Start recording. Yep, I've started the recording. Thanks, Carmel. Welcome to the Ramsey County 2026 Housing Development Solicitationformational Meeting. Me and some of my colleagues will walk us through the spring solicitation. This year, we have a lot of new elements. So, um we hope that this uh this presentation gives you a lot of information uh for your application and we would love to work with you in the future. First, we're going to do a small introduction to my staff um here at Ramsey County CED. Then, we're going to talk about the housing development solicitation overview. So, of course, you'll have questions then, but if you could please hold them. Um, we'll go through the funding sources, past fail requirements, award timeline, and even more questions at the end. Um, so hold your questions as long as you can. And without further ado, let me introduce you to my staff. My name is Jerica Gomez. I work for Ramsey County Community and Economic Development Department. I'm a multifamily development specialist um with Ramsey County and I focus on our multif family housing development portfolio with my amazing deputy director Max Holdusen. Max, could you introduce yourself? >> Hi everyone, I'm Max Hi everyone. I'm Max Holusen. I'm the deputy director of community and economic development and I focus on our housing development and our housing programs. Nice to see you all today. >> I can go next. uh Carmel San Juan uh she her pronouns. I work with our housing team as well as our critical corridors team, our transit oriented development program at the county >> and then Ann, would you mind introducing yourself? >> Sure. Hi, Ann Schwarz. I too focus on the housing development uh work and welcome everybody here for the uh presentation. >> If you have not been to our website yet, you can go to www.ramseycountmn.gov/housing investment and learn about the solicitations from the past and what we have funded in the past. Um we're going to ask that you submit your questions via chat. uh that way my colleagues can capture them and we can spend time with them. Um in a moment this meeting will be recorded and posted on our YouTube channel as well as our website as well as the PowerPoint that is um that you're watching right now. So you'll be able to get this information a little bit later. Um the question and answer portion will be posted within the addendum um of the solicitation announcement. So, it's another iteration of the solicitation announcement. So, that will be posted before the 23rd on our neighborly platform, which you haven't been introduced to yet if this is your first uh solicitation this year. So, our neighborly platform will be introduced in a little bit um by my colleague Carmel. Without further ado, let's get into the solicitation. This is an annual funding application for affordable housing development in Ramsey County. It consolidates multiple for funding sources into one application. So you don't have to worry about your funding sources or what funding sources you can choose from. Creating a competitive application that um appeals to multiple funding sources is something that will give you a competitive edge in this application. So we'll tell you what kind of funding sources we're using and what kind of um uh housing activities are eligible under each funding source for that reason. But you don't get to choose your funding source. Ramsey County's community economic development department will choose funding sources per uh for the applications. This opportunity funds low income low to moderate income housing. You'll hear me say low to moderate income housing over and over again. So I do want to explain that HUD creates a metric of income and rent restrictions every year. And so we follow the 30, that's extremely low, to 80, which is moderate income, housing, that's an area median income uh metric. And so we follow between 30 and 80 area median income. And if you're ever looking for where area median income is, you can go to the HUD website and find area median income. Um so I'll say low to moderate income, and I'm referring to 30 to 80% AMI. Uh if you have specific questions about that then please put them in the chat as we move forward. Eligible applications are reviewed for eligibility and underwritten prior to funding awards and they usually they result in units that have income and rent restrictions. So if you're looking at developing fair market rate housing, this is probably not the space for you. 30 to 80% AMI is below the median income. Affordability declaration of 20 to 30 years. Deferred loans with 20 to 30 years depending on funding source. And we'll talk about funding sources in just a minute. Compliance with local, state, and federal rules and regulations. Now, if you've been here before, you've heard all of that, but here goes some new things that we have in 2026. I mentioned earlier that we have a new port, we have a new program called Neighborly. When you log into Neighborly, and we're going to walk through this a little bit later, um you will choose which application you're applying for. We have new architectural guidelines in 2026. We have a new applicant organization. You guys can only apply for two projects if you're um an entity like an by LLC. Uh new eligible uses for governments and nonprofits. So, if you're a government or a nonprofit and you're in this room because um you were told that you could get pools of funding for um for single family housing, you are in the right space. funding sources, tweaks to scoring, tweaks to list of required and optional materials, and this incorporates some of our critical corridors and program