-20 years down the road before that
happened.
Mr. Bolin stated there was a neighborhood meeting where not many people attended. One thing
they did hear from one of the couples who were there and living on one of these blocks not in the
overlay, they are living with all the construction going on and their portion of the street has the
impact of construction vehicles going in and out and they were not even going to get a mill and
overlay out of it. He thinks to address their concerns but really to tie this project altogether, it
would be worth almost $63,000 to do a mill and overlay, have them pave the street, run it
together. We are doing that with the fencing on the University side, but this would help really tie
everything together on the Third Street side.
Chairperson Commers asked when did that arise because it was not in his July 27
memorandum. He never talked about the 59�' half part of it. At least that he saw.
Mr. Bolin stated he just got the bid in this week and he actually has some more refined numbers
from them today to bring it down to the $38,000 because there were stub pieces that should have
been included. He actually has it down about $3,000 from the bid that came in on Tuesday.
Commissioner Gabel commented she was not sure they were getting that much bang for the
buck. That is a lot of money.
Commissioner Holm asked Mr. Bolin if he had any cost numbers for what it would cost to go to
� 60�" Street rather than 61 St? Because that would tie in those three blocks within the development
area.
Mr. Bolin replied certainly that could be a good way to do it as well. He has a$2.35 a square
yard and the entire piece from just south of 60�' up to 61St is just slightly over a 10�' of a mile.
Commissioner Holm commented it seemed to him that most of that $38,000 would be for that
section from 60�' to 61 St. And that is a block all by itself and really not part of the development
project except for the fence behind the houses. He personally would prefer to see it just include
those blocks that are part of the development, and he did not know if they gain all that much by
going all the way to 61St. He hates to start in the middle of the block, too. So going up to 60�'
makes sense.
Commissioner Gabel replied she was struggling with that also and she wished Mr. Haukaas was
present as she wonders does it not all look about the same after about a yeax anyways?
Mr. Bolin replied probably within a year or two anyways.
Chairperson Commers commented those are the ones they are closing on which includes about
two sections extending to 60�' Street.
Commissioner Gabel stated she also wondered if it really does make a difference to the sale of
� the home. She asked if they did not have interest in the others or was it because of title issues?
n
�
� Mr. Bolin replied he thought it was a combination. He thinks they are gaining interest now but
they are not able to sell those lots off yet. They still have city attorney Knaak working on getting
the tenant issues solved on that southern block. He has a meeting with him the next day and he
thinks they will finally have everything in place that they need to get that final milar plat drawn
up so they can take that up to the County. That should change fairly quickly. There are some
rather laxge trees they were able to save and tuck the homes in behind.
Commissioner Gabel stated if you drive in there, especially from that northern block, the better
it looks, the better off they are.
Commissioner Holm asked what is the timeframe for doing this mill and overlay?
Mr. Bolin replied Midwest Asphalt just last week got another contract from the City, they were
awarded a mill and overlay contract for a number of street sections throughout the City so ideally
they would get in there probably within the next three weeks or so and do additional overlay and
once the utility work is done in the other two sections before they put down the asphalt on there,
they would go in and mill this out so they can do the overlay and asphalt all that at the same
time.
Commissioner Holm asked so there is no need for this project to be delayed until the homes are
sold?
� Mr. Bolin replied, no there is not. They are moving forward with the street work right now and
the utility work starts on Monday.
MOTION by Commissioner Holm to approve the Mill and Overlay Project to Include the Area
Between the Two Sites and Also Extend the Mill and Overlay to 60�' Street. Seconded by
Commissioner Gable.
Commissioner Holm stated this would probably save them an amount in the $35,000 range.
Mr. Bolin replied, yes, probably.
UPON A UNA1vIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON COMMERS DECLARED THE
MOTION CARRIED.
4. Claims and Expenses
MOTION by Commissioner Gabel approving the Claims and Expenses as presented. Seconded
by Commissioner Holm.
UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON COMIV�RS DECLARED THE
MOTION CARRIED.
