half of the two and a half banks are here. >> I sent the financial guys to put a stop over. I will call the meeting to order. Today on the consent agenda, we have the minutes from December 10th and claims for payment of 5,934.60. I will take a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> I'll second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I opposed. All right, we'll go on to the BRE program. Have any visits in the last month? >> Good morning. Um, on December 10th, I reported on that one. I wasn't able to attend your meeting. >> Yes, we did. >> Yeah. Yeah, I think we did. >> Okay. All right. >> So, long ago. >> So, we will during the holidays, we took a little break. It was difficult to get people, but we will kick off your 2026. That was the last one. Is that the McDonald's? >> Yes. >> All right, we'll move on to uh business updates. >> All right, quickly on the business updates. As typical for December, it's kind of a quiet month typically. Um we did not have any new home permits issued in uh December. So, we ended up uh for the year with 57 residential units, three of those being single family, uh 54 being apartment units. We will do the full um gross stats which are permit report uh vacant lot inventory and business inventory at the February meeting as we typically do but yeah we're we're very very low on residential lots at this point. So um I think we kind of mentioned the last meeting there's a lot of behind the scenes discussion going on with um some of the vacant land we have for residential. Uh we'll talk uh a little bit more in a second here about some development opportunities out near Alton Avenue, but uh let me first talk about the other uh change. So the uh company named ANA Investment uh purchased the former Speedway station at 435 West Main. Um they're going to be rebranding it. We issued a signed permit. It's going to be BP Gas over there. Uh we also uh did have a tobacco license issued uh to them under the business name of Snack Attack. We don't have an exact time frame on when they will be uh back up and operating, but uh that is uh what you see going on at that station down by the West Quick Trip over there. Really the big one for January um to note is that we did get an application actually very late 2025 from Java Companies for annexation and resoning of a property currently owned by Mayo on the northeast corner of the intersection of Alton Avenue and Trunkway 1319. Uh, I don't have any public drawings to show you at this point, but on their application, they indicated two quicks serve or fast food restaurants uh with drive-throughs and then a roughly 17,000 square foot grocery store or retail concept is exactly how they worded it on the application. So, that' be kind of directly north of Scooters uh over on that east side of town there. um with that and um we had at the council meeting last week a proposal that the city council approved to have who happens to be our city engineer. But um back in 2004 2005 we had a study completed by in coordination with the county township and the city for Alton Avenue which would become county road 15 and basically connect from uh Mary'stown Road and the high- 169 all the way through the county south and line up uh through that corridor and then ultimately continue south on that east side of uh Cohorns and then ultimately that uh also had a study Lura County that continued all the way kind of the back way on Conerard 144 to um Montgomery. So kind of continue that major north south corridor there as an alternate to uh trunkway 21 and trunk 1319 andor Marshall Road um if you're heading all the way to Shaki. So um we have a meeting today to kick off the uh update of that study for Alton Avenue with the county township and ourselves today. uh we're going up there at 10:30 and that'll be about a three-monthl long process to get that um study updated. The key component uh for for us really is to make sure that we have adequate um access for the commercial development. Um obviously Mandot has been very forthcoming on not allowing driveways directly from state highway. Uh we've obviously worked with them and limited that for the Coborns and New Preg Commons development and um ultimately uh further development of the Bellser car dealerships. They've already had one access taken away to the old Chevy dealership and then eventually they'll lose their access to the Ford dealership, but it's all dependent on having backage road and alternate access. So Alton Avenue being that the county um in this agreement we have basically notes that uh they control where the intersections and access can be. So we want to make sure that um the commercial development is not only adequate for what uh would work for commercial development but be safe and meet the intent of the county's transportation planning. So, we kicked that off today. Um, and that'll inform how that development could work out. I don't uh have any more information at this point obviously on that. But, uh, related to that commercial development, if you went directly on the west side of Alton Avenue, um, we have not received an application yet, but we have talked with a developer on, uh, residential uh, development potentially