pri priorities into strategic alignment. So, we'll go over all of these little pieces later on. This is just more of a general overview. So, the solicitation was opened on April 13th. We published the solicitation via Neighborly. So, if you have seen the neighborly platform and you've logged in and you've gotten to see the questions, that's great. But if you haven't, you're fine. You still have until May 26th before your responses are due. And then between June and July, we will give out the awards for this solicitation announcement. Again, I did put the website in the in the link below, and you guys will be able to visit this website and find out more about the housing development solicitation, but we'll go over some very uh in-depth information in this meeting. Okay. Does anyone have any questions about where they can find um the solicitation or uh if you're in the right spot? Okay, without any I'm going to keep on moving. So, some of the eligible housing activities that we have with the um 2026 housing development solicitation is the acquisition and rehab of permanent general occupancy rental. Eligible projects may include commercial or institutional uses. However, only costs associated with housing development are eligible for our funding. the new construction of permanent general occupancy rental housing, the preservation and rehab of existing permanent general occupancy rental housing. Say that three times fast. And then some of our owner occupi or all of our owner occupied um housing activities are the acquisition and or rehab of existing housing units by nonprofit or government agencies for affordable home ownership or single family rental in suburban counties. That is for the suburbs only. in and is and is only for nonprofit or government entities. This next one is open to everyone. The new construction of affordable owner occupied units for sale on the open market or through a nonprofit home ownership program for low to moderate income rental residents. You may ask, so if I'm building a duplex for sale, is that an eligible activity? The answer is yes. A duplex for sale is an eligible activity. However, the rental that is attached to that duplex would have to also qualify between the 30 to 80% AMI um so that you would have eligible uses within uh the application and to remain competitive. Okay. Does anybody have any questions about eligible uses? And I can't see the chat. Is there anything in there? >> Nope. not seeing here on my end. >> Oh, you guys are quiet this morning. I must be an amazing presenter. This is a good opportunity to ask if your uh application activity would be eligible for funding. So, if you have any questions about eligibility of your project, this is a great time to ask. We won't bite. Okay, hearing no questions, seeing nothing, I'm going to move forward. >> These two >> funding sources, we have the Housing and Redevelopment Authority, levy funding, proousing, home, local affordable housing aid, and state affordable housing aid. Any Ramsey County award will be subject to prevailing wage ordinance, affordability monitoring, and 2026 Ramsey County Architectural Guidelines. But let's talk specifically about these funding sources. Now, we're going to start with the Housing Redevelopment Authority or HA levy funding. Eligible uses of funds include the construction acquisition of tried to move something and moved my screen. Now it doesn't want to go backwards. Of course, >> for low to moderate income households, including permanent supportive housing, applicants requesting funds for acquisition must also include rehab activities. Funding units must remain affordable for at least 30 years and these funds will be generally structured as a loan. Priority is given to projects with units targeting low to extremely low restricted households. Remember low is 50% AMI, extremely low 30% AMI must close within 18 months of the ward. And these funds are not available in the city of North St. Paul. So the city is of North St. Paul is a different city than St. Paul. So please pay attention to that. Pro housing pathways to reducing obstacles are pro housing is a federal fund from the US Department of Urban and of Urban Development. Pro-Housing funds are available countywide. Eligible uses include the new construction and the acquisition rehab of rental housing for low to moderate income renters including supportive housing. With pro housing, 10% of your units must be income and re rent restricted to residents making 30% of the area median income or extremely low um area median income. Home. Home is also a federal funding source. It is the home investment partnerships appro program and it also comes from HUD. Home funds are available for use only in suburban Ramsey County. That means you cannot use them in the city of St. Paul. Funds may only be used for rehab and new construction of affordable owner occupied housing, acquisition or owner occupied housing, rehab, and development or rehab of affordable single family rental housing. These units must remain affordable for 20 years. And for more information on federal regulations regarding the design guidelines, subsidy layering, all other guidelines, you'll have to visit HUD's exchange online because they'll have all of the information including the NOO in which we were funded for. local affordable housing aid. LAA funds, we call it LAHA. LAA funds are a available countywide, including in the city of St. Paul. Eligible uses of funds include the construction of permanent rental housing, acquisition and or rehab of permanent rental housing. This may also include permanent supportive housing. Um, all units