City Council - Regular Meeting

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special called meeting for Tuesday, May 5th, 2026. It is 6 o'clock. Let the record reflect that all members of council are present. Um, prior to handing this off to the one uh item on the agenda, I do want to remind you the way our meetings are run very loose Robert's rules. You know, we're conversational and that's fine, but if anything gets contentious, please feel free to just direct your comments to me and I don't want to slam the gavl ever again. Um, moving forward, Mr. Probes, new business.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all for being here tonight. Um the purpose of this meeting is kind of following up on our retreat discussion from a couple months ago uh regarding what was called the Blaine Station uh innovative grant application. And so just kind of want to walk through kind of a little bit of a timeline history to begin with and then I'll hand it over to uh Chad and his team uh to present you know what they're working on and what what they uh want to propose to us and then leave the discussion wide open for you all. You all are the policy makers and deciders of this uh city. So it is your show. So, with that, flip through a couple more here. All right. So, let's go back in time. The city uh first purchased this property back in 2017. Can't believe it's been that long. So, we've been really working on this for approximately 10 years now. Um the MPD and the Munich space was built out in the old Food Line shopping center uh back in 2019 and occupied in 2020. The city then went in and did a robust master plan and reszone in 2021 uh with the Lord Sergeant um uh planning group and then later we initiated RFP cues. So we did you know proposal based on qualifications as well in 2022 and 2024. Um, fast forward a little bit, the city transferred property to URRA via intergovernmental contract in 2024, which then allowed for subsequent negotiations of the last RFPQ. Um, with the Uleia Group uh through 2024, 2025. Um and then in 2025 in o at

at the end of October we went under formal contract via the urban redevelopment agency uh and the ukulele group. So that is the general timeline of that. Any questions on on that over the past almost 10 years. All right. So, to recap, uh general terms of the the purchase and sale agreement, um there's $800,000 total purchase price paid in four equal $200,000 installments on the property. Um to be closed in four phases um as you see there, it kind of goes clockwise, one, two, three, and four. uh to be closed on uh September 30th, 26 through September 30th, 29 for each phase. All right. So then we had some special steps of note here in the contract is that um we just wanted to make sure that by and large uh the project stayed true to its intent uh on our original uh reszone and master plan. I mean, that was um that was first and foremost. And then subsequently, we kind of wanted to make sure that uh we liked a couple of the elements that uh Chad had originally proposed and some of our early conversations negotiations uh before we got to contract, such as um creating a another through street uh like Edwards uh would connect from Blaine to North Hammond Drive and a couple other little things um that we we put in there. But we wanted to also make sure that um the police department and MUN courts operations would not be impacted. We want to make sure that um that there's still parking arrangements in place and

and we can still create a quality urban environment around those operations. So now um fast forward to uh I guess a couple months ago, we were made aware of an innovative CDBG grant, community development block grant. All right. So what we did at uh your request was go ahead and issue an RFPQ for uh hiring specific grant writing services and that closed yesterday actually. um how many 11 submittals to that so far. We still have to go through all of that score to that and so on and so forth in that process. Um so next um we have to get back into a potential resone of the property to fit the developer plan a little better. Um, we can talk a little bit about that tonight, but I do want to put some guard rails on it that I don't want it to become a reszone meeting in any way because that that really just needs to be a subsequent meeting and public hearing and all that all together, but there's some elements that that's fine to talk about within certain context. Uh, next steps are kind of unknown to be honest with you. Um, we've had a little bit of conversation with DCA. I I don't I don't think there's a specific concrete path ahead. It there's a lot of fluidity to this process in my opinion. I've reached out to DCA a few more times. I still haven't heard back from Kathleen and a couple other folks. Haven't heard back from them. I was hoping to hear something back before this meeting tonight. Um partnerships, we still have to uh form those and and reestablish new timelines if this goes forward. we have to um basically unwind contracts and then reinstitute new

contracts. So that's the city to URRA URA to the UIA group um and how all that may work out. So we just got to determine what would be the city's responsibility versus the developers responsibility, what would remain in city hands or URRA hands, so to speak. Um those we still have to to get all ironed out. I don't have those answers right now. And the ultimate goal I think by the end of this whole process is uh to get to a design build by the developer under this umbrella of the innovative CDBG. If I have any of that wrong, anybody please feel free to step in and uh correct me. So, um, there's a few other questions we'll probably hit along the way. Um, I have it there in front of you, too. So, again, who will have to retain all the infrastructure, the owners, the ownership, title of that property? Um, how does Habitat for Humanity technically fit into this equation? Um, is this also going to be layered with a CHIP grant? If so, how does that work in context of the CDBG? Um, how would the design build process work with the currently engaged developer? Uh, does the contractor retain enough control over the project to ultimately be successful and and uh fulfill the vision that we initially set out uh in this process and uh what impact does having a large Habitat for Humanity concentration have on the spirit of the project and um how does this impact the forthcoming reasonzoning process? So, I don't know that all of that will get cleared up in discussion tonight. I think a lot of this will probably come subsequent to the meeting, but I at least wanted to, you know, put out those

those questions um as food for thought tonight. All right. So, I'll turn it over to Chad. Do do you want to go if unless council has any any other uh thoughts or questions? Well, the only quick thing that I'd like to say, um, so just so that we're all aware, I do for a living write grants and CDBGs particularly. I have no involvement as far as writing or doing anything with this project. However, for the rules of the road, I have a general idea some of these things. And I think it's important to understand that one of the reasons that from our previous conversation that we went ahead with procurement was because you are going to need a grant writer who is engaged so that some of these questions can be answered. Some of them cannot be answered without that starting. That being said, it doesn't mean you have to go through with the project. It just means that you begin the process. And again, the other thing is is that the parties present have up until this point, unless something has changed, said that they would cover the costs for that. Therefore, at no cost to the city and with no requirement to apply once you engage the grant writer, they can begin to answer many more of these questions.

