I really want to mythbust this a little bit the algorithm that the Met Council uses relies heavily on the differential between the cost of housing and the salaries in a city for the workforce in a city we have the hospital we have shopping malls we have the school district are the three biggest Employers in our city...those are all really low paying jobs the cost of a house median cost of a house is over $700,000 that differential is huge therefore that 1800 number is very large...I really want to mythbust that 1800 number I I don't want that to be foundational to our decisions because I think it's it's an artificial number

I see a disconnect between what um all these documents have shown are the needs in the city and the options that have been available to us the three things that I see we need affordable housing Force Workforce housing and that's 60% of Ami and higher um senior affordable housing and housing for um adults with developmental disabilities um those are what I've seen as the needs for our city um I think there's a real disconnect between the funding sources available and meeting those needs

the general fund is not the purview of this body we are the HRA and we do not not have the authority to tap those funds in order to provide Financial Resources for the development arm of the city...there's a lot of cross between what the city council does and when actual decisions are being made we go to the proper body...financial resources are distinct and we Levy for the general fund as the council it is a discret bucket of money and we Levy for the HRA it's a discret bucket of money

I did go through and I know your report for compliance was on the consent agenda back in December and I went through that and I compared it with the um compliance report the previous year and I am getting very concerned because so many of these places are not compliant with our affordable housing policy and it appears they've been non-compliant for at least two years...I don't think we can count them as affordable housing if they're not functioning as affordable housing...if this is a dialogue about where to put money and what to do I think we need to acknowledge that

I think would be helpful is maybe getting more in the weeds and I know that you know you never want us to be too far in the weeds but having more tactical attainable goals that we set um that's a little bit more specific...things that are specific to Workforce housing with teachers nurses officers whatever it might be of people who work in the community...should we be prioritizing kid-friendly or kid focused kind of Housing...should we look at um you know like a tiny home Village that focuses on that sustainability completely green...I think taking what had been more of a macro level View...will help us in Meeting those goals better

I mean years ago when I first got to be mayor uh pente was the governor and I don't know how I ended up on this task force but it was a state task force on on housing the connection between housing jobs and transportation...we worked for months...we were all over the country looking at how cities an are is go about creating that connection between housing jobs and transportation that triangulation...the report went on the Shelf at Minnesota Housing Finance never to be seen again so it might be something worth trying to resurrect

one of my concerns you know and I I was really happy to attend it was the 2025 Regional legislative breakfast last Friday and it was all about affordable housing and seeing what other communities are doing...one thing that really struck me...I sat at a table um with a woman who was part of the fundraising arm in Minnetonka okay and so it's not just the city and the taxpayer dollars that are going to Affordable house there is a very robust fundraising arm and we don't really have that here...we're not necessarily looking at total cost when we come up with these ideas and who is going to get hit...we talk about naturally occurring affordable housing and how important that is...at the same time we'll have a naturally occurring affordable house that the market has not torn down it still stands and the ask will be can we rezone this so we can build town homes that are 700 or $800,000

densification is not resulting in affordable housing it's resulting in more seven and 800 or even million plus housing so there's that the other thing is they we were talking about Bloomington and what Bloomington does and they have a 9% affordable housing policy for their new multif family and you know how did we land on the 10% fore and I'm wondering because we I mean the proposal was to lower it to eight for a recent project and I don't you know and and so how if we've got these policies but we're not upholding them or we're being asked to diminish them then I I think that is a little bit rattling for residents

I look at my neighborhood where we have smaller more affordable modest homes that have a single car garage and I just I walk the street and they and I just think this is not going to be here it's going to be wiped out by 800 900 doll homes with big garages...I do get concerned when I it seems like we will sacrific Noah to add another unit and I guess I I don't think prices will fall I think that they will not increase as quickly

if we said Workforce housing was a primary emphasis of ours just by way of example and we looked at that triangulation issue that we're going to figure out a way to provide housing for Workforce personnel and uh connect those jobs connect them to their jobs easily through a system of transportation that didn't require them to even take public transportation they could walk right then you start things start getting concentrated in a hurry in the saltdale district and we're we got a lot of density there already you know so that has its own think through sort of issues where where would where would you put it to try to achieve uh those goals of connectivity

we are doing that with the w I'll call it the Walt houses the Noah houses where you got a right of first refusal we don't have a right of first refusal there's a ground Le placed on them so they have to be sold into affordability for 99 years okay um but again the financing for that I think there's enough funding for one or two more homes but through that program...supplies running low I mean we're we're getting to a point there's far fewer on the market...the supplies were we're we fighting time and supply and the cost to do one of those each year continues to go up right because of the pent up Demand right so those homes that two years ago were 425 are now 500 and so they're going up every year and so we're our Gap would be increasing

when the affordable housing policy was first approved and even prior to it was being approved um the enforcement was pretty soft um as you can see AR is no longer on this map because they um they and avador and Aurora were pretty much approved by resolution there was no Redevelopment agreement that required them or it was in the sipa and once the SI once the project is built there's no teeth left to be able to ongoing enforcement so it is the bully pulpit as we have heard said that would keep them in line with other projects that have financing we hold back we hold back their Tiff payment until they're in compliance

I really want to ensure that like we're setting the people up for Success that we're bringing into the community um and kind of where I'm going with that like without being as specific is like I've observed some of the otherness of like oh you come from that part of the city or um oh you're in that housing you're other and so how can we really Stitch things together and not just create housing that is other housing