It’s working, but. It’s all right. All right. We are going to call tonight’s meeting of the Golden Valley Planning Commission to order at 6:33 p.m.. I would ask that the audience, please. Please keep their voices down because we are on media and all that noise does pick up by their microphones. So it’s hard for us to hear us planning commissioners. It’s hard for the audience to hear, and it’s also hard for you guys to hear. So I appreciate that taking care of those items at the beginning. Here I am going to read the land acknowledgement statement that we read before all city meetings. Um, we acknowledge and honor the Dakota nation on whose ancestral land the city of Golden Valley is built. And whose land resources we use. We commit to counteracting the erasure of the cultural practices and presence of the Dakota people throughout education, and by amplifying a wide range of indigenous voices. And now I will ask for approval of the agenda, the consent agenda on the meeting agenda notes that, uh, we approve tonight’s agenda. We don’t have minutes from a prior meeting to approve. So the only item that we have tonight is the consideration to recommend and receive and filing the missing middle housing study to the city council. So I would entertain a motion to approve tonight’s agenda. I’ll move to approve. We have a motion by Commissioner Barnes. Dorff. Is there a second? Second? Second by Commissioner Hill. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. And the motion carries. We have an agenda, and we will do just a couple of items here and kind of introductory before we get going with the missing middle discussions. Um, a couple of things that I’d like to do is, you know, tonight’s recommendation pertains to receiving and filing, basically completing the missing middle study to pass on to the city council. And it doesn’t include recommendations on any of the specific actions suggested by the plan. Those all will come from city council discussions and recommendations. Back to us of things to look at and work on. So I want to make sure that that’s clear. The the items in the study itself are merely items for study and not action that we are taking tonight. So I just want to make sure that people understand that, um, what we’re going to do is staff is going to present items on the plan, then planning commissioners will, um, open for some questions of staff, and then we will at that point, open the public hearing for all of you to speak, and we’ll do some additional items about what we need to do as we start the public testimony, as we get to that piece. So, uh, just want to note that and as we run along tonight, if we do run long round 8:00, we will take a brief recess so people can stretch, uh, get some water if they need it, do other things, and then we’ll come back. So we will go on. As long as you’re here tonight and wish to speak. Don’t worry about that. Uh, and with that, uh, Miss Kramer, the floor is yours. Thank you. Chair. Um, I was asked by CC just to remind commissioners and the audience for your microphones. Make sure you hit the button for the green light. Lean in. They don’t. As you can see, I have to, like, lean in pretty far for the mic to pick me up. Um, public testimony will happen at the dais in the middle. That mic should automatically be on. So you all be good there. Just make sure you talk really close to the mic. Uh, if you want to testify. So, uh, City Council highlighted this missing middle housing study as a strategic priority for 2025 and budgeted for it back in 2025. Your packets included a lot of information in addition to the study document, we included a lot of background info. Um, some previous studies on how, uh, demographic and housing data. And that was intentional to provide another opportunity for folks to learn about the study as well, as we have two new commissioners who have not had the numerous meetings that the rest of you had. So for our longer term planning commissioners, a lot of this information will not be new. I’ll highlight the section of the study that are new to you, but for the most part, we’re kind of running through what we’ve talked about at previous meetings and work sessions. Uh, you also might see a few little tweaks in the slide deck. I rearranged some slides as I was preparing my speaking notes, so this stuff gets a little off, that’s why. But we should be back on track. I didn’t change too much from Friday to now. As chair mentioned, the recommendation is on receiving and filing the study, not on making any code changes that will come several months from now. If City Council directs us to do so. Uh, for my presentation, I’m going to go through some previous studies that have been done, some previous plans and documents that provided background for this study. Um, why city council directed staff and Planning Commission to conduct this study, and it’s probably not a comprehensive list of all the wise, but just some of the reasons why, uh, they asked us to look at missing middle housing. I’ll run through the objectives of the study. Some of the background research. I’ll briefly summarize the Fit test analysis, which is one of the major data components of this study. There’s more detail in the full report. I’ve included a brief summary of public comments we’ve received, just far, as well as other commissions that have weighed in on the study to date. Some phasing and implementation. Next steps. Information. And then I will run through the actual recommendations of the study, as well as a section that I called Frequently Asked Questions. But it’s questions we’ve gotten from residents or staff have raised, like, what about this thing? And we tried to answer them as best we could. We will be putting together a more comprehensive list of all the questions we receive on the study for City Council on July 7th that will also be published online on the missing Middle Housing Study website, and I’ll also include it in your next Planning Commission packet, just as like a follow up written report. And then we’ll have staff recommendation and next steps. I’m going to do two computers. This will be good. Okay. So previous studies context. Um, first, the 2040 Comprehensive plan. This was last updated about ten years ago. We’re kicking off our 2050 Comprehensive Plan update very, very soon. Uh, but there is a every, uh, city in the metro area has to have a comprehensive plan that guides the city, um, through the next 20 years. And one of the chapters that’s required is a housing chapter. Met Council sets housing goals for us. They, based on data, um, anticipate how many housing units we can expect to have in the city over the next ten years. How many folks either move into our city or are born in our city, and then it’s up to the city to plan how you will have housing for all those folks. And so our 2040 comprehensive plan had a lot of housing goals, and many of them relate. Or were some of the reasons why we embarked on a missing middle housing study. This slide is just highlighting the ones that are most closely aligned with the study. One of the goals of the 2040 plan is to provide a wide variety of housing options for all life stages and economic means. Um. Be mindful and plan for various types of senior housing in the community. One of the main goals of the study was to see if, or to think about how Missing Middle could provide options for folks to age in place and stay in their community as they get older and as their lifestyle as their family changes throughout their life. Um, there is also a requirement in the plan for efficiency upgrades to reduce costs for residents and to protect the natural environment. So this can apply to both, you know, uh, incentivizing or allowing opportunities for improvements to the home additions that better fit families and also sustainability. Um, improvements on the lot, which are a small part of the study that will become greater, uh, with council’s direction as we move forward in the coming months. But yeah, I mean, one of the main goals of the 2040 plan is to expand housing options, which this plan addressed directly and also expand housing affordability, which this plan doesn’t directly address. This was not a study that looked at direct housing subsidy or of housing affordability, but more indirectly, by increasing options and availability on the market. How can we chip away at housing costs and bring down housing cost slightly? Um, probably in conjunction with other opportunities or programs? Uh, there’s also a narrow lot study conducted single family residential properties in both R1 and R2 come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Um, especially for newer lots like within the last 50 years. Those are usually at least 80ft wide. Uh, at least 10,000ft per lot. But there are a lot of lots in the city that were smaller than that because they were platted, earlier. And so this study looked at, you know, these narrower lots, um, what sort of zoning changes were needed to preserve, uh, community character, how to keep these lots viable, how to keep these lots from being succumbing to McMansions, that sort of thing. So this is just one example of the city doing a study to look at the built environment and what our single family lots are and what they should be. And then zoning for equity. This was a report done in 2021. It was developed through a partnership between the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and City of Golden Valley state order holders. Its goal was to evaluate opportunities for advancing housing equity and affordability, so this study focused not necessarily on the built environment, but focused primarily on equity and on affordability. They also did a historical analysis of how Golden Valley’s land use policies have contributed to patterns of racial and economic exclusion, and argued that zoning has historically functioned as a tool of segregation. Now, this is something that’s often discussed at planning school. Um, in, you know, planning conferences that zoning, among the many things that can do it can also be used to exclude certain groups of people from living in certain areas and having access to property and thereby wealth building opportunities. And that’s not just true of Golden Valley. It’s not just true of the metro or the city. It’s everywhere in the country. This is kind of a just a honestly, it’s a negative legacy that all planners today have to deal with and acknowledge. Um, so this study found that zoning, Golden Valley zoning code, um, like many others, reflected exclusionary practices, including large minimum lot sizes, restrictive single family zoning, extensive setbacks, and increasingly complex development regulations. These policies have limited housing diversity and affordability, contributing to a community that remains wealthier and less racially diverse than the broader Twin Cities region. Uh, a specific point. The report notes that Golden Valley has higher median incomes and home values than the regional average, and, uh, less racial diversity than other communities of similar size. At the same time, the report also recognized Golden Valley’s efforts to address these inequities. So this was back in 2021. Um, so they highlighted things like the Just Deeds program, which is a program homeowners can use, or to get assistance to remove racial covenants from their properties. Um, the mixed income housing policy was implemented at this time, which requires a certain number of affordable units in multifamily developments that meet certain criteria. There was also studies of accessory dwelling units, narrow lots. There were tenant protections that were implemented at this time, and the creation of diversity and equity frameworks. Building on this foundation, the authors recommended a series of reforms designed to zone for equity. As they said, by reducing housing costs, expanding housing choice, and promoting inclusion. So there are several recommendations from this study highlighted kind of in the bottom left of your slide. One of the recommendations was increasing as of right development. Like being able to do things permitted under administrative approval rather than seeking city Council approval. That was seen as removing a barrier to housing opportunities. Um, in addition, incentivizing affordable housing, which again, is beyond the scope of this study, but is something that the city and city council is very interested in allowing accessory dwelling units. Um, that code has been updated to allow one accessory dwelling unit on most single family homes, legalizing multifamily housing in more neighborhoods, reducing minimum lot sizes and setbacks, and then pursuing broader regional and state partnerships. So partnering with other government entities or nonprofits to increase housing affordability in a variety of ways. The report also acknowledged that zoning reform alone cannot achieve equity, but that these zoning changes or something like them, are necessary steps toward creating a more inclusive and equitable Golden Valley. So this slide highlights, uh, directives from City council. They’re called the 2030 Strategic Directive. So these are sort of the guiding principles for all the work that we do in the city. Um, the icons in the bottom right of your screen are the five categories strategic redevelopment, infrastructure maintenance and enhancement, effective Governance and Management, Financial wellness and community affairs. And then on this slide, I just highlighted the directives from all five of these categories that pertain to housing and missing middle housing studies. Specifically, one is foster a healthy mix of housing stock that accommodates various price points and life stages. Um, say ahead of infrastructure needs. This ties into the infrastructure analysis and recommendations that are in your plan. This is one of the new sections that Planning Commission hasn’t seen yet. Um, maintaining our local control and ability to represent our community’s values and priorities. This ties to something I’m going to talk about in a little bit about state legislation. Uh, enhance resident understanding about city projects and initiatives. Um, one of the things we tried to do with this study is kind of go above and beyond the minimum requirement for communication. Um, we tried to communicate what the study was about and sort of the process behind it in a variety of different ways and a variety of different meeting types. Um, through multiple work sessions with Planning commission and other commissions and city council and then if City Council makes any recommendations, if they want us to pursue anything specific, there would be community engagement efforts tied with each of those recommendations. So past and future community engagement is a big focus. Uh, one of the other strategic directives, increasing the tax base to distribute the tax burden more evenly and better respond to emerging community needs. And one way to increase the tax base is to build more housing. We are a fully developed city, so the missing middle housing study is one opportunity to look at creative ways or, you know, different ways to increase housing while still fitting into our city in a variety of ways. And then finally building community understanding. Um, part of all of these work sessions that we’ve had, public and broadcasting, some of our work sessions, it’s kind of showing how the City council and commissioners and staff talk about these decisions and the data we sort of look at and discuss. So hopefully folks can understand how we arrive at conclusions or how we arrive at recommendations that we bring to council. So finally, for the last three years, there’s been legislation at the state level. Uh, that looks at requiring housing density increases across the entire state. Big cities, small cities, um, there were a lot of zoning preemptions that have been considered over the past three years, and it varies year to year. But they all would mandate increase. Don’t zoning density or housing density in single family residential districts. That’s one of the things that keeps popping up. The latest bill is called the what is it? The starter home act? Um, this one actually had bipartisan support this year. Unless opposition in years pass, although it did fail in a committee vote. Um, and I certainly can’t predict the future when it comes to legislation. But from what we’ve heard from our lobbyists, it’s likely that this bill will come back in some fashion in the years ahead. So the city is trying to get ahead of these type of requirements and figure out how we can implement these possible state level changes on our own terms in a way that fits with our city, won’t impact our services, will respect our community, character, because the state level, it’s it’s they’re very broad mandates. And there hasn’t been a lot of guidance on implementation. So we want to try to be prepared for that as best we can and figure out what will be appropriate for us if this legislation ever gets voted into law. Finally, there’s lots of housing and market information in your packet. Um, also in the final report, we also provided, uh, low key or LCI consulting housing market report that they did as part of the study. Uh, the study and this presentation also incorporated information from a comprehensive housing analysis done by Maxfield Consulting in 2023 and data from the Met Council, which just this year updated their housing projections for every city and county in the metro area. Um, the big takeaways, and this is probably not a surprise to anyone in the room, but the median household cost in Golden Valley is above the regional average. Our median household cost is 4.25. Median average is 390. In the 1990s and 2000, uh city leadership. City council, city staff, the city council, they made conscious decisions to maintain lower residential, lower density residential character, and in part because of this, we’ve had less housing development than other cities near us. So we’ve just had we have more pressure on our current housing stock because we haven’t built as much as some other folks have. And that’s in addition to all the other factors in the region, in the state, in the country that have put a squeeze on housing, uh, single family homes make up about 63% of all homes in Golden Valley, and the cost has increased substantially over the years. But new units built have decreased substantially after 2018. And this is one of the reasons why, we are seeing higher housing costs on housing options that are predominantly traditional single family homes. And then there’s some numbers on the right, um, the first number is an estimate for new housing demand based on that 2023 study. So 1600 is 1800 housing units. Um, median sale prices increased 22% in the last six years. Uh, this 25% is the income of family needs above the city’s median income to afford a median priced median priced for sale. Single family home. So that’s saying for families that live in Golden Valley, you have to have 25% higher income than the median to afford or an average to afford the average house. And then eight is the average annual number of new housing units built from 2019 to 2023. And that’s all types of apartments, single family homes, duplexes or townhomes. And it is an average, but it’s not a lot. So all of these factors and others are kind of laid the groundwork for why council expressed interest in a missing middle housing study. And there were other, more qualitative reasons as well. One of which is the histories or the city’s history of redlining and racial covenants. Again, a racial covenant is a legally binding document that could be on a property that would limit who can buy your property. For example, you in the past, there would be very explicit language saying no person of color, no Jewish