Oh, it's close to would like to call the Richfield Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting of August 17, 2026 to order. Uh staff will note tonight's attendance. Uh this brings us to the open forum. Uh participants can share their comments in person by voicemail or email and may also request to participate virtually. Uh for more information on submitting comments, refer to the housing and redevelopment authority agenda and minutes page on the city's website. Uh is there uh anyone here tonight would like to address the H. >> Did we receive any other communications? >> I did not receive any communications. Thank you. Uh with that, I would like to uh entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. >> I'll move approval of the agenda. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded to approve the agenda. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. The uh approval of the minutes of the regular housing and redevelopment authority meeting of July 20th, 26. Is there a uh a motion to approve those minutes? >> I'll move to approve the minutes. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded to approve the minutes. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. We don't uh have any presentations or anything on the consent calendar tonight or any public hearings, but we do have some resolutions. Uh so we'll move down to item number 10 on the agenda. Our first resolution is consideration of a resolution transferring unspent grant funds to the economic development authority for use in the apartment remodeling and loan program. And with this, I will uh ask for the staff report. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen, members of the board. Uh assistant director Julie Urban will present the report tonight. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen, members of the HR. In 2019, the Housing and Redevelopment Authority received a grant from Affordable Suburban Housing, a local nonprofit that supported affordable housing in suburban communities. Affordable Suburban Housing was dissolving as an organization at that time and was dispersing its remaining assets. ASH awarded $100,000 to the HR to support affordable housing in this community. The HA created a program with the award to provide rehabilitation grants to naturally occurring affordable housing properties or Noah specifically to be used on improvements to units occupied by longtime tenants. One grant in the amount of $45,000 was awarded in 2020, but the remaining funds have gone unspent. Staff is recommending that the funds be transferred to the Economic Development Authority to be used in its apartment remodeling program. While staff can continue to try and market improvements to occupied units, combining the funds with the apartment remodeling program will allow greater flexibility and ability to get the funds spent. So, we would recommend that you approve a resolution transferring $55,000 in those unspent affordable suburban housing grant funds to the EDA for use in the apartment remodeling program. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. Uh any uh questions from the uh from the board? >> I guess uh seeing no questions, I'll uh entertain a motion. >> I'll move to approve a resolution transferring $55,000 in unspent affordable suburban housing grant funds to the economic development authority for use in the apartment remodeling program. >> Second. Is there a second? Second. >> Second. Okay. Um any uh comments from the commission. >> All with that. Um all in favor of the motion before us say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. This mouse seems to go dead. >> That was the mouse that wasn't working when we canvased. So, if you need to look at my >> Okay. Yeah, this mouse has been going off and on. All right. We have a um another resolution to consider resolutions approving the 2027 proposed housing redevelopment authority budget and tax levy and 2026 revised housing and redevelopment authority budget. And with that, I will uh ask for the staff report. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen, members of the board. The bylaws of the Richfield HR require that an annual budget be submitted to the HR commissioners for approval accordingly. that's been provided to you in your packet. And I will present tonight uh a summary of the revised 2026 and proposed 2027 budgets. In addition, Minnesota state statutes require adoption of a preliminary levy from each taxing authority. That proposed levy must be certified to the county by September 30th. Any amendments to the proposed budget, which would increase the property tax levy, must be made prior to this deadline. No increases in the tax levy are permissible after the state only reductions and with that I'm going to move to the presentation slides here and all right to get started uh just a reminder of the mission of the HR and our areas of focus. The work of the HR and the EDA uh is focused on strategic investments in our community. The proposed budget continues to place emphasis on work to further the desired outcomes of the city's strategic plan, specifically activities that aim to create a vibrant downtown, diversify the tax base, and maintain Richfield as an affordable place to live. Next slide, please. H and EDA is staffed by the community development department. The two bodies together pay more than half of the salaries of 10 of our 21 community development uh department employees. Some of that staff time is reimbursed um for instance by HUD um for our federal section 8 um housing choice voucher program and also things like uh Minnesota bring it home program and there are tiff admin funds that come in for that as well. Um and I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the exceptional group of women that you have running these programs for you. Next slide please. So jumping right into the numbers. This slide um is very high level. You can see our 2025 actuals and then the 2026 um adopted, revised and 2027 proposed budgets. There are significant variations from year to year. This is not unusual for the HR. A couple of highlevel things. Um I'm going to give you a couple of highle things to think about as we go through this. Um we'll start with these high level details and then dig into the um sorry start with high level and then dig into the details in the next slides. So um our work does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in response to opportunity. Opportunity varies um by there are many outside forces uh impacting our work. The revised budget can reflect opportunities that do not respect our budgeting calendar. for instance, things that we we don't know are going to come up in a few months and we will revise from there. Things that are on the horizon. Uh we bring those items to you after the fact. You approve them um or deny as a separate item and then they're memorialized as part of a revised budget. Increases can often indicate that there was an opportunity to leverage fund balances like pool tiff uh to spur private investment or to address problem properties in the community. Reductions can reflect market realities when projects don't move forward or the identification of alternative funding sources. These budgets also reflect pass through funding like section 8 and grant dollars and those can inflate those numbers. So, moving into the specifics of 2026, you'll see there's a reduction in the general fund. Uh, and that is primarily the removal of expenditures that are tiff eligible. So, those have been moved. They should come out of the housing and redevelopment fund. They should not be general fund expenses and that's why you're seeing that reduction there. There are several smaller fluctuations in this budget as well. But the large increase in the total budget is reflecting the transfer that's going to be made going to be made due to the expiration of the temporary spending plan legislation. And that is offset by a corresponding revenue increase in the funds it will be transferred to. For 2027 proposed, the total HA budget is going down and that is primarily reflecting grant funds that will be fully expended in 2026. That's why you see such a a large increase there in 2026. However, costs are continuing to rise and some funding sources are diminishing. We have increased staff and administrative costs. That's not just salaries and insurance, although that is there, but it's also reflecting an increase in hours for our housing team and reduced administrative revenue from non-general fund sources like tiff admin. The age h budget was helped this year by some work in the IT department to reallocate charges um as part of our essential services um plan. the IT department was looking to properly allocate all of their services to the correct programs and divisions and the HA received a benefit um from that. The EDA received a commensurate increase as uh funds were allocated over there. So we'll have more details about that as we go on. Next slide. Uh the the H budget document as I'm sure you saw this weekend can be confusing. There are a lot of funds. Every fund has different rules. Money generally cannot be co-mingled. However, it can be spent from multiple funds to fund one specific program. Um there are special and temporary legislation rules that come into play for a couple of years and then they go away and all of that can lead to a lot of confusion. So each year I try to come up with the best way to simplify this and summarize it for you. These slides break down the budget into a few larger buckets of sources and uses. And primarily my intent here is to help you