to the May 7th, 2020 Planning Commission meeting. The Planning Commission is made up of seven volunteer residents appointed by the City Council. Tonight we have one present in chambers and five online through Webex. Most items we make recommendations to Council, however some items we have final decision-making authority subject to an appeal to the City Council. For each item there will be a staff report, a chance for the applicant to speak, and a chance for public comment. We begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. If we could go over the WebEx participation information for tonight, please. Sure, Madam. City Hall remains closed due to the pandemic. Under state statute we can continue to have meetings remotely and that's what we're doing tonight. We have four people physically present tonight, one in the control room, three here at the dais. Everybody else is joining remotely so planning commissioners, staff, applicants and any members of the public that are interested in planning in speaking we would like to have them participate as well. So in that regard, if you're watching live and would like to testify, you can call 952-563-8926 or email planning at bloomingtonmn.gov and then you will receive instructions on how to participate this evening live in the meeting. We will have those numbers and that email address screen throughout the meeting. At least if you're watching live, if you're watching recording, that scrolling feature does not work or on YouTube live it also does not work. So one final note, all votes tonight must be conducted by roll call. That's a statutory requirement because we have a remote meeting. So that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Moving on to item one, if we could have the staff report, please. Glenn, would you like to make me a host? Is Sherry a participant as well, Glenn? I will make her a participant. Thank you, members of the Planning Commission. Thanks for bearing with us here. I'm going to share my screen here, and hopefully this works. CAN YOU GUYS SEE THAT OKAY? WE CAN SEE IT. OKAY. GREAT. SO THE FIRST TIME I'M ON YOUR AGENDA IS PRELIMINARY AND FINAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS. THIS IS ACTUALLY A REPEAT FOR SOME OF YOU. SOME OF YOU SERVED ON THE BOARD WHEN THIS PROJECT WAS ORIGINALLY APPROVED IN 2018. AND SINCE THE APPROVAL OF THIS PROJECT, THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL ADOPTED A NEW ORDINANCE, THE OPPORTUNITY HOUSING ORDINANCE, WHICH INVOLVES SOME INCENTIVES AND TOOLS AND NEW RULES SURROUNDING THE PRESERVATION AND CREATION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN BLOOMINGTON. SO FOLLOWING THE ADOPTION OF THAT ORDINANCE, BOYCLAIR, WHO IS THE OWNER AND OPERATOR OF THIS SITE, DECIDED TO COME BACK TO YOU AND SUBMIT A NEW PLAN FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION BUILDING OFF THE OLD PLAN. So the subject property is 10041 Penn Avenue. It's just to the south of Presbyterian Homes of Bloomington, just at the south end of Penn here where it meets up with West Old Chakapea Road by the Old Town Hall site. It runs along some railroad tracks on the southeast side. There's a parking lot to the south, and there's some single family to the west or the surrounding uses. This is the existing site. There's a 45 unit, three-story apartment building there today. It is affordable housing currently. And you can see Presbyterian homes to the north. The new building would be located in the southeast corner of the site, similar to what was approved in 2018. And I'll show you that now. The new building would be a four-story building with 68 units. So this is what was approved in 2018, in the fall of 2018. Again, I don't remember who was on the board at that time, who's currently on the board, but this is the old site plan that was approved. So these are the final development plans. It was a 43-unit, four-story building, so similar height, just a little bit smaller footprint. So very similar location. Basically, the footprint is stretched further to the north and further to the southwest on both ends. The curvature is a little bit different, but the new plan is significantly the same. I want to note as part of that action in 2018, the city council also approved rezoning this site from R1 to RM24. So they do have the base zoning in place for a higher density project to add units. And they also actually approved a preliminary and final plat as part of the plan development. They split the two buildings, and that had to do with FINANCING STRUCTURE ON THE PART OF THE APPLICANT RELATED TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING. AND SO THAT PLAT IS YET TO BE RECORDED BUT IT IS STILL ACTIVE. AND THESE FINAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS ARE STILL ACTIVE. THEY HAVE NOT EXPIRED. SO TECHNICALLY SPEAKING THE APPLICANT COULD OBTAIN A BUILDING PERMIT TO CONSTRUCT THIS PROJECT SHOULD THEY SO CHOOSE. So just touching on a couple things with the affordable housing ordinance. So just touching on what is being proposed in this new 68-unit building. They are proposing 10 units at the 30% of area median income level of affordability, as well as 58 units of the 60% area median income level of affordability. So all of the units are proposed to be affordable on some level, all below 60%. So that is certainly very much in keeping with the Opportunity Housing Ordinance and the goals of that in terms of the comp plan and strategic plan on the part of the city council as well. So all units are affordable as opposed to a mix. With the Opportunity Housing Ordinance, one of the key facets as it relates to your role with the zoning code and development review has to do with some of these incentives and tools that are utilized and made available to property owners who develop affordable housing. There's three specific tools and incentives that are utilized in this application. One is the density bonus tool. AND SO THE DENSITY BEING PROPOSED WITH THIS PROJECT WOULD GET IT UP TO 28.3 UNITS PER ACRE. AND AGAIN, THE TYPICAL MAXIMUM DENSITY OF THE ARM24 DISTRICT WOULD BE 24 UNITS PER ACRE. BUT AS A RESULT OF THE AFFORDABLE UNITS BEING PROVIDED, THEY HAVE THE ABILITY TO INCREASE THE DENSITY OF WHAT IS ALLOWED IN THE BASE ZONING DISTRICT. SO JUST TO TOUCH ON THAT. They are requesting a parking stall reduction. There is some shared parking stalls in this site with the owner to the north, so that's why there's two numbers listed there in that table. It's probably hard to read, but basically they're either proposing a deviation of 7.4% or 20%. It's not a deviation, but rather a reduction. It's allowed by Wright. So either way, you count it, whether you include those shared stalls or not, they are meeting the reduction allowed in the OHO. And then they're also requesting a 50% reduction in residential storage outside the unit, which is also in keeping with what is allowed in the OHO. So this is the new site plan, as I mentioned. Really the key features here is a bigger building footprint for that building in the southeast corner, 68 units versus 43 units that were approved previously. Access is proposed to remain the same. So the driveway out to Penn Avenue remains unchanged. They are still providing that shared access to Presbyterian homes to the north, and they are proposing to share those 31 parking stalls along the northern boundary. That's a great benefit to both sites because they have a little bit different peak times. Pres Homes has a number of health care staff and people who are there during the day, and we see more of our peaks on apartments in the evening, so it's a really good example of shared parking. And they are proposing an emergency-only vehicle access in the northwest corner. That was on the 2018 site plan as well. And again, that's just to get emergency vehicles out of the site should they need to go down that northern drive aisle. They are proposing a playground here in the southwest corner of the new building. Here are the driveways that access the existing and new underground parking. And the main field of surface parking is in between the two buildings. The building itself is mostly comprised of fiber cement panels of different textures, patterns, colors. The underground parking garage is concrete. Here's some additional building elevation. So these materials would comply with the requirements in the RM24 zoning district. The underground parking garage, they are proposing 60 underground parking stalls. There's actually 46 underneath the existing building. So I'll touch on the parking numbers when I get to that section. But just two other things to note, they are proposing trash and recycling storage in this underground parking area, as well as two bicycle storage areas. Getting to the residential units on the first floor, you find the lobby and storage. There's two stairwells, both in the kind of south and north wings, one central elevator. On level two, you do have a community room, theater, and fitness area for the residents. So I just wanted to touch on that. In terms of a unit mix, we'll see this and item two on the agenda tonight. You see a lot more three-bedroom and larger units in some of these residential developments, which is something that's lacking in the market today. So I commend the applicant for getting in more three-bedroom units in their project. But there is the overall mix of units and the new buildings. Getting to parking, as I mentioned before, they are requesting a 20% overall deviation for total parking quantity, which is allowed in the OHO. And it's even a smaller reduction if you factor in those shared parking stalls. One thing to note is that there is a seven stall deviation for enclosed parking or garage parking. This matches the same reduction or deviation that was approved in 2018. So that's exactly the same. In terms of the landscape plan, just a couple comments. They did include some material in their calculations that were planted on the northern property. All the material required by code would have to be located on site. And in addition to that, for any material that is removed to construct those shared parking stalls, that would have to be replaced at a one per one on the Prez Homes site to be in compliance with their approved landscape plan. We did receive two emails of correspondence on this item. One email had a kind of variety of some just general questions. AND THERE WAS ALSO AN E-MAIL FROM THE BLOOMINGTON HOUSING COALITION IN SUPPORT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADDITIONAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN THE COMMUNITY. STAFF IS RECOMMENDING APPROVAL OF THESE PRELIMINARY AND FINAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS AND WE DO HAVE A SUGGESTED MOTION. I'M HAPPY TO TAKE ANY QUESTIONS. Grant, can you hear Chairperson Bennett in the, I think her microphone is having problems. It's on, but. Maybe I'll try that one. Okay. All right. I'll use this one. Are there any questions for staff? Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a, curiosity question, Mr. Johnson, what was the original unit mix proposed in 2018? Yeah. Chairperson, uh, Bennett, commissioner Albrecht, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me. I should have brought that report, but it was very similar. Um, you know, less units obviously, but they did have a number of three bedroom units as well. Uh, so as I mentioned, that's, uh, harder to find in the existing marketplace. And I think that, uh, projects that we're seeing lately is have a higher emphasis on creating three and four bedroom units. So it was a similar proportion between the different types, but lower number. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Commissioner Solberg. Thanks Madam Chair, Mr. Johnson. I just wanna be clear about the parking reduction. You mentioned the 7.4%. If they utilize the shared, they are proposing that, correct? I wanna make sure I'm understanding that that is part of the reduction. That's the reduction that we're asking for. Cause I think there was 7.4% was shared or there was a different percentage without the shared. That was a bit confusing to me. Yeah, Madam Chair Bennett, Commissioner Solberg, thanks for that question. We certainly didn't mean to confuse folks. What I was trying to get at was that if you factor in the shared parking into their total parking quantity, so say all of those stalls were available to the Penn Place site at a given time, that would result in a parking reduction from the code requirement of 7.4%. But let's just say for whatever reason, all those stalls were being utilized by Prez Homes at a given time. If you didn't include those 31 shared stalls, they would still be at a 20% reduction, which is also still allowed by the Opportunity Housing Ordinance. So in other words, it was just a way of saying either way you slice it, they're still compliant with code. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Commissioner Goodrum. you're on mute if you are. Commissioner Goodrum, you have your hand. There we go. Can you hear me now? There we go. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Johnson, there's the condition for additional landscaping on the site. Have you talked to the applicant? Are you and are they comfortable with the ability to put the required landscaping on the property? I THINK FOR THE QUESTION, MADAM CHAIR, COMMISSIONER GOODRUM, I BELIEVE THEY ARE, THEY'RE CERTAINLY AVAILABLE AS A PARTICIPANT IN THIS MEETING TOO, IF WE WANT TO GET THEM ON THE RECORD ON THAT, BUT I BELIEVE THERE ARE SOME ADDITIONAL AREAS TO PLAN SOME ADDITIONAL MATERIALS ON SITE. BUT I BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE. THEY ACTUALLY HAVE SUBMITTED, RECENTLY SUBMITTED AN UPDATED LANDSCAPING PLAN, WE JUST DIDN'T GET ENOUGH TIME PRIOR TO THE MEETING TO FULLY REVIEW IT FOR COMPLIANCE. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. We'll wait for the applicant to speak. It seems like there's a lot of landscaping that needs to be added and not a whole lot of room to put it in. So I'll be curious to see what they could do. Any other questions for staff? I'm not seeing any. So if we'd like to move on to the applicant, if the applicant would like to speak on this item. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, this is Lori Boyclair, developer of Boyclair Corporation. I apologize for your noise in the background. I do have a dog who's very anxious. So thank you very much for considering our reapplication here for Penn Place for 68 units. We have owned the current site since 1978, have been a member of Bloomington's community since then, and we own about five other affordable housing developments within the city of Bloomington. We're looking forward to adding additional housing, affordable housing and utilizing the O. H. O. With regards to one of the commissioner, I believe it was Goodman's question on landscaping. We will definitely do everything we can to beautify this site. Being long term owners, that's our goal is the longevity of the site as well as beautification and safety for affordable housing. We've been doing affordable housing for 46 years. We were founded in 1974. I've been with the firm 30 years doing development of affordable housing. And we look forward to getting this one under construction next year. Are there any questions? Any questions for the applicant? Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks Phantom Chair. This is a question for the applicant, maybe staff. So looking at the site plan, I see that the playground location is very close to the railroad tracks. Is there a fence or landscaping to prevent children from playing on the railroad tracks there? Currently there, oops, am I still on mute? Oh, we can hear you. Oh, great. Currently there is no fence, but if necessary, yes, we will provide fencing from the railroad track. All right. Thank you. Other questions for the applicant? I'm not seeing any raised hands. Is there anyone else speaking on behalf of the applicant? I see Cass Wilson logged in as an attendee, so I believe that's everyone. All right. And their architect of record. Do they have any comments? Oh, it looks like they may be, so they're on, they can be promoted if they have comments. Glenn, either Link or Ryan Dupuy. Madam Chair, if I may, one quick comment to Commissioner Goodrum's question. the heavy quantity of plant material that you made note of, 27 of those trees that have to be planted have to be planted on the Prez home site, actually, not this site. So that was something of that number that I saw, too. It doesn't have to go back in the exact same locations. It just has to go back on the Prez home site. So they're not short a large amount of trees on their site for the plan. It's just they were double counting those numbers and don't have the full replacement. So just an updated point about that. Thank you. All right. Yeah, this is Ryan Dupree from Cost Wilson. I was just going to say that what Lori had outlined in her response, we're on board with. All right. Anyone else for the applicant? doesn't sound like it. All right, moving on. Do we have any public testimony on this? Madam Chair, we do not. We have no indication of public that are interested in speaking on this item. All right, it sounds like we do not have any public testimony on this. So do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Commissioner Roman? So moves. Commissioner Solberg? Second. Moved by Commissioner Roman, second by Commissioner Solberg. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And that is an aye from me, so that motion passes 6-0. Moving on to discussion. Commissioner Solberg? Thank you, Madam Chair. David Miller, I was on planning Commission, I think most of the Commissioners were at the time this one came through last time and. David Miller, I appreciate the applicants going back and re looking at this. David Miller, couple things that I noted I don't believe a playground was in the last submission and now with the opportunity housing ordinance the applicant to certainly been able to take advantage and provide a. larger facility more towards meeting the city's goals of affordable housing. That being said, the deviations that were asked for within the opportunity housing ordinance seem to be very much acceptable and look forward to supporting the application. Thank you. I guess the only thing I would add to that is I do support Commissioner Goldsman's comment about having the applicant perhaps look at ensuring there is safety around the playground with it being close to the railroad tracks there, but I am in support of this. Commissioner Goodrum. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do support this proposal. I just want to thank the applicant. As noted in the staff report about the addition of number of units to some of these buildings number of bedrooms in some of these units. We are needing to have apartments that have the two to three to four bedroom units. And I just want to condemn, compliment them and including that with this new proposal. Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, echoing Commissioner Goodrum on the larger apartments. I think that's, I'm glad to see that the ordinance that is having some of the intended outcomes that we hope for when we put it through. And I also will echo and repeat the comments about fencing at the playground. I don't know that it needs to be a condition of approval, but I feel very strongly that it's a, I guess a no brainer. Any other discussion or would anyone like to make a motion? Commissioner Solberg. Madam Chair, I certainly appreciate the comments to one point though, I think if we want to ensure that the fence is done or at least some barrier is provided between the playground and property line with the railroad that I think we probably should include that as a condition rather than just leaving it as we take it that they will. And I'd be interested in other commissioners if they're interested in making that a condition. Commissioner Goldson. Thanks Madam Chair. I would echo Commissioner Silberg as well. I think for safety, we should require some type of barrier. It could be a fence, could be shrub, but something to protect the children that are playing in the area. Don't live too far from there. And I do know that there are trains throughout the day. They don't go very fast, but it is something I think we should have as part of the condition. Commissioner Roman. I will agree with the consensus that I'm hearing from at least two other commissioners that I think it's fine to have it as a condition. If there's one thing that is almost all but certain beyond death and taxes, it's that railroads don't go anywhere. So. This is not a short-term problem. And if others, no one else has any other comments, I would be happy to make that motion. I guess I would, before we do that, maybe like to raise a question to staff about that condition and how best that can be worded since it will likely also involve setbacks and so forth, I would guess. And what perhaps... the best avenue for that would be? Yeah, Madam Chair, Commissioner Bennett, this is Nick Johnson again, the planner. Right now, the boundary is kind of some dense vegetation. It's probably a lot of volunteer trees and undergrowth and things of that nature. So I don't know how easily it is to navigate through that. But my question, I guess, would be is specific to the length of the boundary, if you actually consider how long the southern boundary of this site is, it is actually a very lengthy site and a lengthy run of fencing or shrubs or whatever the case may be. So I think, you know, our guidance, Glenn can add if he wants to, but it would be to give staff some discretion in terms of how to best implement that. You know, even having a fencing all the way around wouldn't ultimately I think, in other words, having some discretion and how you would implement something like that, I think is valuable. Commissioner Solberg, I see your hand is raised. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think, Mr. Johnson, that's a great point. From my perspective, it wasn't a fence that could protect the entire property, but maybe just immediately from the playground to the facility. So the youngest kids don't just happen to be able to wander too widely. So I would be acceptable for staff to have that discretion within the condition. Yeah, Madam Chair, if I may too, and in some cases I've seen some similar type developments actually fence in their play area so that when a parent has a younger child who is just playing on the playground, they're somewhat contained within the play area, that might be another solution to that as well. But I'm sure the developer and property owner has some motivation to do that. I'm sure it affects their insurance and liability as well. So they probably have a motivation to look at that as well. Commissioner Sloberg, I see your hand is raised. Sorry, Madam Chair, I forgot to put it down. Okay. I guess, I mean if the other commissioners are on board with wanting to make this the condition, I guess if that was part of the motion I would support it but at this time I'm not, I wouldn't require it for approval of this if it was, I can't make a motion but if I was making the motion. So I will see what the other commissioners think about that. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I too have trouble making this a condition of approval, particularly around deciding, you know, how high, what does it look like, what material, all of those questions, but also the effect that the offense might have if it's connected to the physical building and extending along that line, those units that are right there, I might find that less desirable, say if it's wood and kind of a shadow casting on that window there. So I feel like the applicant has shown responsibility in what they're proposing and meeting within the guidelines. And I guess I would trust that they would make a good decision on this based on their experience once they open up and see how things are going with the tenants. Any other commissioners who want to comment or make a motion? I see commissioner Albrecht's hand up or raised on the thing. I'm happy to make a motion if, but I may want to speak a little more discussion. All right. Commissioner Solberg. Madam chair, I think it may be just thinking about this and how it might be appropriate to add something. And I certainly can understand commissioner Ulbricht's point. I don't think we want to be so prescriptive as to say where, maybe I'll direct towards Mr. Johnson. If we, if a condition were to provide a barrier between the playground and adjacent railroad, would that leave enough leeway for the planning staff to think of some different scenarios that the applicant could come up with that they could approve? I'm struggling with the fact that this is over 100 units and we have three bedroom units that certainly will and it's a playground and whether it's one or two trains a day, I don't think any parent would be unfazed by some kid that might be walking towards a railroad track without any boundaries in place. Madam Chair, if I may. Yeah, hi, Nick Johnson again, planner. You know, Commissioner Solberg, I think your guys' heart and brain is in the right place here. I think you're coming up with some good ideas. I think maybe something as generic as, say, provide a safety and security plan for the proposed playground that addresses the railroad hazard. Something along those lines would be adequate. It gives the applicant discretion of, you know, how to address that. And that way they're on the record as, you know, thinking about it and thinking through how to, you know, how to prevent that hazard from causing a problem. Commissioner Goldstein. Thanks, Madam Chair. I think that solution meets our concerns as well as meets some of the safety needs that those children and families would have. So, I think it's a good compromise as well as a good plan overall. Any further discussion or anyone who would like to make a motion? Commissioner Solberg. Madam Chair, just to make sure I would support that as well. Ms. Goldsman. Thanks, Madam Chair. If I may, I'd like to make a motion. Please go ahead. In case PL2020-68, having been able to make the required findings, I move to recommend approval of the major revision to preliminary and final development plans to construct a four-story, 68-unit apartment building at 12,000 10041 Penn Avenue, subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report with the addition of a safety plan submitted to staff in regards to the play area on site. Commissioner Albrecht? Second. Moved by Commissioner Goldman, second by Commissioner Albrecht. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And that is an aye from me. Motion passes 6-0. This will move on to the May 18th City Council meeting. Moving on to item two for Village Club. Okay, Nick Johnson planning again. Can you guys see my screen okay? Is that available? Okay. This presentation here, so what is being proposed on an existing multi-family site, Village Club 86, I'm sorry, 1900 East 86th Street. It's being submitted by Aon, nonprofit housing developer and operator. We're going to do something a little bit different with this presentation in that there is a little bit of history and context and background that predates the submission of this application. So I'm certainly going to be providing the bulk of the presentation, but we also have Sherry Showquist from the HRA with us tonight, virtually, of course. So she is going to present some of that background information as well as an overview of the compliance with the Opportunity Housing Ordinance in this case. So Sherry, are you there? Have you tested your mic? Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good. When it gets to your part, just let me know when you want to advance the slides. Okay. Thank you. So Village Club is, again, 1900 East 86th Street. So in terms of the area, you know, this is just to the south of the Mall of America. So very significant employment center just to the north. Um... You're bounded by East 86th Street, which is a major collector road, and the East Service Road, just the road along State Highway 77, just to the west there. There are single-family neighborhoods to the south. This parcel right to the southeast of the site is actually existing fire station number three, which will soon be repurposed by the fire department, but they do have a shared access with existing fire station number three. And then these uses to the east are townhomes, and to the north we have some office buildings. Just to highlight in terms of there is a rezoning request that goes along with this just to highlight the proximity of Wrights Lake Park, as well as there's other green and recreational opportunities in this area as well. Getting to the kind of just an oblique view of the site. So there's the existing apartment building. So there's 306 units in this three-story building. It does have like a shared lobby clubhouse there in the middle, if you can see my cursor. And then there's a west wing and an east wing of this building with a variety of different unit types. And sure, you'll get into this more, but this is very much in the category of naturally occurring affordable housing. and it was current recently acquired by Aon. Just a couple other things of note, you can see the proposed locations of two new four story multifamily apartment buildings. In terms of other site improvements that they're showing here, there's gonna be removal of some surface garages are proposed as well as other surface parking areas, sidewalks, landscaping, lighting, all the things that we typically see with this type of application. Just to orient folks to this site, this is the office and clubhouse. On the right there is the existing freestanding sign that sits along East 86th Street. The existing apartment building is constructed out of brick. Again, it's a three-story building. There are existing balconies and patios for the units. On the right there, you know, I think one of the most significant features of this development is this inner courtyard green space that it has in between the two wings. So they have, in this area, they have a volleyball court, they have a swimming pool, they have quite a bit of usable open space available to the existing apartments. Just also note the sidewalks that run through the existing development. We'll talk a little bit about that later, too. In terms of some issues that, you know, this site was constructed in 1969, so there is some wear and tear in various parts of the site that we definitely need to talk about in terms of what is being proposed with this application. There's a number of surface parking garage structures that are in significant disrepair, and as well as a number of parking areas if you travel through the site that are in significant disrepair. So these are some of the issues that led the city to become involved in this site to begin with in terms of a preservation rehabilitation standpoint. So these are some of the things that we want to talk about when we're talking about kind of the history and what led us to this point. Okay, Sherry, the next five slides are yours. All right, great. Thank you, commissioners. I'm sure you remember late last year in November and December, the TIF plan and the creation of the TIF district was before the planning commission. And shortly after that on December 16th in 2019, the city council really prioritized the preservation of these 306 units of affordable housing in the city, you know, in a key location, close to transit near jobs. The project has traditionally provided rents affordable at between 60 to 80% area median income. And really, as I mentioned in a key location for many of the hospitality, healthcare and, you know, hotel and restaurant industry in that neighborhood. So in December of 2016, the city established the housing, affordable housing trust fund, a $15 million fund of which 7 million was dedicated to the preservation of the 306 units, authorized tax increment revenue bonds and awarded those funds to Aon the acquisition and rehabilitation and that agreement also anticipated and required the to incorporate the new construction into the development. At that time, it was anticipated that there would be between 150 and 300 new units. And the development team working in partnership with planning has identified 172 as the right mix for that site. Aon competed with 14 investors nationwide successfully due to the city's priority in funding this project and was able to preserve those 306 units. The agreement with Aon is to establish a 30-year restrictive affordable covenant on the existing 306 units. And for the new 172 units, it will be somewhere between 26 and 30 years as well. There's three phases of stabilizing the project. So the first year in 2020 is the acquisition year. That's when the developer and project manager Aon will really devote the priority of their resources to the immediate health and safety and code compliant repairs. We just had our second quarterly meeting with the development team to review progress. And the majority of those code compliance issues are addressed. There are some that are outstanding that are related to the new construction phase and will be addressed soon. So the new construction will also begin hopefully very soon this year. The next phase is interim stabilization, 2021 and 2022. On the 306 units, that's really the maintenance and rehab. And then the permanent stabilization of both projects will occur from 2023 to 2040. Next slide, please. This is just additional detail on exactly what those repairs are for 306 units. 306 units. The affordability, now I'm switching from the 306, which will remain affordable. 60% of the 306 will be affordable at 60% of area meeting income and 40% of the 306 will be affordable at 80% of area meeting income. That is to allow the project to cash flow and to work within existing rents and the tenants and their incomes when the property was purchased. What is before you tonight is the 172 new construction portion of the development. And the developer is proposing a range of affordability. This is exactly what the opportunity housing ordinance intended by allowing a portion of the units to be at the 70 and 80% area median income range that provides the developer with the opportunity to provide a deeper subsidy at 30% of area median income on several of the units. So we have 17 units making that extremely low income 30% range. The majority of the units in the 60% area median income range and then across the project as a whole at 288 units. And then, you know, the remaining portion at the 70 to 80% range. So for the 172 project, the units will be at the, between the 30 to 60 with some market rate. Next slide. So this lays out the unit mix in the 172 phase. We have 17 units at 30% AMI, 104 units at 60% AMI, and then 50 units at market rate, but it's really the 70 to 80% and the range of rents. The opportunity housing objectives are met. with this project. The project is integrated. There will be a range of incomes within the development itself. And the development is in an economically integrated area of the city and near mixed use transit corridor. The affordable housing goal of dispersion is met as the units will be located throughout the development and available on each floor and each side of the buildings, the 30%, the 60% area meeting income and the market rate units, all of the same and an appropriate mix between the one bedrooms and four bedroom units. All the units are designed to the same standards The new construction project will be developed in one phase and will be, the construction will be completed and the building will be leased for occupancy at the same time. Next slide, please. So the opportunity housing incentives, this is just an at a glance table for your reference. Nick Johnson can also provide more detail on how the opportunity housing ordinance incentives interact with the city code. But I will review that it is the staff recommendation to approve the density bonus of 54 additional units, to approve the parking stall reduction and the enclosed parking space conversion to allow for the minimum unit size reduction, which is 8.2% to approve the storage space reduction. And then I would note that the developer has requested expedited review technically because they are not in the gateway district, they are not eligible. However, this project has been placed on a fast track with planning and building and inspections. The funding requires that the developer obtain a permit by July 1st and close on the project by July 10th. And received a significant amount of low income housing tax credits from the state and those are the state requirements that we're working to use. With that, I will close and either respond to questions now or at the end of the presentation. Thank you. Thanks, Sherry. One of the things that she touched on a lot has to do with the topic of public benefit, and that's something we're going to talk about a lot. That's something, or that is the means in the city code of how to evaluate flexibility or deviations that are requested associated with a plan development application is actually a public benefit test. So that's something that we are going to make reference to as we discuss some of these deviations, Just on that very point, I added up the number of units that are at 60% of AMI or below, and I calculated 409 units. And so when the city council talks about preserving naturally occurring affordable housing, existing affordable housing, this is the type of project that they're talking about, as opposed to being purchased by another entity who may potentially upgrade the campus with the intent of raising rents. So just keep that in mind as well. SO GETTING ON MORE TO THE TYPICAL ENTITLEMENT AND ZONING REVIEW PORTION OF THE PROJECT, SO THE APPLICATION DOES INCLUDE A REQUEST TO REZONE THE SITE FROM R4 TO RM24. IN TERMS OF WITH ALL REZONING ACTIONS, WE DO LOOK AT WHAT IS THE, WE LOOK FOR CONSISTENCY WITH THE We look at what does it mean from a density comparison standpoint to the existing district as well as if there's a public benefit associated with the change. In terms of consistency with the comp plan, the site is guided high density residential. R4 is a district district That was utilized more in Chapter 19 in the previous portions of the code and previous eras of development. RM24 is more of the current type of district that we utilize for multifamily. I will note the RM24 district does call for proximity to employment, should be served by arterial or collector road, and should have access to recreation and green spaces. So this is meeting all that criteria that the RM24 IT CALLS FOR. AND THEN IN TERMS OF PUBLIC BENEFIT ASSOCIATED WITH THE CHANGE, WE TALKED ABOUT THAT ALREADY QUITE A BIT. IN TERMS OF THE PLAN DEVELOPMENT OVERLAY DISTRICT, THAT'S JUST THE STANDARD OVERLAY ASSOCIATED WITH ANY PLAN DEVELOPMENT APPLICATION. SO WE ARE RECOMMENDING APPROVAL OF THE REZONING ACTION. WE CAN MOVE ON FROM THERE. THIS IS THE SITE PLAN THAT THEY ARE PROPOSING TO CONSTRUCT. So these are the two in the middle, obviously, is the existing apartments, 306 units that inner courtyard I talked about. In terms of the significant changes associated with this site plan, I briefly touched on the removal of the existing apartments garages that are in disrepair as well as new pavement throughout. One thing that Aon has focused on throughout this process is that they have an area of disruption and an area of kind of existing condition. And so you'll see the areas of disruption are mostly in the east where the new buildings are and then the surface parking in the northwest. So the way that they've structured this application is to limit disruption to the existing portions of the site with the exception of activities that are required through this rehabilitation schedule that they are working with the HRA on. And so you see the two new buildings, they're four-story buildings. 172 units, as Sherry mentioned. So they are showing surface parking along this circulation ring road, which again is the access that goes down by the fire station. So parking all along that portion, and then this larger parking area reconstructed in the northwestern portion of the site. In terms of sidewalk improvements, all the new sidewalks would be city code compliant. They are providing a sidewalk connection out to East 86th Street to the public sidewalk network that actually doesn't exist today. So that's a benefit. And they would be reconstructing the public sidewalk along the East Service Road, which is currently a curb walk and doesn't meet city code standards. So just to note that point as well. There were some other things I wanted to touch on. Oh, just to note that in this portion of the site where these buildings are being located, there's currently a tennis court, which my understanding is fairly underutilized. And us has noted some security concerns over in that corner as well in the past. And there is a picnic area. in that area as well. So these buildings would replace that. It's my understanding that Aon is also seeking a grant to construct a playground adjacent to building B, which is the northern building. And again, they have the larger open area in the middle and other areas for usable open space on the site. In terms of building design, fiber cement is the main material. Again, different patterns, different colors. It is an acceptable material in the RM24 zoning district. In terms of height, it does comply with our height standards. The portion of the site is either guided by the airport height limits or a four-story, 60-foot maximum, so these buildings are compliant with both of those standards. Here's the building elevations that you see. There are some balconies on the first floor, the ground level of these buildings, but not the other floors. So just to take note of that. Both buildings do have underground parking garages. There's 154 garage stalls between the two buildings. They are proposing bicycle storage and parking behind each parking stall, as well as trash and recycling areas in the underground parking garage of level of both buildings. In terms of the ground level floor plan, we'll get into the unit mix here in a minute, but the ground level of both buildings have... community rooms and fitness spaces. One point I want to make about Building B is that Ann has communicated to staff that something that is important to them is to foster a sense of neighborhood community amongst each floor of these buildings. And so for that purpose, they actually have split up the west and east wing of Building B. Certainly it has the central gathering space in the lobby and the elevators and the communal spaces, but each floor is split up into two wings, if you will. Just a note about the, there was a note about minimum unit size reduction as part of the OHO ordinance does allow for a 10% reduction in unit size. It was actually only one bedroom unit in one of the buildings that didn't meet the minimum 650 feet. And so it did comply with that OHO reduction in terms of an incentive or tool. The unit mix between, so this is for the 172 new units. So similar to the last project, they have a significant number of three-bedroom units, and they're actually proposing 19 four-bedroom units, which similar to my previous comment on agenda item one, this is a... Something that we don't see the current market serve very well in terms of providing four-bedroom units. So it provides good accommodations for a family. They can touch on more in terms of what the dynamics are and how they design their unit mix. But staff is encouraged to see the provision of those four-bedroom and three-bedroom units. It's a really significant number. So I'd say the three largest deviations being requested by Aon associated with this project all have to do with parking. And so in terms of parking quantity, let's touch on that first. In terms of what the OHO would call for from a standard parking reduction, kind of a buy right or qualification, with the level of affordability they're providing across the entire plan development or the full site, they are eligible for parking reductions associated with that 60% AMI level. And so what that means is that a standard city code required level of parking for this project would be 1,062 spaces. That 20% qualification or by right reduction gets them down to a parking requirement of 850 parking stalls. And so they are requesting additional deviation or flexibility to reduce that further by providing 710 total parking stalls. So that represents a deviation of 16.5%. And I want to apologize to the Planning Commission and the public. I actually, looking this over before the meeting, I noticed a clerical error in this table in the staff report. So this version before you here is correct. There was some revised plans that were submitted, so the number was just shifted slightly. It's not a significant change, but just to note that this table is correct and just wanted to call out that clerical error in the staff report. In terms of city code compliance, code also requires a one garage stall for every residential unit. That's a significant deviation associated with this, and that's just in the table. But before I get into that, I just want to focus on parking quantity. So similar to other projects that have been approved that exceeded the buy-ride amount in the Opportunity Housing Ordinance, they're requesting additional flexibility to go beyond that. Once they made that request, we had them submit for an independent parking study. That parking study was completed by Boltman-Mank, a very reputable independent traffic consultant, traffic engineers. And so in order to perform the study, they did two main methodologies. One is they studied all the different types of peak demand, peak parking demands associated with apartments in suburban context. And so what they do is they look at what are parking counts for similar comparable type development all across the country. and they arrive at a range. And what that range provided was, oh boy, sorry. The range on the ITE was 627 peak parking stalls or peak parking utilization on the low end of that ITE range and 732 on the high end of that range. So again, that's just one methodology that provided that range. Sorry about that, I meant to write that down. The second methodology that Bolton and Mank utilized is a local parking model. And what that means is that not only did they go out and do parking counts very early in the middle of the night, 3 a.m. is what I read in that report. So that's a very dedicated Bolton and Mank employee. Kudos to that person. But they studied the Village Club property as well as a bevy of other residential developments in Bloomington and in the Twin Cities area. And so what they're trying to capture is, okay, these are comparable developments, not across the nation, but what is happening right in this localized area? And Ann actually owns a couple other of the apartment buildings in close proximity to Village Club. So they did... AND WHAT THAT LOCAL PARKING MODEL ARRIVED AT, OR THE CONCLUSION OF THAT, THEY CREATE A CALCULATION, OR AN EQUATION BASED ON WHAT THEY SEE BETWEEN THE PEAK PARKING DEMAND AND THE NUMBER OF RESIDENTIAL UNITS, AS WELL AS THE UNIT MIX BETWEEN THE those sites, and they come up with an equation. And what that equation ultimately comes up with is an estimate of peak parking demand for this project. And what that local parking model resulted in is a peak parking demand of 559 parking spaces. So a couple things. One, just to note that as this project developed over time, when they went to submit their formal application, the number of surface stalls provided did decrease just a bit. AND THE UNIT MIX DID CHANGE A LITTLE BIT FROM THE TIME WHEN THE PARKING STUDY WAS DONE. WE SPECIFICALLY HAD THE TRAFFIC DIVISION TAKE A LOOK AT THE CHANGES THAT HAPPENED TO THE APPLICATION FOLLOWING THE COMPLETION OF THE PARKING STUDY. AND THEY DID REVIEW THAT AND THEY WERE COMFORTABLE THAT THE OVERALL QUANTITY OF PARKING WAS WITHIN THE TOLERANCE OF WHAT WAS ALLOWED WITHIN THE PARKING STUDY. SO THEY WERE CONFIDENT THAT IT STILL DOES WORK. THERE'S A COUPLE CONCLUSIONS IN THE PARKING STUDY. ONE OF THEM RELATED TO PARKING QUANTITY, PARKING SUPPLY. I'LL GET TO THOSE OTHER CONCLUSIONS AS WELL. BUT THE PARKING SUPPLY CONCLUSION OF THE PARKING STUDY IS THERE'S MORE THAN ENOUGH ADEQUATE PARKING SUPPLY AT THIS SITE TO HANDLE BOTH THE EXISTING AND PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AS PART OF THE PLAN DEVELOPMENT. SO THAT WAS A LARGE CONCLUSION OF THE PARKING STUDY. So based on that, and based on the additional review by traffic to review the updated plans that Ann submitted, staff is recommending approval or is supportive of the parking deviation beyond the 20% permitted by OHO. So I just want to note that. Another significant conclusion of the parking study had to do with the distribution of parking amongst the site. If you'll see, you know, the buildings are clustered in the middle and then the new buildings over to the east and to the north and there's a large amount of surface parking in the northwest corner of the site. So this was brought up to Aon by staff and then also confirmed by Bolton and Mank that this could be a bit of a challenge in terms of locating all of the parking more in the northwest corner. And the reason where this comes up for an issue of City Code compliance is that City Code requires that for residential developments, all required parking for a use be provided within 400 feet of the main entrance of the facility. So just a couple points about that. Ann is requesting a deviation to that requirement, not only based on the overall parking quantity reduction that they are requesting, But what the city code requirement doesn't necessarily take well into account is that these types of facilities, specifically