I have a question on that process years ago that I wasn't here for. in the timelines you've said that you know RFPQs went out in 22 24 I guess in 22 or 25 when we put this out what is the process do we tell in that what we're looking for like what kind of development we want or there like rules that they have to come back

so we kind of left it open we were just trying to find takers who would kind of um roll the dice on Monroe a little bit and fulfill our master plan vision, which I think you've probably all seen, right? Um, the hard part was getting big national developers who actually do things the right way to take notice. Um, and and we just didn't do that. We had a consultant work with us on some nationwide outreach and we just couldn't get there even even at, you know, a discounted sale rate. Um, so fast forward, we tried it again and we got some local interest group and that's where we ended up.

But in that we said we want something that's got to use gave an idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. It's it's fully reszone to that detail of this is exactly what we want. This is what we don't want. Um, and it ended up being a pretty good product, I think. Um, maybe we were a little early when we first put it out, but um, I think it is an attractive product now.

Well, and I want to say something before we hear from Mr. Draper, and I do have some uh, pointed questions for Mr. Draper about this project, but I want to reiterate what I said at our retreat back in March. Just big picture on this. We like a slew of other governments are running our mouths about affordability. It's become, I think, the political buzzword in this country. And we can talk about it till the cows come home. Unless I hear something tonight that shocks me, I will go ahead and state I'm very much a proponent of this project going forward with the affordability component. It's time that we stopped running our mouths about it and actually did something about it. Now, I have some reservations. I expressed to everybody uh that was there those reservations um back in March. I will express them again tonight as part of my questioning for Mr. Draper because this thing's got to be successful. But I just think this is an opportunity for our city to take a very bold step. Put our money, his money, where our mouths are and actually do something about affordability and say to people, we're actually doing something. We're not just talking about it. We're doing something. So, and I just want to make sure the thing is successful if it goes forward. And we'll get to my questions and concerns shortly.

David, I appreciate what you're saying and I want to go on record as well. Uh when we're talking about affordability, what this council has done in limiting square foots and lowering square footage requirements uh is something that allows the private market to move forward. I do think CDBG CDBG CDBG grants are excellent. Uh we've used them in our low income areas for redevelopment, but this is new development. I have a lot of concerns about that. Also know that Habitat has eight projects or eight houses in the ground that they've done here. They have six lots with nothing being nothing happening on them right now. And I have a lot of concern that with the volunteer build uh that you're going to be able to put out 20 new houses plus the eight that you already have. a lot of concerns about that. I don't think we have an affordability problem. It depends who you who you are, right? I think that the average house sale in the city of Monroe last year was under $300,000. Anything new, of course, is probably averaging 400 plus. But I lived in Bradon, Florida after working in Sarasota. And I did that because I couldn't afford to live in Sarasota, but I was close. So, there are places around here that are more affordable than us. This is a race to the top. This is a race to put out a product that brings a a a family who can afford to live here and also support our downtown businesses. I I I don't want somebody to come in with an immediate struggle, and that really does concern me. So, that's my upfront comment about affordability as well, just to be open and frank. Is there any other questions or comments?

Have a quick question, Logan. Uh, one of the stipulations was that it gets res. You mentioned that it had been resed before the PRD was sent out. Yeah. So, that was city initiated back in 21, right? Um, so we already have a really robust master plan. I think Chad was working off of this, using it as the bones of what he wanted. So, I'm sure there's he wanted to make more changes that would necessitate a true reszone than just making two tweaks and moving along with life.

Yeah, let me just throw in there too, just I know I think Logan already said it. So, there that reszone application has been submitted. I just want to be real careful. This is not a public hearing on the reszone. Y'all are not considering the reszone tonight. um you're t you know you're talking about a property that is subjected to a reszone application that will come before you. It has not yet because it's still with staff in their review. So just want to caution everybody that we're not talking about the reszone, but the the the contract requirement is that the reszone application be filed before March 31st. It has been filed and it's currently under staff review. Um because it's under staff review, it's a little bit different than a standard reszone because it is a city-owned property or a URA city-owned property that's getting resone. We're working through some compliance issues with the contract. So that'll be before you on another day down the road. I'm assuming probably midsummer. Um so just don't want y'all digging into the reszone talk about the grant and all that. But but anyway,

certainly don't want to. I was just making sure I Yeah, it was reszoned and this goes back to um Julie's question. It was reszoned to the Lord Arc and Sergeant and I may not say that term name right master plan. So that's what it was reszoned to that sort of had the vision of a mixeduse facility and extra streets and all that. And then they've submitted a reszone application to essentially tweak that plan or change that plan. still mixed use and all those sort of things but change I guess you know the layout and where certain things are and so that's what will come before you at another day. So the bids that we asked for were based on that correct they were based on this original one. Yes.