�
z
^ INFORMATIONAL ITEMS:
1. Legislative Update-Jim Casserly
Jim Casserly, Development Consultant, stated they do have a workbook that they have put
together for each Legislative Session. Anybody who would like to have a copy they will
certainly send it, and they have chapters of it up on the website. He handed out a copy of the
eminent domain legislation, and a summary that was prepared by the League of Cities. The
summary is as good and precise a presentation he thinks he has found and there have been a
number of them done. Folks who want to get into the issues in more detail can look at the
summary. He just wanted to mention tonight how the eminent domain provisions will affect
some of what they do as an authority. Our real concern which is not unique to the HRA or City
of Fridley is that the new eminent domain restrictions axe going to make it so difficult to do
major urban renewal projects that there will be for some period of time a real distant center, or
communities will be greatly discouraged from undertaking those kinds of projects.
Mr. Casserly stated, since 1982, he thinks they have only used condemnation maybe three times
on all of the projects. They have used it across the street, the service station once, and knows
they used it on the Satellite apartment complex, and he thinks they used it down on University on
maybe the Gateway East project — a parcel down there. For all the projects the City of Fridley
has done, he thinks those have been the only instances in which it was utilized. There is nothing
unusual about those types of projects. The one across the street was really taking on a number of
commercial issues, there were some fairly serious contamination issues. So they did deal with
those. They had the same kind of issues on our Gateway East Project. There were some
contamination issues and they certainly had some blighted conditions, clearly underutilized
areas, and in both instances he thinks folks would think those were fairly successful projects.
The problem is really the way the Legislature is now defining the areas in which you can use
eminent domain. It really defines much more strictly what a blighted area is and talks about
really acquiring parcels in a blighted area and defines essentially that area is really an urban area
and yet 50 percent of the buildings in the area are structurally substandard, and it goes on to
define in some detail what are structurally-substandard conditions.
Mr. Casserly stated it talks about how the structures have to have been cited for, enforceable
housing maintenance or building code violations, and it has to be fairly specific kinds of
violations — those that deal with real structural issues. The violations have not been remedied
after having been served with notices, and the cost to cure the violations is 50 percent or more of
the assessor's valuation of the structure. So, these are pretty difficult tests to meet. When you
get to the environmentally contaminated area, it talks about an area wherein more than 50
percent of the parcels contain contamination and that the cost of the investigation to cleanup the
remediation is more than the assessor's maxket value of the parcel. So, in the remediation area, it
is a difficult test to meet because there are oftentimes, when they are dealing with property, that
really requires remediation, the property value has been reduced over a period of years. They
have had that occur a number of times. So there are a number of instances in which they may be
r
� able to meet the test.
0
� Mr. Casserly stated the problem is there are a number of instances in which property is in fact
environmentally deficient and really requires a lot of remediation but one that is in place. It is
not contaminating drinking water, for example. So it is not an immediate public health hazard.
But to clean up the area is very expensive. They are working with a number of sites right now
where they have had axeas that are in fact contaminated but the land value for those uses is very
high. It is not unusual at all to have a land value for a use like that to be $5 and $6 a square foot.
So if they wanted to convert that land into another kind of use; in fact, if you multiply $5 a
square foot by 43,000 (which is the amount of square feet an acre) that is a couple hundred
thousand dollars an acre of cleanup. While that land is for a trucking terminal use, it is
oftentimes clearly worth that and maybe substantially more than that. But to take the land and
convert it into other uses, is extremely expensive and we are going to be discouraged from doing
that. We have some instances in Fridley where we have some salvage yards and in which we
have a very expensive cleanup, and we tried maybe three or four years ago to get involved in a
substantial cleanup; but the acquisition cost combined with the cleanup cost was just too great
for what they could convert the land into and we did not go ahead with the projects. So, they are
going to have some problems.
Mr. Casserly stated probably the most serious concern they have is that rarely do you have
contamination that is uniformly spread around. What you have is a hot spot or a small amount, it
will extend around to some parcels, it will be only a little bit on others and, as you try to put
together a site that you could logically redevelop, we axe going to have a very difficult time
meeting these tests for these parcels. The legislation makes it very difficult — it talks about in the
�,;,� statute, where the language is very difFcult — there is no feasible alternative and the Authority
really has the burden of proof of demonstrating there is no feasible alternative. That is a very
difficult thing to be able to demonstrate. As a practical matter we are going to have some
problems.
