This transcript has been formatted with speaker names based on the context provided and the roles of the individuals present. [0:02] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: all right I will call tonight's work session to order if you join me in a moment [0:18] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: sound pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all okay we'll now move on to Citizens comments it's an opportunity for those in the public to address the council for up to three minutes if you just state your name and address for the record. [0:45] **Beth Ers**: hi I'm Beth Ers I'm the resident of Eureka Township I just found out about this about 30 minutes ago I apologize for abruptness um so about seven days ago on June 10th I'm sorry June 18th potential buyers of Applewood Orchard were present at a public Hearing in Eureka Township they paid for this public hearing um it was there they were there to discuss the future of Apple Orchard Applewood Orchard and it's place within Eureka Township they said that they wanted they intended to carry on the same traditions of the Applewood Orchard and nothing would be be changed operating would would be the same although they were were in fact requesting a text Amendment change to allow for mechanical rides and farm States amongst a few other things they mentioned they never mentioned anything about the right about having the right to convert to an industrial zone or industrial commercial use which is on your agenda this evening so as a resident of Eureka Township and a friendly neighbor I have some concerns about the two different stories why this public hearing was held six days ago and here we are with you guys it's kind of curious thank you. [2:20] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: okay any others did you want to comment as well and this item know okay this is the end of public comment that's okay watch you thank you okay uh moving on we'll now get into the Apple Orchard introduction and Tina will this up I think. [2:40] **Tina Goodroad (Community Development Director)**: yes thank you um got a presentation I can grab the Mouse um Chris Fuller from Endurance Farms is here he has request the opportunity to present um their plans for you m um for the Orchard and um some potential if um if they were to request in the future potential annexation and it's just an idea that the group has um would we consider some kind of zoning whether it be through an underlying um industrial with an agrotourism use or um some other permanent agricultural zoning but the intent behind these requests I believe both at the township level as well as at the city level is that they don't ask your annexation they remain in the township where they do ask for annexation and desire to become part of Lakeville boundaries is to have the underlying land use in a manner at which they can continue operating as they are today as well as expanding their business um so I'll hand it over to Chris he's got a presentation and then um opportunity for any kinds of conversation you want to have. [3:55] **Chris Fuller (Endurance Farms)**: great Tina thank you for that introduction and I'm glad to be meeting with you all today uh here in Lakeville um I believe folks have folks seen this presentation yet or the packet? [4:05] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: the packet, great. [4:07] **Chris Fuller**: so I'll I'll work through it quickly we've have questions if you'd like me to focus on an area please intera with okay um just some background on Applewood Orchard Applewood has been a family farm an apple orchard since 1995 it's owned by the Paro family who who put the property up for sale and it's hosted guests from Lakeville from Eureka Township and from these communities really for the past 25 years as a wonderful family business everything from picking apples Outdoors to drinking cider made on site to food and some light fair that they've served there along with an activity yard this is an amazing Community Asset and my uh partners and I an endurance part partners are excited about continuing this fine tradition of apples uh Community Centric education and farming on this wonderful property and we're currently under a study period you guys are familiar with the location of the property it borders Lakeville and is next to or adjacent to the local airport and um know is unusual property in so much as not only does it order Cedar it has no uh immediate neighbors so this is a property that stands by itself and it's uh been a part of the Eureka Community for a long time and and a part of the fabric of this community for a long time so so who's the endurance farm team I'm one of four in this company and uh I'm by far the least impressive that the two folks that you guys are going to learn more about are Wayne bishop and Jeff Manley these are two very experienced Farmers have grown up in this industry and host have a long history of Hosting families of properties that they even run or own Wayne is a second generation pumpkin farmer uh in Sacramento California he runs a wonderful Farm his children's work there it's one of those great Community assets and it's really an inspiration for what Applewood could become one day of course each one of these properties is different and what we love about Applewood is what what it is today a great apple orchard uh Billy my partner who's been out to visit the property a number of times uh and has been involved in the meetings with Eureka Township is someone who would be in charge of this Farm dayto day' be moving here being a member of your community to help us take this farm and invest in it and grow it um I'm sure everyone in this room has at some point or another enjoyed what we call Agri tourism but this is a data form often with multiple generations of your family enjoying um apple picking spending time in nature learning about how farming works in our local ecosystem and enjoying homemade food and beverages that are either made at the farm or sourced locally uh these are just amazing Community places with education at the heart of them if you ask the printo family you growing apples the thing they love the most about their property okay we that was put on pause during Co but we'd like to bring back AGR tourism is a concept that is widely understood and discussed in in many states uh Minnesota has a definition of Agri tourism that you can see on the slide here and this is something that encourages uh small properties and Farms to invest in experiences for customers uh and local community members that's picking your own apples that's education and field trips that's spending days on the farm with activities um and getting outside nature and of course Minnesota is a fine tradition of of apples and apple raising and that's uh something that we're obviously very focused on um one thing you often see in this industry and in thinking about properties like this is coming up with a definition that allows the farm to drive over time and build a great experience around uh the natural Bounty of the land um so as part of this presentation we put together a definition of Agri tourism that builds on the state's definition to try and uh be transparent about what we think is important to highlight to Lakeville and Eureka so that's on this slide we can come back to it certainly um our our plan for Applewood is very straightforward it's to continue the find tradition of apples uh having community members come and join us at This Magnificent property and spend a day on the farm learning about farming and enjoying the natural Bounty of uh this city in this part of the state these are all things that um the appro family has done in some small way or another over the past 25 years and what we'd like to do over time and in consultation with our neighbors is continue to add elements of that to make it a full day destination and a destination that people can celebrate um this is designed to be part of the community it'll be run by someone in the community and it will employ folks from the community um folks have asked you know what does this mean in a practical sense are you planning to have an anti-gravity roller coaster at this property the answer is no you have no intention of doing that um and what we want to have is a great upick experience around apples we want to have an activity yard for kids and families to enjoy being outside safely together you want to invest in flowers and pumpkins and a corn base things that have historically been done with the property we want to revitalize that and add more to it we also want to have great food and beverage that's tied to that experience where people can spend the day have lunch stay for the afternoon and be outside for a whole day experience and and of course that touches on retail when you hear things like mechanical what that does is cover things like a hay ride where a tractor is hooked up to a safe place for people to be brought out into the Orchards pick apples and brought back um you're not you shouldn't expect to see um a whirly twirl machine or I'm not sure what it would be but we we want to keep this a beautiful natural property uh that looks and resembles something that we all be proud to spend to day on um one thing we're really excited about and something that Wayne and Jeff are passionate about at the properties they owner worked on is having a an education component to this um the property beyond having apples has a stream that runs near it in a wetland these are great opportunities for young students to see three different ecosystems that they experience every day but might not know a whole lot about and uh one great thing about this property is it affords us an opportunity to do that in a very tight area uh which is exciting so uh obviously that's interactive and something that people can do during the week um and a way to get the community engaged with us more importantly thinking about farming and where their food comes from um Applewood is one of many Agri tourism Farms within driving distance of Lakeville and Eureka there are a number of beautiful family run properties all with within 20 30 minute 40 minute drive of this location um and these are thriving businesses that uh you know create a great experience for the local communities and we want Applewood to continue doing that here and so uh if you can think back to the original photo um of the site this is what we have in mind uh we want to keep the vast majority the 20 acres largely Apple about 20 acres of apples today obviously apple trees depending on their planting and variety need to be refreshed occasionally I'm not sure many farmers are in the are in the group but that's certainly the case and we want to you know expand the campus today onto land that's currently part of the property for flower picking pumpkins a corn maze an activity yard is just a a way to describe a a great playground for kids um you can see today uh F&B in retail there's an existing Barn that is already an F&B and Retail site it's where cider produced where people visit past through to pick up apples and the fresh produce that they sell on site and uh obviously we want to be thoughtful about parking. [13:25] **Councilmember John Bermel**: you might have interrupt please do so is it an expansion of parking because I know that can be a challenge there on the Saturday of the Fall? [13:30] **Chris Fuller**: I think what what we're thinking is Right Now parking the only parking that exists today is this first area so we we proposed to add create more parking spaces for folks and um we've also had some preliminary conversations with our neighbor here which is just a farm who seems open-minded about providing overflow parking if that's ever needed but we want to be very thoughtful about traffic and parking that's really important yeah. [13:58] **Councilmember John Bermel**: and your neighbor of the north doesn't allow that that road is a gravel road so we see you haven't talked to the airport yet. [14:05] **Chris