must include income and rental restrictions. State requirements may require the inclusion of accessible units. Um, that's ADA accessible units. funds will be structured as a loan and a minimum of 30-year affordability period is required. So, this is a state fund. This comes from the state. State affordable housing aid, SAHA, are available countywide, including the city of St. Paul. Eligible uses of these funds include new construction and or the acquisition and rehab of owner occupied housing. All units must include income and rental restrictions. State requirements may require the inclusion of ADA accessible units. Funds may be structured as a loan or a grant in a minimum 20-year affordability period is required. Okay, let's talk about this evaluation schedule. You know, your application responses must be in by May 26th. Please make sure that you turn in your application responses prior to this because anything that comes in after May 26 will not be eligible for scoring. uh because we begin our application review promptly on June 1st. Um awards would be awardees would be alert alerted prior to um June 18th if they received an award or not. And board approvals begin in in the end of June, June 23rd, so the week before the last week of June. Um I cannot stress enough that the portal may be overloaded on May 26th. So, it behooves you to turn in your application before May 25th. Um, the portal does close down at 4:30. You having a technical issue with your portal will not um that was not told to us prior to uh the closing of your application. We're just not going to review your your um your additional materials. I want I want everybody to know that. Let's talk about past fail requirements. the county worked together to create an application that was not ownorous and so there are very little things required for you to be able to turn in an application. So, in order for you to turn in an application, we just ask that you fill in your applicant information, your project information, your strategic alignment application, your organizational capacity application, and then the only required materials are the multif family workbook or owner occupied book workbook if that's the activity that you're going to do, the lobbying certification form, and the acknowledgement letter. Without these portions of the application, your application does not go into scoring because it is not eligible. Um, however, there is a nice little laundry list of other things that supplementary materials that will go into your scoring but are not required in order to get into the door of the application. Does anybody have any questions on funding sources or required materials? Do you only want questions in the chat or is >> I can't see the chat. So if my colleagues can Yeah, I can jump in here since I am reading two questions. So the first one is uh is acquisition and rehab uh for all applicants or just nonprofit? Acquisition and rehab for multifamily is for all applicants. However, if you're prefer if you're trying to acquis acquire if you're trying to acquire uh single family housing for rehab that is only for nonprofits and government institutions. Thank you. And then uh second question here uh so uh someone's asking where the new architectural guidelines are located online and it's actually also on the neighborly portal. So we'll show where that um is located but I guess Jurga if you know where they are online I believe they should be on the web page if they are not there yet. So our new architectural guidelines are in the document library within the neighborly portal. So, if you go into the neighborly portal, you can see a um a library of really important documents that Ramsey County often references. And if you would like to score high on your strategic alignment, you should also reference. That is our economic competitiveness and inclusion plan, our deeply affordable housing initiative engagement report, um our Ramsey County architectural guidelines, um and there's one more I'm missing, Max. Either way it goes, it's inside of our document library. So, we have five documents there. I can't remember them off the top of my head. >> Yeah. And I'll go through kind of what that looks like as well towards the end of the presentation here. And then there's actually two more questions that popped up as well. Uh what are the funding allocations for each funding source and is Davis Bacon required for pro funding? >> Yeah, I can take those two questions. Um funding allocations are still in flux. So we don't set an amount and release that amount. So um due to perhaps reallocated projects from past years or um program income coming in. So we do not um release a dollar amount. You can look on our website ramsey county um mn.govousing investments to see what previous year's investments were um and to kind of get a scope of how much funding is available. Um uh Davis Bacon is required for pro housing and home um home funds depending on the amount of um units and all funding triggers the Ranchia County prevailing wage ordinance of investments over $25,000. Single family um does the question in the chat is does single family compete for funds with multif family? Um through Jericho's presentation on the different funding sources um you'll see that home funds and SAHA funds were allocated towards u owner occupied uses and the other funds sources were used for um um multif family uses. So there will be sort of different amounts of funding available for those um uses. >> Thank you for taking that Max. And then there's uh two more questions here too. Uh does having supplemental documentation give a project more