Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names identified. **Note on Identifications:** * **"G"** refers to **Nate Carlson** (Economic Development Director), who manages the business inquiry and Tiff items. * **"Cheetah"** is a phonetic transcription of **Councilmember Dave Thiede**. * **"John Baptist"**, **"Scott"**, **"Carrie"**, and **"Myers"** are identified as EDA members during the roll call. * **"Alexa"** is the staff member/clerk recording the roll. *** [00:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We're going to go and get started. All right, good morning. This is the April 9th, 2024, Cottage Grove Economic Development Authority meeting, which I'm calling to order. The first order of business is roll call, so Alexa? [00:05] **Alexa**: Yes. EDA Member Scott? **EDA Member Scott**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA Member Carrie? **EDA Member Carrie**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA Member Myers? **EDA Member Myers**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA Member John Baptist? **EDA Member John Baptist**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA Member Thiede? **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA Vice President Olsen? **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Here. **Alexa**: EDA President Bailey? **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Here. [00:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, good morning everyone. Next, we'll move to number three, which is approval of the minutes, which is 3.1. If there's no changes or corrections, I'll need a motion and a second. [00:15] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Move to approve. [00:18] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, we have a motion by EDA Vice President Olsen. Do I have a second? [00:20] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Second. [00:21] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Thank you. Second by EDA Member Thiede. All those in favor signify by saying Aye. [00:23] **Group**: Aye. [00:25] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Opposed? Motion carries. All right, we'll move to four, which is business items. We have a whole bunch this morning. We're going to start with 4.1, which was an addition that maybe it wasn't on your initial agenda when it came through. This is a presentation by DARTS, which the EDA and the city have been working with for quite a few years now. Jan Hicks and Ann Bailey—I should say last names there, no relation I don't think, anyway—are going to give us a presentation on DARTS, and then if any questions afterwards, EDA members are welcome to share. Thank you. [00:45] **Ann Bailey**: Good morning and thank you for fitting us into your agenda. We wanted to give you an update this morning because we've been operating a loop in Cottage Grove for three or four years probably now, and it was nice to give you an update to see how that is going and then we also had added some additional services. My name is, as Mayor Bailey said, I'm Ann Bailey. I'm the President at DARTS. I have been at DARTS since 2015, and DARTS is turning 50 this year. [00:55] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Oh, happy birthday to you. Congratulations. [01:00] **Ann Bailey**: Thank you. So, a little bit about us for those of you who aren't familiar: we continue to help seniors live independently and we support the caregivers of seniors. We do this through a variety of programs as well as using a lot of volunteers. Our mission is creating connections that enrich aging, and that "enriched" portion is what we think of when we think about—it's more than just providing a service to an older adult; it's also making sure that those older adults still have a place in our community, get out and about, those types of things. And we're in the Southeast Metro here. I really covered the Mission, Vision, and Values, so we can skim through that. So, we really are about "just in time" services, and that's not by design; that's by how life works. We can tell people for as many times as we want that we're here, we're able to support people, and you don't retain the information until the day you need it. So, we are there to help people who often are at a point of crisis, the decision point in their lives or in the lives of the person that they're caring for. And you can see in 2023—so we just compiled all of our 2023 numbers—we served just over 2,000 clients in the Southeast Metro, and this is a distribution of where the services fell. About a fourth of our folks use more than one DARTS service, so they may use transportation and home cleaning or something like that. Transportation still is the lion's share, but Home Services, which is outdoor chores, cleaning, and home repairs, is the next runner-up. With that, Jan, I think we get into a little bit more about our services. [01:35] **Ann Bailey**: Service Coordination is the one that I haven't mentioned. That is where we help somebody—in some cases we're on-site in CDA-operated buildings in Dakota County, in some cases we just go to people's individual homes to provide that information that they need to get the service that they need to continue to live successfully. An example might be that somebody's living independently and they come down and say, "Well, I don't really feel like cooking anymore," and we help get them the appropriate meal service so that they can continue to be successful living in their own home. [01:40] **Jan Hicks**: Well, there's my time. So, I'm Jan Hicks. I am the Director of Programs, and really, I am the Director of Transportation and I'm the Director of Home Services, which are a couple of our bigger services that we offer. You all are probably familiar with our