Let's turn this on. It is 7 o'clock. I will call the meeting of the regular housing u redevelopment authority meeting um of the city of Richfield. It's July 21st at 7 p.m. Um we will start with open forum. Um, you can always refer to the H agenda and minutes web page for additional ways to submit comments. But seeing as there is no one here, I think we'll slide past the open form unless somebody wrote in. No. Okay. Um, taking us to the approval of the minutes of the regular housing redevelopment authority meeting of June 16, 2025. Is there a motion for approval? >> Uh, motion to approve. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Any comments, changes, concerns? Seeing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. The minutes have been approved. All right. Item number one, approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> I'll move to approve the agenda. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Any changes, comments, questions? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. The agenda has been approved. Taking us to item number two, the consent calendar. Uh, assistant community development director Urban. >> Thank you, Chair Reese Daniels, members of the HR. The consent calendar contains separate items which are acted upon by the HR in one motion. Once the consent calendar has been approved, the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved and no further HR action on these items is necessary. Any H commissioner may request that an item be removed from the consent calendar and placed on the regular agenda for the HR discussion and action. All items listed on the consent calendar are recommended for approval. There there's one item on the agenda and it is consideration of a resolution authorizing submittal of an application to the Metropolitan Council for a livable communities policy and program development grant and that is the consent calendar. >> Is there a motion to approve? >> I make a motion to approve the consent calendar. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. All those in favor say I. >> I. opposed. The consent calendar has been approved. This takes us to item number four, Assistant Community Development Director Urban. >> Yes. Thank you, Chair Daniels, uh, Ree Daniels, members of the HR. In May, city staff began talking to representatives of the owner of 680414th Avenue South about selling the home to the Richfield Housing and Redevelopment Authority. The house is 825 square ft and was built in 1950. It is a one and a half story home with two bedrooms and one bathroom. There are two garages and one shed on the property. The house is currently uninhabitable due to the condition of the home and was inspected and meets the substandard requirements for acquisition and demolition under state statute for the use of pulled redevelopment tax increment financing. A sale price of $150,000 was agreed upon with the seller. The home will be purchased for eventual deconstruction, demolition, and sale through the Richfield Rediscovered program. The goal of the Richfield rediscovered program is to provide opportunities for the construction of new market rate single family homes and duplexes in Richfield. The you new units built through the program provide updated diverse housing options for the community and increase the tax value of the previously underutilized properties. The purchase agreement proposes to purchase the property as is. The property contains a significant amount of personal property that will remain behind. The proposed sale price takes into account the cost of removing that personal property. All homes built through the Richfield Rediscovered program at this time must meet minimum accessibility requirements and also must include at least one of the following features. An accessory dwelling unit, full accessibility, sustainability measures, uh, and be an owner occupied duplex or some other sort of unique design that furthers HR housing goals or as approved by the HR. Uh, that concludes my staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Someone like to make a motion or ask a question first? Yes, go ahead. >> I'll move that we Oh, Hold on a second. I got to scroll down. We adopt the resolution authorizing the purchase of 680414th Avenue South for new construction of a single family home or duplex under the Richfield Rediscovered Program. >> I will second the motion. >> All right. It has been moved and seconded. Any comments, questions? >> Yes, go ahead. >> Um, just curiosity, do the comment about needing to meet the substandard requirements for use of tiff, is that a standard that always have to has to apply for these because you mentioned the source is the housing redevelopment fund. >> Yep. So, when we use housing redevelopment fund, it those are it's all redevelopment tax increment and so anything we spend our money on has to meet those blighted or substandard requirements. >> Okay. So, it's a a test um laid out by statute that we have to go through. Um our housing specialists go with an inspector and they look at different code um >> issues that might be present and then they have to do calculations and Yep. >> Okay. And I appreciated the pictures for the amateur eyes to see that there are issues. So, yeah. >> One or two. >> Uh I think this is really good work. I I I like the idea of doing this program and and buying these houses. So, excellent job. Well done. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead. I would also agree that this is a good use of our resources and one of our goals over the years has been to upgrade those substandard houses and um this is a good um a good example of that. Even though our pro program has evolved and we've talked about wanting to have ADUs and duplexes, this kind of meets both of the the newer goals plus the original intent of the program. So, I think it's a great use of the funds. >> Well, I'm never uh much of a fan to buy up, you know, um low-inccome property or kind of naturally occurring. I feel like the this property in particular is a really good use of this fund. So, thank you and to the staff for all the diligence here. Um, and I know that we have a couple of other properties as listed that we're looking forward to do more of those duplexes. And so, um, hopefully this can add to that as well. And, um, we can make something happen with these because I'm excited to see it. >> Yeah, >> that is our hope. And just a forecast, we we're currently talking to um reaching out to different partners in the hopes of um so we struggled to have a uh home buyers um managed to make it work because of financing and um different issues. So now we're reaching out to um partners who could potentially help facilitate the development of a duplex. If we are unsuccessful with that, we may have to rethink what we do. Uh it's possible, you know, additional resources will be needed. If we decide the duplex is our primary goal, we may have to consider some additional resources or reach out to others for some of those resources. So that is our plan. I do want to add one thing that came up after the report went out is that we typically have to um ask the planning commission to make a finding of consistency whenever we buy or sell property. years ago, we had them adopt a blanket finding because we were going to them with really a non-discretionary um item because single family to single family that there was no way they could say no. So, it seemed really unwise use of everybody's time. Um we went and looked at that and realized it said single family to single family. So, we are going to go to the uh planning commission and ask for that to be broadened because now that duplexes are an allowable use in single family. um we want to make just to confirm that they're okay with that. So if they were to say no, we would have to develop it as single family. I didn't think the risk was terribly high. So but just wanted to um let you know that we are taking that to the planning commission next week and assume again it for them to say it's inconsistent doesn't seem quite possible but you know we we want to um take it to them to discuss. Okay. >> Thank you so much. Anybody else? All right. There has been a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. The motion passes. Um, all right. Item number five, H discussion items. Is there any HRA discussion items? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number six, executive director's reports. Do we have a report? >> I do. I have several items to share. Um the first is that we received um notice from the Minnesota Department of uh revenue how much our LAA allocation would be for the year. We were estimating it would be close to 400,000. It's actually going to be $653,000. >> Great. >> So yes, so now part of why we're applying to the Met Council for that money is to sort of speed up our ability to figure out ways to use that money to maybe develop some new programs and um so we're excited about that. And then we also um it's going before the Minnesota housing board um our bring it home um money which it will be the new rental assistance program and we had asked for I think it was 1.2 million um but we going to be awarded 1 million and so that's a two-year commitment and it also includes startup costs as well as the actual rent assistance and admin funds. So they ended up funding everybody at their minimum amount. um they had encouraged us to apply for more in the event that enough housing authorities decided not to participate, but that sounds like a lot of folks did. Um the other thing is just to give you a heads up that we have decided not to have a home tour this year and we're going to go to an every other year. Uh it's just been a struggle to get enough folks to participate um every year. So I think going every other year we'll have a a better supply of folks and we have several people doing ADUs this year through our transformation loan program. So our hope is to have them in the tour next year but it's a little tricky when they start in January or February to make sure that they're done in time for the tour. It was a little um close last year. We had some people without steps the day before and yeah that's it's a challenge. So so we're going to move that to every other year. I know it's a an event you all look forward to, but um and then um uh the other item is that the Hempo properties, the um three Noah properties, they have closing. It's going to occur anytime between July 31st and August 4th. So, I'm very excited for that to be going forward. Aaron has quite a stack of documents to sign tonight in preparation for that. So, fingers crossed that that moves forward. Very excited about that. Uh and then the uh EDA is not meeting tonight, but Jan Youngquist, our economic development manager, asked me to share a couple of items with you that are more EDA focused. Um one is that she awarded funds through the SAC um sewer availability charge program to a business owners of a Shabbam. It's a Yemen coffee shop that's planned for 1236 East 66th Street. So, it's a little mall where there used to be a parrot shop and I think is the vet still over there. Um, so it's exciting. Um, that was uh just under $10,000 through that program. Um, excited to have that going forward. Um, they are currently working on interior improvements to the building. They picked up their permit I think last week. So, we haven't yet heard when they will open. The second thing she wanted you to know about is that Civic Brand, the consultant that was hired to develop a branding and placemaking strategy for downtown Richfield, was in town last week, and they kicked off the project by doing a walking tour and pop-up engagement at Lakewin's Co-op. They will launch an online survey in the next few weeks to get feedback that will help them to further define downtown Richfield's identity. And as you may recall, the EDA received a business district initiative grant from Henipin County to pay for that project. So exciting thing uh moving forward. And that is the end of the report. Thank you. Any questions? Yes. Go ahead. >> Not any questions, but that was a lot of wonderful news. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> All right. Is there um a motion to approve claims? Uh so moved. >> Second. >> It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Claims have been approved. That takes us to adjournment. Thank you everyone.