Not that strict at all. Do you want me to make some more? I like not so strict. You need a resign going to be me. Can we see a picture? You can really. Yeah. I'm gonna go with two hours. I almost feel I almost feel like I think [Music] so. What are you going to do in Ireland? If you don't come, you don't know, right? Will you go grab that? Responsible. So, a normal everyday life. Exactly. your your very topics. Wow. um if the film was talked about that's just no but I just understands everything there. Yeah. So pretty close. So I think 357 So yeah, that's that's not just the little authors. Oh, that's that quick. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. chiropractic sent on their mom to a prison. put on the screen. Yeah. You want to meet again? Yeah. Is this the first time you've been in city? No, I was here in December. You got to plug this into there. Those are just the adapters. This blue one. Yeah. May I sit down? No, it'll just the night property. He called me, blew up my phone Thursday. I called him back and Excuse me. [Music] Going to call to order the meeting on Monday, May 5th at 6:00 pm. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Jenny, Mayor Bogle, here. Council members Mower here. Fes here. Advik here. Robinson here. Have a move motion to approve the agenda tonight. I'll make that a motion, Mr. Mayor. Motion by Councilman Nubar. Do I have a second? A second. Mayor, second by Councilman Robinson. Can I ask a question? Sure. If I want to pull two items just because I want to ask a question. Do I have to do that now? We approve it or No, that's under consent. That's at the next step. Under consent. Correct. Correct. Thank you. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All the same sign. On to the consent agenda. Is there one you'd like to I just had a question about um letter K and L. Okay, I'll just pull those two temporarily. Anybody else? Any anyone that they'd like to pull and discuss separately? Hearing none. Do I have a motion to accept under the consent agenda A through J and M through Q. I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. So moved by Councilman Udvig. Do I have a second? I'll second. Second by Councilman Muar. All those in favor signify by saying I. I pull the same sign on to consent agenda items K and L. Amy, I just had a question. Um, so the um you're posting the position for fire prevention captain, correct? As discussed at the Yes. So, the fire inspection portion of that position that it used to be, is that just being divvied up to other other people or are we going to see another captain position for fire inspections? We're not going to change anything until we get through the application process and then to our discussion at the work session, we'll reevaluate if we don't find somebody that meets that criteria. Okay. Okay. So, at this point, you're starting with this and as it has been historically for ever. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then um for did I say the right letters for Chad Schroeder? Um now he was he a officer before? He was. Oh, that's J. Sorry. Oh, did I say the wrong numbers? I'm sorry. I said the wrong numbers. It's just a quick question. Um was he he was a captain before or officer before? So, he already meets all of the requirements for the job. He just has completed his EMT, so he's good to Okay, thank you. Welcome. Anybody else? Anything for K or L? So, I have a motion to approve items K and L under the consent agenda. I'll make the motion, Mayor. So, move by Councilman Robinson. Do I have a second? I'll second, Mayor. Second by Councilman Udbig. All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose the same sign. I one Mr. Muower on a note. I'm sorry, I said the wrong letters. Okay. I So I don't know if we correct anything. It was already approved anyway. So Oh, yeah. Sorry. I just I just said it wrong. So now we're going to open up the meeting to the public here. And and just number one, thank you all for coming. It's really great to see citizen involvement. So thank you. And based on that though, seeing the number here, I'm just going to ask that you keep it concise. I'm not going to sit here with an exact timer and time you, but I do ask that you keep it to about two to three minutes for because we value your time and I hope you value our time. So, just keep your comments to about two to three minutes, please. So, I know there's several different topics on the floor. So, when you come up come forward, just please state your name and address, please. I'm sorry. come up for the podium up here. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jeff Taylor. I'm here representing RNR Investments. Um, at the last meeting, I have a offer on your guys's old city hall building. And at the last meeting, I heard some things that uh they wanted to possibly take it off the table because they knew the people that uh wanted to put in an offer also. So, I'm here to let you know who I am and and and about myself. Um, I know that I was the highest bidder by over $10,000, which would go to your community here. Um, I don't know if it's because it's a dispensary that I plan on turning it into. Um, and if there's some questions about again who we are, what we do, what we make, how we make it. We have a facility down the road in Bethl that we are manufacturing out of and we are building and growing. Everything will be built right there, grown right there, manufactured right there, and sold into the community, and sold to a lot of dispensaries throughout the state. The reason that we wanted to come here is because it is our background, and a lot of the people that work for us live right here in the community. Um, there's really no other spots in the community to put a dispensary. A dispensary is coming and and and so I just felt that it would be best that it's somebody in the community that cares about the community, that donates a lot to the community. We're building a park right down the road, not too far from you guys, that we're building, you know, and so there's a lot of things that dispensaries do that are positive also. And so again, I'm here to open it up if anybody has any questions. If you'd like to come down to our facility, tour our facility, see how you know the product is made, um, ask questions, um, learn about the product, we're here to follow all the rules and and and be a partner. But, uh, that's why I brought myself down here today to see if anybody had any questions or wanted to learn anything about us. Just for a quick thanks for the email by the way too. Yes. To help clarify some of it. I mean I'm always about learning. So if you if you get your contact I think it's on that email. I'll I'll contact I believe it is. And again if anybody or all of you guys I've I've toured a lot of the state legislatores through our facility. Um because they're not not everybody knows what's coming. Not everybody knows how a gummy's made or you know how flour is grown or what's in it or how we know what's in it. um for the community and what's right and what's not. I mean, uh we have other uh manufacturing facilities throughout the state and to be honest, a lot of the local police come down and ask us all the time, is this legal? Is this legit? What is this? What's in here? Can you get it tested? We think other things are in it. So again, I'm here to work with the community. Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you guys for your time. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. I'll be brief. I know you got a big room here, a lot of people that want to talk. Uh my name is Dererick Lynn. I'm with Noa County Election Integrity Team. We've we've been up here before. Tonight, the reason uh I'm up here is I want to bring your attention to the poll agreements. We want to ask you guys for the opportunity to come back and talk a little more at length over the issue of these pole pad agreements. If you could look at that packet that Aaron just gave you, uh, if you could open to the first page, please. These pullpad agreements were pushed out in 2018. This was a major change to our election system. This is something that the county should have voted on and you should have voted on. That's not what happened. Um, most of this was handled by staff. So, that's one one thing we want to talk about. If you could uh turn to the next page, please. uh there are some risks associated with using these pole pads and we we believe that that's not addressed in those agreements. So, we want to talk more about that. And then if you could go to the the next page, uh there's a lot of statutes relating to these these pole pads and that's something that we'd like to take a closer look at. Two cities, Oakrove and Ramsey, have already cancelled their pole pad agreement. So, you wouldn't be the first. Tomorrow night, we're in Columbus. They want to have a longer discussion over this and that's what we're asking you guys to do. So, our contact information is on there. Do you have any questions for me while I'm here? You want to reach out after? I know you got a room full of people to talk about something else tonight, but anybody else? No, not at the moment, but thank you. Yeah. Yeah, just give us a call. I got one quick one, Derek. And I talk with Kate prior to the meeting about this. What I what I would really like to see, and I don't know if they're amicable to it, is I'd really just like to see like either a work session or even at a meeting. Yeah. Have you here and somebody from the county here. Okay. Make make dual presentations both sides rep and that's that's ideally what I would really I don't know if that's possible. We'll we'll do it anytime. A lot of a lot of cities ask for that. A lot of times the county doesn't show up. I want to mention this thing too. They just had this vote on the poll pads. Two commissioners voted against it and Julie Brostad who I believe is your commissioner. She didn't show up for that vote. She skipped it. That's so that went from 70 to we almost won that vote. And there's some other news coming down the pike too. So, these these pole pads are not real popular, but if you want to have us come in, we'll come in anytime you want. You tell us. So, I know you got a room full of people here to talk about something else. I'm going to get out of your way. Any questions, give me a call. Eric, thanks. One one other point, we we can't get up here a lot because our meetings are on Monday. Aaron represents us, so he'll he'll be up here and he'll speak for us. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Amanda Steini. Um I am here representing uh Vista Prairie at Eagle Point. Um on behalf of Vista Prair at Eagle Point, we would like to express our support for the proposed new market rate apartment complex um that's being developed by Northshore Development Properties. Um Vista Parade at Eagle Point will soon be opening um here in St. Francis and we will be employing the equivalent of approximately 40 full-time employees. Um, as a senior living community, we rely on dedicated and consistent work staff to deliver highquality care and support the future residents that it will that will depend on it. Um, the addition of these new apartments would be a tremendous asset not only to expanding local housing availability, but to providing convenient options for those entry level and mid-level roles. Having staff close by to the employment place also um eliminates interruptions and disruptions that might cause challenges for taking care of our residents. Um the proximity to the community also um will not cause interruptions that we see a lot of times with transportation or um just little little one-off things that will cause people to not be able to come to work. So, um, we respectfully ask that the city council consider the positive ripple effects that this development could have on the community, um, not only in workforce, but in the quality of support for the, um, older residents here in St. Francis that are choosing Mr. Prairie. Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. Next. I got to state my address and everything, please. Michael Powell, 23045 Ambassador Boulevard Northwest. Um, these apartments, I mean, we're hearing a lot about it and, um, this has been discussed for two years and nobody's done a traffic assessment. Anybody that's driven on Bridge Street or Ambassador knows how busy it is already. I would challenge anybody that thinks it's a good idea. I'll hook up my truck to my camper and you can put your family in my truck and try to back into my driveway. It's that dangerous already. And we have our EMS right here. And I don't know how it's going to be crossing the bridge if something happens. And people that don't think that's real go to Monaceel and look at what happens there around 4:00 in the afternoon. They can't cross the bridge because there's so much congestion. They have four lanes over their bridge. We have one. We already got the schools, three schools right in this area. Um the bus station. What happens when a kid runs across the street when they're running late for middle school and gets hit because there's so much traffic? Are we going to blame the county because it's a county road? Are we going to blame the board because you guys said that this building could be put here? The people that do think this is a good idea don't live on any road that's affected by this. We've already got the senior living where 80% of that is independent living. Only 25 units are for memory care, so they won't have cars, but the employees that that lady was just talking about will be taking that spot for those people for vehicles. I'm all for growth of the city. When I moved here, only a fool would think it's not going to get bigger. But we've already got the senior living apartments going up. We've got 120 apartments going in my backyard that you guys want. And then we got more of Casey's with all this stuff congested in one there. I'm willing to sacrifice for my community, but how much do we have to sacrifice when it's a whole community? Shouldn't the rest of the community sacrifice in their area, their backyard? I know that there was going to be homes built back there and we were told that there were going to be homes. Now we're hearing that there's apartments going in there. How many apartments do we have to have before we were told we've done enough in our sacrifice for the community? I think it should be for everybody. I mean, I already got to listen at 5:00 in the morning the garbage cans getting emptied at the school. I've never been here to complain about it. I knew the school was there when I moved there. Now, with all those apartments, am I going to have to hear those at 4:00 or 5 in the morning on the other side of my house? There's just um they took down all natural barriers. There's no more trees back there so I will have no privacy with four apartment four levels high. Do you guys want to build a barrier wall? Do you want to put uh photo enforcement lights on the corner here and then over on the way to go over to Quick Trip so we can have breaks so we can get in and out of our own driveways? What happens if me and my girlfriend get hurt leaving the driveway? my older uh health issued neighbor on one side or the young couple that lives next to me at their new baby. Are we just going to get I'm sorry when they get hit? I mean, we're so good at blaming the county or the city or whatever. We're all in this. We've got to do something. There's no reason that they didn't do a traffic study in the two years of planning on this. Um I know there's a lot of people wanting to talk, so I'll let them go and cut it as short as I can, but I think it's a fair argument. The people that are saying it's a good idea don't live here. Not on that block. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Uh Mike Roger, 2770 232nd Lane. Uh thank you, mayor and council. I truly appreciate everything you do and city staff. You guys do an outstanding job. I absolutely admire your guys's passion over this. But as a whole, we have to look at this is the big picture of it. Never in the history of this city as we've had one project come into this town and cough up $960,000 in whacken sack charges. That's almost a million dollars, folks. Now, if we throw in the permit fees and everything else, this is going to put the city in a pretty good position for future issues that come up. Um, and I hate to say this, we can't go on the emotions of some. Yes. When I built up here 25 years ago, I didn't think there was anything being built next to me either. It's just a fact of life. We can't leave that lot sitting empty. If nothing goes in there right now, it ain't going to happen for quite some time. Which means city staff is back taking care of that lot. Um, who know who knows what's going to happen when there's nothing there. You know, when something's vacant, it always brings trouble. So with that in mind, look at the whole picture, keep in mind that it's not, and I'm sorry folks, it's just not a select few. If in fact, I know Kevin, you don't like this, but in in fact it doesn't go through and we raise the water rates, it's going to be more than $10 that that gentleman talked about. We're looking at raising taxes in the city or water rates. The school district ain't going to swallow that 25%. We know that that's going to come back to us and everybody in Oakrove, everybody that's on well and septic. Bob King ain't going to swallow that. Um, do you think that they're going to still wash your hair over at the uh cost cutters for the same price when they got to pay 25% more for it? I don't think so. So, we have to take that whole picture together and consider that, you know, finding a million dollar lottery ticket on the ground isn't such a bad deal. Thanks for your time. Thanks. Thanks, Mike. Tina Carol, uh 23045 Ambassador Boulevard. Mike, I appreciate everyone has an opinion. I do, but the problem is is that you don't live on bridge. You do not live on Ambassador. So, you don't understand that that that is like Mike said before, it is a very, very dangerous road. Problem is is Okay. Yes, we understand that there needs to be growth. Every town does. But if you look at all of the open land in this city, there's a lot more that this apartment could have gone into. Why do we need apartments across from Casey's right behind Subway plus the independent senior living down the road? Why can't we build town homes? I know that they said the the cost efficiency was not there. Yes. because they're not going to make as much money. Not everybody does, but you have to look at the community you live in. And with Mike was saying, are you going to put a barrier there? Kids running late for school, are they going to run through our backyard? They get hurt. A dog bites them. We are the ones that get in trouble. And we are the ones who have to fight and pay our pay it through our insurance. not the person that got hurt, but yet they were trespassing on our property. And I'd also like to know, I've heard rumors, you guys read all the social media stuff. I'd like to understand how much that property is actually being sold for from the city. Is that something you guys can tell us? It's not a secret. It hasn't been sold yet, but there's a purchase. I get that. But there's a purchase agreement with the Economic Development Authority for $5,000. $5,000 for six and a half acres of land. That seems extremely low if you ask me. I couldn't go buy go buy that. I understand they're going to be bringing a lot of money into the city. But I'm sorry that is not within this in this economy. That's not going to help anybody. So just letting you know my views. I don't think it's a good thing whatsoever. Thank you, Tina. Thank you. Good evening, Amy Barish Benning. Sorry, two different last names. 