Community Loop service which runs every Tuesday; so it'll be running here in a couple hours. It goes to more of your densely populated senior locations: Legends, Norris Square, Woodland Park, and then that whole little area in the Hinton and the "H's" as I like to call it—Heart, I can't remember the names, but anyway. And then it goes to places like Hy-Vee and Walmart and up and down pretty much up and down East Point Douglas Road. As usual, Walmart is the—as with all of our loops, and this is number six of all our Community Loops—the most popular destination is Walmart. For seniors in particular here in Cottage Grove, getting from quite a bit north down to Walmart is no easy task. So for a really easy low fee—we ask $3 and we never turn anyone away for inability to pay—that'll get them to hop on the bus, they can ride along all day long for four or five hours and go as many places as they want. So that's really doing well. Later this week, I've got a meeting with the basic needs food pantry, so we're going to start using the loop to pick up individuals who are in need of food supports. We'll pick them up in the Woodland Hills area down by the library and then take them down to the food pantry which—I'm honestly, I don't really know—Jamaica Square down in that area. So that's going to be kind of an interesting new thing and we'll give you updates on that. We also offer group rides for groups. So somebody might want to go to the Twins game or a senior population might want to spend a day going to the Arboretum. Individual rides—we do have quite a few Cottage Grove residents. I'm not familiar with your Metro Mobility status here, if you're an on-call area or if you are in the ADA required area... [02:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Unfortunately, no. [02:41] **Jan Hicks**: Okay, unfortunately no. So that is something that we do offer, and we've got affordable rides through the Older Americans Act that your residents can call for transportation. It requires a little bit of registration, but anybody 60 or over qualifies for some of our funding programs. That's really handy. As it says here, the loop provided 647 rides in '23, and I don't have the number of how many people took individual rides, but there were quite a few. One of the other big services that we offer is Home Services: home cleaning, home modification and repairs, and outdoor chores. We've had some forays into outdoor chores here where we have some volunteers who help people with fall cleanup, lawn mowing, and snow removal. We were lucky to find a contractor this year who was able to help several of your residents with snow removal. But one what I really want to hit on is our home modification and repairs. For a lot of older adults, they don't want to or are not able to get on a ladder anymore, and something as simple as changing out the batteries in smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors can be a very big barrier. Something like a grab bar can help with accessibility in a shower. We offer very affordable home repair prices—it's $100 for the first hour and then $70 after that. We do offer some subsidies for those who cannot afford it on a sliding scale. We focus on three major areas: safety, accessibility, and independent living. Safety is smoke detectors or contrast stairways. Accessibility is things like grab bars and handheld showers. We can offer something simple like fixing a deckboard to make it safer. And then independence—one of the things that we don't always think about with independent living is hanging some curtains or artwork because it makes a home feel nicer. When my home looks good, I feel better about myself and I'm able to stay in that home because my overall self-esteem is up. Right now, our lead time is about a week to a week and a half, and I would highly suggest offering that as something that's available for your folks. [03:20] **Ann Bailey**: So, to your individual ride question, about 2% of the services that we provided in Cottage Grove were for individual rides. And we did have some home repairs here too. We do have volunteer opportunities. Ann, would you like to speak to Learning Buddies? [03:25] **Ann Bailey**: Sure. Learning Buddies and Pen Pals is a program where we have older volunteers partner with elementary schools to provide whatever the teacher needs in the classroom—tutoring, reading help. Our Learning Buddies program coordinator has actually spoken with a couple of the elementary schools and we have commitments that there are teachers in Cottage Grove that would like this assistance. So we will be doing a bigger push for volunteers for next school year. It's one of those things that every so often we survey every volunteer and every client annually, and every so often the Learning Buddies quotes from a volunteer will come back to say, "It gave meaning to my life." I think a lot of times when people retire, they lose that little compass point, and having a meaningful volunteer opportunity really makes a difference. We're excited to be able to bring that into the Cottage Grove area. Part of the reason for the expansion of Home Services into the Southern Washington County area has been because for the last two years, the Department of Human Services has had a grant they call the "Live Well at Home" grant. That's how we've been able to fund the expansion into Southern Washington County and offer sliding fee or adjustable rates to people. And we should say that these are available for the whole 61 Corridor—we're not going to Woodbury, but we like Cottage Grove, we like St. Paul Park, and we like Newport. Any of those areas. [04:35] **Jan Hicks**: Yes, Southern Washington County—the parts we drive through to get to more of Dakota County, right, because our offices are in West