Fuller**: we we've talked to the airport I think they're we've had it's not like we've had serious discussions but we've said this is what we are and this is what we're thinking about and we thought that was interesting and loved having neighbors with the farm um you know one of the questions is how can we make sure that the infrastructure around the property to around Cedar can support a business I think that's a it's having read the both the Lakeville long-term plan and the Eureka long-term plan I think that's something everyone's thinking about certainly we would want to be proactive. [14:36] **Chris Fuller**: obviously this is a little bit of uh talking my own game I think there are lots of reasons to support Applewood um and we can talk about any one of these categories um but I think one of the most important things in thinking about this property is having the right Zoning for it to make sure that as a group if we invest the time and energy to enhance the Agro tourism operations at this property we have the confidence to do that um today it's done as agriculture this there's been retail uh at this property for a long time uh neither the current owners or the township have any record of that and so there's this long-term use of this property that's been a flourishing local business for a long time and in engaging with Eureka and engaging with the city we want to create the right zoning environment so that we can one be transparent and play by the rules and two with confidence so that if we continue to enhance the Orchard and and add the playground and invest in educational program um we've we've done that uh according to zone and according to the rules of the road which are important to us. [16:07] **Chris Fuller**: yeah this is a you know obviously there's always a traffic consideration when uh you have a property that is designed to host guests on the seasonal basis um there are no there no real my understanding I happy to be corrected on this is that there haven't been many traffic issues related to this property I know it's a a dirt road or not a paved Road and then there's this question of Precedence you've seen great farms exist near and around each other these places are halos they bring people closer together they bring the community together and um it's not a zero sum game one thriving AGR tourism farm does not dampen another thriving Agro tourism farm there are lots of ways for everyone to uh enjoy these types of properties and and feel proud of them I think for us uh and I know this is our first meeting um what we'd like to understand is um or eventually get some feedback on is how the city would think about a property like this and how we think about zoning a property like this um the industrial zoning your right to convert is a long-term question mark um and so when you enter if we think about an annexation by ordinance or be part of this other annexation process going on with other properties nearby it's something that we naturally ask about but the most important thing for this property for us is the AGR tourism piece uh we think in decades that's how Farmers think um but I think it'd be appropriate and worthwhile to think about how agriculture can continue on this site with an eventual tie to Industrial should that ever make sense frankly for the city I'll pause I've doing a lot of talking where um. [18:02] **Councilmember John Bermel**: can you go back to a map and show me exactly where the city boundaries are is it just right at the airport? [18:08] **Tina Goodroad**: it's immediately abutting right at the airport here so annexation by ordinance it would have to be a budding property that's already part of the city so immediately North and then Cedar um is just to the is the north south just to the right of that okay. [18:25] **Councilmember John Bermel**: and now is that area of the airport to the east is that in the township or is that... [18:28] **Tina Goodroad**: um I believe this rectangle piece here is still Township. [18:32] **Councilmember John Bermel**: okay yeah. [18:33] **Tina Goodroad**: and so the idea would be if they were to request annexation this is an if um for this use we would need to consider something in our zoning ordinance that would allow for the use to continue as Chris is described so that could be done as you know we could also Zone it as agricultural um we have a rural agricultural zoning District it doesn't feel quite like the right fit because that current zoning district is really suited for if you can picture the zoning map in your mind areas um Far West um of I-35 um the other option is we have the rural and egg overlay that could be added over an industrial zoning with then the industrial zoning District having an agrotourism as a permitted or conditional use based on a definition that wouldn't allow then for this use to exist into the long term. [19:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: when you say industrial overlay I mean it would be a does that mean you could also build okay does that mean you could also have like a Menasha build there eventually? [19:50] **Tina Goodroad**: because I don't very very long term you know part of it the planning if you were to Annex property in part of the deal would be planning for the long term if the farm ever were to go away I don't believe that is the intent of these owners but if the farm were ever to cease operation then what would that ultimate zoning best suited for that area if it were annexed into the City and so that is why using an industrial zoning with a rural egg overlay I think that's what it's called I was just pulling up the zoning map um yeah rural agricultural overlay um then that would allow the farm to exist um that definition can be created that would match um all of the different types of uses that are being proposed you know the the orchard itself the processing of the product if you will um the apples and then the creation of all the other activities to run the orchard. [20:45] **Chris Fuller**: and uh not to to biggy back on that slightly we have no intention of creating an industrial complex of the site where Farmers you think about Agri tourism if you look at our team that's what we're focused on and so I think um we're in a study period with the owners who have been very supportive of us exploring this and frankly making sure that we can continue to do the things they've done as a family for 25 years and um that that's sort of the that that's the zoning story behind that slide. [21:18] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: so why industrial I mean I I I'm thinking if we're looking 20 30 40 years on the line I mean is that there would need to be or I would imagine there would be a push away from industrial if Eureka became incorporated city and you know they've got a city core you know I I wouldn't want industrial to be the the final Zoning for as far as can see wouldn't we go back to commercial or town homes or I mean I I guess why why just industrial could it be a commercial district with uh with a agricultural overlay over that um I know it doesn't make sense because there's no uh plan for the land on the other side of it but I guess we don't know what those plans might be 30 years from now. [22:15] **Chris Fuller**: yeah it's a good point I I I'm agnostic about this we want to work with the city to figure out what zoning overlay you guys are comfortable with so whether it's commercial or industrial I think we're openminded. [22:25] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: okay I mean we're here yeah I mean I don't know what you guys think I mean I'm the Agri tourism thing definition makes to with that we just have to think hard about what the you know underly the other part of me is what excited me about this project was the preservation of this history of farming in this community with no I mean at some point in time all of our borders will be developed and this opportunity to preserve Farmland may not be available in the future and so I wasn't really excited about an overlay of another District honestly my preference would be an agricultural zoning that allows for this kind of event uh and tourism venue without the need for looking at a different zoning. [23:18] **Chris Fuller**: I I think we are openminded about this we even uh the concept of industrial come from the current Farms came from discussing with you guys so not defensive about the zoning I would say that um you know our our interest is preserving this experience in the education components in that where these uh properties in our experience start to struggle it's very hard to attract people to farm that's surrounded by all commercial stuff because they don't feel like they're at a farm anymore so if we zoomed forward 50 years 30 years whatever hypothetical timeline we can figure for this room at a certain point um will will the AG flourish if you're surrounded by sounds or warehouses I think we can all imagine that being um less than ideal for someone running business so that that's really the nature of our discussion so you and we we'd love for this to remain in that we think in 50 100 Year periods this is not a uh we're you're here from us in three years we've got some the amount of time and energy and resources we're put into this property uh in new orchards and farming and new equipment. [24:34] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: well in that regard to me it doesn't make sense to forecast what zoning you might need in that period of time um it would be I farm now and if we need to revisit that in 50 years when other councils at the home be the time to reevaluate changing that that zoning in my opinion. [24:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: but Tina how does that first option with the AG agricultural zoning with the right to convert to Industrial zoning how how is that done is that just is it some kind would that be some kind of stipulation or you know... [25:10] **Tina Goodroad**: it's the overlay the rural overlay works because if it's if they were to request annexation they have the right to do that you know if they become the land owners they could request that annexation and so we have to ensure we have something that allows the use some zoning District that allows the use so having the industrial with that rural overlay would allow for that use that rural overlay is used in areas that aren't being served with Municipal services so sewer and water this property even if it were annexed is not going to be served with sewer and water for some time and we've been very clear with the prospective owners that you could request annexation but that doesn't mean you're going to get Services they're quite a ways away and we have not historically provided that for um these properties if an annexation happens they're the ones getting the pipe and water to them so that rural overlay allows it to exist as that as a rural function thinking way longer term what is the ultimate end land use if it were to convert the other areas around that should be considered um to your point council member Lee um so that was our first take at it but again this is very preliminary we don't even know if they're going to actually ask for annexation um I was aware of the application and the process that they've been going through with the township and I think the owners are being smart and methodical to make sure if they buy this property that they have the uses that they can exist and expand and maintain this Farm whether they stay under the township or they come into the city that is their ultimate goal and they're being smart by doing that both at the township I think it was very respectful that they do it the township as well as with the city. [27:21] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: so every 10 years we do a Comprehensive Plan update that's when it would come into play too every 10 years when you when everybody's looking at the Pie as a whole so it doesn't have to wait 50 it's whenever it starts to uh peak. [27:35] **Tina