there as well. Um, so with the two developments there, it's important that Alton Avenue, um, we figure out where we're going to have the accesses and everybody can kind of move forward from that point. But related to that, um, we've talked at the EDA and council level about the need for a large U trunk sanitary sewer line. U, one going east, one going west. This is going to push the the discussion on the east sanitary sewer line which generally speaking would follow the alignment of Alton Avenue and really open up kind of the entire uh east side of town for you know not only residential but commercial development along that corridor of uh trunk 1319 as you head towards you know Lakeville and 35. So that's kind of what we got going on right now. And then there's other discussions uh for other residential development going on behind the scenes. So yeah, we uh have a lot going on here shortly or not. >> Never know. >> Thank you, Kevin. the uses that are mentioned, the two restaurants and grocery store, which is funny to hear, but um that that obviously wouldn't take up all eight acres. >> It actually would >> really well I'll say, Bruce, as we look at it, there are potential opportunities for more stuff in there. I don't know if their initial concepts were as efficiently using the space as could be utilized, but that is conversations we'll be having with them. Yeah. As we go forward, >> the not yet public concept shows it using all of it, but yes, there's >> 17,000 square feet isn't even an acre. >> No. >> So, it'd be pretty big restaurants, >> a lot of parking spaces. >> Yeah. Again, there there's a lot of inefficiencies in their initial concepts. What does Coburns and the frontage in front of Coburn sit on acreage wise just for concept? >> Oh um well the four lots in front you know like McDonald's and along those are each one acre. >> So we got four acres there I think it was about I think that's about eight acres roughly. >> Yeah. So similar size to what the courns and the frontage on there. >> Yeah I believe so. >> Awesome. Yeah, that's exciting. >> Individual's name. That's >> uh Mark Crow. Um if um if you've been in Prior Lake uh heading up into Prior Lake from 13, um they have a development where they did a caribou uh valve oil change and then it's right by Tractor Supply. So that's the most nearby development that Java company has done in the area. C R O W E >> C R O U G H. >> What is it currently zoned that way? >> Uh B2 Community Commercial just kind of everything in that corridor from uh essentially the the Easttown strip mall all the way over to Belzers. >> So it wouldn't have to get reszoned at all. Just >> it would not just get annexed. So that was the application they made and uh we say reszoning but it's just establishing that's really just a misnomer. It's establishing zoning, >> excuse me, upon the annexation. >> This this would uh connect Belleers to New Prague officially. Correct. >> Well, this would be on the north side of the road. >> Well, yeah, I guess that's fair. So, they're still on the island out there, huh? >> Yep. the um I can't recall in the discussions plan, but are there any kind of trail systems going from that ditch on Alton going east that way to the creek or anything like that? >> Oh, there are many many ideas for trails in the area. Uh so there will be a trail along Alton Avenue. Um obviously we have that on the south portion by Okay. >> by coords there. Um, and then that ties into future networking. We have, uh, you know, if you look at the old park plan and actually the transportation plan now, we want to make sure we get a connection out to Cedar Lake Farm Regional Park and then to tie into the county's future regional trail system as well, which would kind of connect to Jordan and over to Elco Market. But none of that is really existing right now. All just on paper. No, but it's pretty critical that we have that kind of concepts already well established. We get to the Simon property and >> is those waterways all kind of intersecting there going north? >> Yep. 100%. No, we got that all on our comp plan. >> Mhm. >> All right. Thank you, Ken. We move on to the economic development strategic plan. Yeah. So, we discussed the uh strategic plan last time if you remember right. We had a little bit of discussion on a few various things. Um I can't pull it up right now because my computer's decided now is a good time to do all of its updates. So, uh Ken couldn't buy me any more time updates, but uh >> he laughed at me when I couldn't get on the internet. So yeah, Keith went through and he just made a few small revisions based off of uh some of our comments, though most of the document is uh basically what we saw last time. Um I know we tried to reword a few things as we talked about it, but at this point I guess short of any further comments on the strategic plan, we'd be looking for uh approval from this body as the strategic plan it wants to use moving forward. then this go to the city council for their final approver or does it not have to? >> So yeah, this would there was not a plan I guess to take this to the city council. Um that meeting you remember we had here a few months ago kind of was the blessing of the