St. Paul. Do people have any questions for us? [04:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: The EDA members—any questions at all? No? Just thank you for coming in and sharing. I think when we set this in motion a few years back, obviously it's been successful for the seniors that need that support. I do know our County Commissioner, they're having a workshop this afternoon on transportation, and one of the things that she's really interested in is trying to get some additional DARTS services in Cottage Grove that would actually go down to the food shelf as an example in St. Paul Park. [05:00] **Ann Bailey**: I believe she's going to be speaking on that to the County Board later on this afternoon, and we did send her the same data, so she should have the data. The thank you really reflects back to you; so you as a council took a chance on saying this was an important service to provide. Thank you. I think that it's a really augmented service and it speaks volumes to what you feel about all the residents of Cottage Grove, that you're really focusing on any age. [05:20] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: You got it. Thank you for coming in, because "older," mind you, is defined as 50 and up. That's me. [05:24] **Ann Bailey**: That's me too! [05:25] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, thank you so much. Next under business items is 4.2, which is the Economic Development Update and business inquiry, and Nate is going to walk us through this one. [05:30] **Nate Carlson**: Thank you. Good morning everyone. It's another beautiful day in the neighborhood. It's tough to follow such a great act; they do really good things in the community, and the staff knows that because we share all of their information via our e-news and eConnect. You all should be very proud of yourself for supporting a program that really helps a lot of people. All right, so we're going to start off with the "Beige Book." Overall, you can see from the report that employment, prices, and consumer spending are all either slightly down or modestly okay in as far as increases. Construction activity is down, commercial real estate is kind of flat, the office market sector's soft, and residential real estate remains subdued. The theme for the day is: the economy is okay, but it's not going gangbusters. Manufacturing activity increased slightly, agricultural sales fell, and then minority and women-owned businesses reported lower sales and profits since the last report. This quarter we're struggling a little bit, but hopefully it's going to be turning around. As far as Community Development—the Community Development Director is running a little late today, so you don't see her here as usual, but all their great work is continuing. Hornstein, as you can see from the pictures, their drive-through cooler has been created and the interior office framing has begun. Obviously, the really nice weather this winter has caused all the construction activities to be completed faster than they probably originally intended. The low zone water treatment plant—this is your new treatment plant—the footings are in, the slab is poured, and of course the walls are going up. Chase Bank—if you've driven over there, the walls are up, the building's taking shape, the parking lot has been dug up, and now they're working on some of the interior and exterior completions. Ode to Kids—same thing, they are moving along really rapidly. Interior framing is continuing and interior trade work has started. In other developments, you are finally going to have a pediatric dental office in the city. Dr. O'Rourke has the permit issued for a new office building in the Summerhill building. He's still working with MCCD on some financing. Blue Stem Senior Apartment—the building permit has been issued. It's moving along rapidly and that's located just across from Grove 80; that's the affordable senior housing project. And then in Norhart, their plans have been reviewed and a review letter provided for the new apartment building located over there at Hadley Avenue; that's market-rate apartments. Happy to answer any questions on the development report. [07:15] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Any questions for Nate? All right, seeing none, you got it. All right, we'll move then to 4.3 which is Third Amendment to Amended and Reinstated Contract for private development, which is North Point. Nate, I think you're going to start us off on this one. [07:25] **Nate Carlson**: I will. So you've already approved two amendments to the agreement. All of them are essentially for the same reason: the market is still soft in the industrial area and the projects are just not moving along as fast as they had hoped because they can't secure the tenants that they need. Generally, when you have secured the tenant, then you build the building. In January, they met with the Mayor, the City Administrator, and staff and they said they're still delayed. Charlie Cannon with North Point is here in case there are any questions after I'm done. We had our financial consultants and the Tiff attorney look at the request. If approved, it's going to result in some changes: the commencement and completion dates will change for Phase 1A and also for phases 2 through 4. The building sizes will also change—all in all, the overall net will change by about 88,000 square feet. In a development of 3.4 million square feet, that's really not a lot of difference. A few other changes: the jobs created will decrease from the 1,870 projected to approximately 1,200. The amount of Tiff generated will also decrease from approximately 12.5 million to 7.16 million. This request will also result in the note never being paid off because of the time frame of the actual Tiff. Brenda, we