Goodroad**: yep but we can get creative this council's been very receptive in the past um when have's asked to to maintain a business or to welcome a business this Council has been um very generous in kind of thinking outside the box and so that was the message that I gave um to these four gentlemen that I believe that this is something that the city even with it remaining in the township values and seeing a new ownership group operate it expand it run it um I think that is a benefit not only to the city but also the township um so I was you know I before talking to you guys explain to them that we will figure something out uh because I believe that if they were to request that um that this group would support that hopefully. [28:30] **Chris Fuller**: it does sound like he's gone there for a long time oh great yeah it's a wonderful property I think um you know Kathy the owner is is retiring and so I think one reason why our group resonated with her is our plan to keep this as Applewood. [28:44] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: what are the options under egg preserve? [28:56] **Tina Goodroad**: um yeah it I don't not to my head I'll get back to you that one. [29:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: yeah well I guess added to the conversation of creativity because I just it seems to be one of the more consistent uses for the moment yep and I just hesitate to to change the zoning when it there's nothing surrounding it that would indicate where we're headed um development wise. [29:22] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: yeah and in a sense it would be you know maybe don't look at it if they were to request annexation and the only reason why we would be having this conversation in the maybe not too distant future is if they go through the process of requesting annexation because that add a sense it's it's not really being Rezone it's being Zoned for Lakeville right that make sense because right now I'm not even sure what it is under the township. [29:45] **Tina Goodroad**: um it's zoned as agricultural. [29:47] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: okay so really you as the owner what you're looking for is a confirmation from Lakeville that if you were to Annex that we work to create the zoning that'd be appropriate to preserve the agricultural use that you have now and continue to enhance I think that's what council's kind yeah we're okay that. [30:08] **Chris Fuller**: yep. [30:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: I don't think you're going to get them to give you or to tell you what the zoning is going to be or what you're going to allow I think what you're getting from Council is we're interested in and if you were to Annex we'll work with you to figure out the zoning the Agri tourism side. [30:28] **Chris Fuller**: that's very helpful agree this is this was the the nature of the meeting so it's helpful and just to answer your question. [30:35] **Tina Goodroad**: certainly um Farms agricultural nurseries Wholesale Nursery greenhouses tree farms that's all a permitted use under the egg preserve might need to tweak that a little bit because they do have some retail component and I think that's one of the other things Mr Fuller tried to you know explain that we want all the different uses that are existing out there to all be whether it's a permitted or a conditional used to be allowed by right so they're not ending up purchasing something and then we knock on their door and say oh by the way you can't operate that way they want that introduced into the zoning so using that definition in the zoning District could work and then we could consider future rezoning if necessary in the future. [31:16] **Councilmember John Bermel**: any questions Pina does the overall size of the property allow the property on directly Annex or is that pardon is the overall acreage... [31:25] **Tina Goodroad**: along the property directly yes. [31:28] **Councilmember John Bermel**: how was that the conversation that was uh had last week was to the property surrounding or to the Eureka Township Board? [31:38] **Chris Fuller**: it was the Township and there was public comment as well gotta and the purpose of that is to see if they would allow future uses same basically the same conversation effectively um the the the the question uh for the township was as the future as the future buyers potential future buyers um we have no record of being able to do the retail and host people and do field trips this is owned as a um Agri tourism isn't something that's in uh Township um zoning uh apparatus here here's who we are here on plans how would you handle this or how would you think about this and that that was the even know that's the practice. [32:44] **Tina Goodroad**: yeah so I think um I I don't want to speak I was an observer I was watching the meeting um uh I think they're I think the township uh is very supportive of Applewood I think they are more focused on individually permissioning different things within the AG tourism definition and I think my understanding coming out of the meeting was they're willing to consider an IUP for the property put on the timeline that would make it very challenging for us to act with any level of safety and certainty. [33:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: well thanks for coming in good luck with the purchase and keep us in the loop. [33:20] **Chris Fuller**: thank you very much good to see you. [33:25] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: okay we'll now move on to The Pedestrian Crossing policy and Mr. Johnson will see this up. [34:56] **Zach Johnson (City Engineer)**: all right good evening mayor council members uh thank you for the opportunity uh to share with you a project that we've been working on uh for over a year uh and I'll provide you with a little bit of background on this uh it's titled pedestrian safety assessment study uh it goes back to 2020 and 2021 uh when the council first adopted a bicyclists and pedestrian crossing study uh if you'll remember one of the things that we highlighted at that time was the emphasis on education um and evaluation encouragement and kind of that continually um approach to look for a data driven process to support us in this uh one of the high scores that we consistently get throughout our surveys is is residents and businesses and their passion for our Trails our Parks connectivity uh that was affirmed in the park Bond referendum and so this is kind of continuation of that process is how can we work towards Building A Safe Transportation Network for all. [35:48] **Zach Johnson**: so the purpose of this was to look at two things one is to take in 2021 and 2022 the city of Lakeville amongst other Dakota County cities partnered to look at a countywide assessment so I looked at from the angle of a County Highway approach but understanding that many of the elements and the goal quite honestly was to be able to use some of those elements uh in individual cities as well so we looked at uh issues plans for pedestrian strategies our goal was to develop that data-driven process that was transparent fair and Equitable uh and easy to understand uh you'll you'll you'll hear tonight that there's not a materialistic difference between the policy adopted in 2020 and the one that's being proposed tonight but it's more thorough it's more comprehensive it's more user friendly and it's really uh sequential and following all the different options available to us. [36:40] **Zach Johnson**: so one of the elements that we were really excited about was the public engagement uh we had kind of this framework from the county but we really wanted to apply it specifically to the city of Lakeville so we took a number of different options and opportunities to try to get specific feedback from all so we did social media posts we did flyers as well uh we had a couple events here that I'm going to highlight for you uh one is the Earth Day event uh in April of 2023 we had comments from over 100 folks and we had 70 unique comments which means there's 70 different locations or requests throughout the city that we're talking about there we had another event uh with P-O-P the Lakeville fire department waffle breakfast in July uh we had really good uh feedback from that event we we had over 200 people come speak specifically to us at that and we had over 170 unique comments on that so combined you can see we're getting a lot of locations and interest from folks uh we had a project website where we had comments from over 300 people and 500 unique comments or locations uh I also want to highlight that our youth advisory committee we met with them on a Sunday night and got really good feedback from them they completed a survey for us uh we also had email and so we really felt like we had a a good grasp uh from the community on where we were taking this kind of study and this approach and this is just kind of a snapshot of all of the different areas where we've receive those unique comments. [38:15] **Zach Johnson**: so the next step is we wanted to prioritize Crossing locations and we took it through three different lenses we looked at as part of transportation we looked looked at it so how you get there you're biking walking rolling we looked at destinations Parks schools commercial nodes other Trails we also looked at an Equity lens as well too and then we took those three different factors to create kind of a scoring system and just to give you a little bit of perspective um let see if I can show how this works or not here what this kind of look like um you'll see all the feedback that we got Citywide and that's for example on Transportation obviously the different colors reflect the different comments number of comments similarity in that uh you can see some of the scores here from an Equity standpoint if change colors for us and then also uh as far as destination standpoint oops sorry so I will share with you having attended a number of meetings for transportation projects I was super excited to see just the sheer numbers of folks who were involved in this study it was very encouraging and and fun to see you know that in person uh participation. [39:45] **Zach Johnson**: so we had feedback and so then we went and moved on to the next phase was data collection and we used cameras and we wanted to make sure that we focused on good weather situations we wanted to talk about in school out of school weekends uh so you'll you'll see here a little bit of the data collected we got it um one in the fall of 2023 on a weekend we had almost 1,500 pedestrian bicyclist trips we also did some evenings as well uh where we got another 1,600 and this also included downtown Lakeville as well we got some good uh feedback there so we've gotten we have the background from the county we got feedback from residents and we've got data collected. [40:35] **Zach Johnson**: so the next thing we wanted to do is formulate kind of this data-driven approach using a number of criteria Engineers love all those kind of checkboxes we have 30 different boxes we can check uh we tried to narrow that down to assist us but I wanted to provide a couple examples in how this was applied so this is 170 Street 175th Street here in Holy path and you'll see the existing Crossing there uh on the right side of that and some of the challenges we had there is the left turning movements for folks going westbound um to westbound 175th to go southbound so you had a number of traffic conflicts uh you had the wide width of pavement as well so one of the things that we looked at here was introducing what we call a pedestrian refuge and what that basically does is that helps pedestrians limit their focus of their lens to One Direction of traffic at a time provides them a safe Refuge outside of the moving traffic and then again they only need a certain amount of time to pass before and that safe Refuge versus Crossing like a 50 or 60 foot wide pavement. [41:48] **Zach Johnson**: we also have and I want to highlight