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HRAM 08/03/2017 CITY OF FRIDLEY HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING August 3, 2017 ______________________________________________________________________________ Chairperson Gabel called the Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: William Holm Pat Gabel Gordon Backlund Stephen Eggert Kyle Mulrooney OTHERS PRESENT: Paul Bolin,HRA Assistant Executive Director Scott Hickok, Community Development Director Julie Jones, Planning Manager Annie Leibel, HRA Intern Action Items 1. Approval of Expenditures. MOTION by Commissioner Holm approving the expenditures. Seconded by Commissioner Eggert. Commissioner Eggert asked Mr. Bolin if he could refresh their memory as to the $54,000 to John Allen? Paul Bolin ,HRA Assistant Executive Director, replied that is his August tax increment payment the HRA pays out on those TIF districts two times a year. This is for the project down on Main Street. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON GABEL DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. 2. Approval of the June 1, 2017, Meeting Minutes. Commissioner Holm stated on the first page where it states Commissioner Backlund nominated Stephen Eggert as Co-Chair, he believed that should be Vice Chair. MOTION by Commissioner Holm approving the minutes as corrected. Seconded by Commissioner Mulrooney. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON GABEL DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 2 Informational Items 1. City Comprehensive Plan Process Update Julie Jones, Planning Manager, stated staff is in the midst of updating the City’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan; and she is hoping the HRA will be involved in this process as they have in the past. Staff is calling this “Framing Fridley”. As the HRA is aware from past experience, there are several chapters that go into the Comprehensive Plan. She has highlighted the two that the HRA is to be most involved in and those are the Housing and the Economic Competitiveness chapters. Ms. Jones stated Economic Competitiveness is a new feature this time around from ten years ago. Before they had a chapter entitled, Redevelopment. They are going to incorporate redevelopment into the Economic Competitiveness chapter. Ms. Jones stated they are doing this in-house. The City has not hired a consultant to do this. They are doing this with staff. They have established committees within the staff for these various topics. She is the staff lead on the Housing chapter of the plan, and Mr. Bolin is the staff lead on the Economic Competitiveness chapter. Ms. Jones stated of course everything in the Comprehensive Plan is intertwined. There are things in the Housing chapter that relate to the Transportation chapter, and there are things in that chapter that relate to Parks and Trails, etc. It all works together, and that is why staff likes to create it in-house. Ms. Jones stated the first thing staff gets from Metropolitan Council when the City goes to update the Comprehensive Plan are their projections for the City’s number of households and employment into the future. After staff received the initial projections this time around from Metropolitan Council, they learned of the City’s Northstar TOD master plan the City had adopted, and they learned of some of the proposals that were happening related to that. Of course they were aware of the Cielo Apartments project being built on University, and then came word the City was looking at adding several hundred housing units in the Lake Pointe Parke Development Project. Staff stepped back and said, they are going to have to reevaluate the City’s projections. Ms. Jones stated staff revalued the City’s projections and increased its population and household count significantly into 2030 and 2040. The project the HRA has been involved in as to its business retention and expansion program is immensely helping staff with that new Economic Competitiveness chapter in the plan, allowing the staff to have a lot of information from businesses; and the staff the HRA has hired to look into that has helped them a lot in gathering data for that chapter and getting rolling. Ms. Jones stated of course Fridley is an importer of jobs. It has about 10,000 more jobs than they have people in the workforce. It is interesting transportationwise particularly for them to look at the numbers. Looking at Fridley residents and where they are working, there are twice as many people working in the City of Minneapolis than they do working in Fridley who live in Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 3 Fridley. Of course that creates a strong transportation need of getting people into the core city during rush hour. Conversely, as the people who work in Fridley and where they come from there are most of them are coming from the City of Minneapolis; and a lot are coming from the north and west suburbs as well. When you think about the transportation impacts and the things the City is trying to do to create multi-modal access, to help the City’s employers have their employees have sound access to get to work, it is important for the City when meeting with Anoka County, MnDOT, Metro Transit, to look at where those workers are coming from and how do we get them here in the most efficient way possible. Ms. Jones stated if they were here for the town hall meeting the