person, no person of these nationalities can ever buy this property, can never live on this property, usually with the exception of domestic servants. So you could have a domestic servant of a different race, but that person could not buy that property even if they could afford it. Um, because of racially discriminatory discriminatory housing policies, including racial covenants. Minnesota has one of the largest racial disparities in the country in areas such as income, homeownership, education and outcomes. Health outcomes. Um, these many of these disparities can be linked back to the fact that families of color and people of certain religions could not purchase homes in suburban areas and therefore did not have access to well-funded public education, to health care, to homeownership, parks and recreation, and the ability to build generational wealth. And this legacy, I mean, continues today. It’s part of the reason why we have racial disparities now because of these practices in the past. So this slide shows the racial covenants that we’re in. Golden Valley. And then this slide shows the market value of owner occupied housing units. Um, in the last few years. So the missing middle housing study, by thinking about equity and thinking about our history of redlining and racial covenants, it’s it’s one piece of this work that the city has undertaken to remove racial covenants and to promote equity in our city. Um. Yeah. Like I said it, the this policy of racial covenants systematically created and deliberately reinforced racial and socioeconomic segregation, which is still visible in the Twin Cities today, not just Golden Valley. Our racial covenants are unenforceable and illegal, but their legacy still lives on. Um, which one of the reasons why we’re very lucky that the Jesse Deeds Project was essentially founded by, among other people, our city attorney, because it’s one way to remove these racial covenants from your property. So I encourage folks, if you haven’t already looked up your property, um, do so through either just Deeds or the Mapping Prejudice Project at the University of Minnesota. Yeah, and these housing patterns, there’s still evidence of them on average, homes with restrictive covenants are worth 15% more than a similar home without a restrictive covenant. And you can see part of it on the map here. It becomes really apparent when you look at covenant and housing costs or housing prices that show Golden Valley in north Minneapolis. It’s a very clear line. Which properties have more value than which had racial covenants in the past? This slide is just highlighting, um, our equity plans that the city has on the left. And then the community development department, which is what I’m part of. Um, on the right. Again, these equity plans, these equity goals are some of the things that inform the missing middle housing study, why we decided to undertake it, um, centering people place, environment and their interconnection, applying transparent data, community engagement and compliance with our codes to ensure programs, ordinances, policies, address and alleviate social, environmental, infrastructure, economic and housing disparities. So I have to admit, I shamelessly stole this title from a dick event that happened back in March. I believe, um, that Ruth Paradise and others put on entitled Who Can Afford to Live in Golden Valley? And it’s one of the questions that was asked that has been asked, that is asked. That kind of informed the study, um, who can afford to live here? What do those people look like? What? What are their housing needs? One thing we thought about was housing, life cycle and changing needs. So housing life cycle refers to the type and size of housing that is typically needed or desired at different stages of a person’s life. When you’re a young college grad single, maybe you just need a little studio apartment. You find a partner, you have some kids, you need a bigger space. You get your single family home or your townhome or whatever. And then when you become an empty nester, you’re ready to perhaps downsize to a condo or a smaller home. Uh, thinking about, you know, one one individual person is going to need different types of housing throughout their life. And do we as a community have all those different types of housing for our community members? Healthy housing markets offer a variety of housing options at different price points to meet different life stages. So not only might you need different types of housing, your income is going to change depending on your family situation, what your expenses are. And as a city, we want to make sure that we have housing options for different people at different times of life. Common assumptions of household are progression and composition continue to change. So when we think of the typical household in America, it’s, you know, two parents, two kids, 2.1 kids or whatever the average is. Um, but that’s not necessarily what families and households look like anymore. And that’s not to say that there’s always been variety in housing and family types. Of course there has. I think it’s just more spoken about now. You can have a single income with children. You can have a single parent with children, uh, working parents with astronomical childcare needs, um, multigenerational homes, you know, your caregiving, an elderly family member where you have adult children who have come back for a few years semi-permanently, permanently, um, smaller households, you know, roommates, um, friends who can afford to live in Golden Valley, admittedly a little cheeky, but so the first picture is, um, a Carol Burnett sketch with, a vacuum salesman. And this is an anecdote I heard from Chloe about how in the 1950s, 1950s, she found documentation that a vacuum salesperson, like a door to door vacuum salesperson spouse did not work, had a couple of kids who could very easily afford to buy a home in Golden Valley. I’m guessing that’s not the case today, but it’s example of what used to be what is possible. Second image obviously, Golden Girls, um, friends who are living in a communal space. I think they only had one kitchen in their house. Maybe they could have used two, but in any case, do we have housing stock for technically non-related, uh, people, adults who form intentional families and support each other and provide comfort and care as they age and they become elderly and then finally, um, a caregiving situation. You have an elderly parent and then an adult child who could have children of her own. Does she have housing options where she can care for her, her elderly family members? They can have a semi, um, independent space, but also have room for her kids. And can she afford it? And then this strip at the bottom is just showing all kinds of combinations of families that we hope we have housing for in Golden Valley. But given the fact that so much of our housing stock is single family on Big Lots, um, that might not be the case right now. One of the other. Large driving forces behind the missing middle housing study is to provide opportunities for reinvestment in single family homes. You know, the goal of the plan is to incentivize reinvestment to make it possible that, um, folks can build additions to their homes, expand their homes in ways that don’t impact their neighbors, but allow them to stay in their property, to stay in Golden Valley. That lets people stay in their homes regardless of family set up. As people come and go. Um, it’s also about respecting private property rights. You know, the city can require conditions. There is approval even for single family homes right now. But at some point you are allowed to do much with your own property. And we want to make sure that our city code and our city processes are on that correct side of the law when it comes to property rights. Um, it’s also about wealth building. You know, if you are able to add a Adu, for example, an accessory dwelling unit to your property, maybe bring some rent in occasionally, that’s an opportunity to build more generational wealth. Um, even if you’re still living in the main home. You know, we’re not saying everyone has to rent out their house so that new people can move in. Maybe it’s just about making sure folks can stay in the house. They have right now, and the code is not going to get in people’s way of adjusting their home, adding additions that let them stay. Again, aging in place and aging in community. So it might be that you can stay in your single family home for the rest of your life. Maybe someday you need to move to an apartment or a townhome because you don’t want to maintain a lawn, or you don’t want to have to deal with steps, but you still want to stay in Golden Valley. You want to stay in your neighborhood. Do we have a variety of housing types in Golden Valley, in our neighborhoods, so that folks can stay close to home, close to their friends, close to their local businesses where they want to be. And again, a desire that folks have expressed to us at tabling events to adopt a property to allow adult children, for example, to have their own homes on the property or their own space, although, because, you know, the the adult kids and their kids might not be able to afford their own home. But if they can go in with Grandma and Grandpa, they can all live together on their own property. Um, and then on the right, just a a real world example we heard this summer, one residents talked about how confusing our code is, which zoning code? It’s confusing. It can be better. Um, many of them expressed interest in adding a mother in law suite or an Adu, but they couldn’t figure out how to do it because our code was confusing. Um, there’s not a lot of images or drawings or diagrams in the code right now. And so some of the recommendations and some of the thought that went into the study talked about simplifying the Adu code, for example, and providing technical support to residents who are interested in doing these sort of projects. So residents find an easier time, uh, saying in Golden Valley and reinvesting in their homes. Another thing that really came up during the study, although we had a sense of it before, is the number of missing middle housing units that are already in the city. And very briefly, I just want to highlight, um, our GIS folks ran an analysis on the number of duplexes, triplex and fourplex that are already in R-1. So these are what’s called legally nonconforming. Current zoning code doesn’t allow duplexes, triplex fourplex in R-1, but these are buildings that have been there since before the current code was adopted. So they are allowed to stay. We’re not going to make anyone tear them down, but it does mean they they’re legal, but they’re not conforming with current code. Um, through so through R-1 and then the other residential zoning districts, there are hundreds of housing units and these non-conforming structures, they’re tricky for us to track because they’re not necessarily like if they’re being rented out, they don’t necessarily have a rental license because they’re not conforming. They’re not supposed to be. They’re kind of, um, it can be tricky when owners apply for permits to approve, improve or renovate their homes the way legal nonconformity is work in code is if you have a legal nonconformity, like you have a structure that isn’t meeting current code, if you want to rebuild it in the exact same form that it is now. For example, you have a garage that’s too close to your property line. You want to rebuild it cause it’s falling apart, okay? You can’t make it any bigger. You can’t make it any closer to the property line. You cannot expand the nonconformity. So for these missing middle housing types that are nonconforming, it can be tricky to do needed improvements on them. Like they couldn’t necessarily add an addition if they had more kids and needed another bedroom because they’re already outside the scope of zoning code law. And, you know, in certain parts of our city, duplexes are already part of the history of our neighborhoods and the character of our neighborhoods. And oftentimes, you don’t necessarily know if a house is a duplex or a single family home unless you see the door on the side, or unless you count the two mailboxes. Often, scale wise, they can be about the same. So this slide highlights some of the ongoing administrative issues that arise from these nonconformity. As, um, some of the recommendations in this plan would bring these houses into compliance and under more city regulatory control. So this would allow us to have more control over what happens on these properties and ensuring their meeting all current and future code. Another item that comes up, um, through building permit review and then sometimes through the variance process is two kitchen homes. So right now in the city of Golden Valley you cannot have two full kitchens in your single family home. Do not tell me if you do. I don’t want to hear it, but if you have a fridge and a stove, you cannot have another fridge. Stove type space. That is a kitchen and it also might bring you afoul of the limitations on number of housing units. Because if you’re in a single family home, you cannot have two housing units like stacked on top of each other that are the same size. That’s too big for an Adu per code. And we do not allow duplexes in our one. And that two kitchen might be the thing that’s pushing you over the edge into noncompliance. But there’s lots of reasons why someone might need or want two kitchens. We had we have a recent building permit that showed a second kitchen in the basement for a kosher kitchen, because they host a lot of relatives who keep kosher, and they need a kosher kitchen to accommodate their dietary needs. Um, halal kitchens as well. If there’s multiple sort of religious, religious or cultural reasons why you might need two separate cooking spaces. Again, multigenerational homes, you might have an elderly person that is mostly independent. You know, they just want to be near you in case something happens. But they want their own space. They’re going to want their own kitchen. But right now, we cannot permit that unless it’s a full Adu. And that comes with a whole host of regulatory requirements of extra fire protection that adds cost to a project. Um, if you want to build a guest suite or a a little small apartment for a caregiver, if you have a nurse or an aide in your home, you can’t provide them their own kitchen. And again, you know, some folks want to rent out the space like their Adu or their separate unit. But even if you don’t want to rent out the space, but you want to provide living space for family members, if they’re going to stay for a while, they can’t have a full kitchen. Under our current code, and this is not the case in other cities. I used to work for Saint Louis Park, and while I was there, they actually changed their code to allow for two full kitchens, two full kitchens, because of the reasons on here, and it didn’t require, um, you know, changing building envelope or changing what the building looked like on the outside. It was just changing what was allowed on the inside. So increasing Adu size or permitting a second kitchen are two amendments to code that could allow residents to move forward with these projects at no additional cost. Another thing we looked at during the study was the type of variances we get. So a variance is a request to deviate from the regulations in the zoning code. You can’t get a variance for a use, but you can get variances for dimensional requirements like building height and setback and so on. Um, many of our recent variance applications are due. A lot of them are for corner lots that, uh, the way the code is written, it doesn’t really accommodate for the realities of living on a corner lot with two street frontages. Normally, if you have a corner lot, you have 235 foot front yard setbacks, which can really limit where you build on your property. We’ve also gotten variances for side setback reductions. Um, front yard setback reductions. And sometimes those are for things like ADUs or just, you know, adding a like bedroom and bathroom addition to a home for a growing family. And these requests, they’re not necessarily in opposition to the spirit of the code, which is to provide housing, low density housing in these districts. But they’re running afoul of the specific code language. So there’s, uh, the goal of removing unnecessary barriers. You know, the these changes to eliminate the need for some of these variances wouldn’t impact the health, safety, welfare of neighborhoods. It wouldn’t change the character of the neighborhood. Again, it would just kind of be common sense tweaks to allow a little bit more flexibility on what folks can do with just a building permit rather than planning commission or city council approval. I’ll take a quick drink of water because I’m dying. All right, so one of the part of the scope of the project was developer interviews, which are consultant bolt and Mink did in 2025. They were able to connect eventually with 11 developers who had experience with urban infill of small scale redevelopment. So our residential development that’s, um, you know, like fourplex or townhomes in an urban setting, a built out setting, which is Golden Valley. We are a built out city. So in general, um, if we were looking at new construction of any type, including missing middle housing, it would have to be fitting in amongst other buildings that are already there. Um, so about half focused on affordable housing. Some of them had direct experience with missing middle housing, but a lot didn’t. There’s a lot of barriers on the developer side to constructing, uh, townhomes, duplexes. This type of missing middle, the risks and costs of missing middle housing are higher compared to larger apartment complexes. For example, there’s few contractors and builders with experience, in part because of the historic lack of demand for new missing middle housing, which can be tied back to our single family zoning. Because zoning codes in a lot of cities have allowed duplexes in very many places. So there haven’t been a lot of builders who have had a chance to build them. Um, we also found out that missing middle housing projects that are being built in urban or first ring suburbs often come with subsidies or other financial assistance. Again, this is outside the scope of the missing middle housing study, but it does speak to the necessity of financial incentives for housing in general and missing middle housing in particular. Um, so this was just kind of a snapshot on where developers were at in our community. And yeah, there’s there just isn’t a lot of experience in the development community right now. All right. So now I’m going to get into the specifics of the the study itself. It’s designed as a roadmap to understanding how smaller multi-unit housing types duplexes, triplex townhomes can fit into our Golden Valley neighborhoods in ways that are attractive, affordable and sustainable. It’s kind of another step we can take to expanding housing choice in Golden Valley. This slide outlines the objectives of the study. Again, the objective was not to lead to immediate changes in the code. It was to gather data, analyze data and provide a menu of options for the city and for City Council to choose on based on City Council’s priorities, their preferences, what their values are for our community, there’s a lot of different things they could do, and this is designed so that they can kind of pick and choose what they think is appropriate for Golden Valley, and it kind of lays out a work plan. But by leveraging appropriate missing middle housing strategies could remove barriers to more housing options. Again, it’s about providing opportunities for building more housing, for building