confirmed yesterday was seven years, is that right? [08:20] **Brenda Malinowski**: The Tiff district is eight years. [08:23] **Nate Carlson**: Eight years, yep. And then of course the ability to decertify the district early will likely not happen as well because they've pushed themselves out to 2028. Charlie may be able to answer some questions for you. [08:25] **Charlie Cannon**: I'm Charlie Cannon with North Point Development. Fairly new to this project, but I've been with North Point for a couple years now. The existing two buildings—Lumberman and Building One—did commence a couple months ago and they're in and operating, getting moved in. That leaves about 90,000 square feet in Building One vacant, and then Building Two, the 500,000 footer, still remains vacant. We've actually seen an increase in RFP activity within the last month; there's a 3PL business that a few folks are chasing, so it's great to see that. We're in the running. Other than that, that's about all the updates that I have. [09:05] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: EDA members, any questions for Charlie or Nate? [09:10] **EDA Member John Baptist**: I do have one—part question, part clarification. So if I understand this correctly, the Tiff is being reduced but then it's non-recoverable, correct? [09:15] **Nate Carlson**: The Tiff is being reduced because the increment will not be created because of the delay in the building. You operate under a pay-as-you-go system, so it's just going to reduce the amount that North Point would eventually get. It notes here the request will also result in a note that will never be paid off. Brenda, can you clarify what that means to the city and the tax? [09:20] **Brenda Malinowski**: Yes, I can clarify that. When a Tiff district is created, there are certain things thought to happen. At that point, we thought that available tax increment would be 12.5 million. Because of the delay in the project, the tax increment that will be able to be created over the life of the district has now been reduced to that 7.1 million. With a pay-as-you-go note, the developer pays those upfront expenditures—for example, the street improvements in that area. Those costs they pay, and then the city pays them back with that tax increment. Because of the delay, we know that the tax increment generated will be less, which is why that note has been reduced. [10:10] **EDA Member John Baptist**: Got it, thank you. [10:12] **EDA Member Carrie**: I think that clarifies it for me as well. [10:15] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Any other questions at this point? All right, seeing none, I guess... do you have the proposal? There we go. So on the screen at this point is the recommended motion to approve the third amendment. I'll leave that up to whoever wants to make a motion. [10:25] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Mayor, I'll move that we approve the Third Amendment to the Amended and Restated Contract for private development by and between the Cottage Grove Economic Development Authority and NP Cottage Grove Logistics Park LLC as presented. [10:35] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Do I have a second? [10:36] **EDA Member Scott**: I'll second the motion. [10:37] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by EDA Member Scott. Any other discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying Aye. [10:40] **Group**: Aye. [10:42] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Charlie. [10:45] **Nate Carlson**: All right, we'll move to 4.4, which is tax increment revenue note with Up North Plastics. As you noted earlier, we have one that wants an extension and now this one is finishing up. Up North Plastics has been in the City Business Park since 1981. You approved the creation of Tiff 1-19 in January of 2019. They added a 428,000 square foot facility and they created the 200 jobs that were a part of their Tiff agreement. Their entire project is complete. There's a Tiff note now to be issued not to exceed $892,000 and their first payment would begin in August of 2024. This just closes out that project. [11:20] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: EDA, any questions on this one? All right, seeing none, we have a motion before us. [11:25] **EDA Member Myers**: I'll make the motion to approve Resolution 2024-05, approving the issuance of a tax increment revenue note for Up North Plastics, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $892,000. [11:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Do I have a second? [11:32] **EDA Member Carrie**: Second. [11:34] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by EDA Member Carrie. All those in favor signify by saying Aye. [11:35] **Group**: Aye. [11:36] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion carries. We'll move to 4.5, which is termination of contract for private development, Modern Automotive Performance. [11:40] **EDA Member Carrie**: And I'll be recusing myself from this. [11:41] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Thank you, Mr. Carrie. [11:42] **Nate Carlson**: Modern Automotive Performance (MAP) was the tenant in the building at 9800 Hemingway. In late 2023, MAP determined that they would allow their lease to expire. Staff visited the building and confirmed that MAP was no longer open for walk-in business. That began the process of the Tiff decertification because once you lose the tenant, it's not operating according to the Tiff agreement. The building owner was notified in January of the default event and they were given 30 days to cure the default. They haven't found a new tenant that we could possibly consider transferring a Tiff to. So now before you is a consideration to terminate that agreement and decertify Tiff 