oh please council member Cole is absent let's remember schweer here council member one here council member nordby mayor mangy here if you get a motion to adopt the agenda so moved so moved by council member second second by councilmember nerby all the members say aye aye all right thank you first topic up is uh Rams County HRA Levy discussion and we'll start that off with a quick staff report from Randy Howard Community Development director so you might recall a meeting back in April where we had a very full agenda and on that agenda was Ramsey County doing a presentation on the hre levy I thought tonight would be a good opportunity to revisit that to kind of close the loop on that discussion so we can give them Direction on what what we would like to do if we want to participate or not participate so this is a presentation just to try to reiterate a little bit of what the levy program is about and what benefit it could provide to the city um so as a way of introduction the Ramsey County HRA was organized in May of 1993 by the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in 2022 the county levied 11.1 million dollars through the HRA to preserve and increase the supply of affordable housing within the county all communities in Ramsey County are required to participate in the levy with the exception of Saint Paul and North Saint Paul because both of these cities have been operating in their own hrase since 1972 or before 1971 sorry both cities have the option to opt in to the county in 2022 St Paul decided to opt in they have an agreement where at least 50 percent of the funds that are levied are spent in in Saint Paul and programming specific to that City the city of North St Paul at that time in 2022 chose to opt out because we have new Commissioners and we have new staff we ask that the county come back and do a presentation to give us an understanding of what the levy is for and how how it's beneficial and so that happened on April 18th at the city council Workshop and then following that meeting staff has requested some additional information from the county to give to give us all a better understanding so what programming will the city of North Saint Paul be eligible if it were to participate Ramsey County offers three Key Programs through the HRA Levy those include affordable housing projects the critical Corridor grant program and wealth generation programs so I'm kind of go through each of those the HRA funded almost 8 million in affordable housing projects in 2022 you'll see that from the list about half of those were focused in Saint Paul but Little Canada Maplewood White Bear and Shoreview received 4.2 million for new construction of affordable projects these are two of those the litmore and Little Canada and the lochnor sorry lochner in White Bear Lake are two of the HRA affordable housing projects litmore received 1.1 million and the lock not received one million dollars the critical Corridor grant program offers assistance to qualifying public private and non-profit organizations for place-based Investments along major transportation commercial and cultural corridors we do have quite a few areas within the city that are covered by those commercial corridors the goals of that program are to boost connectivity between housing jobs retail services and transportation him create more Compact and walkable walkable environments enhance pedestrian access and safety and support a vibrant vibrant business districts so up to fifty thousand dollar fifty thousand dollars was available for pre-development planning grants in 2022 I'm sorry up to 50 000 is per per project in 2022 a hundred thousand was available for that Grant type um up to fifty thousand per project is available for the commercial Corridor initiative out of a hundred thousand and that funding is used for business recruitment establishing small business incubators building facade improvements technical assistance doing district-wide marketing branding and promotion and then finally up to five hundred thousand dollars is available for a project for the development and infrastructure Grant eligible projects can include extraordinary cost of housing commercial or mixed use Redevelopment projects as well as public site infrastructure work and the final program is the wealth generation piece which they call first home it assists first time and first generation home buyers that are low to moderate income uh helps them to purchase a new home eligible buyers May purchase a home of up to three hundred and seventy two thousand dollars and qualify for loans that can be used for down payment and closing costs first time home buyers with the gross household income that is at or below the 80 of the American median income sorry area media income can qualify for the program first generation home buyers with four or more household members must be at or below 100 Ami so I put the statistics in the report and on the screen based on the American American Community survey data families and individuals in North St Paul could benefit from the program and per the County's presentation on April 18th numerous individuals have inquired um at the county to see if they would be eligible and unfortunately they were turned away because we're now part of the levy program so in considering how whether to participate in the program you may ask how was the 11.1 million spent 7.7 approximately was spent on the affordable housing Pro projects 1.8 on the critical Corridor grants 435 000 on wealth generation programs and then 1.1 million was spent on staff Professional Services and overhead so what would it cost us the median estimated value of a home in North St Paul is 273 750 so that that home value would result in an estimated increase of 42 dollars for that house bill for that