different types of housing, not necessarily for financing housing directly, but just removing barriers, making it easier for folks to deal with the city. Um, we came up with kind of a Golden Valley specific definition of missing middle housing. It’s a range of housing types and scales, from ADUs and twin homes to townhomes and small apartment buildings that help create more choices and build long term flexibility and affordability into the housing marketplace. And this image shows all different types of missing middle. It ranges from two unit buildings to, um, triplex buildings that are stacked on top of each other. Live work where you have a workshop on the bottom floor, housing units on the top floor. There’s a lot of variety in the missing middle housing category. This is just some examples of what missing middle housing can look like. Doesn’t have to, but because Golden Valley’s housing stock is mostly single family homes or large apartments, uh, missing middle housing can fill the gap and provide more price points, more floor plan configurations for our residents of all ages and incomes. It also provides a way to add a few units to a neighborhood at a similar scale to the existing homes, without sacrificing quality or design. This is an overview of the study approach. Sort of three phases um, gathering information, looking at affordability, analyzing our zoning code, and then looking at um, geospatial spatial detail and data through mapping and doing feasibility analysis. Um, a fits and compatibility, looking at different typologies and how they might fit in the Golden Valley context, and then finally coming up with a list of recommendations, zoning, regulatory, some financial strategies and then some design guidance ideas. So the study objective when it came to community engagement, was to engage with the community, to educate and inform on the concept and benefits of missing middle housing, and to gauge local housing needs and preferences. Again, for each individual code amendment, there would be additional community engagement on the specifics on what those numbers should be on if council should pursue particular recommendations at all. This was more of an inform and educate sort of effort. Work sessions were held by city Council, Planning Commission, the diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission and the Environmental Commission. Um city staff met with individual neighbors. We tabled at Farmer’s Market and at pride last year. There were there’s a interview on public TV and articles in City News, and there was also a postcard and a short survey mailed to all households in the city. So that’s owner occupied and rentals just kind of asking some questions to see if folks were aware of what missing middle housing was, if they knew what accessory dwelling units were, and if they’d had any interest in the past in building those sort of units. And if they did, why or why not? Did they pursue those projects? Um, phase two on the right kind of outlines what community engagement might look like after City Council receives and files the study, there’s a variety of different events, online engagements, mailers, more work sessions, and then some resources for the community that the study is recommended. This slide is just one of the images that goes through the Fit test analysis. Key questions from this part of the study, where what types of missing middle housing should be allowed to build where. So this is looking at our current zoning regulations setback, um, building envelopes, impervious coverage and then looking at what an average or typical lot in Golden Valley is, you know, size width and then looking at different types of missing middle housing and seeing how they fit. Like, can you physically get a triplex on most of our R-2 or R-1 lots? That’s what the this these graphs are trying to answer. So you have these gradients for each housing type. Uh, the darkest part of the gradient is the middle is the most appropriate fit, or that’s where that housing type best fits on our average lot in R1. And then R2. And then if you go above that dark spot in the middle, um, you end up having kind of an excess amount of land and like a little like a smaller house that’s kind of floating in the middle of a lot. If you go below it, you end up getting squished or you’re not meeting setbacks anymore. So there’s kind of a sweet spot for several of these housing types in Golden Valley, specifically. Um, and your report kind of goes through more. It explains the assumptions that were made in the study and kind of the the conclusions or the data that was a result of this analysis. This is just summarizing public meetings thus far. Lots of joint work sessions, lots of work sessions, more to come. Of course. Briefly summarize some of the other commission work on the missing middle housing study. We had a joint work session with the diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission. Dick. Um, DC they recognized the need to identify the populations who can most benefit from the recommended changes in the study. So that was kind of their focus. Like who is actually benefiting from this? How can we make sure that the costs of implementing the study, whatever they are and the benefits are shared equitably among all of our community members without being too restrictive? You’re kind of doing a cost benefit analysis, um, from an equity lens. So they recommended they recommended actually taking the study recommendations, further allowing more by, uh, through permitted approval. Um, along larger lots, particularly and along major corridors. They were interested and wanted to explore more about recommendations that increased building size or reduced setback for missing middle housing only. They cited the concern about incentivizing McMansions or large homes on smaller lots that kind of overwhelm their neighbors. That’s not something we’d want to see either. Through new single family construction or missing middle construction. We’re trying to find a solution that’s contextually appropriate. And finally, they support policies and recommendations that enhance conservation of the environment. So they are also interested in the sustainability lens of the study. And they also kind of made some observations beyond the scope of the study, identifying the populations who could benefit most. Um, thinking about the city corridors, the main transportation roads in the city, how to provide increased access to retail spaces to transit services, to future amenities of future residents who could move there, and increasing density along corridors and pedestrian focused design. So there they looked at a lot. That kind of went beyond the study, but try to tie it back into missing middle housing, specifically. The Planning Commission also had a joint work session with the Environmental Commission in October of 2025. And so these are the recommendations or strategies in the study that were ultimately identified. Um, we are planning on having another one or more joint sessions with Environmental Commission, hopefully in August, where we can dive into, uh, the strategies that council wants us to pursue so we can think about specific code changes. Um, if there’s any policy or program recommendations that Planning Commission and Environmental Commission want to champion together for housing, uh, really trying to think of creative solutions to support both our housing goals of the city and our sustainability goals, because they’re not necessarily in conflict. We just need to be mindful of both as we’re writing code and policy. So this is a summary of the study recommendations. Um, they’re divided into three categories code recommendations, program recommendations and then infrastructure recommendations. The code recommendations focus on land use policy, site design and similar regulatory areas. Program recommendations are about educating the public on potential changes on marketing, on providing resources for folks who want to build missing middle housing, and making it easier for folks to do that. And then finally, uh, this study looked at our current city infrastructure and our programs to support and maintain that infrastructure and to see how it if it could support the recommended housing density increases in the study. So for zoning code recommendations, um, and there’s more detail in your packet, but I’m running out of time. So I’ll try to summarize quick. Uh, in all city neighborhoods. So R1 and R2 zone districts, the study recommends as one option to allow up to two additional units on a property. And this could be either a single family home, an accessory dwelling unit inside that main structure, and like a detached Adu, like a garage unit or a freestanding unit, gets up to three or a duplex with an Adu. And this the study is recommending that this be permitted use, which means it would go through administrative approval with all the city departments. It would not necessarily have to go to City Council for approval. There is also some recommendations for more flexible site design and development standards. If an owner is adding an additional unit to the lot. So this could look like if you’re adding an Adu, you can move it a little bit closer to the rear property line. Um, maybe you’re allowed like a slight encroachment in the front yard for a living space. And then a lot of these recommendations are also tied to additional landscaping requirements. So if you are encroaching a little bit in the front yard, you might have to install a rain garden landscaping above the minimum. More trees. Um, trying to think about how we can, again improve sustainability features, stormwater management and also provide a little more flexibility in getting some housing in the city along major city corridors. So these are our highest trafficked roads and streets in the city, allowing more missing middle housing types like four, six, eight units along those corridors, um, or where there’s transit available, and then some options for more flexible site design development standards. If you’re adding an additional unit to the lot, there are some miscellaneous recommendations. Um, looking at revising the lot split requirements on corner lots under certain conditions, one of which is making sure that each new lot has driveway access to a road, stuff like that. Um, encouraging front yard landscaping and sustainability improvements, clarifying Zoning standards, making the code and the process more clear. And then we also looked at some areas where it could be appropriate to allow housing on large, institutionally zoned properties. So some folks might be familiar with the Sacred Communities legislation and laws that got passed a few years ago in a lets churches and places of worship build small housing units for very specific needs. I believe there’s a certain affordability cap, and this is kind of spinning off of that. But thinking about, well, could we allow, you know, an Adu on a nonprofit’s property? They might not necessarily be a place of worship, but they might have similar mission statement. They might offer similar supportive services or affordability options for this housing. Is there a way to allow those folks to do similar housing projects as to what’s currently allowed under law? So that’s what that requirement or that recommendation is looking at? Um, lots of programming recommendations. Internal awareness is about getting staff up to speed on what these different housing types might look like from a regulatory stand. Work making sure staff, city staff have the tools they need to help residents if they want to do these projects. External awareness. There’s some marketing. There’s, um, doing further communication and interviews and meetings with developers, contractors and architects to find folks who are willing to do missing middle housing and who want to get connected with interested residents. And there’s lots of options for public facing resources. So, uh, Saint Paul actually just let’s see, they hired consultants to create Adu look books. So this would be a set of pre-approved plans for ADUs that the city would put out and say, you can build this if you can fit it on your lot, meet setbacks. This this is allowed by building code. So it takes away a lot of the cost of constructing these projects because the design is already done and you know it’s going to get through city approval because the city has already vetted the plans. So that’s one option for removing some regulatory barriers for these type of housing options. And then resource connections is again finding contractors and architects, vetting them who have missing middle housing experience, that we can recommend them to residents or at least provide a list saying, here are folks we know who have done similar work before. Reach out to them if you’d like to do this sort of project. And then also putting together funding sources. So if someone wants to build an Adu, are their grants out there at the state level, regional council, you know, whatever, um, that we can help connect them with again, developing look books or technical guidance. And then there’s a couple of different ways the city could establish sustainable long term funding programs to support missing middle housing that can be tied to the recent creation of our Economic Development Authority. Um, that could be one step towards creating a permanent local funding source for housing, which could include missing middle housing. Again, this could also just be all housing. It could be all affordable housing. There can be overlap between missing middle and affordable. You know, you can have a missing middle housing unit that is also subsidized in some way. And then finally, um, the study looked at four city systems our water system, our stormwater system, our sanitary system, and our transportation system, and try to evaluate if the recommended changes in this study could be accommodated by our current infrastructure capacity. Um, so summarizing what’s in the study, the water system and the stormwater system definitely have sufficient capacity. There are some recommendations for adding additional resilience to our system, which is never a bad idea and something the city is certainly interested in. As we prepare for the 2050 Comprehensive Plan update. Uh, sanitation sanitary system. Likewise, there is sufficient capacity. All projects in the city, um, have to meet sanitary requirements on a case by case basis. So even single family homes are evaluated to make sure they have sufficient sanitary sewer capacity. Missing middle housing would have the same approach, and there were some water conservation strategies that were identified that could help the wastewater system planning as well. Again, thinking really, really long term, how do we build more resiliency and redundancy in our system? We also look at the transportation system. Um, the study did identify some corridors that could use some operational improvements. It also talked about the programs and the policies that we’ve already implemented for improving intersections, improving pedestrian connectivity, um, building sidewalks in more parts of the city, providing bike infrastructure. So a lot of the infrastructure recommendations were continue doing the things that you have recently implemented. Your, um, capital improvement plan or your CIP can continue doing those things and you will be prepared for missing middle housing density increases. So phasing and implementation, um, from here, I’ll just mention there’s a couple program things that if we’re given council direction, we could do really quickly. Um, putting together application guides so that to just explain the the city process to folks, um, putting together those databases for developers, architects, contractors and funding opportunities, that’s something that staff can work on pretty quickly. It wouldn’t be any additional cost to the city as part of our normal duties, just prioritizing things differently. I just wanted to highlight here that, um, updating zoning code is an iterative process. And that’s not just true for this code, but any zoning code. That’s why we allow zoning code amendments. So as we work through various work sessions on any of these recommendations, um, it’s certainly possible that in a couple of years, having metrics and data back will want to tweak things, and that’s fine and expected. Um, but just letting folks know there is an opportunity to work on these things. And again, this is all dependent on counsel telling us what they want us to pursue. We did identify a couple of code amendments that if council directs us to do so, um, we could work on these this year. We’ve tried to put them in order of priority. So one code amendment that could stand alone or be combined with something else is allowing two kitchens in R1 and R2. So that’s allowing, you know, two kitchens in a single family home. Uh, we can also update our Adu standards, making it easier to build ADUs as a permitted use, not needing a conditional use permit, which has to go through planning commission and City Council, including allowing two ADUs per property. Right now, we only allow one. Uh, we can also start work on revising our setbacks on corner lots and just making corner lots a little bit more buildable where appropriate, in ways that don’t impact stormwater management or the neighborhood, but just make it easier for folks to build homes. And then finally, um, revising the R-1 standards to allow duplexes as a permitted use as they are in the R-2 zoning district. And then on the right kind of outlines the process by which each code update could get approved. You know, additional community engagement staff would draft the code. There’d be a review from our legal department, from our equity division, and then the formal notice and public hearing process that every code amendment in the city goes through. Finally, I wanted to touch briefly on the level of discretion for this decision. Um, for receiving and filing the plan or receiving and filing any study. It’s essentially saying the study is complete. Um, there’s not a lot of discretion necessarily in that vote. It’s kind of a yes. The study is complete or no, the study is not complete. And then, uh, for approving zoning code changes, new policies or programs. City council has a wide level of discretion. Um, you know, there’s not, like, state statute minimums for a zoning code change, like there is for other applications, like a variance. So City Council has a lot of latitude and what they direct staff to do and what they direct planning commission to do. And they and again, they can pick and choose which recommendations, if any, they would like us to pursue. But for tonight, oh, I have a lot of frequently asked questions. Maybe I’ll. Okay. Um, well there it’s in your packet, but I talk about, um, what the missing middle housing study can do, what it can control, what it can’t. I give some more information on the latest legislation about, uh, increasing zoning throughout the state. I talk a little bit about, um, can neighborhoods be excluded from these changes citywide versus neighborhood by neighborhood? I talk a little bit about why allowing missing middle housing by right, or by a permitted use. We talk a bit about historic preservation and registration. The city has a lot as a great, um, stock of mid-century modern housing and some mid-century modern buildings. And one of the things we’re looking to do in the 2050 comprehensive plan is have a historic preservation section or theme that runs throughout the plan. And really using historic preservation as a tool to help folks with historic homes make improvements on the homes and preserve them. Summarize some of the public feedback we’ve gotten thus far. We’ve gotten several emails and