City had on May 20, the City did an exercise about redevelopment areas. Staff had met a few times beforehand and looked at a map of the City at what it had as priority redevelopment areas 10 years ago. They said, okay, what are our priority areas we have now. They put a map together and posted it in the Council chambers when having 100 people in there and asked them to put dots on the map where the three most top priority redevelopment areas were in the City. On the comparison of the map, the staff was pretty spot on in the locations the staff was looking at. Not much difference in what the public was thinking. Ms. Jones stated another thing they have to look at all the time to satisfy the data they need to gather for Metropolitan Council is the City’s affordable housing numbers. In looking and mapping out a map of housing values, staff discovered right now in current data, 92 percent of Fridley owner-occupied housing is affordable at 80 percent of median income. Of course staff always takes that into consideration when they are looking at housing needs in the community. They are always arguing with Met Council the City does not need any more affordable housing. Staff has not done numbers on rental housing. That gets tricky to do, she is not sure they can get accurate numbers on that, but that is something they will be looking at. Ms. Jones stated related to that original chart on the populations and household projects, Met Council makes their projects on how many affordable housing units they feel need to be created in the Twin Cities region within the next 10 years. They divide that allocation among cities based on a certain set of criteria they have. Even though Fridley has an abundance of affordable housing, the City still gets projections from Met Council wanting them to create more. That is based on, not just the amount of housing the City has now, but also on the availability of jobs and transit. Because the City has a lot of jobs and good transit, the City ranks pretty high on the list for attracting more affordable units; and 268 units over the next 10 years sounds like a lot but, with the projected housing growth the City has in front of it, it is really only 1.2 percent of that projected growth they are looking at in estimates. Even with Cielo Apartments, even though it is a market rate development, it is not subsidized and a lot of people feel they are not affordable; that there are a lot of units in that complex that do meet the affordable criteria. Even with the subsequent second building being built now and the third building being built, they will have some affordable units that will be a part of that 268-unit need. Ms. Jones stated one thing that has come up in the past is people stating there is too much rental housing in the City already and why are we building more. Staff thought it would be interesting to compare Fridley to other first-ring suburbs in the area of Minneapolis. It was interesting to find it fell right in the middle of the pack as far as Fridley’s percentage of rental housing, even Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 4 though the City has gained another percent over the past 10 years and now 36 percent of the City’s housing is rental. Ms. Jones stated the City does have an on-line survey which is broken up into three parts. There is not much for housing questions but a few on which she is going to give an update on so far that relates to housing and economic competitiveness. One of the questions is, what are your top concerns about Fridley? Staff listed some examples and there is an option for people to submit “Other”. As far as people being concerned about housing conditions in Fridley, that is at the bottom of the list. People are much more concerned about other issues such as the quality of the City’s schools and crime. Ms. Jones stated many staff members who were at Night to Unite heard from people asking why is the Cielo Apartments project built so close to the road. Second, they know that the Holly Center and Holly Plaza were on the City’s priority development list 10 years ago and are popping up again now. Third, there is talk about potentially creating some smaller master plan areas for the bus rapid transit stops that are going to be along University Avenue. The latest word from Metro Transit is that will be built in 2021. For these reasons staff is thinking of within those special districts allowing those buildings to be built closer to the roadway like the City has in the TOD district that the Cielo Apartments is. Staff’s question in the survey was, should the City allow the Holly Center Plaza to redevelop close to University Avenue like the Cielo Apartments? So far twice as many people have said, yes, than have said, no. However, the City still has a significant percentage of people who are saying, no. Ms. Jones stated another question staff asked is how willing are you to walk to buy fresh food? This is a topic staff is hearing and learning about in planning conferences and also it is in some of the criteria of Met Council’s guidance in creating the Comprehensive Plan to look at what they call food deserts, areas where people do not have close access to fresh food. Most people responded they would be willing to walk one-half mile to a one-quarter of a mile. She wished they would have put the option “over one-half mile” on there because they have had the City’s staff map where the