Um you know he didn't have to go forward with a reszone but he wants to make enough changes that would trigger that reszone basically. And that's not connected to the grant. That's something that happens with this development no matter what. Right. I would say it probably is kind of connected to the grant because we Chad Chad needs to know what kind of housing type he needs to plug in and what that looks like in the housing component of this. That was my going to be my question. It's illegal as well is

okay, we've got this thing in by by the March deadline. We've got it under staff review, but now what? Now, now we do we renegotiate a portion of the contract because well that may have to claw back.

So here's the difficulty there too. That is not a decision for this corporate body to make. That is a decision for your urban redevelopment agency to make, not for you guys to make. Uh y'all have entered into an agreement with the URRA for them to negotiate with ULE group which they've done. There's a pin there's a there's an active contract in place. So if the terms of that contract uh were to change or either party were to seek to change and that would have to be a negotiation between the URRA and uh the ULIA group. You know what you do have what I can speak to is the contract does have a contingency clause that the obligation to close is contingent upon the successful reszone of the property. There's some other contingencies in there too. There's some other timing metrics in there too that may start to conflict with one another. I don't want to get deep in those weeds uh with y'all tonight because again, I don't want to be about the reszone, but there is a contract in place that is has both the obligation and the right to close on the property under that phased approach that Mr. uh Propes laid out. Um but y'all are not the corporate body to address any negotiations relating to the the that contract. So then I guess a question that would be appropriate once the developer comes up here is have they made plans to change things as far as that would that would require this reszone because of the grant or um are they planning on moving forward with whatever is reszoned and if the reason if what is in there has to change is that the point that we abandon the grant opportunity. So, for instance, that wouldn't cause any more hardship on either a review process or any more time consumed by the city if what happened was is what's approved and what goes forward doesn't change regardless of whether there's a grant or not. Is that what your concern is?

I I just don't want it to start uh conflicting with all of these timelines. I just want to make sure because I it's kind of an unknown. Maybe what he's going to speak to doesn't change the housing component. The phase two that I showed earlier. I back way up here. Phase two. You see that? That's the main housing component. It could be in phase three. I don't know. Chad may have to clarify that. But if it goes along too long, we may we may end up with some contractual conflicts of time. I just want everybody to be cognizant of that.

Not that they can't change the URA, but it does just kind of wrinkle. Concern is whether or not time becomes a factor, right? But if nothing changes from this point on, then time would not be a factor. Hopefully not, right? Sure. Chad to present.

My name is Chad Draper with the group. Thank you guys for taking your Tuesday night to tonight. Also want to thank the city for um the idea of L station. I mean it's it's really cool for the city to take a lead in saying we want a walkable mixed use environment. and to the Lord Atkins Sergeant plan. We we actually like that plan. We we're not opposed to that plan, but in bringing it before our consultant Lou Oliver and through conversations in our office, we felt like our concerns around that were that plan creates a lot more retail space and it and it requires building new buildings in order to create that retail space. Again, I'm referring to the Lord Atkins Sergeant Plan. Um, we feel like the the most of the Monroe retail is either going to be downtown or it's headed north to where Publix is, and it's most likely going to be in that direction. So, just explaining that to say that our our plan is not a huge departure from their plan, but it a it adds a larger residential element. So, that's that's sort of where we're coming from. We're not trying to make it more complicated. We just want to make sure it works for this market. So that that's where we're coming from on making a change to the plan. I say another thing to David's point. Um I do feel like um this is a great opportunity to create some attainable housing. Um it is a buzzword. It has been politicized which is a shame. I mean we genuinely are just trying to create a place that Monrovians can live and work and you know have a nice nice home to live in. Um, I feel like in order to create an attainable type project, there's a lot of different elements that have to come together. I mean, you can't just go out there and build a cheap house. I mean, they're just the facts are they're

expensive. And so, to to achieve any type of attainable price, it it takes a lot of things that need to come together, which, you know, in this case, it it's a willing city, which of course is is you guys, a willing developer, which is which is us. um an attractive and timeless design. U you know, you need that so it's marketable and so it's palatable to the the community, reasonably priced land. Um the the value that we're purchasing it for, I feel like is a fair and reasonable number. Um cheaper building materials, that's, you know, I can't go to Home Depot and buy cheap building materials, and neither can you guys. But Habitat, them coming to the table that potentially gives us ways to get more affordable building materials, um a nonprofit partner, in this case that would be Habitat, and then grant funds. And so in this case, that would be the innovative grant. So I'm saying to make things truly attainable, I feel like we have the opportunity and a model here to to bring all those things together. And I I do think it takes all of those. I don't I don't think there's really any exceptions. That's what we're asking you guys tonight is to be a willing city to partner with us to create a model for attainable housing. And what I want to show here is some pictures that um hopefully um everybody will agree that um is an attractive what we're doing is attractive. It's not scary. It's not um anything that anybody would be ashamed of. At least I hope not. So um this of course is the site as it exists now. I'm not sure anybody know how I point this try this one.