comments. More came in after your packet was published. That’s the print out emails that are in front of you today. And all of the public comments that we’ve received, both before the packet was published and up to tonight. And moving forward, everything will be sent to City Council. So they will see every public comment we get on this. Will be on the website too. Yes. This will also all be on the website. I feel like the the hook is coming out. There’s some information on ADUs and how many ADUs other cities have built, anticipated outcomes. What what can we do instead? Finally, um, staff is recommending Planning Commission take a motion to, uh, to ask the City Council to receive and file the missing middle housing study. And just a reminder that City Council will tentatively take action on this on July 7th next month. That’s it. Please bombard me with questions. Thank you, Miss Kramer. Um, what we’d like to do at this point, uh, is open this up for questions from commissioners, and let’s focus on some of anything she talked about tonight. Focus on the study process. Um, future implementation, etc., not on individual code amendments or program recommendations. After we’ve had our chance to ask those general questions of Miss Kramer and staff, then we’ll open the public hearing for all these wonderful folks that have sat through just about an hour’s presentation and let them take their time to speak about their thoughts on this. And after the public testimony is done, then we’ll come back, and then we’ll deliberate and discuss further how we got here. Questions continued. Questions and the like. So we want to just kind of go very generally with commissioners at this point on, on some of the high points, you might have questions on and then be able to hear from the public before we then move back into a closed session in a sense of just commissioners speaking to decide how we want to proceed tonight. So with that, um, any commissioner that would like to throw some questions, Miss Kramer’s way, um, give me a little nod and we’ll call on each one of you. And then once we’ve gone through that, we’ll then be able to open our public hearing portion of the meeting. So. Commissioner. Just a simple question, Jacqueline. Did I hear right what we are approving councils to receive is exactly as as is in the study. Now. We can’t make any further tweaks, changes or adjustments. Right. If you recommend Council receive and filed a study that’s saying like this, this study is done. It’s not closing the door to future study on housing, on missing middle housing, on affordability. It’s just saying this portion, this, uh, contract we have with Bolton and Link or consultants, this work is done. Okay. Additional questions. So in this you have a if I can find the slide here, um, you have ADUs and peer communities. Um, one of your last slides, um, which it has many of the surrounding communities Saint Louis Park Plymouth, Fridley, Hopkins, so on, have a lot of different Adu units. Do you know if there’s any, um, stipulations or conditions behind those ADUs for any of the communities? Yes, most. I think all communities, they’ll have, um, similar dimensional requirements as what we do and what we have on single family homes. So they’ll talk about setbacks. Um, they’ll talk about building height. And oftentimes the Adu is not allowed to be as tall as the main building. Sometimes it’s just allowed to be one story like it is here. Sometimes it’s allowed to be a little bit taller. Um, there’s usually a size restriction on ADUs, like what we have now. Um, there’s usually a minimum size. I want to say it’s like 200 to 250ft, and that usually corresponds with building code. But all of the communities would have some sort of regulatory framework or requirement around the ADUs. Um, what also could vary is what sort of approval process ADUs would have to go through. A lot of cities now allow ADUs through an administrative approval, and then sometimes there’s unique circumstances where an Adu might need a conditional use permit. Um, but I think the trend is more if the city wants to see more ADUs built to allow more things to be permitted and approved in a similar fashion to single family homes. Okay, so I’m going to bring this up because, um, I know that your study is more on increasing, um, units in the city rather than just looking at affordability, but I think affordability is a key factor here. Um, in the scenario where you’re allowed to have more ADUs per unit, per lot, what’s to keep developers from coming in and tearing down a maybe a reasonably lower, older home, lower price home and building more expensive duplexes? Triplex is on the property then, and may end up charging individuals more for living in those. Yeah. So the main barrier to that is just the financial cost of construction. To build an Adu, like a detached Adu, it’s upwards of $300,000. It ends up being almost the same amount as a single family home, and particularly in Golden Valley, where housing prices are and land prices are already high. The one of the anticipated outcomes is that there wouldn’t be a rush of redevelopment tear downs, just because it’s so expensive to do construction. Um, but that’s also one of the benefits of a code change like this, where you can remove a regulatory barrier. But the change would be very gradual. It would be over several years. One of the goals of this study is to think about a very long term strategy for increasing some density in Golden Valley, rather than building or allowing, um, like a bunch of high rise apartments. That would add a lot of units quickly but would have a greater impact on their. Neighbors. The only other thing I’ll add, because I agree with all that, is just that ADUs right now do require the owner to live on site, so we’re really not seeing any cities that have approved aids, are not seeing people come in developers to do that, because the owner has to live on site. So we’ve had two ADUs built in the city, um, and they are both by homeowners trying to reinvest in their property. We’ve allowed it since 2018. Is that right? Sorry. 0210, sorry. Maybe, um, and we’ve had two built and they’re both homeowners. So we anticipate if we do more of them, that would be the trend. But yeah, the owner occupancy occupancy rule is really what would prevent, like an out-of-state developer from renting out both units. They simply couldn’t. So let me bring up another hypothetical then. So, uh, maybe it’s not a tear down, but we’ve seen a number of flipped houses, uh, over the last couple of years in Golden Valley. Uh, what is the scenario of someone buying a house, uh, older home, less expensive for cheap, um, redoing it. And because you have now an 80 year or two in the house, increasing the property value, inflating it, and then trying to resell it. And if you see enough, you know, it’s okay if you have 1 or 2 of those. But if you see enough of those, you could see increases in property taxes across the board. And so that would start to potentially impact, um, other R-1 homeowners. I think, um, council or commission, I think I see the, the point of flipping a house. You’re saying they could put up a flip house into an internal triplex and then sell it for more, that that would not have the way property taxes work here. That would likely increase the property taxes for that property, but it wouldn’t increase the neighboring property taxes. It actually reduced the burden on neighboring property properties. Again, we don’t we we did numerous developer interviews. We we really don’t anticipate it. The the market is the biggest barrier to making this happen. Um, because it’s just really expensive. So I don’t think, you know, from what we understand from developers and what we understand from, um, the market research we’ve done that would never increase the property tax base for the neighbor or property taxes of the neighbor. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. And I’m. just gonna. Ask. Additional questions from commissioners. And Mister Commissioner Hill, please turn off your microphone. Folks asked us. As people got done talking to make sure they hit read back again on their microphones. Thank you. Um, one of the items that you mentioned is that there’s not a lot of, um, developer experience around building missing middle housing. And so I guess I’m curious what, um, the city can do to make sure that, um, like, if this is something that proceeds, how can we work with developers to make sure we’re getting good development and not something that doesn’t fit the character of our communities? Um, or maybe doesn’t hold up well over time? Um, just thinking about if there’s not a lot of experience in this realm, how can we ensure that we’re. Yeah. So one of the things staff has already started and we’d like to do more of is identifying developers, particularly, um, newer developers or smaller developers that have kind of the same values as what the city has and our strategic priorities. So, for example, the Hope program, which is building a home or home or owner occupied housing units in the city, um, we’re partnering, we’re trying to partner with smaller developers that already have experience with Twin Homes duplexes. Um, and you’ve seen some of those projects already. So it’s identifying folks that would just be a good fit with what we’re trying to do so that we could, you know, recommend them to residents knowing that they understand our process, they understand our goals for housing, and they want to accomplish the same goals. Questions? I will throw one out, and then I think we’ll. Be I think we’ll be able to open the public hearing after my question. Unless somebody else still comes up with one. It’s kind of a hypothetical, and it kind of piggybacks on Commissioner Vince’s thoughts. I think so, hypothetically, the city goes off and does A, B, C, and D, and. Item C that they pick ends up going, oh my gosh, this is way off the tracks from what we expected. Um, what option does the city council then have to go? Oops, we made a mistake. We want to turn this off or revert back to make another code change to make this not something that’s allowable. Are there options like that? Yes. Um, both. Before code is formally adopted. Um, because there will be community engagement, there will be a development of an ordinance. And we’ll get into the specifics of a recommendation. If through that process, you know, we’re working through this and we find like, actually, this recommendation doesn’t do what we’d want it to do when we try to write a code for it, um, through City Council’s direction, we can just say, nope, this isn’t for us. Put it aside. And then again, um, code can be tweaked, code can be amended. So if a couple of years after a certain code change is implemented, it needs to be revised. Um, we can do that using the same process we did to amend the code in the first place. So it would be, uh, community engagement. It would be a public hearing, a planning commission, probably work sessions at Planning Commission and city council, and finally, action by city council. So it actually look very similar to every other code amendment. The city processes. So there are some ways to go back and say, oops. If it were to come to that sense, as we’ve seen in all of the studies, we’ve looked at, the presentations we’ve had, that, um, it’s a very slow process. Other cities that have tried to do missing middle housing, it’s been a very, very slow process. It doesn’t seem to magically, uh, take place. The other thing that I would just like to mention before we move into, um, the public hearing, is folks that might be watching on television or come up with questions, thoughts after hearing this or watching a replay, you may submit your questions, etc. to planning at Golden Valley. Love is the website that gets everything to city planning and anything that you might send. All of this, all of the stuff we’re doing tonight gets passed on to the City Council for their review and discussion. At their July 7th meeting, when this will. Assuming we do something tonight, we’ll come forward to see them. So with that. Any last. Commissioner Barnes joins the commission. Staff. Um, just building on, um, Chair Cohen’s point about kind of the iterative process. Um, perhaps I missed it in the, in the study itself, but is there anything around, like talking about how we will evaluate this and like, kind of making sure there’s checkpoints to see how things are going maybe before a problem arises. Right. Like we can see it’s maybe it’s being successful. Maybe there’s more that we want to do or vice versa. So I’m just curious if that’s something that’s in there. Yeah. We’ve talked um, internally among staff about metrics to evaluate what happens when, if and when a code is changed. Like are we seeing more housing units built? Are we processing more variances, less variances, or do we have more building permits? Do we have more interest in ADUs. So we would anticipate further community engagement even after a code is adopted. You know, a year later, we do like a check in like a citywide survey. Do you have interest in Adu? Do you have more interest now? Do you have less interest after sitting through the process and kind of do a temperature check on where folks are at and seeing if what we’ve done has made any difference? Even if, you know the anticipated outcomes are gradual and long term, um, we still would hope to see some change, you know, in a year after our code is adopted. Thanks. That’s helpful. I think it would be helpful to have that, like articulated somewhere. I think something that I’ve seen a lot and just heard a lot is just this desire for more transparency and clarity from the city. And so if there’s ways that we can kind of have that very transparently, that would be great. Yeah. Chloe just reminded me of another tool. Um, the city is using in Visio to track our strategic priorities. And this is a public facing interface. Um, that shows, you know, each strategic priority and the progress made toward it. So there’s like a, a percent bar. We can do something very similar for any code changes or program recommendations for missing middle housing, where we kind of set out what the goal is. You know, what the metrics we are using to evaluate the goal. And then folks can track in real time, um, the progress being made on each of those recommendations. So that’s one way, um, we can provide increased transparency and keep ourselves accountable. Um, so this kind of follows up with my first question about, um, some of the Adu conditional state, but conditional stipulations. But have you thought about you know, I realized that we have far less ADUs than our surrounding peer communities, but have you looked at, um, almost like a tiered structure for ADUs, where depending on the amount of ADUs you want to add, having conditional conditions around them, such as like deed restricted affordability, um, like you did with the whole program, for instance. So say the first, you know, 1 or 2 ADUs would be, um, MMP, right? But then the third one, for instance, would be deed restricted to make sure that we have affordability. So are you talking on different properties but owned by the same person or on the same property? On same. Property, same property? We haven’t looked at that specifically, but that’s definitely something council could direct us to do. Um, that gets into kind of the financial incentives or financial strategies that are beyond the study. And I’ll just remind Planning Commission because City Council is watching this. So you can certainly ask for direction on these items that go beyond the study. And, um, we can work with our council liaison to get those into your work plan to investigate in conjunction with or just, you know, even if none of those study recommendations went through, we could still look at a program like that. Absolutely. Right. Right. I guess because my my worry is approving, um, ADUs across the board for all R1, R2, s without any sort of conditional stipulations on that. So yeah, I’ll just add that right now. Um, ADUs are a permitted use with certain, uh, dimensional requirements. So, you know, they have to be in the rear yard or they have to be inside the house. But with, um, a maximum size. But they are permitted by. Right. So you can build an Adu. And I think the two, at least one of the ADUs that has been built in the city was built only through administrative approval. So there is way there are ways to do that already. Um, these code recommendations would just make it more likely or make it easier for folks to go through the administrative process, which is available to some folks right now. Okay, okay. One more, Mister Hill. I have to ask this question, given what we’ve seen and feedback from the public, one of the discussion points here is compatibility with existing neighborhoods. And I’m sure we have many different types. Does that mean each 1st May have different code changes, zoning changes, potentially, and it opens up? Who then decides? Yeah. So yeah, right now. I know that. Right. Um, we don’t have architectural design standards for single family homes right now. We don’t have architectural design standards for buildings in the R-1 district. Um, so when it comes to like the style of a home, whether it’s an Adu, a duplex or a single family home, we can’t tell people you have to do mid-century modern, um, or super modern or colonial or whatever. Um, and it’s it’s hard to do that through zoning code. It’s not really a tool for design. Um, but we can’t when we talk about character, we can talk about things like the building envelope, the size of the building. And so while some of the recommendations talk about allowing more flexibility for missing middle housing, it’s certainly possible to allow you could allow duplexes, but they have to be the exact same size and have the exact same setbacks as a single family home. And what you would end up with is, at least in scale. And, um, building, siting and building envelope. They would be the same as a single family home. But yeah, as far as, um, requiring architectural style in the zoning code, that’s a that’s very difficult. There are ways to incentivize, like I said, um, like historic preservation. You wouldn’t do that through zoning code. You would do it through, uh, local historic Preservation commission, through grants, through funding opportunities. Um, so there are kind of ways to get around it. More carrot than stick, I guess, is how I would frame it. Thank you, Miss Kramer. Miss McGuire, for your comments. And, uh, answering questions that we’ve come up with. This is the stage where we would look to open the public hearing. I’d like to first, and I’m not going to hold folks to this. It’s like to see a show of hands, of how many folks are hoping to speak tonight. And I’m not doing that to try to shut things down. Please trust me. Okay. Thank you. Um, what I’m going to recommend and chair’s prerogative here. So let’s take a brief five minute recess that would get us just a couple of minutes after 8:00, and then we’ll come back. We’ll get a chance to stretch water, etc., and then we will stay as long as we need to to hear from as many of you. You will not be able to pass the record of. When I spoke at a city council meeting on pavement management at 1 a.m., that’s how long that meeting went. We’re not going that long. But, uh, let’s take a five minute break. That would take us to about 805, and then we’ll get back together and we will start the public hearing and give you some instructions on how that’s going to work. So we’ll be back in about five minutes. Thank you. All right. We’re going to come back to order. Now. Come back into session. Uh, we will begin our public hearing. Uh, a couple of, uh, items as you speak at that microphone. Please