City’s five main sources of grocery stores are in the City. Maps have a process of looking at what is called, walk sheds, and look at barriers such as railroad tracks and major highways that are difficult to cross. Ms. Jones stated considering there is a high population in Fridley who do not own a car, are disabled, or need to take transit to get to a grocery store, that is a problem for the City and is something it needs to address in its Comprehensive Plan. Ms. Jones stated two other factors that are new this time around which are in Metropolitan Council’s guidances, they want the City to incorporate resiliency in each of the chapters. Looking at issues of how is the City going to deal with some of the outcome of climate change, more frequent storms, what impact that is going to have on City services, how the City builds things, looking more at energy efficiency in buildings, looking more at water shortage issues, etc. Staff is incorporating that into all the topics it is looking at. Another word staff is seeing frequently is “equity”. The HRA is being asked to really look at issues of equity. Are they equitably providing services, providing amenities for the public. They are going to see things Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 5 come up on that and be asked to take a look at it and think about in creating their policies, too, as staff creates these new components in the Comprehensive Plan. Ms. Jones stated as to the HRA’s role in this process, she is kind of laying the groundwork tonight because they are scheduled to keep on track in getting this done in time to have a public hearing on the draft plan already in just a few months in December. They are just starting to write some of this because they have been gathering data and getting input on these surveys. She is asking the HRA to give some policy direction to staff in the areas it is involved in, review the housing in the economic chapters of the Plan; and those chapters are going to involve policy recommendations and implementation/action steps the City should do over the next 10 years. It would be things the HRA wants to accomplish over the next 10 years. They would like the HRA’s input and rewrite things in time for that public hearing before the Planning Commission. Ms. Jones stated it is a several month-long process before it gets approved by City Council. Then they have to submit it to the surrounding jurisdictions that get six months to review. They are of course working with the County and MnDOT on other parts of this, too, to make sure they are all coming together and meeting the same guidance. The HRA can help, too, by encouraging its neighbors and people they are encountering in Fridley to complete that online survey and to provide them with input. Chairperson Gabel asked Ms. Jones if she could let them know where to find the survey. Ms. Jones replied the survey is real easy to find. Go to Fridleymn.gov\\survey which will take you right to it. The City is having a tough time getting input from people who represent the makeup of the community. A couple of staff went out to bus stops early in the morning and spoke with people who were taking transit or crossing University Avenue. One of the questions on the survey was what were people’s feelings about crossing University Avenue. Staff has been doing some different things to try and reach different populations in the community. Chairperson Gabel stated staff had to have found people running across University Avenue. Seriously down the road for livability, and she knows Mr. Kosluchar has spoken with the Department of Transportation many times, but even in a car it is hard to get across University Avenue. Even over here on Mississippi she does not know how many times she has seen up to five cars go through a red light because you wait too long and then the next round of traffic does not change for several minutes. Same thing down by Cielo, only one or two cars make it across when making a left-hand turn there. That is something that could be brought up and worked into the Plan somehow. Ms. Jones stated that is something staff has had a lot of discussions with MnDOT about and th unfortunately meet a lot of resistance about that. She was hanging out at the intersection of 57 and University at the bus stop and commended a gentleman after he safely got across University Avenue and talked to him a little bit. It was interesting he told her actually it is a lot easier to thst cross University at 57, that the light rotates a lot faster there than at Mississippi and 61. She hears from people it is the same if not worse on Mississippi. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 6 Chairperson Gabel stated and they have been doing more with the walkability and the livability and putting that sidewalk down Main Street which she thinks is just absolutely wonderful to get people across and into the bus stop. She knows staff will not give up getting MnDOT to cooperate and it is easier said than done. Chairperson Gabel asked Ms. Jones about the term, walk shed? She does not know what that means. Ms. Jones replied it is defining an area that you can walk within without significant barriers. In the map they created it has weird shaped areas because they looked at where could someone reasonably walk, where is there is a street, where is there a sidewalk they can physically walk. Oftentimes when the City does half a mile distances, staff just does a round circle on the map which is not really realistic because you cannot walk like a bird flies, you have to walk on those streets. That kind of creates that walk shed area. It is a term that you hear used out there when they are looking at distances that people can walk. Commissioner Eggert stated he reacted to the walking one-half mile for groceries. Thinking about biking and how huge that is in Minneapolis and, now that his son lost his car, he is riding a nice bike to work downtown. He asked whether there were any thoughts or surveying going on, in thinking of the future of Fridley. Ms. Jones asked if he was thinking specifically about Nice Rides, the rental option? Commissioner Eggert stated he is seeing the growth of that in this area particularly when you look at the economics of the near future and seeing more and more people riding Vespas and little motorized vehicles, and the bicycles downtown are huge. Ms. Jones replied, they have been working with National Park Service, who is connected with the Nice Rides group, who also plans long term, too. Staff has been working with their five-year plans for the water trail and the national bike trail that runs through Fridley. There is a lot of reception to the idea of adding a Nice Ride station either at the Northstar train station or at Islands of Peace Park which the trail runs through. They think they will have more success at a location for recreation than for transportation. That kind of got backed up by a little survey that Kay Qualley did with some folks and hanging out at the Northstar train station, bike or walk to work day, and talked to some people who were taking the bike on the Northstar train and they said, you know, we prefer to ride our own bike when riding to work. The avid bike riders would not be so apt to rent the bike at the train station. Those are different bikes they put in those rental stations than the green ones you see downtown. They are orange and are a different style of bike that is more for recreational biking. She has ridden both and she cannot tell the difference herself but apparently there is a difference. Ms. Jones stated in Fridley it has an alternative transportation node on National Park Service’s maps that they have if you go online. It has this circle around it and that is because of the Northstar Train Station which is the center of that node which she thinks is a mile-wide perimeter they put on that. Somewhere in that alternative transportation node they are interested in putting in a kayak rental station and, believe it or not, and a Nice Rides bike station. The Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 7 tough thing is the County parks system has not been supportive of that. Somebody on either the City or County level needs to finance getting those kayaks and those bikes back to where they started from because of course people rent them here and take them into Minneapolis or go to Coon Rapids or wherever but somebody then has to pick them up at each station and make sure there are enough bikes at each station to match the need. There are costs to that the National Park Service does not cover. The City can get the grants from them to get that service started, but the ongoing maintenance of it needs to be handled by local government. That is the stumbling block staff has been running into with the plans for that. Commissioner Backlund asked what was MnDOT’s reaction when staff talked to them about the timing of the lights? Ms. Jones replied, MnDOT focuses on keeping traffic moving on the highway. Unfortunately that is their priority. The City has different priorities sometimes here although staff has been trying to negotiate alternatives. Staff was talking with them specifically when they were st working on Safe Routes to School, looking at the intersection of 61 and University Avenue. At least that was the meeting she was in. There were probably other meetings that Mr. Kosluchar has had with them. They brought in MnDOT’s bike safety folks, too, into the discussion. They had some suggestions they made about having the school district put crossing guards there and having a key where they could change the timing of the light to allow safe crossing for kids. In staff’s opinion it was not a real realistic idea because the school district cannot afford to put crossing guards that far away from the school, let alone at closer intersections to the school. Ms. Jones stated they did not come up with any other workable solutions than that so far, but staff is continuing to work with them and will probably continue to put some things in the Comprehensive Plan staff thinks are solutions. They had these discussions about does it make more sense to try and make it safer to cross at grade or should we spend millions of dollars in overhead crossing there. They would honestly like to see both at that intersection because it is such a key intersection for kids to get to school. All of the after school programs are at the Fridley Middle School. If you live west of East River Road, you have to get over to the Middle School and of course they have special activity buses for kids but sometimes the weather is nice and kids do not want to take that bus. It takes a long time to get home on that bus. They have been trying to work that out and, as they have really tried to address safe crossing, not just for kids crossing for school but