Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names assigned. **Note on Identifications:** * **John Moes:** Identified as the **Acting Chair** of the Planning Commission. He is the only male member of the Planning Commission listed who would be addressed as "Mr. Chairman" in the absence of the Chair (Melanie Peters). * **John Hinzman:** Explicitly identified as the Community Development Director giving the reports. * **Chris Jenkins:** Explicitly identified as the Parks and Recreation Director. * **Bryan Braun:** Addressed as "Mr. Brown/Braun" by the Chair. Although listed under Public Safety in the provided context, he is the individual participating in this Planning Commission discussion. *** [0:00] Acting Chair John Moes: three regular meeting called meeting to order we have commissioner Haber commissioner McGrath absent and commissioner Peters not here currently we do not have a quorum at this point so we're just going to continue on with the agenda okay approval of the minutes we will table that until the next meeting or until commissioner Peters arrives to look at that so public hearing will open the public hearing up this is to amend city code chapter 154 Park dedication fees and John Hinzman with the report [0:45] John Hinzman: okay thank you Mr chairman planning Commissioners so I'm going to give a brief introduction here on what we're looking to do tonight we have an amendment before us to chapter 154 of the city code pertaining to the subdivision ordinance as part of the subdivision ordinance we have a requirement that Park dedication be completed upon the subdivision of a new property so it's kind of an unusual thing that it's under a land use control but really falls under Park and Recreation jurisdiction on the application end of it so when we have a subdivision come forward we will make a recommendation or the Park and Recreation Commission will make a recommendation as to how Park dedication is to be satisfied and generally it's done in one of two ways it's done with physical land that's dedicated or it's done where as what we term cash in lieu of land which is a payment with no physical land dedicated what we've had in place right now is a system that has [1:30] John Hinzman: not been updated for at least 15 years and at that 15-year Mark we did some configurations on how the amounts of the cash in lieu of land amount were factored but really nothing else so it's been some time since we have looked at this one Chris Jenkins our Park and Recreation director is here he has spent some time looking at this from a different perspective than what we have presently in our code has worked together with our Committees of council and as well as the City attorney to draft a new version of our Park dedication fees so we have before you tonight is as a presentation on that action we have before you tonight is to hold the public hearing on the ordinance [2:16] John Hinzman: Amendment and then provide any discussions or feedback at this point since we we do not have a quorum we wouldn't be able to make a formal recommendation but we certainly can pass along comments to the city council so I'll leave over to Chris [2:37] Chris Jenkins: thanks John Commissioners as John said Chris Jenkins the Parks and Recreation director here in Hastings and as John referenced the park dedication fees or Park dedication the ordinance has not changed since 2004 if memory serves correct um and at that time it was adjusted uh kind of in a very basic form it it took into account the current fair market value of undeveloped residential land and generally grabbed 10 percent as the reasonable estimate of physical land that could be dedicated at any rate we have gone through almost 20 years now without updating [3:22] Chris Jenkins: this ordinance and or land dedication and fees that come along with it and as John mentioned there's two different ways physical land dedication or cash and Liu there's also the combination of those two Parks and Recreation Commission makes a recommendation city council ultimately decides what that will be um what we have done is looked at a variety of different ways to calculate Park dedication needs for our community and what this ordinance does it really ties the park dedication to Hasting specific data from one instance we have 700 Acres of Parkland we have 22 303 People based on the 2021 [4:10] Chris Jenkins: census estimates from met Council so that equates to a certain number of acres per person right so that's the level of service that Hastings provides for Parklands period and we're unique in that we're not going to be the same as Cottage Grove we won't be the same as Apple Valley we won't be the same as Cannon Falls so this is very very specific to Hastings we just happen to have a lot of parks and a lot of Park acres and I think our residents know that and they choose to to be here for some of those reasons their state statute that you have to follow Park dedication funds can only be used for the acquisition of Park Lanes the development of Parklands the [4:55] Chris Jenkins: Redevelopment of Parklands to include Trails Naturals natural and open spaces and the traditional Parks playgrounds ball fields those sorts of things it can also be used for planning purposes specifically related to those those land items all of those funds that are collected from developers go into a dedicated fund can only be used for those purposes so really what we've done with this formula is taking that Hasting specific data and here's a formula it's very transparent and it's very specific to Hastings um we've also hired we did hire a land appraisal company to give us a study that studied [5:41] Chris Jenkins: residential developable land in Hastings ultimately turns into three categories low density medium density and high density and they put together some values based on that that's in the study staff eventually will come to city council with a recommendation on on