too that this is also a benefit of this study is we were able to implement some of these in our current projects so we wanted to be proactive in our approach to assisting uh and improving our system so this will be done as part of 2403 another example as I pop at 190th Street I I apologize it might be difficult to see but uh we're adding and we're increasing the length of the medians on Ipava again creating that reduced payment Crossing width for folks creating a safe refuge and then also when you're traveling along Ipava and Crossing 190 Street we reduce the pavement width here where with a a curb extension or a bump out if you will and so these are kind of the examples these aren't flashy um but they're they uh educ their improvements to try to create that safe accessible experience for folks couple other things we looked at was downtown they can be pedestrian refuges they can be signs it could be something as simple as signage and uh pavement marking to assist there then another item oops I'm sorry and then another item we looked at here was 172nd Street in Highview this is an example of where we have a higher speed roadway you know and in the past the answer was always you know no and we're trying to find a way we know that there's Trail crossings from Steve Michaud Park how can create you know that user experience and improved safety so this is a concept this hasn't been implemented yet but this is a concept of how we're looking at different intersections differently and seeing what we can add to each one. [43:40] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: so when it's a high speed um road I've seen maybe we have it where they have those um flashing lights ahead of letting the driver know that somebody's pushed a button across. [43:55] **Zach Johnson**: correct and that's what you would do here that's definitely a possibility those are called random rapid flashing beacons we have some on Ipava by Century we have um a couple other ones in town but yes that's an option as well they also you could also take the next step where they call them Hawk systems or pedestrian hybrid beacons it's similar to what's on County Road 11 in Burnsville where it's it's almost like a traffic signal if you will but it's just for pedestrians um but yes absolutely that would be an option as well. [44:30] **Zach Johnson**: so out of this about an 18 month study uh we produced the final report and I wanted to just highlight two elements of it and again the intent was for staff to use as guide but also for residents and elected officials that when they get questions this is kind of the path that we follow and it's it's a lot easier to follow um than just just charts so this is a flowchart that uh in theory we we can complete our 30 check boxes in relatively short order but then kind of follow this path as well to provide some guidance on what systems are available to us and then we also have this um primer book you're kind of alluding to is and I apologize for the small font but those are the random flashing beacons that are options and you'll see that uh as you go from the upper left to the right those yellows those are kind of the where you would need something in addition to with like a pedestrian activated um signal sorry. [45:50] **Zach Johnson**: and oops and so in your packets tonight was an updated policy um uh City Admin Miller did ask me to kind of highlight the differences and and as he and I had discussed this is isn't a a significant change it's really additional information enhancing what we have um and and distributing in a way that that's easier to understand and relate to folks so it's it's 24 pages there's also I would say quite a bit of Education in as well and so it's supposed to enhance kind of the user information you'll see all of this is in the current policy but now we provide guidance there's background there's pictures for folks to see um and uh it's it's really an an an effort to simplify it if you will in standard state statute. [46:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: one question I had was how do we interact with other partners like the school district for instance 194 or 196 with their planning expansion and maybe we don't have a ton of traffic there yet so how do we know then I guess the other is um you know the the one I keep I get asked about all the time is the Orchard from Lakeville South just specifically if you had any update on that. [47:05] **Zach Johnson**: no update on that particular one uh we didn't talk to all the school districts one of them uh the example was the one on on 185th Street we're working with them uh on putting some signs up uh not establishing a school Speed Zone per se but just introducing folks that hey if you're driving along this corridor kids could be present uh so we would work with them there are some like 183rd and Ipava Avenue is one we get a lot of questions on too um it's it's a it's the schools don't um call them it's not an official School route so it's really at they they'll offer their input but they're not a participant other than they'll certainly share opinions share statistics share Communications with family so we would partner with them from the standpoint this is something that we want to do how can you help us to facilitate and communicate that um and so we work with them they're familiar with this and uh we continue to work if as we identify these opportunities uh it's strategic in in construction of schools for sure with the elementary school it's with our road reconstruction projects we can partner and Implement things as well um there's one example in district 196 where it's a simple little bump out that we can potentially work for folks too so uh we're going to share this document uh subject to council's consideration and then work with them and find those opportunities to make those connections. [48:35] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: questions or comments so how does this and thinking of our I-35 group in terms of how certain projects are prioritized so how then does this translate to a list of which projects are done first or next? [48:50] **Zach Johnson**: yeah and that's a great question uh our current goal is to phase them in where there's opportunities with Street reconstruction CIP projects uh you know so when we're eliminating curb or we're adding curb or we're reducing pavement width so 175th and Ipava both were in the program this year uh 175th Up by Cheri View is uh coming up soon 205th Street has some opportunities so from that standpoint we would address it from a CIP program if there are certain areas uh of specific interest or feedback we could just do that as a standalone project we could also do it as part of our miscellaneous so I think there would be some discretion from the council you know staff would offer some recommendations we're getting a lot of like you said I'm getting a lot of feedback at this intersection we would do an analysis Yep this would meet you know opportunities for A, B and C is it budgeted you know we could also look at you know a standalone budget amount to address these as they come along so there's a lot of options we haven't gotten that far into the discussion but wanted to at least present this initially to you we could expand upon that when we discuss the CIP. [50:05] **Councilmember John Bermel**: the council so choose as other projects that were analyzed is that the one that we show be in this presentation? [50:12] **Zach Johnson**: yeah those all fell we prioritized toward about the the top nine or 12 areas and the two that fell in there this year were with the top nine. [50:20] **Councilmember John Bermel**: and the details that match this flow chart are in there so it matches the threshold and they felt they uh we don't we didn't fill out the chart it's not in there but it was applied to that to establish those top nine. [50:35] **Zach Johnson**: correct so the actual charts aren't in there. [50:38] **Councilmember John Bermel**: I see okay. [50:40] **Zach Johnson**: but we would fill them out with subsequent ones and then save them if there was questions as to how they fit into it sure. [50:45] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: well anytime I've had a question from a resident has this intersection been evaluated um can it be evaluated you're you're always been very good at that um I didn't know if this was a resource that could be also self-managed if anyone could walk in look into it to see this is how it was evaluated uh this is when it was last evaluated. [51:10] **Zach Johnson**: sure the intent would be to apply that engineering judgment and discretion over it uh so we would fill it out but as far as having them available for folks to see I don't see an issue with that I would say there'd be some explanation as we got to that obviously um but yeah I mean we would say then because conditions could change and it would be a good resource for us to say you know here it was seven years ago what changed what conditions change it could be development could be schools could be a number of things Road realignments. [51:40] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: well that's one of the number one concerns I think growing Community it's it's helpful to be able to talk about the proactive steps that are being done um and of course there will always still be concerns that need to be addressed but um knowing it's not just I I never thought this but I think sometimes if you're not in the weeds on this kind of work you think nothing is being looked at or done but I do appreciate all that so thank you. [52:10] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: other questions okay thank you then we'll we'll bring this back to a common session yes sir very good thanks uh okay just so everybody knows the street light policy we're pulling that off the agenda so we'll go into the local affordable housing aid discussion and Tina I think we'll pick it off and have some guests from the County CDA here with us. [52:45] **Tina Goodroad**: yeah welcome come to the table Tony and Lisa May up to the table um we wanted to Circle back um Talk several months ago about the LAHA funds or the affordable housing aid um we talked about that um what our distribution would be um here in Lakeville and then um since that time Dakota County um has been working with communities to identify um three specific categories that they could Aid communities in distributing those funds um those programs that we are currently funding through our CDBG um and then two additional programs and so they want the opportunity to be able to talk through um that in a presentation so I will hand it over to Tony you can advance thanks. [53:40] **Tony Schertler (Executive Director, Dakota County CDA)**: so Tony Schertler, Executive Director of County CDA thank you for having us nice to see you all again see my old colleague Barry pick over there making sure I count the money right um so the so just a quick uh overview um there are significant financial resources being pushed into policy to help on the housing continuum so we all know that we've got homeless issues in some parts of the seven County Metro we got affordability issues other needs service needs we have folks who need who struggle to keep their housing because they need some Services um and so with those resources flowing through uh I think what we're doing and our board has asked us is to be available to help navigate and get more eyes on the problems and make sure that right hand and left hand know what they're doing and that we're hitting the targets that that our communities collectively and individually want us to serve. [54:45] **Tony Schertler**: um so with these dollars moving through the CDA as a public entity does not receive any of these dollars are going to cities and Seven Counties of Metro but the CDA has a history and experience in administering dollars for affordable housing so we are used to 30 years of audit to make sure that we're hitting the targets that policy makers