people getting to the bus stop to get to work. Commissioner Backlund stated years ago in another life, the City was having problems with senior citizens from Seventh Street and Mississippi not being able to cross University to get to the bus stop. The Met Council worked with him and they routed the bus to make a turn and take a swing through the parking lot to pick people up. The Met Council and the bus routes are one option. They will reroute for safety purposes and increasing ridership. Commissioner Backlund stated the second thing is when you are looking at bicycle riding, it seems to him the new phase in bikes are e-bikes (electric bikes). You see them more and more and he talks to people who ride them, especially for commuting because you can do that. Is staff able to take that into consideration in doing the planning. They are the larger tire bike, they run Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 8 on a battery, and they are an assist and you can actually use it to generate the power for the person. Commissioner Holm stated that is a motorized vehicle at that point. Commissioner Eggert stated it is not licensed though. Commissioner Backlund replied, it is. Technically it is an electronic car with two wheels. He supposed it would fall in the same line as a golf cart. Ms. Jones replied she did do a video interview with a couple of people who were bicycling experts, and they talked about that. It seems to her there is that gray area in the law about how you treat an electronic bike as far as what is the proper place for them to ride. She recalls it is not on trails, and they do need to ride on the street which makes sense as you are driving at a different speed than standard bicyclists. Commissioner Backlund stated he knows that people take the trails to work, at least from the suburbs to downtown Minneapolis and not on the street. Yes, it is clear and it is not that difficult to get the legislature to deal with any kind of an issue that would be an impediment. Ms. Jones replied that is a good point, and they should mention that in the Transportation chapter. Commissioner Holm referred to Ms. Jones mentioning the populations projects are going to be modified for Fridley because of all of the recent development? Ms. Jones replied, they already have been. The chart she showed them was the updated one. Commissioner Holm stated when he moved to Fridley in 1968, the population was approximately 27,000. The signs that he sees indicate the population is still 27,000. Commissioner Backlund stated when he moved to Fridley in 1978 he believed it was 32,000. Ms. Jones stated she had done a graph for a meeting that kind of shows the City’s population peaked around 1980 as she recalls and, now with the projections they have, the City will go above that 1980 peak within this next time frame. The City’s median age has decreased as well. They were expecting the opposite. There are a lot of young families with children moving in. The median age in 2010 was 37 and now in 2015 numbers, it was 35.4. Commissioner Mulrooney stated the City has a lot of folks working in Minneapolis and a lot of folks coming to work in Fridley from the northwest suburbs. He asked, what consideration is being given to, in terms of the population dynamics, housing dynamics in Fridley such that they can capture more people working in Fridley who are also staying in Fridley and making sure that is balanced as well? Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 9 Ms. Jones replied, one thing they have been working on before even the last comprehensive plan update is really focusing on creating more life cycle housing in the community to address the different types of housing people need in different phases, and they feel that will address some of that need. It is interesting though in the surveys, a key factor for people when deciding where to live is not so much where they work but the school district. They are seeing in the results that is one thing the City is suffering from, is that people have concerns about the quality of the schools. They probably should have asked which school district residents live in to pin that down more. They have kind of concluded there is only so much staff can do to control where people choose to live. They want to make Fridley the best community it can be, for it to have a wide array of housing for people to choose from, have affordable housing, and have the amenities that people want. They heard a lot of comments in the survey that people like to live here because it is close to lots of parks and shopping. Ms. Jones stated transportation is a big one and that is a big driver staff is seeing when they did the new single-family homes project on Third Street. Staff was seeing a lot of people saying they were moving into Fridley from places like Ham Lake because they wanted to be closer to the center city. They did not want to be driving so far to go into work or drive in for things they needed. There is a big movement for people who want to bike and walk to work, too. Those things are in favor for a community like Fridley that has access to transit and is getting better access now for walking and biking. Ms. Jones stated they did not ask questions this time around like they did last time. They tried to find out from people, what type of housing do you envision needing ten years from now? The City received a wide variety of answers and