city council at that point to say yeah >> what you guys are talking about in here we're generally willing and then the agreement that they're good things to pursue. So >> I saw in the strategic plan they're talking about the consolidation of the J. >> So I think what it uh discusses is just looking into it is is kind of how I took that. Um uh it's not saying it will happen. It's just saying it's worth looking into to see if there are some efficiencies or to take something off the plate of the city council should it wish to not necessarily hold that power as well. >> In reading through this, that was a thing that stuck out to me too because internally, I'm not going to speak for everybody, but this is less attractive than many other things. It might be even problematic if without all the context of our meetings, this put out publicly that seems a lot closer to happening than internal discussions and the gap between those two things. I just want to make sure that like to me because of all the context we have. I kind of know what this means discussion but outwardly you may think we're now a housing authority >> or we're really close to being a housing authority. Not opposed to it. We haven't gone down all the way but I'm just I'm cognizant of that. >> Yep. Yeah. And I mean this is certainly your document if this is something that you would like to maybe remove because you feel like it might be a little controversial. Um, but we can always have it as a a standing a standing order without actually having it written down too. That's that's a direction that you guys feel more comfortable doing because I I certainly agree that's like the one comment that we heard >> throughout this whole process um was people afraid that we are becoming an HR. Now, that being said, the H does exist. We just the city council is the is our HR and they just haven't met since I've been here at least. Um, and I don't know how involved the HR has been in our community. Other communities, they're much more involved in trying to set up housing and that sort of thing. So, >> was the H involved in Phillips? >> Yes. >> Yeah. I think that's the last thing we've done, haven't we? >> But the H must not manage it then. >> Scott County CDA does the management. >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. Cuz I know in some communities like they'd set up Philip Square and then the HA would actually manage. >> So right now we currently have an HA. It's just made up of the council. >> Okay. >> I I Yeah, I'm kind of stuck. But we've done so many discussions and we've all been doing this for so many years. I couldn't agree more that housing is a huge problematic economic development thing. I just I I I'm here to be convinced or here to argue about it, but I it doesn't feel like the perfect fit. there's a lot of energy for it, but I also do agree it's a huge problem. Like if there were 500 lots right here, I think it'd be a lot easier on our businesses, you know, >> it wouldn't hurt. >> So, >> yeah, Joe probably has some insight on the the relationship between the CDA and H and how that went down and all that. So, um, Bel also is an H. You have an H, but the Scott County CDA started as an H 50 years ago and serves as a housing red development authority for all county. So, if there are gaps in housing, affordable housing is the realm that we operate under. So, we haven't um developed subdivisions for market rate, but um we have done some of the land trust homes here. We own and operate the Philips Square. We are doing housing acquisition rehab of CLT and building senior complexes with tenant in the county. So, it's kind of our role, but if there's gaps that you see, please share them with us. So, we don't want to duplicate what you're already doing. We're here to support. >> That's really that's really good context just to know that, you know, there is a a structure for HR right now. If it's needed, I assume you just fire up that portion of the council. >> Yeah. So, at this point, under the current structure, we would just hold special meetings, whether they're before, after city council meetings on their own nights. We would just Yeah. We'd basically gather the city council or the HA board together um and meet on such things as needed. >> And then if there was a gap between that, it sounds like there's a great infrastructure that would pick up any of that already operating. So, it's not like if we don't do it, it's we're going to go without because there's already two options that work together. >> Correct. Yeah. This was um knowing that Keith probably not knowing how much our HS involved with stuff. Like I said, there are some HAs that do meet monthly. Um city I came from HR H meets monthly. They manage two buildings, that sort of thing as a board themselves. So, >> we we certainly could be more involved, but we do have the county working on our behalf too already in much of that realm. >> There's there's just more ambiguity in that than the other things. And I just wanted to voice that so I can make sure I understand it if somebody were to ask me or if I had to explain it to somebody else. But can you explain uh I I'm sure that CDA gets a lot of federal or grant money for some