have outlined and so typically in affordable housing what that means is when we talk about affordable housing we're not talking about Market cheap necessarily what we're talking about is income qualified and rent control virtue of the financial tools so we purchase a public purpose outcome with those financial tools um that's generally on the financing side but there's a whole continuum of assistance people who need assistance in a very efficient way to get people housed it's voucher if you will give somebody the financial capacity once you underwrite their need in order to purchase in the private Market that's the most efficient tool that's permanent to emergency based on other problems over suffering at the time but then it moves all the way to shelter permanent housing so affordable permanent housing which the CDA develops directly senior housing in Dakota County and our Workforce family housing and we help Financial private and nonprofit providers we Finance their affordable housing production as well so we have a pretty good lens on the demands for affordable housing resources. [56:10] **Tony Schertler**: so our purpose here today is to Simply offer if you need if you choose um would you like us to assist you with those dollars they're coming to you there's going to be over time an audit to make sure that we're all using these dollars appropriately and we're accountable and we can measure the outcomes and so it's a precious taxpayer resource we want to make sure that when we're asked how did we spend those dollars we can answer that question um and tell tell you how they're targeted so that's kind of the high level um we manage some programs that qualify there's a lot of things that qualify you can use these dollars on a whole lot of different programs you can administer them yourself but one of the things that we do is we have we have the back office if you will capacity to administer those on your behalf and we already do that um for several programs. [57:15] **Tony Schertler**: so for example Federal Community Development block grants there are entitlement cities out there that could get those dollars directly but in Dakota County we've chosen to say you know what if the CBA can administer those we don't need five staff people around the county to administer the same program we'll centralize it in our shop then we'll segregate and make sure that we're counting those dollars deployed in your community so what Lisa and Maggie have been working we've been talking to the Community Development directors in every city is why don't we go out and talk to folks and show them programs that we have on the shelf you could increase production so if you wanted to direct dollars here we could have a one for one increase of units done public purpose outcome done with these dollars if you so chose. [58:15] **Tony Schertler**: we have to protect ourselves and administer it so one of the things Lisa will touch on Maggie is we can't do everybody's so I would have to go back to my board if we have more demand to administer these programs we have to stand that up and staff it and we'd want to make sure that we were persistent at staff so we don't want to do one year this one year this we have to sort of collectively decide yeah that's a good program I like that program I will finance and we will enter into a partnership to administer that or JPA whatever the legal instrumentality to do it um my staff will give me a different opinion but U there is an hourglass on these dollars so 3 years after you get them if they're not expended Minnesota housing finance agency will start coming in and sweeping them back into the pool so time does start to pass when we do this uh we do have some time to stand it up obviously my staff is anxious that we're going to do some of these programs we'd like to go start recruiting staff to administer them to the extent that we add more so with that Lisa I know I'm burning into your time to Lisa Elson is going she's been talking to your CD directors and she's going to talk about the programs that we have off the shelf you don't have to recreate the wheel and we could help serve your needs if you so chose thanks Tony. [59:45] **Lisa Elson (Director of Community and Economic Development, CDA)**: um again Lisa Elson I am the director of community and economic development at the CDA and Maggie is the assistant director of the um CED department and she oversees our rehab program which is really we think is one of the best for so trying to put together a presentation and knowing where Tony's going to go with all with his words it's always fun so he steals so many of my lines so I apologize there's going to be a couple things we're going to zip through but as we talked about LAHA is um typically the funding sources that we use at the CBA are about 80% Ami or area median income and lower these are going to go up to 115% for home ownership and we have some um numbers that I can show you for those we can use these for a lot of different projects the legislation if you um have had any interest in reading it it's very very broad there's not a lot of detail in there and it provides a lot of excitement a lot of options a lot of ideas to generate them and that's where I am appreciative and thankful for Tony because he always has wonderful great big ideas and that I get to be the one to implement them and try to figure out what to do. [1:00:45] **Lisa Elson**: so we work well together trying to see what can we actually do to help support our cities and our communities but really the gist of it is you think of a housing it's either preservation new construction multifamily um single family renter home ownership all but the main criteria is it has to be within those income areas you can also do emergency rental assistance but I will mention this is a quarter Cent sales tax a portion of that quarter Cent sales tax is already going to the Met Council to do a lot of rental assistance is going to go it kind of in the form of those Section 8 vouchers they're going to just flood more of those into the Metro so a good chunk of this money is already going to go to that and then in addition um financing that we'll talk a little bit about as well to kind of do some of that Gap financing and then financial support this one at the end is kind of trying to catch all where there's a lot of nonprofit developers in this housing space who've had a lot of needs um to keep their projects up especially with that Supportive Housing component Tony had talked a little bit about okay me and this thing are going to get them along okay. [1:02:00] **Lisa Elson**: so I wanted to show LAHA with the income limits because the 115% Ami being newer to us is it's it's a decent amount I mean for a family of four you're talking about $142,850 so that's where just had of put some mindset instead of just talking about percentages and then 80% is typically where we are with our federal funds and some of the state funds where a family of four is at $97,500 so lots of ideas can be generated and as Tony talked about we've been spending the last year or so just trying to understand the legislation and how broad it is trying to talk with attorneys about really can what can you do what should you not do what should you try to um what are some instead of being overly creative and we the areas that we've been talking about with your communities and the need that we continue to hear about is in preservation so of your of your current housing staff so that's where our first offer would be to the cities of being able to support you with these LAHA dollars of using bringing those LAHA dollars into the CDA and just in what we're calling is enhancing our housing rehab program. [1:03:00] **Lisa Elson**: so what that is is we've been doing a different types of programs since the 80s the right now the current program is a 0% interest deferred loan it's eligible to low and moderate home owners we up to $35,000 for a Max a minimum of 15,000 all of them are due all of them must be repaid and what we do is we just recycle that money back into the program and just to touch on that so when you have a higher ceiling your closer or more capacity we're talking about shallower financial assistance so that's basically interest free money that's the spread between what you could get in the private market and it revolves it comes back so you're not dealing with somebody at 30% Ami where you're really more granting financial assistance in there because their capacity to pay it back so this is would be considered a shallow incentive for folks at that higher at and this program really it's more of that preserving the housing stock but also making maintaining those strong neighborhoods and and and preventing blight. [1:04:00] **Lisa Elson**: wanted to just show kind of what those applicant eligibility is we do have an application process that everyone needs to fill out you must be a resident of Dakota company you must be the owner of the house you must be your name must be on the title um those are the current income eligible income limits we have going up to that 80% Ami and showing you what those look like and then we've been able to set just based on local best practices we do have a credit score home equity assets etc because we're underwriting these we know we're taking a higher risk for the different probation that we serving but we still have our own set criteria so providing just examples of kind of showing what we do um with this program is you apply um you get we do the underwriting to make sure you fit the income eligibility and those items that we also mentioned on the previous slide and then we have rehab advisors we have two full-time rehab advisers we have two out in contract and have support staff for the program and what the rehab advisers do they come into the home talk with the homeowner and kind of go through those things on the left prioritizing those health and safety making sure those big things are okay with it the items in bold are the items that we typically are doing a lot of most of our money is going to those if those things are all in decent shape we can go to the other to the other items of siding bathrooms etc. [1:05:40] **Tony Schertler**: and if you can imagine in parts of the county that the housing stock is older West St Paul Hastings you're going to see more of a demand for this type of service than maybe if you have more recent housing stock so one of the interesting things we'd like to start looking at know where is the lead based paint where is the old housing stock that we want to get in and this really is the cities at the front line on this you do code enforcement you see your neighborhoods so to the extent that we can you know we can encourage people say Hey listen you can fix up your house we have some favorable financing why don't you get in line we've been hesitant to do that and then we know we have the capacity to serve. [1:06:25] **Lisa Elson**: looking over a five year period we wanted to kind of be able to show a profile we helping out there and so this is Countywide averages this is not just for the city of Lakeville but average household size is 2.6 the homeowner is 57 the house was built in 53 and then you see that income is 45,000 so that's a lot it's lower than that 80% Ami that we had showed you before this was during the time of Co so we were doing the average is 61 loans a year kicking out what what 1.3 or so million dollars it's a higher now um because that Co year really hurt us and those numbers but now we're more around the 70-72 stars not back yet we couldn't pay for those. [1:07:15] **Lisa Elson**: we're just waiting for that been wanting to look more just at Lakeville kind of um to kind of look over those same five years in that same five year period we serve 24 households in Lakeville about five a year and we're able to do that because in our partnership with the city you're putting in this city council has chosen to put your Community Development block grant funds into it so over over $500,000 in those