points for scoring? I think we're about to actually go into that. Um so you're >> leading us into that uh those slides. And then are you looking for projects that are more ready where you want to see architectural design and drawings? All right, let's let's go into that section because that is exactly where we're going. Um, we're going to talk about some supplementary materials that you can provide um that are not required for an application, but if you do provide them, they do add into your scoring. And we'll talk about scoring criteria and what those pieces look like in just a moment. These are the additional materials list that I was just referencing. So for instance, your project schedule, your project scope of work, your market feasibility analysis plan, applicants financial statements, the expla explanation of any funding sources, commitment letters from funders, architectural drawings, sworn construction cost statement, bids and specs, site improvement plans, maps of proposed areas. You're going to see on the website that we do provide a critical corridors map. Um, and we'll talk about critical corridors and what those things mean in just a moment. So, just keep that in your head um as we move forward. And then the National Environmental Protection Act checklist if you have anything that you're going to be proposing, photos of the project site, evidence of site control, tenant data, rent roll for existing units if applicable, zoning and land use documentation or approval or your waste management plan. Now these elements of an application strengthen an application so that we as the uh evaluators or my evaluation team can see the full scope of what you're proposing and what capacity you have in order to enact what you are proposing. Um I feel like a an a mistake that applicants often make is they feel like what they're doing is common sense. Imagine that nothing is common sense and we want to know all of the specifics of what you're going to be providing to the county um in our constituents because our constituents has have asked us to provide affordable housing options and so that's what we're trying to do. Um we are asking developers to uh think of what it is that they can do strategically um to provide what our constituents has have asked us to do. Um so no these things are not required for a complete application. However, they do go into your scoring and we'll talk about scoring in just a moment in um what scoring criteria we look at when we are evaluating proposals. And I'll use the word proposal and application interchangeably, but they mean the same thing. Application and proposal are the same word. Um I just my brain it's it's it's changing them. So applications, proposals, those are um those are synonymous. Let's talk about the scoring criteria. The housing development solicitation has four scoring criteria. Of those scoring criteria, three of them are equal to the same um the same amount. However, they have different metrics. So, strategic alignment, affordability, and financial feasibility are all 30 points within the housing development solicitation. And your organizational capacity um is 10 points. Now, let's talk about these in a little bit more detail. First, let's go over strategic alignment. Remember that document library I referenced earlier where I talked about the economic competitive and inclusion plan, the deeply affordable engagement initiative report. I hope you guys can't hear my dogs. The equ the equitable development framework. Those are all documents that our constituents have provided us information of what they want for the county to be able to provide. Now, if you're reading those documents and you're studying them and you're understanding them and you're able to reference your application and how your application um does what we're asking to do, you're going to score higher in the strategic alignment section. We asked you to do something and you're doing exactly that. So, make sure that as you're um putting in your application, you're thinking about our goals, our our strategies, our initiatives, what we want to put forth, and how your project is doing that for us. Uh that makes it very easy for my um evaluation team to read and understand what you are what you are referencing to. And if you're asking me for $500,000, I'm asking for $500,000 uh strategic alignment answers. So 30% of your score is strategic alignment. So please pay very close attention to what you are offering um as far as uh how your goals and our goals can can align. I'm going to skip this cuz it can get deep. Um so just make sure that you you review strategic alignment. Carmel, I'm going to let you take this slide and talk about critical corridors. >> Yeah, thank you. So part of that 30point piece, I'm just kind of pulling out a specific portion here, is the alignment to critical corridor planning um or critical corridor program goals, I mean. And so uh if maybe you have applied to our fall critical corridors program that covers uh hard construction costs um focused on kind of building uh more transit oriented development. uh that uh pool of funding is now combined with the spring housing development solicitation. And so that's new this 2026. And essentially the goals are increasing density along key transit, economic, and cultural corridors in the county. And so these are all the corridors in green on the map uh here on the screen. And so uh you can see this map in our critical corridors program web page as well as the housing development web page as well in underneath related resources if you want to kind of type in your project site and kind of see