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So moved.

Second.

All in favor of approving the December 11th, 2025 minutes, say I.

And so you'll just uh if we tell you too many stats at once, just slow us down. We can do that. And uh hopefully you'll find this uh an enjoyable reflection as uh the last year has concluded.

And we do this every year for those who are newer to the commission. It's a report uh that community development staff entirely.

So you see just a subset of the community development staff, but we're actually a little bit larger than um than you realize maybe.

We do have employees that serve what I call part-time on call. Uh meaning there are people that kind of help us out when we're in need.

Our staff have 24 different degrees. We have 43 different certifications and we have 30 committees or community groups that they serve on.

And so if you look at the totality of those employees, I would say pretty engaged in what's going on, not only in uh their field of expertise, whether that be building, economic development, housing, city planning, zoning, enforcement, that sort of thing. They're also serving on committees to help the community.

Probably the biggest HIA we've ever worked on, which is a housing improvement area, uh was the Chasewood Gates, uh or I'm sorry, bills at Chasewood. And I think originally it was in the $12.5 million range, but that the numbers did come down and we were able to do the whole project for 10.8 million.

As a reminder, it was 21 buildings, 188 units of housing, and they had lots of um I would say dilapidation on the the buildings and they were in need of updates and their association wasn't able to do all the improvements with the dollars they had in their funds.

And so really again, the city is that financing mechanism and we're a conduit uh for that financing to occur for those homeowners to pay the pay the financing back. Obviously, the city is not paying for that, but really good project. They're totally complete. Uh really good end result to that project.

I this area I want to highlight some of the pooling money that came into the affordable housing trust fund. So that was 5.2 2 million. The council just solidified that. Was it I think it was two meetings ago. And so we were able to put more money in the uh housing trust fund and I think that sits are we at 7 million in the fund today?

And so that is an amazing uh fund balance for that housing work and we continue to find ways to spend a lot of it and uh projects keep coming forward and we will continue to show those to you as we go along.

As you recall probably earlier in 25 we also did the commercial market analysis and so that was something we shared with you.

So the local housing trust fund grant that was to support a transitional unit. If you recall, the veil had that one unit where housing um people who are in need of housing through his house, which is our homelessness intervention company. Uh they can use this as a way to house those folks.

Then uh there was a Habitat affordable home ownership grant. We're hoping um that was 420,000 there. We're hoping that project gets off the ground this spring, so in a more uh uh meaningful way.

Then uh there was a Habitat affordable home ownership grant. We're hoping um that was 420,000 there. We're hoping that project gets off the ground this spring, so in a more uh uh meaningful way. There was some fencing put up and different things last year, but uh didn't quite get to the construction phase. So, we're hoping that happens this spring.

Then uh pretty often we're dealing with uh grants for homes within reach, and it's really to support their work in the affordable housing area.

I think we were at 84 85 uh cases last year. These are people who are asking for special permissions for various things.

So like for instance this one was [cough] sorry [clears throat] um for First International Bank on 394. It's actually off the front edge road and they actually are doing quite a facelift and quite an investment into this building.

I think you hear a lot about vacancy and office building issues and that sort of thing. This is a really good example of a reuse of an office building. And so they were able to do uh a bank and a remodel and um there's actually even a drive-thru included in their plans.

Marsh run 3, that's uh something you did look at and uh it's coming to fruition. They're actually applying for demolition of the existing building. So, this is off of Weisetta Boulevard, just east of the veil, west of the Burke, just the last kind of piece that they were going to redevelop.

So probably demolition permits in the next couple of weeks. Some outreach happening with the people who live around there to kind of forecast what the construction is going to look like. And so, that project is going to be built. 44 units there.

I think what was this the affordable housing >> four >> four okay so there are four units of affordable housing in there.

So what happens notoriously when a property like this property. This is the R&D facility near Cargill that is on the market currently. And so we get calls every day about wanting to develop the property. And so instead of having, you know, emails here and emails there, we just make a web page for the project and then we tell them all of the different requirements of the city.

So here's your procedural steps. Here are the rules about tree preservation. Here's the rules about wetland conservation. All of the things that they need to know as a developer that they're able to find on one uh website.

I was just going to add that we also put a lot of the various studies that we've done like the commercial market analysis, our housing studies, and those types of resources that are really difficult to email because they're hundreds of pages long.

It's been a really cool tool to be able to develop these sites.