five years of your money went into those homes that will be paid back that will be recycled and we put it back into the program we also the county also in allocating their portion of CDBG they have chosen to put a significant amount of rehab of CDBG money into rehab as well and so we've been able to leverage this Countywide CDBG money in addition to leveraging some of the CDA's levy we also provide money for the rehab program then we wanted just to kind of say if you took your $385,000 this year that we should know I don't know that's an estimate that's from May of 2023 um we should know on or about July 1st from the Minnesota Department of Revenue how much you're going to get and that first trunch of money is going to come July 20th and then the second trunch will come December 26th but we think that's only half right because it's only correct it's only like half of a year because I think it started last year so yeah so it's so I think they're starting thinking like bumping up to like more like around 600,000 for an annual amount and of course it's all dependent upon sales but it's a decent amount of money um for one specific use. [1:09:00] **Lisa Elson**: so we wanted to just take that total 385 and say what could you if you wanted to throw it all into rehab and just really do more in your community we would think that would be about 12 more households you could do a year in addition to the five that we were already kind of already working with this program is really popular we do know actively Market this program consistently um it is a lot of Word of Mouth it's a lot of people we do have it on our website the cities are great at having it on your own websites and that but we are not actively out there because we don't have the money and we don't have the staff to really do more and so we can do what we can do we've had we currently have a waitlist we don't like having a waitlist we've tried really hard not to have one but just certain circumstances we don't want to also give people hope false hope that they're not that they're going to be on there for a year and a half things can change we all know so we do have three Lakeville households on that Lake weightlist right now we're working on we're working through it um and we think that we we'll be able to open it in September and hopefully get more this is where Tony had mentioned before is in all honesty um the cities are going to get about 3.8 if we're believing these numbers from a year ago about $3.8 million in total for LAHA dollars this year Maggie and I think that we can probably take about conservatively conservatively about 1.2 to $1.4 million just for the rehab program we if we can get that amount of commitment from the cities we feel comfortable hiring a staff person and be able to do even more. [1:10:45] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: and I think what were we thinking we get to about 115 so one of my questions about you know the commitment is yeah you know I was I know you have to staff up on those things and for me on the early side of this stuff makes sense in a year for now two years I continue to hear from you guys the waitlist for senior CDA apartment is huge and personally I think that we need to think about a site in Lakeville so what if we decide two years from now or a year from now we want to build an apartment but we're going to pull back our commitment how does that impact? [1:11:28] **Tony Schertler**: and that's a great question and I think one of the phenomenon we're looking at now with these new dollars starting to move through the system there are certain um remedies on the housing continuum that can be deployed quicker so like emergency rent assistance or this program there other there are other expenditures that are going to take three to four years to mature and be available that is one of the things that I think collaboratively with the county and the CDA and the cities that we be more uh transparent on when you can make those trade-offs and those decisions one of the things we have to be careful about with the LAHA dollars is they don't want us swapping out they don't want us to take a current effort that we that we were pursuing on affordable housing and take the LAHA dollars and reduce another source of funds so we have to be very cognizant of that but that we do almost zero based budgeting at CDA and so when I come back to my board and we approve a budget we are identifying the source at that year and so if we had a senior housing project that came along that CDA wanted to pursue some of these dollars could be capitalized according to our financial advisors out there you could convert part of that sales tax revenue stream into debt service for a project. [1:12:45] **Tony Schertler**: so when we came to that fork in the road we could come back and say why don't we start and the board is already directing me go out and look for another 10 senior housing developments over the next 10 years in the county so start to size the piece of those sales tax revenues I think we would do that with the county first and allow the cities more flexibility not lean on the city to pay for that senior housing but that is always available for you to do if you so chose but we would have to come back when that was maturing as an opportunity that is one of the options that we also were interested in talking more about those um we call it more that Gap financing tool just as an example our senior housing program in Dakota County 30 developments $5.6 million of our annual levy goes to the debt service on that that program is entirely contained with that 5.6 and the rents that come in from the seniors that program has two basic revenue streams to supported those two 5.6 if you look at the amount of sales tax that's coming if the county gets $12 million that's another senior housing program you could start to uh create the same common Bond mechanism to do that and I think we would start with one allocation from the county before we went to 10 different cities there's some complexity of that. [1:14:05] **Lisa Elson**: and we've been kind of kicking around you know and I appreciate you understanding we'll have to staff up right and I don't want to hire someone and then let them go in a year we've been making have been kind of kicking around maybe having a two year commitment just to be able to know that we have some money for a couple of years see how the program grows see how much capacity we really can do see what we can do and then be able to come talk to the board and talk to the cities about where we're at. [1:14:35] **Lisa Elson**: the second program that we were interested in it really matches well with the rehab program um and it's maybe it's a one off maybe it's a part of it I don't know we know that radon is a real issue in Dakota County specifically and HUD just came out in the spring and said that we now are required to test for radon and if the if the levels are a certain amount we do need to put in a radon mitigation system so we've been talking about the idea of being able to have a grant to go associated with this excuse me with the rehab with the folks that we're working with in the rehab program those cost about this is very conservative I mean I think it's more about that 3,000 I don't know if anyone's gotten a radon system lately but I think it's been more in that two to three yeah thank you commissioner so we we we're just kind of concerned because this is new to us in trying to go out there maybe and try to be putting in mitigation systems we haven't put in too many of them yet with our current rehab program but the thought was we could make it a grant stretch out that $35,000 for the loan this is not this I should mention this has been approved in concept by our board as a program that we would have but we don't have anything in policy yet we haven't we have not amended our program there's been interest of if we are going to make it a grant could we hit more the lower income targets is something that we our board has been talking about. [1:16:05] **Tony Schertler**: more space I I do think that health and safety is a you know that is one of the strategic priorities we're talking about in the county obviously um public health is an important issue so lead based paint radon those types of things where we have a client who's got limited capacity as long as we're in place should we deploy some dollars to help them do that type of mitigation so it's our guys who are out there in the weatherization program are all saying the same thing boy we're in there now and we're finding a little bit more than maybe we thought we would can we close the deal on a couple of things like that so this was we had said let's conservatively plug in that what that would look like but we still have to have conversations about how we look at the need target on that. [1:17:05] **Lisa Elson**: and then the last one is getting to Mayor what you had talked about the Dakota County CDA we um are really fortunate to have a number of affordable housing finance tools that we are talking to a lot of developers all throughout the county because we have some larger financing tools but the capital stack has just become more and more complex and needing even more um resources to fill those gaps so this is we've currently fill the Gap with federal funds that we get each year and we also fill them with our own levy program which is the whole program that the board approves um putting money into that each year about $1.5 million to help fill those those gaps but this is a great use for LAHA is a great use for Gap financing as well so I just wanted to show different a couple of examples that when we we're talking about Gap financing I think a a big example one that usually comes to my mind in other people's mind is multifamily putting in some new construction. [1:18:25] **Tony Schertler**: so this is wanting to show an example a more recent example is what I was trying to put together here for you but this is Astro House and it's in Eagan I think this was 200 some units 206 I believe um it was a over $55 million project that we financed um but it took about $2.2 million of gap financing um with TIF and TIF excuse me and then the Hope program this is a program where we would not consider if we were to use LAHA money it might be like Tony said it might be more of a once in a while when these things come to fruition rather than putting an allocation m in each year would be more of a fruition we don't we would not need to add any staff I have we have staff that do underwriting this is their job and so it probably more of a nominal fee is what we would be considering to be determined what that nominal fee is. [1:19:15] **Tony Schertler**: can I give you an example because I do think TIF is a very politically tool um and if you have a project we have a project in Eagan that turned out we funded with ARPA but when we first started looking at it the city of Eagan had some Bond proceeds that um we had available for affordable housing so I think that's what we want to do is make sure we're communicating with the city again developer that has a gap contamination or something if they're doing affordable housing but we we at least present to you a possibility of allocating your dollars out of something like that if you if you so chose and so this is again really about collaborating and making sure we have a Housing Development Finance team and we're trying to see over the horizon we're trying to let policy makers know when a request is coming in and so just as we see those emerging make sure that we all are available to help if we want. [1:20:15] **Lisa Elson**: so couple other examples where we are in that space of preservation new construction um that Gap financing is there was a project that the cap owns it's eight apartments for very low income individuals in South St Paul significant interior and exterior rehab the total development cost of 1.1 million I don't call it a gap because we paid for the whole thing so um but with federal funds and