whether it's along a corridor. Um and so that's something where you can see kind of that uh resource. And so, uh, something, uh, to pull out here as well is that, uh, projects that are redeveloping any underutilized or vacant lots, um, have a better advantage as well when it comes to scoring. And so, wanting to really promote that, uh, to transit oriented development here at the county. And so, yeah. Okay. Now, affordability that is how affordable your units are for um your residents or your future residents. Um and we have two different affordability metrics and that's multifamily and owner occupied. So depending on which activity you were proposing in your application, um the percentage of units affordable at or below 30% AMI could give you um 15 points if you had over 10% of your units develop devoted to those who have extremely low income. Um if you have less than 10% of your units rest or more than 10% you can get 20 points. If you have less than 10% you can you can get if you have 10% of your units but less than 10.1% you can get 30% AMI or you can get 15 points for 30% AMI. Now, if you provide 50 to 90% of your units rent restricted at 50% AMI, so that's low income, um then you can get five points. If all of your rent restricted at 30% or 50% AMI units are affordable without additional rental subsidy, like for instance section 8 or housing choice voucher, then you would be able to get an additional five points. If you propose an application with 60% AMI um 100% 60% AMI uh units, you would get zero points in affordability. Um so that is something that you might want to consider. If you are providing owner occupied affordability, we ask that um we ask that you talk about what kind of affordability the the full scope of the project would provide. The proposed owner occupied unit is income restricted to a household at 60% AMI purchased at movein. Um then you would get 20 points. The proposed owner occupied unit is income restricted to a household at 80% AMI um you would get 15 points. And are all proposed owner occupied units income restricted at 60% AMI? If yes, you can get 10 points. So thinking about that um in the scope of a single family house is pretty easy. But when you're thinking about it in a duplex um or a triplex or however you plan to uh rent out the other units um if you're selling it, just make sure that you are able to communicate what the affordability is for that additional unit um for your application. Financial feasibility is a little bit different from affordability, but these are both quantitative analyses. Um, we're looking at owner occupied multif family and multif family or preservation and multif family new construction very differently. This is gone over in your solicitation announcement which I would consider um if you have not read it yet um to read it. This is very in-depth. I'm not going to go through each of these because we just don't have the time to do that. Um but again there are different metrics for owner occupied multifamily preservation and multif family new construction. And those are the costs associated with your project to the county. Um, and your total development cost. Organizational capacity is really who's on your team and what is their um what is their capacity to get the work that you're proposing in your scope of work done. Um, if you look at these portions, you can see the development team has strong experience planning and completing housing development projects. The development team describes ample staff capacity to successfully execute submitted proposal if less experienced lead applicant has brought together an experienced team to fill in the organizational gaps. We're asking that if you don't know who's on your team yet or if you um you are still developing your team that you still communicate how you plan to hire those individuals uh in the future for the full scope of work and what you are looking for. So please make sure that you answer these questions as succinctly as possible as even though this is a 10point metric, it is 10 points that can add to your score and all points are created equal. However, um uh you want to make sure that you get all the points that you can especially say you don't have the financial feasibility or affordability um that you would need in order to be successful in this application. We look at all of the applicants and compare them to the landscape of applicants. So I can't say like, oh, if you're able to provide this, then your application will be more competitive than this. I can just say that we look at the entire scope of applicants. Um, and that's how your application is scored. We don't review applications prior to the application deadline. Does anybody have any questions about scoring criteria? Yeah, there's one question in the chat that popped up. Uh, are so owner occupied points add up to 45 points, but the max is only 30 um on affordability. Could this be explained? Owner occupied adds to So the you can only get 20 points or 15 points. You can't get both of those. Does that make sense? So you can you you if your unit is restricted at 60% then you get the 20 points. If your unit is restricted at 80 80% then you get the 15 points. You would not be able to qualify for both of those. So how can you get the maximum of 30 points and or how would you let's say you're going to have two units at 60 and two units at 80. Would you blend those two or something or >> And you're talking about a house for sale, right? >> Correct. Let's say there were four houses in the project and two we were going to put at limit to 60 and two we were going to do 80. What would the point total