understand the overall picture, particularly some of these large fluctuations from year to year. On the top half of the slide, you'll see um the money, the new money that is coming into the HR in 2026 and 2027. Top line is obviously the levy. Those are the taxes. You'll see that in 2027, we are proposing a 0% increase to the levy. And I'm going to get into the reasons for that recommendation as we move through the rest of the presentation. The next line is intergovernmental revenues. These are funds from other government units. The majority is from HUD, from the federal government for the section 8 housing choice voucher program. It also includes grants like CDBG at least through 2026. Um, and also a number of me council grants. This also includes state funds like the LAA funds, the local affordable housing aid sales tax funds that are now coming in and bringing it home Minnesota voucher funds. So that that is a large source of revenue and it's gotten a lot larger over these last couple of years. Um, in the past few years, programs and projects have really benefited from significant grant awards and also that expansion of funding. The drop in revenue you see in 2027 in that uh row is the difference from the grant receipts. And again, keep that in mind as we move into a discussion of the levy. Miscellaneous revenues is the next row. These are somewhat unpredictable revenue sources. They are loan repayments, land sales, investment earnings, the value of new assets when we purchase properties, um changes in the value of property that we own, things like that. And then the final row here, pulled tiff. A reminder that we use these not just for redevelopment, but also uh for purchase substandard property purchases and our some of our affordable housing programming. Uh like I did last year, I want to call your attention to the drop in those revenues as both the Interchange West and Urban Village districts descertified. The good news is that the full tax capacity of those properties is now um available to all taxing jurisdictions in including the city's general uh tax levy. Moving down to expenditures. Um, this breakdown is it's a breakdown of what you saw on the last slide, but it eliminates some of the double counting that the transfers tend to show in your overall budget numbers. And it also pulls together costs that are funded from various sources. For example, in personnel, you can see that personnel is not entirely funded by the general fund. You'll recall from the previous slide that the general fund budget is roughly $600,000. So, this is showing you that there are other sources like TIFF admin and section 8 um administrative funds that are helping to pay the administrative costs, the the staff salaries and things like that um of the HA. Administration is uh our building rent, our IT services, insurance equipment, um and also things like professional development for staff. And a reminder that just like in personnel, some of this is paid by those other sources. The final row here, programs, is everything else. It's the money that we are investing in the community. And like some of the others, this can vary significantly from year to year based on opportunities and the market. But the takeaway here is that the HR is investing a significant amount of money into the community each year. In 2026, it's over $4.7 million and in 2027 looking at about $4.3 million. So, a lot of money going back in the community um to serve our mission. This is a new slide this year. Um, the budget document, like I said, is organized by funding sources. This slide is organizing our spending by major program. I'm not going to go through all of these, but it's a simple way to illustrate that we are continuing to increase our program funding and our program types. You'll see things like the new initiative there that is um what's coming out of our housing study, the new program that we'll introduce in 2027. Um emergency rental assistance, bring it home. You see these the program offerings continue to increase as well as the funding within each of these programs. This slide is the history of the amount that the HA has levied versus the maximum that we could levy each year. Prior to 2019, we had always maximized the HR levy. Then there was a period of years where we brought it down to essentially mirror the city's uh general levy increase. And then over the last several years, we've um levied between we've we've increased the levy by about 3 to 4%. Like I mentioned earlier, we are proposing no increase for the HA levy for 2027. And I'll get into some of those details now. Um over the past several years, the HA's work has benefited from added flexibility granted by the state legislature. Uh there's been special legislation and that is legislation that was only for a few cities, Richfield included, that allowed us to transfer unobligated tax increment to our affordable housing trust fund. that allowed us to spend pulled tax increment for uses we normally wouldn't have been able to. Additionally, there was temporary legislation following the pandemic that also gave us additional flexibility to use tax or increment for projects that would spur development. Now, tax increment is generally a very restricted source of funds. Um, it's strictly controlled. There are very limited uses on which we can spend it. And for that reason, it's very important that the HA maintain other unobligated uh fund balances that we can spend on things that are not TIFF eligible. Again, we don't always know when those opportunities will arise. So, it's important for us to maintain healthy balances in those funds. Um, normally we would have needed to use those unobligated funds uh to help preserve affordability for the three Noah buildings that were purchased in 2025. However, this special legislation that we had allowed us to transfer unobligated increment to the affordable housing trust fund and use it from there. So, it allowed us to use a funding source that we had and not not spend down a different fund balance. We have also been able to expand our program without dipping into those unobligated funds thanks to the creation of LAA that affordable housing uh local local affordable housing aid. Did I get that right there? Yes. Thank you. Uh and the creation of the Bring It Home Minnesota State Voucher Program. And then third, for the last couple of years, we've made the decision to spend down some program fund balances rather than using transfers from the general fund to supplement that programming. And that is also temporarily reducing that pressure on the levy. So, while our pooling revenues are dropping, and this is something that we absolutely need to monitor, given this temporary additional flexibility and the extra funding that we've had over the last couple of years, our fund balances are in a healthy position. And in an economy where everything seems to be more expensive, this is an opportunity we fail to hold the line for the taxpayers. Um, this cannot be forever. You can't you can't maintain your program forever without increasing the levy, but it is an option that both the finance department and I believe that you could reasonably exercise this year. And that's why we're recommending that. Moving on. So, covering some 2026 highlights, letting you know uh what your budget is accomplishing. Despite the fact that there hasn't been a lot of large-scale development, we have been busy. Uh we have been at full staff for over a year now. Everyone, please knock on wood. Uh this this does really make a difference. On on the one hand, it makes a difference in that we are spending uh most of our personnel budget. For several years, we were coming in under that because we we were not fully staffed. Uh but but we are spending that, but also it makes it a lot easier to get through our work plan when we are fully staffed. Um we're still short on the city side, but um thankful for this. Our section 8 staff was recognized again for the exceptional administration of the housing choice voucher program. Penn Station at 65th in Penn is under construction and it's expected to be complete in December, which is actually earlier than predicted. are planned. This project brings deeply affordable units, units with three and four bedrooms and accessible units to the community. And as a reminder, the HA sold this land to the developer and provided additional funding assistance in support of that project. The foundation picture you see on your slide here is our first Richfield rediscovered duplex, which is under construction. Now, this is a demonstration project that we've been working on for several years and we're very excited about. We're putting our zoning changes into practice. There were a lot of challenges to get this uh work done, but our hope is that the extra work done here by the HA on the front end to get some of these projects into the market will in effect grease the wheels for the private market, provide some comps, and make it easier for others to do similar things throughout the community. We had a larger thanex expected LAA amount uh certified for 2026. Uh and that's allowing us to spend $100,000 on emergency rental assistance uh in response to needs brought on by Operation Metro Surge as well as ongoing demand. We had a small grant from the Met Council that's allowing us to increase the hours of our part-time housing specialists who are working on new programming. We completed work on a 41 tax classification policy to guide us as we consider requests for financial assistance for housing preservation and affordable new construction. And we're investing in downtown. We've