the existing facility, has multiple building entrances. So, of course, they have primary entrances, but they also have a number of secondary entrances that residents do have access to, which are closer to the parking proposed. Secondarily, city staff worked with the applicant, and I thank the applicant for being receptive to this change. But if you see the right side of the slide, the original site plan for this project included 16 parallel parking stalls along that east-west drive aisle north of the east wing of the existing building and south of new building B. And so staff suggested that one of the ways to improve the parking distribution on the site was to actually make that area 90-degree parking as opposed to parallel. And what resulted in that is they were able to add 31 net parking stalls in an area that is much closer proximity to the new development as well as the existing development. And so that was an important change that really helped this situation in terms of supporting that request for deviation. The final point is something that I am not, I don't want to pretend to be an expert in, so if Ann wants to speak to it, they're more than welcome. But it's my understanding that in some of the methodologies for applying for housing tax credits and some of these other public subsidy to create new affordable housing is that there are some restrictions on how those funds are used in terms of overall site improvements. So again we talk about these areas of disturbance, the eligibility of these funds, is my understanding, have to be geared towards the creation of the housing. And so in other words, what that results in is they want to keep this very tight, compact area of disturbance in the east and north in order to be fully compliant with those public financing requirements. So I'm not an expert in that arena. I don't want to pretend to be. Maybe Sherry can provide some background there too, but I know the folks from Aon can explain that better than I can. Long story short, sorry I'm a bit long winded on that, but they are requesting a deviation to that 400 foot requirement. Staff is supportive of that based on the site plan changes that were made to the project. So, enclosed parking, garage parking, in our judgment this is the most significant deviation that is being requested with this application. They are proposing to remove 320 existing garage stalls on site. Five of these structures would have to be removed regardless because of the proposed location of the new buildings. But the other garage stalls they are proposing to remove due to, again, their state of disrepair and the cost it would take to rehabilitate these structures to make them usable again. As I noted in the image earlier, a lot of these areas, it's not just these structures, but these areas of pavement are in significant disrepair as well. So they are proposing to remove these structures as opposed to rehabilitate them. What they are proposing to include for enclosed parking is underground parking garages under the new buildings. That would be 154 parking stalls. Again, with the one garage stall per unit, that would result in a 478 garage stall requirement. They are requesting a significant deviation to that of 67.8%. And that's based on the 154 garage stalls provided. So I would say that this is the deviation that staff wrestled with the most. But again, getting back to the public benefits test associated with reviewing deviations for planned developments, this project, as a result of the acquisition, preservation, rehabilitation of the existing units in combination with the creation of a new affordable units, It's somewhat unparalleled from a public benefit standpoint that we have seen in many of the residential projects in Bloomington. It really is a tier above in that respect. In addition to that, in order to create... the necessary garage stalls for the existing building, there's not adequate land area to do simply surface level garages. It would be very difficult to do that. So what you'd most likely be looking at in order to actually achieve compliance for the existing building would be some type of parking structure, whether it be underground or some elevated parking. SO THE COST ASSOCIATED WITH THAT, IT WOULD BE VERY CHALLENGING TO MAKE ALL THE NUMBERS WORK TOGETHER IN TERMS OF FOCUSING ON THE PRIORITY OF PRESERVING AND REHABILITATING THE EXISTING BUILDING. SO THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT WE WRESTLED WITH IN OUR ANALYSIS OF THIS DEVIATION. ONE POINT I DO WANT TO MAKE IS THAT DUE TO THE DISREPAIR as well as the previous ownership model of charging for parking, currently only 48 of these 320 garage stalls are being utilized today. That's a utilization rate of 15%. And so that's an important factor in terms of that 48 stalls are being utilized today, but what that tells us is that the majority of residents are currently not utilizing a garage stall. There are some who definitely are. and they would have to seek a different accommodation or would no longer have that benefit potentially. But what it tells us is that in most cases, it's not a benefit that has been lost for the majority of residents, not to say all residents, but that's another factor in terms of evaluating this request for deviation. So ultimately we did weigh the public benefits associated with this project is currently constructed and we are recommending approval of this deviation. So getting on to some other elements of the project, they have submitted what's intended to be a code-compliant landscape plan. There are some minor details that do not meet code. There are some parking islands that do not have trees, that need trees. I would note they are requesting a deviation on a couple parking islands to forego tree planting because they do provide safe pedestrian access along the crosswalk. I got a message from my colleague that he couldn't hear me very well. Can you guys hear me? I hope they didn't lose that hole. So it's a little quick. Can you guys hear me? Test, test. one second. Bear with us, public and commissioners. I hope we don't have to relaunch the WebEx. It's not connecting me. And I'm... Can you make... Oh, you couldn't even make me a host. Could I grab the... I'm already the host, right? Currently, yeah. Do you want to? Can I hear you? They can't hear me. I don't think so. Bear with us. Can Sherry or someone, I'll jabber her, can Sherry let folks know that we are having technical difficulties and to hold on? Can you hear me? Oh, I'm back. Can you hear me now? David Holland says, now we can hear you. Glenn, can you test the microphones? Can you hear me? Now we can't hear the planning commissioners now. John, can you do a test? Solberg? Solberg? Okay, well, if folks can hear me, then I can announce that we're having some technical difficulties and please bear with us as we work through this here shortly. Okay. So we may need to relaunch, we may need to relaunch the WebEx. Is that what I'm hearing, Grant? I think so. So I think, should we set a clock on that or a time clock to resume at a certain time? Yeah, so I'm not sure if the WebEx will survive the rebooting or not. I can't get into the meeting. Okay, you're frozen out there. This computer is in it still. Mine is. Nick's computer is in it. seems to still be surviving even with the rebooting. Are you rebooting now? Okay, hold on. Bear with us here as we're trying to make this work. One second. Thanks to everyone for working with us on these meeting difficulties. We appreciate the patience. I wonder if everybody can hear you if you could continue. Can everybody hear us? They won't be able to hear you. They can't hear us. Okay. Okay. One second. Bear with us. Here. Nick, just so you know, everything on your screen is being broadcast? Yep. Including the chats? Oh yeah? Yeah. That's what's on TV right now. Okay. They can hear you. Do you see the login screen? No. It's three percent. Can everyone see that? It's doing a check disk function, three percent complete. HANG WITH US, PLEASE, IF YOU CAN. I don't know what else to do. Good call. Glenn, you jinxed us. Can you hear us, John? Solberg? They won't be able to hear you. Yeah, Grant says they can't. Not until this computer is booted. All the sound goes through the computer. Okay. And it's really acting very badly right now. Is there a way to take a recess? Well, I have to take a vote to do a recess. Really? Oh, do you really? I think so. Do you know that, Glenn? Robert's Rules of the Board is... I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S IN THE RULES. I DON'T THINK IT IS. DO YOU HAVE THEIR CELL PHONE NUMBERS? YOU CAN TEXT THEM TO DO A FIVE MINUTE RECESS. THAT WOULD DEFINITELY BE, I THINK. A VIOLATION OF OPEN MEETING LAW? HE SAID WE CAN HEAR YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ME? THEY SAID BUT WE CAN'T. We must be hearing you through one of your devices. We're going to ask for a recess by a show of hands. So if it's an I, raise your hand. Commissioner Goodrum? I can't hear you so I will need you to raise your hand. if you agree with a recess. I see Commissioner Albrecht is an aye. Commissioner Goodrum, if you agree. Commissioner Goodrum agrees. Commissioner Roman agrees. Commissioner Goldsman, do you agree with a short recess? If so, please raise your hand. Commissioner Solberg, I see your hand. I'm still waiting. Commissioner Goldson also raised her hand. So by a motion six to zero, we're going to take a brief recess while we reboot. The computer is currently 721. We're going to attempt to come back at 730. Since we recessed to 7.30 we have 10 seconds. But we will continue in 10 seconds. Can we do a quick roll call to make sure everybody can hear? Yes. All right. So for a roll call we are continuing now with the rest of the May 7th planning meeting. Commissioner Goodram, can we do a check with you? Can you hear us? Yes, I can. And we can hear you. Commissioner Solberg, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. And we can hear you. Commissioner Goldsman, can you hear us? Yes, I can. And we can hear you. Commissioner Roman, can you hear us? Yes, Madam Chair. And we can hear you. And Commissioner Albrecht, can you hear us? Sure can. And we can hear you. Anything else? All right, let's continue with the staff report then. Madam Chair, thank you. And thanks to the applicants and public and commissioners for the patience during that technical difficulty. We apologize about that. So the last slide I was on, I was talking about the enclosed parking requirement. I'm not going to run through that whole segment again, but basically it's a deviation to defer 67% of the garage stalls. It mostly has to do with the existing garages and the existing building, again, in disrepair. And... in terms of the current use of or utilization rate. So I won't touch on, I won't rehash the whole thing, but staff is supportive of that deviation based on the public benefits associated with this project. Getting to the landscape plan, there are some minor details that need to be worked out in terms of code compliance with respect to trees in parking islands and whatnot. I would note they are requesting two Parking islands defer having trees in order to allow for safe pedestrian sidewalk crosswalks, and staff is supportive of those deviations. Getting to the existing nonconformity. So early on in my presentation, I talked about areas disturbance and areas of not. One of the deviations that Aon is requesting is a deviation that all the existing nonconformities on site are allowed to remain. In the city code, when you expand an existing nonconforming site beyond a certain level of floor area, you have to bring all of the nonconforming site characteristics into conformance. So they are requesting that existing sidewalks, existing parking islands, and an existing freestanding sign along East 86th Street be allowed to remain. In terms of the sidewalks, most of them are in actually good condition. They just don't meet the five feet of width currently required by city code, so most of them are four-foot walks. In terms of parking islands, there are some islands that don't meet our width requirement and do not have trees. three islands specifically highlighted. And then in terms of the freestanding sign, so this is actually a structure, it's two feet from the existing property line. Staff would be supportive of allowing that freestanding sign to remain if and only if the applicant is willing to enter into an easement encroachment agreement for that structure. And basically what those agreements outline is that if a structure in an easement has to be removed or modified in order to maintain an existing utility or for some other public purpose that the city not be held financially liable for those structures. changes to the structure. So that is recommended as a condition of approval. In terms of trash and recycling storage, the new buildings are proposed to have or intended to have code compliant trash and recycling in the basement as well as trash and recycling rooms on each floor of the residential. In terms of the existing facilities, so there's four existing facilities TRASH ENCLOSURES CURRENTLY ON SITE. THEY'RE OPEN AIR. THEY HAVE GATES BUT TYPICALLY THEY'RE JUST KEPT OPEN SO THAT RESIDENTS CAN DISPOSE OF THEIR TRASH AND RECYCLING. THEY ARE PROPOSING TO RELOCATE THREE OUT OF THE FOUR EXISTING TRASH ENCLOSURES AND THEN THEY ARE PROPOSING TO IMPROVE THOSE ENCLOSURES TO THE DESIGN THAT YOU CAN SEE ON MY SLIDE. BACK WHEN THIS SITE WAS DEVELOPED, PREVIOUSLY, the detached trash was allowed at multifamily sites, but it had to be enclosed. And so based on the fact that detached trash was allowed at that time, and based upon that these are improved storage locations and situation, staff is supportive of a deviation to allow these structures to be detached in the locations proposed. However, one area that we do not agree with the applicant's request is to allow these structures to be semi-open, If you can see the design on the screen, they do have a roof, so that is a large improvement, but they're proposing to have an open air enclosure on the top part that's enclosed in some wire mesh. So that is the requested design of these structures. City code would require a fully enclosed trash structure. And the reason that city code requires that is that the city has a history of that requirement is that fully enclosed trash is very important or very helpful in addressing nuisance characteristics that can result from trash storage. And that could be anything from critters getting into waste or illegal dumping or just general site cleanliness. So we are not in accord with the applicant in terms of allowing this design. We still would require fully enclosed trash enclosures, but we are supportive of the locations that they are proposing. There's some other miscellaneous issues I want to touch on. Usable open space. This project does meet the usable open space requirement for multifamily residential facilities. In one of the conditions of approval, you'll note that staff did require and recommend a construction management plan. This isn't a condition that we put on all of our projects, but whenever you're proposing construction near a large population of existing residents, there has to be some specific considerations put into play in terms of maintaining access for those residents as well as maintaining access for emergency vehicles, as well as where, you know, all the staging and other protective barriers and other things that are going to be in place for the construction site. And so to work out all those details to make sure that it's kosher supported by our building inspection staff, our traffic staff, fire prevention, the fire department, those things, we are recommending that a construction management plan be submitted for approval prior to permit issuance. In terms of residential storage, going back to what the OHO requirements, the Opportunity Housing tools incentives allow, it does allow for a reduction in overall storage to the 50% level. So staff notes in our report that there is some existing storage units that were made unavailable to residents at some point. There's actually some agreements with the HRA and the Environmental Health Division that some of those storage units in the existing building be put back into place. And these are storage units outside the building. So if that is to occur, they would meet that 50% threshold allowed in the Opportunity Housing Ordinance. In addition to that, AN notes in their materials that they are providing a above and beyond typical storage in-unit. Now that doesn't meet a code requirement for outside unit storage. but they do are providing additional closet and storage spaces in units in the new buildings. So just to touch on those. Lighting, just a point that, you know, one of the significant improvements to the site that would occur should it move forward would be upgrading the site lighting just from a safety and security standpoint. In the evening hours, it would be a big improvement. So they would have to submit a lighting plan for approval prior to permit. As far as the new structures are concerned, any rooftop mechanical equipment, we don't have all the details on that yet, but they would need to be screened to adjoining properties. And then finally, just to structure height again, as I mentioned before, this property is in the area where airport height limits are applicable. The structures themselves do not violate or trigger any permitting for AN AIRPORT ZONING PERMIT. HOWEVER, STAFF IS RECOMMENDING THAT THEY OBTAIN A NO HAZARD DETERMINATION ON ANY CONSTRUCTION CRANE THAT THEY WOULD PROPOSE TO USE TO CONSTRUCT THESE NEW BUILDINGS SHOULD IT GO FORWARD. AND SO THAT IS AN ANALYSIS BY THE FAA THAT WOULD NEED TO BE SUBMITTED AT US PRIOR TO THE PERMIT ISSUANCE. SO JUST TO TOUCH ON SOME OF THOSE ISSUES. ONE OTHER THING RELATED TO STRUCTURE HEIGHT, I KNOW IT CAME UP IN AN EMAIL WE RECEIVED IN TERMS OF CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE STRUCTURE HEIGHT. Just to put in the public record that Ann did submit a shadow study of these new structures, and it was found that there was very minimal shadow impacts to adjoining properties, and it did not violate city code in terms of casting shadows on adjoining structures, both in the morning and evening hours. This slide is totally inaccurate because we received an email right before the meeting began, We did receive one email from a member of the public. I don't know if we want to read it into the record or if it's sufficient that it was sent to the planning commissioners. Sure. Madam Chair, commissioners, at 5.55 we received an email from Michael Verrani, 1901 East 86th Street. And I'll summarize the email. We did forward it to all the commissioners. He had two concerns, one on appearance. He feels the height is out of character and recommends three stories instead of four. And then secondly, he has concerns with traffic levels on 86th Street and recommends a separate bus lane for bus drop off and pickup and recommends limiting 86th Street access to right in, right out only. I did touch base with the Brian Hanson, the Development Coordinator in Engineering, he obviously works with the traffic engineers in traffic. So he does have the counts available for East 86th Street, should you desire that information. But I think what you see on that roadway is pretty consistent with most volumes for major collector roads in the city. But should you have any questions from a traffic standpoint, Brian Hanson is available as well. So sorry for this long and uh... interrupted presentation but uh... to summarize staff is recommending approval of both the re-zoning action and the uh... preliminary and final development plans for this project uh... i know and is available to stand for questions staff can take questions as well uh... but as i noted earlier uh... the public benefits uh... as they pertain to the request for flexibility in the final uh... development plans uh... in our judgment do the public benefit test and therefore we are supportive with the minor exceptions noted in our presentation. Thank you. I'm sure it's in here somewhere and maybe you touched on it but could you just discuss the bike storage situation for the new buildings? Yeah, Madam Chair, again Nick Johnson Planning, they are proposing to have bike racks at the end of every location, or every, I'm sorry, every parking stall in the underground parking. So that would be 154 bike racks. In addition to that, City Code requires them to provide exterior bike racks. But as of right now, they are not proposing interior bike storage rooms or rooms dedicated for bike storage. Thank you. Yep. If I may, one thing I forgot to mention about the, there was a slide about existing nonconformity sidewalks, parking islands, those things. One thing I forgot to mention with that is that staff is supportive of that deviation in terms of letting those existing conditions remain. However, one important point of clarification is we are recommending a condition that should those structures or characteristics ever be replaced going ahead in the future, they should be replaced at a code compliant with or level or standard, whatever the city code requires at at that time, something I forgot to mention. All right, questions for staff? Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Johnson, can you go back to the parking? And I know you said that the non-compliant islands were highlighted and there's a lot of highlighting. So I just wanted to see if you could show me where those were. Yeah. Commissioner Roman, can you see my slide? Yes. So here in this southern central parking lot, there's an existing nonconforming island that doesn't meet our width requirements. And there's two other islands on site that currently do not have trees. So those are the nonconforming islands. Okay. And then so the issue is not that they are too long. I would note that there are a few parking islands shown along this eastern and northern circulation lane that they're proposed to be new islands that are too long. Our standard code requirement would be 15 feet in depth, and that's in order to allow improved ingress and egress out of the adjacent parking stall, and those islands are shown to be the full length of the parking stall, so that's just a minor change to the site plan to comply with code. But the ones that I proposed to stay are not too long. They just happen to be too narrow or without trees. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Sorry to jump in. Could you just, have we confirmed that emergency vehicles are able to navigate in turning radius back to those new buildings and so forth? Yeah, Madam Chair Bennett, yes, they have submitted an auto turn and that will have to be reviewed and approved by the fire marshal prior to any permit issuance, but they have submitted an auto turn and it does demonstrate the ability to navigate the site with the applicable ladder truck. So it's the largest vehicle that emergency response would have. Thank you. Commissioner Goodrum. I think you're on mute. Thank you Madam Chair. I do have a couple of questions so if you don't mind I might just list them out and then staff could take them as as they one by one instead of going back and forth. So my first question is the start of the construction. When do we expect the building, the new buildings to be under construction? The second question would be who gets the new underground parking? We are removing all available covered parking for the what's existing today. I'll understanding all new covered parking will be under ground of the new buildings. Will they be available to anybody within the existing buildings? Just how is that? Who gets parking? How does that get decided? I also noted there's a space along 86th Street to the entrance in the southwest corner of the site that appears to be available for parking. Because we are so short and I understand the parking study recognizes that we have enough parking, but it may be something that we use as proof of parking just to give us a little leeway. The reason I bring that up is the parking study that you mentioned I do appreciate the consultant going out at three o'clock in the morning, but I don't know how they are able to calculate at the places they went to underground parking of those facilities. If they're at a facility at 3 a.m. and underground parking is 90% full or 100% full, yes, there may be a lot of open space outside. If those facilities do not have underground parking, the outer parking lots or exposed parking lots would be a lot more full. So I did not pick that up on the study, how they made the determination on when they viewed these sites as being the percentage of cars or open space on that. I think so with that, there's a, I'll stop my questions there and allow Mr. Johnson to address or pass along to the applicant. Thank you for the questions. Question number one, it's my understanding that they are hoping to start construction this fall. They have a July 1st deadline that is tied to some public funding that they are seeking to help with the construction of this project. So they are working with an aggressive schedule. Question number two, I would really defer that to the applicant. We haven't had very robust or formal conversations with them in terms of the distribution of who is allotted those underground parking stalls. The only thing I will say is that the Opportunity Housing Ordinance does not allow the charging of fees to Opportunity Housing Units access to parking. So in terms of how they are distributed, I'm sure Ann will have some discretion just from a security and operational standpoint, but what I can say is that they can't charge opportunity units for access to those stalls. So I would welcome them to fill in the gaps on that question. In terms of question number three, you're correct in the parking study, they did have to make some assumptions that There was full or close to full utilization of the other sites parking structures that they did study. One thing that they're looking at really is the status of the surface parking lots. If folks are charging for parking at other sites, then that's going to put even more pressure on the surface parking at those lots. And they did find a fair amount of available parking spots at the other residential sites. IN TERMS OF YOUR QUESTION ABOUT PROOF OF PARKING, THANKS FOR SENDING US THAT EMAIL EARLIER. I THINK YOU BRING UP A VERY GOOD POINT THAT THERE ARE SOME AREAS OF THE SITE THAT COULD BE AVAILABLE FOR ADDITIONAL PROOF OF PARKING. THE ONE REASON THAT STAFF DID NOT PUSH THAT FORWARD ON OUR END OF THINGS IS THAT THE STUDY DID DEFINE OR DID IDENTIFY THAT THE PARKING SUPPLY WAS ADEQUATE. SO THAT WAS REALLY NOT OF QUESTION. IT'S JUST THE LOCATION OF ALL THE PARKING. AND I THINK THAT THE AREAS THAT ARE MORE AVAILABLE to add parking from a proof standpoint are located more in the southwest portion of the site, as you noted, which doesn't necessarily solve the distribution PROBLEM THAT WAS IDENTIFIED IN THE STUDY. THE ONLY OTHER THING I'LL SAY ABOUT THAT IS THAT THERE IS SOME SENSITIVITY FROM A USABLE OPEN SPACE STANDPOINT. THEY'RE CURRENTLY MEETING CODE, BUT THEY'RE JUST ABOVE CODE ON THEIR USABLE OPEN SPACE, WHICH IS A RESIDENTIAL MULTIFAMILY REQUIREMENT. AND SO IF YOU WERE TO ADD SOME LEVEL OF PARKING, A CERTAIN NUMBER OF STALLS MIGHT NOT TIP THEM INTO NONCONFORMANCE WITH USABLE OPEN SPACE, BUT ONCE YOU GO ABOVE A CERTAIN NUMBER, THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY WOULD NOT BE COMPLIANT WITH THEIR USABLE OPEN SPACE. requirement. So I think there's just a little sensitivity there. Just back of the envelope I calculated if they added 16 stalls or less then they would not be in violation of their usable open space or 17 or more and then they would. But that was just quick math in terms of an area standard parking stall. I think I hit all the questions but if I didn't certainly let me know. Thank you Mr. Johnson. Madam Chair one more follow-up and that was regarding The use of canopy for parking. I understand removing the structures. We've looked at canopies at other sites. Is there a reason why we're not supporting canopy strike parking for residents to get at least some type of shelter for our weather? If you could follow up with that please, Mr. Johnson. Yeah. Madam Chair, Commissioner Goodrum. I certainly think there's probably particularly on a project as this one which has very sensitive levers when it comes to the pro forma of how everything works with rehabilitating and maintaining the rents on the existing building. So I'm sure there's a cost component to it. But another thing that we've commonly heard from developers thus far in responding to our carport CODE OR CONVERSION STANDARD IS THAT IT DOES PRESENT CHALLENGES FROM A PROPERTY MAINTENANCE STANDPOINT OR SNOW REMOVILLE. BECAUSE CARPORTS DO REQUIRE SUPPORT PILLARS AND BEAMS PERIODICALLY TO BE LOCATED BENEATH THEM IN ORDER TO SUPPORT THE ROOF AND THE SNOW LOAD. AND SO IF A VEHICLE INSTEAD OF JUST DOING A STANDARD SURFACE PARKING LOT PLOW JOB, IF THEY HAVE TO NAVIGATE AROUND THOSE SUPPORT PILLARS, just adds a little cost and complexity to the snow removal. That's something that we've heard from developers. I can't quantitatively say how much more of a problem that is versus not. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. And when the applicant speaks, maybe they could follow up on that as well. Thank you. Commissioner Solberg. Madam Chair, just a question for Mr. Johnson is the discussion about enclosed garage space and the deviation requested. Have we seen or approved a deviation that large with any facilities before and percentage wise? Madam Chair, Commissioner Solberg, I look to staff who've been here longer than I, but I would say no. Madam Chair, I'm not familiar with one that's been this high. It's possible, but I'm not sure of that. Thank you. Okay, Madam Chair, if I can follow up with one more. Yes, Commissioner Solberg. So if I understand really the trade-off here correctly, Mr. Johnson, any additional enclosed garage space would at this point looking at the site plan would take away from or add to the deviation required for parking spaces, is that correct? Madam Chair, Commissioner Stolberg, that's possible. I think that it would be feasible in some way to add some garages for the existing building, but I stand by my comment that in order to reach full compliance, you know, providing the 306 stalls for the full existing building, that would require a more substantial intervention THAN JUST WHAT'S EVEN OUT THERE TODAY, KIND OF MISCELLANEOUS AND, YOU KNOW, GARAGES HERE, GARAGES THERE. BUT I THINK YOU'RE CORRECT THAT ADDING ENCLOSED GARAGE STALLS LIKE THEY HAVE TODAY WOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THE OVERALL QUANTITY BECAUSE YOU CAN DO MORE EFFICIENT PARKING WITH JUST A SIMPLE SURFACE LOT THAN WITH THE GARAGES. AND, MADAM CHAIR, JUST ONE LAST QUESTION. YES, COMMISSIONER SILBERT. bit of a follow-up on the undisturbed area or the sidewalks and trying to understand five feet, you said, is the ADA standard for sidewalks. But our city ordinance, can you add on to that a little bit? I'm trying to understand where the city ordinance kicks in in relationship. Is it does it encompass an entire site when it's developed or typically or are we making a deviation here because of the disturbed area to understand where that requirement comes in? Because my understanding of some other elements of ADA, it's when it's disturbed. Yeah, Madam Chair, Commissioner Solberg, that's- I'm trying to clarify that. THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION. WHAT IT REALLY IS TIED TO IS OUR NONCONFORMITY SECTION IN THE BACK END OF CHAPTER 21. THERE'S DIFFERENT CATEGORIES. THERE'S NONCONFORMING USES, NONCONFORMING STRUCTURES, AND NONCONFORMING SITE CHARACTERISTICS. A SIDEWALK IS SOMETHING THAT WE WOULD CONSIDER A NONCONFORMING SITE CHARACTERISTIC. AND WHAT CITY CODE REQUIRES IS THAT ONCE YOU HAVE AN EXPANSION OF FLOOR AREA ON A FULL SITE BEYOND 25%, that triggers conformance for all those non-conforming site characteristics. So that would include sidewalks, parking islands, landscaping, lighting, other elements of the site that are currently non-conforming. If this site, and it would be difficult to do because it wouldn't have proper frontage, I believe, for the RM24 District, but if this site, let's just say for the sake of discussion, if this site was subdivided and was developed by a different entity and the existing site was allowed to remain as a separate site, then developing this in this manner, they would only have to worry about what they're constructing new, not having to deal with the old, the existing. And so it's really that expansion of floor area and the fact that it's brought forward as a full plan development is what triggers conformance on these existing non-conforming sidewalks, islands, and other things. Five feet is the standard in ADA, and it's also the standard in city code for private sidewalks. I would note that all the new sidewalks that they're proposing to build do meet our standards for five feet or seven feet when perpendicular to parking spaces. So just for that, for the record, all the new sidewalks that they're proposing do meet city code standards. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks, Madam Chair. One question I had was around the communal space in between, you had mentioned that there was a plan for a playground. Can you elaborate the location of that? And if that was part of this proposal as well. Yeah. Madam chair, Commissioner Goldstein, can you see my air, my cursor on the site plan? Maybe not. No, I cannot say you Glenn doing that. Oh, it's great. Oh, okay. Sorry, there's a mystery man helping us. Okay, if you can see my cursor now on the screen, this location, the east half of Building B, that northern building, that is where they have planned to construct a potential playground. They did not, I mean, I welcome Ann's comments on it, but they have not planned PUT TOGETHER THE FUNDING FOR THAT PLAYGROUND YET, THEY'RE ACTUALLY APPLYING FOR SOME FEDERAL GRANTS IS MY UNDERSTANDING TO HELP WITH THE COST OF CONSTRUCTING A PLAYGROUND THERE. BUT THAT'S THE GENERAL, THAT'S THE LOCATION. IT WOULD BE IN THIS AREA BY THESE SIDEWALKS AND IN THE COURTIEURD OF BUILDING B. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. COMMISSIONER SOLBERG. MR. JOHNSON, JUST AS A FOLLOW-UP, BECAUSE THIS IS SUCH AN INTENSE USE, AND I KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE THE ANSWER RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, Maybe if you can look on GIS, how far is it to the closest park from here? I don't know the linear feet, but it'd be Wrights Lake Park. There is a passive recreation area down East 86th Street by, you know, on the way to the bass ponds as well, or Ikes Creek, that area. So it's not... It's not immediately adjacent to this site, but it's not terribly far. I guess the only challenge would be is you have to walk across Highway 77 and then walk to the north. They do have that bike trail there, though, with good pedestrian facilities. So, you know, it's not a terribly long walk, but it's not immediately adjacent. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none, does the applicant wish to speak on this item? Madam Chair, can you hear me? Not well. We can hear you a bit, but it's a little bit garbled. If I can turn this up at all, or maybe I just need to speak louder. Does that help? That does help. I will speak louder then. Thank you, Madam Chair, Commissioners. My name is Leslie Raring. I'm a senior real estate developer with Aon. I appreciate your time tonight and reviewing our application. I just want to say thank you to staff and council members and the planning commission for all the work that you guys have done for Aon in partnership with Aon with regards to Village Club, the initial acquisition of it. and now the additional units. I did take some notes here of some of the questions and I'm happy to answer those or expand on them a little bit as well. Commissioner Goodram, you had noted who gets the new underground parking. That one in particular, because of our financing, and I think this is kind of something that we need to keep reiterating. From a zoning perspective, we're looking at it as one large site. But from a financing perspective these are two separate projects, two separate partnerships. And so the financing is really kept separate. The underground parking in particular is going to be for the new units only because of the tax credits that we have associated with that. And I know Mr. Johnson also commented about that as well with regards to where the buildings are placed. The issue with shifting the buildings and having residents from the separate partnership, separate entity use the parking facilities for the, that would be on the property, the quote unquote property of the new structures. And so that's why we needed to concentrate the building and buildings in one area so that we could create a kind of special area that is under that new partnership. from a tax credit perspective. As for the parking along 86th Street or the potential showing of parking along 86th Street, that area we have looked at pretty seriously about adding parking there. Unfortunately, there's some grading issues that are in that area and there's also some really substantial trees that are also in that area as well. So we are trying to not disturb that. unless it's absolutely necessary to say that we do need additional parking. It would be expensive, costly to build the retaining walls and those types of things to make that parking work. So we have looked at that area, but we kind of left it undisturbed because of those reasons. I would second what Mr. Johnson said about the canopy parking. It is costly, and it does create maintenance issues for residents. or snow removal and things like that. There's also additional roofs that we'll have to replace as the buildings are maintained. And we are long-term owners. We don't sell properties, and so we have to look at these things not just 10, 20, 30 years into the future, but we're looking at them as 100-year owners. Another one, with regards to the playground, so the The one that Mr. Johnson pointed out in between buildings B and A, that one is actually within the construction contract. You will have a playground in that area. And the playground is actually kind of guarded from the drive area because of the grading in that location. We are applying for an additional grant to put a new playground in the courtyard, the interior courtyard area of the existing property. There is right now just a swimming pool and a volleyball court in there but no playground, which seems silly. So we would like to get another playground in that area as well so that children from the existing building don't need to kind of truck across the site to get over to the playground. that is proposed between building and and I am happy to stand for any other questions that again I just wanted to reiterate that we appreciate all the work that staff and commissioners and council have put into these projects and we're really excited to be able to create even more affordable housing in the city of Bloomington. Thank you. Could you maybe just address the unit mix and how you decided on that? It looked like a lot of the extremely affordable units were, I guess, I think they were one bedroom or, and then it, do you have a slide on that, I believe? Yeah, Madam Chair, well, next question, So, the extremely affordable units are actually going to be paired along with housing supports, which is a subsidy that serves long-term homeless individuals and families. The two bedrooms will actually serve long-term homeless families while the one-bedroom serve long-term homeless individuals. And so, that's why those 30% units are in that particular, those two particular bedroom sizes. And then we tried to kind of distribute the other ones as evenly as we could between the two bedrooms, three bedrooms, and four bedrooms between the 60% and the 70% AMI. As for the unit mix, we recently did a project in the city of Ramsey with four-bedroom units and a lot of three-bedroom units as well. A similar mix that we're showing here for the city of Bloomington we found a significant need for the larger bedroom sizes. We're seeing a lot of families that either are multi-generational families that could utilize more bedrooms or immigrant families as well that really need those larger bedroom types and cannot find them anywhere. So we've been trying to integrate them into our buildings as much as possible. Thank you. And then also there was... if you could just clarify for me. So as I understand it, the new, um, the new buildings are not going to have any, um, additional storage space for units outside of the unit. Is that correct? Madam chair, that is correct. Um, they will have that, that small space in front of the parking, uh, stall for bikes. Um, and then we'll additionally have parking or bike racks on the, on site as well. Um, We don't have any slides of the units. I can't remember if they were in the packet as well. But there are very large closets in a majority of the units that we are proposing. So much so that they're based off of the ones that we did in the city of Ramsey as well. And we had residents coming in saying that they were going to use that as a playroom for their kids because they're so big. They fit their whole families in those closets. So you can stack bikes in there, strollers, people are using as pantries, a small office, things like that. So the storage is significant within the units themselves. Thank you. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question regarding I remember reading something in the packet regarding underutilization of the current garages. Do you have any stats on the underutilization? And a follow-up question to that is, I understand that future buildings on the site could be possible and is the plan to have underground garages for future buildings? We do we'll take it in two steps here. So we do intend to we're intending on adding additional units in the future. And that was another reason for kind of the concentration of buildings in that northeast corner. We would have underground parking, but we would also be at that time considering some sort of parking structure to accommodate parking for the existing property as well. For now, though, the funding on the site does not accommodate a large parking structure for the existing properties. As for the underutilization, when we took over the building in December, our staff reviewed all of the files and found that there were really no records of people utilizing their garages. So we then in turn reached out to all the residents, gave them time to come into the office and to let people know, let the site staff know whether or not they had a garage and sign up for one. OUT OF THE 320, I BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE ONLY 48 ARE BEING USED NOW. SO THERE IS SIGNIFICANT UNDER UTILIZATION OF THOSE STRUCTURES. IN ADDITION, THE COST TO REPAIR THEM WOULD TAKE AWAY FROM SOME OF THE FUNDS THAT WE HAVE TO DO OTHER CRITICAL REPAIRS TO THE EXISTING PROPERTY AS WELL. SO THE STRATEGY IS TO REMOVE THE BLIGHTED the garages resurface, make the parking more efficient and leave opportunity for future housing, affordable housing. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a follow-up question regarding the garages. Ms. Roaring, did you also, when you asked the question of whether or not people had a garage or were assigned a garage, et cetera. Did you also ask whether or not they were using it for storage or if they were just parking in there? Madam Chair, Commissioner Albrecht, I am not seeing of that information. I believe that they're utilizing it in some way, shape or form. So one of the strategies that we would have if it is being used as storage, is to get some of the storage units that are currently within the building back up and running. Our site manager today actually went around and counted all of the storage units within the building and took pictures of them as well. They are not in great shape. And so we would have to utilize some of our rehab dollars in order to get those up and running so that folks could use the interior storage or the storage to them outside of their units or anything that was stored in those garages. Additionally, I will say that we are working very closely with site staff to determine kind of what the need time is for the demolition of those structures to ensure that residents have enough time to be able to move any belongings. We will work with them on getting all of that stuff figured out. and helping them relocate anything that's within those structures that we'd be removing. Thank you. Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks, Madam Chair. In the slides, they talked about a phased approach. And one of the first phases was really bringing the current structures up to current standards. Do you mind bringing that slide up? There we go. Oh, one more. Perfect. So one of the questions that I have for the applicant here is current structures sound like there's quite a bit of work to be done. Are there any work here that would impact residents' about their actual units or space that is shared within the existing buildings and impact their lives and how they utilize those units. Madam Chair, Commissioner Goldsman. My understanding is that the items that are in the 2020 acquisition piece Some of the things are going to be just getting items up to snuff. So like the bathroom and toilet traps, things like that. It's not really affecting the residents' quality of life, I would say. I would say some of those, the mold, mildew, blinds, those types of things are affecting the residents' quality of life, and so we're addressing those as quickly as possible. I think the bigger area where we're starting to really get those, get residents units upgraded, it starts in 2021. And part of that has to do with us being able to utilize some financing mechanisms to bring more funds into the 306 project to be able to do some more of these items. When we originally closed we had a certain amount of rehab dollars on the 306 in particular. We had a certain amount of rehab dollars to be able to do these critical repairs that Sherry has been talking about and has been meeting with our site staff on. And then in addition, there's a strategy being developed to take out some of the city funds to bring other funds in and to get more funds to do some of these additional repairs in 2021 and up until 2023. Great. Thank you. I guess I, this is Chair Bennett. I'm having trouble, I guess, following some of the sequencing here. So I understand that there's going to be maintenance and repairs made and then we're approving these new buildings. And so I'm just trying to understand like when are the new buildings expected to be built and opened for new residents versus the maintenance and repairs that are being done to the existing building. Madam Chair, so this is what I was talking about, about two different funding structures, two different partnerships kind of running simultaneously together. We have a partnership that owns the 306 property right now that has rehab dollars available to it and that is currently doing the repairs that have been outlined with help of the HRA. Then we'll have a separate partnership that will own the two new buildings that will have its own financing structure that will close here in July. And that is tied to a bond application that we did in partnership with the city in January and received $27 million of bonds to do with these projects. Those bonds have to be in place by July 10th, and that's why this project is moving fairly quickly. But that is a separate budget, separate everything, separate contractor. And so those two things start moving simultaneously together. And like I said, the maintenance and repairs of the existing building are already happening. We'll just start the construction once that project, that financing set closes in July. And so do you have an estimate of when you expect the new buildings to be completed? of share that new building should be we haven't figured out our exact phasing construction schedule yet but it looks to be about a 14 to 16 month construction from starting from July or from when yes we would start in July so in theory then it would end what maybe sometime of 2021 early 2022 am i getting madame chair it would likely we would try to shoot for a construction opening and we we would phase it so that one building would open and then the next building would be able to be open just from a construction um phasing standpoint but they would be maybe a month off from each other not a significant difference in timing But we had tried to phase it and try to get construction done so that we would potentially be available, have residents move in before school and starts for the following year in 2021. And so just out of curiosity, I don't know if you have the answer to this, but given what we've heard about the current building and the disrepair and that the new buildings are also going to be the ones with the underground parking, are you expecting a lot of the residents in the existing building to I guess apply or move into the new building or how is that going to be handled? Madam Chair we would not we would not shy away from residents wanting to move that is that is up to them we will we will have to take applications on all units and we'll have to do income certifications on all units residents would have to apply to move, but if they would like to go from the existing building to the new ones, that is perfectly fine. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Not seeing any. Are there any other people who wish to speak for the applicant? I'm not hearing anyone. So then moving on to public testimony. Sure. Madam Chair, we did hear from Michael Verrani via email. I summarized his email earlier and you have a copy of that. We have two call-in users I just want to check with because I'm not sure if they are here for this item. So I'm going to start with a phone number 612-559 and I will unmute you to check in. Can you hear us? 612-559. All right. I'll remute that call and check in with the other phone number, which is 573-450. Can you hear us? All right. I don't believe we have any comments on this item then. All right. So then since we. Madam Chair, I would note as a result of this being a rezoning ordinance, there is a public hearing that a public hearing requirement at city council as well. All right. So then with that, do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Commissioner Solberg. So moved. And commissioner Roman. Second. Moved by commissioner Solberg. Second by commissioner Roman. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum. Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. That is an aye from me. Motion passes 6-0. Moving on to discussion. I haven't completely formed my thoughts on this one, but I'll get things started. So I really appreciate this kind of project and the addition of all the affordable housing and housing retaining the current affordable housing with the updates and repairs. I do have some lingering concerns regarding the garage stall deviation being almost 70%. And I did appreciate the applicant's response regarding the in-unit storage, but We do have some concerns about our requirement that we do have storage outside of the unit for each unit and that we're basically doing away with that entire requirement for this. But I guess overall I am inclined to move forward with this project. But I would be interested in hearing other commissioners thoughts and any of their other concerns. Commissioner Solberg. Madam Chair, thank you. Yeah, I think I appreciate the fact that we have the applicant that has brought to us a very large development of affordable housing and maintaining the existing housing that we have in the city. However, the biggest issue I have at this point is just as you alluded to, almost a 70% deviation from the garage parking. However, I think the public benefit of having these three and four bedroom affordable housing units weighs heavily against that requirement for me. But again, just the biggest issue of thinking about how do you or how do you fit any additional parking on the site that's covered? You start to take away from some of the other locations. I appreciated the applicants comments about the future development, because I think that goes a long way towards alleviating some of the concern about parking requirements on the site. Otherwise I start to feel that this may be too much for this particular site, but there's a lot of public benefit. I'm interested in hearing what other commissioners think about the intensity at this point. Commissioner Goldson. Thanks Madam Chair. I think I would echo what both you and the commission Solberg have commented on. I think, you know, the parking deviation is first recovered is quite large. trying to think about different ways that we could fit more in and without a structure, it's very precarious. So I am struggling with that as well. One thing I do appreciate, we talked a little bit about the playground. We know that the parks that are in that area are accessible, but as a mom with a small child, I wouldn't want to walk across the Highway 77 overpass, you know, to go to the park. So I appreciate that there's a park or playground area getting put in and then also look forward to having that playground structure funding in for additional use as well. So I think it's a great public benefit. I'm excited to see that there's some larger units with multiple buildings bedrooms, you know, to accommodate larger families as well as extended families. So overall, I think it's a great project. I just, I'm struggling with that deviation request. And I think it's an improvement overall of the current state of the units as well. I don't want us to forget about the benefit that we are seeing with that current unit as well as new units that will be added. Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. My two thoughts are, you know, right where the comments that have been made so far, you know, we have had other opportunity housing projects proposed that had requested not to have covered parking, not indoor or enclosed, but even just covered. we felt strongly and we held to that, you know, there are other concessions that come with the opportunity housing ordinance, but that covered parking was kind of a big thing. And so I, right now I'm having a hard time getting past that. And then I would also really echo the issue about storage, the unit storage. And so as Commissioner Goldsman said, there are many positive things here, but those are, and this is also in addition to the opportunity housing ordinance concessions, the city also is, this is last fall, I believe, the planning commissioner recommended the city approved the TIF district as well. So there is significant support in this project, but I think that some of these requests may go a little bit farther than I'm comfortable with. Commissioner Goodrum. Madam chair, I'm going to address a commissioner Solberg both intensity. Um, I'm comfortable with the number of units and especially the type of units proposing and the total density of this property. I think, uh, it's a good location for that type of, uh, the density that they're asking for. Uh, I agree with the other commissioners. I think this is a, be a great asset to the community, especially cleaning up the existing buildings and bringing those, those buildings up to, uh, repair and then the addition of new buildings. My reservation is I think shared with a couple other commissioners is the covered parking. I'm not comfortable with removing all the covered parking available for current residents and only allowing covered parking for the new residents. I think we have an opportunity to possibly provide some canopy parking. I don't think we need full structures up at some type of a canopy parking. And if it's only 30, 40 or so canopies to cover with the need that you currently see at the facility, I think there might be a room someplace on that site that can accommodate those number of canopies without really impacting the snow shoveling or the maintenance of the parking lots. If we lose a couple of parking stalls because we're using canopy parking. I still see, I looked at the site that there are some possibilities on the Southwest corner for a couple of stalls that might be able to, if we need to replace any, I don't think we do. Other than that reservation, I get it, I think this is a good addition to the city and listen to it with the other commissioner's comments. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just doing some quick math here. Ms. Roaring mentioned that it was, you know, roughly 40 something units were using a garage stall. So even if we round that up to 50 units, it's still 256 units who are not using a garage stall on this property. So my inclination is to actually not be very concerned with number of garages and outdoor storage, given the number of people on the current site who were actually using those garages and outdoor storage. I can understand allowing the people in the new building having access to those enclosed stalls, those underground can imagine, you know, just building access alone would be really complicated if you were to give access to the folks who currently live in the 306 units. But they're almost at a one for one, so almost one unit per stall for underground. So, you know, it's pretty high, I would say, even for that area, given that it's very close to the blue line. and light rail there. So in summary, I guess I would say that I was having some reservations initially, but given that 16% of the current, only 16% of the current site at a maximum is using the current garage space. I don't have an issue with that and can support this moving through. Any other comments, commissioner Goodrum? Oh, you're on mute. Thank you, Madam Chair. Following up on commissioners Albright comments. I guess I still lean or looking at this. There's only 40 some units are using the grout cells, but they are being charged for them at this time. I think if you ask the residents, any future garage stalls or canopies will not be an extra charge. It's not part of the program. I think if you would ask the rest of the current residents, if they will take a garage, if they didn't have to pay for it, that number would be a lot more than 40. Don't know what that number would be, but so I just want to provide that in for my comment on that section and still support this project, but I'd like to see some canopy just to allow the current residents the same ability as they have currently or some protection of our climate. Commissioner Stolberg. Thanks Madam Chair. Again, I think and I'm weighing here is just the deviation and the public good of the facility. And hearing Commissioner Goodrum's comments of thinking about this, if we covered what we had before as say as a element of a condition, maybe that gets us to 60% deviation or 55%. So then really is the question, then it comes back to my mind, is the question really the deviation? Because I think we wanna make sure what's happening is that everybody has an opportunity for that covered parking and how they might use it. And as long as both buildings could, the new buildings would be open to it. I think I can support the application as it is. Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the challenges with the current parking, as it was mentioned, is charged for, we also heard that someone was in disrepair and may or may not be secure. And so I don't know if that matters as well, whether or not people are using it. Just for me, I still am struck by the level of deviation, even for opportunity housing. It's important, I think, to, yes, we've made the ability to have some allowances for things that are different and may not meet certain of the code requirements, but this is, the parking, and again, I think it's important to talk about the storage as well, that we have kind of, in our focus on parking, as the chair pointed out early on about the complete lack of the storage issue. That for me, I just think at this point, I know there's a time sensitivity for the applicant related to some grant money and I certainly appreciate that. I don't want to unduly withhold approval that would cost a grant. I also don't want to be held to the time pressure of a grant and have us put something that that's a standard or a precedent for the future that those two items for me, I think are too far. And at this point, I would not be comfortable moving that on tonight myself. Commissioner Goldstein. Thanks Madam Chair. In response to Commissioner and I think, you know, the parking piece is a concern of mine. I'm not as concerned with the storage as, you know, thinking about the large storage units I did see in the packet in the units, at least from my perspective, I'm not as concerned. I do know that it's something that we have in city code and would set precedence. I would be okay with waiving that or minimizing that requirement. But the parking piece is the sticking point for me. Mr. Johnson. Yeah, Madam Chair, I want to provide a clarification on the residential storage on the way that staff has presented it to you. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding. At all levels of affordability, if you meet the criteria of complying with the Opportunity Housing Ordinance, you are eligible to qualify for a 50% reduction in the residential storage requirement. So what we are recommending is that they meet the 50% level with existing storage units outside of the unit in the existing building that would bring them into conformance with what is allowed in the opportunity housing ordinance. I want to be clear that they are not seeking PD flexibility on the storage requirement. They initially provided that information to us about the in-unit storage, the larger closets and storage rooms in the existing units in order to provide further confidence I WANT TO REITERATE THAT THE OPPORTUNITY HOUSING ORDINANCE DOES HAVE ALLOWANCES FOR THIS INCENTIVE TO REDUCE OVERALL STORAGE. I UNDERSTAND THE DISCREPANCY THAT IT'S LOCATED IN THE EXISTING BUILDING AND NOT THE NEW BUILDINGS. BUT WITH THE WAY THAT THIS IS ALL STRUCTURED AS ONE BROADER PLAN DEVELOPMENT, THAT'S HOW THE ZONING REVIEW HAS TO TAKE PLACE AND OCCUR IS LOOK AT IT AS A TOTALITY. SO HOPEFULLY THAT PROVIDES A LITTLE BIT OF CLARITY. IF I DIDN'T EXPLAIN THAT WELL BEFORE, My apologies. I don't think it completely minimizes the concern but it sounds like maybe there was some misunderstanding about from a code compliance standpoint. Commissioner Goodrum. You've got to unmute yourself. I get it. Thanks Madam Chair. Thanks Mr. Johnson for those clarifying those comments. Maybe it reminded me to ask you about clarification regarding canopy parking. Now, a few months ago, we had a similar request on Lindale Avenue, a site by the Dairy Queen. We went to the Planning Commission, discussed the canopy. I think our recommendation was to require them. Went to the council. Can you, up with me and what the council action was on that request? Sure. Go ahead, Glenn. Yeah, Madam Chair, commissioners, the council did talk about that quite a bit and ultimately decided to approve the application without the canopies. So it moved forward without the canopies. Lindale Flats is the project. Lindale Flats, yeah, 94th and Lindale. I guess I'll, unfortunately thinking out loud right now, I guess with regard to the underground or stall parking, which just trying to get to that, is what, 154 inside between the two buildings? And so since those are going to be completely for those two buildings and There's how many units in those? 172. 172. So I guess if considering unless we're going to allow individuals, residents of the existing building to use those stalls or to require other covered parking on the site, I guess And that's kind of what it comes down to in a way, which I don't feel comfortable having residents in those other buildings using those underground stalls. So then that leaves us with basically what are the other covered parking options on the site. And given that canopy parking maybe is not popular with our city, And given, I think Commissioner Solberg mentioned, the applicant talked about plans for future development and adding parking structures with that. I guess I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the parking the way it is. But if other commissioners have other thoughts. Chair Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I just want to make one point that it's going to be a rarity that a 306 unit property comes in front of the Planning Commission, let alone now 300, you know, 306 plus 172 new units. And I just feel like, you know, the caution about allowing for a 67% reduction in closed garage space. However, I do think that in terms of public benefit, just for this alone seems enough to make sense. And that regarding setting some sort of precedent or anything along that, you know, 400 some units is a lot. And I'm not sure that the next time that we would see something this large. Commissioner Solberg. Madam Chair, echoing on Commissioner Albrecht's comments, I think part of where we were with this not that long ago was a concern that we would lose even those naturally occurring affordable housing units and remind commission that our goal, we are substantially below our goal of meeting affordable housing within the city. So to that point of not only being able to the existing facilities, but build new facilities that hopefully, well, and again, with a 30 year contract really does set a standard and quite honestly within the region or attracting building, maintaining affordable housing. I just, the public good, is much larger than this worry about a standard that the city has for parking in garages. I mean, I can look around my neighborhood and see three, four cars out in front of garages and the garages sit empty. So is the concern cars outside in a parking lot or Ideally, we would love to have everybody have a garage, but I think this is one of the things that we're trading off to get this level of affordable housing. I'll leave it. Commissioner Bowman. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will leave my comments after this and I don't know if I made the point, but I appreciate it in no small measure and not want to be clear that none of this is about or not we should have more affordable housing of course we should and we put an ordinance in place that gives a lot of concessions in order to do that and I think those are all reasonable and good concessions those are things that we are willing to do I also think it's important that we don't you know I know that covered parking may not seem like a big deal but we also don't want to set a standard where that are for the haves are meet a standard and projects that are for the have nots, you get less. I think that, and again, I just reminded that there is public money in this. There's the TIF district that we created for that we recommended this council create for this. So it's one thing to be offering deviations based on some things that we're gaining for the public good, which we do that in through the opportunity housing ordinance. We have TIF money in this and I will leave it after this, but I will not be supporting this without the parking component. Other discussion? Or if someone wants to make a motion of some kind, Commissioner Solberg. I think we've had a lot of discussion here. I will try and kick this off with a motion and we'll see where it goes. So, Madam Chair, in case PL2020-69, I move to recommend approval of an ordinance rezoning 1900 East 86th Street from R4 to RM24, plan development. Commissioner Albrecht? Second. Moved by Commissioner Roman, second by Commissioner Albrecht. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Stuhlberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldstein? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And an aye for me, so this motion passes 6-0. This will move on to the I'm sorry. Madam Chair. Commissioner Solberg. In case PL 2020-69 having been able to make the required findings, I move to recommend approval of preliminary development plans and final development plans to construct two new multi-family residential buildings with a total of 172 units. an existing 306 unit multifamily residential campus located at 1900 East 86th Street, subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report. Commissioner Albrecht? Second. Moved by Commissioner Solberg, second by Commissioner Albrecht. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? No. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And I have an aye, so the motion passes 5-1. These will move on to the May 18th City Council meeting. Now moving on to item three, the Gateway District. Madam Chair, I believe Ms. Shokwist will be presenting. Ms. Shokwist, do you have any slides to present? No, I do not. If we could pull up the agenda item, that would be helpful. There is a staff report and a resolution. Okay, I'm sorry we don't have it available to pull up. get it quick okay one moment i i believe i have it but if you can do it nick that's great one moment thank you more technical difficulties Okay. You know, Madam Chair, Commissioners, I might as well start with the report to prevent further delay. I do apologize for that. Thank you for your assistance. So, again, my name is Sherry Shilquist with the HRA. I am in front of you tonight to request your consideration of an amendment the development program for the Gateway District. As you have recently been discussing, a housing development TIF was created for the Aon Project at Village Club. And also at the same time, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund was launched by the city establishing a $15 million to prioritize affordable housing development in the city. We staff is recommending a slight deviation to the gateway district map. I believe we may continue to promote the gateway district, you know, primarily in the center of Bloomington on the Lindale, Penn and other primary transportation and commercial corridors. However, we recognize an opportunity when the Aon Village Club project will be coming before both the Housing and Redevelopment Authority Commission and the City Council for additional tax increment financing assistance. We believe it's necessary to be able to recapture those TIF funds in a pool to provide additional resources to other affordable housing development in the Gateway District in the future. We recognize that this is a bit of a, unique situation. It is not, it is really solely a financing tool to recapture that funding, which is with resources so scarce for affordable housing development. As you know, the city of Bloomington, our, you know, our planning commission, our HRA and our city council, our city leadership is really out front in the region for finding flexible and innovative ways to fund affordable housing development. And this request fits under that framework. So with that said, I would be happy to take any questions. QUESTIONS BY ANY OF THE COMMISSIONERS? CHERRY, THIS IS NICK. FYI, WE DO HAVE THE MATERIALS ON THE SCREEN NOW. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU CAN SEE THAT. I DO SEE THE MAP. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THERE'S A PARTICULAR PAGE YOU WANT ME TO NAVIGATE TO. LET ME KNOW. I THINK PERHAPS THE MAP OR, YOU KNOW, DURING QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION, I THINK THE MAP IS FINE. AND THEN AS WE MOVE TO THE MOTION, IT WOULD BE HELPFUL to see the resolution, I believe. I, of course, defer to the chair. Discussion from commissioners or I guess there isn't. Do we have comments? Yeah, it's not technically a public hearing. You can ask for comment if you want. It was not advertised as a public hearing. Not required to be. Commissioner Goldstein. Thanks Madam Chair. I guess I'm somewhat confused on exactly what we're, I understand this is a financial tool and not district, but can you kind of give me just in a nutshell again, I'm sorry, I'm just not following what exactly is being modified here. Commissioner Goldsman, thank you. So perhaps Nick, you could move your cursor to the little village club outlet. So the South Loop is primarily, the South Loop district is primarily under the authority of the Port Authority and the rest of the city, the development is primarily within the Housing and Redevelopment Authority. We have, with the creation of the Opportunity Housing Ordinance, we have established a priority area to fund the development of affordable housing in the Gateway District. The city believes that The Lindale Avenue corridor, Nicollet, Portland, Old Cedar, Old Shakopee, and Penn are, to American, are primary areas that need the investment of new construction of both market rate and affordable housing development. So the reason that we want to add the Village Club TIF area which was approved by the Planning Commission previously to the Gateway District project area which also was approved by the Planning Commission previously is not for any... Sorry to interrupt. It looks like we lost Commissioner Goodrum. So I just want to wait a moment so that we can see if we can get him back. I apologize. gonna try to get back in. We'll give it another minute, but I think otherwise we'll just have to continue. Sounds like he's making progress in the login. He's getting a please wait with a circle. So that might not be good. I don't think that's good. I think we'll continue without Commissioner Goodrum. Go ahead. Thank you. Just to simply restate, we are requesting an amendment of the Gateway District to include the small area of Village Club the purpose of adding additional TIF resources to the for affordable housing development in the Gateway District. Is that clear? I could go into more detail. Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks Madam Chair. That clarifies it for me. One of my questions is are there other properties on that line that would also come before us in the future to be included in this district it seems odd to have you know we've got 77 as our barrier prior now we're jumping the the highway are there other opportunities there or is this kind of a lone wolf I'll take my my um question offline Commissioner Galtzman I believe this is a lone wolf we As I mentioned, the South Loop primarily has authority over development in the South Loop District, which Village Club is in. This situation was unique in many ways because it was such a large preservation, because it launched the trust fund. And because of that, we want to recapture those funds for the Gateway District. Another thing that could come up, there is development at Penn and American. Penn and American has its own district. So we believe that this would be the only project we would be bringing to project area, we would be bringing to amend the Gateway District to recapture those funds for the Gateway District. Commissioner Roman. Thank you Madam Chair. I guess I'm still not a hundred percent clear. I think I'm generally following you, but in the simplest terms by adding this, you know, little appendage to the East, is that moving money into the village club project or into the larger district? I mean, what's the goal of that? Commissioner Rowan, thank you. The money that, be awarded or has been awarded to the village club will be awarded as part of a revolving loan. So it will come back to the city or the HRA and will then be available for new or other affordable housing developments in the Gateway District. So it captures village club funding and brings it to the Gateway District. And a significant amount that we thought it was necessary to bring this before you today. Okay. And so then the other half, just to be fully understand and make sure we're all clear. If that doesn't happen, what is the lost opportunity or the consequence that we see in the future? We will have... If it's not extended. We will... we'll have fewer resources available in the Gateway District for affordable housing development. Because the Village Club money goes to South Blue? Correct. Okay. Even though this is HRA tax increment financing. Okay. Commissioner Solberg? Madam Chair, I think I was following until that last bit. So what I thought I was understanding is the money that was awarded towards Village Club was more of a grant. And now this brings it in tax increment financing. So it's able to be recollected later on through the TIF district. When Commissioner Roman mentioned the South Loop, threw me off a little bit. So one more piece of clarification, please. Yes, Commissioner Solberg. Thank you. The purpose is for the HRA to be able to recapture TIF that the HRA in the city grant to Village Club to be used first for Village Club and then the future as it's repaid for additional affordable housing development in the Gateway District. Commissioner Goldsmith. Thanks, Madam Chair. One question I have is, it's money within the city, but one is within the HRA. The other one is with the Port Authority. Do we have a representative from the Port Authority and their feedback to this change for the South Loop district because essentially we're taking that Village Club section away from South Loop. Commissioner Goldsman, thank you. It would be putting him on the spot, but Jason Schmidt, I believe is on the call. If he were willing to and comfortable sharing the port authority's perspective, that would be helpful. Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. Way of introduction, I'm Jason Schmidt. I'm a Port Authority representative. I will be on item number six tonight, which we will actually be doing a housing TIF creation within the South Loop District. And I think what Sherry's trying to say, and I'm gonna try to put it in a different terms, when the Village Club TIF District was established, that, Any TIF district has to be established within a project area. And the Village Club TIF district was established in a coterminous district equal to the Village Club lot. And so the project area for Village Club is also the same as the TIF district layout. What Terry is proposing tonight with the HRA is to be able to amend the village called TIF district to put it into the gateway project area. What that allows for is that TIF increment, a certain percentage will be going to Aon in this project. I believe it's 85% of the TIF increment will be going to the project and 15% of that TIF increment will be pooled, which can be used by the city HRA future housing projects. And what this amendment allows for is that now with that pooled money, that additional 15% will be able to go to any future housing project, affordable housing project that meets the housing TIF standards. That additional funding can go to any project within the gateway district area. So that's what this amendment is doing, would be allowing for that additional pooled money to go into the area within the Gateway District. Thank you, Jason. And could you please add the Port Authority's perspective on that? Uh-oh. Oh no. Sorry, I'm back. We can't see you, but we can hear you. Okay. I do not know what happened. Yeah, as far as the Port Authority goes, this TIF was actually created under the HRA. It just happens that it occurs within our Industrial Development District area, which I'll be showing later on in item number six. And the Port Authority is in agreement with this because overall the ultimate goal of the city strategic plan is to provide additional affordable housing throughout the entire city of Bloomington. And this amendment is doing that and helping to further that implementation of that goal. Thank you. Any other questions by any of the commissioners or further discussion? Madam Chair, I think I certainly get this now with the original TIF district, maybe with Village. It just brings that opportunity of the repayment back into the gateway, which is the larger TIF for housing. One of the questions I do have is more about the gateway and we'll talk about that I think at a later, period in the evening. But my question is, do we need to vote on this resolution? Is it just a indication to the chair that we support it or don't support it? Madam chair, Commissioner Soberg, the commissioner should vote on the resolution. What you're doing is finding the TIF district to be consistent with a comprehensive plan. Right. So do I just do a roll call or does there have to be a motion? Should be a motion to adopt the resolution. And looks like Mr. Johnson has it on the screen too. Sorry. There you go. Commissioner Solberg. So moved. Commissioner Goldstein? Is that sufficient? We should probably read it for the record just to be safe. I thought I would get away without it. Madam Chair, I move to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report finding the modification of the amended development program for the Gateway District to the general plan for the development or redevelopment of the city as a whole. And the planning commission recommends the modified development program for the gateway district to the city council of the city of Bloomington for its approval. That's a lot of three syllable words. Commissioner Goldsman. Second. Moved by commissioner Solberg. Second by commissioner Goldsman. All those in favor say aye. I believe commissioner Goodrum is not back. So commissioner Solberg. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And that is an aye from me. So motion passes five, zero. Madam chair. Commissioner Silbert. It sounds like commissioner Goodrum says he is muted. Oh. He needs to be promoted. Commissioner Goodrum, you're back. Good to be back. Were you there for the vote? I was not, so I'll abstain. Okay, so that motion passes 5-0 then. Now we're moving on to item four, Commissioner Goodrum. I believe you had something you wanted to say before this item. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would need to recuse myself from this item as our company on the project. Thank you. All right, moving on to the staff report. Good evening, Madam Chair, Planning Commissioners. This is Mike Centenario. sharing my screen okay so I didn't know on number four on your agenda is for the jury hotel which was approved by the city back in early 2018 some of the commissioners may recall that project but are seeking reapproval due to some modifications from the past iteration. All right, folks. Okay, so the subject site is located just along France Avenue. north of Interstate 494. The subject site is outlined in yellow, just south of Minnesota Drive. And Mr. Centenario, your slides are not full screen. Yeah, it still works. do it this way. Sounds great. I have some problems here. Okay, so the graphic on the screen is from the previous iteration that was approved in 2018. And you can see the hotel in the background, obviously the most prominent feature of this development. But then a phase two restaurant was also part of the planned development and that was intended to be a feature phase. That really hasn't changed at all. The same number of seats, the for footage of such location. So going back to what's proposed, you can see a lot of similarities with the approved plan from 2018. And one of the primary differences is really how parking is going to be accommodated. The previous iteration had a two-level parking deck throughout the majority of the site, whereas now the parking at four level parking structure would be constructed on site. One, I guess a bit of complexity for this project is the jury site is obligated through agreement to provide 100 parking stalls for Minnesota centers use. It's not exclusive use, so it's just the folks that are visiting or at Minnesota Center have the option to use stalls on the jury site. So that's something that has to be accommodated within the overall plan. I just showed this as an image. It's an access, an existing access to Minnesota Center. Actually that parking in the foreground is probably gone now, but the access remains. Going to the site plan. So again, very similar to the site plan that was approved in 2018, except for the parking. Some of the other modifications, there really aren't that many, but general configuration of the parking lot would remain the same. There are still landscape yard areas along Minnesota Drive, France Avenue, and West 78th Street. Really two access points into the hotel area, one from Minnesota Drive, where the title of the slide is located, but then another one from an existing drive or turnaround area that you see in the part of the site. In terms of landscaping, they submit a landscape plan, of course, which is in front of you. The amount of landscaping, it meets the code requirements. As I said in my staff report, there's a couple of minor things that will need to change, namely a couple parking islands don't meet the minimum width or the tree requirement. So that would need to be modified. you know, just some minor modifications to the landscape plan to meet code requirements. But overall, you know, very, very small changes for the most part, the plan is compliant. The first floor plan of the proposed hotel, and it is very similar to the last program. However, the most significant change, which has a direct impact on parking is the meeting space. cursor there's this meeting space and that has shrunk significantly from the last 2018 plan and because we have to calculate that space as assembly space which has a pretty high parking requirement the overall parking requirement for this latest iteration has gone down although they would be supplying the same number of stalls so i'll get to the parking analysis in a moment but essentially the are seeking less flexibility for parking than what was approved in 2018. One of the more challenging components of this project, ultimately we are supportive of this flexibility is they need to provide again, 100 stalls to Minnesota Center. And if everything went to plan, that would be built by now. But they're obligated to provide that parking. But as jury can explain, folks that are on the call can explain they're not ready to move forward with construction right now. A lot of uncertainty in the market as we probably hear every day on the news and hotels aren't doing very well occupancy wise. So until the dust settles and they understand where they're at, they're not ready to move forward with construction probably this year. I think their intent is to start construction next year. But they still need to provide this parking. So they're proposing to provide partially improved parking on the site. And what you see before you is essentially a site plan for that parking where it would be paved, it would be lit, but it would not have all of the improvements such as curb and gutter, landscaped parking islands, and trees in those islands. What we asked the applicant to do though is to prepare a graphic on what would of what would you have to do to make it compliant if for some reason the hotel never happens. And so this isn't a full plan, but it's a graphic identifying how curb and gutter would be retrofitted, where the parking islands would be located, and then showing, they meet the minimum width, and then having at least one tree in those islands. So they've already identified how that retrofit could take place. So to try and support, the applicant and to support a development which we feel is overall a good project and would be a valuable asset to the city. We are supportive of the temporary parking, but we want there to be at least some assurance that we're not, the city or the Minnesota center generally is not gonna be left with a partially improved parking lot. So we are recommending a condition of approval that essentially requires the applicant to provide a surety equal to 120% of the cost to do the retrofit that's on the screen. And then the city would release the surety if and when the hotel is under construction or they end up just doing the retrofit on their own. We would then release that surety. Going to parking, the parking analysis, if we think of the parking supply on site, Isolation, meaning we don't think about that 100 stalls. They are only seeking about a 1.5% reduction in parking. So total code requirement is 333 stalls. They will be providing 328, and that's a 1.5% reduction. There's a couple minor revisions to the plan that would probably drop the parking supply by two, three stalls. in actuality to meet some of those code requirements, the deviation would be about 2%. And so we feel that it's a very slight deviation. A parking study was done back in late 2017, analyzing the shared uses between the hotel and the office building and found that the deviations that are being requested are more than satisfactory. And I won't go into much detail, but parking study was conducted. With that, we are recommending approval. This is a planned development, but because of the type of changes, modification to the preliminary development plan wasn't necessary, so this really is a revision to the final development plan, and the recommended motion is before you. Happy to answer questions. Any questions for staff? The only one with their hand raised, I think is Commissioner Goodrum. I think it's just left over. So does the applicant wish to speak on this item? Yes, this is Mark Ziers with Jury Southwest. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can. Perfect. So I am here representing Jury Southwest, the developer of the project, as well as Larry Westrich is on the phone. And then Vicki Vandrell with LOPS, who's our civil engineer, is also on the call to build any questions. And I'm sorry, drew blank there. So yeah, so we're here to answer any questions and we're definitely excited about this project, get it going. The 100 spaces, like Mike said, are required for our neighbor. and will be incorporated into the future full project site. So thanks. Any questions for the applicant? I'm not seeing any. Is there anyone else for the applicant who wish to speak? Not seeing any. Yes, Mr. Marker. Oh yeah. Yeah. Let me unmute. I think I know who Mr. Westridge is. on the line of calling user. All right, we have a public testimony or possible. In terms of public testimony, there's just one caller I'm not sure of, so I will unmute that caller just to check. And caller, phone number 612-559, do you wish to comment on this item? Caller 612-559, do you wish to comment on this item? I'm not here. 612559 is Vicki VanDell and I'm the representative for the civil and landscape for the project. So no other comments. Oh, okay. Thank you. All right. Seeing as there appears to be no public comment, is there a motion to close the public hearing? Commissioner Roman? No moves. Commissioner Solberg? Second. Moved by Commissioner Roman, seconded by Commissioner Solberg. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. That is an aye for me. Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to discussion. I will start it off. I vaguely remember this from when it first came by and this seems to be within what we previously approved and I would be in support of this change. Commissioner Goldsman? Madam Chair. My comment is really around the development of this being put on hold until the dust settles, I would agree, is a pragmatic decision on the part of the developer and the applicant. And then I also appreciate the staff working with the applicant on the parking requirements, making sure that they meet their but then also coming up with a creative solution to make sure that funding is available when it is needed. So I would approve this as well or be in support of this as well. Thank you. Any other discussion or is there anyone who would like to make a motion? Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. In case PL2020-58, been able to make the required findings, I move to recommend city council approval of major revisions to final development plans for a temporary 100 stall parking lot, 214 room hotel and future restaurant plan development at 3901 Minnesota drive, subject to the conditions and code requirements attached to the staff report. Commissioner Goldsman. Second. Moved by commissioner Roman, second by commissioner Goldsman. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Solberg. Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Bowman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. That is an aye from me. Motion passes 5-0. And it looks like this will move on to the May 18th City Council meeting. All right. Commissioner Goodrum, do we have you back? Yes, you do. All right. Moving on to item five. Can we have the staff report, please? Madam Chair, Planning Commissions. Sorry, I realized what was going on with my presentation in the last item. But item five is two variances for a single family property at 9125 Hill Avenue. One is to reduce the side yard setback along the south, and then also to increase the building height by a couple of feet. And this is due to a home addition that the applicant would like to build. Here we are along Kell Avenue South near the cul-de-sac. Sorry, you faded out there for a moment. Nine Mile Creek runs the south end of the, well, really essentially three sides of this general area. So predominantly single-family homes or almost entirely single-family homes with some environmental corridor surrounding it. The slide identifies the grade of the property. So there is some topography with the site. The backyard, as you can see, is relatively flat, but the backyard is a few feet lower than the street. And then as you go towards the environmental corridor to the east, you can see the pretty significant grade drop. But in terms of the backyard, obviously when the subdivision was developed, the backyards were quite usable. A pretty common feature in the city of Bloomington where you have a single level home or a split level home that has an exposed or partially exposed or even a walkout basement. This isn't a walkout I believe, but it is definitely partially exposed. So that does definitely play into our analysis of whether or not to support variances. If there's some sort of particularly unique condition about a piece of property, that we should be evaluating. And in this case, we don't really think there's anything that particularly unique with this property. The street view of the home, single family home, split level. The roof pitch is a feature for this home that definitely plays into the variance review. But you can see the two-stall garage leading to some living space, and then you have the multi-level portion that would be made larger with the addition. This is an image from the other side of the street. You can see that there's three different roof lines, all at a 512 pitch. And this is the site plan that was submitted as part of the variance application. You can see the setbacks along the south property line on the corner of the house, 9.4. and 9.43, those are existing conditions. And this is something that we run into from time to time, especially with homes that are a little bit older, is that there was a 10 foot setback requirement and that's still the requirement today, but the home was built a little too close to the property line one way or another. So this is something that we do see once in a while, and certainly more often with older property. One of the variances that's being requested tonight is to clear up that nonconformity for that reduced side yard setback, but then also allow that reduced side yard setback to continue for the proposed addition. And we're supportive of that variance. We think it does meet the practical difficulty test. To try and correct this error would be pretty extreme for an existing house. feel that allowing it to continue to an addition meets the findings for variance. Really the rest of my presentation focuses on the height variance which we feel is more is more complex and more difficult in terms of its findings review. Just a quick review of what our height standards are again the second variance is to increase the allowed height along a side yard and I a vertical line, a vertical red line. And so that represents what the allowable height is at a 10 foot setback. On the lower part of the graphic, you can see five, 10, 20 feet. That represents the setback. And then the vertical lines represent how tall the building can be at that setback. So at a 10 foot setback, you're permitted to have a structure that's 24 or home that's 24 feet tall. the side elevation in question that is proposed not to be compliant. Hopefully you can see some green dashed lines on the graphic. That's the existing house. And then obviously you see the architect's drawing for the proposal. So currently the home is compliant. From the gray to the top of the existing home is a little under 20 feet. And the proposed height with the addition is a little under 26 feet, necessitating the variance. This is another view just from the rear. So you can see, again, maintaining those three different roof lines. And the garage is, would stay the same, but then the roof line for the middle portion and then the south portion of the house would be raised to accommodate the addition. And just another image of the front, really the intent of the applicant was to maintain the look of the home. And I think they certainly accomplished that by maintaining the pitch, not really modifying the look and the feel or the character of the home. Now part of a variance analysis in terms of practical difficulty is what alternatives there be to be code complying. And while we feel that the applicant's design is quite logical, they want to maintain the pitch that's existing, they want to maintain the look and the feel of the home, there are alternatives to meet city code and still accommodate addition. So in the staff report and then on the screen, I just identified a few different roof types that could be utilized potentially. to reduce the height at that 10 foot, 9.4 foot setback in order to be within the 23 and change height limit at that reduced setback. So this graphic, which was included in the staff report, again, at a 10 foot setback, your height is limited to 24 feet. Well, the setback here is a little bit less than that. So it's less than 10 feet. So the setback requirement then is 23.4. And you can see an arrow identifying what that is on the elevation. The polygon, the red-shaded polygon, is the area along the elevation that is non-compliant. So it is a relatively small area. One alternative is to simply change the pitch of the roof from going from a 512 pitch, which is there today, have a lower pitched roof. So your overall height is lower. The line on the roof on this particular graphic that I put in is a 312. That's a fairly low pitched roof or just like a prairie style home. It's maybe there could be a 412. I don't have the benefit of having architectural software, so I don't know for certain that would work, but certainly a 312 pitch would work. And you can see the bold black line is below the height limit. alternative is to simply reduce the depth of the addition. By reducing the depth of the addition by a few feet you're essentially or effectively reducing the overall roof height because you're moving the peak of the roof closer to the front of the home. And so in this case in this example by shrinking the addition depth from 14 feet to 10 feet you can still meet the code requirement and and still accommodate addition and the 512 roof pitch. Going over all the findings, to approve a variance, all the findings need to be met. We find that this application meets most of them, but we do not believe that it meets two. The findings C and E, we don't believe are met for the height variance. because we don't feel that the height meets the practical difficulty and unique circumstances test. And we don't feel this would be detrimental to the neighborhood. We think it's a logical design. But ultimately, when we're reviewing variances, we don't focus on, well, is this a big deal? We focus on, does this meet the variance findings that are outlined in city code? And again, we don't feel it meets two of them. So one finding, finding C is essentially the practical difficulties test. And really our review focus on are there code complying alternatives? And yes, they are, there are alternatives, just not consistent with the applicant's preferred design. And so we all feel that finding is not. The other finding is unique circumstances. And, unique circumstances aren't created by the landowner. Well, the existing height is code complying, we know that, and the need for variances is created by their desire for an addition. While there is a little bit of grade on the property, this property really isn't unique relative to the city of Bloomington. There are many properties where you have some topography, you might have an exposed basement or a walkout basement. that doesn't really constitute a unique circumstance that would warrant a variance. With that, again, we are recommending approval of the setback variance to allow the continuation of that reduced setback and to clean up the existing nonconformity, but we are not supportive of the height variance to increase the height along the side yard setback. Questions for staff, Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Centenario, I don't think you said it, but it's possible if you did, and I apologize if you did. If you could go back to the elevation on the addition one or two slides back where you had the measurements. Yeah, 13. Do we now... It's okay. Take your time. or do staff know, you know, trying to decide if it's a, you know, what is and doesn't meet reasonable or not the property owner's fault. What is the, there is a grade change from the front of the house to where the new road point is measured. Do we know what that grade drop is? Madam Chair, Roman, I think a good graphic would be this graphic. It's about 5 feet. You can see the 840 contour down to the 838 contour. Another way we can tell is we can look at the survey. And so we have 839.8 and then down to 834, or I'm sorry, 835.4. So the, yeah, I don't know. that the change in elevation, were it not a change in elevation over that 24 foot period of distance, the height would otherwise be compliant? It would, yes. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? Commissioner Solberg. Just one question here. about how you measure the grade if, as I understand it, again, the ground level, but if that grade were artificially held up by retaining wall, would you be measuring from that level? Madam Chair, Commissioner, so we measure from natural grade. And what that means on a particular site is sometimes it can be to determine. But in this case, the way we measured it here, excuse me, is the architect included what that grade was in the drawing. So that's the grade that we use to do to make the measurements. But if there was some sort of retaining wall, I'd have to look to Glenn and probably ask him a question, hey, Glenn, how do I measure this? But the intent is to always use natural grade when possible. Mr. Markakai? I don't know if you're... Sorry. There we go. Madam Chair, Commissioner Solberg. There is actually language in the height section of the code that talks about that and says that if the grade is artificially increased, then it's again measured from natural grade rather than the artificial increase. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions for staff? Commissioner Goodrum. Madam chair and just, you show the diagram that the height was based on distance or the setback. The numbers we're working with here, are you using that 9.4 setback or are you using a 10 foot setback? Madam chair, commissioner Goodrum. It does make a difference. It does make a slight difference. And so at a true 10 foot setback, that vertical line would be 24 and not 23.4. So the reduce setback reduces the height by 0.6 feet. So if we measured at the 10 foot, would they still need a variance or? Madam Chair Commissioner, they would. Thank you. Other questions for staff? I can only see Commissioner Goder, your hand is still raised. Is the applicant, oh sorry, Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks Madam Chair. Just quick, looking at the last slide with the reduction of, the proposed reduction of the addition to 10 feet, looking at the drawings from before, they were looking for 14 feet. the pitch of the roof consistent with as tall as they can make it, we would effectively remove four feet from the back of the addition. Is that correct? Madam Chair, Commissioner, that's correct. It would require the addition to be smaller. Okay. Thank you. Other questions for staff? I'm not seeing any. Do we know if the applicant is online or if they wish to speak? Madam Chair, I will unmute both the applicant and the architect. Okay, you both are unmuted now. Hello, this is Linda Lang. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Are you ready for me? Yes, I believe we are. Okay, great. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address you tonight. I appreciate all your commitment to Bloomington. I'm requesting your recommendation to the City Council to approve both variances. And I just have some concise, brief comments. And then my architect, Lucas Allen, is also going to speak. My family did move into this house in 1963, and I'm the second owner. My parents chose the lot. the appearance and obtained a variance for the four foot setback on the north property line. I'm asking that you do approve the south property line variance. My neighbors to the south have no objections and I am requesting that you approve that. The big concern, the secondary concern that I have is the roof height. I'm also requesting that you recommend approval of the roof variance, which allows the existing cable roof to face south and replicates the current pitch of all three roofs. This is a unique property. The packet, page 225, shows the front of the house and you saw Mike's pictures of the front of the house. Mike is showing you now, I believe, a picture that I took that's the back of the house. 91.25 Cal. There, I can see it on the television. I had to mute the television. The television is not in sync with the phone I found. So you can see there that from these three roofs on the back that the water drops off these roofs onto the backyard and then goes off into the watershed. You can see that there is a walkout door in the back. I've always heard this property referred to as a walkout. You'll note in this picture that there is a sloping hill between the two properties between my house and the house to the south. I thought the drop off from the front yard to the backyard was about six feet, nine inches. And importantly, the roof variance allowing a south-facing cable, which is currently what is there, will not redirect the water flow onto the side yard. There won't be any channeling of the water. The proposed variance maintains the established water pattern. And I want to show you why this is an important concern to me. The next picture here is a picture that I took in 1987 when Bloomington experienced flooding and Mike is going to show you the 1987 watershed flood picture. That's this one. I took this picture from my backyard, my mother's backyard at that point, my parents' backyard. This shows the water filling the Nine Mile Creek watershed. This picture, Water was so high that it actually crossed above the East property line. So there was just so much water. The flooding actually crossed 90th Street east of France. And the next picture is titled 1987 Flooding Across 90th. And Mike's going to show you that too. There it is. You can see this is France Avenue, the double yellow lines. The water is crossing over France Avenue and in the distance you can see the garages of the now Willows Apartments and the water was there. There was just a lot of water. The water also caused major erosion and the next picture shows my next door neighbor to the south, the property you just saw. It's titled 9133 and 9141 Cal. This is the erosion that is in the property of 9141 so that neighbor next to my neighbor, the other side of my south neighbor. I took this picture. There was so much water that the hills were collapsing, the backyard collapsed. There was this erosion. leaves you with a real sense of insecurity. I truly wish to protect the south side yard between my property on 91.25 cal and 91.33 cal from having additional roof water flowing onto it. Currently it flows off the roofs. They're fine. The water is fine. My neighbor to the south also has a gable facing the side yard so from both properties there's no channeling of the water. And a few more points that I wish to make. You may notice that from the front pictures of the house that Mike showed you and from the architectural pictures that were provided that the front of the house is really quite low. This is in part because the house is a walkout and there's this drop on both sides of the property. There is no one behind our house because of the watershed that you saw. So the increase in the height of my roof is not at all an issue for the neighbors to the south who would be most impacted. They are in favor of both variances. And I believe that none of the other neighbors have responded. all of them that i have talked to no one has raised an objection um keeping the facade is naturally a tribute to the history of this this home it maintains the character of the neighborhood it is a unique three roof structure um on kell avenue from 90th so it has variety and contributes to the appeal of the part of Cal Avenue, which is a cul-de-sac itself. The variance will not harm the neighborhood or Bloomington. And the reason that I need a variance for the height is really has to do with a unique character of the property, the side yard drainage, the walkout of it, So I am not asking for an excessively tall house in the neighborhood. There are many houses, as Mike has told you, the code permits taller houses, and I'm not asking for a house that does not fit into the neighborhood. So with those comments, I'm going to turn it over to my architect and ask that he provide any additional comments. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, I'm Lucas Alham. I've been working with Linda on the project. I think, like she said, it's really important for her to sort of keep the historic look and feel of the house to maintain the existing drainage and to really look at the topography behind the house as being very unique. I think the fact that it opens onto a really steep hill onto the watershed, I think is definitely a unique feature of the house and of this neighborhood. And I think part of the reason that the topography does drop so much is because of that. I think from the front of the house, as Ben said, I think the addition and the increased roof height really doesn't make that much of a visual impact. I also wanna add too that we are re-insulating the entire roof. Right now the roof is under insulated because of the way it's built. And so we're gonna be adding, it's called an energy heal truss to bring the roof insulation up to code. So it's our R50 insulation on the roof. And we felt that that was important to bring that insulation and that thermal kind of efficiency to the building as well too. So again, I agree with what Linda said and I kind of lend my support to her various requests. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant or the architect? I am not seeing any hands raised. Is there any public comment on this? Madam Chair, nobody has called in during the meeting and nobody preregistered so we have nobody to comment. All right. So then with that, do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Commissioner Goldson? So moved to close the public hearing. Commissioner Albrecht? Second. Moved by Commissioner Goldsman, second by Commissioner Albrecht. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And an aye from me, so motion passes 6-0. Moving on to discussion. Is there anyone who wants to start us off? Commissioner Roman. Sure seeing no one else is chomping at the bit. I am in agreement with the staff on the setback variance on the side yard. I think that is, you know, it's an existing condition. it would not be inconsistent to extend that. So I don't have a problem with that. The second one, I know the staff have said they were not able to make findings in C and E. I guess for me, E, I have a little bit easier time finding. I think the natural grade from front to back of the house is not the property owners doing or it's out of their control. And they aren't the ones who built the house. And if someone, when they built the house, had filled and filled there 50 years ago, it would be pretty hard to prove that that was the natural grade. So E, I can get to. C, I am having a hard time with. And the reason I'm having a hard time with it is I understood the idea of keeping the roof lines and whatnot. But when we look at the view from the garage side facing in, the garage roof line now doesn't match the other two roof lines after an addition. So, you know, it's one thing to have that roof line appear from the front, which can be done in a different pitch of a roof with a longer run in the back. So C, I'm having a harder time getting to that. So I'll be interested to hear what others have to say. Commissioner Solberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would agree with Commissioner Roman. Looking at this, I think the grade is the house is where it is, and that isn't necessarily the plight of the landowner. My house is on a flat lot, and so I think there's something unique to say about a property that has a walkout, even though there may be a large number of them in the city. However, the other side is it is complying now, and it is the and the choice of roof line that is creating the need for the variance. While I certainly do understand the concerns about runoff and drainage, there are certainly many different ways to account for that, even with kind of run of the mill architectural details and within And so unfortunately I can't support this application as it is before us. Commissioner Goldstein. Thanks Madam Chair. I would agree with the staff's recommendation for the first item on the 10 feet to 9.4 feet, obviously correcting something that was put in place when the house was built. It would be very difficult. And I think it's consistent with the other deviations or variances that we've given in the past. You know, something that hit home, we've had similar requests from residents about additions or modifications to homes. And actually, Commissioner Roman made a comment of it's our... as commissioners not to make an opinion, but it's really to interpret the city code and the intent of the city code. And I would agree with the staff recommendation of the height variance of the roof line. I think that The intention from the applicant makes sense, but unfortunately in the way that the code is written, and to ensure that we're not setting precedence and it's a slippery slope, I cannot approve the second recommendation for the roof height. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll keep my comments brief, I just wanna echo what Commissioner Goldsman said, I agree. And I, yeah, I can support the first resolution and not the second, or not the second request. All right. Any other discussion? Otherwise, would someone like to make a motion? Commissioner Solberg. Chair, in case PL 2020-31, having been able to make the required findings, I move to recommend City Council adopt a resolution proving a variance to reduce the side yard setback from 10 feet to 9.4 feet at 9125 Kell Avenue South. Commissioner Goldsman. Second. Moved by Commissioner Solberg, seconded by Commissioner Goldsman. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum. Aye. Commissioner Solberg. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. That is an aye from me. Motion passes six zero. Moving on to the second item. Is there anyone who would like to make a motion? Commissioner Goldsman? Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair. Case PL2020-31, having been unable to make the required findings C and E in section 2.85.04 G1 of the city code, I move to recommend city council adopt a resolution denying a variance to increase the height of a single family residence from 23.4 feet 26 feet at 9125 Kel Avenue South. Commissioner Albrecht. Second. Moved by Commissioner Goldsman, seconded by Commissioner Albrecht. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum. Aye. Commissioner Solberg. Aye. Commissioner Goldsman. Aye. Commissioner Roman. Aye. Commissioner Albrecht. Aye. And that is an aye from me. motion passes 6-0. These will both move on to the May 18th City Council meeting. Now moving on to item 6, can we have the staff report please? Yes, Madam Chair, let me invite Jason Schmidt back before you. I believe he has a presentation. Jason, do you have any slides? You're muted. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Planning Manager Markegaard, if I could be able to share my screen. Good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. As another way of introduction, I am Jason Schmidt, representative from the Port Authority. And tonight I will be presenting on a proposed tax increment financing district for the Rosa apartment development, and also an additional amendment on an omission that was inadvertently omitted on the affordable housing plan went before the Planning Commission on March 19th. Also on the phone, if there are any technical questions, we do have Tom Genoway from Baker Tilly, who is the city's court authority and HRA's financial consultant. And so, based on state statute, so tonight, planning commission's authority with regards to TIF plans is strictly to make sure that they conform to the general plan for the development of the city as a whole. And so to kind of give you just an overview as to what is actually entailed within that TIF plan, kind of their development proposal, as well as the TIF requirement, I'll go ahead and do that now before getting to the actual conformance of how it is conforming to the comprehensive plan. As previously stated, the Planning Commission was presented this development proposal and entitlements on March 19th by Planner Centenario. The development team is the Rosa Development Company. They are also on the telephone as well, Kristen Muir, Julie Kimball, and Bill Griffith for any questions later on in the presentation. What this development proposal outlines, they're looking to build a 183 apartment complex. with which 37 of those units, 20% will be affordable at the 50% area median income. Overall, the site is about 2.9 acres. And right now, after talking with the applicant today, it looks like they most likely will be targeting a spring 2021 construction timeline, just currently with the unknown market of the stay at home the type of construction impact that could have on a fall construction date. Just some quick renderings for the public and for the record. This is just kind of looking at the project north on American Boulevard and 494 would be at the top of the screen. This would be the proposed building that is etched here in the middle. Here's a rendering along American Boulevard. another rendering looking at the west elevation. And so staff has been working with the applicant from the beginning on this project, reviewing their performance analysis. And overall, after all of the opportunity housing incentives that were granted, so everything from a reduction in parking, reduction in storage space, additional secondary materials and other The total project costs for this development is right around $47 million. However, looking at kind of their pro forma and the income stream on this project, it still was noted that they did have a significant gap to make this financial gap to make this project work. It is the port authorities decision as well as staffs to look at assisting them in this project by both creating a housing TIF districts and being able to capture that TIF increment for as well as using some of the pooled TIF money that we have from the Mall of America Administrative and Reserve Fund TIF. And so overall, the project ratio, a public-private ratio that we're looking at is about 20% of public dollars going in versus 80% of private dollars going in. And overall, the total project costs of public subsidy as a percentage of the total is 16%. So I explained in item three and what you guys had approved there, the commission had approved in that item, this TIF district, so the TIF district 1J, which is being classified as the rows of development, is being located within the project area of the industrial development district number one, which ultimately is the self loop district. This district was created back in 1981, and this will be ultimately be the 10th district incorporated within this project area. How tax increment financing works, just a quick overview. It's a method to basically capture the tax growth that is resulting from new developments. So any of the increment captured goes to pay for public costs as well as TIF-eligible costs related to the development. The next term for that capture is set for the housing TIF that is 26 years, the maximum that it can be open. And just to make sure that it's clear, the property owner still pays property taxes on the full development. It's just how those taxes are divided up. So as this screen shows, the total property taxes are still allocated to taxing jurisdictions based on the base value. And any of the taxes that were calculated based on the increment of the property value is what is captured and used to repay those TIF eligible costs. Once the TIF district is terminated, either after that 26 year period or this development has reached the total tax increment, at that time, the district is terminated but all of the taxes collected are then calculated out to the various taxing jurisdictions. So as I'd stated in the beginning statutory requirements are outlined as to how cities and port authorities can create a TIF district and pursuant to that, there are multiple items that have to be followed with which the port authority and the city council will review at upcoming meetings. Tonight, the planning commission is tasked with making sure that the TIF plans conform to the general plans for the development of the city as a whole. And that is the resolution that you will be acting on. And so how is that, how are their plans in conformance? And so as I'd stated, you've already approved their zoning entitlements because that, project is guided self loop mixed use, as well as it is zoned high intensity mixed use with residential. Both of those guidelines are following with the multifamily development that they are proposing. In addition, the plans also key in on two major goals of the comprehensive plan, which was just adopted recently by providing a range of housing choices. as well as providing affordable housing to serve local demand, specifically looking at the 50% area median income. And so as I previously stated, this project is hitting at 37 units at the 50% area median income. And looking at as far as what the demand is for the city based on the HRA's 2017 Maxfield housing study, that stated that there was a demand for 319 units by at rent levels of 50% or below. To give you an idea, these numbers here are the HUD 2019 income limits by household size. So as an example, if you have a household size of three and you have an income that's less than $45,000, you would be able to qualify for one of the affordable units in this project. Rent levels are established based on a Metropolitan Council. So in this scenario, if that family of three decided they wanted to rent a two bedroom, the maximum rent that they would be paying would be $1,125 based on the 2019 rent levels. The Met Council has not released 2020 levels at this point. Just a quick breakdown, they're proposing 12 units, The efficiency 17 in one bedroom, seven two bedroom and one in the three bedrooms for the affordable units. Next steps, if the planning commission does move forward and approves the resolution tonight, it would go, the TIF plan would be at a public hearing at the city council on May 18th for consideration. And then at the June port authority meeting, they would consider action on the TIF plan as well as development agreement. And as I'd stated in the beginning, back on March 19th, as part of the application process that went through the Planning Commission, the Opportunity Housing states that if a project receives a deviation for the parking code, should provide one free parking space for each affordable unit. However, that