22983 KY Street Northwest. Um, I'm here about the apartment complex as well. Um, it is concerning to me. I had heard rumor that that property was being sold to this individual or that it's under contract for $5,000. I don't I'm speechless at this. Who was given the opportunity? Why didn't it get opened up as an open sale? If it was $5,000, I'm sure every single one of those neighbors that it affects in their backyard would have scooped that land up no problem. I know I would have I I I I'll let you continue. I just just for you would I'll just clarify that a little bit and I I may defer to Kate or whatever else, but the EDA when when they when they sell land, the reason it goes through the EDA is Can you speak up a little bit? You bet. Sorry. Thank you. Uh the reason it goes through the EDA is when a developer buy the city wants it to be developed. It was let's just call it the old abandoned property. so to speak, that the city wants to develop. And so they sell it to a developer. I'm not saying I'm in agreement with what what the price was either, but they sell it to the developer and the developer has to follow through with what the plan is. So it's not like a normal sale where if you sell it to somebody, a citizen, they can do whatever they want. They can turn around and sell it to somebody else the next day. That the developer has to follow the plan as submitted and do it in a in a a time time manner. Am I correct on that, Kate? I don't know if there's Mayor Council, you are correct. There are stipulations where it has to have substantial completion by certain deadlines. Otherwise, the EDA can retract the property, but it can't be sold for purposes of sitting vacant. It can't be sold for purposes of non-development. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Sorry to interrupt. I just want No, no, I appreciate it because my I'm scratching my head going, how in the world do we try to offload a property of what I look at as high value? It's six and a half acres of land. Um there is the concerns of traffic. I am not one that's up here saying, "Oh my god, we can't build an apartment because there's going to be crime coming into our town." I don't feel that way. Yes, we could use more apartments probably, but there is other land a little bit outside of town that I think would be more ideal. Um I have a lot of strong feelings about this, but that was the main one is just the the cost of and and not to mention Did we as a city pay for that clearing of the lot? Yes. Yes. Ouch. That hurts. We're taxpayers, right? I mean, holy buckets. So, I feel like we're paying this developer like 15 to 30 grand of value. And I don't think it's fair to us as a community that we've already it feels like it's already been done and we're here to say kill the deal. Stop it. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sandra Shear. My address is 22957 Northwest Rum River Boulevard. I live right over here. Uh I just want to know um there's a couple different questions I have. Who's going to eat the additional costs as far as um sewer and water? Um, it would actually benefit you because you'd have more users on the system and they would pay the sack and whack. The developer has to pay to put those things in. Okay. Well, since the town has so much money cuz I see we have a new copper roof on Woodbury Park there and plus we have a beautiful city hall here. Why don't we buy it? And why don't we put up some pickle ball courts like that guy said he was going to do. Put up a pickle ball court in another dog park. you know, I mean, why don't we utilize this property because the town evidently we've got lots of money, you know, I have never seen besides Yisetta or whatever a copper roof, you know, in a town this size. Really? Come on, you guys. Let's let's step up to the plate and just kind of start being smart. This is just ridiculous. The traffic after school in and in the morning and everything is is atrocious. It's It's so bad now and you're adding more places. This guy must have thought we were idiots in this town to even say yes to this. So, let's smart up and say no. And one one repeat. Um, so it was brought up about the traffic analysis. Is that scheduled to be done prior to this deal being signed? Kate, mayor, council, the county will be the determining factor if they require an analysis. They could turn around and just require a turn lane, but that would be a request that will come out of the next steps of the application um with the developer once they propose a full set of plans. then the county will review it and in 30 days they could ask for a traffic study or a traffic control. Okay. So with that and I appreciate that knowledge. Question is though is will we have a say in that as well even though they are county roads because that stop sign that's there is basically utilized as a suggestion not an actual stop sign. People zoom down that road non-stop. I can hear cars at 12, one o'clock in the morning flying by. Okay, you've got a cop station right here. Why aren't we getting people stopped? In the five years that Mike has lived here, he's seen twice has somebody been stopped in front of his house. All night long, it's constant. So, I'm sorry, but I think we should be allowed to request that there be a traffic analysis done for the safety of this community and the children that go to school. right across the street from where you're proposing that apartment building. Thank you. Hello. Hello. I'm Stacy Urick and I live at 384526th Avenue. Sorry, I'm very nervous. I voted for you, Mark. Wanted some change. I know, Sarah. So, I've lived out here for 55 years. The reason I live here is cuz I like the small town feel. I don't want do not want Minneapolis coming out here. And it feels like that's what's going to happen. I mean, are we going to add more cops to St. Francis, when this crime comes here and this tiff thing, it sounds like just another version of lowincome housing. And are these lowincome housing people that don't work, are they going to go work over at Eaglebrook? I doubt it. And are they going to even I don't know what's going to happen. And I do not want that here. I don't want St. Cloud or Minneapolis here. That's why I live out here. And our taxes are going to go up if these tiffs, from what I understand, our taxes are like Minnetonka already. I mean, it's just and I agree with the traffic thing. I think there's too much traffic already. If we have more traffic, there's just going to be more kids dying and we just don't need the crime. We just You're going to lose people. I already see houses up for sale and I'm going to move if this is what's going to continue to happen in our city. That's all I got. Thank you. Thanks, Stacy. Just just encourage I'm just going to encourage you to stay for the tiff conversation later on, please. Thank you. Anybody else? My name is Chris Lickshidle. The address is 23843 Geranium Street um in St. Francis. And I really just want to offer a different perspective, I think, on what lowincome housing means to my family. Anyway, um I have a special needs daughter. She's high functioning and lives in an apartment um but needs daily supports. I'm over there almost every day. So, I drive this path that we're talking about every single day, two, three times a day sometimes. But, um, just to let you know, I mean, her the apartment that Nico lives in right now is being sold and it's a subsidized apartment and at this time there's only one other subsidized apartment in St. Francis and it has about a three-year waiting list right now to get into that. And so I know there's a lot of concern and and questions about who's going to be moving into, you know, a a low-income housing. And to me, that's my kid, the one that I need to support on a daily basis. And if she needs to move someplace else further away, that support system gets broken. And so I just want you to take that into consideration as we're thinking about, you know, what this apartment looks, you know, looks like or one of the ones that are being built. I don't know the details on any of them, which is I was why I came today to kind of get some more information. But at one point in time, she's going to have to move because this this apartment's not going to be affordable for her anymore once they are off the program that they're on today. And we don't know what that future looks like. So, I'm just asking for different perspective considerations. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Anybody else? I'm uh Scott Chobnik. I live at 2311 Butterfield Drive Northwest. Um I as well have concerns about the traffic. You start dumping um 240 cars, you know, there's going to be at least two cars apartment onto Bridge Street. We do the 80 down across from Casey's. That's going to be another 160. Um, traffic's already an issue on here. We got the ISD15 servicing eight schools with the bus garage that run mainly through here. And we got EMS, you know, all all our emergency, rescue, fire, have to go through the bottleneck on um Bridge Street, cross the bridge. And um I believe the parade was moved because of that concern is what I understand is because of the potential traffic issues with and clogging it up uh for emergency use. Um, so yeah, I'm uh definitely against the project and um there's plenty of other places it could be. You know, maybe a little light retail down the stretch here would be okay. You know, wouldn't greatly impact, you know, if it was light, but uh as far as apartments, I think cramming them on Bird Street is a terrible idea. So that's all I got said. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. Hi, my name is Danielle Acriman. My address is 23048 Butterfield Drive Northwest, St. Francis. Um, so I live right on the street um where the trees were torn down. And one of my first concerns is it kind of seems like it's decided. I feel like it's already decided if you know it if the plan for the $5,000. Um anyway, well, the pond the pond. They're going to put a pond right behind my yard according to what they're saying. And I have four small children and I watch my nieces and nephews all the time. I'm very concerned about the safety of my children with the pond if this does go through. Um and I'm hoping it doesn't because already to me the traffic is very bad. I take walks with my kids all the time down to Run River. I bike all the time around the community and the community life here is so beautiful. Like that attracted us here. I would live here forever just because of that small town feel. But now because you guys took down the entire forest behind us, I really don't feel like we will even be able to get a good resell value for a home. And that's just with the trees gone. Now you put an apartment there. So now already like it's going to be hard to, you know, relocate somewhere else because of of the trees being gone and the apartment eventually maybe going in there. Um, and then with the apartment, they're saying that that's going to be a lot of job opportunities for people for the senior center. I don't actually I I've worked at senior centers and people come from all over to work at a place. I don't think that's a reason to make an apartment at that location. I think that people have said many times there are other places in this community right there if they do a traffic assessment they will know that it is not safe and we will see more accidents and our children will be in danger and I I really don't feel that this area will be safe any longer. That's all I have. Thank you Danielle. I get one repeat, right? Just one. There was afterthoughts. Amy Benning, 22983 KYA Street, Northwest St. Francis. Is there a possibility? Because I want to think of a solution that's good for our community, right? Not just be, you know, up here complaining about all the things that could be bad about this project. Is the developer open to suggestions that would work for our community? I mean, we I feel like we as a community should have a say in what goes there. Something must go there cuz the trees were already taken down. Okay, we we've gotten over that a little bit. Not much, but some. But like a a community center, something that's going to benefit our community. Or like Elk River. I've seen different cities, but Elk River comes to mind with like a walking mall or a NOA even. I mean, Anoka is hightraic area and they've managed to do very nice things with their city. Um, and I feel like because there's, you know, eight schools in our district, much and a lot of them are all right around here plus our emergency services. an apartment building is it doesn't make sense to me, you know, like a YMCA or something that's going to benefit to still bring the community all together, but something everybody can use that isn't going to bring non-stop high traffic and or maybe crime. So, thank you. Thank you, Amy. And just so you know, he's here, so he's listening. I recognize Anybody else? Matt, did you want to speak now or later? Okay. Okay. Mr. Mayor, Council, Mike Roger. Um, I truly believe uh I might be mistaken, but I don't think I'm I am, but I believe the county did a traffic study on Bridge Street and Ambassador and it was before the roundabouts went in. I'm almost positive of that. Um, they had the counters out there and they did their traffic study. Um, and uh, what it what became of it, I'm not exactly sure, but you know, we talk traffic and I appreciate that, but Anoka puts in apartment buildings, 120 units. Does anybody reached out to them and ask them how their traffic's been? I don't think so. They're They're on Main Street. I'm sorry. They're on Main Street. Um, and I'm I'm not I truly feel your guys' passion, but I think we're reaching really reaching when we say that. Um, before these roundabouts were in here, I don't know how many long you guys lived here. I've been up here 25 years going on 26. Before these roundabouts went in here, if you didn't make it into town before school got let out, you sat at those round you sat at those lights. There were lights there. Um you but with the roundabouts now the traffic just flows through. Um so that's all I have to say. It it I really think we're far reaching when we when we say the traffic's going to be impacting whether this goes through or not. And I honestly truly believe there has been traffic studies done here. Well, when did the roundabouts go in? Call the county. That's all I got to say. If you want me to call the county, I'll do that. I'll make that call tomorrow and find out when the last traffic study was done in town. That's all I had to say. Thanks, Mike. Everybody's using their seconds. I see. I've been a professional driver for about 15 years. Driven a million and a half miles in 48 states. Mayor Dayton name. Name again, please. Michael Powell 23045 Ambassador Boulevard Northwest. We talking about the roundabouts and everything else. Okay, I'm personally against them, especially in my area on this corner because I couldn't get into my driveway because they just keep continually flowing. The roundabout on Viking changed my mind on roundabouts because I can get to work to an NOA where I work every day a lot quicker. So, there are places where they are beneficial. But the problem we keep running into is look at over on 47. They don't they want to put a roundabout there. They've been talking about it for 5 years. How many people died in that intersection? And the city says, "Well, it's a county road that the countyy's got to deal with it." Okay. So, are we going to have to have a few people die here so we can wait 5 years to get a response from the county because it's a county road? I mean, I understand it was a busy road when I moved here. I didn't know we were going to put three huge apartment buildings there. Yes, I I do understand that apartment buildings for lowincome I was section 8 when I was younger. There's a place for it. I get it. Not all people that are lowincome are bad people. Most 99% of them are good people. But there has to be a plan for the ones that are not. I lived in Chicago for about 20 years of my life. I've never had anybody break into my house until I moved to St. Francis. So, are we going to have more of that? I mean, and I never even heard back in anything on that. and I did file a police report. Um, so we got to worry about stuff like that. Yes, that lady I I empathize for her. She should have place for her and her special needs child, but we can change codes for what we've got. We can build apartment buildings off of the main drag. If you look at most of the other apartment buildings throughout the area, they're not right in downtown. Yes, there's apartments on Main Street in an NOA, but they're on top of bars or businesses. They're not putting 120 complexes right in the middle of town, especially all in a row. Well, we already had apartments over there. We already had apartments over there. Now we're putting three more in the middle. So, and if you guys don't want to do the staff study, just stand on the corner and watch. I mean, that's all you got to do. I mean, that's all I want to say. I mean, there it's easy to say, "Well, put a roundabout in there." If you put a roundabout in there, nobody stops at that stop sign anyway. Am I wrong? I mean, so I mean that's not it. The only way you're going to get it to where we can get in and out of our driveway is put a 414 forest red light in there so there's a break so we can get in and out of there. And then you got to put crosswalks and you've got to put guards and put barriers so kids don't want to go. Yeah, I'm not against apartment buildings. We can put them in other places. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Anybody else? Last call. All right, on to new business. Bridge Street Connection feasibility study. Okay, Mayor and Council, I'll take this one in Paul's absence. So, back on March 19th, um, Council Member Fonis, Mayor Bogle, public works director, and myself met with the school district to talk about, uh, another conversation with the extension of Bridge Street to Highway 47. This is a study that was originally completed back in 2005. It brings a road uh, parkway style design from the three-way intersection in front of the building here all the way to Highway 47. Back in 2005, they created three concepts uh but they were high view concepts. Uh with the school district, there's interest in uh having this discussion again and updating this feasibility study. Uh we received two quotes, one for 25,000 from Hawkins and Anderson and the other 35,000 from SE. Uh at this point, we would need to know from council, do you want to move forward with the feasibility study? Um, and if so, we would bring our next step. We would bring forward to get an agreement put in place. It looks like these are are just proposals. And then we would outline the scope of work and start moving on that after a council approval. But this is just that initial conversation. Do we want to move forward with having them put a detailed scope and an agreement in place? Uh, staff is recommending Hawkins and Anderson is the lower of the two costs. I'm happy to answer any question. Okay. Anybody want to start? I will, mayor. Go ahead, Kevin. I guess I'd like to know during the conversations, where would the bus barn go? Or did they have any uh ideas or thoughts on process on where the bus I mean, a feasibility study is fine, but again, uprooting that entire complex over there, which makes no matter to me, where would it go? Yep. So, Mayor Council, we did have that conversation. We've talked about a few different um options they have been or had in the past and kind of have been looking at places with that. Uh there were a couple ideas that were even discussed pretty in detail with our last CD director co but I think at this point it's really trying to get the bigger picture because even if the bus garage is moved there's still questions on that parking. So this would be the first attempt of with the assumption the bus garages moves. How does that street fall uh from point A to point B because there's also some challenges with the wetlands uh the school parking the trans the movement of children. So there's a lot of moving pieces that this study would have processed. Okay. And then the second question of the 25,000 is the school sharing any any of that burden? Mayor Council at this time no. Have they offered to or been want to partake in any of it or I guess we really didn't have that conversation with them. We were this is kind of the first step as to what that cost actually was. We are scheduled to meet with them again. I think we were talking about maybe or June um once we get through kind of this initial do we want to move forward. So if we if we agree to this now, the school's going to just