And it's really easy for the developer to get at. And then also um it doesn't matter like if Alicia is meeting alone or I'm meeting alone or we have a group of people who maybe don't have everything at their fingertips. We just press this website and everything kind of is right there.

We actually have this for any office that is on the market. We have about five of these pages out there right now where we have really detailed information and um data that they can access really easily.

So we're really excited about um providing a little bit more support than probably we normally would do on a development site.

Yeah. I think also it's kind of cool because the brokers have and bankers and everyone else has been sharing it amongst themselves so they're getting the information out.

And that they're all getting the same data cuz that it's kind of like sometimes it's a game of telephone a little bit and um you probably know this Commissioner Anderson. Um the it's like well so and so said this and then so and so said that and like here here's the city's website and this is what was really said. So I think that's a a little bit more consistent information source as well.

You know our department is involved in the sustainability aspect. I would say our staff supports a very active commission because that commission goes out and they're ambassadors to a lot of different things in the community and you'll see them everywhere.

And this is just a picture of all the award winners uh from last year. Um this next week we'll look at the award applications um for this 2026 season. So we're excited.

I think there I just looked at before I came in here. I think there were 18 applications. So we're excited to have that. And of course, the idea is you have these awards that show really great work of residents, businesses, and youth that um lift up their projects to hopefully explain to other people how to be um better at conservation in whatever realm, whether it be solar or waste or uh you know, construction, etc.

So, this is just where uh Kirstston's work with economic development and businesses and then the sustainability folks came together and they had a session at the Weisetta chamber to help understand better for businesses what tools and access to programs could they use for their businesses.

And in fact, one of the businesses shared their um experience in some of these programs and it was a really great gathering of folks to brainstorm about how they could be more energy efficient and take advantage of some of the programs that are available.

So, uh this is really uptick. So, one of the things we offer and I asked this at the last I think I asked at planning commission how many have taken advantage of the city's home energy squad visit program?

Yeah, they came out to the house. Um, what's most helpful is they basically replace anything that needs to be replaced that they can replace. So, all your light bulbs, like they insulated some of my door frames,

Yeah. So, they just do everything and then they leave you with like a a list of very actionable to-dos.

So, really what was interesting, we had 54 visits a month last year and that's a huge uptick in what we were doing in years previously.

So really having a good response to and and that's to credit the sustainability commission and their outreach as well as um Ally in our office is constantly putting things on social media trying to get people excited.

So if you don't know, our department is responsible for the general public health of the city. And that can involve a lot of things. Think about swimming at the beach. Someone's testing, sampling. Think about where you're eating food in the community. Someone's going out and making sure the temperatures are right and storage is happening.

And I I give those examples because they're the most um tangible, but there's a lot of other areas that um are dealt with by public health.

So we did last uh the for the last 5 years we've had an average of about 531 inspections. Uh [clears throat] we are happy to report though that in uh 2025 we had 23 uh foodborne illness but you know we're coming down off some higher years there.

This one has to do with food related complaints and then there's food born illness complaints and then the last one is pools and beaches. So we don't get too many pools and beach complaints but definitely in the foodborne illness and then food related we still have to investigate a fair amount of uh requests in nuisances

I I don't like to use this number this is a high number for nuisances 2465 complaints since 2021 we had did have to deal with 10 citations in that time period and then we did 50 abatements

So when I say abatements. That means let's say we have somebody who can't is not able to take care of their property for whatever reason. Um maybe they're disabled, maybe they've had a life event that prevents them from taking care of their property. The city is called, we step in, and then we'll make an agreement with the property owner to clean up whatever is um difficult or um causing issues in the neighborhood.

And then we're able to collect the money needed uh to pay back the city and we do that through taxes and we do that fairly often. Um it isn't unusual to do that and uh we do that so that one the homeowner can keep the pride of their home uh but also not bother other neighbors or people who maybe are filing the complaint.

It's important that you know that the city actually doesn't look for complaints. So there is a city council policy about how the city does enforcement and we wait for the complaint and there are some rules about complaintants. You can't be anonymous. That sort of thing.

Now the data that somebody can complain is protected. So let's say one of the commissioners called me and complained about their neighbor. Your your name is actually protected unless there's a court action against the property owner. And so that can come out later, but initially it's a private matter uh that your complaint is filed.