what we think is is reasonable within that but we have that data set as well there's a lot that goes into it I've been wrapped up in it for over 10 years now um so I can probably answer a lot of questions if you have them but I often leave out things because I've been so wrapped up into it for so many years and looked at it from a variety of different angles so with that I can answer any questions that you might have or at least do my best [6:27] Acting Chair John Moes: okay thanks this is a public hearing so we'll go ahead and and uh go with that first is there anyone here that wishes well up in the public hearing first of all is there anyone here that wishes to speak anyone are we using Zoom today we're not using Zoom okay so we will close the public hearing and Commissioners questions comments for Chris [6:55] Commissioner Bryan Braun: thank you Mr chair so what if I buy buying 100 acres of land or developing 100 acres land walk me through the process of how we charge somebody for that dedication piece this this proposal [7:13] Chris Jenkins: um so the first factor that we know is again the 700 Acres of current park lands in Hastings the number of acres per person that equates to which is .0314 I think okay that's sitting in a different place and then the average number of people that live in a household in Hastings is 2.37 so we do some multiplication and then we take the fair market value the estimated fair market value of that land and multiply it out by the number of people and our by the number of dwelling units [7:53] Commissioner Bryan Braun: okay 10 years from now are we going to have more than 700 Acres will that number go up [7:59] Chris Jenkins: yes but the ratios will stay the same because we're adding as no uh what's been proposed in here by the City attorney is that we review this every three years at a minimum okay so we stay with real-time data uh we're able to adjust to markets whichever way they go right if land sales prices Skyrocket we need to be able to adjust to that if they plummet we need to be able to adjust to that if we have a mass Exodus of Hastings we got to be able to adjust for that if you have this Mass influx adjust to that okay so there's things in here that will help us so we don't have to wait 15 years to [8:39] Commissioner Bryan Braun: okay yeah um oh it sounds like a much needed change of what we have and you probably spend a lot of hours on it so I appreciate that [8:46] Chris Jenkins: too many and my favorite part about this is that it is very transparent and it's based in data right right original fields in it right it's not me saying this is what I think we need to get and if a developer does challenge particularly if they want to challenge the fair market value estimate then they can hire an appraiser and have that piece of land appraised and then that's what gets inserted [9:11] Commissioner Bryan Braun: okay thank you thank you Mr chair [9:18] Acting Chair John Moes: thank you so essentially what it does is it now quantifies the calculation versus just an arbitrary number under the current ordinance [9:25] Chris Jenkins: yep [9:27] Acting Chair John Moes: Mr Braun do you have any other questions or comments [9:32] Commissioner Bryan Braun: um yeah so to your last point things change out in the world leadership whoever you know um thinks we need to make a change this also seems to give us more future flexibility too like you said to kind of react to Market changes needs changes wants possibly future changes um right [9:52] Chris Jenkins: yeah yeah it provides us flexibility and having that mandate to review it every three years at least um is a very good starting point very good starting point [10:04] Commissioner Bryan Braun: um one follow-up so as far as the review process itself would that be staff review and then you'd bring it back to a Planning Commission Council again just kind of uh scheduled three-year here's our update this is what we saw this is how we're going to change or not at all right [10:19] Chris Jenkins: okay yeah that would be the routine um and then if again if we become aware of drastic changes in any of these data points we're going to talk about that internally we might propose to bring something earlier [10:33] Commissioner Bryan Braun: okay yeah when you do a side by side comparison of the current ordinance and the proposal very apparent how this one makes much more sense because any future developer can come in and say ah I see that's where this number comes from rather than just where'd that come from so that makes perfect sense I wish there's any other questions comments [11:05] Acting Chair John Moes: all right and again we don't have a quorum today so we won't be taking any action on this particular item so um would we then table it or just what would I'd see [11:15] John Hinzman: yeah what I'd suggest at this point is just we will bring the comments forward to the city council Our obligation was to review it and to hold the public hearing which we did tonight and since we can't technically make a recommendation we'll forward comments to the city council okay and then we'll re-look at this again and and then when this would come back in three years we would go through an amendment process or a review process because you know some of these figures here with a number of Park land and population the city are always going to change over time so we're going to need to to plug those in at a minimum and then take a look as to how this has been working you know other adjustments that need to be made but as Chris pointed out I I like the system in which this is done we basically take uh what we're what we provide for Park and carry that obligation forward in that same measure to other properties where what we have right now we're we're taking some estimates on on what we should do and a lot of it's based upon the acreage of the property being subdivided and since we're in a situation right now where