tax bill as of 2023 North St Paul is estimated to contribute 1.8 percent to the county Levy so that equates about just under 200 000 that would be added to the HRA from North St Paul so does North St Paul have some projects that would benefit from the HRA participation um as I mentioned earlier there are likely individuals that would benefit from the wealth generation programs that reduce barriers to home buying we also are qualifying a lot of our areas in the city have low median income home value lower than neighboring Suburban communities so North St Paul would likely have Redevelopment opportunity projects that would be eligible for grant funding through the critical quarter program so at this time Carrie Collins the community development director with county is present she is available to answer any questions I can try to answer any questions regarding this but at this point we would like to open it up for your conversation and see if there's Direction you'd like us to take on on this I believe the deadline for participation is uh July is that right so if we were to take action we'd have a resolution back to you at the next council meeting I'll open up with with our own now how much are we bringing in for our HRA that we have I believe the levy is paused at the moment with our HRA we are not presently taking what do we have for funds I don't know that off the top my head I believe it's a little over 400 000 right now is what's in their budget or their total budget so we have 400 000 right now in there why was it paused pardon me why was it paused is it for the sake of the only sold the 19th Avenue house that um we made significant money over it so yeah we felt that they didn't need the funding and and that's the way it was voted on last year as well sure what was the what what do they want to see in ours does their amount is that why it was as much as how much they want in the account there wasn't a goal okay to have a certain amount but it was enough to do what we were doing with our student-built houses to continue moving forward and we have enough to continue to move forward with our student Bill houses and take care of what we've been doing we do okay so any questions um if we elect to go with the Ramsey County one ours has to stop correct I don't believe that is correct we would continue to operate our own HRA okay and an additional opportunity to have funding available through their their programming and then um if it's because we have ours going could we stop at any point in time um yes this is a great question so ours uh our h a loving the programming is in addition to cities that also have an HRA or an Eda many cities um you know some some cities in Ramsey County don't have an HRA and so they rely heavily on our HRA some Levy in addition to the HRA some take a look at reducing the municipal HRA to offset the county HRA so every city does it differently it's just a matter of Um this can be in addition to or in replace of depending on the goals of the city you know one thing that I do want to stress is um you know we hear a lot from economists right now talking about this kind of fourth wave associated with economic recovery post covid and right now you're probably hearing Workforce Workforce Workforce is the name of the game and the one way to ensure that you have a stable and healthy Workforce is to ensure stable and healthy housing and that's where jobs are coming and we're seeing that all over the county so I would say a lot of the other Suburban communities are getting really serious in terms of preserving and constructing new housing both in terms of single-family affordable single family and also rental to ensure that their pipeline for their businesses is strong and so that's what we're hearing a lot from our particularly our Suburban Community Partners right now at this time in terms of how they plan to use the Ramsey County HRA Levy I do also want to stress from a mechanics standpoint every project that we Fund in your community does need to be supported by the council Ramsey County can't fund a project with a trade Levy dollars in your community without Municipal consent so there is a partnership we do look very comparably to our HUD programs to partner with the city on advancing the city goals when we use our County age rate dollars so um what about ending let's say in three years it's not a good fit absolutely this is a great question ask this question as well um they said you know if we're finding that we we don't have a good or strong uh return on investment can we opt out and the the answer is yes comparably you would pass resolution saying we no longer are going to be included in the Ramsey County HRA you would do so by a similar time frame July which tells our folks and and property tax area to not include you within the area of operation in the taxable year moving forward so you do have an opt-in opt out option available to you we do because we fall with before 1971. the other ones have no choice correct thank you for your presentation Brandi and thank you for being here to answer questions um in regards to some of the submissions you received um what are some of the factors um the HRA considers when when allocating a project or approving one a great question thank you councilmember the factors we include includes a range of affordability so we look at that where there's plenty of projects happening right now at what we call market rate which was kind of 80 to 115 percent of Emi so the HRA Levy wouldn't be a good fit statutorily we are required to use Atria Levy funds for low to moderate income housing in terms of our wealth generation programs I would say that's where we we have heard quite a bit of Interest coming out of North St Paul residents to get access to those down payment assistance