be then? um or if we had them all at 80, you know, it it's just a little confusing where there's points of the max. >> Understood. So, if you were providing a half and half, half 60, half 80. This is a great question, Laura. What we would do is we would say your whole project would be at 70% AMI and then you would get 15 points. Okay. Does that make sense? >> That's fine. Yeah, thanks. >> And then you do qualify for are all proposed owner occupied or you don't qualify for the owner occupied units at 60% AMI because they're not all 60% AMI and so you wouldn't get that additional 10 points. >> It's an all or nothing. So it wouldn't it wouldn't to the developer it wouldn't benefit us at all to do half and half. It's like if we if we can't do all of them at 60, we might as well just do all of them at 80. Then >> I do think that that is up to the developer because you could um score less in affordability, more in financial feasibility, um and more in strategic alignment and offset that scoring. But that's kind of why it is scored that way is so that like you can make that decision. And quantitatively, thank you so much Laura for asking this question. Quantitatively, you're able to score your own project. So, you can see where you score quantitatively. Qualitatively is a little bit more um subjective. >> Okay, great. Thanks. >> No problem at all. There's another question in the chat. Um, will we get a copy of this prescription? I'm assuming the scoring metrics uh via email. >> You most likely would not get it via email. However, you can uh log into the neighborly platform and open up the solicitation announcement and the solicitation announcement will have all of these metrics inside of the solicitation announcement. So, you'll you'll be able to know what your project scores just by using the solicitation announcement. This learning um PowerPoint and this video that I'm recording right now will be posted on the website that I mentioned earlier. And I think that's all the questions. >> Any other questions? >> There's one more. Um, how many projects per organization can be submitted for this RFP? >> For this um for this solicitation, we only allow two applications per per entity. So, um you can't propose more than two applications. scattered site is not um approved for this solicitation announcement. I know that wasn't a specific question here, but I have had that question in the past. >> Could you say more about scattered site not doing it or >> Yeah, I can >> Yeah. Um so on the multif family side, scattered site is not allowed. So you cannot propose an address. Let's I'm just going to make up some streets. can't have one address on Menota Street and one address on Sherburn and count it as one application. Um and so one in the multif family side, one address or parcel equals an application. on the owner occupied side since you can apply for an acquisition of poolled funds um the scattered site is allowed and then um in that sense in let's say you are proposing a development of four owner occupied units um kind of all on the same development they'd be separate parcels but they're all adjacent that is also allowed and would not be considered scattered site >> thank Thank you. >> Oh, and uh there was a question on uh sending the web page uh and we're typing that into the chat right now. So, um yeah, >> thank you. Okay, I think uh it's my um slides set of slides here now. So, uh, as we've said before, we have a new application portal. If you haven't, uh, done an application with us in the last 6 months, this might be new to you. Um, so how to start an application. So, uh, the link that was just sent in the chat, um, uh, click on that link and you're going to be able to see the begin application, uh, button towards the bottom of the screen there. And once you click on that, you'll be brought into the Ramsey County participation portal that has our application. You'll need to create a neighborly account and that's free. You can just click the sign up now um kind of in the square in the red here and pretty self-explanatory. Um you'll be setting it up with your email and setting up a password. And next slide please. And so, uh, once you are logged in, um, this is kind of a screenshot of what your, uh, your landing page will look like. And so, uh, here, um, you'll be able to see, uh, start application. It's a blue button on the right for housing development. So, you'll see that we already have, um, different applications um, for environmental response funds, for uh, first home down payment assistance. You don't want to click applications for that unless you do have um would like to. But you want to scroll all the way down for housing development and click that start application button. And then you'll be brought into the next slide here. And I think I'll actually start sharing my screen so that you can kind of click into what this looks like. So one moment. Oh, I got to stop sharing my screen so I can see all of you wonderful people in here. Hello. It's nice to see you all again. Excited for what this solicitation will offer. Okay, so now hopefully you can see this. Um, so this is kind of the the starting page of what you'll see when you click into your application. And maybe some of you are already on it, so feel free to follow along. Um so you'll see here um all the different sections uh that we have for our portal and um to have an application be reviewed you'll need to complete complete each portion and so this is just a general program overview uh document here or I mean landing page here and so you'll see kind of a lot of the things that we already mentioned in this uh