sit back and say, "Okay, they got it." And they're hands are in their pockets, you know. So, um, that was my concern. I I can see why it's needed. And it does. It's been odd since the day it was conceived, but, uh, the 25 grand comes out of, uh, it comes out of the street fund, Darcy. Is that what it All right. Um, I'll hold my judgment until I hear the rest. Thank you. Can I add? Sure. Um, I was at that meeting, too, and I felt that the school district was on board with looking at this, looking at all options, and I felt that they they knew that they would be benefiting as well. Um, and so I I don't think it would be wrong to ask them to share some of the costs. Um, I they definitely didn't say no. uh wing share the costs. Um so the way it's written now though if we approved it tonight it would be a bit more pain. I understand that. So but I felt that they were interested in the project or at least talking about how the project would move forward and you know you know we're interested in in ideas as well. So I I felt I felt like they were moving along with how we were um moving along as well. I know that doesn't mean anything for here, but I don't know what your take was. No, I that's it's a great question and I, you know, I'm thinking right now and nothing against the school and I know that budgets aren't bulging with, you know, cash either. But, uh, I was just curious. No, because I think there's I think you make a good point where if everybody's got a stake in it, stake in the game, even if it's not shared equally 50/50, at least you got a stake in the game. So, I I mean, I'm perfectly comfortable just hitting hold on this and bringing it back next meeting after approaching the school district and seeing what they have to say. If I I I don't know what how you guys feel about that, but my question would be then are we deciding if they say they don't want to share that cost then are we just going to eat it? We have excuse me, we have you have options to like St. has a historic history of we end up in these to holding the check holding the check. I mean, it happened to us with Oak Grove time and time again. It seems like we keep having foot that bill and I don't know. I I I hope that the school would be willing to to cough up and help us a little bit, but I'm I'm not real positive that we're going to see that. Um, and moving forward, I don't know what cost they're going to be willing to help us with. I think we need a more concise understanding of of how much they're I mean, if they're if they're saying, "Well, as long as you're going to do everything, fine." Then we have an issue with that. They're gonna That's definitely not That's definitely not the reads right now. So, yeah. and and I I hope that's I hope that is we've we've had that issue with the school district before with um with that. So, I'm I'm okay with looking into it, but I I don't want us to get into that situation where everything falls on us again because our staff time is expensive and important. And if we're going to be using all of our staff, they're going to have to pay for I don't want us to see us foot this bill when it's going to benefit them as well. It just yeah I think I think it's I think it bears further discussion but just I mean there's definitely many different scenarios that could take place here if if we came to some sort of agreement you know maybe some of these costs we eat up front but they if they have to pay the whole cost of the bus garage you know what I'm saying so I there there's definitely options I don't I don't know what those are until we have further discussion on it. So maybe it is premature right now tonight to agree. I I'm I'm okay. Don't ask, you don't get. I'm okay. I'm okay pausing and asking and and having the further discussion. Like I say, even if it's not initially upfront right now, if down the road we could have some sort of agreement. It is hard with that because how much do we how much do we take up front and and pay for and it might not go through. I don't want to watch watch us put money into things that I mean, I'm not saying it it's not going to happen. I would love to see it happen. It's been talked about since I've moved here. Um I just don't I don't think we want to put I mean, we're we're watching we're watching money. The taxpayers want us to watch money. I don't want to watch us put a bunch of money into a road that might not even go through. Fair enough. Joel, I just got a quick question. I guess since we have the crowd here and it's kind of the same corridor, uh, this is not a time for interaction and speaking back and forth, but uh, just by a show of hands, how many people out there are aware what the Bridge Street connection is that we're having a feasibility study on? It's been going on for years, they talked about this. So, just to I guess update the crowd on what's going on here and I guess people that may or may not tune in later. Um, the idea is to put Bridge Street to go straight through all the way to meet up with uh Patterson. And so that would basically make a road go right by the school, right where the bus garage is, straight through. Um so when we talk about you know costs, we talk about um speeds, safety, all those things. Um those are things that have to be considered obviously when we talk about these things. Uh biggest concern I have with it right now and and we do have options tonight. We can uh you know motion to continue it later after discussion with the school, things like that. Um, for now I guess to me I would definitely be against it givingven that we have we we we we're going to talk about the tiff later here um which is going to be coming up. We talked about the cost of that road behind subway there that would allow us to sell those commercial properties on the corner and whatnot to be able to have access because the company doesn't allow us to have more access. Um, granted that road is very expensive and would cost us roughly a million dollars. If we did that, um, it would open up other things. This road, I'm guessing, is going to cost, just given the length of it, around the same amount of money. And we have no tax base to support that. And that's kind of more of my concern. Not to mention that if everybody wants to talk about safety and all this, um, you know, and this is this is my weak attempt to be a hero because I'm going to be a villain later, just to warn you. Um, but what what it what it's going to be is I mean we have to talk about the cost of those things, right? So, if we don't have any tax base to support it because it's all school, it's all government property, then we got to me it makes it easier to speed through even if there's a roundabout there later once 47 gets done um right by a school. That's kind of more of my concern with it. Now, I agree that connecting our business district would be beneficial. I think if we're not going to go ahead with things that could benefit us with a tax base attached to it and we'll find out later. I guess that's more of my concern with doing this bridge street connection. We have nothing to support the cost of that unless the school wants to kick in which we all help to pay for as well too because we all did up there. So that's kind of where I'm at with it. But, uh, I think with that, I would I would have no problem making that motion to discuss more with the school cuz I was going to ask the same question about sharing the cost cuz I thought, you know, we needed to have that conversation with the school as well. So, I think if you want to move forward with it, you should definitely have that conversation before we move. I think we're all pretty much in agreement on that. Will somebody want to make a motion to continue? I will. Should I do it to discussion? Pending discussions with the school district and then staff will bring that back. Okay. I will make a motion to continue item A, Bridge Street Connection feasibility study, uh, pending discussions with the school district. I have a second. I'll second, mayor. Second first by Councilman Dubar, second by Councilman Robinson. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. I. The same sign. It's continued. On to the St. Francis Apartments concept review. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Beth. Okay, great. Um, so Mayor and Council, before you tonight is the concept plan review uh for a proposed multi-unit residential development that's located uh between Bridge Street and Ambassador Boulevard. This is an area that is part of a larger redevelopment area. And so I just wanted to take a minute and kind of give that overview before we jump into the concept itself. Um, so there are five parcels that are publicly owned right now kind of in this vicinity and they're labeled on the the map in front of you. on those parcels. There are kind of three separate but interconnected projects that are um conceived of. Uh so one is the Woodbine road extension uh which is uh the city project there. Uh and that would be that's that red line that you can see um primarily taking place on parcels E and B. Then there are the commercial properties that are on the corner the intersection of Ambassador and Bridge. Um so those are parcels C and D. Uh and then the one that we're discussing this evening would be the multi-unit housing which is primarily on E uh and also on parcel A. Uh specifically A.2 uh because A is a little bit of an interesting split parcel. Um so talking a little bit about parcel A just so that we're all kind of on the same page. Um you've got that parcel A.1 piece that's up on the north side. Uh that's primarily wet. That's something that would not be not be built upon uh for this project or in the future. um parcel 8.2 that north side is still wet area as well. And so really when we talk about the multi-unit housing, the location of that would be the south part of parcel 8.2 um and then a majority of parcel E. So again, that's kind of just what this map shows is that while we're talking about, you know, the idea of 6.5 acres, really that is less when you remove uh the wetlands in the north as well as the right of way along the south and the west sides of the area. Um this is an area that uh in the city's plans dating back for years has been planned for higher density residential development. Uh that is uh when we talk about development particularly along the city's main downtown area, the Bridge Street corridor. Uh we look for higher density housing in relationship with those businesses because they have a mutually beneficial relationship. Um you talk about not only people to uh live and work in the area but also people who live there can support those businesses. They can you know go to the restaurants, shop in the shops, things like that. Um so there is a mutually beneficial relationship when we talk about housing near businesses like that. Um and so that's why a lot of the city's plans have kind of led down that path so far. Uh there was a study that Anoka County did in the end of 2023 that found that there was a need for 173 additional rental units in the city. And so this is a project that would go to supporting that need. Uh when we look at the the city's comprehensive plan, uh the land use for the area, there's a there's a few different land use uh designations. Uh so moving from south to north, um parcel E is primarily guided for medium to highdensity residential. now. Um, so that allows 7 to 12 units per net acre. As you move to the north, it gets less dense. Um, so parcel 8.2 is guided for medium density. Uh, and then 8.1 is guided for low density. Uh, the concept that we're reviewing this evening is proposed at 18.5 units per acre. Um, so that would require a comprehensive plan amendment uh to be regided to the city's highdensity residential category. Um, so that existing category today allows between 12 and 20 units per net acre. Um so it would fit within that category. Uh the city does have enough capacity to serve high density here. Um so that would be something that we look at anytime we consider a comprehensive plan amendment. Uh the zoning for the site uh you can kind of see that it mirrors the comprehensive plan guidance. Um so moving south to north again, you've got R3 high density residential uh in this area currently. Uh and then you've got R2 medium density moving north and then the R1 low density. Um so there would be a zoning map amendment also required um to reszone that entire site to be uh R3 as the apartments most appropriately fit in an R3 district. Uh I do just want to um remind everyone or point out that again the majority of that project would be taking place on parcel E which is already zoned for R3 highdensity housing today. So the concept itself uh is a single fourstory building uh with 120 units proposed. Currently in the R3 district four stories or 50 ft whichever is less is already allowed. Um so there's no flexibility that's uh requested or needed from the the building height itself. Uh the project will also kind of have that interconnected uh city rightway and that public roadway that would stretch from Bridge Street to Ambassador. Uh that's something that uh again we talk about traffic. Uh the city would be working with the county with further applications to understand is there a need for a traffic study? Are there needs for traffic improvements in the area um to ensure that those intersections are um appropriately managed um with a concept plan. That's that's about as detailed as we can be at this point. Um obviously we'd all be looking into it further uh down the line. Uh the proposed road also uh would allow the removal of access points that currently empty onto Ambassador um in the future. So as you take off access points on the high the high veloc the high traffic roads that the idea is that that makes it safer having more access points on the slower local road is really the ideal that the county looks for as well as the city. Uh so we talk about uh there are some areas of this concept that may need some flexibility from the city code um that can look at or that can be addressed in a number of ways. The concept itself could be changed to meet city code. Um there could be variance requests or we could look at a plan unit development for the area. Again, as a concept plan, we're just trying to flag areas that may currently not meet codes that we understand so that further applications down the line, um we would understand that areas need to be addressed or different elements. So, one of those uh elements is minimum lot area. Uh right now, for any type of apartment building, there is 2,000 square feet of lot area that's required per unit. Uh so, that's roughly about 5 and a half acres that would be required for 120 units. Uh so that calculation is done by removing any public right ofway. Uh and so again as a concept plan we don't have the hard numbers quite yet. Um but we did flag that as an area that we may be close to that um to that number. And so we'd want to look further uh into those calculations to either make sure that the proposal is meeting the requirement um or addressing uh if there's a need for flexibility there. Uh the other element that we uh flagged was parking. Um so right now there are both surfing surface stalls as well as enclosed parking proposed. There's enclosed uh ground level parking proposed uh as kind of first story throughout the building. Um when we look at the apartment requirements for parking uh it is one and a half spaces per any efficiency or one-bedroom unit uh and then 2.25 spaces for any two-bedroom or larger unit. Uh and so this concept proposes 66 uh efficiency or one-bedroom units and 54 uh two-bedroom units or above. Uh which results in an overall need of 221 uh required parking spaces. Uh the applicant is proposing 245 overall parking spaces on the site. Um so that meets the requirement. Um however, there is also a requirement to have one enclosed space per unit. Uh and so you would need 120 spaces with 120 units. Uh and right now there are 102 proposed enclosed spaces. So overall you meet uh you meet the requirement for for spaces, but the enclosed uh would need a little flexibility. Um so this is the uh kind of the updated parking plan for right now. You want to hold just one second, Beth? Did they get the Oh, sorry. We get that back up. I'm sorry. Is your Yeah, Beth, is your cord still tight? I haven't changed it. I can unplug it and try again. muted. Okay. So, it's showing my screen, but it's not going to be There we go. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry for the interruption. No problem. Um, so this is the the conceptual parking plan right now. As you can see, there's parking um kind of surrounding the entire building as well as on the first floor of the building itself. Um, there are also some optional uh parking spaces along the public road uh that were shown. Sure. Hopefully that helps. Um, so those parking spaces along the road are optional. Um but just wanted to uh to be able to see those and what they look like. Uh so uh the planning commission discussed this concept at their April meeting. Uh we talked a little bit about that uh that northwest remnant parcel again that 8.1 if that's what we want to call it. Um and that parcel would be remaining undeveloped. So that's not part of this uh this development. Uh and then the project is also intended to be completed in one phase. uh it it could be broken down if necessary into two phases. Um but right now the applicant is intending to complete the entire thing uh in a single phase. Members of the public attended the planning commission meeting and they they spoke. Uh there is a summary of the comments as well as staff's responses to those comments that were provided in the packet for all of you. Um if you have additional questions, we can uh we can chat about that. Um but I'm I'm not going to summarize right now. Uh so tonight we're looking for just council feedback. Um there's no formal motion required. This is simply to uh to help staff to help the applicant understand what what the appropriate next steps may be. Um so any feedback is is welcomed particularly on those areas where there may be some either flexibility needed from code requirements um or additional approvals like that comprehensive plan amendment. So that I'm happy to stand for questions. The applicant is here as well. Why don't you come up on Matt? Thanks. Hello. Thank you, mayor, members of the council. Appreciate it. Appreciate your time. Appreciate um staff's time on this. It's been a process. Obviously, we've been working with uh with staff here for a bit on trying to identify and how we can deliver on uh a need that that is definitely seen. Um, and I just introduced myself against Matt Alexander, Northshore Development Partners, and I really appreciate everybody coming in and and and sharing the concerns, and we understand um been doing this for 25 years. My partners have been doing it for longer than that. Uh, and we we get it. We there's challenges in growth. There's challenges in demand in keeping up with the needs of uh your employment base which is growing which is a good problem to have. You uh there is a traffic issue right now currently at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. at that intersection. It's not a mystery to anyone. So that was thought about. That was the intent of having that access come off of Ambassador as well to take some pressure off of that Bridge Street access point. So when we it wasn't just thrown against the wall there was and to uh well everybody's point it is it is a challenging area. There's no question. I think what's a little bit of a uh clarification couple things I'd like to clarify and comments that were made if that's okay if I can take the time. Yes. Thank you. um 120 units of of a apartment typically are 90 to 95% occupied. So there you've got 12 units to 8 to 12 units that are usually vacant. You've got about a 1.5 cars per average on the our portfolio of apartments that we own that end up occupying the space. So if you take that math works out to about 170 cars to 190 cars depending on how that it's just from our our experience and our portfolio. Um I would like to propose that a traffic study be initiated by us and work with the city staff on a on a consultant that we think is