1-18. [12:20] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: I guess I'm a little new to Tiff. If they find a new tenant later on, are they able to turn the Tiff back on, or is this the end for them? [12:35] **Nate Carlson**: No, this would finish this district. [12:37] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: That's a good question. It's funny because before this meeting started, I said this is one of those weird meetings where we have three different separate Tiff type items happening. The district itself has collected enough money so that the city will not be out anything; that's the value of pay-as-you-go notes. [12:55] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Let's say in the event that the city was "upside down" financially. Do we have anything moving forward in our agreements that would allow us to recoup anything? [13:00] **Nate Carlson**: Yes, you always have look-back provisions and clawback provisions depending on the type and style of the note. The finance director always makes sure we're covered. [13:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We have two motions here. Who would like to take the first one? [13:15] **EDA Member Scott**: I make a motion that we approve Resolution 2024-05, terminating the contract for private development with 9800 Hemingway Avenue LLC and Modern Automotive Performance. [13:20] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion by EDA Member Scott. Do I have a second? [13:21] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Second. [13:22] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by EDA Member Thiede. All those in favor signify by saying Aye. [13:23] **Group**: Aye. [13:25] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion carries. Second motion? [13:30] **EDA Member John Baptist**: I make the motion to approve Resolution 2024-06, requesting the decertification of Tax Increment Financing District 1-18 and direct EDA staff and consultants to send the resolution to the Washington County Auditor. [13:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second? [13:42] **EDA Member Myers**: Second. [13:43] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second by EDA Member Myers. All those in favor signify by saying Aye. [13:44] **Group**: Aye. [13:45] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion carries. You're good, thank you, Mr. Carrie. All right, so now we'll move to 4.6, which is proposal to prepare a housing needs assessment. Nate? [13:50] **Nate Carlson**: Thank you. In January 2024, the City Council accepted a staff recommendation to complete a housing study. What was discussed is that a study was needed so that we could know who was moving in, who was moving out, and if the housing is affordable enough. Staff researched options and the team at Maxfield Research comes highly recommended. The study will take approximately 120 days to complete and the costs for the study are $22,800. They'll do a gap analysis—what do we have, what don't we have—and then they'll make some recommendations. [14:35] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: I'll just make a quick plug—we hear a lot in the community that either we're growing too fast, we're not growing fast enough, do people want small houses or big houses? This is going to give us an idea on all of that to make sure that we have our finger on the pulse of what future growth looks like. From what I hear, we're doing pretty good on affordable housing compared to our friends to the north, but we need to understand what that means for the citizens of Cottage Grove. Justin, if you have anything you want to say? [15:40] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Housing is a complicated issue because what you see depends on where you sit, hence the reason to have an objective third party do this study. For those of us who've grown up here, we know that for years the "affordable" housing in the city was considered to be the Thompson Grove side. But even those properties are kind of breaking over that $300,000 mark now. So the perception of what's affordable changes. We are mandated by the Met Council to have a certain amount of affordable housing. Supposedly the Twin Cities is short 100,000 domiciles at the moment. Something I found interesting was that before 2010, the city grew at about 2.75% annually. Since 2010, that number has dropped to about 1.5%. So the city is not growing nearly as fast as it did in its "heyday," but we are still growing and trying to grow intelligently. This study is going to help us maintain focus on that. [17:35] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Have we ever done a study like this before? [17:45] **Nate Carlson**: Not to my knowledge. [17:50] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We did—it was before you, but yes. [18:00] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: I agree this is necessary. I love talking housing. I love the idea of a third-party study. When you talk to builders, they say government regulations are the problem. When you talk to government, they say it's the builders not building what people want. A third party is fantastic to look into that. [18:05] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: I just want to respond to whether we've done this before. In 2012, we had a "Housing Summit" where we brought in realtors and developers. The Mayor mentioned that when we stepped into our roles in 2008, the economy was in a bad place. We wanted to be out in front so when things changed, we could move forward. We streamlined our permitting process and took a hard look at our ordinances. That led to what we're experiencing now—intelligent, consistent growth. But markets change constantly, so we felt like it was a good time to do it again. [19:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, we have a motion before us. [19:35] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: I move to approve the attached agreement with Maxfield Research and Consulting for the creation of a housing needs assessment in an amount not to exceed $22,800. [19:40] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second? [19:42] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: Second. [19:45] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All those in favor signify by saying Aye. [19:47] **Group**: Aye. [19:50] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion carries. 