we're seeing apartments and we're seeing smaller lots that has a it has a a uh an effect on our product dedication which is just is compounded because you've got more people and less land [12:37] Commissioner Bryan Braun: got it absolutely makes sense [12:43] Commissioner Bryan Braun: yeah and then and then on that the last question that I um just thought of was to your point if it's higher density or smaller lot development this gives us the lever to pull that we can then make improvements say nearby right or something else in the comprehensive plan where it's more of a community benefit right rather than falling behind [13:00] John Hinzman: sure be sure taken [13:03] Commissioner Bryan Braun: thank you for sure I just want to my comment would be that I would be voting for this if we could vote tonight so I want to pass that on to the city council [13:17] Acting Chair John Moes: okay same all right and same for me too so [13:20] John Hinzman: okay yes I will I will put along the uh the support of those present tonight yes we support it we'll coach it in that fashion thank you [13:23] Acting Chair John Moes: all right so uh what happens mere folks is we will take the first reading will be before city council I think on June 5th and then second reading on the 24th because we got some scheduling we're doing some different scheduling in in June which I'll share with the council or the Planning Commission later on here okay all right Chris thanks and thanks for being here appreciate it bye have a great night you guys you too all right under other actions Community Development annual report John [14:00] John Hinzman: well thank you Mr chair planning Commissioners uh sharing with you tonight there's it on my screen summary of our community development annual report which we have within your packets here as you know in 2022 we had a pretty busy year uh we had a lot of construction that occurred there was a lot of items that came before the Planning Commission that are now projects that are in the ground so I wanted to highlight a few things tonight when we take a look at overall development within the city in 2022 we had a 176 new building permits 41 million dollars in new valuation so that's you know quite an increase from what we've seen before commercial industrial size we had 161 permits and a substantial increase in that valuation as well when we look at what the Planning Commission reviewed last year and what's in the ground we have the current 33 Apartments which is now under construction down on 33rd Street in Vermilion there'll be 211 units all together with this project the first building is now under construction the second building has already been permitted through our review and we hear that that might begin construction later on this year so that's great to see next door to that we've got the sweet living senior apartment complex which is right next to it on the corner at 33 million 32 units of assisted and Memory Care all the approvals were granted last year and we believe that construction will start this year as well on that project and then we had a larger transformation of Lake Isabel flats near the UBC lumber yard this so a application and a project that involved a few different entities here our hedger board was involved in buying the old UBC site holding that property for a number of years and Desiring developments similar to what we have here which is a 89 unit apartment building so we kind of see the before picture here of one of the old buildings on the site old storage building and what we're seeing under construction right now so Planning Commission went through reviewed this it was a an interesting project because of its proximity next to existing residential area and the fact that it's a large apartment complex near the downtown so with the addition of this project here and the Confluence we're going to have quite a change to downtown over the next year by the end of this year I should say with that opening up in the next couple of months and then this opening up by Year's End we're going to have a lot more people and a lot more activity within the downtown area also took a look at some other items with Planning Commission Heritage Ridge fourth edition which was the last phase of single family and villalot homes near General sieben Drive and Fallbrook Drive so that continues construction I think at this point they've had permits now for half of the 116 Lots or either have permits and probably 30 40 people already moved in there so that continues to chug along KFC we approve the site plans last year building permit has been approved has been picked up by the developer and we're just waiting on a start date and that's one thing we get a lot of questions on is when will that be constructed we've approved it all and they have everything in hand to start so hopefully we'll be hearing that soon therapy Ops is under construction near Westview and South Frontage Road that's uh occupational speech Physical Therapy Clinic that should be opened up in the next couple of months and then we had an interim use permit for United hero league as well the Planning Commission also took a look at a couple code amendments last year pertaining to use of larger historic buildings and providing flexibility to parking as well it's kind of a rundown of what we did for permits for last year taking a look at 22 versus 21 on the single family we're pretty comparable on that one we did have uh about the same number of multi-families too we had a lot more manufactured homes the area that we have in uh on the south end of town south of 31st Street that Three Rivers Mobile Home Park had about 50 or 60 lots available when a new company bought that a couple years ago and most of those have been filled up now which is great to see on the commercial industrial side similar types of things this valuation we have here for uh commercial industrial 129. I did recheck that and a slight air