appropriate. Um we've done this in other communities. In every community we build a new project. uh a uh traffic study as part of the process and we knew it was part of the next step. Generally was assuming it was going to be part of the next step. I know Beth would have uh made us do that, which we expected, but uh I think I'd like some answers myself and to see what that uh relief valve on Ambassador would do and closing down the other access points out in front of Subway and how that would work for the width of uh uh Bridge Street and how or or sorry, Woodbine and how it enters Bridge Street. I think it's interesting. You don't at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. you're not going to have all of your residents using that intersection. And we're going to have people that work nights, people that work midday, some people don't work during the day, some people work from home. Uh it's a it's a gamut. And we have uh work from home uh uh facilities in our buildings which are high-speed internet desk locations for residents to so if they work remotely, they can use our facility for that as well. So all that gets taken into account with the traffic engineer study. So I'd like to talk all if that's directed by you guys work with Kate on that. Um but yes, it is it is not good now. And uh I I think all the the conversations that I've been a part of and heard over the last my time here in the community, there is a lot of discussion about traffic and roundabouts and lights and stop signs. And I think that's the growing pains of a growing community. It's not you're not any it's a good it's a good thing. People want to be in your community and from kind of standard practice of of planning principles and my career of doing this Beth comment about businesses and multif family being a a traditional or more common use of adjacent to each other is 100% correct. those businesses could use more bodies, but also it's a good transition between commercial and single family homes. It's a nice typical transition where you go commercial apartments, then town homes, then single family further away from the commercial area. So, thank you for that comment. I thought that was really good. Um, a lot of comments about section 8 and I'm I'm not going to steal uh Nick's conversation about the tiff, but there are elements there's an element of a requirement of an income requirement for 20% of the units. So, for 24 of the units in this particular project, we would limit the rents based on area median income at 50%. Which for a family of two is $53,000. So, you have to make less than and qualify for that through the MHFA, which is the Minnesota Housing U system. And this is something we're very practiced with. We deal with it all the time. We report it. All of our many of our projects have this requirement. It's it's very very standard. And it's usually related to a either a TIFF or an agreement with the city just to show some good faith to have have opportunities for this. What's interesting in this market because we did do a market study last year. Uh the rents for the market rents based on what we have to prove to the the lenders and investors to justify the project. The market rents were at or equal or even a little lower than the area median income rents. So that means that the affordable rents are the same as the market rents. It's just a reporting requirement that goes along with MHFA. I think some of the two-bedroom was slightly lower than the rents we used. So that if we would have some twobedroom, some onebedrooms, some studios that we would offer in those 24 units. Does that make sense? It's just if any questions, please stop me. Uh but Nick is with with Ellers part of this whole process to uh understand what's what's needed to fill the gap. Um, one thing to talk about and I've had a lot of conversations with businesses and people in the community, some very interesting stories about not being able to live in the community where they once did or work where they work, opportunities for uh people that let's say a new school teacher or somebody working in the Vista Prairie or a firefighter who's coming in transferred not going to buy a house. It doesn't make a lot of sense to buy a house for those folks that maybe it's just getting started in their life. This is the the type of product that you guys don't that St. Francis doesn't have, right? So, if you want to go into one of the the section 8 apartment buildings, you have to qualify for that and that income level is very low and you have and and and it has a right spot in right place. But then the opposite with the other is a single family home. So, those are kind of your options. You've got some apartments that have have a long waiting list that we've all heard about and talked about. Some of them have section 8 requirements and then the other option is a purchase of home. There's nobody there's no place for a resident, a new school teacher, uh somebody that works at the grocery store, somebody that uh maybe is just getting out of college trying to get out of their parents house. They can't live here. So they end up for the people that work here, they end up driving a long distance away, which adds to your traffic problem for every morning trying to come in for work. So good, good for you guys. You have a you have demand, you have uh uh businesses that have been growing, but you really you do have a need created by all that. And the need is is for that uh multif family piece. One of the comments in the in the packet that I saw uh about could we just do town homes or single family back there. It was not so much a financial problem. That's not what you're missing. You're missing the studio apartments, the onebedrooms, the two bedrooms where you can rent for $1,200 to $1,600 $1,800 of the biggest ones. This are you want to build new town homes back there. those are going to sell for 300,000, 350,000, 400,000. That's that's the reality. So, it's not fulfilling the needs that you guys really have. So, uh we try to partner with communities uh everywhere we go. Uh we've wor we have a we we have a a long list of communities we've worked with in the past that we've worked through these exact situations and there's challenges and change is change is difficult understanding it but I think working together and understanding the real the real traffic concern is is real. So I don't want to try to say and convince anybody that's not a real situation and it absolutely is. um how much impact this 120 unit apartment building would have I think is up for more conversation with a study that we can talk about chip generation because that's what traffic engineers all live on is trip generations so it's a lot of averages some days are going to be worse some days are holidays people don't work but generally average chip generation is a good solid base of understanding traffic um let's see another item crime I get it. I get it. Um, we own a lot of these. No, I'm sorry. No, sorry. I'm trying to run through all the items you guys mentioned. Thank you. So, crime crime is a real concern and every community we go into crime, you know, even if we're doing a senior housing community, people think, well, there's all these people gathered together. There's going to be employees that are going to come be criminals. And and I I get it's a little bit of a fear, but the reality is we do background checks on people that come in. We have cameras all over our properties. We have full-time property managers during the days. We have residents. It's it's what's interesting to me is when you have, you know, new building and you you always get that first resident or fifth resident, whatever, who becomes kind of the caretaker, protector person. It's a unique sit system and it happens where every everywhere we go and the relationship we build with the the um a resident or two who who happens to maybe be a firefighter or a first responder which we'd love to have in our buildings. So it it it is uh a common misconception. The amount of crime that gets generated by a new apartment project is remarkably low and has not been a concern uh on any of the projects that we've opened. So, um the comment about the pond next to the house, yes, we'll follow absolutely every every rule uh whether that's fencing required. I mean, most of the most of the projects are going to require fencing around a pond and so we will make sure that's guarded and protected from from there. I would just want to be I I have four kids. I I get it. Last thing you want to do is is have a concern like that. We go through a rigorous uh engineering process for any project like this that entails storm water where it goes, snow plow, snow removal, snow storage. It's a standard process of our engineer working with the city engineer back and forth and just kind of identifying how much area how much uh rain water at a worst case scenario where's it going to go and we have to build our systems for that event. So it's it it trust me it's overengineered but it's the way it works around here. So um but we understand that. Let's see the uh I think that that that is it for my my presentation of going through um the one comment I think on that excess land on the north that 8.8.1 the idea was to give that back to the city at the end because it's just it's it's better to be kept as a city property because the amount of wetlands on it and impact on our site. So that's all I have. I'm open to questions. Thank you, Matt. And just just to the community real quick, just so there is one more meeting open to the public and I don't know if Matt Matt, are you able to stick around to after the meeting if people have further questions? Matt Matt's very generous with his time and I appreciate his ask anyone. So either our meeting open to the public, which is just you kind of addressing us again. We really don't have a discussion, but otherwise I just talk to Matt afterwards or Beth or or whoever. So thanks. So, questions for Matt? Any Go ahead. Nothing right now, sir. Joe, uh, I don't really have any questions. I have some information, but I don't know if I should do that here or if I should wait till the tip descriptions. If it really matters to be honest with you, well, the crime the crime stats, I did ask Todd for crime data on our current apartments and our three largest complexes that we do have, one on Poppy, one on Kerry, and one on the gardener. uh the calls for service over the last three years. Um a majority of calls, I have a lot of data, but I'm not going to go through all of it. Um there was 112 total calls for service over the last three years at all those complexes. Um 33 I guess you could consider criminal. Um, and the reason I say that is there were there's domest there was a domestic um couple domestic assaults, a couple domestic verbals. Um, a very low number over three years for all those apartments in my opinion. Um, and that's what we have currently. This is where we're at now. Uh the other thing is too is that uh there was actually I believe and I had to pull it right up but there was two thefts, a noise complaint, an animal complaint and then um most of them were non-emergencies or medical calls. Um, again, there was the domestics, which, you know, I'm sure nobody's real happy to hear about to begin with, but the thefts and the crime to the community surrounding it, like I say, over the last three years, we had two thefts and a noise complaint, an animal complaint, which would affect the surrounding area, I would think, out of those four complex or three complexes, um, two buildings I believe each. Um, so just a heads up on that that a lot of that crime concern for what we already have is not a huge issue for what we already have right now. So that's the information I have, but I have no questions for you. Thank you. Yeah, the only Yeah, you've already addressed the one I mean it's what comes first, you know, the cart before the horse about the traffic thing, I guess. And I mean, you're you're basically addressing that. That's from a conceptual point. That's my biggest I think that release valve on out of ambassador. I mean, we all we're all creatures of habit, right? If you if you get stuck in a couple traffic pinch points once or twice, probably going to find a different way to go. So, that's a question. Thanks. Um my my question, I guess, uh and you brought up the traffic study. I appreciate that. Um just to be clear and transparent for the audience here, too. Uh you mentioned you guys doing the traffic study, working with the city, but there'd be a third party doing that just so they know that there's not any party that you recommend. Right. Right. So just to clear that up. Good question. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, happy to be here after, too. Thank you, Matthew. You got anything else? Uh no, Mayor, that's that was the presentation. If you have any questions for me, happy to answer. Any anybody got questions for Beth? Okay, welcome back. Thank you. Good to be back. On to item C, the TIFF application. Okay. Um, I'm sorry, Jessica. Sorry. That's okay. Um, the EDA accepted a purchase agreement from Northshore Development Partners in February for the property. That's the whole thing up. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. dirt. Okay. So, the EDA accepted a purchase agreement from Northshore Development Partners in February for the property located at 3731 Bridge Street Northwest. Staff also received an application for tax increment financing, which will be necessary for the developers to move forward with their project. Northshore is proposing to build a 120 unit apartment building and they are ready to move forward with a land use application. Um so I will pass pass the mic to Nick with Ellers. He has prepared he is the tax increment financing expert and he is here to explain the process. Welcome Nick. Thank you mayor, members of the council and the public. Uh Nick Anut from Ellers and Associates. We are financial adviserss to the city of St. Francis. We help in various forms of capital financing, uh, economic development, utility rate analysis, and things like that. Um, but I'm here tonight to provide an overview of the application and and really a 101 kind of discussion about what is tax increment financing, what is being asked, and some of the generalities that could be applied to this project. And I will go over the process as well. Uh, I did put a packet uh of slides together. Uh, for the packet I plan to hit the high points and mayor, I'll take your direction if I'm rambling a little bit too long. You just speed me right along. I was just going to ask if we can get it up on screen. They're working on it. So, okay. So, the first first thing that I wanted to touch on is why are communities investing in development at all? Uh, the majority of funding for development does take place in the private sector. So they do raise capital in the form of equity that's invested uh the debt in the form of mortgage and other types of lending that that do build these projects. But uh cities do participate quite a bit as well. And why would a city want to invest in development generally speaking is to expand and diversify your tax base that will help you continue to fund operations and growth within the community. Um, notably, uh, a large percentage of cities across the state are starting to identify that there are housing s shortages and are investing quite heavily in trying to incentivize and diversify housing options within their community, which this would be an example of. and also using development as a means to try to attract more investment in the community. Whether that's to invest in things like job creation and new businesses or to invest in renovation of old properties uh upkeep of some of the local amenities and uh spillover type effects that can uh impact or come from uh these types of investment. Uh, communities also use things like tax increments specifically to try to enhance the appearance or desiraability of a project to add certain public facing amenities to a project that might not have a funding source associated with them. They can use it to help uh build public infrastructure that's necessary or or something that is problematic with a particular site and help offset that uh cost so that it does not have to be fully funded through the private sector that might not have a revenue source associated uh with fixing that problem. and also to try to address other policy objectives of the community whether that's to increase public safety uh stability in the case of redevelopment or renovating old stock and introducing sustainability elements uh to new projects. So to understand tiff, you need to understand really property taxes in general and and the way that the city uh and the county and the school district utilize their levies to fund their operations. Um, I'm going to lose about half of you in this discussion, but generally speaking, you know, the the city council, you all know this, you go through an annual budgeting process where you determine how much money you need to fund your operations on a yearly basis. The majority of the funds that you use for those operations come from a property tax levy. Um, you do have other sources of revenue, obviously, the utilities that use utility rates to uh charge for the usage of that system. You have other types of fees that you collect for certain items, but the the majority of the revenue that you use to fund operations come from a property tax. And you're not limited on what you choose to levy. It's based on your debate on what you think is right for the community and the budget and what you think is affordable uh to your community. Tax increment does not impact that process at all. In fact, it's actually on the op on the on the back side of that process after your levies are adopted that tax increment comes into play. those levies that you choose to adopt as well as the county board, the school board to some degree, although the majority of their funding actually comes from the state and not their own property tax levies. But those levies get spread out over the tax base, which is a measure, it's called tax capacity of the community. That tax capacity is determined by the assessed value, the market value of all the property within your jurisdiction. and then it gets converted to tax capacity using a a couple of rates that are determined by the legislature. Um these rates are based on the classification of the property. So certain properties are classified as residential, they have one conversion rate. Commercial properties have a different conversion rate. Multifamily housing properties have another conversion rate. It's all fairly complicated. Why are all these different rates? But it really is trying to take the value of a property and then come up with a way um that the legislature saw fit that these tax levies can then be spread out in a somewhat equitable manner uh over the entire tax base. And so every property is going to have its value. It's going to have its classification and then you're going to apply essentially the levies that the local governments are adopting onto the the whole of that tax base. and and everyone's going to have their share for how they're going to contribute to funding these local governments. Um and that is called your local tax rate. The local tax rate um that is applied is universal to the whole jurisdiction. So the city has a fixed tax rate every year that's tied to your levy and it's tied to how big that levy is in comparison to the tax base that you represent. when we think about taxing or when we think about a new development that comes on board and what they do to that equation a new development once it's built and attains a new value right so money's been invested something has changed on that property that's actually created new market value whether that's sold to a new person occupied by that person but you've created a new value on that property now you've added to the tax base you've you're able to spread that levy out over more people or more funders, if you will. So, if the levy stayed the same and we added a new property, it's not that you're getting new added tax revenue from everything. It's just everyone else's bite at the apple gets