speak as close into the microphone as you can. That helps the sound be picked up both in the room and for the media broadcast. Um, as we open the meeting for public testimony, you get three minutes to speak. Everyone will get three minutes to speak. And there’s a little stopwatch that’s going to pop up that, uh, when you get to the end of your three minutes, we’ll go and the hook will come out, and goodness only knows what might happen. But no, we do try to enforce that three minutes. Um, we want to be mindful and respectful of everybody here. Um, we suggest, but we can’t hold you to this, to not repeat the same comments as they’ve already been made, in order to make sure everybody has a chance to speak. But please say what you need to. We’re not going to shut you down except at the end of the three minute period. Um, questions raised tonight. We may not be able to answer, but we have. Um, Miss Kramer, miss McGuire and Mr. O’Keefe from planning staff who are here, who will be taking copious notes and will work to provide answers. Uh, possibly for you tonight, but most likely, um, watch for information on the city website with further information answering some of these questions, because oftentimes they take some research. So, um, but these are everything we do tonight. As we’ve said several times, goes on to the city council as well. They watch replays of these meetings. They may be watching us tonight. Um, but they get everything that you’re going to say and talk about tonight. They will see and hear as well. But the responses will be on the Missing Middle Housing website page and in the packets to the future meetings, so everybody can see questions and responses that way. So as you come up to speak, what we ask is that you state your name and your address. Then as the clock starts ticking, that’s your three minutes to speak. So head on up. You don’t necessarily need to line up, but you know you may come up one at a time and whoever wants to speak the keep their killing. My microphone didn’t mean to do that, but you’ll have your three minutes and, uh, we’ll do our best to. We will stay here until the cows come home. As they say, everybody will get a chance to speak. And if somebody wants to speak a second time, we will allow that. But only after everybody’s had a first chance to speak. So first person, come on down, as they say on The Price is Right. I’m Paul Schneck. One, two, two Burnside Drive. I’ve sent several letters and emails in, so I’m not going to repeat all those. I just want to say. And Paul, if you could possibly get closer to the microphone, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Your question that you raised about what’s to keep developers from? And the answer, I think was an understandable answer, but it really is there in this plan. There are no checks. There’s what we think the market conditions will be, or the belief that these people who are not developers think will will mean that what you’re fearing won’t happen. But in my experience, in living here for 40 years, there’s nothing that developers can’t think of to try to find a way to make money. And I think that it’s crazy to take this 100% chance of housing 100% change every residential lot in Golden Valley. And by right, without any kind of testing or looking at, will this work at all? It’s true. You can go back and change everything, change things. But how easy is that going to be? So I would encourage the the Planning Commission to consider a toned down, uh, idea where we would pick, uh, one or 2 or 3 areas that seem most adaptable to this idea, maybe one corridor as opposed to all the various corridors, and see if it works. Then we’ll have something to go on. We’ll see what what developers do. We’ll see if it meets the needs and the goals, as opposed to let’s just open the doors. Uh, 100% of the city. And by right, meaning that neither the Planning Commission nor the city Council will have anything to say about what people do within the limits of what the the proposals are, so that that’s what I’ll say tonight. All right. We’ll reset the clock. And next person, please come forward again. State your name and address and speak as closely into the microphone as you can so that everybody, including the viewing audience, is able to hear thank you. Um, excuse me. My name is Linda Dahrendorf, and my address is 4022 Wayzata Boulevard. So I live right on 394. I too have lived in this neighborhood by my house. In 87. My concern is, as I’ve been driving through this neighborhood and been living here is a fact. Is it makes sense. What Paul just said about doing a small, um, study on a couple properties to see if this will work, because what I’m seeing and everybody else is seen in the city, you just go down across the deal over to Wells Fargo, where the Wells Fargo Bank used to be, and they’ve got this huge monstrosity that you can’t even get in the bank to do your business because it’s so jammed up there. Um, there’s been huge houses that have come in. They’ve taken out small houses or older homes, put in these McMansions, as people call them, and my concern is what’s going to stop once the codes change, what’s going to stop? And developer coming in and putting up these monstrosities and people don’t have a choice. And when you try to go back and redo it, they’ll say, oh, this was changed. Well, where were we able to have a choice whether we want this in our neighborhood or we don’t? Because Golden Valley has a nice residential feel and it’s it’s in close to downtown and a lot of people like it. And, um, it would be a shame to put it into all these commercial buildings that we’re seeing going up constantly everywhere else and in our own city. That’s what I have to say. Oh, can on the deal can can the information. Um, I know you guys have got packets or somebody’s got packets. So is this on a public deal? Or we can go look at the numbers ourselves and everything that was done on this study. Yes. Um, on the city website, Golden Valley gov. If you search missing middle, that’ll pull up the missing middle housing study web page where we post everything. And I think we have the slides from today posted as well, or we will very soon. Okay. So everything will be posted there. That will be posted. So everybody can have because I think what we could do is maybe even put some of this information out in the city newsletter that everybody gets in Golden Valley, because we do. Everybody does get that, uh, newsletter. And I read it cover to cover. So that would probably be something we could probably do to get more people on board so they know what’s actually happening. Thank you. And thank you for your comments. Next. I’m Ruth Paradise, 8515 Duluth Street. Um, I am in favor of sending this on to the city council. I do have some changes, of course, that I’d like, but for for now. So I would like to say, first of all, the ADUs have to have owner occupied at least in one place. And you could do that with a duplex. You could do that with a triplex. And that prevents people coming in and just buying. I’d also like to say that if you’re building a duplex or you’re building an Adu, the whole cost is not on you. Um, so, for example, my son has an Adu in his house and he has a small house. One of his sons in his fiancée, in the son’s fiancee lives in the in the one in the house. They pay him rent. He gives them good rent, but they pay him rent. My granddaughter, his niece lives in the house. She pays them rent. And so it’s not as if when you’re having a building like that in a duplex, an Adu, whatever, that the whole cost is on your budget because you’re charging rent. And so that helps you with the cost. I’d also like to say that I recently spoke to somebody who was who lives in, well, I’ll say Tyrell Hills, and he was saying he would really like to downsize. He has a very large house. He’d like to be able to find in his neighborhood a small house with a minimal yard. But he’d still like to stay in his neighborhood. Right now, he can’t. There is no house like that. I was at some other meeting, and, um, it was mentioned that as as Mrs. Kramer said, there are duplexes in Tyrell Hills, and we asked the people that were there from Tyrell Hills, do you know where those duplexes are? Because they said it would change. It would ruin the character of the neighborhood, but they don’t know where they are. So obviously it has not ruined the character of the neighborhood. It, in fact, is part of the character of the neighborhood. So I just think that the whole goal of the city, of being able to bring more people in, people who work for Golden Valley, being able to afford to live in Golden Valley, the teachers of our children, being able to live in Golden Valley, smaller homes cost less. So even though it’s more expensive maybe, than some other places for people who would really like to live in Golden Valley, having the availability of a smaller home, whether it’s a unit in a duplex, whether it’s an Adu, whether it’s a split lot and a small or a narrow lot home, it’s less money for them and they can come and live in a place like Golden Valley. And I think that the city wants to have more children. We want to have more young people. We want our seniors to be able to stay here. And if we want all of that, we have to provide the housing for them that they can move into and move in, out of and into and be flexible enough to have it be a really welcoming city. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next. Chair, we’re having a little issue with the beeper, so we’re going to do a manual time warning for people. So just don’t be scared if you hear us. Usually it beeps at you. Next person please come on forward. And if you want to line up behind the someone that works too. So my. Name is Rick Logger. I live at 6306 Golden Valley Road. I’ve lived in Golden Valley at a couple different locations for about 40 years. I have become in and out of these zoning and planning meetings over this period of time, and I’ve never once heard language about tiny homes on the city level. Never seen a study, never seen an article, never seen anything about it. And this is happening all over the country. These tiny home thing. I just was wondering. I don’t think we have any rules on the books for tiny homes, but is that something that’s being looked at? That is something staff will examine and get answers to out on the website. As noted. Uh, next person, come on, forward. Something made. Sir. Know the answers will be out on the missing middle site. Shortly. You know they can’t know. The answers to everything. But we appreciate the. Comments. Hi, I’m Jacob. Stace, I live at eight Ardmore Drive. Um, I’ve been there for 13 years. Um, and we are raising a family with pile of kids and we’re one door off of the Glenwood corridor. So when people talk about, you know, multifamily units, um, two of my neighbors have fairly not well kept houses that I would think would be pretty prime for, um, a large multi-family redevelopment. I kind of made peace with maybe a split lot or something. But, you know, throwing up six, 12 townhomes on two, not lots. You know, when you have 4 or 5 kids, um, is a little bit of a concern. So I did have a question, though for the planning Commission. I was curious if, um, if the well, I work in consulting and usually when you’re asking for, uh, work to be done, you submit an RFQ or a request for quote. Um, and I was curious, did the city submit an RFQ to the various planning or the consulting groups that you interacted with? Chair, do you want us to answer questions in the middle of public testimony? Well, if if, if. I won’t use my time, if. That’s one you can easily answer. Yes. We we release an RFP for this project. Okay. Request for proposal. Sure. Did you also receive a statement of work? That’s also pretty typical. We received very lengthy proposals from different firms. A maximum of 20 pages, I believe. Okay. Just our. Piece are those are those public? The final proposal is public. We do not post the ones that we received throughout the process. Could we make the request for proposal public? Yeah, I actually think the request for proposals that this is posted is on. The website. Is it okay? I was just looking for it. I didn’t see it. Yeah, we can. Find it. Um, and then lastly, was there any request for any downsides or is it mostly just looking for advocacy for increased density? The point of missing middle is to come up with affordable housing options to allow Golden Valley to increase its population. So I don’t know that that answers your question, but. So, so downsides. We’re following. If we’re following what the Met Council is asking, we need to increase our population here in Boulder Valley. Okay. Last question. Promise. Do do we have to listen to the Met Council? That’s a dumb question. What happens if we don’t. Let staff answer that one? Chair? I would recommend that we get all the comments and do it at the end. Just we’re following rock. Okay. That’s fine. Okay. Yeah. This is my first meeting. I don’t know what I’m doing. So thank. You all. The short answer is you absolutely have to follow what the Met Council look at infill infiltration issues that we’ve had in Golden Valley. You have to do it. Met Council. Says you get, like, hauled off to jail. Pretty much. For. All right. We will we will take staff’s advice and try to limit the answers to questions until we’re all done. And thank you for reminding me of that. No, not a problem. Because even if we think it’s a simple answer, it generally isn’t. So next person, please come on. Forward. Go forward. This is my mother, by the way. Yeah, the mother. Uh uh. My name is Debbie. Stacy and I live at four, six, two, four Chatelaine Terrace. We moved here about five years ago and we moved to help with our grandkids because we have a lot of them. And, um, we lived in, uh, in Saint Anthony, Maine, in the very densest part. It’s a block from the downtown, um, on the other side of the river. And it’s absolutely fabulous. I mean, we loved living there and all of the retail and all this stuff, and it was it’s beautiful on the and it was all, you know, grouped together. And so, you know, there was lots of restaurants and walking things and it was beautiful and it backed up to a beautiful northeast neighborhood that had little parks. And, you know, I could take my grandkids to the, you know, the Minneapolis has a like every three blocks. There was a park. And so it was lovely. And then a few years ago, they removed the zoning law. And there was one like large I don’t know if it was a 12 plex or whatever it was that was right in the middle of the neighborhood, totally out of character, totally out of place. We told it’s just going to be this one. And so today I went back to look because it was it was an eyesore. Then, um, and I went back and took pictures and maybe some seen some of the pictures, but literally there’s like four monstrosities next to each other. They’ve completely overtaken the block with these little tiny, cute, well-manicured homes on each side. And I just, I titled my thing Be afraid. You know, just just know what you’re getting into because, you know, developers want to make money and they’re going to look for loopholes and they’re going to look for funding, and they’re going to look for taxes. And if we think this is going to bring our taxes down, I mean, we’re really kidding ourselves. And so, you know, I’m very emotional about this. I don’t want a, you know, I don’t want my grandkids growing up around a lot of like six plex and 12 plex and, and, uh, and just increasing. I mean, there’s so much traffic on and Glenwood right now. It’s just it’s I just I just know how we absorb it. So I’m just I’m emotional about it. I’m really sad. We’ve gotten here, and I had no idea that, um, you know, we were headed in this direction. So anyway, my $0.02. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. My name is Eva Jensen. I live at 4010 Roanoke Circle. Um, since 2010. So about 17 years. I, um, I’ve been reading the document that was shared this evening and the presentation, and I appreciate the extensive use of the report, but my concern that comes out of it is that I don’t see a design plan. The responsibility to address the housing crisis we have in this city, in this metro area, in this country, for for sure is is serious. And I think it calls for more substantial and grounded planning that is practical. And that guides all who are involved in integrated processes that serve the multiple interests in the diversity of peoples and cultures. Lifestyles of people coming together. I read this and I’m concerned about what I see as an opportunity for free market concentration, construction and building and what’s it going to look like, and how do the competing interests, aspirations, values and ideas get sorted out or or prioritized? How do we begin to shape practices that will enforce building A community of complementarity and diversity rather than competition. And my concern is that the people who will be beneficiaries are the people with the resources. Because if you respond, as you repeated many times tonight, the market and the cost will prevent people from doing the many. But people with resources will do what they want. And will they serve the public interest and the common interest, or the concerns of the environment and the massive trees and all that lives in this beautiful land? Once it’s covered, it won’t be uncovered to be what it is today. So I would ask for something more concrete and practical of a plan that will not contradict the hard working efforts to balance land and landscape hardscape and human scale community building. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Mark Dunham. I’m at two, two, one channel in circle just south of Glenwood in the Tirol Hills area. Um, and I have primarily a practical concern. Um, after reading the the report, um, specifically around the designation of Glenwood as a corridor. Um, and, uh, the the traffic that we already experience in that neighborhood on Glenwood is, is phenomenal. Um, and I would say that everyone in our neighborhood basically knows somebody who has had a near miss on Glenwood with their kids, with their pets, um, with their vehicles. Uh, there have been two houses hit by cars. Um, in the last couple of years, one at high speed. Um, I think the estimate was somewhere in excess of 60 miles an hour. Um, and I am very concerned about the increase in traffic by density in that location, which is not prepared to absorb that additional traffic. In addition to that, everybody who is on the south side of Glenwood in that neighborhood. Glenwood is our only egress from the neighborhood. And I have safety concerns. If there were to be an evacuation, if there were to be any kind of situation where we needed to get out. We can’t get out now. Um, so if that density in that local area triples, um, I am really concerned about the practical implications for all the kids walking to Breck or to Meadowbrook. Um, in in that situation. The other thing that I want to add to is that there is, um, there’s a development on a lot near Westwood and Glenwood right now. Um, and the first thing that they did after tearing down the house was clear cut. All the trees. Um, how does that square with the environmental priorities that the committee has listed? Um, because a whole lot of, of mature trees are going to be gone, um, from those large lots. So these are my, my primary considerations for for you. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is Luka martins. I live on a 4243 Glenwood Avenue. Um, and my main concerns with this is on the on the study. It wants it. It mentions like redistricting or rezoning. I mean, uh, areas of that because it considers it a corridor, which, like you said, it it just I mean, it bends to its knees every time Breck lets out school buses, so but, um, uh, they want to rezone areas include our house, which is one of the first houses on Tyrell, uh, North Tyrell. And it’s from 1933. And actually the previous owner bought and wanted to build a tear down and build, um, apartments in, and they weren’t allowed to, luckily. But it’s once it wants to rezone that area as an R-2 district, at least from what I could tell from reading it. And it’s I have many issues with that environmental. One of them, I mean, like our house is our house has a lot of wooded areas. It’s one of the few places it still has. The vast canopy of trees. And like, you can look out the window and there’s this group of family foxes that live in there, and they will go there every couple of years, and you can see them just playing with like a dead mouse in the backyard and just see things like that. There’s deer, just everything, like animals love our yard and I worry about the extensive damage that will happen from just expanding horizontally and just building massive houses in these areas, especially on Glenwood. Um, and it’s it’s very worrying to me. I don’t want the area to become damaged and just weed out all the just and push away all the wildlife. It’s I’ve done. I’ve currently still am doing extensive work to try and, um, plant more native plants and encourage more animals to live there, because it’s very important to me that this area stays wild and that animals can still exist where they belong. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Good evening commissioners. My name is Bruce Glazer Pappas. I live at 20 Yard Moor Drive here in lovely Golden Valley. I’ve lived there since 1988 with my wife and my family. Tonight, the recommended action before he was a motion to recommend that the City Council received and file the missing housing study before addressing our neighborhood context, I want to sincerely thank Jacqueline Kramer, our Planning Commission consulting partners, for the immense amount of research and hard work that that went into compiling this report addressing housing affordability is incredibly complex task, and their dedication to Golden Valley’s deeply appreciated. However, because this document reads less like a dual sided study and more like a visionary plan focused strictly on recommendations, I’m kindly asking the Commission to reject the motion this evening to receive and file this report in its current form. A truly balanced study must weigh both sides equally, because this report highlights the pros of missing housing without detailing the localized cons, drawbacks, or other geographic infrastructure strains, it’s not yet a complete baseline for city policy, as the report correctly notes, market and financial barriers mean the symptom that mean that simply relaxing the zoning code will not naturally yield near term affordable housing in a neighborhood such as ours, with land values in our Tyrell Hills, a blanket up zone risk attracting speculative development, redevelopment rather than the gentle affordability staff intends to create. Furthermore, the corridor map shows the Glenwood Avenue, which people spoke about this evening, which cuts directly through our community, would be open by right to medium plexus. Up to 16 units, dropping structures of that size and scale onto our unique topography, topography presents serious and unintended challenges. We all welcome balanced growth, including ADUs, but we are requesting you to send the study back for further refinement to include localized drawbacks, and explicitly exempting our neighborhood North Hero Hills. Um, based on these three realities. And I’ve already sent these to I’m. So I’m just going to list them briefly. First, we have a historical context. The city’s own 2020 historical context study highlights the Tyrell Hills, platted in 1926 as an architecturally significant collection eligible for National Register of Historic Places, the second environmental risk are steep and rolling topography called North Tyrell Hills for For a reason is in a direct drainage passage of the Bassett Creek watershed. We also sit upstream from, uh, Theodore Wirth Park and all the building that was proposed would could cause extensive damage to those parks to say nothing about the wildlife. That depends on our structure. And third, we don’t have grids. We have rolling paths all over the place. And it makes it’s a it’s a it’s a mess to try to to. Bruce time. Sorry. Here at. Time.. I will submit the rest of my comments to the commission. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hi, I’m Claire de Berg. I live at 433 Westwood Drive, North Deer Planning Commission. To be clear, missing middle is actually a made up term created by a developer to help cities fix their codes so builders can get in and get to building their money, making buildings. And this is what will happen if you consider this quote unquote plan, which is actually a not not a study, a plan, if you consider it complete. So you’re telling me a private firm hired by Golden Valley for $55,000, who Jaclyn also worked with while serving in Saint Louis Park, created a plan, not a study, to rezone our city without citizen input. Excuse me? The plan actually admits it only talked to developers and builders and not citizens. I have so very many issues with this ruse, but one stands out. This firm suggested the mailing of postcards to Golden Valley’s approximately 9000 households, generating 80 responses regarding the quote unquote missing middle housing pretend proposal. This data is now being framed as a reflection of broader community sentiment. It is not a show of hands who filled out the survey in this room. Couple people on the commission you committed, you committed in your 2030 directive to transparency and resident input, which you have failed to do. You’ve been fooled by the missing middle housing ruse. But don’t worry, you can still save your reputations. Jacqueline shared all the bad news, but there is good news. Golden Valley is already built out an awesome. We already have single family homes, apartments, condos, townhomes and affordable housing program rentals, duplexes, triplex is senior living. You realize, right, that with this plan that small affordable houses will be torn down to build more expensive housing that does the opposite of what this plan claims it will achieve. Be courageous. Use the best of your judgment and abilities as you promised you would during your swearing in. I heard swearing in at your last meeting. Again, you each promised to use the best of your judgment and abilities. Don’t allow the lure of a misleading study, which is actually a plan and not a study, to color your work and legacy. You were appointed to work for me and the people of Golden Valley, not developers and not builders, and not for the fear of bills at the state which never get out of committee. By the way, I encourage you to get clear about the legacy you are leaving behind with your work on the Planning Commission. Be aware of your ethical footprint on this beautiful city, which isn’t missing anything but your bravery. Thank you for your comments. Some of that came close to personal attacks which are not allowed, so I appreciate your concerns and questions. But, um, part of what we ask for is to be respectful, and we wish I felt coming close to the edge on that. And I have to comment on that as chair, but thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Well, I hate to be the super boring follow up to Claire here, but my name is Heather Fraser and I live at 115. Made us like Mark. I am on the south side of Glenwood and Glenwood Avenue is our only exit from our neighborhood by any means with wheels. If we really wanted to go overland, we could end up on 394. But nobody wants to. Nobody’s got boots that strong. Um. so I, um, I’ve heard a lot tonight about nice people looking for a place to live in the form of ADUs, and I am totally behind that. Um, I would point out that nobody is going to tear down a large, luxurious house to replace it with ADUs, and probably people aren’t really going to build ADUs into large, luxurious houses, except in certain cases. Anyway. Um, I also have a little story to tell in that on my daughter’s first day of kindergarten, we had just moved to Golden Valley and I was excited about the idea of her walking the roughly maybe half mile to Meadowbrook Elementary that day. My mom, who was in her 70s, and I were walking to Meadowbrook and she was hit by a car on the corner of Glenwood Avenue and the freeway ramp where it comes up from highway 100. I subsequently was like, oh, it turns out that having your child walk to school here isn’t that great after all. And that was the last time my daughter walked to school, either. During her time at Meadowbrook or her time later at Breck. And I think there are a few families who allow and encourage their kids to walk to school, and it normally goes fine, but they aren’t just near misses is what I would like to say about that. Um, after that I looked for maybe some money from the safe routes to school people to get better signage. Any of that? Nothing from the county, I think. Glenwood is a county road. Is that what it is? The county said? Absolutely not. And so we are left with this not entirely safe corridor that now is open to having more people added, which means that those people will probably also move to the neighborhood hoping for their kids to walk to school. And they will encounter the unfortunate truth, and they will plunk their kids into their cars and join the pony trail of cars going to Breck and Meadowbrook. So I do have a question for the formers of the study. Did anyone check? Did anyone who put together this study check with the school principals about whether they actually recommend walking to school? Thank you. And as we’ve noted, staff has taken copious notes and we’ll get answers to questions for you. As we’ve noted, they’ll be publicized on the city’s website. Uh, ready for the next speaker? Ready for the next speaker. Isn’t really related, but I. Take this. Opportunity. My name. Is Janet Hannaford. I’ve lived at 2110 Toledo Avenue North for 37 years. I’ve raised three kids there, and I do love living in Golden Valley. Um, I am just kind of raising a related issue that has kind of come up through other people talking about the safety of our pedestrians walking anywhere around, and we live right off of Golden Valley Road and, um, our bridge, the pedestrian bridge that went from, um, I don’t know, one side of the road to Hyde Park was bumped by a truck one day, and I was really busy when this happened. I was living in Pittsburgh supporting my daughter, who just had a baby and was in residency. And anyway, all of a sudden the bridge is gone and I’m thinking, why? Why didn’t they repair the bridge? And there should be some liability for the truck that bumped it. Um, I just wanted to put that out there. I don’t understand it, because that’s a really scary place. Um, you take your life in your hands, crossing that street, and I know there’s a four way stop there, but people don’t really stop. They just kind of roll on by. That’s the truth. So anyway, just wanted to put that in the Maloo. Thank you for your comments. We’re ready for another speaker. I will call for additional speakers a total of three times. And if we don’t have anybody come forward at that point, we will close the public hearing. Are there any other public people that wish to speak? Um, Troy Deere said 336. Natchez Avenue North, I think, um, in looking at this, I think most people here are fine with ADUs. I think that it sounds like a good idea. Maybe duplexes, triplex is. But I think the big concern is the large apartment buildings, um, changing the fabric of our neighborhoods. Um, I think that with the number of people, the parking noise is going to change the fabric of the neighborhoods. Is there a way to say, can we put these larger buildings in more centralized areas, like where there’s already shopping and food and places where people can walk? I know that we’re trying to get more people on transit and walking and biking. Um, and I thought, you know, one of the reasons why they wouldn’t build, um, units was because of cost. Well, to build a, a duplex is going to cost a lot of money. But if you can build a 16 unit apartment building, the cost for each unit goes way down. So incentivizes developers to come in and build larger buildings wherever we allow them to. Um, I think Golden Valley, the way it is now is not wrong. It can be approved. And I think that, you know, if we’re trying to to build more population, I think there are places and ways where we can put it. Um, but I don’t think that the large apartment buildings are going to improve the fabric of our neighborhoods. Um, if we can just keep them in certain areas, I think that would be beneficial for us. Thank you. And thank you for your comments. Any people who wish to speak for their first time, that have not, if someone wants to speak a second time, it would now be appropriate to come forward since all the people that have wanted to speak a first time have spoken. So if someone wants to take another shot at it, you’re more than welcome to do that, since no one else is coming forward. Thank you. I do have any repeat my, um, my name and where I’m from. Uh, so my name is Luca Marins. I’m from 4243 Glenwood Avenue, and I am currently a, uh, majoring in civil engineering. And, uh, as an undergraduate. And it’s it’s very passionate. I’m very passionate about this type of stuff. And something I like to talk on. Is that how I really just very strongly believe that this, that if this were to happen, the especially the rezoning of the areas on Glenwood, it would destroy walkability, which is barely already walkable. And I and I find it very important to me. I bike to I moved to a small private school. It’s no longer there, but the I was able to bike to, and that was probably the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. Um, is just being able to have that freedom. And I think it’s very important that people have the choice to give their kids that freedom. And currently they just absolutely do not. And I think just having even more, especially apartment buildings, is going to cause the sidewalks to become even more inhospitable because it’s this would be cars turning in all the time. It’s just the entire thing is not going to create a better area. And I think if you were to even rezone it, I think rezoning it instead of R-2 to like a mixed use or something to make it so people can just walk around and do something, buy pizza. I don’t know, anything really would be much more helpful to the state of walkability. And to me, that’s the probably the single most important thing is how walkable a city is and how how it treats the people who live in it, especially the kids. And currently is not living up to that, especially on Glenwood. Like people have said, almost gone hit many times. It is insane. It’s a 35 mile an hour road. People drive on it almost 50. A lot of the time. It’s usually 40 to 45. It’s it’s absurdly dangerous. You have to cross the road all the time because it just cuts through the middle of it, and it’s I, I don’t know, it’s really all I have to say is just routing more people there will make the issue worse. And especially if there’s apartment buildings, then it’s never going to be walkable because of the way the roads intersect with the sidewalks. And thank you for your comments again. Any other speakers? Any other speakers? And please. Again, okay. Sorry. It’s me again, Heather Fraser, 115 Mattis Lane. Um, I have not had strong opinions about the developers versus no developers situation here. Um, because generally I feel like, hey, developers ought to be able to make money like anyone else can. So I was surprised to just now receive a series of texts from someone that I know who has very good connections in the world of builders, and this person basically said that the reason I’ll try to summarize their comments, they said that, um, basically the reason that it’s very difficult to find developers with experience and knowledge about creating ADUs or these very, um, kind of small grassroots approaches to building density. The reason that it’s hard to find those people is that, by and large, or people who share are those kinds of goals that we are talking about here. The reason is that, by and large, they do not share those goals. They do not care no matter what they say in the meetings, they are in it to make money, which is fine, except that our goal as a community is not specifically to let people make money off of or excessive amounts of money off of our generosity. And this person pretty much said developers have been waiting with bated breath for us to ease our restrictions, and they plan on coming in, building, quote, luxury units and charging top dollar for them. Affordability is in no way their concern. So I was super surprised to get this text from somebody that I thought was, you know, pretty, I don’t know, business oriented or something, but they really, really felt that the generosity of the community will be taken advantage of by people who want to do, um, these things. And this person said that well-intentioned Minnesotans are going to be taken advantage of. This person was very in favor of working on 80, 80 years in a very grassroots kind of way, but definitely cautioned against our zoning decisions that would tend to open the door for developers. As someone else said, the rich, those with resources will do what they want, and that is the reality. We just don’t have to make it so much easier for them. And thank you for your comments. Any other speakers? I just. Linda Dorff. , um, 4022 Wayzata Boulevard. Um, I like I said, I bought my house in 1987 and I had to live through the construction of 394. That took three years, and they pretty much destroyed the landscape that I bought the house for. Um, when they talk about trees, they took out 60 trees to put in a ramp to go to for 90, or to go to 100 north. So everything is pretty well was wiped out. Um, and uh, it was sad to see, but I like the neighborhood and felt that it was worth it and put up with it. So we did. And now the animals are coming back. I get deer in my yard. I live right next to Theodore Wirth, so I’m on 394 on the north side at 394, but you go down to the end of the street and you walk right into the park and, uh, lost the trails because they had to redo it because somebody decided to put $1 million house on the corner and wiped out the trail that was there. And so now they had to make a new one. And the sad thing is, is they keep putting these developers come in, they don’t think about what they’re doing. It’s all dollar signs. And, um, yeah, if they do this again, I won’t see, you know, like this gentleman was talking about the foxes and in the other animals, um, I get deer in my yard almost every day. I get the raccoons, I get the bunnies, I get every almost any animal that you can have. I let my yard go. I mean, the neighbors don’t like it because, you know, I don’t put the green grass. I stop putting the stuff down because I wanted the animals. So this morning there was three deer in my yard eating the clover in my yard. My biggest concern is by putting this in, you’re gonna wipe out all the natural wildlife that is there. Theodore Wirth might still be there. Eloise Butler might still be there. But putting this much traffic, this much people, you’re going to wipe out all the national and wonderment of having the wildlife and the residential area that we have. And that’s a big concern, and I’m totally against it. So thank you. Thank you for your additional comments. Well, you sit here. Long enough, you get inspired to ask a question. Um. Thank you Commissioner. My name is Ryan Winkler. I live at 35 Natchez, uh, North. I live right next to the Breck School. And, um, that’s what has led me to this question. Um, a lot of the study has focused on, uh, converting an R-1 residential district and adding additional units. Uh, I, as a general matter, I support adding density to Golden Valley, adding density to the metropolitan area. We need to build more housing on the land we have. And that’s going to take us adjusting our expectations a bit for our neighborhoods and how we’re currently built. But my question is whether additional examination has happened for changing other property classifications to allow more residential housing to be built. So, for example, uh, commercial and industrial properties could be rezoned to allow more missing and middle housing in the city of Golden Valley. Um, and Breck, my neighbor, is taking properties off the residential property tax rolls by acquiring them and in some cases tearing them down. So we do have institutional, commercial, industrial and other uses that could potentially be places where more missing and middle housing could be included. And I wondered if that was part of this consideration. Um, when you were looking at this plan overall. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for the opportunity to speak again. Eva Jensen 4010 Roanoke Circle. I want to bring a cautionary note to the interest in ADUs. There’s a lot of potential, uh, makes sense that there’s interest there. I’ve also seen a number of small towns, communities, neighborhoods. Where ADUs have been constructed without code that protects the community or neighborhood. And they’ve become, um, places where people rent and even places that become, um, what, rented in, in, in a tourist way. And were close to downtown. A lot of attractions and to create Airbnbs and all kinds of market value rentals in unconstrained ADUs really changes the neighborhood. And I know that there’s been some mention, but I don’t know what’s existing or proposed around only resident owned ADUs where residents live there. It’s an important constraint that many communities have learned, because without the the owner occupancy, they turn into party venue venues that neighbors can’t live near. Um, so the constraints and the cautions for how to manage a welcome of ADUs and their purpose and function in serving the community is critical. Thank you. Additional comments from the public. My name is. Roger Stacy, live at 4624 Catalina Terrace and Golden Valley. Um, I agree with Bruce and others that state the report should not be accepted. I would especially point attention to the developer’s interview section in the report. Um, where they express their disinterest in MH without considerable, um, public subsidies. So the report would seem to imply that, um, we’re going to reduce regs somewhat globally with no guarantee of getting the desired. Mhm. That is being sought. Additional comments. Additional comments. Um, I’m going to say yes. And then that that’ll be your last shot. That’s fine. All right. So my name is Luca marin’s. I live on 4243 Glenwood Avenue. And so, uh, continuing on being a civil engineering, um, working towards being a civil engineering major, uh, I feel a lot of issues with the current suggestions for how they want to deal with these, with low income housing, and I don’t like the idea of just building more houses, because if, if, um, if, you know, wealthy people own if realtors if it’s all that it’s going to be for, um, real estate, it’s can be an investment, not an actual place for people to live half the time. Um, and I think just if you actually want that, you would do things like, like public government owned housing in terms of, like an apartment building. So it has a set rate and, you know, it won’t go higher, just things like that that have been proven to work in other areas. And like it’s not a one, you know, one bullet solution, but just allowing people to build more houses doesn’t actually solve the issue. And Oso would like to continue and expand a little bit on the idea of that. R-2 zoning will cause massive, um, just really big. Uh, apartments. I think once again, I think split use, I mean, multi-use zoning would like you can you can still build these. It would still, um, restrict certain areas and you could build like duplexes or smaller, um, buildings where, like, each story is a, um, is a different like house, pretty much. And you can do things like that while still having other benefits to walkability, like, you know, being able to have local stores in the area that won’t they won’t even they won’t take over because there would be size limits on them and just things like that. And it will cause and it will I think it will enrich the area rather than just, you know, sticking more people in it. And it I think stuff like that is what should be considered in not just blanket building and rezoning. I think it should actually be enriching the area, not just building more. Okay. Anyone else who has not spoken wish to come forward. Anyone else that has not spoken wish to come forward. If no one else is going to come forward, I am going to close the public hearing at 9:02 p.m. to note that for the minutes, public hearing is closed. Thank you all for your comments tonight and staff will be working to get answers to many of the questions that came forward. So watch for those out in the missing middle section on the Golden Valley website. Um, what we’re going to do now is return to commissioner deliberations, and we’re going to let Commissioner Hill speak to get us started. Um, Commissioner Hill and Commissioner and us were our champions for this topic, working with staff. That’s a process we’ve been taking on with some of these major topics. I was champion on parking code changes that we have done. Uh, late last year. And these two find commissioners have been spending their lives working on missing this missing middle housing activities. So, um, David, let’s let you take a shot at this. And then what we’d like is every commissioner, you know, talk about, you know, where your heads are at on this study. And I and I do want to remind that nothing that’s in this study becomes a city action. What’s happening with this study is it’s going to the city council. They will decide what they want to do next if they have particular pieces that they want to recommend as actions, the city should take, they will act as the council to do that. And if it requires things to come back to the Planning Commission, uh, for zoning activity, code changes, etc.. As we’ve talked about all those many hours ago tonight, um, that’s the process. So nothing in this plan is cast in stone that all the, you know, you’re going to have multi-unit housing on Glenwood just because that’s a concept of corridor developments that is often a planning goal or a view that planning takes us. These are likely areas for development as an example. So I just want to continue to emphasize that, um, what we’re going to do tonight, if we move forward, is then the council gets to decide, okay, we’ve got a plan to look at, and then they’re going to spend a lot of time and a lot of discussion to figure out what do we do next with this. And it’s currently scheduled for the July 7th City Council meeting. I would encourage you to watch for the agenda for that. They may or may not have a public hearing portion for that. That’s the council’s decision to make. But if they do have a public hearing there, you’d have additional opportunities to speak on this topic with them. So that’s something to watch for if you’re not signed up for the City Council agendas, go to the city website. There’s a place where you can sign up to get email notice of any board, commission, and council agenda activities so you can get an advanced look at that. So I encourage you to check that out if you haven’t already done so. And now with that, we’ll turn it over to Commissioner Hill to get us going. Thank you. Commissioner. Um, I believe it was about a year ago when we first met with some members of council. I believe Dei was our first meeting. The planning commission and staff. And we talked at that time that missing middle housing. Uh, needed to be looked at and addressed. And we were a little bit behind the eight ball at that time. And we talked about what might be done. What are some of the next steps. And we talked about many of those next steps would be baby steps just to address a few of the things that we’ve talked about tonight. I wrote down, uh, there was cost we needed to talk about coding, rezoning where applicable. I wrote down removing barriers. Uh, I put neighborhood character a few units at a time, but do it prudently. Uh, we did the survey, and I want to just point out that that did go to everyone. And as we said, I think more than a couple of times, including with Bolton, Menken here on the Planning Commission, that was not a great result for that survey. And we know that, um, we got what we got and we went with it, uh, taking that under advisement and knowing that, you know, it’s an indicator from a very small amount of people. What was interesting is I noticed that we were going through today and the number of people here from Tyrell Hills, I walked down Glenwood Avenue. That, again, is an important part, but it’s a smaller part of the city. We have 10,000 housing units, I think, in Golden Valley. So there again, I would say that’s a small but important part of Golden Valley as well. Uh, we talked about environment many, many times. The city of Golden Valley has been in everything that we look at from a planning commission, a zoning and things like that. We talked about traffic and parking, and you folks have brought up some of that as well. That also has to be considered, whether it’s main corridor or other areas, for for movement within human beings and cars and bicycling. Even so, we have talked a lot about that. And to put all that into one big package like this, as I mentioned, just a couple of hours earlier, there’s going to be some changes, some adaptability to this, and it’s going to be up to us, the city, it’s going to be up to staff, council planning and the other committees to work through that and work with that to make this goal and see how much we can do to fulfill the 16 to 1800 units that we need. Can we do it tomorrow? We can’t. And how we go about doing that? And what are some of the next steps continuing to get input from our community and the key constituents that we serve? I’m going to stop there as a good start. Okay. Um, and at this point, um, Eric, as you were the other champion, you would like to chime in on your thoughts about where we go next with this. Yeah. I mean. David kind of covered it pretty well. Um, you know, I think this is just a study, right? It’s not going to necessarily be implemented at all. Or parts of it would, um, we were directed to look into increasing housing, and that’s what we did. Um, you know, I think we all have differing views just because this study maybe is adopted by the council, and it doesn’t mean that this body supports necessarily every recommendation or has reservations or wants to see them change as it come forward. There will be a process for that. Everything. If it’s even proposed, we’ll have an iterative process. And, you know, I understand for people that are here. Yeah, feeling engaged with this process as well, the, you know, we had 80 people responded to the survey. We’ve had less actually respond to this. About 20 people spoke and 30 letters, 120 people out of 26,000 people. Like it’s very hard to get people to engage, right. It’s very hard to get people to come and be collaborative. So, you know, we’re we have worked the best we could and sent out surveys. We have community meetings. We can only force people to be so engaged as they choose to be. Right. So I encourage all of you, you know, the passion was great whether you were for or against it or somewhere in the middle, you know, keep coming to things and you can have a very good role shaping policy of the neighborhood and places you want to go. So I guess that’s all I would like to say. Thank you, Commissioner Varma, who would like to go next and your next. Thank you Commissioner. Thanks everybody for coming and speaking. Um, appreciate the passion. And, uh, a lot of you definitely put thought into coming out here. Um, you know, the process of us going through this, David, you gave a good summary of kind of history of how we got to where we are, but I feel like we started the the first kind of draft that we saw was very, very specific. Like there were recommendations that were put forward that were being super specific about, um, you know, adjustments of, of setbacks and things that there might be flexibilities given for some of these items or, uh, adjustments to heights. And as we kind of went through discussions, we really realized that this all needs to be more conceptual. You know, there needed to be a lot more thought and process and discussion about the technicalities of how the ideas are implemented. Um, and so I think that that has gradually kind of the report has become more simplified. Um, in pulling some of those technical specificities out, knowing that all of these items, if they do come back for us to look at, they will be given that deeper level of thought. If they’re being considered. Um, so I think, you know, all of these things, I would almost see it as like an agenda of future discussion of things that could potentially be brought up again. Um, I know one thing that a lot of people have brought up today is concerns about specific corridors of those maybe not being the right ones to, uh, implement some of the higher density areas. And I’ll note that, you know, us on the board, um, have, uh, talked about where those corridors want to be. And I think what is in that report is not necessarily, like, set in stone. I would say, you know, we’ve definitely there’s there’s a design design aspect to these things that I would say all those things are preliminary. And there’s been discussions about whether those are corridors or is it a node or are they are they thought of a little bit differently? And I think those are things that level of specificity of where those corridors or how these things are really implemented are things that we would need on a technical standpoint to really dive into more if these things came back to us to review item by item. So that’s, you know, generally, I think conceptually I’m supportive of the ideas in the report. I think how those things are implemented. We need to review further. Um, but I think from a big picture standpoint, there are things that are good and they support the goals of the city. Thank you, Commissioner Sica. Next I would like to go Commissioner Burns story. Yeah, I would just echo everything that the other folks have set up here. I think one thing that’s very near and dear to my heart is, um, kind of transportation and our roads and how land use and our streets all go together and how people move around the cities and live. And, um, it really is just your day to day life. Right. And so I think one thing that I’ve heard from folks today is don’t put density on these corridors where it’s already on safe Street. And in my perspective, just because a road is currently unsafe does not mean housing shouldn’t be there, right? The problem is the road. Let’s solve some of these issues of walkability, safety, um, and have housing. Right. And so I think there’s to the point that, um, Commissioner Scott was saying about these corridors are not necessarily set in stone, but I think that’s something that, um, land use and transportation go very hand in hand. And they, they need to, um, support one another. And they are not mutually exclusive. Um, I think another thing that stood out to me tonight is just the fear of kind of, uh, additional housing units not necessarily going towards housing or being rented out and kind of what that means for our community. Um, I do think that’s something that is important. I will say there’s plenty of single family homes that are currently being rented out as Airbnbs in our cities, and that’s something that is is out there today. Um, but I think it is important, as we are looking at additional housing, about how those additional units are being used. Um, I think as kind of like overall, I appreciate all the work that has gone into this. It’s this was very thorough. Um, I know there’s a lot of there’s going to be a variety of opinions always. Um, and I agree with the, the point that this kind of the I think you said it well, an agenda for future items to come back. Um, and I would just encourage the city to continue to push the ways that we’re communicating this out to the community, um, ways that we can engage folks in these conversations. Zoning is not the most interesting things. It’s hard to get people to be engaged in these topics until something’s actually happening. But, um, more ways that we can be transparent in this and communicate this out so people understand what these zoning changes really might mean. Um, for their communities, I think would be kind of my perspective. So. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Bernstorff. Uh, Commissioner McGinty or Commissioner Finn. Seth, who would like to go next? Right. I think. Um. The concerns. Have all been extremely legitimate. And I think that the work and the effort that has been put into this clearly reflects that. I guess, for me, I kind of related a little bit to all the many steps that go into real estate from beginning to end. And I guess what what I try to think of that’s going on is we have a challenge that we have to try to create a healthy result for, um, but we’re in such beginning stages and I think there’s so many things to consider. There’s so much information that has already been collected, and we need so much more, um, information. But, um, I just think not hitting the panic button about any of it is probably a wise suggestion for all of us. And, um, again, I appreciate so much all the effort and everything that has gone into it. And, um, I, I guess we just need to kind of stick to it. Thank you for your comments and thoughts, Commissioner McGinty and Commissioner Vincent. Okay. Um. Uh, some scientists and I think the first thing that I really resonated with me is the gentleman’s comments about, um, that everyone learns better if they have a list of the disadvantages, the limitations, and being able to learn from their failures. Um, on that note, I do think that this study is a little one sided. Um, and I would like to rec city staff in the future to, um, try to put down the limitations and potential consequences of enacting changes, um, through any of our code or policies. And I think that if I’m going to make any recommendations about what to do, um, the I’m curious as to why the consulting firm didn’t look at other alternatives and only has them, um, in some small subsections of their study, such as of zoning areas of neighborhoods to R3 or R4. Um, also curious as to why um, like you said before, why we put certain corridors on here, why certain design decisions were made. And I think if this goes forward to council, uh, I think the, the goal should be not only increasing size, but like I stated in my previous comments, also increasing affordability. Um, so as we’re looking for, um, ADUs or um, multiple unit homes, especially in the range of 4 to 10 units, um, that I think there’s a number of other, uh, affordable programs that we can put in place, um, such as looking at extending the hope, uh, to not only doing single family, but our whole program to doing small to multi unit ownerships. Um, looking at 40 affordability, housing program, um, and seeing if we can create a 2 to 9 unit small building version of that with city assistance. Um, I would also like to the city council to us to look into preservation. First acquisition. Um. Um, or some other potential conditional allowances on multi unit to make sure that we can lock in affordability. Um, and whether they be similar to our whole program where we do 60%. Am I, um, for a reasonable duration, whether it be 30, 40, 60 years. Um, so we’re actually knowing that we’re not building luxury, uh, units and just increasing a problem that we already have. So I’ll leave it at that. Thank you. Commissioner Vincent. Um, here’s a couple things I heard tonight, and I agree with them. We need, for lack of a better term, checks and balances built in somewhere into the study so that, however, the council decides to move with any of the recommendations. This is a way to measure. Did you know my question earlier? What if we do one of these? If city does one of these things and it’s a total disaster, what option do we have to go backwards? Um, but I think that there have to be protections. You know, I agree with, you know, it was a lots of pros only, but no cons. I agree with, you know, got to look at both sides. Um, but at the end of the day, the goal of the city is to get more people be able to live here and make some housing affordable in some fashion. And the city council’s got a big, big job ahead of it. Once they get this report and begin to dive into how do we make this happen? They’ve got some really difficult choices to make, but if they want to follow their housing goal policies, follow comprehensive plan requirements. ET cetera, etc., they’re going to have to make those choices. And two specific items that came up that I hope staff has got noted. The pedestrian safety issues, particularly Glenwood, which we all know as a county road. Uh, if any of you went to any of the Breck meetings, um, they’ve got to fight with Hennepin County about possible changes on Glenwood. That’s not something the city can control when it’s a county road. Um, and then there was a specific example of a development on Westwood tearing down all the trees. The city does have a tree replacement policy, and I hope that if something’s going on there that’s not supposed to have happened, um, that inspections. ET cetera. Someone will get out there and check into that. So I hope that’s in your your notes as well. And I also share some of the concerns about are these corridors. Some of the right places are the wrong places. But it’s a shot at trying to figure out how to do this. Um, and I live in South Tyrol. So have some of the many impacts from 394 in South Tyrol to so North Tyrol is not unique. We might not have all the neat big houses that North Tyrol does, but, uh, as someone said in this room in 1990 when they were fighting about what should there be a pedestrian bridge over 394 somebody in North Tyrol, bless their heart, said, why would anybody want to go to South Tyrol? And believe it or not, believe it or not, the City council at that point was ready to vote against the pedestrian bridge, and that changed votes in the building. That bridge passed. So we do come visit North Tyrol, the North Tyrol Park, etc. but stranger things have happened in city government than what you could ever imagine. But I think it’s very important. Um, if we move to, uh, that we recommend that council receive and file this middle income housing study that we really add some, um, teeth into checks and balances and the, and cons. I think I heard that as much as anything in many of the comments tonight. Um, there are you know, housing is such an interesting topic. And if the city council wants planning Commission people to come forward to that, their meeting on the seventh to talk about what we heard tonight, you absolutely know we will do that and we will share your concerns, uh, as well as they will have seen all of your comments and any more that might come in. So that’s my $0.02 worth on it. Um, anybody else have anything else they might want to share before we determine if we want to take action to approve or deny? Um, a recommendation that the council receive and file this missing middle housing study. I just have a process question. Um, so to the point, Gary, about, um, adding in some of those kind of more teeth of the metrics and evaluation and then the pros and cons side of it, um, is that something that would happen before this goes to city council? So the action tonight is whether or not you think City Council should receive and file the study, basically saying it’s complete, as is. Those actions. As far as, um, measurable metrics, more pros and cons that can all be done on our recommendation by recommendation basis. So that could all happen after. Is there a way that we can, um, recommend receiving and filing with the acknowledgement that any future actions that come with zoning changes will have those requirements? Yeah. Um, I don’t know if it would be in the official motion. Yeah, I think yes. If you want, I can. I think your official motion, if you want that, if, if there are other changes to say them now and I’ll draft something up while you’re talking. But yeah, we can amend the motion and make it more nuanced. So I think those are the if I can speak for the Group. I think those are the couple of texts that really need to get added into this for us to be able to say, um, these aren’t addressed in the study, but they are really important considerations that none of us thought of when we were looking at all the various versions of the study. So thank you to the public for, you know, pushing that point tonight because it’s something we didn’t consider, perhaps the way we should have. I just have a question for like, so the study is like done. Obviously the work is paid for. What is the process of if we take it or are we able to do addendum to it or, you know, we’re not getting any more of the study done right? It’s like it’s completed. You’re asking from a purely like consultant financial side. Yes. Or oh, do you mean like the contract for the specific study? Um, yeah. The contract for this specific study is tied to the RFP, which had a very specific scope. But we have I mean, we have money for additional planning studies. Um, we actually got a grant from Met Council for more missing middle housing work. And we have just budget in our department for this type of work. So it can just be incorporated into our normal work plan. I’ve been on this for what seems like a long time now. Some of the discussion, the pros and the cons didn’t all show the cons in here. I know, I know, we even talked about many of these. We talked about the developers and the costs and the affordability and the corridors and all that. And I agree with the comment, Commissioner Vincent, that it seems like more of the pros made it in here. But some of that was discussed. It just didn’t all make it into this final detailed 153, some odd page documents, plural. So just just so we all know they they kicked us around pretty well as they went through. And into and discussed a lot of the things that even came up here tonight. And this is a summary of that analysis and, and some of the feedback that we’ve gotten over the last 12 months as well. So but I do agree with some of the add ons that miss McGuire will come up with. I believe. So just just a question. Could we kick this back to city staff, have them add in bits and pieces of what we talked about tonight as far as potential cons consequences, and then pass it back, or would it be better to pass it now and then have that consideration later? How does that I guess it’s more of a point of order. If we have some language that we can use in our motion, that is saying, you know, these items also need to be considered as you receive and file the missing middle housing study. I think that’s a relatively clean way to get those points across. Um, we want to get this on, you know, speaking for the city council, and I shouldn’t do that. I am sure they want us to stay on the calendar as it is, because they have lots of other items. You know, they’re going to be up to their eyeballs in Civic campus and all sorts of other things. They need to get this to a point where they can begin to study it, and decide what our next steps are, because right now, it’s going to land on their doorstep, and they have to decide what to do with it. If we move it on forward tonight, nothing that’s in this plan is cast in stone until the City council actually acts and provides direction. Is my understanding of how this works. So what I would just add, for the people of you that are still here, oh my God, um. Thank you. Um, I think was it your comment about the design standards? And so just like so you all know, like these were all things we did talk about, but because it was so in the minutia and these were all things that were going to come forward potentially later, it was kind of watered down to then break into pieces. So when you do address it, they’re addressed more. You’re not making all these recommendations at one time going forward. So that was kind of the idea of this iterative process of it’s not at all trying to just say, this is what’s going to happen. It’s here’s some general outlines, and we’re going to with everyone’s, you know, feedback, move forward on them in a more detailed way as anything moves forward. If it does so. And the items would come back like kind of one by one rather than on mass. So you can really dive into the nitty gritty of them. Yeah. Like the idea of if you look at some of these zoning changes, they wouldn’t all be adopted wholesale at one. It’d be if one comes forward, it’d be as a standalone, and you’d all have notices, public process and everything else to be involved in it. So just so everyone knows, you know, these are things that have been considered. Um, so. And I think it’s also worth noting, uh, several of us attended, uh, the council work session where they were looking at the missing, missing middle housing study. So they saw a lot of the same stuff. And they have concerns and questions. Uh, they had questions about height and setbacks and the like. So they have concerns and things they’re thinking about too. So I would certainly expect that once they begin to act on it, some of those concerns they have will come forward in recommendations or things that they want us to look at, or that the city needs to act on. That may or may not require zoning changes that would come back to us. But, you know, rest assured, there’s going to be ample discussion, which is why I said earlier, make sure you are getting those city council agendas because, um, they’re not going to just take it and file it. They’re going to have to do things with. It. Um. Is there a listserv for like missing middle, like a hub delivery that people can sign up for and get specific information? Good question. Thank you. There’s a planning commission listserv that you can sign up for, and that’s the best place to sign up for these updates. Can people still take the survey or could we do an additional survey after this to see now if it’s more in the public realm and people know about it, more people’s ideas of, you know, I don’t know. I don’t think we want to probably do the exact same survey. But like you said, with any code amendment that’s coming forward, we’re going to do the public engagement. I think that’s probably the the best time to do it. Then, as opposed to this study saying, oh, the height of something should be three inches taller than it is right now. That was just too narrow for this. And with any code amendment that comes forward, we do have some new commissioners. We always have like a peer community thing where we show you what our peer communities are doing. So if you really specific questions like, oh, what is the duplex code in Bloomington, we’ll dive into all of that. Again, the study is kind of a framework. Um, and everything will come forward very piecemeal in the future. So if there’s an implementation action, you have specific questions about, you can reach out to us. Now, we can get some of that research rolling for sure. And I have notes on my phone because my laptop died. So that’s the marathon meeting. But I do have it on a draft motion for you. If you. Fire away, consider it okay. And if you like this, someone can just say so. Moved. You don’t have to repeat it. If I’m correct. Okay. Motion to recommend the City Council receive and file the missing middle housing study with the added acknowledgement that any future zoning changes shall be tracked on a publicly accessible platform, and the Planning Commission will see will receive a one year update on the study and a recommendation that staff add any additional context or cons to the website and slides prior to council adoption. Did I capture. Uh, can we do one more thing, which is probably the concerns of the public here tonight through the via transcript and the men. The the minutes. Uh, the the concerns from the transcript. Yeah, from the minutes. The city council will get verbatim minutes of this meeting with their packet. Okay. Is that what do you mean? Uh, more of a summary of the the concerns that the audience has brought forward. Yeah, we can do a we can do a summary of what we heard tonight, and then they’ll also get the link to the meeting to watch and verbatim minute draft minutes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And then all. The case with all of our meetings that yes, they have the opportunity to watch and see the actions and get the minutes and all that other stuff. I don’t know that they still packaged up their meeting notes in big banker’s briefcases like they used to, but they used to deliver those to the council members before council meetings. So, uh, rest assured, they get a lot of stuff to look. At. Can I can I ask a clarifying question about your draft? Um, motion. So the providing the the cons that were requested by the time city council, uh, can you talk outline the timeline there that was suggested a little bit more clearly? I think you were saying like a year out. And I’m not sure that. Um, I was saying in one year we’ll do an update with the Planning Commission. So make this a very iterative study. Also see code amendments likely before then and then. Like what Dave was saying, we do have a, you know, more details I think from some of the iterations of the plan we did, um, we met with Dave and Eric, like weekly for a while talking about some of this. And I think we can add just like a page or two of considerations that aren’t in the plan. If there’s additional context we can go through with our consultant team and, and flag some of those and put those on an additional slide. Yeah. So my my question on clarity was just like the timeline for providing that. Oh we can do that this week or next week. Okay. Before the council packet okay. I think that’ll be fine. Yeah okay. Commissioner Bernstorff. Um, can you clarify the what you said about, like, the the metrics or tracking? Yes. I said a publicly accessible platform, which is likely in Visio, which is where we track our strategic plan. Um, but we also have the missing middle website dedicated to this. So we could do it in either format. And would there be like, I guess, are there the way it’s phrased? I’m forgetting how it is. Are there specific metrics that we would commit to having certain metrics or commit to having basically commit to having something specific on that publicly facing? Good question. So I mean, the plan right now is it’s it’s just a study, right? It’s just it was meant it started as an implementation plan. It really started. We wanted to dive into all the nuts and bolts and like Commissioner Banas was saying, eventually we were like, these are too many details to dig into with this. So it became more of a study. So, I mean, I don’t think we have any KPIs right now because we haven’t approved anything. Um, but once something is approved, Council, there’s the draft recommendation matrix. We can list those and we can track progress on those. We also can tie it to this strategic plan, um, which has like housing diversity types. And and we have different we do have KPIs in there that we track that are very specific and targeted, like 20% this and, you know, very. For the uninitiated, KPI. Is a. Key performance indicator. Key performance indicators. Or index. Um, so I don’t think we have those yet because we’re so high level still. Sure. Um, which is hard. Maybe just like committing to having. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. For the. Council has an approved it yet. So that’s tough. Yes. So. Yes. Can I just I want to clarify with in in exactly one year and is that it. Why not change the word to regular update. Sure. Right. Love it. Yes. I’m just one year makes it sound like well, we’re going to see them 12 months. And fair enough. But what is. Regular? It’s more. Elusive. Well, I think. Or what about every bi monthly every other month. How’s that. Well and or part of. Our. Six months going once twice. Yeah. I mean I think the council will understand our perspective of it’s got to be measurable. It’s got to be reported on a regular basis. Um. which is important. And, and I think we’re. In the community. Yeah, yeah. And then. If I may, phase two is in, I forget what a couple of these pages does. Phase two, assuming council goes ahead with this, start immediately after that July 8th, for example, which we and we do talk about. I think we’re going to use the word better communication to the public, not only continued, but that’s part of phase two. Yes. As we as we work through this not and you’ve talked about it, it’ll be on the website etcetera, etcetera. So yes. And to your point, Commissioner, it’s there for everybody who wants and knows how to go get it. So yeah. We’re looking to all of you to spend a lot. Of Tuesdays. There you go. If you get a survey take the survey also. There you go. See a lot of hands out there right. No. All right. Um, additional discussion. If not, I’m going to look to see if someone would like to move. Uh, the language that Miss Maguire has generated for us. Can you read it off one more time? Okay. No pressure. Yes. Okay. And this is again, you’re just recommending body to recommend that they file the study. So motion to recommend the city council receive and file the missing middle housing study with the acknowledgement that any future zoning changes shall be measurable and reported on a regular basis and tract on a publicly accessible platform. The Planning Commission will receive regular updates on the study and a recommendation that staff add in any additional context or cons that you can add onto the website and slides prior to council adoption. As well as a summary of concerns heard tonight. So moved. And we have a second. All those in favor. Say I. I opposed abstentions. All right. The city Council is going to has gotten our direction to receive and file the missing middle housing study with all those additional items that I will not try to repeat. But that motion has passed. Um, again, thank you all for being here tonight. We’re going to move on to staff and commissioner updates, which we’ll talk about upcoming meetings and anything else that’s going on that we need to know about. Can we do it on the next meeting? Uh, we can do it via email. Yeah, we’ll do it. The upcoming meetings will do via email. Okay. All right. But I would note the city council meeting on July the 7th, uh, if you wish to attend. Humane society will be on that one to the PUD amendment. Um, it’s up to you. Um. I’m good. Yeah. For whatever it’s worth, I will try to. go to the July 7th meeting. So if that, you know, alleviates people who don’t really want to go to a council meeting. Uh, feel free. Um, anything else? Otherwise, we are going to adjourn at 9:41 p.m.. Thank you.