on that one it's probably about 13 million I added one too many zeros but still quite an increase over last year looking at the building permits over the last 15 years you can see where we're at today this is the highest number we've been at since over the last 15 years we look historically Beyond there in the mid 2000s 2003 2004 we're around 300 permits or you know that that's where we've been at historically but you can see since about 2015 2014 we've we've we've had an increase a lot of this as you can see from the purple is being by our apartment our units that are over 10 plus our single family here is the blue which has been fairly steady and then the mobile homes which is a little more unpredictable so what we do is we take a look at our lot inventory what do we have right now that people can build on what do we have that might be in the hopper where people have some approvals in what's out there within a comprehensive plan so taking a look at our existing light inventory right now this is what we have we've got about uh about 135 lots available right now that someone could build on today when you take a look at our annual number of permits the last 10 years that's about 30 so generally at that Trend we've got about a four year supply of land which is you usually like to have at least three in there so if you get too much below that one the market is a little bit different towards that landed the construction drives prices up which in a market like this with interest rates going up and prices going up we don't need anything else going up so that's what we've cut for availability the town almost kind of a string section right now we haven't had anything within the last 15 years we got a few lots that have been there for a number of years but nothing new with that annexation project that we looked at last year the concept plan with with that brought much more town homes in so that might happen I've also there's also two other plans in which I'm talking to folks right now which would be town home projects so we may see more of that coming in over the next year or two and considering the uh the available the price of homes and the affordability the more affordability Town Homes offer I think we'll be seeing more of that as we come forward had a lot more apartments that have come forward the last couple years you see here we've got about 461 units all together with that so that's a number that uh We've it seems to fluctuate seems like we'll have a boom of apartments for a number of years of the knot we're definitely in that boom period right now and taking a look at existing or plan development these are phases in which we've had some approvals but they need to come back to gain final approvals for we've got another 176 single-family homes 48 town homes and 320 Apartments so there is a room within the next few years if developers desire to bring even more in and then we get more into the crap shoot here which is the potential development taking a look at our comprehensive plan and trying to calculate out what we could have for units in there so we've got plenty of property that could be developed so we're not in a situation in which we're out of land to develop we've got land that's adjacent to us within the townships that can be annexed in provided we've got a developer and a landowner that would seek to do that hendril I also have a few things on hedra they had a facade Improvement grant program they did last year which they leveraged about forty four thousand dollars and ten projects throughout the city this is one of the projects downtown that was helped out from them no this is in the wrong place the estimated land Supply so this is kind of a summary of what I looked at before also had a revolving Loan Fund that we have that we issued to spiral Foods last year for about seventy thousand dollars in assistance to make their improvements as I mentioned earlier that the Confluence should be open in the next couple months here I haven't had a formal open date from them but they're chugging away I was in there last week they're doing finishing work on a lot of the things within the apartments cabinetries and within the hotel units a lot of those are almost complete and they're doing some of the finishing work to a bar and restaurant area so it seems like that's a reasonable time frame that they've established on that so we will have that happening this year which will add to the Vitality in the downtown and hopefully more Redevelopment things to come forward in the future then I was able at a plug-in here for open to business program which provides free entrepreneurial assistance and also Gap loan Finance if there was uh 165 000 granted to Hastings businesses last year to help with gap financing so we have have that going on looking into the future here with these projects going on what we've got going on in the future as you know we had the annexation approved down on 316 Michael we predict that that is going to come forward with the site plan and planning hopefully later around this year that's a 450 plus units that would be coming forward so we'll be looking at the eaw that later on this summer and then some of the land use entitlements I believe in the summer or fall so that could be a a large number of units coming online the homes for that maybe 20 24 at the earliest probably 20 25 and up so we've got those in the hopper we've been having other conversations with individuals that are seeking infield developments for for town homes and and other items as well as conversations we've had with individuals that are seeking potentially annexation of new lands elsewhere within town so what we have under construction is great what we have in the hopper is good as well and the conversations that I'm having with folks that are looking at Future development is very good so Trends are there that we're in a good place right now we're also working on a couple of long-term items