webinar uh just written in text here and you'll also see some links Um, and so some templates to the required materials that we have like the multif family workbook and the owner occupied workbook. And then also, let's see here, if I scroll all the way down, you'll see we mentioned funding sources as well. So, this kind of just is a good place to start. Um, and then also the full solicitation notice. So, I'm highlighting this here. you'll be able to click and this leads you to uh the solicitation notice that has kind of our scoring metrics that Jericho mentioned and uh when she was describing our four scoring categories and so I'll click on to the next section here document library again you'll see solicitation notice you can click into that uh the equitable development framework engagement summary report the ECI economic competitiveness and inclusion plan and then uh here are the architectural guidelines And so that question on where to find them, uh you can click on it and start an application and be able to kind of click on uh the document here. So I just wanted to point that out. >> And then it looks like someone did go unmuted or unmuted. Did some Did you have a question at all or Okay. Okay. I'll keep going here. Um so you'll see applica applicant information. pretty self-explanatory. Um, if you could please put yourself on mute. Um, thank you. Uh, and this one you'll just be filling this out. Um, project information as well. And also, um, if anyone from my team would like to call anything out, please feel free to unmute as I go through this as well. And so, you'll see kind of, um, the project information and being able to answer all the questions here. uh strategic alignment. Uh this is the portion where it's a lot of our uh narrative portion here too. So you'll see um references to our different plans and reports that will help you answer these questions here. Uh organizational capacity. uh you'll be able to see kind of the different contacts for your team that you'll be entering here and help us to score on that certain category um for your application. And then required materials. So um please make sure to upload the correct workbook. Again, if you click one of them, you'll see a link to be able to get that template for that spreadsheet. So, uh, clicking on one or the other and then being able to upload that file right here. And oh, and I guess before I keep going here, at the end of each, uh, section, you'll see a save button. Make sure to click this as you're going through the application. Uh, it doesn't automatically save. So, you want to make sure you're not going to lose your uh, progress. So, you want to click save each time uh, you work on your application here. And just wanted to point that out. And then that long list of additional materials, you'll see it replicated here and a section to upload each file um that you have. And these are optional. So you'll see um additional materials, but required is something that we do need from you. So just wanted to point out the differences here of these two sections E and F. Um, and lobbying certification. This one self-explanatory again, just being able to sign that as well as the acknowledgement form and clicking submit at the end. So, once you have all of these completed, let me stop my Well, actually, before I stop my share, I think I have >> go into the document library just for me one more time. I wanted to go overhead >> documents. All right. So, you see here the solicitation notice. The solicitation notice will have all of the information um that we've presented today within this this uh meeting. It won't have the presentation attached to it, but this is a really great check my work type of document. You want to make sure that what you're applying for, the activity that you're applying for is eligible for funding. Um you want to look at the funding sources. This is a great way to do that. Um, if you want to see what we're looking for, this is a great way to do that. So, please, please, please, if you have not read the solicitation announcement yet, do that. That is kind of um, your syllabus to the application, if I'm being really honest. Um, the equitable development framework engagement summary report, which is the deeply affordable engagement initiative report. um it's going to be changed to a different word there. So, I just want to make sure that you know uh the Ramsey County Economic Comp competitiveness and Inclusion Plan, those are all documents that like I said before were created by our constituents that kind of outline what it is that what they want from the county um as they pay us our tax their taxes. Uh we are supposed to provide those services. So if you can tell us what your project does to apply to those things, then you um then you have the potential to score higher in your strategic alignment section. So that is that part that has ambiguity. Uh that is that part that is um um not specifically objective like for instance the quantitative analysis but when you're looking at qualitative analysis you want to make sure that you're you're able to um be very succinct with your proposal. Thank you Carmel. I'm sorry. >> No, no need to apologize. And I'll actually point out um one more thing here, too. So, if you have any issues, say maybe like a screen isn't loading um or maybe login issues, I also want to point out where you can ask for help specifically from Neighborly. So, uh clicking here on the top right, you'll see the menu for support. And so, it's a question mark right here. And then this pops up. Maybe you need your password reset or there's an error message. um uh you'll be