of the projects, but >> uh is it primarily financed just through the Scott County tax dollars? >> No, that's actually one of the smallest sources of revenue. >> Um so we own and operate 10 senior apartment complexes across county. over 500 cash flow and generate revenue. >> Okay. >> Um we also own over 200 rental units scattered throughout Scott County. So that's also somewhat of a rental income, but we receive money from Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. We do have some dollars from HUD. Um for community land trust, we also received a couple hundred thousand from that council. Our business activities, we have deed employment, economic development, and then taxpayer dollars as a source. I was actually going to suggest later on um every other year we go around to EDAS and give kind of an update on what we've done the past year so we could provide additional detail on our budget, but taxpayer dollars are definitely a big piece of it, but it is not the first source of it. >> Well, I I realize like on our project here, the city participates and we pay for part of the loan as we go on. That's city tax dollars that are going into it. It's kind of the equity portion of that transaction. That happens quite often some of these deals. Um, but if we were to say we want to get going on this and where would we we don't have another partner to say, hey, can you provide the down payment? We'll we'll manage it and fund it, you know, and try to get it to a cash flow position. What how could you see us as a town being that being able to generate funds somewhere >> or an apartment complex or >> what do whatever project we would decide to do. Um I mean I think you could we just as a city would have to figure out how we're going to come up with that kind of initial investment be no different than if we decided to jump start the ambulance service again. We'd have to figure out how you get to that initial investment and hopefully then you'd cash flow through your business to keep it going and pay off your >> Right. But it seems to me that any kind of u motivation to do that is going to take funding from our general fund or some other thing that we already have. We don't have the opportunity like CDA's work with communities to partner on deals. There's not lower political subdivision we can go to to try to if you know what I mean. >> Yeah. >> Otherwise, we have to go partner with private. >> I just have a hard time thinking through how do we how would we get the engines rolling on something like that because CDA edge has a lot of different uh revenue sources they're putting together here. >> We also have the new local affordable housing aid which is sales tax dollars. So the county is having the CDA administer it is intended for affordable housing projects. I think we have 4.5 million that was just put into our housing trust fund and or private developers can apply for funding for projects that so we do have funds to support you and we probably it's probably overdue to share some of those >> you have creative ideas were always open to >> all we have John we have >> but there's nothing in our charter or anything that says pilot statute that we H has to meet annually >> no >> the H exists off of state statute but it doesn't have to meet any >> yeah we're not eligible for the LAA funds unfortunately >> um out in that council. Sorry about that one. >> You mentioned uh housing or like residential development and that kind of thing. Um I'm not sure just the fact that we don't have enough residential lots is necessarily the an H issue >> that a lot of the economics of that is that we just it's not private investors don't want to take on the risk of doing it and uh there's not a lot of support to throwing tax money to pay down the cost of a builder just to buy land. oftentimes that's to try to influence low income or lower price affordable housing and those kind of things. But part of our challenge is we got kind of stuck in the mud with not a lot of residential lots. We don't have a lot of blight conditions in the crate either that we can say we want to redevelop this apartment that looks bad. We don't have some of these issues. At least I didn't see any reason. So, as I said, unless you guys want to see any changes, I guess, to this document, we'd be looking for approval at this point on the five-year strategic plan. >> I thought it was a very thorough strategy and vision for the group and it gives us lots of leeway to explore things and uh somebody else doesn't sit on the meetings looking at this. I think it would give them a really good idea about what we think about and do or explore here. >> Do we do we need a vote on this or I mean I would make a motion to approve it. >> Second um a motion and a second to approve the excuse me the economic development strategies for uh plan. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Passes. It's been approved. All right, we can move on to the CDA update. >> It's your show. I'll be >> um a couple of upcoming events that we have today at our center for entrepreneurship. We have a free session on um search engine optimization for businesses from 11 to 12 and we be doing these events every other month if we have additional topics in try and fill in well but everyone's invited to that um free and if you follow us on bent bright all of our events are linked there our social media next Tuesday the 20th at 9:00 we're um hosting a banker's breakfast for bankers cross county um and county s just sharing some of information resources from Next Stage Minnesota and then some of the programs that we have through business community development um so bankers can supplement some financing with our programs. We currently have our requests for proposals out um on a few different sites for updating market studies. So over five years the CDA works in collaboration with all of Scott County. We hire a firm to update our commercial industrial needs assessment, how many uh acres of land, what the need is for retail and industrial in each of the communities, and then also a housing need study. So, it will project out to 2050, what the needs are for affordable housing, market rate housing, etc. So today we'll have a Q&A online with firms that are looking at proposing proposals are due January 30th and hire a firm in February and then every community it either as you recruit or work with developers for businesses or for your comp plan updates five years. So great resource different ways. Yeah, I would say we we use the housing one continually. Um and the even the commercial industrial has been invaluable. We we obviously referenced that in our comp plan update. Um our timing is a little different than the rest of the cities in the county. So um you know we were using the old studies but um valuable information. So >> and scale is paying for half of the study and then the other half. So really is a collaborative effort. He recently received a number of this fall is very busy applying for grants. So we good news over the last couple months. Minnesota Housing Finance Agency approved 1.4 million. We will be acquiring four more homes across Scott County within couple of years to acquire, rehab, and resell for our community land trust. Once those four are added in and then we receive funding for uh 400,000 for land trust town homes the last fourplex in Prior Lake town homes three four bedroom habitat for humanity again for our community land trust so when those eight are done we'll have 39 homes first buyers then uh center for entrepreneurship we received our third round of funing through deed for business partnership grant. So that helps fund things like our educational sessions, small grants to businesses, fast track challenge, etc. So that will go on for two more years. And then in collaboration with the Shaki area Chamber of Commerce, I received half a million dollars. The chamber was a recipient, but it's for training and placement of individuals that are trained around Scott County. So, Chaki Chamber received a legisl allocation of about 700,000. So, they'll utilize that to train individuals in various high demand jobs and 500,000 is to help place them apprenticeships etc across the county. So, um even though it has the name shop chamber tied to it, it is a countywide effort. Uh they would really like to get in touch with businesses such as Chart Scott those might need welding, electrical, some of the trades. So, it is intended to be a countywide program to help train and retain. >> Is the training offsite or is it in individual businesses? >> I think they're open to either. Right now, the main site is Southwest Metro Schools in Shock for a lot of the CNA. They have the Annies are the technology for some of the medical training devices in that building already in that space, but I think they're open to other sites. >> But could CVF hire somebody and use these dollars to train that person to run the robot? >> Uh, no. We have to partner with postsecary education facility. So, I think we have DCT for Hills as our training partners and they would like to group come in and train one or two of a classroom. They have to get a certification and then we can link it to a business. >> Like five to 20 or how many people in a group? >> Yes, I think they've done classes as small as eight to. >> So if you wanted to train somebody on robotic assembly, is there enough people in Scott County that do that? I would assume so. >> And then again, we would love the opportunity just every other year we come and do a presentation, share some of our programming just to help make you aware of what we have available so you can help spread the the word. I think that's probably the hardest part is letting people know resources are there for them. Uh, looks like there's no representative from the school district today. We can move on to the executive director's report. Uh, yeah, just Kennedy kind of mentioned it. There's a lot of chatter going on um in the background both residentially, commercially, industrially. So, we we could be really busy, we could be not busy depending on where that chatter ends up going. Uh, one thing I did want to note, as you guys may probably remember, is it was it last month? Uh, two months ago now, um, we, uh, sold our last two lots out in the industrial park. We have been working with them moving forward. They do have a slight change to their layout. I know they proposed