Yeah. This is the site as it exists. Now, one important element that we're going to do, the the the street that you see there is Edward Street. Um, a big part of the vision and something I'm really passionate about is connecting streets, grid pattern of streets. It's something you'll hear at Strong Towns and New urbanism and all of those things is you want to extend the grid. You want to expand the grid. A big part of the vision here is we're going to tear down a portion of the vi the building and the street is actually going to continue through the project. Hammond drive right there. That's an important element of the project. Again, this is the current what it looks like now. Wanted to show the exactly one mile. Um, we also were trying to show that Edward we're essentially we're extending Edward Street and Edward Street is friendly street and so modes of transport to downtown street. So this is the site plan that um Lou Oliver and we have come up with. Um the the buildings in blue are the mixed use building. So they'll be um in most cases they'll be commercial downstairs and residential upstairs. There are a few exceptions to that. And then the red the red structures are all residential. You'll see there's a good many trees and green spaces and um

you know great environments for people to commune there. This is a 3D model. Don't don't let the play blocks. You know the houses are not going to be And this is more of a conceptual rendering to have. And then the building that says taco on it is shop in corner of the existing shopping center. Trees and not So that twotory building and um a lot of detail and a lot of goes into this. This is an early concept, you know, a way to retrofit conceptual of the h what housing might look like. This is a commercial building downstairs with upstairs. you know, similar to downtown building we have similar to Greg's building at John's Supermarket. You know, very tasteful, um, well constructed building. Same thing here. Same thing here. Essentially, these are some of the early conceptuals of housing types. And this is where the attainable piece come.

You know, one way to make a house more attainable is to make it smaller and make it simpler. You know, the bigger and the more complex it is, the more expensive it is. So, this look size of it is either a onebedroom or a twobedroom, the home on the left with all bedrooms on the main floor. So, we're also thinking about aging in place housing for, you know, elderly people, all age brackets. You know, it's um this this is meant to appeal to any age group. So, that could be a one-bedroom house or a two-bedroom house on the left with the all bedrooms downstairs. The the house on the right is a two-bedroom house and all bedrooms would be upstairs in that particular one. This is actually two units. These are single family. Um, these are threebedroom units here. So, we're we're showing options of a onebedroom, a two-bedroom, or a threebedroom essentially. So, mass flexibility depending on what the market's looking for, depending on, you know, what the community needs is is, you know, what we're trying to provide. These are just some, I guess you'd say, inspirational photos. I mean, uh, the earlier photos are obviously just loose sketches. These are real buildings that are out there that you know are similar in nature to what we're trying to create. This I felt like was pretty representative of what the existing shopping center as we begin to retrofit it. You know, this is, you know, not exact, but very similar to the vibe that we're looking to create. the existing shopping center. We're going to take a portion of the roof out of it and colonel courtyard. And that's that's you know what we're here in this

photo. So places for people to gather, places for people to same idea here. One of the we have is a 10 unit uh you know connected unit building and this thisational photo I could find of that. I think this will be very similar. I mean I love the feel of that. These are some actual homes in Atlanta that were designed by Lou Oliver and actually built by Pat Kurick who's here with us. Um this is a project in Atlanta that he was involved with. Um so these are similar size and type of housing that we're talking about. So they will be smaller lots. Um butility I mean houses closer together allows you to be closer to the coffee shop etc. This is just a lane in that same same neighborhood there. So, you know, our project is not going to look exactly like this obviously, but you know, there's a lot of similarities in terms of heavy landscaping and the quality of the homes and details. This is a really innovative project in uh Tempe, I believe it's Tempe, Arizona. Susan and I went here recently. It's a really innovative project called Culdeac. It's um won award after award after award. It's really cool project. Susan and I were there with our real estate team recently. Um this this is a really cool concept to where that is a lower floor apartment or a commercial

space. And when we presented this, we we did two open meetings to the public at Grizzlebeer and one at Table Coffee. And some of the feedback we got from a lot of younger people is we need we need a place to start our business that's more affordable. The downtown spaces for somebody just starting out is really expensive. And so this is a way um if the when the zoning allows it that unit could be either residential or commercial. It's built out initially to work as a residential unit, but it's also the way it's laid out. It also could work as a commercial unit. And these are just beautiful little little shops that we got to tour. And so that's an element of what we're trying to provide here. And that's that's largely from community feedback. And so that's that's the end of that proportion. Um if it's okay, I was thinking we could go ahead and bring up the habitat guys and let them sort of give their piece and then take questions at the end if that sounds okay. Okay. Wait. I'm sorry. I'm speaking for everybody. Anybody have any questions for Chad before we move to Habitat team?

Do you want to wait until I mean I I don't have any time? Well, well, if you if you don't mind waiting until after Habitat, we'll do Okay. Yes. May. Please. First, I'm happy to answer. Yeah. Is it okay? Yeah. Send them up. You guys ready to Sorry about that. Good evening. Thanks for having us today. We're going to start with a video testimonial of one of our local business owners here in Monroe. Hopefully this works properly.