something maybe they can still try and ask. They do still have some opportunities to add questions to the electronic version which they do every now and then on the website. Commissioner Backlund suggested being careful on surveys in the school district because Fridley has about 3,000 attending the school; and 2,000 of them are in the Fridley school District, and a 1,000 come from other districts. They are outside of Fridley. Columbia Heights sends quite a few and so does Spring Lake Park and a lot from Minneapolis and across the river because of the school district. The school district’s reputation brings people to Fridley fortunately. Chairperson Gabel stated Fridley provides a lot of jobs, and she wonders what kind of ability that gives the City to direct some things in the way they would like to see them happen. She is specifically thinking of the Northstar station. Fridley’s population is going to go up. It certainly is the dream of some of them to see more trains, perhaps more tracks, some way to increase the usage of that because it is still some day going to prove to be something that was a visionary plan to get some of that down the road. Right now the ridership is not what they would like it to be, but they also do not have the number of trains during the day that they would like it to be. Since the City does provide all these jobs, do they not have any ability to weigh into some of these things? Ms. Jones replied, yes, and that is why she showed them the graph because that is the very thing they will put in the Comprehensive Plan to demonstrate that having one train coming from Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 10 Minneapolis to Fridley in the morning and arriving here at 6:30 in the morning is not helping the City meet that need. More people need to be at work at 8:00 in the morning and not 6:30 in the morning. The City could really use another train or two coming from Minneapolis in the morning. Ms. Jones stated one thing staff is doing that is going to be starting soon and they hope gets carried on beyond the scope of this grant in getting more workers from the train to some of the City’s major employers, is they do have the shuttle bus service. The County transit management organization got a federal grant to do a one-year pilot to run. The City has four different routes running from the train station from each train that comes and drops off people at the Fridley station. They can take a bus to either Medtronic’s headquarter campus and the Rice Creek campus, also Cummins Power Generation, Unity Hospital Campus, and the Northern Stacks development (BAE). They are trying to do what they can to partner with agencies to get services like that in place and are hoping if there is a demonstrated need, they have some good ridership that is using that, that Metro Transit or the County will pick up that service after the one-year pilot. Chairperson Gabel stated 2040 is a long ways out there. At the pace that everything in our world changes, how do you determine that what you are doing now and planning for that decade is actually going to remain relevant? Ms. Jones replied it is very difficult and is why they update it every 10 years. Staff is taking some good guesses. Another thing they are looking at is driverless cars and what could be the impacts of that. They do not know what is going to happen with that. They have to think about that and plan as best they can 10 years from now. 2. Housing Conditions Survey Results Annie Leibel , HRA Intern, the housing conditions survey was completed this year. She gathered the data to help update the Comprehensive Plan as well as focus loan program marketing efforts to specific neighborhoods. Ms. Leibel stated to gather this data she did a windshield survey of the exteriors of each house in Fridley. It was provided on a software called Fulcrum which is like a GPS map so it locates where she is. She then she clicks on a point which is plotted by address points. It then opens up a picture like what is on their screen, and she rates each house based on their roof, soffit and fascia, siding, windows, doors, and foundation. That provides them with an average based on each house. Ms. Leibel stated they found 97 percent of all the City’s houses are in good to excellent condition. Fridley has a great housing stock, it is improving, and it is doing really good. Ms. Leibel presented a heat map which showed concentration averages of houses which received below a score of 2.5. A score of 2.5 was below average for Fridley, and it only includes about 200 of the City’s 7,274 houses. What they can see are areas where between 8 houses per square Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 11 miles and 32 houses per square mile were kind of concentrated in pockets, and they can use this to target marketing efforts in the future. This is really helpful. Ms. Leibel stated focusing on just the roof scores, the vast majority of the roofs are in excellent condition. Many have been recently replaced because of recent storms, etc. Anyone who received a score of “3” is in excellent condition which was about 5,800 and is about 82.2 percent. If the shingles appeared to have some sign of wear or appeared dirty, they received a 2 and that was about 18.3 percent. If there was something significantly wrong, whether it was shingles curling or missing, they received a 1. That was a very small percentage, about 