some just money. [1:20:45] **Tony Schertler**: oh she's just talking um and then wanting to share we have been also working on in the space of affordable home ownership with partnering with Habitat for Humanity we had a number of units what was it 120 or so um public housing units that were single family and duplexes that HUD sold to us for a dollar in 2020 um when those become vacant we are choosing to we can sell those we can sell them on the open market or we can um re-run them but for economies of scale approach it doesn't make sense for us to continue to the county is fairly large trying to drive everywhere and they all have their own mechanical systems everything so it's become inefficient for us. [1:21:40] **Tony Schertler**: so we would like those to be sold and what we instead of selling them to investors we've been selling the first group the board approved selling 31 of them to Habitat for Humanity for continuing the affordable home ownership in Dakota County long term affordable home ownership and this is an example of a property that we sold that we sold to Habitat in Apple Valley the it was just recently just a couple oh yeah June about a year ago hello um and so the sale price to the home buyer was 330 because you don't want to mess with the market right so they sell it to the market value to the homeowner but that homeowner cannot afford that so there is a gap affordability Gap that habitat buys down that property so they have a second mortgage on that property about 105,000 and that's made up of State funds the CDA put funding into there as well to help with that affordability Gap so this is something LAHA could also be used for that. [1:22:30] **Tony Schertler**: so those are the three kind of ideas that we're bringing as offering that could be potential ways but the CDA could help um utilize those LAHA dollars to maximize the use of those in in your community we would complete the state is starting December of 2025 Minnesota housing is required to do a report we don't know what that looks like yet we have a questions we're quite curious about what those are but we would be responsible for com completing those on your behalf also kind of providing quarterly reports to our city Partners let's say for example if you put money into a rehab how much of that money has been committed how much money has been out the door what were the different uses it's really similar to how we engage with Katie and Tina with CDBG money like kind of that regular communication is what we would be offering and it's not fun to we're making this up as we go but there's not it's new it's all new and we're just trying to figure out a way to continue to work together in the ways that we've been working together since 1984 with CDBG money and other funding sources. [1:23:45] **Tony Schertler**: so kind of thinking through that we think it'd be helpful to get a formal approval from the cities in form of a resolution um our County our CDA attorney has started to work on like a joint Powers agreement or that legal entity we have to go back to our board too and kind of talk more about like those policies and make sure we're on board as well with that joint joint agreement agree on a start date um that guy mentioned that money's coming in July and that second tranche is coming in December and it's coming every year two times a year till that legislation is changed if ever so we want to make sure that we kind of figure this out in a timely manner. [1:24:45] **Tony Schertler**: what we are Megan have been talking out loud very broadly is it would be great if we could have figure it all there's a lot of nitty gritty a lot of details to figure out but figure that all out agreements every month things are signed and we start January to be able to start implementing the programs and just a couple of observations um the the statute is still a little opaque the there's a FAQ that Minnesota Housing Finance agency is the agency required responsible for making sure the dollars are spent on the target there are open questions for example involving loans I've asked them they're quiet on this right now but if somebody sells their house and they pay that back um we believe it should stay within the community of where it's being deployed and I think conversations with the state if they're modifying something encourage that make it look like the programs that we already administered versus program income going to the state and so there's a lot of nuance this year. [1:25:35] **Tony Schertler**: but I do think what we want to make sure we think we have a good cost a good affordable housing cost in Dakota County and our cities we really ought not to be we've missed an opportunity if the money goes back to the state really I'm coming upon all of us to make sure that we are keeping an eye out on where we could do good things in our community and that's fundamentally what we want to offer and account for it we have to be audit proof we have to account for these dollars we have to make sure they're being spent on what they're intended. [1:26:10] **Tina Goodroad**: so a couple of questions that we have for you tonight is you know just number one is the council supportive of partnering uh with the CDA with these dollars and if so you like one of the programs all three of the programs we can divide that up as much as we want to and the dollars so if we put a chunk of our $385,000 into the housing we have those dollars will be used in Lakeville just like those dollars are used when we allocate um CDBG towards that so just know be clear on that please um but we're here to listen to you get your feedback um so that staff kind of knows next steps because one way or the other we do need to determine how we're going to utilize these funds. [1:27:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: sure um one question I have is just about is this about who's entering potentially into this are are you going to every city in the county okay so then that additional 1 FTE is supportive of if all of the cities and the county agree to pooling well not pooling because I guess not sure not right but putting to the CDA. [1:27:30] **Tony Schertler**: so uh we have been invited to eight of the 11 cities um so far we have gone to five this is our sixth and we we believe that so collectively they're going to get about $3.8 million we think that it'll cost us we need about $1.2 million to $1.4 million to hire one FTE Tony and I have had bets about even if we'll get that much money from the cities um if you'll trust us to do that so I don't know what happens if we get 1.5 we haven't figured out if there's that and that's just for the rehab program it's not like radon or people are interested in doing some Gap financing as well is there are certain projects within the county that there could be some good right now projects for Gap financing so um I don't know if I'm answering your question. [1:28:40] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: there's I guess it's part of a series then so that the 1 FTE is being paid for by the cities that are entering into this agreement so let's say it's eight so we're paying 1/8 of that uh and that's not funded through the LAHA funds that's that's coming out of a budget somewhere else right. [1:29:05] **Tony Schertler**: um no I think it is we we believe that we being Tony and I believe that um you can use the LAHA dollars to administer These funds but we have gotten guidance from Minnesota housing that you cannot use them to pay like for Tony Tony's time or the overall arching HRA kind of that indirect but we are pretty certain you can use it for those for this program admin it's probably pretty clear because it's not replacing an existing program and you can't just fund your program without people. [1:29:45] **Tony Schertler**: but I do think we do we do have to look at this contextually and what we're bringing on the volume and there are ebbs and flows in the program so sometimes some cities are going more program I think that's one of the challenges you talked about is is is do we need you know an annual measurement or do we need to say look over five years this is where it was deployed and we're not using your dollars other than the administrative support we're not using your dollars in Apple Valley I think we have to have some way that folks feel like these benefits are showing the community there's some of those details that I think we're still TBD candidly we're just trying to get a sense is there even an appetite for that you don't want to go into the next level getting lawyers together to put together JPAs and things like that if it's like you know what Tony we're gonna we'll administer it ourselves I think Burnsville just talked to Dan Gus council member Gus and he's looking at a program that he thinking Burnsville would like to administer great that's fine um you know I think that's where we are is trying to get a sense hey that's something we should pursue you know we don't need an answer sort of yeah you know what follow up on that tell on that so did you have more questions? [1:31:00] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: my I guess my final question for that was your the proposal of the three different options here uh I think are all appropriate for what Lakeville needs but are there ones that are have a higher ROI require less administrative work um than others and how do you rank those? [1:31:30] **Tony Schertler**: well I will jump on the Gap financing if you are putting dollars into a tax credit deal or a bond deal those projects require bonding up that we already collect and so if you're adding dollars into a 9% deal or 4% tax exempt bonds we're already reporting to the IRS and everybody else and that satisfies a lot so that's one of the things we said let's not create another reporting regime the single family rehab because we've been this program is 30 years old we also have the reporting requirements now which is at the entry we've done the income verification on them and we spent the Dollar on the Target that is in the program and so that we feel we can measure that as well. [1:32:15] **Lisa Elson**: and I could just add with the Gap financing typically those are deals where they are loans typically but they are 30 to 50 year loans where with the rehab program we see those turn pretty quickly probably an average do have an average it was between 9 to 12 years was our average but just to be clear that we do put a 30 year mortgage on these properties and so it's possible that these loans will sit out there longer sure. [1:32:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: so um let's say that you know we are decided to put money into the loan Improvement and the mitigation and I'm also I think personally I'm comfortable with the construction Gap financing but I don't want to just throw it into a pot and then you approve all the projects like I want to have some sort of working relationship where we say yep that's a the city thinks that's a good investment and there's a partnership instead of just and ready to check and I think that's just personal I'd like to have our own you know at the table when it comes to that. [1:33:20] **Tony Schertler**: and I think that's I made this comment once before so I was in the city of St Paul for 15 years where we had that single family program with our code enforcement our planning and Economic Development Division was together I don't think I think this program works really well when the cities are referring and identifying the targets so that's partly the not advertising but as you go through some neighborhoods and it depends on where you are in the county but there's some neighborhoods we used to send people out kind of inventory the neighborhood say hey this house needs some help instead of just hitting them with a code enforcement stick maybe somebody needs to sit down with them and say we have some favorable financing here help you fix this up. [1:34:00] **Tony Schertler**: and so I I do think there's an element of this that