My name is Charlie Buyers. I live in Monroe, Georgia. And me and my wife own Table Coffee. I've lived in Monroe, Georgia for around 7 years now. My first job was in Monroe, Georgia. I started my business here and I'm starting a family here. The name of Table Coffee was originated by my wife. The idea of it is that no matter anyone's differences, no matter whether they've had a good life or a hard life or or whatever season or background they come from, there is still a seat at the table prepared for them. The city of Monroe is amazing because there are tons of people my age that are ambitious, that have goals, that love community, and have a common sense of a desire to do something more with their lives. I'm grateful to be a part of that. To become a homeowner, it would be a dream because I'd be able to start a family while having home security in a town that I love. It would be a dream because it would further set my roots in a town that I really don't want to leave. I've struggled to own a home because of a lot of different variables like high interest rates, high home costs, the frustration of being a hardworking individual with a hardworking wife, having dual income, and really desiring nothing more than a humble life. But even that seemingly being too expensive. If Habitat were to build homes in Monroe, it would only help the city and it would only help people like me and my wife who aren't looking for much, but we're just looking to be able to set a foundation in a city that we love, in a

city that we want to grow a humble life in. And so if Habitat were to build a home homes here, it would give us more of an opportunity and less stress in doing that. So we wanted to show you that because it's families like Charlie's that are really going to be have the opportunity to level up as a part of this partnership. Um this is not from a 2023 housing study. This is actually from the local uh comprehensive plan. Uh the city aims to provide a variety of housing options to meet the needs of residents at all income levels. Strategies to achieve this goal include encouraging the development of mixed use and higher density housing, promoting the use of public private partnerships to support affordable housing, and implement a program to address blighted properties and vacant um homes. So looking at the updated Habitat income scale right next to some demographic data, this has just been updated on Tuesday, by the way, so these are really fresh numbers uh on Habitat's income limits. We see that the median age of this community is about 35, average household size between three and four, and the median income at about 515. That lines up really directly with if you kind of scroll down to to family size of four, that really starts right on the lower end of our income scale, which makes leads us to believe that there are a lot of families that could benefit from our services here in the town. Um, labor force of 7,700. And just a little bit of quick research of some public available information. We see that 29 employees qualify uh from Monroe Water, Sewer, Gas, and Electric. Uh 17 local firefighters, and that's not including overtime that they may uh earn throughout the year. Walton County educators, so teachers who have bachelor's degrees for the first 12 years of their career would fall within our income guidelines. And and I really want to nail home that it is very common for Habitats to partner with local municipalities. If there are specific uh essential workers that we want to really focus on in these projects, we can

tailor our application process to them. So is it healthcare, municipal employees, LEO or or small business owners that we'd like to target. That's something that we have no problem as a Habitat for Humanity making sure that we're making those opportunities available. Um a quick look at at housing cost as they currently stand. If you were to not be overly costburdened, buy a two-bedroom apartment, you'd need to make about 636, uh, which is a bit above the median income. And of course, housing costs, you take a $360,000 house, apply a market interest rate to it, and assuming that that family has the 10% down payment, which is very uncommon because renters typically only have about 1,500 bucks in savings. Even the highest income cortile of renters in our country have about 27,000 bucks in the bank. Let's assume for a second that they do. They're going to spend about 400k in interest over the life of that mortgage for a total payoff of about $870,000. Their mortgage payment would be about $2,500 a month. And you'd have to make about $111,000 to actually not be what we would call cost burdened by that. And I'll kind of bring this home real quick if I can before I'd be happy to answer some of your questions. The Ulleia Group and Habitat Partnership does exactly what your 2023 housing study and your comprehensive plan calls for. It transforms an underutilized site into highquality, higher density, mixeduse community that creates home ownership opportunities for Monroe's workforce. And that is key. This isn't about bringing people in. It's about making sure that people who are already here can stay and thrive. In this public private partnership model, Chad maintains full aesthetic control across the entire development including the Habitat homes. This ensures a cohesive highquality look and feel throughout the community with no compromise on design standards. At this time, Habitat does serve Monroe families by delivering 20 homes to this project intentionally priced so working families in industries like healthcare, public service, and the service sector or otherwise contributing to the local workforce can actually

afford to live in the community that they serve. These homes are sold at market value and subsidized down so families pay no more than 30% of their income towards their housing costs. Habitat does not profit from this. We often break even or take a loss because this is about impact, not about revenue for us. But the city city still benefits because these homes are sold at the appraised value. They generate the same property tax revenue as non-habitat units in this development, strengthening the tax base, supporting local spending, stabilizing the workforce, and reducing long-term strain on social services. I I think the community has a real opportunity here to say yes to a development that reflects your data, your workforce, and your stated goals. And ultimately, it answers the question, can people who serve in Monroe afford

to call? Um, and uh, we'd be very happy to fill some questions from you. Myself, I'm also here with our deputy executive director, Jim. I have a question for you, please.

Uh, y'all are part of the Walton, right? Guarantees that all of these houses res. So within the parameters of our program when we serve any particular community you have to either live or work in that community for at least one year to even be eligible for our program that's someone from Gwynette wouldn't be moving over here someone from Walton wouldn't be somebody who lives in Gwynette and has worked in Monroe for a year. All right. I have some questions and this is going to require some We're big. Yeah. You and I have never met. Yes, sir.

Uh I do know this young lady well. I know Mr. Draper well. And I want to start with this. I've been a supporter of Habitat for probably longer than live.