been holding funds to invest in wayfinding activities in this area for several years. It's been a project that had been stalled out, but the completion of the branding and placemaking playbook on more of on the EDA side of things has reignited this work and we expect to get these dollars out the door in 2026 and then invest even more in 2027. Continuing with 2026, uh Woodlon Terrace, our manufactured home community, continues to sell new homes. We've had three this so so far this year and a fourth is expected to close soon. Uh these are to firsttime home buyers using our Met Council grant to help the units um help make the units affordable. In this slide you can see some very happy homeowners and staff. We're well on the way to implementing the new bringit home voucher program. We expect to issue our first two vouchers on September 1st and hope to issue 10 a month until we're fully operational. Uh that should be roughly 40 vouchers. And we continue to spend the seven grants that the city uh and HA received for HR projects between 2023 and 2025. That's a total of about $3.3 million. And we'll finish spending these grants in 2026 and early 2027. So, we always cover our new work and new goals, but I want to remind everyone of the business at usual work that also continues alongside this. We continue to provide rent assistance to approximately 265 homes, our households. We continue to administer our single family programs, which include our first-time home buyer program, New Home, and Richfield Rediscovered, plus managing um an extensive loan loan portfolio. Every other year we continue to plan, organize, and run the remodeled home tour. It will be on October 3, so mark your calendars. We continue to provide funding for a variety of popular technical and financial remodeling assistance programs like the home energy squad enhanced program, the architectural consultation program, CE remodeling advisor, and the CE fix up fund home improvement loans. And then amidst all that, we are administering and managing our 11 active TIFF districts. So moving into some challenges that we're seeing in 2026 and we expect to continue into 2027. First off, the economy, uh, labor, materials, insurance, all costs related to development are up. Um, it is very hard to make any sort of development project pencil out right now. even if the HR would step in to assist. And that we expect that to continue into 2027. The HA's first-time home buyer program has seen lower utilization this year as interest rates remain high. Fewer homes are on the market. We also suspect that Operation Metro Surge may have impacted uh utilization of this program. Typically, the HR issues 10 to 11 loans annually. In 2025, eight loans were issued, and we've only had two so far in 2026. We do continue to budget resources for this program and work with our partners uh to identify qualified buyers. While we have one duplex under construction, we have two remaining lots that we'd like to see developed with new homes that meet HRA priorities and serve as demonstration projects to the market. Um, just after the budget last year, we were able to purchase a substandard home. It was a high content house, so we invested HR dollars to clean that up and demolish the structures. Um the vacant lot will be marketed later this year for a market rate home proposal that meets HR priorities. And then we have a second available lot that we'd like to develop as affordable, but we have struggled to identify um a partner with the capacity to do that. Um so we'll continue to look for partners, resources, and other creative ways to make these projects work. Um, we are excited to see the one. Sorry, still I think I'm still on the last one. There we go. Uh, excited to see the full value of the two tiff districts increase our overall tax capacity. That is after all the goal of a redevelopment district. Uh the flip side of that is for the past 25 years, the administrative funding and contributions to the housing and redevelopment fund have been a direct set aside for other redevelopment and housing work in the community. In 2026, we'll have approximately $360,000 less coming in to those funding sources. Um and that's something that we'll have to continue to adjust to and and monitor. And then the HA also owns several other properties, several commercial properties, and the market has really not been in a place to develop or redevelop these. Um, they tend to not be the most desirable properties in the community. That's why the HA got involved to begin with, but it it's been particularly challenging these last uh few years, and again, we expect that to continue into 2027. Now, I'm ready. Thanks, Michelle. So looking ahead to our 2027 goals in 2026 we reorganized to consolidate inspections activities and to increase time available for housing work. We also increased the part-time housing specialist hours like I mentioned. So while we can't control external partner capacity, we are increasing our internal capacity. Um we're pulling all the levers we can and this feels really good. This feels aligned with the city's work to be making these changes. The uh in 2027, we plan to adopt and implement new housing rehab programs. Uh we're focusing on outreach, making sure that information about our housing programs is reaching all of our community members. We continue to hear that people are sometimes not aware of the programming that we have available. We anticipate fully implementing Bring it Home Minnesota. We're looking to evaluate uh and market those all of the HA owned uh properties. Supporting any redevelopment opportunities that may come up uh that we we don't foresee right now, but that might come up. Continuing our legislative advocacy related to housing trust funds, special legislation, and 4D aid for cities. And then this is the first time I'm mentioning this to this group. Um, but for foreshadowing some work that I'd like to discuss with you to combine the HRA and the EDA, I'd like to explore that. Um there's a lot more to come in the specifics of that, but this could really increase some efficiencies, provide some efficiencies on staff's side rather than these duplicative efforts where the HRA and the EDA are adopting the same policies. Um there there is the ability under statute to to have an EDA with HRA powers. So retaining the best of both under a single body. So, we've started to do some of the background work on that and I expect to bring that to the policy makers either late in 26 or early 27 so that we could potentially implement it for the 2028 budget. All right. So, then just some t Oh, actually, can we go back to the one more slide? >> I forgot my joke. [laughter] >> This is our wish list item. This image here, these are code compliant, affordable Richfield bungalows, in case you were wondering. Um, they might be made of gingerbread, but someday we we hope that they are they are real affordable bungalows. It's fun in fun in our department. All right. And then uh >> respectfully, executive director Palman, I don't see any off street parking provided with those. [laughter] code. >> Um, Commissioner Hayford, you can't see the alley. That's they're they're rear loaded. [gasps] >> All right. And then we'll close out just with some some takeaways here. Um, key takeaways. So, staff again in we're increasing hours. We're repositioning staff. Um, I feel good about the changes we're making and again being fully staffed and being stable is making is making this possible. um feels like we're prioritizing the right things. On the funding side, kind of a mixed bag. Our federal CDBG allocation is um is ending. We'll spend the last of those funds this year. Um that is unfortunate to be part of the consolidated Henipin County um pool now, but you know, we will adjust. In section 8, we're planning for possible admin shortfalls in both 26 and 27. We did that in 2025 as well. We planned for that shortfall. We did not end up needing to make that transfer from the general fund and we're hopeful that again um HUD funds will cover all of our staff costs related to that program. Uh the loss of tax increment flexibility and declining revenues. We talked about this, but um one more thing that I'll add is that as this expires, we'll need to talk about moving those spending plan funds either back to the housing and redevelopment fund or moving um some or all of them into the affordable housing trust fund before the end of the year. So, right now the budget uh is showing the the funds being transferred just back to the housing and redevelopment fund, but we will bring that to the policy makers for a specific discussion of pros and cons um and where we should move that later this fall. Uh local affordable housing aid, the LAA again um our certified amount for 2026 was $699,000 which was significantly more than we were anticipating. We had estimated receiving about 400,000. We are focusing these funds on programs. Additional funds means that we can fund emergency rental assistance on an ongoing basis. Uh we'll also spend Laha on down payment assistance on our new rehab programs that are in development. And we'll use LAHA to plug that hole um that will be created with the loss of the direct CDBG allocation. Once again, we have uh reminding you that we have healthy fund balances. The temporary flexibility has left us in um in a good position as well as the additional funds coming from the state. Bring it home should be fully operational soon. Um and we expect to bring those new programs to you in early 27. Finally, just closing out one more time with the levy, the proposed uh no proposed increase for 2027. and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about that or about the budget as a whole. And that concludes my presentation. >> All right. Well, that was a very very thorough presentation. Uh any questions from uh from H. I guess seeing no questions, uh is there a motion for the uh recommended action? Uh I move that we adopt the attached resolutions approving the 2027 proposed H budget and tax levy and the 2026 revised H budget. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded. U any comments? Um Commissioner Supple. >> Um first of all I just want to say thank you for the very thorough presentation. when we go through this, it reminds me of all the work that's being done and it is when you start looking through it is a tremendous body of work. So, thank you for everything you're doing for the community. Um, I also think that I'm glad we changed the policy. I remember back before 2019 when we always tried to max out the levy and I don't think you should just max it out just to be maxing it out. I think it's more appropriate to do what we're doing now and levy what we need because the need the money as well. So, I think that was a good um policy change and I understand that at some time down the road we're going to have to levy more, but I think it's good to do the 0% levy this time around. So, thank you. >> Okay. Any other u comments? >> Uh Commissioner Hay for Deliri. >> Um yeah, I just wanted to say I appreciate the presentation as well. Um, I'm particularly looking forward to hear more about the H EDA combination because I guess briefly I don't know why it is the way it is and it is it is confusing from a policy maker perspective to even just now I was like oh there's almost nothing budgeted for the downtown branding thing and then it was in the EDA budget and it was like oh yeah. So anyway, that would be helpful. I look forward to hearing more about that. Um I agree with Commissioner Supple's comment about the budget. I feel like there are always things I wish we could be spending more on but I don't feel like there's anything burning that needs to happen more this year. So, I think it is helpful for the city as a whole to be able to keep that steady. Thank you. >> Okay. Any uh anything else, >> Commissioner? >> I'd echo the comments that I really appreciate the thorough report. When I first saw 0%, I was concerned that that meant that the city wasn't or the H wasn't going to be invested in the same work that it's done in previous years. But I I think your report really covered why we can continue doing the work that we're doing with a 0% levy. So I really um appreciated the background information on that um and I'll be supporting it. >> All right. Any u anything else? Okay. Well, a motion has been made and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? Okay. Well, that brings us to our final resolution of the evening, which is consideration of an update to the inclusionary housing policy, and I will uh ask for the staff report. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen, and once again, Assistant Director Urban will present the report. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen, members of the HA. Back in 2019, the city, the housing and redevelopment authority, and the economic development authority adopted an inclusionary housing policy to encourage the inclusion of affordable housing in development proposals. Under the IHP policy, housing development projects that receive financial assistance from the city HR or EDA must provide 10 to 20% affordable units, the exact number depending on the level of affordability. The IHP also requires a higher level of accessible units than required by code, a range of bedroom sizes, non-discrimination of rental subsidies, it offers the option of providing a payment in lie instead of constructing units, and it provides for some optional incentives. In June, the city adopted a 41 tax classification policy following several work sessions where affordable housing priorities were considered. In light of those discussions and the resulting 4D policy, staff undertook a review of the city's IHP and are proposing several updates. The updates and the basis for the changes are as follows. We propose increasing the min minimum project size from five units to 15 units. The city is attempting to encourage small infill projects. These are financially challenging and adding affordability makes them even more challenging. 10 to 20 units are the minimums typically required by our peer cities. The second item is to add a provision that requires multifamily owner occupied projects to include a means to ensure ongoing affordability for a minimum of 15 years. A financial uh investment from the city we believe should require that the property remain affordable for some length of time as is the H practice with its single family affordable ownership programs. Third, we propose eliminating the payment in loo option for accessible units. Given the shortage of accessible units in the community, we feel it's important to encourage construction of actual units in new developments whenever possible. Uh we propose updating the language that any use of the 4D1 tax classification be consistent with the recently adopted 4D policy. And finally, we've updated some of the other language relating to the optional incentives to be consistent with current ordinances that have undergone some changes in the year since this was passed. So, I would recommend that you adopt a resolution approving this update to the city's inclusionary housing policy. And I welcome any questions or suggestions. >> All right. Any uh any questions today? Commissioner Supple. >> So, first of all, I have a parliamentary question. So if I want to make an amendment then I would we would have to put the first motion on the floor and then we would amend after that. Is that correct? >> I believe um I believe you wouldn't you propose your amendment then we would have to have a vote on if the amendment is >> Mr. Chair I believe we should well she could make a motion with an amendment in it but for clarity our usual practice has been to make the motion as written and then amend the motion on the table. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, now that we have that out of the way, um can you give me um further input on the project size minimums, why we were going from five to like 15. I because I understood that five might be too small, but I'm thinking maybe 10 might be a better spot to go to, but I just wanted to hear the rationale behind it. >> You know, you certainly you can choose a number. We just felt again like five was very small and when I looked at other communities that 10 to 20 was uh was typical. We were by far the smallest. Um I chose 15. I felt like it was a compromise. you know, we have a lot of 10 and 11 unit small apartment buildings. And so I think of those as um if those were to happen again, you know, it would just it would be a challenge to have one or two units in there be affordable without significant resources just as we've struggled with even getting a duplex um to go. So So it was a number we chose, but if if you would like to pick a different number, that's that's perfectly fine. I don't think there's an exact science to it at this point until we have a proposal in front of us. It's really kind of hard to know what the right number is. >> So, you're saying you're concerned about the 10, 11, and 12? >> I just as I was thinking about what would be the appropriate size that just felt small to me to try to include an affordable unit, but we certainly could try. And I think as always with these policies, right, we we have language in there that suggests you you can change your policy, right? if something project came along and you really wanted to support it but affordability was just not in the picture, you know, you could always you could always make a change. >> So if we amended this to 10 or 12, we could on an individual basis give some sort of a variance or something. I don't know if that's the right term, but >> yep, you could certainly Yeah, it's that final language in the policy that talks about you have the right to wave that. So, so yeah, I think you can pick a number that you're comfortable with and again, it's not an exact science without projects in front of us. >> Thank you. >> Okay, additional additional questions, Commissioner. >> Yeah, thank you, Chair Hansen. Um, I have a question about the unit size also. Is 10 to 20, you say 10 to 20 units are minimums typically required by our peer cities. Is there a track record of projects that have been built that shows that 10 to 20 that bears that out or is that just their general guideline for approving projects? In the case of the city of Bloomington, they did a very uh extensive uh research before they developed their policy, but I certainly could follow up and see um yeah, if that was part of the research, spec specifically deciding what the minimum was. >> Yeah. Okay. I have I have a similar concern about the unit size, but I I actually think it should be more like 20 because it will just help larger projects get built and then have a few affordable units in them. So I I I would heir on the other side so that some of these smaller projects because even a 20 unit project is very expensive and difficult to make the numbers work to make >> developers just aren't doing it because there's not enough profit in it. So >> I understand that You said that there would be if we're presented a proposal, we can make an exception to that proposal at the time. >> So, we can set this policy, but then make an