[0:15] City Clerk Heather Slechta: Council member Rowan? Here. Doumbouya? Here. Ross? Here. van Sluis? Here. Thiele? Here. Spooner? Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. [0:43] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Are there any changes or corrections need to be made to the agenda? Seeing none, I would take a motion and a second to approve. [0:43] Council Member Chuck Thiele: I'll move. [0:43] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Motion by Council Doumbouya, seconded by Council Member Thiele. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? Passes. We have presentations and introductions. Introduction of Housing and Redevelopment executive director Tom Ferman. [0:43] City Administrator Jessica Kinser: Mayor and Council, I'm very pleased to introduce you to Tom Ferman. He's our new HRA executive director. As many of you know, we've had a vacancy there for quite some time in housing, and we're super pleased to have somebody with a great deal of experience. I'll let Tom tell you a little bit more about himself. [1:30] Tom Ferman: Sure, thanks. Good evening, Mayor and Council. So yeah, my name is Tom Ferman. I most recently have been living in Duluth for the last 19 years. I was the executive director of Two Harbors HRA for the last six years. Prior to that, I worked at Duluth Housing as a manager of the buildings and a variety of other kind of odd jobs. When you're in housing, you have to have a lot of hats. Since then, I'll tell you my wife is really looking forward to being able to move to Faribault where she gets an extra couple months of growing season, so this is exciting. I'm thrilled to be here, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to let me know. Otherwise, I'll let you guys get to business. [1:30] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Right, thank you and welcome to the team. [2:16] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Thank you. Right, we'll move on to approving the minutes of the October 22nd, 2024, city council meeting and the November 6th, 2024, special city council meeting. Anybody have any changes or corrections that need to be made? Seeing none, I’ll take a motion and a second. [2:16] Council Member Royal Ross: So moved. [2:16] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Motion by Council Member Ross. [2:16] Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya: Second. [2:16] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Second by Council Doumbouya. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? I didn't see anything on the clipboard when we were up there earlier, so there's no request to be heard. Moving on to consent agenda items 6a through 6m. Anybody have anything they want to pull for discussion? Lots of things in there: closing of streets for Winterfest, Bingo... [3:01] Council Member Royal Ross: Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve consent agenda items 6A through 6M. [3:01] Council Member Peter van Sluis: Second. [3:01] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Motion by Council Ross, second by Council van Sluis. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? That passes. We have no public hearings tonight. We'll move on to items for discussion. Resolution 2024-119, Third Avenue Southwest. Over to Harry. [3:48] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): Thank you, Mayor, council members. I do have a presentation. I'll see if maybe it comes up at some point while I'm speaking. But just to put it simply, in between the last time that we saw this at a regular council meeting, which was back in September, and today, we've had a few different discussions with the applicant and have sort of worked through options in order to be able to operate under a TCO and have some time in order to bring some of the parts of the site that are non-compliant into full compliance at the end of nine months, is what I believe we gave him as a part of a development agreement. And so, speaking to the applicant, the applicant is still interested in the variances and has not withdrawn them, so we do still have to make a decision. The deadline for a decision by City Council is December the 10th, so it's coming up here. We didn't want to lose it at all within the number of other things that we're doing here at the City. So I'm bringing it back forward in order to get a decision from Council tonight or some sort of idea about if we are going to allow variances, how we might be able to move forward. The applicant has actually changed their request since I notified them that, hey, we're taking this back. He notified us that he's changing it to 5 feet instead of a zero-foot setback for parking. The applicant has cited a few different things, primarily that he has some potential uses that might use the building, and so he's thinking about those uses and what their parking requirements might be that might result in x amount of spaces on the property, and so he might need 5 feet in order to make that parking work. You know, I think generally, at least from staff's perspective and from the criteria for a variance, it's really hard for us to see that there's a practical hardship here without understanding exactly what uses are coming to the property. Applying the appropriate ratios and really trying to figure out, "Okay, we're trying to accommodate all these uses and a minimum number of parking spaces for all businesses that might be on site," what is the requirement for parking spaces? The applicant hasn't provided that. They haven't provided any sort of details on the particular uses or what their requirements might be. So I feel like we're working with what might be considered half of a picture here; we just don't have the details that we need to determine that there's a practical difficulty here. The applicant is also still looking for the curb variance. The criteria for that are the same as they were before in previous packets. So there are just some updates within the memo in order to reflect this new 5-foot setback request, but other than that, everything is pretty much the same. Staff generally, we're not recommending in favor of these variances, so the resolution reflects that. We're recommending that you approve the resolution which would deny the variances. If there is a case tonight where the City Council might be willing to grant a variance for either one or two of these things, what we would recommend is that you table