Yes, sir. I've always had one bone to pick with Habitat, which is, and I've helped actually build Habitat houses. I've actually worked on them. Um, it seems to me when they get down to the end of them, sometimes corners are cut on what I call trim packages. And if you're going to build a cottage that's going to be in something like the Mill Village, it needs to have the kind of trim that all of those houses around it have. But one of my questions to Chad when he called me a month or two ago about this was, "Okay, Chad, who's going to control the architecture? Are these habitat structures going to look exactly like the others?" He assures me that is true. That that's going to be baked into it in writing, not some loosey goosey kind of thing. You can't tell the habitat structure from any other structure. Right.

Yes, sir. Are we all agreed on that? That's how it's going to work. No more narrow trim. We'll actually have what's appropriate. Right.

And I'm happy to speak to that, too, because I've been with Habitat for about 12 years now. I came up from the Kawita County affiliate and I got sick and tired of having to explain previous administrations maybe not exceptional work and uh we on other houses that we may build in this community are deeply invested in making sure that that high standard of aesthetics and total. Next question for all of you. When we're talking about these single family structures, the free market price on them would be approximately what? 400. Is that what we're talking about?

We feel like the range is somewhere around between three and six range. You know, three on the lower end, six on the higher end is is sort of the range we're trying. The four 450 would be an average. Sure. Is that fair? Yes. All right. And so when that's reduced by the way Habitat does its financing, what would the average Habitat structure be? Are we talking 200, 225, something like 240 as far as what the actual homeowners pay? And in terms of that family's mortgage payment, what are we talking like,600,700 a month? They would actually be paying

at 240, I think. I mean, I I could do some quick math real quick, but I'm thinking we're probably around 1,200.

All right. The reason I asked that is I was reading a thing about what's going on in Atlanta with Habitat's building there, and they were targeting what I got out of the article, something around 1,600. Uh, and that would be considered affordable. Uh, I think that's the ballpark we're looking at. We're talking about another term for it is workforce housing. Uh you know these people that work in Monroe in the service industry in particular. I'll just focus on that because I'm involved in that unfortunately. So uh those folks don't make enough money to buy a four five $600,000 house. Not now, not ever. ain't gonna happen. But we have to have those people to support our businesses. So what are we going to say to them? Well, we're glad to have you come work here like a dog, but we don't want you to live here. Why don't you all go live somewhere else and just commute in on my soap box, but that makes no sense to me. If we can do this thing and have this housing for these folks here and have it look wonderful. Why not? Why not do it? Um, and the other thing I want to clarify with you, the city has no money at risk in this thing. Isn't that true? It's your money, Mr. Draper. The Alia group's money. So, I don't understand what the downside to the city could possibly be.

Taxbased these structures, even if they're owned by Habitat, they're going to be taxed at the free market value. Correct. Yes, sir. So what is the percentage of the homes that will be Habitat versus standard single family and apartment? There's a total of 77 residential units which includes for sale houses and apartments. 77 total residential units. We've been in discussion about having 20 of those units being in Habitat. 20% of total residences.

Not 20% but 20 units of seven. 20 of 70 is that what you said? 77 less than a third. 80.

So how many of the 77 are considered single family residential versus apartments rental apartments? I don't know that I've done that math, but I know that most of the apartments are going to be in the existing shopping center. There's 28 units inside the existing shopping center. And then everything else essentially, if you can visualize the parking lot, everything else is built out into the parking lot. And so those units could either be for rent or for sale. In order to finance and make the project work on our end mathematically, we've got to sell the land. You know, almost all of them,

but Habitat doesn't do the rental apartments. What? Habitat doesn't do the rental apartments, right? They're they're all for sale. Okay. Well, I have a question about that because I also was reading that uh in Atlanta Habitat is actually getting into the multifamily uh building now because it's not unheard of typically and traditionally we have done single family detached but it's not unheard of. There's also a lot of habitats that have been experimenting

because there's such need for housing. So to David's point and I'll put whomever on the spot that wants to answer the question, but roughly right now what percentage of all doors or residential, single family, multif family, whatever residences in Monroe are rental properties around 73 years ago. It's actually come down. It was uh around 62% last I saw. Did anybody speculate what the average rent is of those? Is it $2,500 or is it $1,500? If we're guessing, if you're guessing, it's going to be closer to the $1,500. Closer to the $1,500.

So then the apartments that we are going to offer for at least you have I mean I know it's super early, but like are you going to target a $1,600 a month rent apartment or you going to target like a $2,800 $3,000 a month? Well, he said most of those were going to have to be sold out of the apartments. Yeah, that's what he said. possible. No, the the apartments are going to be kept the in the existing building. There's 28 units and I intend to keep those. Okay. Those units. Yeah. What will the I mean, you said it already. It's very hard without, you know, doing a whole bunch of math to commit to some number, right? But, you know, Susan and I rent a lot of properties in and around town and it seems like that 15 $1600 a month is what apartments rent for.

Yeah. So then if that's the case, I mean everybody I think can see where I'm going with my point is that I have no issue at all with Habitat, not even a little bit. But if we're going to talk about attainable housing and it being that 15 or $1,600 number, well then roughly on average, as we're speculating, about 68% of the h of the houses in Monroe or residences already fit in that bracket that we're trying to get these 20 houses down to. I'm just the point of it is is missing me. So I need some help understanding where the actual value is as far as attainable housing when we have tons of options in the city that are already in that attainable range.