a little bit smaller, right? You still are levying that same fixed amount that you decided for your budget. It just gets spread over more property taxpayers, right? When we create a tiff district, that benefit of adding that new property to the tax base gets deferred for a period of time. And that deferral allows the same tax revenue that otherwise would have been applied to be collected and housed within a city fund. And then it can be used to pay back some form of financing that helped build that project to begin with. Whether that's the city taking out a loan in the form of debt to pay for public infrastructure or if you're making it available to the private uh funders of the project so that they can use it as a revenue source to justify increasing their mortgage amount or paying or or creating more equity investment to potentially fund whatever is needed to build that project in in the first place. Um, so it's not necessarily that when you have this project coming forward that you're going to create new revenue out of thin air. You're actually deferring this benefit um that would have otherwise been achieved from everyone else's tax burden going down slightly when the new development comes forward. Um, and tax increment financing is specifically designed to not increase the burden beyond what it it exists today. So when you create a tiff district, you actually lock in the value of the property that exists right now and you continue to include that in the calculation of your tax base going forward. So you're still going to be levying the same amount of or excuse me, not levying, but collecting the same amount of tax revenue tied to those levies as you were before the tiff district was created. But you're just not now b getting the benefit of that full valuation until the tiff district expires. There's also um the amount of tiff that you can collect from that individual property is actually the the tax rate that gets applied actually has a frozen level so that if the levies of the school district, the city, and the county ever needed to increase above the tax rate that's put in place before the tiff district expires, you still get to collect those revenues associated with that increased tax base in the future. the tiff only collects up to that that level that was in place at the time when you established the tiff district. So there's several different mechanisms that are built into this to try to protect your funding of the ability to fund new things in the future or new needs of the city. But what this does do is it creates now a revenue stream, a future property tax revenue stream, again administered by the city, that can help finance or fund a project and get it off the ground where it otherwise could not happen. Um and one of the findings that the council does need to make when it does establish a tiff district is that but for the use of this tool these public dollars that the project that is being discussed would not be expected to occur solely through private development in the reasonable foreseeable future. So, this is a a long-winded statement, but it's actually codified in the statute, and it's an opinion of the council that basically you don't expect that whatever that project is that it's going to come forward and be 100% uh privately funded. Um, and that there is a need to provide some kind of a supplemental funding source to get it off the ground. There are some other nuanced things um that are not captured within a tiff district. So there are certain school operating uh referenda levies. So these would be voterapproved uh operating levies that are in place. Those taxes attributed to those levies are outside of the tiff calculation. They continue to flow uh directly. So the school, you know, so if you do have a new project that comes forward, even if it's in a tiff district, they will have some expansion of their tax base for those levies right away from the project. Um it's a fairly small percentage of the overall but it is something that does help uh continue to fund uh school operations. What can we do with this new revenue stream? So I already kind of mentioned it can be pay back different forms of debt. Um there are basically two spect two ends of the spectrum as it relates to how cities do use this tool. Again you the city administers the funds. the funds come into the city that you will have a dedicated fund within your accounting that is established for it. It is a restricted revenue source. You can only use it on certain things that I'll get into. Um but then you can make it available either through a financing agreement with a development partner or you can help you know self-fund certain types of improvements that are necessary for that project. So on the on the one end of the spectrum, a city could use this revenue source to justify bonding. Uh so issuing its own bonds to pay for development expenses and then repay those bonds through this tiff revenue that's created. Now, one of the problems with that is it does induce some risk uh into the city's equation. Not only are you taking on more debt, uh, but you're taking it on on behalf of a of a private project, a project that that's going to have to be, uh, operated in the future by a private entity that's outside of your control. Uh, the valuation of that project and and the ability to maintain the tax levels that are creating the revenue that you're depending on is outside of the city's control. And so um you know generally speaking cities tend to shy away from issuing their own debt for projects and use the other end of the spectrum which is more of a risk-free type of an approach. And I don't I don't want to say that it's completely without any risk but generally speaking this pay as you go method is really a a mechanism that's used to try to put all or as much of the risk as possible on the private developer so that they have to raise the capital necessary to pay for the project. They have to build it on time, on budget, complete it, operate it, pay the taxes that are generated from that property in so that the city receives the funds, and only at that point in time do you remit a portion of those dollars back under the form of an agreement. It's called a pay as you go tiff note. Essentially, it's a promisary note that the city issues that says, "If you do all of these things, developer, and you create the revenue that gets deposited in the city's accounts, then we'll make a certain amount of it available to you to help pay off your financing for the project." And so, in that instance, the majority of all that risk falls on the private party. It's on them to make sure that they perform. And the city, you're just you're kind of on the back end. Once the money actually comes through, you make it available and then there are some you can insert other terms that are necessary based on the policy objectives of the community. Why can't we use this for every project? Well, the statutes limit it to only certain types of uses. There are several different types of tiff districts and they all serve or attempt to uh ameliate certain conditions or problems that might be impeding development. So there are forms of tiff district tiff districts that are designed for redevelopment where you have a an old uh building that needs to be torn down or significantly renovated before you can actually develop and increase the value of the property. Those things can be costly. So tiff is a means to try to bridge that cost um for redevelopment expenses. There's also other forms of tiff that are designed to try to incentivize certain forms of job and tax base creation, environmental cleanup, and then the one that's actually used the most often is called an affordable housing tiff district. And that's to try to help fund the development of new housing stock, whether that's single family or uh rental housing. That can they both can qualify, but they have their own qualifications that we already had alluded to uh in the earlier presentation. a housing tiff district, which is the one that would be discussed for this site, um is designed to pay for any type of development cost to deliver what's a qualifying rental building when you're talking about rental housing or a multif family rental development. And that building just needs to meet certain parameters that are adopted within the statute in order to be determined as affordable. And there are two tests that would apply and both of them are based on being able to retain a certain percent of units within the building that are set aside for occupancy by individuals or families that would qualify under the affordability criteria based on the area median income of the community that we're talking about. Now, St. Francis in MHFA's guidelines is considered part of the metro and so your your AMI determination is the entire metro areas area median income that income level uh that would be applied to this project if we use the 50% test which again so 20% of the units within this so that's 24 out of the 120 proposed units would need to be set aside for occupancy by individuals or families at or below 50% of area median income. That's a mouthful. Um the slide I have actually shows where those levels are uh currently for 2025. They do change annually. It's a statistic that is published by HUD. Um and it is based on the actual income levels that are in place in the metro area every year. So it does get updated and you know typically will increase over time. Sometimes it might it might go down. depends on how the rest of us are doing in terms of whether or not we're creating more higher incomes. Uh 50% level for an individual is $46,350 per year. So that's annual income. Uh for a family of four that would be $66,200. So the individuals that would be able to occupy those units just need to be at or below those income levels in order to qualify and meet the criteria to use tiff for this project. Typically what a city will do is it will require that the developer prove on an annual basis that they are setting aside those units. um and they'll certify before they receive any of the tiff money back to to pay back their financing that they're maintaining those units and um keeping good standing on them within the community. As far as the public process is concerned, you know, right now this is actually not a part of the official process. We're just giving you an early glimpse and a and an overview of how this tool works as you make your decisions about the the process for the uh the project and the land use approvals. But generally speaking, it does require a public hearing that is held at the city council level at a point in time in the future that that public hearing gets noticed in the paper and then the council is supposed to uh introduce the uh the topic of creating a tiff district to support that development project, allow for public testimony from those in attendance, and then close that public hearing. And once they've done that, then then the council is able to take action on whether or not it wants to approve creating a tiff district for the site. There's a lot of things that happen in the leadup to that process. There's certain notifications that need to be sent out to the county and the school district. There are studies of what the potential fiscal impacts of the development will be. And none of this supersedes the land use approval process that you are you know you just talked about with the concept and any future uh determinations that are made by the the city. And in fact the determination to make a tiff district take effect has to happen after you've approved the land use designations for that project. So, one of the findings that you need to make in creating a TIFF district is that that project that's being assisted conforms to to the general plans for development of the city as a whole. Meaning that it's gone through your land use approval process and gotten to the point in time that you've been able to give it a green light to say that yes, it's an appropriate use within our community. So, we don't have a specific timeline for how this would unfold for this project at this point, but it does have to piggyback or run concurrently with those land use approvals that you're going to entertain in the future. The state auditor requires that a tax increment financing plan be prepared for any tiff district. And this is part of the public hearing presentation that's given to the council. And this is essentially a regulatory document that memorializes the purpose, type, duration, and how the funds are going to be used from the TIF district and the TIFF fund that the city administers. That document gets filed with the county as well as the state auditor's office. The state auditor actually has a department that um provides annual reporting on TIFF activities throughout the entire state. And so there are some requirements to report the financial expenditures that are made within each TIFF fund to the state auditor on an annual basis. So there is transparency uh publicly and statewide. Um so the tiff plan would identify the the project and the the land that is going to be included within the tiff district by parcel. It's going to um identify the duration of the tiff district housing tiff district. You're allowed to collect those revenues for a period of 26 years maximum. That's up for the council to decide whether or not you want to do that. But statutoily you cannot go beyond those 26 years. Um, and the budget needs to be identified, meaning a forecast of what what we anticipate is going to be the the full 26 years collected revenue from the taxes generated from this property, as well as what you're going to use it for. And that could just be very simply affordable housing, um, or a certain site expenditure, a cost associated with the the project and the reason why you created the tiff district. As I mentioned, there are redevelopment tiff districts, economic develop, other types where you can only use them specifically for hazardous waste removal and things like that. A housing tiff district, it just needs to be able to be a housing development expense for those affordable units. Next slide, I have uh the buttfor finding and and I mentioned that a little bit earlier again that it gets adopted at the end of the process once the council make its formal approval through what's called a TIFF resolution. Um and that finding is based again on the council's opinion based on the the facts that you know at the time and and your the sense you have for that project. Um but Ellers, we typically will dive in a little bit deeper and actually provide you a financial analysis to support that finding. So we we tend to take all the numbers that the developer has built for their budget, the rents that they are proposing to charge. We compare them to the market studies that are identified, what is a reasonable basis for what kind of operating expenses they will have and how much uh free cash flow they should have available to help pay back the mortgage that they need to build that project and provide a reasonable return to their equity investors. So, we're able to to summarize all of that together and provide that information to you so that you can be a little bit more informed than the statute necessarily requires you to be. And again, trying to give you a sense that you can make that determination that without this form of financial assistance, this project would not be feasible in the private marketplace on its own. Um, and so I do have some information preliminarily, right? This is still a moving moving uh the project is still underway. There's still some value engineering and other things that you know are unlikely to unfold over the next couple of months. But we have done that preliminary analysis. You know it is a $24 million project. Um that is the budget that has been shared today about $200,000 per unit uh cost to construct um take care of all the site work that's associated with it. Um, and you know, in comparison to other types of housing, yes, this is a relatively lower cost, at least on a perunit basis, than you would expect on a single family or a town home development where we we do see, you know, in the high 300s to even the low 400s as a starting point for many forms of new product that's hitting the marketplace right now. That number does include about $938,000 of municipal development fees paid in for park dedication as and the majority of it coming in to the utility funds to help support and fund all of the uh utility infrastructure that the city is maintaining um that they would now be connected to. Um so a significant amount of that is going to come back and help uh continue to fund utility operations of the community uh firsthand. We take all that information and we try to get an understanding of what is the income that they're going to be able to generate from the rents they are charging their tenants paying for reasonable operating expenses and whether or not that income is going to be able to support the level of mortgage payment necessary on an annual basis as well as the equity that's invested in this project. We we apply basic uh bank underwriting standards uh that we've seen in other projects that we evaluate uh to determine and um you know justify that what the developer is proposing. Uh they do anticipate about a 14.5 million mortgage just generated off of the rents alone on this property. Um and that would leave over $9 million of equity investment that would be necessary to take care of the rest of the budget. And if you look at the cash flow that's available from the rents after making the mortgage payments and what kind of return that would be on $9 million, it's less than a 2.4% return on investment, which is very very low in terms of development. You know, these these projects tend to carry a high degree of risk. Um, you know, they they tend to cost a lot of money to build and they take a long time before you're actually able to uh stabilize them. um they can turn over occupants on a six-month, 12 month, 18month basis um and take a lot of work. And so typically a real estate investor is going to require a fairly high degree of return in order to put their money and park their capital in that project. And we typically will see, you know, a minimum of 7 to 8% uh returns before a real estate investor is is willing to fork over the money to to to build that project. And generally speaking, they're looking in excess of 10% returns um as a as a benchmark. Um so this is significantly low. It doesn't justify itself. Um, we do believe that there is a gap in the funding for this project and we do believe that that gap is about $3 million on this or I'll have a slide uh later in the deck that shows that as a percentage. Um, but the tiff can potentially serve as the way to fill that gap. Uh, it does have the capacity to fund that. Uh we went through and did the analysis in partnership with the local assessors determined that there's a this project if it came forward and was built expected to have a taxable valuation of about $21 million. A $21 million you know rental project within the community given the tax rates and the levies that are adopted today uh would would expect a tax payment of about $282,000 per year. So, this is a 100% increase from what's developed from the property right now because it's an exempt use, right? So, it's not creating any any taxes whatsoever, but it does have about a $200,000 taxable value um that has been assigned based on the assessor. Uh of that 282,000, about 15,000 of that would be going straight to the school districts for their operating le levies. As I mentioned that we cannot capture that within the tiff district. It won't be coming to the the city when they pay their taxes into the count. The county collects all property taxes. The county is is essentially going to take the property revenue that's paid in semiannually just like everyone else when they pay in their taxes and then they redistribute it out to the city, the county, the school district for their their funding sources. When they do that, they're going to actually supplement the city's normal receipts with a specific line item that's going to identify this is your tip settlement. This is the the portion of taxes directly paid from uh this