is a standard that is in the OHO, but the community development director or designee has the opportunity to waive that requirement as part of the affordable housing plan. And in this project, that waiver was granted by the community development director. However, that affordable housing plan that did go before the Planning Commission on March 19th that was in your packet failed to call out that waiver. And so staff kind of went back and forth as to how do we make sure to remedy this? Because the parking fee really is a financial decision. And so this is where the Port Authority will be analyzing that and making sure that compliance and everything will be within the development agreement. However, because the Affordable Housing Plan before the Planning Commission and it omitted that error, we wanted to remedy that issue with you. And that's why we decided to include it on this item. And so, the reason why the Community Development Director approved this waiver, one, it did come down to financials to make sure that this project can move forward and still be able to meet, hopefully, a market return. Right now, this project will be adding 37 affordable units at the 50% AMI. That is the ultimate goal of the opportunity housing ordinance is to make sure that we are hitting these various rent levels throughout the city. And so that's a major number one item. In addition, this project is located less than a quarter of a mile from the transit stop of the blue line. That transit stop, The train can take you directly to downtown Minneapolis connecting on the Green Line into St. Paul. Or you could actually take it also to the Mall of America Transit Station, which has multiple connecting bus routes throughout the metro area. We also looked at it as far as if we did add the rent plus the parking fee, what that total cost would be. The applicant is looking at charging $75 per space. percentage of the 50 area median income is right around the 30 to 35 percent affordability um in a lot of terms equates to 30 or less of a person's income um when you do add transportation into that so both housing and transportation a lot of the studies are saying that that equates to about 45 percent um and so i i did not calculate in any additional transportation costs or calculations of owning a vehicle into my 30 to 35 percent. But if you would add that in and it was an additional 10 to 15 percent you would get within that range. In addition even with the financial assistance the package that the Port Authority is offering this project is still below market rate of return on the projected numbers. And So the applicant is aware of that. They're analyzing things and trying to value engineer as much as they want with this project, but still be able to deliver a project that they feel meets their needs. And so as I previously stated, this parking waiver and the affordable housing plan will be recorded as part of the development agreement in the attachment and will lay out those guidelines. So the way we're looking to rectify this omission on the affordable housing plan was basically to have the planning commission make a motion to acknowledge this waiver. So as I previously stated, the parking fee at opening will be 75% or excuse me, $75 per space. In addition, within the development agreement, we will be looking to add additional language that any parking incentives would be equal across both the market and affordable units. This gets into, you know, if they're having a hard time leasing up or want to add any promotions, they can offer, you know, free parking space with a year lease or 50% parking space, et cetera. In addition, we're going to cap how the annual increase of that parking fee at no more than 2.5% annually. And just to kind of show you again, back on March 19th, the proposed parking deviation that was approved was a 28.2% reduction from the total required. of the 261 spaces, they will be having about 237 of those underground with about 25 both on a surface parking lot as well as at the adjacent on street parking. And so with that, staff is recommending both two motions, one to approve the attached resolution, basically to conform, make sure that the TIF plans conform to the comp plan. The motion number two is to go ahead and approve the consent of the affordable housing plan waiver on the parking fee. And with that, I'm open for any questions. Any questions? I'm not seeing Commissioner Goldstein. Thanks, Madam Chair. One, just clarifying, for the parking fee that includes both underground as well as service lot parking, correct? Madam Chair, Commissioner Goldsman, the parking fee is strictly for underground spaces. The surface parking will be opened to anyone. Currently the development team and the management team kind of analyzing how they will be enforcing any overnight parking. If it will be open to tenants or guests or employees, how that will all work out. They're still analyzing those policies. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Goodrum. Thanks Madam Chair. I guess I could, we had an earlier proposal for affordable housing and there, we were recommending that the applicant can no longer charge for parking. This request we're saying it's okay for these development to charge for parking. Can you walk me through the differences or why those two different actions? Sure, Madam Chair, Commissioner Goodrum. The staff had analyzed this on all projects. And so just trying to look back, looking at the two adjacent projects that were recently approved by the Port Authority, you have the Indigo project, that one with regards to affordability, in order to make that project work, that one only has eight units of affordable at section eight and they have to meet those requirements. the indigo project excuse me the friendly project which is currently underway um in order to make that project financially work be feasible the affordability component on that was only um 10 of the units affordable at the 80 ami level and uh parking the parking fee was included in that uh looking at the rosa project as well uh the rents were just not there with regards to the uh the financial package that was being able to be offered as well as the rents that this project can can get to get a higher rate of return on the project that you analyzed in item number two tonight with the village club that project is is utilizing multiple financial streams that they're using both the affordable housing trust fund dollars they're using the tax credit program dollars, as well as they're using housing TIF. As the commission analyzed and went back and forth, that project also is not providing as much underground structured parking as this project is. And so overall, that's pretty much the reason why we're, we're providing two different analysis recommendations on that project or on the projects. Any other questions? Seeing no other hands raised, is the applicant on the line and do they wish to speak? Hi, good evening. Thanks, Jason, and thanks for all of the work that you've put into this project. My name is Julie Kimball. I'm a development consultant on the ROSA team. As Jason mentioned, Kristen Muir, the developer and landowner is on the phone, as well as Bill Griffith of Larkin Hoffman, who is providing legal representation. We were before you not too long ago for the project's development approvals, and we did note at that meeting that but for city assistance, the project would not be able to move forward. And so we're here tonight with this request and we're available for any questions you may have. Any questions? I am not seeing any hands raised. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak for the applicant or for Rosa development? I mean, hearing anyone? Do we have any public testimony? Madam Chair, we do not. All right. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? Commissioner Solberg? Motion to close the public hearing. Commissioner Goldsman? Second. Moved by Commissioner Solberg, seconded by Commissioner Goldsman. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And that is an aye from me. Motion passes 6-0. Moving on to discussion. Commissioner Goldsman? Madam Chair, I'll start. So in the first motion, I think the addition of the TIF and development plan makes sense. It does meet our comprehensive plan of adding lower income housing to the city. So I would be in support of the first motion. I'm struggling with this parking fee and making it so that at some locations we are requiring free parking while in other locations we are okay with charging a fee. It seems like there's inconsistencies there and I'm challenged by that. I do appreciate that it would be fair across the board and that the increase year over year would be at a specific rate as well as you know if they wanted to do some type of promotion as well I think I like those and I'm okay with those as options but the inconsistency across different properties is a challenge for me and I'm interested to hear what the other commissioners have to say about that. Commissioner Albrecht. Thank you, Madam Chair. In regards to item number two tonight and the difference between the parking there and the parking here, my understanding is that because of the funding sources in item two, they have a requirement to not charge for parking, whereas in this one, the funding sources are different and the So, from my perspective, I would trust in the community development director's knowledge and insight looking at the developers pro forma and whether or not this project is feasible or not given charging a fee for parking or not for parking. And that's why there's flexibility in this way. in support of motion one and also in support of dropping the requirement or the requirement that the parking is free. Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. On the first motion, given the scope of what our role is, I think that yes, again, the very limited scope that the planning commission has a TIF district, I think that can be supported Motion to, I just, I'm, I'm, I don't know what the word is, but it's appalled, shocked. I don't know. It, it, and the reason is not because we're, someone's asking the charge for parking. I get that parking doesn't build itself, but we are essentially the city through the TIF is essentially paying for all of the affordable units, you know, 7.1 or 7.8, whatever the million dollars is divided by 37 units. just shy of $200,000 a unit in the affordable. And then in spite of that, they're still looking to charge for parking. So had that been all part of a package when it came to us in March? No, not at all. Would that have been something I supported? So I'm happy the project is going forward. And one of the questions in the TIF thing is that development wouldn't occur without the TIF. This is on land that we've put a sunset on. It's not gonna be used for parking after this unless the next planning commission when that interim use permit is up decides to extend it. But the reality is something's going to get built there. I do not begrudge a developer for taking advantage of the TIF that's available. That's why we have that. And this is advancing something that we wanna see there. It's advancing some affordable housing. I have no problem with our TIF dollars going to support affordable housing. We all know that's a woefully under filled need in our community, but the parking piece motion to absolutely not. Will I be supporting that? And I think that been part of our conversation at the time, public financing and parking fee that I have to believe many other than this body would not have agreed with that. Madam Chair, I guess to motion one, I think the pretty clear intent is does it meet or is it consistent with our plan? And I believe that TIF is. Motion two, again, I think here's where I think there's a little bit of work what would we have done a month ago and what did the Opportunity Housing Ordinance establish and the Opportunity Housing Ordinance did establish the flexibility. Making sure we're still on here. The Opportunity Housing Ordinance did establish the flexibility for the Community Development Director, much like Commissioner Roman I don't know that I would have liked the idea had we seen this before that we're public dollars pays for the public housing and then the parking does get a charge. Not really sure where I would have gone with that a month and a half ago to say, and now we're being asked to call that out separately without looking at the whole issue again. Again though, I go back, the opportunity of housing ordinance gives the flexibility. And so I'm really on the fence here with this one, because I don't know what would have happened last month or two months ago. Commissioner Goodrum. Madam Chair, now that one took me by surprise too, especially with the previous application before us. I do recognize through Mr. Schmidt's description that there are a lot of moving parts that go with the financial packages with each of the developments and even the neighboring developments. We looked at those before they were built near this one and the approval that we granted. it does give the community development director that flexibility. I'm trusting that person to be aware of how this affects or looks upon other developments throughout the city. I am a precedent person, meaning that I fear the basis of setting precedents before other projects. We gotta trust the ordinance, the community development director, hopefully our legal team are looking at these, are being able to defend them if issues come up about being fair across the board. So motion one, I could support motion two, like the others I'm on the fence, but I could, I understand why, being requested now better understanding of how the city looks at these. So listen to the other commissioners. Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks Madam Chair. You know, thinking through this, one of the concerns that I have, you know, we talked about underground parking or covered parking and the flexibility for the community development leader. I think I think that makes sense. One concern that I have is just a comment on the surface parking. I would be very, I would be, I don't wanna say that for those units that don't select to pay for underground parking, there needs to be parking available to them, surface parking without a fee. I don't want a resident to be in that lower income unit and then not have a spot anywhere to park their car. So it's just something I would think about is if we do allow this fee to go forward, there should be a parking spot for them to be able to park overnight or keep their vehicle safe. on the property free of charge. Commissioner Roman. Thank you, Madam Chair. And we don't know where the long-term final development, because I think there are other phases in this property. And to Commissioner Goldsman's point, if eventually as the remaining parts of the property develop and it is all underground parking, then where does that leave us? Also building on the comments from Commissioner Solberg and Commissioner Goodrum, they are right, the ordinance does give the community development director the authority to make that exception. And I think that that exception can be made that this body does not have to agree slash approve that. So we are being asked to approve something that was, and again, mistakes happen, I get it. That person does have the authority to do that. That does not mean that we have to endorse that or approve that and set that standard or that precedent. Commissioner Goldstein? Sorry, I forgot to put my hand in. Thank you. Commissioner Silberg? Madam Chair, again, maybe this is a I mean, if they have the authority and the expertise in making these decisions, like a little more clarification why this comes to the planning commission, that seems like it in its own right is setting a different precedent. I'm chair commissioner. I can try to answer that. And so the OHO, the opportunity housing ordinance, as y'all know, it's a newer ordinance that staff is still trying to review. The community development director that helped spearhead this, as you're aware, has left the city and has taken a new position. And so we as staff are trying to pick up how do all of these approvals affect each other? Because the Opportunity Housing Ordinance offers a number of incentives that both affect the financial piece as well as affect your authority as a planning commission to offer additional deviations from code. the way the staff had looked at this item is that parking fees most likely or normally would fall as part of that financial piece. That is how we have handled it in the past with the HRA as well as the planning commission or excuse me, the Port Authority on projects. If they were to charge for parking, we would then state in there exactly the limitations as far as how that had to be spelled out and enforced on a management standpoint. And so with this project, what it is, and I think overall, I mean, the goal of the opportunity housing ordinance has how staff has looked at it is that, you know, the ultimate goal is we wanna provide for affordable units. And, you know, we can do that multiple ways. One is by the opportunity housing ordinance, which requires 9% of the units of any multifamily projects to move forward. Or we can do that also through tax credit programs, which we've saw tonight with the Aon project. With this project, we're dealing with the housing TIF district to allot for 20% of the units at a 50% AMI level. To now even go further than the housing TIF district, we are additionally setting income standards, which normally are not set through the TIF process. And so the real issue, and I think the reason why the Community Development Director at the time placed this flexibility in the code is to kind of set benchmarks with projects that we want to see how affordable projects happen. We wanna make sure that future projects that are financially feasible will provide units at the 50% level, at the 30% level, and some at the 70% level. We wanna make sure that the units are dispersed throughout the building. We wanna make sure that they do offer free parking. However, we understand that not all projects are gonna meet those benchmarks. And so as you saw with the, the Village Club project earlier today, that one is a tax credit program where majority of those units are at affordable rate. Now they're dispersing those income levels. However, it's all at an affordable market of from 80% AMI down to 30%. Whereas this project is interdispersing 50% AMI levels with market rate apartments. make the argument this one is being a little bit more dispersed and dispersing and meeting that goal or that benchmark however we were able to financially offer no parking in that project in the village club the hra was because of the additional financial incentives that went into it because we are tied up with just strictly affordable housing tiff is barely covering the affordable units projects. In addition, the Mall of America TIF fund, we're using additional funds to help bring up the return on investment cost of this project at the low end of a market rate of return. We're right at the point where I think the developer is at a point of, we move forward with the project we're proposing or do we have to go back to the drawing board and scale back a number of the amenities that this project offers and include additional surface parking on this project? And ultimately it was staff's point that we didn't wanna see that happen. We liked the amenities. This got great reviews by both the Port Authority, I think the Planning Commission and City Council when it went through the entitlements. go from there so i also think that the um one of the assistant city attorneys wants to weigh in on this project as well um i'm not sure if she is on the call or not yes hello uh planning commission uh madam chair members of planning commission this is megan rogers calling in i i wanted to just provide a point of clarification um one of the things that I believe I heard Commissioner Roman say was, why are you being called to make this a determination or to vote on this particular segment when the community development director has the authority under the ordinance to approve the plan? And one of the reasons why we made this recommendation is that the structure of the financing for this particular project brought this to light after the entitlements had come to you for your review. And in that context, we want to ensure that, as Jason mentioned, you know, that we retain the affordability for the project and affordability for the unit that the developer is going to build and has promised to build. And so, the way that I see this from a practical perspective is that the additional amount that's charged for the parking related to these with people who may choose to purchase this parking is associated with the financial support that the city is giving to the developer. And in conjunction with that, the developer has made guarantees related to the amount of affordability and what the actual market rate is going to be for those units at the affordable market. to the support of the And so this is a really fact-specific analysis. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions or not seeing any further discussion? Commissioner Goldsman. Thanks, Madam Chair. After hearing from the Port Authority as well as staff and the city attorney, I think I can understand the logic around the parking fees. However, one caveat that I would have is for that surface parking. I want to ensure that those units would have access to some sort of parking for their vehicles if they have that capacity. And I don't know if we need to make that as a clarification in the motion, but that would be a sticking point for me and something that I would not be able to approve unless we made that clarification. Commissioner Goodrum. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate staffs and comments on this issue. I voted for it. I was very supportive when it came to us a couple of months ago, and I still very supportive of the project itself. I think the parking fee issue I brought up is more of a probably more of a zoning question than it is a project question. Just as I was noted by the city attorney on making sure that the city is able to defend or show how it works decisions are made and how they're based. So if there is a challenge that we're not setting unrealistic precedents around the, with each development that comes before us. So with that, I guess I'll be supporting both motions. Thank you. I am also in support of both motions. anyone who would like to make a motion or further discussion? I see Commissioner Goodrum's hand is still up. Sure, I'll start with the motion, the first motion. to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report finding the modification to the amended and restated development plan for the Rosa development project and the TIF plan for district number one dash J located therein to be consistent with the general plan for development of the city of Bloomington. Commissioner Roman. Second. Moved by Commissioner Goodrum, second by Commissioner Roman. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum. Aye. Commissioner Solberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldsman? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. And I have an aye, so motion passes six zero. Commissioner Goodrum? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make the second motion. reviewing the staff report administrative approval of the interim community development director and based on the facts and circumstances presented in the applicant's proposal. I move to approve the affordable housing plan granting the applicant flexibility to charge a parking fee for affordable units. All those in favor are moved by Commissioner Goodrum, seconded by Chair Bennett. All those in favor say aye. Commissioner Goodrum? Aye. Commissioner Solberg? No. Commissioner Goldsman? No. Commissioner Roman? No. Commissioner Albrecht? Aye. That is an aye from me, so it is a split vote 3-3. I don't know what happens. Yeah, Madam Chair, Commissioners, the fact that you had a split vote will be noted in the minutes and passed along to the Council and Port Authority. Thank you. All right, then we have a Item approval of the draft planning commission meeting synopsis from March 5th, 2020. Commissioner Goodrum and Commissioner Albrecht were noted absent from those. Do I have a motion to approve the March 5th, 2020 planning meeting minutes? So moved. Commissioner Roman. Commissioner Roman. Second, Commissioner Solberg. All right. Moved by Commissioner Roman, second by Commissioner Solberg. in favor say aye. Commissioner Sulberg? Aye. Commissioner Goldstein? Aye. Commissioner Roman? Aye. That's an aye from me. Motion passes. That's the end of the May 7th, 2020 Planning Commission meeting. Thank you. The May 14th study meeting is canceled. The next meeting will be on May 21st.