Mr. Casserly stated cleaxly the Authority will clearly be able to undertake the projects in which
the owners are looking to do remediation. They are looking to do cleanup and they have control
of the sites. The HRA is clearly going to be able to proceed with projects in which you have
voluntary acquisitions. This only deals with the time you have involuntary acquisitions to
complete the assembly. It is not going to be particularly noticeable until such time that they want
to undertake a more aggressive, larger project, or typical urban renewable type project. They
sense that it will take several years to catch up. Because the eminent domain legislative was so
onerous, it grandfathered in dozens of projects. The effective date goes on for a page and it has
the effect of essentially including almost all the major projects going on in the state right now.
So as those projects start to become completed, and other communities start looking to see if
they can be doing projects, they are going to start running into these issues. So it is going to take
a few years. His office is involved in three major projects that are all grandfathered in. There is
a huge one in Roseville, the Twin Lakes projects, which is a third to a billion redevelopment
projects. The Northwest Quad project in New Brighton is grandfathered in, and there are other
several major projects they are involved in.
Mr. Casserly stated what they think is going to happen is, as cities have specific projects that
really cannot be undertaken, they will go back to the Legislature — just like they did with our tax
'� increment issues. In 1990 the Legislature passed an enonnous number of restrictions on tax
7
�,.\ increment. Cities went in year after year and almost invariably the Legislature would adopt
special laws that would allow the city to proceed with their given projects. Finally after enough
years, the Legislature really has relented a lot and has made tax increment in many instances a
little easier to use. What has hurt tax increment so much is frankly the State taking over and
levying the property tax that used to be available for tax increment. So what has hurt us in tax
increment is not our authority, what has hurt us is the State taking over — it took a third of our
existing tax increment out of our commercial and industrial development projects. So that is
what has really happened there — that the State has actually gotten better. And as communities
come in, what invariably happens is that it is very hard when a legislature promotes a project for
his or her community, almost always that project will pass. So as people come in with their
individual projects and are able to demonstrate their need and they need "this" relief —
Legislature will probably provide that relief. After enough years of doing that they will then
start to deal with this on a more comprehensive basis.
Mr. Casserly stated this really got caught up in election year politics, the worst of politics. The
folks who participated in this really were a bit taken aback because the folks who were very
strong advocates for this, were running for attorney general, another group from the range were
not going to be outdone by people running for attorney general, so it was almost a contest as to
who could be the most draconian. So did the folks on the conference committee, they did opine
they would not be surprised there would be a number of changes that would be made in the neax
future. Easy to say after you have passed something. It was the National Association of
Industrial Office Parks who worked on this and testified against eminent domain and are
`..� convinced that a number of their building projects are going to be impacted, particularly the
home builders who do condos and townhouses. They are fairly convinced they are going to have
ever fewer sites on which they are going to be able to do any substantive development because
they just will not be able to get large enough sites to do a kind of major development that the big
builders would normally engage in. This is one of those things where it may never affect you at
all because we may never have a project that may involve anything like this. On the other hand,
if a community at some point where we would like to get more aggressive in any area, that is
when we are going to have some problems.
�
Chairperson Commers stated it seems to put a lot of emphasis on, for example, making sure
that you do your housing inspections that you have written violation reports. What happens if,
for example, we have had a lot of blighted properties where there are kind of code violations and
issues in there and we really have not followed up real close in terms of tagging them and those
kinds of things. What happens if we do that and they do not comply? Then what, can we go in
there and take it because they are not complying? Or do they not have to comply unless the cost
is what, less than 50 percent of the value of the property? How does that work?
Mr. Casserly replied the City has its police powers to enforce for compliance regarding health
and safety measures. However, if the improvements are not made then you really do have the
issue of trying to determine do we want to acquire those properties? Then we get into this whole
standard that is now written into the law of, do the cost of the improvements exceed 50 percent
of the assessor's value of the building.
:
^ Chairperson Commers stated so it will be very difficult. Because even, for example, a 20-unit
building you have to replace all the windows and it seems even at 50 percent he would think it
would be next to impossible.
Mr. Casserly replied we will have to see. It is always a problem. When properties are not as
severely blighted but clearly they are sliding down. The properties that are really either boarded
up or vacant or next to the conditions that have been aggravated over neglect over many years,
those are properties that we axe going to be able to acquire under this. However, when you have
properties that are really deteriorating but are not to the point where you can go in and use this
law, he is not exactly sure what communities are going to do. Suburban communities generally
have had a lower tolerance for that kind of sliding into blight. You do not have to go too many
miles from here and it is real obvious what the problems are and how the properties have really
deteriorated. What you would like to do generally in most of the communities that they really
represent in the suburban area is to try and figure out how to deal with those issues before the
blight has aggregated. You really want to stop it before a real decline starts to occur because it is
very, very apparent that values do deteriorate and the stuff does feed on itself. So the problem
you get into is how massive does the blight have to be before there can be some kind of
government action that really can intercept that and intervene. So these are all issues that are just
going to be have to be sorted out as they go forwaxd.