apartment development and they're going to give it to you as a separate line item so that again your accounting staff can put it in a restricted fund um and set aside its use. You will also not be able to capture about uh 2,800 in what's called base tax taxes. Um, and that's basically the uh if this if this land right now, as I mentioned, were a taxable use, those would be the amount of property taxes that you would be generating from the uh the city, the county, and the school's levies on that site. So even though you're not collecting them right now and it's exempt, when you when it gets converted to a private use, the classification is going to change on that property and they're you're going to pay those taxes and it's going to be distributed directly to the city and the county and the school district as if it were taxable all along. Um that's just part of the mechanism that that is the tiff. We don't capture those taxes. What that leaves is about $264,000 on an annual basis that can help fund this $3 million gap. When you spread that out over the full term of 26 years, you're going to be able to justify more than that 3 million. Uh so it will be able to uh fill uh the gap in financing that we do estimate is is valid given the the budget of the project. How that would be applied uh to the budget of 24 million. Uh again, we expect about 14.5 million to be leveraged through a mortgage. Um this is about 60% of the project cost. That's based on the rent levels and operating expenses that are available. Um that 3 million 3.1 million could come in the form of a TIFF note. The developer can use that TIFF note, that promisory note I mentioned, they can actually use that to leverage more debt for the project. So they can take that tiff note from the city say the city is promising us that if we create this tax revenue they would make it available to us they're able to go to their bank and get a like a secondary loan essentially um in lie of needing additional equity investment and so they're able to then take that and bridge the gap in financing that brings down the equity investment down to about $6 million uh or 25% of the total uh project expense. They are they are also proposing to defer uh 50% of the developer fee. So it's typical when you have a a development of any sort that the developers that are involved, they're doing a lot of work right now that's not getting paid for. They get paid at the end when the project's actually built from the equity investors and and the project sources of fund in the form of a fee that they charge. That fee is usually about 3 to 5% of the project. And in this case, $1 million is about 4% of the overall development budget. They're proposing to defer half of that um and only collect $500,000 off of the initial capital investment. What that does is it reduces the equity investment down to about $6 million and takes that 2.4% return number and and boosts it up to about 5%. That's still a little bit lower than what is typical for these types of projects. And so there is some uh remaining work to try to uh to get that target a little bit higher. Uh whether that's through the form of value engineering on the project budget on the developer side looking at some of the cost reductions potentially. Again we are using estimates at this point in time and so it's plausible that those numbers could come down. Um certainly financing rates interest rates have been spiking over the last uh month or so and these are built off of those assumptions as well. So if those rates stabilize in the future, that could help bridge that divide or just looking at maybe generating some uh future uh increases in operating income growth from the rents on that they can charge within the project or operating more efficiently. So those are avenues that the developer can explore on their end to try to get those rates a little bit higher. But the tiff will be essential to try to you know from a starting point just to get to a level where they can uh swallow uh those low-level returns. Um so in closing um generally speaking you know this this tool can be used in this situation to help diversify housing stock within the community and help fund specifically this uh project and create an affordable workforce option within the community where there is not one uh currently. Again it's not a lowinccome form of housing uh supplement like section 8 or some of those other tools that rely on uh federal and uh state public funding dollars. Uh but this would have some affordability to it and affordability that's in line with the market studies that have been performed. Um if you look at this property as a whole, the big picture in the long term, uh that $21 million property value would represent about a 2.8% increase to the city's overall tax base at this point in time. So that's the potential benefit at the end of the day that the city uh would entertain. Uh so what that means for everyone else is it takes our our other property taxpayer bills down about 3%. U because now you've got a new a new uh property taxpayer that's part of the pool that's funding operations at the community. We're deferring on that one. Nick, real quick real quick question. The 18,000 the tax base that's based on a 26-year tiff. What is that based on? No. So that yeah that's a subset. So initially um on an annual basis there'll be about $18,000. I mentioned about 15,000 of that is the school operating levies. So that's going to go help fund school operations and then there's just a little bit under um $3,000 that is going to be coming to the city, the county, and the school district in the form of your general levy um and that's based on the the value of the property today um on a taxable basis instead of tax exempt. So that's right off the get-go. Um so that's per year and you can extrapolate that out. But the 2.8% 8% increase that I'm talking about is the deferred benefit that potentially at when this tiff district is descertified at the end of the day. That's what it would represent in terms of today's tax base. It'd be like having um you know, if you've got 25 taxpayers within the community and they all have an equal share, now you're adding one more to lower everyone else's burden. That's basically the equivalent. Um, and it's also providing again over $900,000 in development fees that are going to be paid to the city upfront within the cost of the project to connect to the utility system as well as provide some uh park dedication money to uh fund those types of uses within the within the community and your future expenses. It's also going to add a new utility user. Um so we did actually just do a little uh basic analysis to to see what uh the potential you know if we apply some general usage uh statistics. This would represent about a 4% increase in your user base uh within the utility system on its own and would potentially generate about $15 to $135,000 in additional annual utility revenues to the city's funds again to help pay back some of the debt uh as well as cover operating expenses of the city's funds. uh in administering the utilities in the community. Uh sewer and water, excuse me, not not all the utilities. Uh last thing, and I'm sorry, I'm thank you for your patience. Um one of the things we do want to highlight as well is that um you know, I mentioned that you would have an agreement in place with the developer that's going to specify the terms with which the city is willing to use this tool to fund this project. Um those agreements are adopted at the end of the process. So once you've already made the determination that you're ready to not only approve the land use for this project, but also potentially approve the establishment of a tiff district, those agreements are also approved by the the council. The council needs to take action to accept the terms for how this financing is going to be used um based on a on a vote. Um typically those requirements are going to spell out what the developer needs to do on the site. So obviously you've got requirements that your land use approvals are going to um impose and typically these agreements are just going to piggyback those. Um but that you might want to insert some additional uh requirements as well um at the purview of the council. Um it's going to require the developer raise all the capital necessary for the funding. So they're going to have to go out get the equity investment get the banks to lend the money that's necessary. You're promising that at the end of it you'll provide a funding source but not at the onset. they need to be able to fund and uh actually construct and complete the project. You're able to impose deadlines for the time frame that that can go in. So, it's not just an open-ended uh discussion, but you can set, you know, a 2 to threeyear period for the construction window of this project. And then you can also demand that they provide a a final cost certification at the end of it to really prove out that the money that they say they needed was actually necessary for this project. And once all of those steps are uh satisfied, only at that point does the city kind of release the funds and make them available to pay back the financing of the developer. Um it also will require that the city do some things though as well, right? So you have to go through the the tiff process, hold the public hearing. Um naturally the EDA is involved in conveying the property in this specific instance and they've got terms associated with that. Um, and then once that project is completed, the city will be required to issue what's called that pay as you go tiff note, that promisary note that I mentioned. Um, that'll basically justify that everything's been certified to the city. That all ties out to the original agreement. And only at that point will you begin to make payments against that note balance. So that note will actually have a face amount. This, you know, as I mentioned, there's a $3 million gap. That'll be the face amount of that note. And then as those taxes come in to the city's fund, you'll remit a percentage of them to pay off that note balance over time. And that can be for a period of up to 26 years or whatever is necessary. Um hopefully shorter if if if we're able to negotiate it. Um and then as I mentioned, there are some annual financial reporting requirements. So obviously you already go through your accounting um and auditing practices, but there'll be an additional submission to the state auditor's office where you are are required to tell them the amount of TIFF funds that came in um as restricted funds and then how they were used on an annual basis. And so you'll you'll show as part of the record that you've got that note established under the terms of the original agreement and then the payments that are made on that note will be reported to the state auditor and they they'll track that over time. So that concludes my presentation. I'm thankful for your your patience in that. I'm sure there's many questions, maybe not for tonight, maybe a different time, but I'll be happy to stand for them right now or or come back uh when you're ready to uh discuss a little bit further. So, thank you. The only question I have, I guess I've been doing this presentation a couple times. Um you mentioned the 26 years and that's up to the council as far as the terms. I thought it was determined as far as what the company needed. Like there was a cap on it that you guys would put on it based on your work and all that. If I remembered right, it was something along that line to where you'd come back and say, "Well, they only really needed for about eight years or 10 years or whatever." That's what we've determined and then like we obviously approve it at the end of the day. Correct. Okay. Yeah. So, we will make a recommendation to you. You know, my my preliminary thought right now is about 3 million which is almost the full term. Um, but again, we need to dive in a little bit deeper and see where things go over the course of the next month or two while we go through this process. Um, but we can't go any further than 26 by statute and we can't go any further than you're comfortable with as well. So, um, you know, it is a negotiation. We do have to make sure the project is feasible for it to even work, right? But we certainly, you know, can put some limits in place if if that's the determination of the council. That's all I have. Anybody else? Amy, Sarah, I don't have any questions. Kevin, I have no questions at this time. I don't have any questions. It's not a secret. I'm not a fan of TIFF. So, no, don't take any Don't Don't take any offense because I I there's nothing I'd like to do more than work with Matt. I I I greatly appreciate what they're doing and I understand, you know, I I sat down with Matt and his partner and and talked about this. I just don't understand why it's the public's why the public has to pay for a private development and and and I get it. I get the whole butt for part. It wouldn't happen without it. But I say this is a financing problem. This is a bank problem. This is a developer problem. Not not a taxpayer problem. And so if I go if I go and I build a house in St. Francis, I buy a lot and I build a house in St. Francis. I'm adding I build a 2,000 square foot house and I'm adding property. I'm adding the St. Francis. They're getting taxes. I get no break. What am I? And I don't also don't understand if a big box store I don't want a big box store, but if a store moves into town, nah, sorry. You don't get tiff. You don't state statute says you don't qualify for it. But this does. It's not it's not right. It's not fair. It's not not our job to pay for private development. And I again I I don't want to pick on Matt because I totally understand his his conundrum. The banks are saying we're only going to give you 21 million and it's a 24 million project. So I just just throwing it out there. I I I haven't changed my mind one one bit on this because I mean bottom line Matt absolutely they've got to make a return of course. What what investor doesn't want to make a return? They make a return. Us taxpayers are told wait 26 years or whatever it is and you get your return in 26 years and they're making their return. So I it's just I'm just saying saying where I'm at. I'm just being honest with you. I don't have any grudges. I don't have any begrudge anybody. I know so many cities are taking quote unquote taking advantage of this. Well, somebody's got to stop it. And so sooner or later because it just becomes this big game where then the developer goes to the next town and and says, "Will you give me tiff?" And they go to the next town and will you give me tiff? And it becomes this big game where the public somehow is on the hook for a private development. So just just had to throw it out there early. Thank you. So, so what do we uh do we need to It looks like we need to just make a motion to Well, this is just informative. Well, I think we got to authorize staff after his presentation and how it's tied to the land use. We still don't know your recommendations for the concept plan. So until we have a feeling for if you support the project and you recommend they move forward to the next step past the concept those two are tied. Correct. I So motion motion to authorize staff to establish the appropriate public hearing date and submit the required notices also is tied to how they feel about the development. So, if they're not in favor of the development moving forward, then we wouldn't need to call for these public hearings. So, they're tied. Yeah. We've got two options here. The second one is the motion to deny the application and it just kind of dies right here, right now. Is that correct? It' be up for the developer to decide. Um, I get that correct, right? I mean, a developer could, but I I'm just I I I mean, we've worked on this for two years. I that's the part that Matt I don't get. You guys do this all the day and sometimes the answer is no. And that's a lot of time. And we our staff has spent a lot of time our staff has spent a lot of time on this as well. So I I but I I'm not there now. I won't be there two days from now. I won't be there weeks from now. So I know Amy may Oh. Well, first I just wanted to say thank you to all of you, all of the staff and yourselves. Your presentation was was great. Um, you answered all of the questions. Um, I for me it isn't tiff or no tiff. It's easy to say no to tiff because then the project's not going to go forward. For me, the concept problems for for myself, the number one is traffic. Um I I wouldn't be willing to say yes to these projects today without having the traffic study first. Um for me it's it's it's traffic. Um I went to the PNC meeting and 15 people spoke. Um I was in the audience, I didn't say anything. Um 15 people spoke and only one was for the project. Um and all the rest of them were against the project. And the things that I heard them say were they were worried about the kids getting hurt, um kids being in their yard, um traffic, garage noise, um and just not just not in general why they moved here in the first place. I know I I've lived here for 15 years and I lived in Oak Grove before that. I moved here to to be in a small town and I I drive Bridge Street every day, like more than once, because I have kids at the high school and the traffic here is is my top priority. And so, it's easy to just say, "Oh, no to TIFF because the the project won't go forward without it." But it's really I really don't believe it's what the community wants. the community that is already here, I don't believe is what they want. And yes, you're saying that we need to have affordable housing for people to move here so they can work here. Well, we here in St. Francis, we're 20 minutes from everywhere. There's a lot of people that live here that drive to Anoka to to Cambridge to East to to Minneapolis to go to work. And so for someone to have to live in Elk River for a few years before they can move here or decide they want to move here if they work here, it's just the same that we're doing, but just the opposite. And for me, um, I have to say I'm a no on TIFF. I agree with everything that Mark said, although your presentation of it was was excellent and easy to understand. And I I see your point. I do. I I very much do. Um, but I I do agree with Mark that why this project and not another project and does it if we agree to this one, does that mean the other apartments that might want to come to town or other or or any other business if they meet the requirements um do we have to say if we say yes to you, do we have to say yes to them? And I don't know the answer to that, but um for me it the concept part of it is I just don't believe the community that lives here already wants it. And um so I I would be I would be a no. Although I I do recognize all of the time that has been spent on this. I that is that's not that's not that's not lost on me. Um it isn't. And I do understand that you did all of that with the the approval of the council at the time. I I recognize that. I I don't want that to be lost. So that that that would be my my thoughts. And a couple other things, too. Just the people um just lived here to be in a small town. And I I I really think that selling the property for $5,000 was wrong. I'm on the EDA. I'm I'm newly on the EDA. It was my first meeting and it came up to say, "Hey, let we're going to sell this property for $5,000." And I was the only one that said, "What? This is kind of a head scratcher here." What? And and I voted no to sell it for $5,000. And everyone else voted yes. And literally the next day or the next week, all the trees were gone. And I I feel that Did others have an opportunity to buy it for $5,000 and bring some development here? I don't know. Um but I I feel like we also tore the trees down a little prematurely. Um and because it doesn't sound like the homeowners adjacent to it knew about it until the trees came in. And I think that that that that's on us that that we that they didn't know. I think I think they should have known for or I would want to know that I would want to know um if you know five acres of trees was going to be ripped down in my backyard. Um and so that's that's what I've heard people say. A different lot. A