really is important from your the city sees this more than we do in the CBA you're in the neighborhoods and and that's a way to say Tony we referred five to you guys what happened to you know where are they in addition to the passive applicants so we're all we're open to that as long as we don't create too much administrative encumbrance. [1:34:25] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: but I also mean also on the new construction. [1:34:28] **Tony Schertler**: yes absolutely absolutely okay that one is easy because that is something that we're actively talking about if we were to come to you and asking for a TIF District right like we would be you are the decision making whether you want to. [1:34:40] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: so what does what's like a let's say if we're going to set a Target as a council like okay we're not going to set up any of our own things we're gonna fund this what's a good mix to say okay we want to put all of it into Home Improvement this year because we don't know what new construction looks like like what's what's kind of your recommendation? [1:35:00] **Tony Schertler**: that's a fair question because the other part of this is um uh when to draw the money so you can set this up a variety of ways we could do it on a reimbursement basis so somebody comes in we identify our rehab advisor sit down with them and put together the project you keep the money until we draw it down that vehicle then you get the investment income everything else on that for us that's good because I don't want to be responsible for dollars that are sitting on the shelf there's that model there's a there's a trust fund model where we create mic program where dollars can move into a trust that revolves and once those eligible costs are available it can revolve into that then you've got to measure it back to you and show you guys here's how much here's the activity going on in the Lakeville Housing Trust Fund it's too early to tell you specifically I think at this point it's is something we should pursue and you're entirely to your appetite if you want to say you know what let's add three single family units to the single family rehab program over the next two-three years okay we need it. [1:36:15] **Councilmember Dan Wolter**: question for our staff you at one point we talked about a menu of different options um I don't know how many months ago that was very similar to this yeah exactly and but how are we planning to implement that with our current Staffing model? [1:36:35] **Tina Goodroad**: and we had the preliminary conversation it was an anticipation of this next conversation okay. [1:36:45] **Justin Miller (City Administrator)**: so not staying up our own programs but yeah cities that do that my understanding um cities that do that so and I I think Burnsville's probably a good model and I cannot remember the entity that they utilize but they have a third party that money goes to the third party and the third party does essentially what CBA does um we have a strong history particularly with the Home Improvement and the radon mitigation isn't much different than the Home Improvement we have a strong history um of our CDBG dollars working exactly the way this would but the spread is a little bit bigger because we can hit more households. [1:37:35] **Justin Miller**: so um I would feel more comfortable as a staff person utilizing the CDA versus trying to find yet another third party to implement and administer all that um with yet another entity does that make sense? [1:37:48] **Tony Schertler**: but you could and if I'm wrong C staff tell me but I think that's how the model has been doing in several cities have so much demand and so that we were not able to help them at that level but they were feeling that they needed so they went to another third party to provide that similar so are you guys comfortable Direction you want to yeah think about other stuff what get the kind of do we want within the program? [1:38:10] **Councilmember John Bermel**: so I'll just say first of all I appreciate this presentation because it's helped me learn a lot more about what you do I think it looks like a great opportunity you know to hit the ground running with this stuff not reinvent the wheel um so I'm I'm supportive of generally I think we um I think we have to decide you know kind of a breakdown would be my my thought as to what goes into the Home Improvement into the Gap financing fees but you know your question about control of those dollars so to speak I think was was helpful that was the concern for me. [1:38:45] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: so but I guess my takeaway from this conversation is that the radon could be part of the home improvement loan program and if we don't have new construction projects at the moment it's really more of 100% to the first item until we know of a project of the future. [1:39:02] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: the slide on radon at something like not more than $28,000 oh was that how much? [1:39:10] **Tony Schertler**: 3,000 yeah sure we think that we need about $200,000 a year in order to reasonably impact the radon issues that we have at Dakota County and so we're just asking for a contribution of the larger hole into this pot that we would use in house with houses in in Lakeville and so right now what we're doing with the CDBG funds is we are people are taking out loans for these and and that's part of that $35,000 and so we're testing everybody's house now because we're required to test and it's a good thing to do um and roughly 50 to 60% of those are coming back as blowing through that that that standard. [1:39:55] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: where is the the habitat piece fall into because I I just so you guys know we had habitat came in and talk to Regal Council Mayors about this last spring I you weren't there but um had a really good presentation and learned a ton in that the fact that there are these I think Lakeville is at 17 properties that are at some point be available so I'm wondering where would those fall under to me they seem like a really good way if we're not talking about just building but family home ownership. [1:40:25] **Lisa Elson**: they do that is 100% available LAHA is 100% available for that but where's it falling around? [1:40:32] **Tony Schertler**: it's in my Catchup the number three okay the Gap financing got it okay one of the things that we're trying to do is encourage well before the sales tax dollars were there habitat came in and they we know we know they need that Gap financing for the family we have to sell those at fair market value for HUD we're going to take sale proceeds and build new family town homes or senior housing um but we were pushing Habitat to get those Gap dollars from Met Council or state get those Gap dollars from somewhere else these would be available so if you found yourself accumulating sales tax dollars you didn't want to send them back to Housing Finance you could make that choice and tell habitat say listen if you need that for affordable home ownership city of Lakeville is willing to make some of those sales tax dollars available. [1:41:20] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: yeah and I did talk to Chris Coleman about a little bit but we didn't really know what our numbers were going to be so this is more of a Lakeville City staff question then is then do we think about also establishing a land trust or something but if we want to park some dollars for this okay um so it doesn't get clawed back so I'd like to personally I like to look at a mix like how we can still support the CDA but then if some of these other projects pop up I'd like to be all participated so long as the B that side. [1:41:55] **Tony Schertler**: what's nice about habitat is they have the infrastructure to do that affordable home model that they do and whoever you get in there's Land Trust there linked there greater Frogtown CDC there's a lot of folks who are doing the land trust model what you want to make sure of is that they can account for the long-term affordability issue that part of what you buy from them is the measurement and the public purpose outcome and we've chosen not to do a land trust CDA they just there's some shelf life obligations on that that we'd rather not do which is why we have Habitat to it you guys go do it we'll just sell it to you you go make sure that it's affordable family that's always in there. [1:42:35] **Lisa Elson**: and Mayor Council with those 17 we're in the position we own them right now and so it's a great position for us to be able to be in communication we'll know when they're vacant we'll know when we when come when our board is interested in open to wanting to sell those who would they want to sell them to so those are really be able to identify and kind of plan for those opportunities. [1:42:55] **Tony Schertler**: in theory we can say okay well whatever money we set aside that year for home just shift it around yep. [1:43:00] **Lisa Elson**: yep I think there's a lot of flexibility with these dollars it's more on our end of administratively just making sure we have the money. [1:43:05] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: do you anticipate any further definition changes by the legislature next year as the last time we had this conversation seemed like there's a lot of flexibility but maybe there won't be next year and how can we help Advocate to keep it the the a little bit. [1:43:25] **Tony Schertler**: and part of it is we look when we look at affordable housing three legs in the school it's the unit the capital stack it's the rent assistance if it's high barrier folks because they usually you know on the jobs or they're struggling then there's a service component so the county is interested in making sure that if we're doing housing for high barrier folks that we need the service dollars as well we need a caseworker we need somebody there so what they did is they opened it the aperture to allow for Staffing of those types of services not exclusively nonprofit but that makes it more um important to keep all the people who are working in this field accountable and on point um and measure the outcomes because it's pretty flexible and my feeling is just like TIF law in the 90s if you get too they'll come back and start closing the a. [1:44:15] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: it sounds like we're all comfortable with getting some formal agreements and talking about moving Direction partnership it's great okay anything else thank you no thank you uh okay items for future discussion Council I'm just get uh any committee. [1:44:45] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: I just was gonna say something on the way up okay. [1:44:50] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: okay between now and our last meeting we cancelled or haven't met okay anything we need to know accordingly about Pan-O-Prog anything you want to. [1:44:58] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: um the only real update is that we are going to be using the antique fire truck um Mike Meyer has someone lined up to drive it I think a retired firefighter great um I think you have all the candy you need. [1:45:12] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: yep. [1:45:14] **Councilmember Michelle Volk**: and it should all fit there I double check with them this morning so okay um once I get more details on like your lineup spot and time those last things I'll those that's a good question as I was saying you have [Laughter] to. [1:45:30] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: all right well that I will take a motion to adjourn. [1:45:35] **Councilmember John Bermel**: so moved. [1:45:37] **Councilmember Joshua Lee**: second. [1:45:39] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: all favor say aye. [1:45:41] **Council**: aye. [1:45:43] **Mayor Luke Hellier**: all right thank you everybody.