100 houses. Ms. Leibel presented a map of that data. As they can see there are a few colors on there. The dark blue is a range of between 2.8 and 3. Those colors are based on neighborhoods, not individual houses, so they are not really pointing out anyone’s property specifically but rather going by neighborhood. The blues represent between 2.8 and 3. The lime greens they see a lot of is for neighborhoods scoring between 2.5 and 2.8. Those houses in that neighborhood were still a majority of three scores but had enough 2’s to kind of push it out of that top range. Ms. Leibel stated as to soffit and fascia scores, there were more 3’s than the roofs. It is very easy to say there is less wear and tear compared to a roof. There is not as much surface area. There were 86 percent in excellent condition. If there was any noticeable damage, they got a 2 which was about 11.9 percent. If there was anything wrong with them, again, if broken or fallen, that was a 1 which was a .5 percent. If a house received a score of a 2, there was some sign of a stain, overgrown with weeds, or the gutters were full. To her that indicates some wear that they are not being kept up so they did get a 2 if it was unacceptable. With the map which is again separated by neighborhoods, this is very close to the heat map so it is very consistent with all the categories. Ms. Leibel stated for siding and paint scores, they had 88.1 percent of houses that were in excellent condition. That is really great. It is a strong indicator. If there was some sort of wear, for example, peeling paint, it received a “2” and that was about 11.6 percent. If there was something badly damaged, siding was missing, that was a “1” which was less than .5 percent. The majority is in excellent condition. This scored again very similar to soffit and fascia. Common problems with siding included peeling paint, deteriorating wood siding, or peeling paint on window trim and doors. This was also very consistent with the heat map. Ms. Leibel stated as to windows and doors, 97.8 percent are in excellent condition. That is over 7,000 and is the vast majority of the City’s houses. If she saw some sign the windows were not working properly or the doors were in disrepair, they received a “2”. That could be a plastic covering over the window to try and stop drafts or broken garage windows that were boarded up which were about 2 percent of the houses. If a garage door was broken or was off the track or there were windows missing, those were rated a “1” which were only .2 percent (18 houses). If garage doors were blocked or left open, it was hard to rate and evaluate those. Peeling paint on garage doors or window trim are included under siding and paint. Ms. Leibel stated as to the category, foundation, this is a little more difficult to score via a windshield survey. You can see the foundation but as best they can, about 99.8 percent seem in Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 12 excellent condition. If there were visible cracks or deterioration issues, that was a “2” which were only 8 houses. If the house was physically falling, the foundation was clearly failing, that was a “1” and there were only 4 houses. According to other staff and inspectors, most houses are assumed to be in good condition in regards to foundation. Ms. Leibel stated she did do a comparison between the 2007 Comprehensive Plan housing condition survey and the 2017 one. The City is improving. In 2017, 97 percent of houses scored between a 2.6 and 3 which is a very good average score for each individual house. In 2007 it was about 85 percent. Some of the reasons for the City’s improvement include recent storms and repairs that homeowners have made to their houses. Also changes to the Housing Maintenance Code were made in 2008 which has improved especially as to some of the lower scores which maybe were at a “1”. Now they have brand new homes or have made vast improvements. Also the Housing Replacement Program has helped improve the housing, and the Home Improvement Loan Program changes have made an impact as well as the foreclosure prices and many flipped houses and buying up houses that were foreclosed on. 3. Locke Pointe Update Mr. Bolin stated Land Form and Flaherty & Collins have continued to work on the Pro Forma for their multi-family building they are proposing. They have also continued to work on different design options and layout for the villa patio homes and are actively working to bring other users to the site. This past Tuesday staff met with the development group, and he has a few updates on that. Mr. Bolin stated there was some discussion that potentially the construction of the patio homes may start yet this fall. They are just not far enough along yet in trying to work out the business deal with Land Form and Flaherty & Collins to advance that forward. Also, there are a number of land use issues that would need to be approved before they can start construction. Mr. Bolin stated they are now planning on starting that construction in the spring of 2018. They are still working on trying to further refine just how many townhomes or villas can be built on that southern site. They have been working with Anoka County on that as well as the City itself. Worst case scenario there will be about 18 units, and best case scenario there would be about 31 of those villa homes on that site. Mr. Bolin stated taking a look at Flaherty & Collins’ market rate multi-family building, they are looking at 218 units. It would have a three-level parking deck as part of that with housing wrapped around that deck. They expect the construction costs of about $39 million for those 218 units. As far as a unit mix, they are looking at about 50 percent would be one bedroom, 1 percent would be one bedroom plus a den, 24 percent would be a two bedroom, and 24 percent would be studio units. Mr. Bolin stated the development group is also working with a senior co-op builder. They would be located just to the east of where the market rate would be. They would be looking at about a 65-unit co-op there. It would be age restricted to seniors, and they expect these units would have a value of about $285,000. Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 13 Mr. Bolin stated Land Form has also been in discussion with a market rate senior development that would take the site that would be north of the proposed senior co-op. It is a site where public works is currently located. They are looking at somewhere between 100 and 150 units. They could potentially include some memory care or other services along with that. Mr. Bolin stated as far as an updated schedule for the HRA and where they are headed from here, they are working with Land Form now to develop the Term Sheet that will really lay out the parameters of the land sale and any increment that may be provided for the development itself. Their goal is to get that to the HRA in September. They anticipate having a work session on that. By then they should have some plans that are far enough along that they can share those and really have a much better idea of what the overall package is going to be. That is one of the things they have been really trying to get Land Form and Flaherty & Collins to focus on is, what is the overall package, what is the overall development. They are really pressing on these to find these other users now because they only have a limited amount of funds, and it is really limited to what they can generate in increment from these developments. They have some incentive to bring in some higher values/uses on the site. They are really working on pressing them to figure out as much or the entire deal as they can now so they do not come up short down the road or end up with one of the parcels not being developed for a number of years because we do not have the money to help that parcel develop. Mr. Bolin stated that has been part of the reason, too, why they have not been able to go forward with the patio homes this fall. That Term Sheet would then be really expanded upon, filled in, and become the development agreement. Their goal is to have it to the HRA for their review and approval at their November meeting. That would allow Land Form and Flaherty & Collins to spend November, December through March, to get the land use approvals they need. Mr. Bolin stated in addition to approval from the HRA on the development deal itself, they also need to go before the City Council to replat the property into the actual lots they will need and rezone the property. Currently it is zoned Public. They would be looking at rezoning it to the S-2 Redevelopment District along with that and have a master plan for the site approved. The plat process is probably the one which takes the longest and can be anywhere from three to four months, sometimes five months, depending on how busy the County folks are. Again, this would still allow construction of the multi-family building and also would be villas or townhomes to start in the spring of 2018. They hope to have some maps and graphics for the HRA next month. Chairperson Gabel asked as to the overall development have there been any surprises? Scott Hickok , Community Development Director, replied one of the greatest things the HRA does is they hire good folks ahead of time to do analysis, the geotechnical and other things, before they get into a site. Through Mr. Bolin and consultants who were used, a lot was determined about that site ahead of time in terms of where the water table was, what the soil conditions were, the amount of contamination they might encounter, etc. The surprise if any happened back when the analysis was done, were the water table was exactly and where perched water is, etc. It happened early enough that the building could be designed to consider those Housing and Redevelopment Authority Meeting of August 3, 2017 14 things and accommodate whatever design would be necessary to keep everyone dry, safe, and on solid ground. 4. Housing Program Update Mr. Bolin stated they did close 5 loans in July, 9 total for the year to date. The Remodeling Advisor did not have any visits in July. The Home Energy Squad had 3 visits in July, giving them 29 for the year to date. He did have a conversation with Stacy Kamp (sp.) earlier this week. They have some changes they are making to the program. They are looking at doing the Smart thermometers, not just the programmable ones, some that you can control with your iPhone. She is going to get him some more information on that which will be put out on the website as well. ADJOURN : MOTION by Commissioner Eggert to adjourn. Seconded by Commissioner Backlund. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON GABEL DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:12 P.M. Respectfully submitted, Denise M. Johnson Recording Secretary