exception to it later on. >> Correct. >> I don't know if I I like that idea. I would go I would go the other direction toward 20, but my feeling. Uh, Commissioner Hir, >> um, I think it'd be helpful if, um, if staff could like indulge a hypothetical to understand like what kind of project this affects. So, this kicks in when they receive some financial subsidy and the project is of the minimum size, right? >> Correct. >> So, obviously, they're not there's probably not going to be a tip district for a 10-unit building. So, this is like probably like a discounted land sale or something like that. >> It could be. Yep. Right. Yeah. for example, our parcel over here um >> by the roundabout, right? >> Okay. So, under the current policy, let's say it's it's that across the street. We sell it for less than market value to them. They are building at least five units and then they have to uh meet the affordability and the accessibility requirements. >> If we changed it and they built a 10-unit building and and we followed your recommendation of 15 meeting the minimum, are there any requirements at all for accessibility? Because that was of course the concern we received. >> Building code. >> Okay. requirements, right? But no, no above and beyond. >> No above and beyond. >> Um, and how does I'm assuming it just ends up being one unit, but what do those really low percentages do when you have like five units instead of like 100 units? Because it's it's a small percentage fully accessible, right? I just round. >> It's a very small Well, you have to round up. [laughter] >> So, it would always be one, right? Yes, we make them round up. Um, and then my other question is, have we seen any projects whether subsidized by the city or not in that 5 to 15 unit range in a long time? >> Another thing that's been successful. We had one proposal for the roundabout parcel, but just very early tire kicking we call it. Um, and I can't was it 10 20? It was the Sheridan project. Yep. that >> 76 in Sheridan. So there are five units there and three of them are affordable. >> Okay. >> Um well with that in mind, of course, if there's an amendment, I'm happy to discuss debate it when it comes forward, but my thinking is more in line with Commissioner Young. I'm okay with the staff recommendation. I don't really want to see it go any lower just because we haven't built these and we've heard demand for these. I don't think this is taking demand away from potential larger projects that could really add more affordable units. So to me it makes sense to at least keep the staff recommendation to go to 15. >> Any other uh questions? Okay. I guess with uh see no further questions, I would uh entertain a motion. >> I'll move to adopt a resolution approving an update to the city's inclusionary housing policy. >> Second. >> Okay. Motion has been made and seconded. Um I know there's been some discussion about amending. >> So I would offer an amendment to increase the amendment project size from five units to 12 units. So that for the reasons I explained earlier that I don't think we should make such a huge jump and we can explore this more later or maybe get more information. Okay. Is there a second to the amendment? I guess hearing u hearing no second. I guess the the amendment fails. >> I have I have a question. Um what is what are the next steps in this process? I know we're going to vote during the um EDA meeting and then I believe the city council meeting. So what are the steps and if we find out more information in between then what can change that type of thing? So you're you would like some more information. Is that what you're thinking? Or >> the question was kind of like what have other peer cities done and what have they found out and we didn't didn't have that information. >> So you certainly could um I mean you can put this off a month and direct us to do some more work and answer those kinds of questions. That's certainly an option. And then I I would I would recommend that the EDA also do that. And then we just won't schedule it for council yet. Okay. >> If that's what you would like. >> Okay. I was just trying to figure out what the options were. So even if we passed it these tonight, we could amend it at the council or should we just postpone the whole thing till we get the information? What's works better more efficiently? >> I would recommend you just you postpone it till September. Ask ask um yeah. So, it's one of the, you know, we put down in the very bottom some alternative um and and and I put as the first one, request additional information and defer consideration to the September meeting, just not knowing for sure where this would sit with folks because we haven't talked about this policy for many years. My goal would be to to bring it back a little bit more regularly so that we keep keep up with it. But so I would yeah maybe you I don't know Parliament three you have to probably vote on this motion but then you could if it doesn't pass you could offer a a second motion to to wait for September. So, I like the rest of the policy and the rest of the changes that I like, but I think it's in order. I could make a motion to postpone until the next um HA meeting, >> but it would need a second. >> So, I guess well, first we we did have a motion on the floor, so we probably have to vote on that. And then >> I believe you can vote to postpone. >> I think the motion to continue would be with the motion. Yeah, >> if staff know know better, they should tell us. >> I do not I I believe that is correct, but I do not have my cheat sheet with me. >> Okay. >> All right. So, the motion to continue until the next meeting, but we still have to get a second. I'll second that. >> Okay. Uh any additional comments or >> I just want to be clear. We're we're we're voting on whether or not we're going to continue to the next meeting. Is that what we're voting on? Correct. Okay, I support that. >> Okay, we are now going to vote whether we will um continue on this resolution to the next uh HA meeting. All in favor of that continuation say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. And so to be clear, we want information about what other cities have found and if they've had any success with this, some more detail on that particular item. >> Yes. And I I'm happy to do that and we'll send out some emails to our peer communities. Yes. Bring that back. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Well, that uh that completes tonight's resolutions. That moves us to other business and we have con consideration of updates for the city's affordable housing trust fund priorities and I will ask for uh for the staff report and once again assistant director Urban will present the report. >> Chair Hansen, members of the HR, in 2020 the city established an affordable housing trust fund to preserve and create affordable housing opportunities for households with the lowest incomes. Funds from the trust fund have been allocated to various HR programs such as the first-time home buyer and new home programs through the budget process. Funds can also be made available to developers to assist in the construction, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing. The city and HR adopted priorities and procedures in 2022 to guide the use of the trust fund when reviewing requests from developers. Back in June, the city adopted a 4D tax classification policy following several work sessions where affordable housing priorities were considered. In light of those discussions and the resulting 4D policy, staff undertook a review of the trust fund priorities and procedures and are proposing to establish two priority levels for the funds. The first level would be for the preservation and rehabilitation of naturally occurring affordable housing for housing with larger bedrooms, accessible housing, and housing where current rental subsidy households live. The second level of priority would be housing affordable at 30% of the AMI, housing with supportive services and highly energy efficient projects. The proposed updates also add language specific to the consideration of the 4D tax classification as it relates to a financial award from the trust fund. The current 4D policy requires a declaration of restrictive covenants be filed against any property receiving trust fund assistance. Any declaration, however, that restricts both income and rents would automatically qualify the property for the 4D1 tax classification. The proposed updates clarify that any request for funds will involve first a review of the impact of any 4D tax classification and that any restrictions that trigger the 4D tax classification will be reviewed in light of the 4D policy and also be subject to city council approval. So with that, I'm available to answer any questions, but do u recommend that you approve updates to the city's affordable housing trust fund priority priorities and procedures. >> All right. questions from the H. >> I guess seeing no questions, I would uh entertain a motion. >> I move the staff recommendation to approve updates to the city's affordable housing trust fund priorities and procedures. >> Okay. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded. Uh any uh comments from the uh from the board? Uh hearing no comments uh with the motion in front of us. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay, that has passed. And that will bring us to our executive director's report tonight. >> Thank you, Chair Hansen. I do not have a report tonight. >> Okay, H discussion items. Commissioner Supple. I just wanted to say I was pleased to hear that the Penn Station project is um going to probably finish ahead of schedule and it was a good reminder in looking through the budget when it talked about new three and fourbedroom units and stuff that a lot of that is from that particular development and so it's very exciting to see affordable three and fourbedroom units. So that was really good to see. So that was that's my comment. Thank you. >> Okay, any other discussion items? Okay, seeing none, we'll uh move on for approval of the claims. Is there a a motion? >> I move approval of the claims. >> Okay, is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay, a motion has been made and seconded. Seconded for approval of our claims. All in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? That concludes tonight's business for the H. The meeting stands adjourned. I would like to call to order the Richfield Economic and Development Authority meeting of August 17, 2026 to order. Um we'll I will ask staff to uh note tonight's attendance. That brings us to our open forum. Uh participants can share their comments in person by voicemail or email and may also request to participate virtually. Uh for more information on submitting comments, refer to the economic development authority agenda and minutes page on the city's website. Is there uh anyone here tonight who would like to address the uh the economic development authority? Okay, seeing no one, uh did we receive any other communications? >> We did not receive any communications. >> All right, great. Thank you. Uh we have the uh agenda before us. I will uh entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. Commissioner, >> I move to approve the agenda with one change. Can we pull the consideration of the update of the inclusionary housing policy off of the consent calendar since we just continued it in the last meeting? So, we need to do that now. >> Okay. I Is there a u a second for that? >> Second. >> Okay. All in favor of making that uh change to the consent calendar, say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? Okay. Uh approval of the minutes. Approval of the minutes of the regular economic development authority meeting of July 20th, 2026. Uh, is there a motion? >> I make a motion to approve the minutes. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Motion's made and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay, that's approved. Uh, we do have a presentation tonight on small business resiliency program updates. And with that, I will uh ask for our staff report. >> Yes. Thank you, President Hansen, members of the board. Tonight, uh economic development manager Gian Youngquist is here to provide you with an update on um our small business resiliency program. Thank you. >> Uh good evening, President Hansen and EDA board members. Uh as Melissa mentioned, tonight we're going to have a update on the small business resiliency program. Um, as we were planning for 2026, we could not have foreseen Operation Metro Surge and the significant disruptions it had on our community, including our business community. So, we pivoted to our work to um develop the small business resiliency program, an emergency program uh to respond to the economic disruptions caused by the ice surge. J, if you'll just give us one second to get the presentation up on the screens. >> Okay. Um can you forward to Okay. Um so uh as I mentioned we pivoted to working um on developing the small business resiliency program and emergency program to respond to the economic disruptions caused by Operation Metro Surge. The goals of the program were to prevent job loss, avoid an increase in commercial vacancy rates, and address the impacts of the livelihood of our um business owners and community members. Next slide. Um we met with a group of Latino business owners uh bi-weekly throughout the months of February and March to discuss the impacts that they were experiencing. Uh they described fear in the community, people not leaving their homes and thus not uh supporting businesses, businesses suffering um with the declines in foot traffic and people forgoing discretionary spending on beauty and personal care services. I've shared a few quotes from uh some of the businesses that we spoke with. Next slide. Uh so this feedback informed how we created the program. Uh it was structured as forgivable loans that would pay or reimburse for two months rent or mortgage payments um up to $10,000 per business. To reach the businesses that were most impacted, we structured the program for locallyowned businesses that were in a bricks and mortar location uh that provided direct directly providing goods or services to the public. And to make sure that the program reached small businesses, they had to have 50 or fewer full-time equivalent employees and annual revenue of $4 million or less. And uh one of the key parts of the program is businesses needed to demonstrate uh significant revenue loss which we defined as 30% or more during December to March. Next slide. As you'll recall, uh you approved the program in March of this year. We launched in April. Uh we promoted the program through the Richfield business bulletin newsletter, meetings with business owners, and um uh individual business uh visits um to to uh potential applicants. Applications were accepted throughout April and we received 46 applications in May and June. Um each application was reviewed for eligibility. We made we uh checked to make sure businesses didn't have any code violations, didn't have delinquent bills or charges due to the city. Uh we then sent 28 applications to Next Stage, uh the nonprofit lender that we partnered with to continue uh the eligibility review. Nexttage reached out to each applicant to schedule an in-person meeting to go over the um the documentation that the business owner would need to provide for review. Once the eligibil eligibility process was complete, forgivable loan agreements were signed and on January 24th, um I joined a next stage representative to deliver checks in person to 10 businesses. Business owners were very very appreciative of the support from the EDA in order to keep the um uh the loan forgiveness process easy for folks. Um, business owners were requested required to submit a loan forgiveness form and we asked them to sign up for the Richfield business bulletin uh, e newswsletter as well as elevate Henipin's e newswsletter. So um, these businesses can stay apprised of different resources and news out there uh, for them. As of today, we have forgiven all but one of the loans and we're just waiting um, on the remaining forgiveness form from the business owner. So, we're very close to wrapping up uh this project. As far as the impact of the program, uh the program provided almost $65,000 in funding to 10 local businesses, including three businesses located in downtown. It helps support or preserve approximately 75 jobs in the community and stabilize 28,000 square feet of commercial space. Um, which were some of the original goals of the program. Uh, next slide. Sorry, next slide. >> Oh, I am so sorry. These computers are not synced. [laughter] Okay. Um so the program supported four salons or personal care businesses, three restaurants and one retail, daycare and healthc care business. Uh the map shows you the geographic distribution um of where uh the businesses that were assisted. Next slide. uh we had a close to even split between male and femaleowned businesses and um 90% of the businesses that were assisted were Hispanic or Latino um and 10% black or African-American. So the program really hit the folks that um really needed the assistance. As far as business tenure, um 90% of the businesses rent their space. Um, and this is the group that is at the highest risk of displacement during an economic disruption. Um, and the graph on the right, um, I think is very interesting. Uh, the program assisted some longstanding businesses in the community. Half of them have been in business for six or more years um with two businesses that have been um, in Richfield for more than 10 years. Uh, next slide. So, one of the questions on the loan forgiveness form asked how the small business resiliency program funds helped the business. And here is some of the feedback that we received. As I mentioned earlier, business owners were very very appreciative of the support from the EDA. Um, in in talking with them, uh, their ICE is still out there. Um the business owners are very connected and keeping each other apprised um of uh things to watch for. Um but all in all, I think they're appreciative of the funds. It really helped them and they um what I've heard are they're slowly uh rebuilding back up. So that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to take any questions. >> All right. Well, that was a great uh presentation. Any uh comments or questions from Commissioner Young? >> Thank you, Chair Hansen. Great report. I think this is excellent work. Exactly what we needed to do at the time. So, thank you very much for doing great stuff. >> Okay, Commissioner Supple, >> I also want to echo those thanks. And I also appreciate the fact of all the meetings you had with the Latino business owners to find out what kind of help was needed. And I think that was really important to be out there in the community and finding out what was needed. And and thank you for sorting through all of the applications to find the people that actually were in Richfield and not just a fraudulent claim. >> Thank you. >> Any other uh comments or questions? No, I I also would uh agree this was a great I think uh initiative that we undertook here to uh keep these businesses on