4.7 is The Grow Minnesota partnership program. [19:55] **Nate Carlson**: The Grow Minnesota program is part of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Economic Development agencies can join as a partner. They have specialized software to tabulate survey results and they'll produce customizable reports for statewide business trends. Our businesses can use their supplier match program to find local suppliers rather than trying to go out of state. We'd like to try it out for a year. The annual cost is $1,000. [20:45] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: Do we know how many other cities or EDAs are utilizing this? [21:00] **Nate Carlson**: There are about 80 organizations of various forms. Our local chamber actually benefits from this partnership because they are allowed access to the same things we have access to without an additional charge. We see it as a neat partnership with Lori at the chamber. [22:00] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: We have a motion. [22:05] **EDA Member Myers**: I make the motion to authorize participation in The Grow Minnesota program at the advanced partnership level in the amount of $1,000. [22:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Second? [22:12] **EDA Member John Baptist**: Second. [22:14] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Motion carries. Last but not least, 4.8, the Dominium certification of compliance. [22:20] **Nate Carlson**: This is not an action item, just a report. One of the requirements of the Dominium Tiff agreement was that they report annually. Their Tiff requires that 80% of the housing unit be affordable senior housing. On February 13th, we received their certificate of compliance. We concur that they are in compliance with their development agreement. [23:05] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: With regard to Dominium, have we gotten any additional information from them on their rental increases for this year? I know the last couple of years there was some noise about overly egregious increases. [23:30] **Nate Carlson**: They did an increase. One of the owners claimed the increase for the 2024 cycle is 4%, but you can't tell that by what they produced unless we literally compared every single unit. President Bailey, I don't know if you want to add anything? [24:10] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Dominium has been in the news because of the high rate of rents and concerns about parking and electrical "add-on" fees. Jointly, between the City of Woodbury, Cottage Grove, and the County, we submitted a letter of concern to the Attorney General's office just wanting to make sure our seniors are not being gouged. Affordability is a slippery slope because what is deemed affordable in Washington County is based on the median income (AMI) here, which is some of the highest in the state. That's why we've had Trellis and Roers come in—we want developers who truly want to be affordable. [25:35] **Councilmember Dave Thiede**: They say their raise was 4%. Do we know what the increase in Social Security was last year? Because they are on fixed incomes. [25:55] **Brenda Malinowski**: 3.2%. [26:00] **Nate Carlson**: It's kind of shocking because if you only have $28,000 in income and your rent is $1,300, it's tight. [26:10] **EDA Member John Baptist**: Do we have the opportunity to say, "If you're going to be in this city, this is your new rent increase limit"? [26:25] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: It's complicated. According to our City Attorney, you can't straight-up put rent controls on. HUD has their range where you can raise as much as 12.5%, but the conversation we have is: "I know you can, but should you?" Trellis, for example, said they've never raised rents more than 3%. That's how we make decisions about who we give Tiff to. We are giving Trellis a forgivable loan to make sure they keep their rents at 30% AMI. [27:45] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: All right, any EDA comments? [27:50] **Councilmember Justin Olsen**: I'm new to the body this year. I don't know if there's ever been any training from our Tiff attorney on what Tiff is and how it works. I was wondering if there would be value in a workshop. Also, a resident suggested that on our city website, it’s a bit cumbersome to find project info. Maybe a "What's New" page? [28:40] **Nate Carlson**: We are going to revamp the economic development newsletter and we're working on a quarterly update to address that. [29:30] **Mayor Myron Bailey**: Two things real quick: the "Missing Middle" legislation at the state is now dead for the moment. Suburban Mayors, myself included, were against it because it would have allowed four-plexes or six-plexes next to single-family homes without city control over parking or materials. Also, the Mississippi Dunes Golf Course has sold. 54% of that entire property is going to be park and open space, which is unheard of. Lastly, this is volunteer month! Our banquet is this Thursday at 6:00 PM at River Oaks. We'll adjourn in the St. Croix room where we are having our workshop. Have a good day.