grants those are on a first come first serve so we had a kind of an overwhelming amount of Interest right now so our down payment assistance staff are kind of working through the queue so that that's geography is all over the county and but in terms of multi-family housing we're looking at preservation of existing affordable housing so if you have town homes or multi-family buildings where you're starting to see disrepair and it's starting to become because I blighted where you're like wow that's an eyesore in our community that's where our funds have really been able to help to kind of preserve that affordability we also look at the range so if you have five units at 60 Ami and versus another project that comes in where you've got a sprinkling of 50 or you know 60 you know a range then that probably is going to score a little bit better but I do want to stress which we committed to all of the Suburban communities regardless of having a choice or not geographic distribution and of these dollars is critical to us we want to see a preservation and new construction across all of Ramsey County where you saw the Shoreview project Mounds View receive funds Little Canada New Brighton we want to see you know investments in all of the county and we made that commitment to every Community within Ramsey County St Paul you know specified that caveat associated with 50 returning back because they are 50 of the tax base so they did want to see a return on their investment as well so as the projects come in we're always balancing between Suburban Ramsey County and St Paul and so that's factored into decision making thank you any more questions no I'm I think I'm ready for discussion okay open the discussion yeah um last so last time we were presented on the previous Council um in regards to this and um there was a lot of discussion about you know um you know what would happen to our student Bill things like that and it's nice to hear that that doesn't have to go away um so I'm just kind of wondering aside from the student-built housing um what are the other goals of our HRA at this point in time and of course that would probably be a little bit more appropriate for the HRA but I think that's important to consider when we're bringing in funds you know is it to build more affordable housing or is it our Corridor which is our downtown can we get a higher dollar amount than when than what we're getting now so I'm just kind of thinking um in some of those terms so open to hearing what others have to think um I have a question about the math is the tax base of Saint Paul above or below that 50 Mark of all the in Ramsey County I think what you're asking is what is If if Saint Paul is 50 where do we fall within 100 percent no St Paul compared to all the others if you added up all the others not Saint Paul or if all the others add up to 60 percent and St Paul adds up to 40 percent of everyone contributing to this Levy thank you it's almost an even split between Suburban Ramsey County and the city of Saint Paul so it's like it depends on the year but it's like 49.8 percent Saint Paul and then the rest of the Suburban communities make up the other 50 and so it's going to be different you know based off you know economic changes every year but it's it's really close to 50 50. so as we went around and held various Summits with City staff and city managers you know they said we understand that split but can you make sure then that 50 of the atrial Levy goes to Suburban Ramsey County and we said yes so um in terms of North St Paul's contribution as Brandi mentioned it's 1.8 percent into the Atria Levy which is why I would say it's it's really wonderful for communities like North St Paul and Gem Lake in Little Canada to contribute in this way because chances are very likely that your Grant size on an annual basis will exceed what you put in um so just I mean that's been a huge selling point for some of the smaller communities in Ramsey County knowing that whether it's downtown North St Paul on the main street with a critical Corridor grants the wealth generation opportunities or the preservation options for multi-family housing chances are very likely that your Grant size is going to exceed 198 000 on an annual basis that's assuming of course we have projects ready to go into the pipeline working with staff to make sure that they get into the pipeline for consideration thanks do you mind if I ask her a question no go for it um I was wondering if you could describe so we've got the affordable housing no I'm sorry with the critical corridors there was three types of Grants the planning and then the projects there was a third that was related to business retention and development can you talk about some of the communities that have benefited from that and how the program works from a staff to staff perspective uh thank you Randy that's a great question so pre-planning and then we've got um kind of pre-development fund and that's to ready a site for development some of those early costs are sometimes extraordinary so we help to intervene their there is development and infrastructure but there is a program that's unique and that's specific to Suburban Ramsey County so St Paul is isn't eligible for those funds and that's the commercial Corridor initiative and the reason why that's built is because we know that St Paul will always have a pipeline of multi-family projects and that that will probably be the bulk of their share of the HRA Levy but whether it's you know North St Paul or some of these other communities the landscape is a little bit different and you may not always have a 200 unit multi-family project and therefore for Suburban Ramsey County we've got this commercial Corridor initiative because we did a landscape view survey of all of