So we've had some really amazing building numbers. I when I saw the number, it's a little over 300 million for last year in total construction. A good year for Minnetonka, I always say is in the 200s. Uh 225 feels pretty healthy to me. Um but when we get up into the 300s we're looking at some pretty high value and uh that was a good year despite you know having a lot of office vacancy there al also was a lot of turnover in office space and that's where some of this number is coming from.

And so very healthy 10,000 permits issued highest in the seven years um that we've had. So again, lots of activity. Some of that has to do with that roof thing I mentioned before. [laughter] I think we had I can't remember how many permits we had. 1,200 maybe were roofs. So it was a very high number.

But look what's happening in the residential market here. So you had 3,100 permits filed for reinvestment. So people are doing something in their home. They're adding on. They're adding a garage. are doing something. Um, but this is ticking way up.

We thought we were busy during um, COVID years because everybody was at home and doing their permitting. And so this 2500 was um, a pretty high number for us historically. But this has really really gotten to be a high number. And so we watch that because we want to watch people whether or not they're investing or disinvesting in their houses, right?

So the investment in terms of permit value, $75 million were was spent in in those reinvestments. So of that 300 million, that's 75 of it was residentially related.

The average residential reinvestment per year if you did the average is about 64 million.

I always provide the new home permit totals although it doesn't really matter too much to the overall construction because we don't build that many new single uh unit houses.

So in this uh chart you can see on the left it is from 21 to 25. So we average, you know, 35 40 in in the year 2022, but this past year it was 36 homes.

And the places you think about that are estates that have been redeveloped. So on Plymouth Road, there's a project off to the east and then there's one off to the west as you go north toward Ridgedale and those are where those new permits are getting issued. There's another development way out on uh the west side of town on Ridgewood and so there's homes going in there as well.

Permit values though very high. Uh that doesn't seem to change a whole lot it in terms of the last 3 years. Uh we've seen some fluctuation obviously after 2022 those numbers just really really jumped. um price of construction has jumped. So that part isn't a surprise.

But uh remember this does not include the property itself. So these are only construction permitting values. And so that part is a little disturbing, but again it's not a big part of our our market.

The average new home construction size is 5,125 square ft. So not small homes indicating you know why that price is where it is.

So if you don't know we do manage all the licensing for the city. So we do on and off sale. We do food lodging. We do solicitors which this year with that roofing incident caused a whole lot of soliciting going on in the community. And if you don't know we do track everyone who has a permit in the city. we do a background check etc. And so there's lots of um paperwork that goes along with that.

Average facilities licensed and in the last four years 5 years 614 uh facilities and then here is the type of licensing. And so you have contractor licensing, you have business licenses, and then you have liquor licenses.

And so you might ask why is it 549 and then it drops to 435? We do have some HVAC licenses that go for three years. So, you won't see them back in the queue again for another year. So, that's why you see it here and then you don't see it again till here. So, three-year licensing makes that um makes that number look like it does.

And so uh this is just to kind of recap where we are. Administratively, we issue about 63 packets, um per week or overall. And so that's more than one a week. We always say we work in a deadline mode, right? We're always in the newspaper business. Get that packet out the door. So, if you ever notice any typos, I'm sorry cuz maybe we just lost uh lost our momentum in that particular week.

We wrote over 200 reports in the last year as well that were either reviewed by you, the council, sustainability planning commission, um what have you and study session, forgot about that, study sessions, too.

Uh, chair, I just want to comment. Uh, you know, I loved the comment about the, uh, the point about how many committee and community groups that the staff are, uh, a part of and, um, but and just a fantastic uh, staff and team here. I didn't know all that encompassed uh the work that you do the full scope. So that was really helpful and um I just want to say thank you.

Wonderful. I'd echo just the comments. The story map was very cool and laid out well. Those are cool ArcJS tools. So happy to see that.

Oh, I just had a comment. Um, I was very um apprec appreciative of of the the completion of the villas at Chasewood Housing Improvement Area project. Um, and also that it incurred lower than anticipated costs, so we didn't have to go into that $1.5 million budgeted contingency. Um, so, yay. [laughter]

One question as well. Um, Miss Wishnack, do you remember what the origin of the Chasewood funding was? Like, did they come to us? Did we proactively know just cuz that's the type of thing that we want to organically seed as much as possible?

Thank you, Chair, if I may. Uh, Commissioner Heg, the uh the way we usually get in touch with these folks is there's some kind of huge pending issue, right? and they're usually brainstorming and their management company or someone in management understands that the city has this financing and they bring it up to them.