different lot. Yeah. But you know maybe you know it's just the things that I heard them say at the PNZ Union were compelling to me. Sarah, Kevin, Joe. All right. Got your tomatoes ready? Um, so one thing I will say is, you know, I'm not going to A lot of people I see on Facebook talking a lot of things that they have no clue what they're talking about. And I don't know everything there is to know. I'm not saying I know better than anybody. Um, there's a lot of things that were talked about tonight that were I'm good on you, Nick, if you want to sit down. Yeah. Thanks, Nick. Um, so like you talk about, oh, we can we can build all this land we got blah blah blah. Okay, we tried to build half million dollar homes in a cluster development in an area where there's typically, you know, 10acre lots, whatnot, but half million dollar homes, 14.5 million homes on 144 acres. And everybody in that neighborhood said, "Not in my backyard, not in my backyard." We get the same thing. No matter what we try to do in St. Francis, it it's it's tough and it's hard because, okay, we're elected to represent you, but we're also elected to represent the other 5,200 and some odd people that were registered on uh election day, as well as the people that, you know, aren't registered. Um 3,400 and some odd numbers voted on election day. Um we have to think about the community as a whole as well. Um, traffic to me is definitely a concern. Um, Mike, the concern you you talked about how if there's going to be a higher rise, I mean, if you you want to build a fence, yeah, they're probably going to be able to see over the fence. So, I get the privacy issue there. Um, some of the things that I've heard too are are I mean, they they bother me because we have to take personal accountability as people in general um as well as elected officials, right? Um, the whole thing is is when you talk about driving or backing in your driveway and running somebody over, like that bothers me because it's that's on you. That's your driveway. You're backing into it. Um, I don't mean to call you out specifically, but it's like I I get if there's more people and whatnot, but if there's there's a lot of things that I don't understand with some of these arguments. So, the the traffic I get that's 100% concern for everybody. Um, something we need to look into. um trying to control what happens on land we don't own. I don't understand that. We had the we had what 10 people, two of which didn't even live in this town, complain about the Green Valley development. They said this had the same arguments. There's going to be all sort million dollar homes, 14 half million dollar homes roughly. They're talking about crime. They're talking about traffic. They're talking about all the same arguments. No matter what we try to do in this town, it's always the same thing. So, it's hard for us when you say, "Well, you got all this land to build." No, we don't. And if we're supposed to listen to you, not saying that you're invalid because everybody's just as valid as right everybody else. We're all equal here. Us, you know, everybody. So, you have to be able to try to figure out what is the best situation and we might disagree. And we also have this, I don't know, I call it a cancer in society where if you don't agree with me, then I don't care what you have to say and I'm this or I'm that or you know, look what they're doing to Tesla right now for people that don't agree with certain things. Like this stuff is crazy and it's not reasonable. And the only thing I ask for everybody, including myself, is to try to be reasonable. Um, I am in favor of the TIFF. Um, well, that's why I said get your tomatoes. Um, reason being too, I mean, there's there's a lot of different things that factor into this. Uh, for me, uh, one is going to be it's in the Musa district. Our Musa district is very limited to where it is in the center of town, which if you're going to build something like an apartment, you're going to do it in the Musa district. Um, is there other place in the Musa district? Possibly. Um, the other thing too is, uh, things I've seen on Facebook in the past is why is a city putting AutoZone right next to O'Reillyy's. We don't pick where things go. These businesses come in, these developers come in, they say this is a good place for what I want to put here. They do studies, figure out if they can make money or if it works good. So, a lot of the stuff comes from lack of understanding and frustration with the city. It's it's always blame the city. Like when you talk about are we going to blame the county? Are we going to blame the what about the people that are involved in those situations? Like I'm not saying that, you know, so if if we build any more houses in St. Francis and somebody gets into an accident, runs over a kid, it's somehow the city's fault or we're going to blame it on the county or we're going to blame No, it's the driver, the pedestrians, like there has to be some personal accountability from people, right? Everybody. So that's my opinion, but I am for the tiff and that's where I'll leave it. So you can throw your tomatoes. Thanks. Yes, I have to be on the council. Legally, we have to I'm going to get thrown at too. I'm okay and I and I am I'm okay with the tiff money. Um traffic of course it's it's an issue. It's going to be an issue. The thing is is that we c can we sit and be this science community forever? Sure, you can sit here and do that forever. Yes, that's great. But then you all have to be okay with increases everywhere because nothing is getting cheaper for for anything. Nothing is getting cheaper. So when we have to say, "I'm really sorry, but our taxes are going up 15%." You have to say okay because we want a small community when you want the water bills to go up when you want everything to go up. But we don't hear that. All we hear is people complaining about how much it costs to live here. If you want it small, it's going to cost you money. Period. Okay. And that's that's great. Yep. There's there's 20 30 people here that are saying that's fine. But we can't just take those 20 to 30 people. There's a whole another group. There there are You're right. They're right. There are. But you have to understand and and nothing is going to get cheaper anywhere. Nothing. That's right. And and the city is going to raise taxes. The county is going to raise taxes. The school is going to want more money. And somehow that becomes our problem when the city and the or when the county and the and the school need more money. That's not us. We have to collect what we have to collect. Um, the only way that we keep things more affordable is by adding people. We, like Joe said, we don't get to pick. We don't get to pick where a builder wants to come in and develop. That's up to them. That's their job. They pay money to figure out where it works. If it doesn't work to put it out in the middle of the country, I I don't Apartment buildings can't go out on a farm. It doesn't work. They have to be in the city where people can get to. Um, so well, no, the every place, every every town, every city has a downtown. They have a designated area that's kind of their their hub. That's over by the Isn't that over by the It depends on who you ask. If you ask that side of town, they might say it's here. If you ask this side, we're we're very split. Again, we have most of the shopping area is. So, you think that would be where people would want to be so they can easily access shut down Walmart to keep moving here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, folks. I could keep moving. I just let Sarah continue. Please, please don't interrupt. Thanks. No one shut down Walmart. Walmart didn't ever want to come here. We don't have enough people for any big business to come here. I I we have gone over this. I've I've been involved for 12 years on the council for almost eight. We have had everybody saying, "Oh, we want this." That's great. But until we get to a certain population, those businesses, it's not. It's not. They're not coming here. They have no no desire to come here. No, it's not. It's not. Come to a meeting. Listen, go to Walmart and ask them if they want to come to St. Francis. They don't even want to go to East Bethl. We're right on 65. They're not interested. We don't have enough population for that. If if you think you can get Walmart here, I I encourage anybody to do that because Okay. Exactly. But that's what you just said to me is why can't we get Walmart? So again, it's it's not it's not whether or not I I like TIFF or not. I have to look out for financing for our city and and that's what I'm doing looking at this. Any more? No. Okay. Thanks, Sarah. Kevin. Well, first of all, um I'm I don't want to bend anybody's ear that much, but um I want to thank everybody who was involved. I appreciate the citizens coming out for change. It's always usually an empty hallway here when we're talking about stuff. And when it's in your backyard, it means something to you. So, you come out and we appreciate that. Um I'm not a fan of TIFF either. I understand the the concept, but 26 years is a long time. We gave Vista Prairie uh a 10-year abatement, which is a little bit different, but they built a $45 million project and they're going to employ some people and there's lots of ancillary things that go with that. As well as our seniors that live in our community now will be migrating if they have the wherewithal and the resources they can go there. So, it was it it showed major community um involvement and that's why I voted for that that abatement side. Um the sale price, I wasn't very fond of that either. I wasn't part of that process, but it is what it is. I know it's an enticement, though, to bring developers here to do something. So, and it happened. It's going to happen in another town somewhere else tomorrow, but it doesn't sound like it's going to happen here right now. So, traffic was a big concern. I I heard you loud and clear. We all heard you loud and clear. And I see it, too. My kids go to these school or when or my grandkids now go to these schools, too. So, I see it. I drive through here couple times a day easily. So fully understood our water rates will go up. Not be and when this first started out it was to me it felt like a gun in your ribs. If you don't get this building built our rates are going to go up. Well we had one or two citizens come and say I'll pay an extra $15 $18 more a month to let her buck then we won't have this. So that but but again he doesn't speak for the whole community. But again um like uh Sarah said prices are going up, things happen. We got cost of living to talk about our budget. We're talking budget talks now and stuff coming and our groceries. We're all paying the same groceries and the gas has come down a little bit, I see, which is something. But um but water and sewer rates, you know, again, that that horse has left the barn. The thing was overb built. We're about 50% capacity. We need more more uh sewer and water hookups to make it pay for itself and keep our rates stable. Um highest and best value. That's what developers or people that you know make uh these decisions. You have a piece of property. Is is it the highest and best thing for that piece of property? I'm not the one to answer that. A gentleman, you know, a group of individuals came forward and they just didn't have enough money and they wanted us to help, you know, offset that little bit of cost. I'm not I'm not I don't think the city should be in the banking business in this instance. So that's why I'm also u not for it as well. But we hear you and we appreciate you that you have come to meetings and I know uh my wife watches these meetings as well and gives me critique when I get home and she also tells me she also tells me the body counts as far as who's listening and who's watching. So we're getting the word out and you guys are doing a good job as well. Again, Joe and Amy had some good points about social media. It's not the place to get your information. Call somebody. Call us. I I think I've been I've been going into my seventh year here. I've had probably seven calls in seven years. I'm here, you know, we're all here. Everyone's available. So, but I appreciate you guys and the work that we went through and everybody who made the work up to this point, but it's not just not it time. Thank you. Can I say Can I say one more thing? Sure. Even though we came, the five of us came to a different conclusion, I honestly agree with everything you all said. Um, you know, I could see your point on on literally everything. So, I think we I think we came to a good conclusion. Um, so I just wanted to say even though we didn't have the same outcome, um, I I agree with what you said. You got five. That's right. So, we have to make a motion one way or the other here. So, on page 121 of your packet, there are two different motions. Yep. One is to approve moving this forward which should be the next step in the process. The other would be motion to deny. Bear with me here. Okay. Yeah, we got to get to page 121. Oh, yeah. I had that. All right. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you. So, I mean, I'm just going to start with this since it seems like it's three against two. I'll start with Do we have a Can I just go right to the motion to deny? Correct. Do I have a motion to deny the TIFF application? I'll make that motion. Mayor, I have a second. I'll second. Mayor, all those in favor signify by saying I. I pull the same sign. I motion to deny passes three to two. on to the River's Edge ETH edition. Mayor and Council, before you tonight is the final plat request uh for the eighth edition of the River's Edge development. This is a development that uh was started back, I believe, in 2017. Uh and this will be the final addition. Uh so full buildout of that site. Uh overall we're looking at 163 total lots through the through all of the eighth editions. Um the eighth edition itself provides 29 single unit lots in that very northwest uh portion of the site. Uh it also includes the extension of 237th Avenue uh and Vintage Street. Uh this final plat is in conformance with the preliminary plat that was approved for the area back in October of 2022. Uh and therefore staff is recommending approval of the final plat uh this evening. I'm happy to stand for questions. Anybody got any questions? Joel? Sure. How many total homes are going to go there? Uh so total for the project for River's Edge there's 163. Uh within the eth edition there are 29. Thank you. Amy, I don't have any questions. Sarah Kevin, no questions. Mayor, I do not have any questions either. Yeah. So, uh, the motion is on page 141. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the River's Edge ETH edition? I'll make that motion. I'm sorry, Kate. Go ahead. Oh, oh, I thought I thought you were saying it wrong or something. Okay. I'm sorry. Still, uh, I'll make that. Motion by Councilman Fis. I'll second. Second by Councilman Utvig. Uh, any further discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose the same sign. Resolution 202528 passes. We are up to meeting open to the public again here. So this time no no double dipping. One time each. I'm not going to double dip. Once again, Mike Roger, uh, I been here 25 years. Um, I did look, some of you are going to be disappointed when you see this traffic study. No, they're not. They got what they wanted, Mike. You're going to be disappointed. I don't know. I don't know if any of you guys seen this, but this is what it says. 2030 build traffic volumes and capacity analysis. County TR County Road 24 expansion and ex and extension new two-lane undivided Peterson Drive extension from 47 to County Road 2428. Looks like they're going to widen your road. Says 2030 is when it's going to happen. So So there you go. You know, call your county administrators. Um, and with that being said, um, if this is true, then honestly, when you talked about cutting that road through where the school garage is, um, that's probably something the county is going to want to be involved in because it looks like they're going to expand this road out here and head up to Ambassador with a four-lane, if I'm reading this right, with a four-lane road. That's all I got to say. So, all that information, folks, is out there. You just have to look for it. It took me literally one minute to hop on their site and find this. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Yep. There's one one coming up already. Yes, I'm back. Sorry. Uh Tina Carol. Um so, Joe, yep. um your comment about yes, people need to take responsibility. Yes, and I agree with that 100%. I welcome you to sit in my yard, sit at the corner, you can look out the window here. We No, I'm being dead serious because we try to back into our driveway and he's not talking about hitting somebody. We are more worried about other people hitting us. I will be backing in and people just zoom around. They don't care. They have no desire. We had somebody come and do stump grinding the other day. The school was very nice and let him park his vehicle in their parking lot. Okay. He had to get his machine across. We literally had to stand on each side of that highway, putting our own life in danger just so he could get across the street to put his machine back on his trailer because he had no other way of doing it. So, we were willing to put our lives in danger. So, I welcome you to come and watch it sometime. I do. And for you as the developer, thank you for listening to our concerns about putting the fence around the pond. So, a couple of questions for you. Okay, we're going to put the pond in. Will you be assisting in or contributing to the mosquito control because there's going to be additional water there? Are you going to put some kind of a barrier around that swamp now that the forest is not there to block those wooded areas to get to that swamp? And where are those cameras going to aim? Are they going to be aiming at our backyards? Are people going to be able to see what, you know, we're in our backyard doing something? You know, that's an invasion of our privacy as well. It was voted down, so it's not coming. The the apartment's not coming at all. You just voted it done. The portion is not coming. No, but but the tip portion, if the tiff doesn't come through, we we've already been told staff has done their homework. If we don't do tiff, we aren't getting an apartment building. Well, I appreciate that. I misunderstood that. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Tina. Any anybody else? I actually just um do my name again. Yeah, please. I'm sorry. Y please. Acriman, 23048 Butterfield Drive, Northwest, St. Francis. I was wondering, so since that was denied, um I mean is is there future plans like for the land? I mean, I'll defer to Kate, but I mean, most likely what happens is it just it defers back to the EDA and they try to get another another buyer. Are they still they I know they plan on putting a road through. Are they still doing that? Do you know? I mean, that's so the city has to put a road in there in order to uh market those corner lots because the county will not allow any more new accesses. So, at some point in time, I have no idea, but sorry to get here. Right. He's he's right. At some point in time, the road's coming in no matter no matter what. Some point in time, it'll be there because they have to access that to market those. That makes sense. And then, uh, one more question. So, with the trees being down and all of that, there's nothing like they're not going to put new trees there or anything. Just one, right? Nothing at this time. Unknown. Just your name and address, please. Robin Wilson and I'm at 23041 Butterfield Drive. My concern is that the traffic going down Butterfield is going to increase. My in my issue is when I was four years old, I watched my sister get hit by a car and drug four houses down the We have kids. Danielle has kids that that are outside all the time. There's a lot of kids. I don't I mean and I'm watching them. I'm always nervous and I don't ever want anybody to have to witness any of that. My sister survived, but it was awful. And to have increased traffic, I mean, we're in a small town. That's what we love about this town. We don't want to have to worry about our kids getting hit by a vehicle or anything. Why change things the way, you know, from what they are? That's all I have to say. Thank you, Robin. Yep. Anybody else? On to reports. Community development report. Good evening, Mayor. I'm sorry. Or we just did that. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jessica. I will be presenting the quarterly report for January through March. Um, starting with economic development on the Bridge Street corridor, we have 3731 Bridge Street. Um, we have talked about that extensively tonight. So, I think I can move past that because without the approval of TIFF, the land use application will not move forward either. Um, so 3765 and 3757 Bridge Street, which are the two corner lots that are city-owned and that are to be developed, um, will gain access off a new city street with the Woodbine North extension. So, this will make the properties more marketable for future developments and reduce the number of access points off Bridge Street. 3645 and 3631 Bridge Street, also known as the St. Francis Hardware Store and the Rum River Inn, were listed for sale in March for $1.6 million. The owners are um hoping to sell all parcels together. Then 3503 um Bridge Street was purchased in 2024. This is the lot across the street from the Casey's gas station and near the high the high school. Um they are preparing for phase one of the development which is a three tenant commercial building. The highway 47 corridor of Vista Prairie is currently on schedule to open this fall and exciting progress has been made on site. Uh the First Baptist Church expansion has been working to obtain their mindot permits. Um so the city drafted a site improvement performance agreement to keep that application those applications moving along until they do get their um review from MINDOT. Farmers market staff is preparing for its third annual farmers market season. This year we are making some changes to allow for anticipated growth. um year-over-year from the first year to the second year, the number of vendors doubled. So, we're hoping that by moving it into community park and out of the parking lot that we will have more room for expansion. So, the vendors will be moving into the park. The food trucks will remain in the parking lot. The city and community tables will be located in the park pavilion. And staff has planned a special event for each month. the last Wednesday of the month. Chamber of Commerce staff have have remained active in the chamber. Um Jodie Steface is serving as the prim primary city liaison. Miss Steface volunteered at the annual dinner Friday, January 31st. The event was sold out and this um it had record attendance this year. Miss Steface also volunteers for Pioneer Days um the parade and wherever help is needed. Um the EDA, this was specific to the project we discussed earlier with um the EDA selling or entering into a purchase agreement with Northshore Development Partners. Um so yeah, just over the last 24 months, the EDA has entered into a letter of intent with Northshore as they worked through site information, surveys, and financing discussions. And that's where it ends tonight. uh land use development staff maintain an ongoing list of all of the platted vacant lots in the city to identify potential future growth and help direct interested builders to the city. Um to date there are an estimated 44 lots remaining with water and sewer connections and 34 lots remaining that would be on private well and septic and there is a breakdown um in the table below for residential development. Um the first item under this category, the bluffs of Rum River, um we were excited to reopen conversations with a new developer um in quarter 1, but as of last week, he has decided to make some changes to the preliminary plat that was already approved. So um that project will be delayed and it's taking it back to the preliminary plat stage of it and um back to the drawing board. So, more to come on the bluffs. That one's located um at the northeast intersection of Highway 47 and Ambassador River's Edge. Uh Beth presented the eighth and final plat and um that was approved tonight. Commercial development. The following developments um are currently under review. 23340 Creek Street, which is the old city hall building, was listed for sale and um the city received two offers that are current currently under review. 3503 Bridge Street, the Rum River Preserve of St. Francis. This is um the project across from Casey's and by the high school is preparing to break ground and we approved the um the site improvement performance agreement tonight as well. And on the map, it just shows you where these projects are located within city limits. Um, building department, the city issued one new construction permit in quarter 1. This is ahead of quarter 1 year-over-year, which in 2024 we had zero. Um, so below it compares year end totals with just how we're beginning the year, which if you look year-over-year, we're ahead of last year. Um, the city has processed 103 permits to date with 34 of the permits being over the counter with a flat fee. Um, this just explains that per permit revenue is based on both over-the-counter permits and projects that are based on evaluation schedule. All permit costs are identified in the city fee schedule. Fees are util utilized to cover expenses of the permit process such as administration, inspection, engineering, and planning if necessary. Additionally, commercial and septic permits are under um contract with Metro West Inspection Services. Code enforcement um staff continues to respond to code enforcement complaints. We have 11 properties in active code enforcement. The most common violations are for parking in the yard and junk and debris. Rental and vacant programs. All rental licenses for addresses ending in odd numbers were up for renewal this year. Most properties have required multiple corrections and the licenses are taking longer this year to process um due to the state requiring tax IDs or social security numbers from landlords and homeowners. Um the six the city has six reported vacant buildings and they are all single family residences. The planning commission met once in the first quarter in January. At that meeting, the planning commission reviewed a code revision for solar energy systems and recommended the changes. The planning commission currently has one vacancy and staff recently received two applications. An interview will be scheduled with um qualified applicants. Um and just touching on the h need for housing as it it goes beyond just a city a local need and it expands to the county and the state. Um housing is a regional is regional in nature and not restrict restricted to jurisdictional boundaries. Therefore it is relevant to take into consideration the study in Noa County completed. Um it illustrates the comprehensive housing needs for an NOA county. As of the publication, the county needed 18,000 more housing units by 2030. They estimate that less than half that amount will be created given current economics. The demand figures in the study are under the presumption that all cities in the county fulfill their respective figure. Under production in communities around Anoka County increases availability of tenants in St. Francis. To what extent is unknown, but practical application of this data would lead us to believe that St. Francis can support more units than what's indicated simply because the county as a whole is not keeping up. So there is a diagram that breaks this down. St. Francis is projected to add 620 households between 2023 and 2030 and another thousand households between 2030 and 24. There is strong opportunity to significantly diversify the housing stock in St. Francis to accommodate a w a wide variety of housing units among various market segments. So there is a housing shortage nationwide. Um I don't think that's news to anyone and um this gives you a more local look at the demand that isn't being met in our city or in the region. Um so for sale housing, St. Francis has um this report said 67 but based on the numbers I pulled for the quarterly report has 78 vacant develop lots um 214 future lots demand is identified for 540 single family and um owned and multif family units um current given the current lot supply additional lots will need to be developed to meet the projected demand over the next six years. We anticipate some slowdown in demand resulting from high mortgage interest rates. If demand accelerates in the next couple of years, then additional lots may be needed to accommodate demand to maintain a three-year lot supply. So, when there the supply doesn't meet the demand, that drives up the prices, which then again calls for a higher need for rental and affordable housing. There's a demand for 173 rental units from 2023 to 2030 and another 344 rental units from 2030 to 2040. Um the s senior housing demand we have fortunately been able to meet with Vista Prairie. Um so with Vista Prairie we have a total of 134 units, 59 independent, 43 assisted, 24 memory care and eight care units. And with that, I can answer any questions. Questions? Uh, did your vacant lot include a shore area? No. Is that one or two lots? That would be two, wouldn't it be? That's one. So, yes, those numbers will change after tonight's decisions. Just curious. Uh, Amy, no. Sarah, any questions? Kevin, any questions? Very important. Thank you. I have one question on the the uh problem homes or problem properties, 11 of them. What's the newest or what's the youngest one? What's the oldest one? And why is it still the oldest one? Um I would have to I would have to get those details from Would you would you share with all the email? That'd be awesome. Yep. I do know that a lot I think the majority of them are rental properties just turning over. Okay. But not uh platted properties with debris and cars and crap and stuff. I can't say for sure. So, I'll get get that for you from Jod. I know Jody. Jody and you do a good job on that. Stay on top of it. But maybe we need to be It's been I think maybe six months since we've had anything come to us, but we know it's happening out there. So, Okay. You guys might need some help on our end. Yeah. Thank you. That's all. And all I got is thank you for nice report Jessica. Thank you. Uh council member reports Joan I watched the planning and zoning on YouTube but did not make it. I watched the work session as well as I'm getting over a cold and sick for um I'm think I'm pretty much skilled so that's why I'm here. Um yeah I I appreciate the people coming out for things they're passionate about. I wish we had more involvement on everything at earlier stages, too. Um, I hope everybody's paying attention to everything. Um, again, that's part of the personal accountability. Um, I'll try to be brief, but uh, unfortunately Kate has to hear it again and Kevin and Sarah, but uh, when I came here, I came here because the water rates were getting hiked up. I was mattered in hell, emotional. Um, thought I knew more than I did, like a lot. Um, council member Tim Brown was kind enough to tell me that there's a difference between met council and a standalone system. I went home for the next two weeks and learned a lot. Um, came back just as mad but a little bit more informed. Um, and then I did it again and again and again and eventually I'm sitting here. So, um, I just wanted to let you know like I I do understand you. I'm not trying to take shots at people or anything like that. It's I'm not trying to make it personal. So, I do apologize if you felt that way. Um, you know, when we're upset, I think as everybody knows too, when emotions are running high, we don't usually make the most logical decision all the time. Um, I do appreciate you guys voicing your opinion. I think a lot of it has to do too with, you know, not wanting something, which I can totally understand. Um, but I think too as a council, I just hope you understand to us even if we don't agree. Um, a lot of it is based on separating ourselves from that emotional um, situation and looking at it objectively or trying to be object as objective as we can. It's not that we don't care. It's not that we don't listen. It frustrates the heck out of me when I see stuff on Facebook, too. And it's every now and then I'll dive in, which I probably shouldn't, but I do. Um, you know, and I'll see things where it's, you know, oh, they already have their mind made up or this or that or whatever, and now you guys waste your opinion. Um, you know, you're obviously happy with the outcome. Um, which is totally okay. My question is now is are we going to go on Facebook and say, "Hey, the city listened to us. We were successful." Or not? Because I've been able to see that. So, I'm just saying. um you know and and and then if you want to bash me that's totally cool too cuz whatever, right? Whatever. But I appreciate everybody coming out uh voicing your opinions. Again, try to stay more involved, more informed. Uh come out to the community events that we have. Citizens Academy is starting tomorrow, which is awesome. I hope some of you signed up. Um it's it's really awesome. You kind of get to you get to learn things from the officers. If you didn't sign up this year, keep an eye out for it next year. Um, you get to kind of role play a little bit, too. Kind of put yourself in the police's shoes a little bit. Um, it's it's fun. It's informative and it's great. And Kevin also did it as well. Um, so I would definitely recommend checking that out next year if you didn't sign up this year. That's all I have. Thanks, Joe. Um, again, just like Joe said, I want to thank everybody for voicing their opinion. Usually, it's crickets out there and unless something's going on and then everyone's here. So, like Joe said, just pay attention and maybe get involved a little sooner. Um, that's not just for this project, but for anything. Um, I just uh I attended the work session last week. Um, I just had a couple questions. Um, we only have one council meeting before Pioneer Days, right? I think um will we have somebody from Pioneer Days to here to tell us what's going on? I mean, will we will we know more about it um before then? I don't know. That's my question. Contact Michelle with great audience. Oh, okay. Michelle's on there. Okay. I know her number now, so I can call her. Um, and then, um, we got an email today, um, about from a business owner who had questions about the, um, planning and zoning and how long the process um, took and, um, and kind of lost a tenant in in there or something. Um so I I am curious how what is the process for when you want to change um when you want to change something. Um and I don't know all the right words but so you're I know exactly you're talking about the op chiropractic. Um I I I've talked both Kate and Jessica so I just prefer one of those to go. So Jessica or Beth, sorry. Beth and I met with the OP family and they were given guidance um based on do you amend the ordinance like they have in the past or do we reszone and ultimately we can advise them but it's their choice to apply and I don't know sp right you don't want to do that so that's part of the that is true um once there's an application on the table uh for specifically a land use request like that. Uh we are held to a 60-day deadline from the state. Um so we do our best usually it's between 45 to 60 days to try to get something through. Um the city can extend that if needed just based on you know when people are when people have submitted things or if there are missing parts of that application. Um but for land use requests it's typically 60 days from when the application is the full application is submitted. But we have not received a full application for that site at this point. So that timeline hasn't started yet. Okay. Well, and also too, my in that email, it it explains that they weren't aware that their um their building was zoned differently. And I I have to be honest, I've heard that from couple other people. And so I want to understand when when a building or a home or anything is reszoned, do we do we let the residents or the business owners know? So again, that's a state that is required. Um so we we notify the property owner at that point by mail. Yes, by mail. Okay. Yep. It's also in the paper, but yes, in the newspaper. Yep. It's in the newspaper, but they specifically get a letter to the property as well. Okay. because I I just have heard that a few times and so um when we got the the email today I um I just wondered about that. Yeah. Thank you. I was speaking with Jessica prior to the meeting here and I'm hoping to set up a sit down face to face sit down. I think too many things get trans lost and emails and back and forth. So I'm hoping with couple people from staff and to sit down with them face to face. So well you maybe can send me we'll see anything else. No. Thank you sir. I also watched the PNZ meeting and attended the work session and I also this past Saturday I uh I attended the second annual adult prom put on by the lion go to that. Yeah, it was a very fun event. We had a great time. It's good time. So I encourage you if they do it I'm guessing if there was a second annual there may be a third. I hope so. Nobody asked me. Oh, I I don't think your your fiance might like that. So that's why I didn't invite you. Otherwise, clearly I would have had a public would had to publish that if you guys went to the prom. That's all I am. I miss the recycling uh event this past Saturday. I usually like to go. It's it's awesome. It's usually an awesome turnout. I like the the Knights of Columbus pitch in. There's some scout groups that pitch in and and our city staff are a fantastic city staff. They do an awesome job. So, next I think is coming around in July. So, keep your eyes off that. And I also attended the work session. Again, we've started talks about the budget that's coming. Uh we try to we've taken earlier months start than we have in years past. And it's a good time to to talk it out what's ahead. Um we all know what the economy is doing right now. So, we we'll do our best to keep it a tight reigns on what what's in front of us. But, uh, again, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, our emails are public and our phone numbers are public. So, please give us a call. That's all I have. Thanks, Kevin. I don't know where to start the planning and zoning meeting. I was here. I was in the back. Uh, I attended the winning with cops event over there at Tasty Pizza. I'm telling you guys, you ever get a chance, go the smiles. I I I don't have to say anymore. The smiles from these kids are just melts your heart. So, winning with cops, it was a wonderful event and thank investigator Hearn for putting that together. Uh attended a long meeting with the St. Francis and Bethl fire mer merger proposed merger that we're working on. We got several meetings scheduled. It's it's it's a big report, so stay tuned, but it's going well. also attended with Dave the Noka County Fire Protection Council which Dave hosted it. Thank thank you for that. That also was a fairly long meeting. It was a budget meeting so that one went pretty late as well. Had the four April 28th work session. Uh I went to this Wednesday I went to the NOA County local government officials meeting down on NOA. Nothing super telling there. primarily focus on an NOA County roads and nothing earthshattering to share from that one. I also uh sat down with the Rum River Consultants, the potential buyers for Cree Street. Had a really good meeting and I'm glad Jeff Taylor was here. I'm going to take him up on his offer. I I encourage all of you to sit down with both parties so you really make an informed decision when when the when the time comes, which I'm I'm assuming is coming soon. So, and lastly, I attended the National Prayer Day over over there in uh East Bethl as well. So, been very busy. Um I don't know anybody else. Anything anything [Music] else? Thank Thanks again everybody for attending. Uh do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make that motion, Mr. Mayor. So, moved by Councilman Muar. Do I have a second? Also, second by Councilman Fondis. All in favor signify by saying I. I I meeting adjourned at 8:57