Ramsey County and every community in Ramsey County regardless of the landscape does have a commercial Corridor that's in need of reinvestment and just general investment to keep those down those kind of employment centers strong so the commercial Corridor initiative can be kind of one of two things it can be marketing for the business Community to ensure that you're driving attraction driving employment to keep the business as a business retention and expansion play we've seen that up and down Lexington Avenue as they've undergone Construction uh they did a big website and kind of marketing promotion to help keep those businesses strong it can also be be facade improvements for some of the kind of Aging retail strip centers that's in need of signage improvements or facade improvements to keep it from getting blighted and we've partnered with communities on some of the kind of building Improvement side of things as well so there's a lot of flexibility written into that project or into that kind of offering but that's one one program that is unique to Suburban Ramsey County that could really benefit North St Paul could benefit from I mean questions Cassie no I mean that that piece is appealing Randy doing the math you had broke it down was it 42 dollars a month for the tax levy no that's the tax bill for a house that was the median thank you um Best Value in the city appreciate it um and forgive me this is kind of a newbie question because I don't know this um on an issue of like this personally I think I'm in favor of it but um it what is a history on issues like this where we vote as a council or we vote to put it on the next um election to see what the general Community wants I don't know that's why I'm asking I'm a newbie I mean what would be that I'm really looking for the word I lost my country I thought if we were to initiate this what would the tax Levy look like to an average homeowner I mean how much second I increase our taxes well that's the 42 amount so it's the 42 so yeah that's what I was trying to do that's your tax bill increase if if you have the average house um okay now I'm picking it up because that's what I was trying to generalize before and figure out okay was that the 42 dollars when you break it down it's technically a dollar forty a day roughly that's for your on your annual Tax Bill thank you that's exactly what I was looking for that's not the right number it's 42 for a whole year isn't it yeah oh so 42 dollars per year okay I thought okay I wasn't a math major guys but regardless if I broke it down it was still dollar 40 days so it looked great but it's even less obviously so well we've had ours is there I know we share with the student home build is that all the H are the HRA is for right now for as far as where we go okay and that's dedicated to the student housing where this Levy would be dedicated to improvements business improvements business card or improvements um current structural larger housing improvements more money down payments correct to individuals that can't afford a full down payment all right so I the HRA I think believed I believe got rid of that um just before my time I think and despite that being in our housing or the housing second goal of our comp plan so I think that is um I mean kind of picked up in other areas for County however um I think it adds to our own risk Financial risks or it also adds to um to the fact that we don't have a lot of Staff dedicated to running the HRA we don't have we have limited capacity um commissioner Reinhard would like to address the council hello Victoria Reinhardt Ramsey County Commissioner North St Paul is part of my district and I just um I know that the last time that we not the time before when you were looking at coming in and a lot of the questions really then were about affordable housing and thinking that somehow the county was going to come in and make something happen in your community and so I I just want to and I know most of you weren't there you were there at the time and the the but the um as Kerry stated this is something that is really brought forward by the city it's what do you want um we cannot and would not come in and say you need to do this or you need to do that um I'm hoping that that obviously that you will come in because I believe that you will benefit your community will benefit from it more than what's put in and if you don't next year you could opt out but but whatever you do I I'm here because I think it's I I really do think it's a benefit to your city if I didn't I wouldn't be standing here telling you that so it's not a lot of money that 198 000 when you look at 11 million that we're bringing in in the HRA but there are um there are a lot of projects in the city of Saint Paul and not as many in the suburbs but they're getting to be more and more and I think you'll be more competitive and I'd like you to be part of that if you could and you can certainly ask me any questions you want because whatever you do I'm going to support you so that's really all it comes down to any questions I appreciate your perspective on the sapping piece and the amount of load of workload it would be on somebody so that's something definitely that needs to be played in consideration I mean we still have a Community Development projects just to clarify and and um but there's not a whole lot of opportunity to have discussion amongst HRA you know getting all that together and the operations of that so I think we I would say in my experience we struggle to find um you know a an agreed upon Direction outside of the comp plan and outside of the student built I think everyone's mostly on that page but in terms of other things we can do with HRA we haven't really had a whole lot of opportunity to have that discussion and a lot of