right now the Vermillion Street uh plan from MnDOT in which they're planning reconstruction of the entire roadway in 2027 where we'll be finishing up the uh the public process of that and be bringing that project document forward the plan forward to Council in the next month or so and with that we're planning on some some Redevelopment along 61. Pedro has bought the properties between fourth and 5th Street on the west side of 61 including the old Rivertown Liquors building the old country Knights building an old home and we're closing on the Dick's Barber Shop building at the end of the month with the Dick's Barber Shop building you won't see much change to that in the next couple years we have a lease back that we're doing with the present tenants the barber shop and the in the residential tenants so they'll stay put for the next couple of years and then at that point we'll be making decisions on Redevelopment of that we'll likely be looking at a project per over a million Street guidelines which would have commercial on the bottom residential on top of that one so we're filling filling in some of the boxes there on the Redevelopment side so appreciate the time and effort that the commission has given over the last year and more to come with the decisions and contemplations they have with new development so I can stand for any questions [25:41] Acting Chair John Moes: okay thanks John commissioner anyone I just I was when I was reviewing this page 10 kind of stuck out at me we don't review building permits here permission but still page 10 was pretty eye-opening on the reinvestment that people are making in their existing homes it has to be not to be understated either especially in terms of evaluation so that's a good sign leads me to believe that people are you know reinvesting in their homes and staying in Hastings I thought that was pretty impressive it's on page 10 if you're looking at it pretty consistent between last year well this year was yeah [26:41] John Hinzman: the only big change we had from last year we it was uh there was a new it was an energy requirement last year that required people to switch out uh I forgot what it was thermostats or some other electrical device which led to you know a tripling of our our electrical permits for very small little items last year so that was kind of an anomaly [27:03] Acting Chair John Moes: and so on page 12 that potential development chart those are the um informal talks that you've been having with different entities [27:14] John Hinzman: yeah the ones that are showing here are actually there's been some approvals granted by Council and Planning Commission like for Glendale Heights for example we approved the subdivision years ago however there's one lot left in which uh I think a 40 unit apartment building could be constructed so that would have to come back for site plan to do it but we've given some initial approval so that's generally what that list is is there's been some approvals granted by Planning Commission Council but there's still another step of of approvals necessary priority construction [27:54] Acting Chair John Moes: sure okay all right because you're taking or abroad or anyone comments questions [28:01] Commissioner Bryan Braun: very impressive [28:03] Acting Chair John Moes: I'll see somebody yeah I was going to say the same thing like looking back we did a lot yeah there's a none of my things my memory must be fading because I don't remember the stuff until you bring it up I'm like oh yeah that happened that happened so it's great to see that this uh the city continues to thrive and renew itself but I think the fellow Commissioners for helping that [28:34] John Hinzman: and what do you think of the process it any kind of a plan undergoes from the very first time the application is made to fruition a lot of people did that happen staff you know commissions city council you name it so very impressive [28:47] John Hinzman: no problem at all so as far as other business goes gentlemen we've got a meeting scheduled for two weeks on the June 12th or three weeks excuse me because there's a five month five Mondays in May so our next meeting will be June 12th in three weeks I do have two items already on there we've got two small site plans in addition to Regina assisted living and in addition to Dakota County Law Enforcement so we'll be looking at those two for sure and whatever else might come up in the next couple of weeks with the schedule that we have in June July it's going to be a little bit different we've got the Juneteenth holiday which is the third Monday in June and then we've got the Fourth of July follow uh Fourth of July following falling on a Tuesday a couple weeks later so that what the city council has done is they are going to meet on the 19th which is the uh the third Monday in uh they're not meeting on the is normal on the third Monday in June but instead moving on the fourth Monday in June which is a scheduled Planning Commission night which would be I think the 24th so long story short in June we'll have a meeting on the 12th we will not be having a meeting on the 24th because that's a Planning Commission night and then we'll be back to our normal schedule uh back in July that'd be the 26th yep so 26 no Planning Commission that that'll be city council that night because though city council is has canceled the the 19th meeting and the July 3rd meeting and it is going to hold one meeting in between there so our next meeting would be July 10th our next one will be uh June 12th no I mean I'm sorry after after that would be I think July 10th July 10th though all right perfect okay and that that's all I had [30:26] Acting Chair John Moes: okay thank you Commissioners any other business all right well we'll go ahead and uh make a motion to adjourn you know we don't really need one but are we in consensus that we can adjourn all right we are in consensus we are going to adjourn thank you