the discussion to allow staff to bring forward a different resolution. [6:54] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Okay, thank you Mr. Davis. Any questions for staff on this item? [6:54] Council Member Royal Ross: Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Davis, now am I correct in that if we deny the variances, he can't bring them back for a certain period of time? [7:41] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): Council Member Ross, that is correct. I think that there's a cooling-off period of about a year. Now, to caveat that, if he changes the variances that he's requesting substantially—and it might be a little bit of a question of "what is substantially?" I don't know—but if it's a serious change of the request, I think at that point we'd be more than happy to bring it back through the process to get another decision. But if it's going to be the exact same thing, then no. [8:27] Council Member Royal Ross: So, not saying that I would favor this, but if we're denying the zero-foot setback and later he brings a five-foot, that would probably seem substantial? [8:27] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): Yes, yeah, it's a different request. I think in some ways I would be willing to see this as well—what is the reasoning if we can establish that there is a practical difficulty? I think that really would change the request. So I think that as staff, I'm more than happy to kind of work with the applicant to figure that out. I'm just trying to make sure that, you know, there's a lot of different things he's asking for, and so if we kind of give a blanket no and he can't bring it back in a year, I don't want to box him in any worse than he already is. [9:15] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: My question is, he stated in his notes that he may have somebody that's looking at leasing the church. So if he leases the church and he's using the school for a different business purpose, does he have to have separate parking stalls for both of those, or can he overlap, being that their times are going to be different in most aspects? [9:15] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): Good question, Mayor. So we do have some allowances within our code for shared parking between uses that are not conflicting in terms of when they're open or in terms of intensity. So, you know, you could think of a strip mall where there are different businesses that are open potentially at different times, but you might have a tax accountant next to a restaurant; they're going to need very different service. I think overall what we would look at is: is there enough parking for each of these uses, and work back from there? The allowances within our code, like I said, if it's different timing—one's during the day, one's in the evening—we're willing to at least within code work with the applicant. [10:02] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: I saw in his notes there that he said he's looking at the five-foot, but he may come back for another variance for the number of stalls, and I would just prefer to get this done once. [10:50] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): Just as a reminder, I believe that the City Attorney had said that if he's talking about a use of any of the other buildings on the property, it's going to require a PUD, right? So that's where there's more work that would need to be done than just bringing back sort of individual variances as well. [10:50] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Right, I'm just trying to get a basis for this opportunity. The PUD is... I'm wishing it was signed already so that we could press down that road, but we're not there. So I think the denial of the variance, if you don't want to wait until December 10th, is probably the correct option. I think we've given him plenty of opportunity. [11:23] Council Member Chuck Thiele: That's fine, but did the applicant sign the developers agreement? [11:23] Harry Davis (City Planner/Staff): The applicant has not yet signed the development agreement, and that is a requirement in order to get a building permit. Now, the applicant is currently working through a building permit. I think it's kind of a question of whether they want to enter that development agreement. [11:55] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: All right, if there's no further questions, I need somebody to make a motion and a second on this, Resolution 2024-119. [11:55] Council Member Chuck Thiele: Mayor, I make a motion to approve Resolution 2024-119 denying the variance. [11:55] Council Member John Rowan: Second. [11:55] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Second by Council Member Rowan. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? That denial is approved. We move to Resolution 2024-120, approve new off-sale liquor license. I'll let Heather pronounce that here. [12:41] City Clerk Heather Slechta: Members of the Council, I'm going to go out on a limb here: Papa CA MV2 LLC, doing business as Cell Side Liquor and Tobacco, which will be located at 401 10th Street Southwest, has applied for an off-sale intoxicating liquor license. They've paid all their required fees and all the required paperwork. Their background check is currently with the Police Department, and they have provided liquor insurance. So if you approve this tonight, the application goes to the Department of Public Safety. [13:24] Council Member Royal Ross: Is this a new owner of the business? [13:24] City Clerk Heather Slechta: Yes, I believe so. It's one of our mysteries, but we have all the details. [13:24] Council Member Royal Ross: I'll make a motion to approve Resolution 2024-120. [13:24] Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya: Second. [13:24] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Motion by Council Ross, second by Council Member Doumbouya. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? That one passes. We have no bids tonight. For commission reports and announcements, does anyone have any updates? (Silence). [14:09] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Then with that, I will take a motion and a second to adjourn. [14:09] Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya: I'll move. [14:09] Council Member John Rowan: Second. [14:09] Mayor Thomas J. Spooner: Motion by Council Doumbouya, second by Council Member Rowan. All in favor say aye. (Group: Aye). Opposed? Good.