to us going from two buildings down to one building. um in in fact it may more efficiently utilize all of their space, but speaking to our attorney to do so, we would have to either do an amendment to the current uh development agreement or um just pass a second one or a renewed one. So, you guys may be seeing that coming forward. I may be asking you um depending on how quickly they want to move if you guys are available for a special meeting. I don't know what time that would be at this point, but it would be getting back together just to kind of relook at that so that way they're able to move to that one building concept instead of two. So, I don't know if you have anything to add to that. Yeah, I guess the thing I would add is is it it seems to work from a planning and zoning standpoint and storm water and everything much more efficiently. uh to have the lots combined and um instead of having, you know, two separate buildings with, you know, the lot line down the middle on a big drainage and utility easement to get those combined, uh vacate that easement and then just look at one um single building of same square footage or near same square footage um and just more cohesively have that uh last of that land developed. So, that's what we've talked with uh them about doing. It looks to me I think it's a great idea to to go that route, but right now we actually have two development agreements, one for each lot. If uh we go to this uh task to to have them combined and everything, it would obviously just be one development agreement uh to purchase the two lots and have one building. You know, all the terms and sales price and everything would be the same. It would just have it in one agreement versus two. So materially it is a change. It would require a new public hearing at the EDA. Um it would require a uh kind of a redo of the resolution that the um EDA took uh I think it's back in November and then um ultimately have the council ratify that by their own resolution um to make that change. But staff perspective, I think it's a a a good way to uh more effectively utilize the property. It's my my take on it. So, >> still just two tenants that they are aware of. >> Yes. >> And there'll be more space to fill. >> Yeah. I I think it's a win-win. Um >> there'll be more space in the building that uh that will be >> Yeah. So I think what I've made some uh reviews of their concept with the new building um trying to find ways to make the building even larger so they can have more flexibility for that. That was one of the discussions I think that uh they even noted we had with them that storm water ponding um you know it's always interesting I guess is the best way to put that but um had reduced from when we initially started talking about them um and we're trying to find ways to get that square footage up even higher than uh the development agreement indicated initially. So we'll uh we'll work towards that. >> Whole building would be built one time. >> Yes. Yes. All that say you you may be seeing that either coming forward at the next meeting or at a special meeting if they want to move a little bit faster. Guys are available. So >> I thought that Chuck could be business was really anxious to get here. >> Yeah, we don't want to dole. That is all I had. >> All right. Any other items? >> Perspective question. We've approved the strategic plan goes to council. >> Does council have any >> So the council Yeah. It does not go to council for approval. This is internal working document. Okay. >> And at this point it feels like strategy and vision set perhaps start thinking about actual tactics now something to actually do. Is that would that be the appropriate next steps? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I think the next step is we'll kind of break down what some of those goals are and kind of say, "Okay, this is this is what the plan lays out for for short-term stuff to think about. Um, as well as also thinking about um kind of bring back that projects list that we had going there for a while and say, okay, now we get into discussion of where we go from here and how >> how do any of these, if any, fit into this and which which apples do we want to potentially bite? we just see all these all these ideation lists through a different lens. Does it fit into these things now? Now that we have a strategic vision. >> Correct. >> Good. Good. Just want to make sure I'm on the right track. >> And as far as um once we close on the last two lots, does like the industrial park accounting separate accounting codes and all that. Does that kind of fold up into one or do we keep those separate? >> I guess that would be up to you guys. I mean, at this point, it may not hurt to keep it separate. It's kind of almost could be like the special project kind of accounting fund. >> We could still dip into it. >> Yeah. Industrial park, >> whether it's more industrial park or maybe you take on something else like it just kind of becomes the fund for that >> larger larger thing going on. >> Makes sense to me. >> That does make sense. >> All right. Hear nothing else. I will take a motion for adjournment. >> I'll second. All >> in favor? I opposed. No. Any leadership quick?