Then typically Alicia, I or a combination of staff will go and meet with the homeowners association to give them a an education about what it is and how it works because I think sometimes I it's confusing, right? Like why is the city here? why are you why are you doing the financing? Why don't we just do it ourselves? Why can't we ask for a bank to do it?

We do um anytime we hear from a homeowners association, say they call Kendall and they ask a question like, "We're really having a hard time with our road and our fees are getting getting too high." and then we might do the the education at that point and try to get into a conversation with them.

They're not easy to do, especially when this large. Think about all of the back and forth you have and and we like them to go to their HOA, but because they see city on there, they'll call us about I don't know, Kendall, like rebates on windows and they'll call us on, you know, just various things where you're like, well, we're just tax advice. We had that this last week.

And it's really the HOA who's their go-to people, but then it ends up in our lap, but that's okay. I mean, we can spend time educating and that we that's our job. And so, we're happy to do that.

We think there are, what was our number on total? Is it 85 town home and condo complexes in the city? And so if you take down the 85 number and then you go, well, how many of those probably are in this situation? Probably 25, I'm guessing, are in a situation like this. How many have we helped? Four. >> Three. >> Three. So we've helped three situations like this. So there's more work to do for sure.

I wanted to do a quick um just update on some of the things that we're doing around um impacts due to operation metro surge. So, we do have um just starting out, we have a page on our website that has a compilation of the various resources for folks who may be impacted.

More specifically, we've a few of us have been meeting with on weekly calls with Henipin County um and other staff from other communities to talk about the various resources that are available. So, um those meetings have been taking place um led by our DEI uh person chase.

The um groups that have been most involved have been the local school districts, the regional nonprofits, the religious institutions, and then as I mentioned, Henman County and the cities. And through those various meetings, we share the resources that are available not only to businesses, but to our residents um and communicate out through various channels, all trying to track all these different resources that are out there.

So specifically on the emergency rental assistance side, we've been mainly directing folks to Henipin County. We have a partnership with a maton and our Minnotonka funds that um funnel through his house foundation.

So specifically Henipin County, the main landing point there is rent help rent help Henipin. Um and then they also have their own response page as well. CAPHC is another resource that is providing rental assistance. AA and then Minnotonka as I mentioned.

And next week I believe on the council agenda, not next week, a week from Monday, there will be an additional action to add some rental assistance funding and um homelessness being brought to the council for consideration. um I think it's a h 100,000 for rental assistance and 50,000 for homelessness assistance and uh that'll supplement we have some existing funds in there already but just to make sure that we have funding available for people when they need it.

There's also just a lot of local nonprofits um collecting funding and various resources to share out in the community. um some of those donations um specifically are being used for rent assistance for um undocumented folks and that's a great need because the city programming cannot provide um rental assistance for that purpose. So they're kind of offsetting the other funding source so they can provide that resource as needed.

So there's um places like Stand with Minnesota, the Women's Foundation, um the South Lake Housing Relief Effort, and then the Open Your Heart Emergency Rent Relief Fund are all um doing separate fundraising for those efforts.

On the business side, Elevate Henipin is really coordinating all the various resources through their online platform. As of just about 3:00 today, they announced their new emergency loan. So that is going to be, I believe it's $3,000 to $10,000 that businesses in Henipin County can apply for, and I think the county put in about $2 million for that. And that'll open up here on the 18th. So, you'll probably see some push messaging from us around that.

We also um have our own emergency um loan which was set up just right after COVID to help our businesses that were struggling during that time. So we still have a pretty good balance in there. Just a little less than probably $45,000 and that's a $2,500 forgivable loan. So that's something else that is available for our businesses and that's available anytime. It's not just now. So we'll continue to um have that program available moving forward.

The salt cure fund um is another one that it's basically for min Minnesota restaurants. They went through a first round and I know a second round will be opening soon.

Minneapolis Foundation is collecting funding for small business relief. On the last call, they had about 3.5 million. And then the Minnesota Promise Act was um money that was a direct impact or directly set up due to um after the murder of George Floyd um to help the businesses that were impact um through that.

And they had spent a pretty significant amount of that um funding, but there's a balance of $58 million sitting there and they're trying to figure out how to reorganize the um guidelines so that they could use that now and help the businesses t