I I'm not sure what your answer is about to be, but just to Ross like I think that the one of the biggest things is we want home ownership, right? I mean, one of the biggest things I've heard for years is what we want to do is reduce uh that that rental number that's better for everybody all around. So, what you're talking about here, so while Chad may have a $1,500 rental property, and that may go to whoever, perhaps it does go to someone who makes it affordable, attainable, it's it suits that demographic. Homes that Habitat will build become affordable to own. You become a home owner. So, you reduce that number. And I think that's what the important part is, right? So, same thing.

If that's the case, then how many Habitat houses do we have currently occupied? So, out of those 19, how many of them still have the original owner in them? That's a great thing. Glad to be back. I'm I'm still I mean, Charlie I know Charlie well. He's a dear friend. Love him to death. But he's competent. He started multiple businesses. Um it is he's a young guy, right? College age. So, I just I feel like we're creating this thing where everybody has to has have a house. And if that works out, I would be more than happy to have a 100% owner occupied residences in Monroe, right? Um I personally think that it is acceptable. I mean, all through college, I never owned a house, right? Wasn't until I moved back to Monroe and I got lucky because I bought my first house for $115,000. Um that was in 2013, right? It seems like we're trying to cut the springboard out of what rental properties were. I think not necessarily designed, but the void that they do fill, right? Is that young couple with two young businesses who are trying to figure out how to make it into the world. Um, again, my issue is not necessarily with Habitat at all, but with this development, I'm just having a hard time understanding at what point Habitat became such a crucial piece. really just kind of the only ones in the game at the moment. And the simple fact that, you know, housing prices have outpaced incomes for like 17 straight years at this point. The middle class has really expanded dramatically. Couple that with the fact that I mean not for everyone, I'm sure, but one of the greatest paths of wealth generation is I mean,

but the the issue that I that I have I'm sorry, Eric, you're fine. You say you're the only ones in the game.

You're not late to the game. You're after the game. The contract has been signed. So, here we are going backward. And I mean, I don't know if you want to get out of the contract. I don't I don't I don't know the way it all works, but stands to reason the ship has sailed. So when you're coming in after the contract signed and wanting us to go to a CDBG project where DCA won't even return our emails. I'm have a hard time with I think we're putting the cart before the horse. Do we want to talk to Urban Redevelopment Agency? Let them get out of the contract. Then we should have the conversation. But right now we're having a discussion of something that just may not happen. That's kind of been one of my sticking points and I mean Jen knows I'm a supporter of Habitat have been for a long time. Um is and that was kind of some of my questions that I asked Logan in the beginning is initially when we put this out for bid to the public we said this is what we're doing. You know we didn't get any responses. I think maybe the only response we did have was Chad. But one of the things that we're tasked with is being transparent in what we're doing. And I think if we go back and change what we're doing after the fact, that doesn't look very good to the public in my opinion. And so that's kind of one of my sticking points. I would like to see us go back, do it the right way, put it out for bid. This is what we want. We're looking for a partner like Habitat. Have you guys resubmit what you've got? Allow there to be other opportunities if there are any. Maybe there are. Maybe there aren't, but at least we've gone through the process the correct way. Um, you know, and done our due diligence and hopefully we end up right back where we are because I am a supporter of Habitat. I have no problem

with there being Habitat homes up there. Um, especially if the architecture is going to look just like everything else. Um, I do have a question. You said that, excuse me, the tax, like the property tax on these homes are going to be based on a $600,000 value or a 400. The amount of property tax these homeowners are going to pay is

a lot. All this So,

can you give us because Chad I met with Chad and he gave me some numbers on price points and at that point and I shared with him I was concerned concerned on a price point for a one-bedroom home. What where are you today? And that's been two two months ago maybe. Where are you on the one, two, and threebedroom homes that have that would be involved? I don't believe Okay. Then when that homeowner five years from now decides that they want, you know, they want to move on and they want to sell, tell me what happens then.

Yes, sir. 10 years and they're going to pay back. We also have a 30 What part? What's the percentage? And what does that equity pay that keeps

program funding? Um, a quick response to your question about if you'd like to see it done properly. So, at some point if this goes through, you do put the project back out to bid, then you will go through that process again. So, you will have what you're asking for. No timeline on that. So what Tyler then what happens if if now 20 developers step in and want to compete.

So that's a that's another So the city will score it, right? The city of Monroe will have score sheets. They'll come up with criteria and then they'll decide who they think the best developer is. So that's up to staff. Well, I want to go on record too and just say I should have said at the beginning that I deeply admire Mr. Draper and everything that you've done, not in just downtown, but across Monroe um in general. So, I wholeheartedly trust that the product that you're going to develop is or potentially develop is going to be second to none. Um and I am super encouraged and excited about seeing what it looks like when it's done. But this piece alone It's not a habitat issue, but the way it was pitched to me, and I can't come up with another word, it seems a little it seemed a little disingenuous, not not from any one particular person. Um, but it seems like this was this is about the CDBG grant, right? And I know that you said your goal was attainable housing out of the gate, right? And I think you are achieving that with your potentially $1,600 apartments that are going to be part of this development, right? Um, and so anyway, I just want to go on record and say that I completely trust the UIA group and I mean and you specifically from all the things that I can see throughout the city that are so magnificent. Um, so anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there so that everybody knows at least where I stand on the project side of things.