Chairperson Commers commented it is also going to make it much more expensive. He just
sees now the going concern change. That is going to cost the municipalities lots of money based
�., on shifting the burden on that. However, it will stop game playing with the appraisals a little bit.
�
Mr. Casserly commented most of what they find on these things is really an issue of money.
They are involved in a number of condemnations and redevelopment projects and in all instances
we are working with now there are no residential properties involved. There are sites where for a
lot of them the landowners are actually corporations located in St. Louis and New Jersey or
wherever they are and it is just kind of talking about money.
�'�'1
Mr. Casserly stated he thinks for the most part a lot of the problems have been maybe through
the Department of Transportation, they are being a little bit heavy-handed because we are so far
removed from the communities we do not hear a lot of stories about the City of Fridley or New
Brighton or Oakdale or Richfield. The story in Richfield of course was wonderful because you
had incredibly wealthy people arguing over enormous sums of money. The value to the property
owner of appealing the property in that case ended up being about a$9 million swing. The
amounts are staggering and so that gets you into all kinds of other interesting issues about who
should make decisions over land use as cities mature and development and move on. There are
some laxger societal questions involved, and this unfortunately picks at one set of problems
without providing any solutions for some of the other issues. He stated that most of the things
going on is really making the authority and financing easier to use and so this is actually good.
2. Gateway West Update-Power Point Presentation
E
,� Mr. Bolin stated they did close on the first three properties on July 20. That very next morning
� Blueprint Homes were out digging and pouring footings and getting going on the construction.
The street work did start this past Tuesday. The plan is to begin some of the utility work that
will be sewer and water lines. They are going to start that this upcoming Monday. As is usually
done in City projects, if there are going to be any disruptions to water service or sewer service,
somebody will actually go and knock on the doors of those affected properties so they will have
some notice. At this point the Public Works Director does not see the need for any disruptions.
The indications that they have been given from the street contractor are that they plan to have the
utility work completed here in about the next three weeks, and then the final street work will
happen right after that. They do expect the fence work to begin the middle of next week.
�
Mr. Bolin stated they will recall last fall there were still structures standing in October. They
hired Veit and the came out and demolished the properties. This is the former Frank's Used Car
site. They got everything cleaned up, things sat there over the winter, and then on July 21
Blueprint Homes had their subcontractors out digging basements and footings. They were ready
to move right after the closing. He was out today just to get some recent photos to see the work
on three of the homes. Our Building Official reported they have had no problems with anything
down there so everything is up to code and being done the way it is supposed to be. As they
move forward with this project, he will try and keep them updated through photos.
Commissioner Holm commented he noticed they were able to save quite a few trees on those
lots where they are constructing homes and that is pretty nice.
3. Monthly Housing Report of Work Ability
Mr. Bolin stated this past month there were two loans that were actually closed in July that came
out of the City's revolving loan fund, and they have a total of 7 for the year. The Center for
Energy and Environment was out here this afternoon and did 3 more loan closings. They are
starting to get a lot more calls on the loan program. He thinks people axe realizing now as they
look to their banks and other places for home improvement funds, you cannot just go in and get a
5 or 6 percent home equity loan anywhere and they are over 8-9 percent now. This year they
have also had more requests for our last chance loan fund and we have processed three of those
recently. Those are in our Fridley loan portfolio and have recovered the funds upon sale of the
home. If you look at the other homes for Center of Energy and Environment in Fridley there are
FHA loans which have some home energy funds of their own. This year they have given a total
of 15 loans out in Fridley which is pretty close to the pace they had at this time. A total of 5
loans closed in July. They continue to publicize the program through callers and on the
television through all the shows the City produces and also the newsletter.