it has been limited capacity for all sorts of reasons but that's something for us to consider if we have a community development project that's one thing we can focus on and you know our HRA can just continue running the student bill that will have a larger sum of money to probably work with just for Community Development what's our vote your opinion on whether you want to move forward with it or not so we vote tonight and it just goes in as a consent does that all that we I would suggest that it it seems like you're still digesting what this means to us um we can bring it forward as a as an action item not on consent at the next meeting and at that point um we could have a little bit more of a thoughtful reaction yeah I would I prefer doing that myself we have a full Council then as well yeah I there's some there's good things and there's things that are you know we keep adding monthly charges no matter how what value it is how much it is it's it's tough especially the way things are going up and all the calls I get for everything else as far as roads and what's happening with the all these other things so we got a lot so it'll be good just to to be able to digest it and then do that um I understand what you're saying and to build as well a layer of tax burden onto the citizens of North St Paul I do see the benefit though if um if if if this group does decide that it wants to move forward I know that as the you know the planner for the city there are some critical Corridor grant opportunities that we've missed out on and I've had at least one phone call from a from a person who was interested in the wealth generation program and we were not able to accommodate her um I'm also interested in learning more about that uh commercial piece that we could use the crew I forget what it was called again the corridor um critical corridor initiative I think that we have opportunities for facade improvements specifically I know that we've got some owners in the downtown that have expressed interest in in the Eda finding a way to assist them with that um so I agree it's a there's a lot of information to think about over the next couple of weeks and if you have questions that arise in the meantime please contact me and I can contact the County and we can get get more information to help you with the decision and how much we have to develop too as far as land here that type of thing so we have maybe one lot that's still available that's a good size we have a couple lots and I believe that anything that you are going to find that will be a Redevelopment site will have some potential for some site contamination and I believe the critical Corridor project or pre-planning Grant and other actually environment environmental resource fund that's not part of this though is it there's a lot of opportunities for funding through the county and the HRA is just one one Avenue that we could be part of okay well good I appreciate it thanks everybody for the information it definitely helps us as we move forward in the new like we say young Council trying to figure everything out so thank you very much all right next up on the Gen agenda is the Silver Lake Association well that's the meaning isn't it did I miss they're in the council meeting let's go why is it your hand I thought yeah never mind sorry all right should we dismiss I don't think anything else anybody have anything all right good I just want to yeah want us to think about that return on investment I think that is something that could be really huge for us um I'm wondering if that could have been an opportunity to support even some of our current developments that you know are trying to get off the ground as well could it could that have been something we have used for that um that HRA funding so I just wanted to wanted us to really think about that as we continue to redevelop the downtown because we have a Redevelopment master plan and it's it's been the goal of the city for a very long time to get this downtown continuing to move it forward and that's what intrigued me about the business Corridor piece but I am also Maya and I operate as a process thinker so that was I mean I'm processing through all of that information but I agree that upon next meeting it would be helpful for all of us to ask questions Randy I plan on scheduling an appointment with you just to discuss this a little bit further as well and do you want to continue with the current HRA program that we have along with that so yeah there's lots more information to come yeah part of that though is um with our HRA going forward the way we're doing it now is how long is he going to do it and is there going to be somebody replacing this guy when he retires that's the unknown well it sounds to me like we got two lots and after that is he's thinking about pulling the plug and then where do we go from there two more years so we got this house coming up in the next I don't know if it's after next I'll see you the next one he was thinking about retiring so does the school continue the program is there does he have a does he have a person that uh under his wing that he's doing anything with yet not that I've heard yet no it didn't sound like that so that's a concern because then all of a sudden we we don't have anything new that we've been focused right now we're focused on one thing which is the student build so that's part of the equation that I we all need to continue to think about need work sound good all right well thank you we'll dismiss or adjourn sorry at the vote motion to adjourn do we have to do an old motion to adjourn so moved your honor councilmember Wong second council member Norby all those in favor say aye aye aye thank you very much a little break any action 6 30. you have a question you're going to be up in the