able to kind of type that in, upload an attachment. So, we just want to make sure that you can you have a way to be able to kind of troubleshoot anything that you're seeing as you uh look at this application. So, just wanted to point that out. >> And um responding to the question in the chat um will multiple team members be able to work on the same application in neighborly? They should be through the users. You should be able to add another user. Um, and if you're having any trouble doing that, the neighborly help um, should be super helpful for that. >> Yeah. And actually, I'm sharing my screen again here just so you can see. So, you can click on users here on the left and you'll be able to add a user um, and add their email and they should have access um, and they'll have to create a neighborly account as well to be able to access that. So, yeah. I'm gonna stop my screen and we can go back to slides. Jerica Okay. Oh, Jerica, you are uh on mute. Okay. So, if you are on a computer, this is a good opportunity for you to sign up for our newsletter. You can pick up your phone, open up your camera, and this QR code should load up um for your phone. I'm going to give you a couple of seconds to sign in here. Uh this newsletter that we that CED releases really does allow you to know about all of the different funding sources that Ramsey County um has in order to get your projects off the ground. It also is a great opportunity to uh be able to put your input into what you believe the county should be focusing on. So, if you have not signed up for our newsletter, I will tell you it is a wealth of information. Um, and uh, we'll get you we'll get you signed up just by scanning this QR code and clicking the link. Is anybody having any issues with this QR code? Okay, that is all we have. Does anybody have any additional questions that were not answered in the course of this presentation? Uh there's a question uh on the critical corridors map and I just dropped the link for that into the chat. So hopefully that works for folks. And then another question here, uh, all the information you shared today will be on Neighborly's website. Could you share the website? Yeah, so that's actually um the very first link that Mac shared. Um, yes, and he shared it just again here uh ramseyountmn.gov/housinginvestments and you'll be able to uh click into that to access the application. And then another question here. Are you offering any TA support? I'll let Jerica take that question. >> Absolutely. Unfortunately, because we had a really robust application uh pool for EDDD last year, we we did not have any more technical assistance hours >> for um I'm going to ask everybody to mute. We didn't have any more technical assistance hours in order to provide for uh this specific solicitation. So no, there will be no technical assistance provided this year. I'm not seeing any other questions in the chat, but we'll wait a few seconds because I know it takes a while to type as well. Oh. Uh, where can we find the scoring worksheet? >> Um, a specific worksheet will not be provided, but all the scoring will be listed out in this presentation in the PowerPoint presentation and then in the U solicitation notice. Um, so you can kind of create your own scoring guide from that. Uh, the presentation screenshots were kind of a behind-the-scenes look at what our score sheets look like. Um and and all the scoring is listed in the solicitation notice again. Um all questions received between April 13th and uh tomorrow will be included in an addendum to the solicitation notice. So there'll be like an FAQ sheet after the solicitation notice and we'll re-upload that. So um on April by the end of day, April 23rd, there will be a new amended solicitation notice called the solicitation notice addendum and it'll include all FAQs um collected over the open period so far. after um April 21st, we will not answer any more questions and um unless it's like, "Hi, my neighborly account isn't working," then we would redirect you to like the neighborly help desk, for example. Um a couple more um questions here. Um are there any specific priorities for Ramsey County in terms of project siter type like unit numbers or construction over preservation? Um no. I think the um connecting reading through the materials that Jericho pointed out in the document library economic development framework, the deeply affordable housing engagement report and the economic competitive inclusion uh lay out the county's priorities in terms of projects they would like to see which both includes new construction and preservation for example. And then our scoring criteria show which types of projects will score higher. So um a project that's at all 60% AMI like Jerich has said would be eligible but may not receive points in the affordability category. So um the scoring also kind of dictates things that would be of uh importance >> and a copy of this presentation will be available online um after I will say after this week so let's say 427 online on the housing investments web page as well as this video will be posted to our YouTube I'm going to give you guys about 30 more seconds to put any other questions in the chat. Otherwise, thank you so much for joining us. This has been Ramsey County's housing development, spring housing development solicitation. Um, we've talked about our funding sources as well as the act eligible activities and we look forward to working with you all in the future. >> Oh, uh, I think Oh, never mind. I thought there was another question. It was Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much for attending. >> Bye-bye.