Mr. Bolin stated an interesting thing since they talking about different loans, he just got a report
from Anoka County this afternoon which shows the drastic number of foreclosures they have had
this year and it went from around 150 a year for the period 1998-2004 and in 2005 it jumped up
to over 500. In 2006 year-to-date there are already over 300 foreclosures. Those speculations
� are involving people who got in buying new homes during that timeframe with the three or five-
year adjustable rate mortgages where a lot of homes are no money down, made interest payments
10
^ for those few years, and all of a sudden the rate adjustment kicks in and the people are not
making any more money than they did three or five years ago or whatever the circumstances axe
they cannot afford their homes anymore: He has a request in to Anoka County to find out how
many of those are in Fridley.
Mr. Bolin stated regarding loan originations, the 3 loans that went out in July out of our funds
totaled $18,340. Year-to-date out of our loan fund, we have loaned $131,000 as has been the
case in the last three or four years all of the units have been improved with the City's rehab loan
money coming from single-family homes. They can see the types of improvements are
bathroom remodels, there are a lot of shuctural or necessity things such as plumbing and heating
things. Siding, some fascia, windows and doors. So it is a lot of those things that are necessary
to maintain a home in good shape. For insulation numbers the HRA can see for Operation
Insulation they set a goal of 25 meetings this year and so far they have only had 2. He just
cannot understand why that number is so low. The program does get promoted and people who
have taken advantage of it are very happy with the program. It is relatively inexpensive for the
resident to have Operation Insulation come out and give them an energy audit of their home.
Mr. Bolin stated the Remodeling Advisor visits are right on track to meet our goal of 50
appointments this year and we are at 28 so we are at about 56 percent of our goal there. He gets
as many calls for that as he does for Operation Insulation but for some reason people are not
following up. Part of that may be that the remodeling advisor is going out there and pointing out
a lot of these things with additional insulation and whatnot but he would certainly encourage
� people to contact us and have Operation Insulation come out and do the low energy audit
because it is amazing when you look at these homes with the infrared cameras and do the blower
dart test just how inefficient some of these things are.
Non-Agenda Item
Islands of Peace Update
Mr. Bolin stated Grant Rudolph has been working on rehabbing the building at 151 Island Park
Drive. He has not heard any word on if he has had any sales or not but he did go down and
toured one of the units he has rehabbed and it is quite a change from what was there previously.
He hopes he is successful in this venture because it really would change things in that
neighborhood.
Mr. Bolin stated the other thing is they were awarded another $125,000 from Anoka County's
Community Development Block Grant Program, and that money is going towards those utilities
and street work that are being done in Gateway West. Kate Thunstrom, the coordinator for that
program, told him she appreciates the fact that Fridley, unlike some other cities, only asks for the
money when we need it and when we have a real project. She said there are some cities that
apply every year and, if they get the money, maybe they can find a use for it. So he thinks that is
why typically Fridley has been successful when they have applied for funding through the
^ CDBG program because they do not apply every yeax.
11
�
�-�\ Chairperson Commers asked where is that CDBG, is it in the $132,000 grants?
Mike Jeziorski, City Accountant, stated that is correct. It is in the $132,676.
Chairperson Commers asked regarding the $270,000 plus additional money on the road
improvements, that would go down in the public utilities and site prep?
Mr. Jeziorski replied, that is correct. He does not think the actual budget would reflect that
number tonight since they did not know about it at the time of the budget.
Chairperson Commers replied he sees but that is where they are going, it is in the infrastructure
improvements.
Mr. Jeziorski replied, yes.
Chairperson Commers then asked, regarding "Administrative" — that is what they pay the City?
He noted they have a big number under "Miscellaneous" and requested Mr. Jeziorski give them a
breakdown next time.
Ms. Gabel requested a breakdown for the administra�ive costs, too.
Mr. Bolin replied a lot of the administrative costs covers the HRA attorney's time.
Commissioner Commers also inquired about the Healthcare Spending, he could not understand
what that is.
ADJOURNMENT:
MOTION by Commissioner Gabel, seconded by Commissioner Holm, to adjourn the meeting.
UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIlZPERSON COMMERS DECLARED THE
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:55 P.M.
Respectfully submitted by,
��2� �'� ��'�1�
Denise M. Johnson
Recording Secretary
�
12
a. •
�"'�
CITY OF FRIDLEY
SIGN-IN SHEET
HOUSING & REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING
�=*�.� ..��'�
Name and Address Agenda Item of Interest
�
�
�
�
�� I