their feet and um it's it's certainly for the benefit of the businesses but it's also for the benefit of the community. There's there's nothing worse to steal the vibrancy of the community to see empty storefronts and so the fact that we could keep them operating and working through this and hopefully um success well into the future has been a great endeavor. Okay. And with that we will u move to our consent calendar. I as noted um earlier we are moving item number B consideration of an update to the inclusionary housing policy. I will handle that during the resolutions. So we have a consent calendar with with one item and with that I will turn it over to staff. >> Yes. Thank you President Hansen. The consent calendar can contain several separate items which are acted upon by the EDA in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved. No further EDA action on these items is necessary. However, as we did before, any EDA commissioner may request that an item be removed from the consent calendar and placed on the regular agenda for discussion and action. All items listed on the consent calendar are recommended for approval. The single item on your consent calendar then is consideration of a resolution accepting a transfer of unspent grant funds from the housing and redevelopment authority for use in the apartment remodeling loan program. And I submit this for your consideration. >> All right. Um all in favor of approving tonight's consent calendar say I. >> Mr. President, we need a we need a motion, but I will move to approve the consent calendar as read. >> Oh, that's excuse me. >> Second. >> Okay. Motion has been made and seconded to approve the consent calendar. Um now all in favor say I of the motion. >> I >> I. Any opposed? >> Okay. And looking closely at my agenda, I guess the item removed from the consent calendar. We'll now consider um under item number eight. >> Mr. President, I will move to continue the consideration of an update to the inclusionary housing policy until our next meeting. Okay. Is there a second? >> I'll second that. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded to do a continuation of u consideration of an update to the inclusionary housing policy. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Uh we don't have any public hearings tonight. So it moves us down to resolutions. And we have consideration. We are going to consider resolutions approving the proposed 2027 economic development authority budget and tax levy and 2026 revised economic development authority budget. And for that I will ask for the staff report. >> Thank you, President Hansen, members of the board. The bylaws of the EDA, just like the ADA, just like the HRA, require that an annual budget be submitted to the EDA commissioners for approval. Accordingly, you received those documents this last weekend. In addition, Minnesota state statutes require adoption of a preliminary tax levy from each authority. The proposed levy must be certified to Henipin County by September 30th. Any amendments to the proposed budget, which would increase the property tax levy, must be made prior to that deadline. No increases in the tax levy are permissible after this date, only reductions. Um, and so I'm going to move on to our presentation of the revised 2026 and proposed 2027 budgets. Here once again, um, a reminder of the mission of the EDA. The EDA was formed in 2018 to fund programs related to economic development, business assistance, and housing assistance. Our goal is to use our resources to strengthen our business and resident communities through investments that support housing stability and a diversified tax base. There are a few wellestablished programs funded by the EDA. Those include kids at home transfer transformation loan program and our apartment remodeling program. But based on priorities identified by the council, we've been working in these last few years to really build out a more robust offering of business assistance programs. Thanks. Staffing allocation for the EDA work continues to evolve. Um, again, we are staffed by the community development department and the EDA portion, the EDA pays a portion of the salaries of eight CD employees. To begin with, the EDA did not have dedicated staff at all. It was facilitated by help from several people spending just a small portion of their time on the work, but that changed significantly in 2023 when we added the economic development manager position. And it's continued to grow as we work to meet the initiatives of the strategic plan, specifically focusing on a diversified tax base through business growth and a vital and exciting downtown. The EDA still pays a relatively small amount of most salaries, but again, as we continue to build out this programming, uh that that staff costs are growing and this is evolving. So, similar to the H, the EDA budget can fluctuate significantly based on opportunities or urgent needs in the community, and you'll see some of that in the revised and proposed budgets. The 2026 revised budget in is 27% higher. Now, a reminder that this does not impact taxes. These additional funds come from our reserves and our fund balances. And it highlights why those reserves are really important to have. Most of the increase here represents the $150,000 that the EDA pledged to the Richfield Resiliency Program to help our local businesses recover um from Operation Metro Search. And you'll recall from the presentation that economic development manager Youngquist just gave, we did not spend all of those funds. So, while this budget still includes that entire $150,000, when you get the end of the year summaries, you'll see that that actually came in a little lower. and our uh general fund reserve will be a little higher than anticipated. There's also an increase to our transformation loan program funding that the EDA approved earlier this year to allow an additional loan to be funded in full. And we're beginning public implementation of our branding and placemaking study. We received a $25,000 grant from Henipin County that's going to begin helping with this in 2026 and then continue into 2027. The 2027 proposed budget is 38% higher uh than the 2026 adopted. We are proposing to make a major investment potentially some uh large public art piece or pieces in 2027 um to the downtown area really bringing excitement and momentum to this branding and placemaking initiative. Um there was a lot of good energy around that program when we adopted it last year and we want to capitalize on that. We really want to start getting some pieces and some work related to that branding out into the community. Staff and ongoing overhead costs continue to increase. Um, like I mentioned in the HR presentation, IT costs are now being build directly to the EDA rather than covered by the HRA um, as part of that essential services study. And um in a smaller budget like the EDA's budget, $13,000 in IT costs represents a large increase because this is not um a huge budget to begin with. And then this budget also uh represents continued investment in the business community through revive, elevate henipin participation, sack assistance and more. The 2027 uh levy maximum is about $915,000. The proposed levy uh increase that's included in this budget is a 3.5% increase. Um so that's roughly $668,000. Um, the impact of the EDA levy increase for a median value valued home is estimated to be about $1.38 for the year. In both 2026 and 27, we are proposing deficit spending. For several years, we've been taking in more through the levy uh than was going out because we were working to build these programs, to develop guidelines, um all of those sorts of things. And now um now we are working to get that money back out into the community through programming. As time goes on that's going to smooth out. Obviously we cannot continue to def deficit spend in perpetuity. Um but right now you're you're seeing the proposed budget do that. Next slide. Uh the top half of this chart just like on the ED EDA sorry just like on the HR side. I see. We just need to combine and it'll all be better. [sighs] Uh this is intended to show you where the EDA budget money is coming from. Taxes is the amount collected by the levy. That's showing you what that 3.5% uh increase looks like in dollars. In intergovernmental revenue, uh in 26 you see $12,500. That is half of the Henipin County Business District Initiative grant we're proposing to spend uh based on when we'll probably get the agreement from Henipin County. We're anticipating getting some of that money out in 2026 and the other half out in 2027. There's also the $55,000 that you just approved to be transferred from the HR to the EDA's apartment remodeling program. So that is the entirety of those intergovernmental funds. And then miscellaneous revenues. These are loan payments, application fees, investment earnings, similar to what is on the HA side. The bottom half is what the EDA is spending its money on. Again, it's a breakdown of the totals you saw on the last slide. You see a staff increase of 19%. And again, that's a we're prioritizing this work, which means more time for staff. Um, and so we're dedicating more staff time to it. uh admin this is these are professional services so it's administering of loans by CE it's our attorney fees office supplies professional development um those IT costs that were um sent this way from the HA and like like I mentioned over there I would like to explore combining H and EDA it's it's a little bit silly to try to divide up the IT costs for an individual employee who technically works for the city, the HA, and the EDA. It's it's it's difficult to do. It's more of an art than a science. Um, and it it feels like not a great use of time. Moving on to the next slide. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Back one more. Um, programs. Programs. This is everything else. It's the money again that we're putting directly into the community and the goal here is to keep broadening our reach as we continue to build out the the programming based on this budgeting. You can see that we're doing just that, increasing the the money going out into the community each year. Some 26 and 27 highlights. This is what we've been working on so far in 26 and some of the factors playing into the budgets. Um, like Jan mentioned, no one could have predicted Operation Metro Surge and the significant impact that it had on some of our local small businesses. Other business assistance work was put on pause while we developed that small uh business resiliency program. And as we wrap that up, we're preparing now to launch Revive, which we had finished development of in late 2025. We're planning to launch in the spring. Um and and now we're planning to to issue or to to issue the um send out the information about the program and start providing those mini forgivable loans to business owners in older business in older buildings. You'll remember that the EDA approved the downtown branding and placemaking playbook earlier this year. We have budgeted $175,000 between 26 and 27 to begin implementation of that branding. that will be supplemented by $25,000 that we received from Henipin County. So again, making a big push to get this um into place quickly. Um an item in the budget and on the agenda tonight was the transfer of those unspent grant funds the HR received several years ago. As Julie had mentioned, it's been a challenge to get those funds spent on that small and unique program. And we think that combining them with apartment remodeling program um and increasing our marketing efforts will be uh a better way to get those grant funds out the door. Thank you. Um this is our business as usual slide. Uh they are not new initiatives, but these programs include some transformative and innovative work we're doing in the community. The kids at home program continues to be very successful with 15 programs or sorry 15 families. Starting this year, we're able to offer another rental assistance through bring it home. So, it is helpful to be able to offer two options to families. If you do not qualify for one, perhaps you would qualify for this other program. So, um we we think that having the two programs is going to help more people find the assistance that they need. and kids at home continues to be truly a transformational program for the families that are involved. We continue to receive a lot of interest in the transformation loan program. We added some extra incentives a couple of years ago and are just starting to fund projects that are able to take advantage of the the incentives by meeting the key city and EDA objectives like accessory dwelling units like you see in this uh this image here. Uh, I'm sure as you remember last month you approved several changes to this program designed to target the funds toward households who most need the financial incentive. Um, and this is an ADU that we hope will be on the remodeled home tour. Still fingers crossed or is it Oh, it's a yes. It's a yes. Um, >> it's a yes. >> Currently under construction. The image above is the rendering and then below is the progress. I think it's kind of fun to look at this one really come to life. And this is another example of where uh the EDA is pushing the market, creating comps that will hopefully make it easier for others to both envision this on their property and finance these options in the future. Then we've got the Elevate Henipin partnership with Henipin County that continues to be a well-used resource for local businesses and entrepreneurs. And the SAC assistance program which helps with sewer a uh sewer availability fees and that's an important program for businesses that are just starting out. Finally, the energy efficient rebate has been a very successful program. We're continuing to see a little downturn as most businesses have now been able to take advantage of that and so we have reduced the program the budget for this program and have put that money into the branding and placemaking work. Next, a few challenges. Um capacity is a challenge on the EDA side. uh this this work represents our newest programming and all of our employees also have HRA responsibilities. So it kind of depends on what what is most urgent at the time that existing work doesn't stop um to give us time to work on new initiatives. And our our work is always interrupted. Again, Operation Metro Surge created a a huge interruption for families, for businesses, and and also for those of us working to support those families and businesses. um it delayed the launch of that new program while we quickly pivoted to focus on the urgent need. Unlike uh larger cities that have different staff to focus on uh program development and administration, we um we are a pretty lean staff and we are trying to do it all. It's also one of the reasons that we look for partnerships though uh like with CE to help us administer the programs once we get them up and going. But sometimes it can feel like progress is slow. And then the market, we only control certain levers like I talked about um especially related to business investment and retention. You know, we're not in charge of a lot of those decisions. We don't control the interest rates and right now the the market is especially tough. And then the same with land control. We can't force private owners to invest. we can't um we don't have any control over rent rates, things like that. And then I just want to end with a great picture from the grand opening of a new small business in Richfield. This is the Coven Co-working Space at 65th and Nicollet. And that's all. I'll submit this for your consideration and happy to answer any questions. >> All right. Any uh any questions for the presentation that Commissioner Young uh supple? Excuse me. >> Um I just was wondering you said about maybe commissioning some artwork. Is that going to be done with the support of the arts commission or how does that do you have any details on that or is that just more of aspirational goal at this point? >> Uh it is more of an aspirational goal at this point. However, we have discussed involving the arts commission in those decisions. That would be great. I I think they do a fabulous job. So, >> any additional questions? >> You you mentioned the downtown branding will be start to undergo implementation. Any any kind of early ideas of the first steps? >> You can if you'd like. One of the first steps that we have been discussing with um our administrative services division is a possible mural on the liquor store at 65th and Nicollet. We feel like that could be um it's a large space. It's a big blank wall. Um the liquor store uh is a building that we own and we have control over. It seems like a pretty easy and splashy first step. Um Jan has also been working closely with public works um about some implementation and wayfinding in that in that same area of 65th in Lindale. Uh Jan, did you have any additional >> Um we'll also be using the uh grant funds from Henman Countyy's business district initiative to um start getting some banners um placed um and some of the if you remember the ground graphics uh kind of directing people. Um, in talking with recreation staff, they're excited about using some of the ground graphics to direct people from the bus stops to the new Wood Lake Nature Center. >> Okay, thank you. Uh, any additional questions? Uh, Commissioner Hayer Deliri, >> just to express excitement about the downtown placemaking as well as revive and I was just curious if we know a date which business owners can apply to revive. We're very very very close to launching soon. [laughter] Um [clears throat] we'll be announcing it through the uh Richfield uh business bulletin and I'm assembling uh mailing addresses so we can get some postcards out. So very soon. >> All right. Well, I'm excited for 2027. >> All right. Any uh any other questions? I don't have a question, but I it's similar to what I said with the H. It's really exciting to see all the programs and I want to thank everybody for all their work. >> All righty. I guess with that, I will uh entertain a motion for the recommended action. >> Um so moved. >> Second. >> Okay. A motion has been made and seconded. Uh all in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed? Okay, that uh completes that. So, that will bring us to our executive director's report. >> Thank you, President Hansen. I do not have a report tonight. >> Okay. Uh EDA discussion items. Commissioner Supple, >> can you remind us when the remodeling tour is probably going to take place? >> Yes, thank you. It is scheduled for October 3rd. Um it tends to be in the afternoon, I believe, usually 1 to 5. We think uh but definitely October 3rd. October 3rd is set. So you can mark your calendar and it is in the afternoon. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Any other discussion items? >> Okay. Seeing none, uh we'll move on to approval of the claims. We'll entertain a motion. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay. Okay, a motion has been made and seconded to approve the claims. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> And that brings us to the conclusion of our business tonight. So the meeting stands adjourned.