By disingenuous, you mean that this this conversation came about after we'd entered into a contract. No, it was the way it was pitched in our previous meeting and that there was no benefit to you as the developer to get this CDBG grant and that there would be there's no profit to to there's no profit uh u earned based off of this one component which I find to be disingenuous because I understand that while there might not be any money made off of the habitat houses there's a huge infrastructure injection you'll get on the CDBG grant that is applied to the entire project.

So that was where the you know and I know disingenuous is a strong word so I'm not trying to point fingers at anybody but that's the best word I can come up with. No Ross is fine. Ross um what I'll say just as another

Can you step up to the mic because it's being recorded as well. Sorry,

I'm sorry. I'm a little under the weather, too. But, um, so, wrote Roberts, who did your 2023 housing study, right? He talked about the need for you guys to go after federal and state grants to be able to do attainable housing without for this particular project, Blaine Station, without him achieving some kind of grant um support, there's no way that Habitat would be able to be involved. So, if he was to come to us and say, "Hey, we have 20 lots for you that we'd love for you to build Habitat houses on, but I'm going to sell it to you at 80K per lot and then um or 100K, I'm not exactly sure how much he would sell it for. Um we would not be able to say, "Yeah, we'll partner with you." But because he's able to get the CBD funding because he's partnering with a um affordable housing agency like us, he's able to then sell the lots to us at a cheaper price and build the shell of the home at a cheaper price because grants offset his other cost to allow him to do that. And I think the fact that it wasn't a part of the plan at the beginning is again I'm not calling a foul necessarily. Um and I'm also coming I'm coming into this now just having been on the council since January. So you know I'm a little bit behind everyone else. Um it just I know where Chad's heart is for the city and I know that attainable housing is something that he is always working towards. Um, and I feel like that part of it was definitely an aspect of the plan at the onset, as best I can tell. Um, but then now the the the Habitat portion has been added on to that. And and maybe I have a skewed perception of what Habitat does, right? Because I never have associated Habitat with necessarily workforce housing, right? I associate Habitat with a family who is struggling or may not be capable um because they were never taught for whatever whatever reason it may be and that Habitat comes alongside them to give them a leg up to bring them into home ownership. Um so then when I see guys like Charlie or law enforcement officers, teachers, whatever, I think

it's great to have a workforce style housing. I just didn't realize that that qualified for a Habitat house. It's a common misconception. Yeah. Right. It's really at this point focusing on the middle class and a lot of habitats serve as low as like 30% of AMI but that doesn't matter right that's why 45 to 80 look at the income scale here I mean that's how many jobs in our community for a family of four or under 90

and one thing and tell me if I'm wrong but considering a young teacher comes into the area and I was a teacher for 25 years so I understand the minimal salary that is paid. Um she comes in gets married within a year and wants to start a family and that two-bedroom house is just not going to work for her over 10 years. what you know what's going to happen to her equity that she should have been able to build if she had bought miraculously found a 20 you know a $200,000 home in Monroe and certainly built that equity over say five years whereas she's been in this house for five and is she going to be upside down? No, I would think necessarily. Are you asking if she decides to grow her family and move from the two bedroom larger home or something like that? Yeah. Well, assuming that the home

So, she's going to move to Madison because she got a job there appreciates over time as real estate always does. I would imagine she would have some equity, but as Jen stated, when we subsidize a loan down, uh when they want to sell before that affordability period is over, they have to recoup for the balance of the first and any subsequent means any equity above that if they do. I mean, it would just be very hard for her to walk with any equity and without a payment due back to Habitat is what I perceive. And I may be wrong, but that that's concerning to me.

I think they would still leave that situation with significantly more money than they went into it with. Um, but those covenants exist also so that you can't take advantage of we saw that during co it was this unprecedented bi of single family residents across the United States. That's why no such thing as renting from John can't progress residential and it's my rent source and that sort of thing. They've all been bought up by these big equity firms which further reduce the stock of housing in most communities. So at that point it's just simple supply and demand reduce the supply of something high. That's why

yeah I think another thing to consider would be how much less they're going to have to spend on the home. Therefore, how much can they save? If they're thrifty and they're being they're trying to make sure that they have the money, they certainly could save the same amount of money that they would get in equity in the home.

That's a really great point because all economists left, right, and center, it's not really debated. we can keep you below 30% of your first monthly income solution. You're going to be able to do more invest if if you pulled I I I bet you around town and even myself and I'm the executive director of a pretty large nonprofit. about sometimes that's when it becomes extraordinarily difficult.

And in a quick so apologies for the feeling of disingenuousness. Um, real quick so everybody knows I do sit on the Habitat board and I want to make sure that everybody knows that. Um the reason that I think that that misunderstanding may have happened in our first conversation uh when we had it at our retreat uh would be that my point was is you can't legally profit off of CDBG funds or any federal funding. What happens is is if you were to turn a profit on that money, that money has to get put back into a revolving loan fund. If Chad's contractors get paid with this money or whoever it was, you have to keep it within federal guidelines and anything above that is considered profit and that's what happens. I'm not saying that Chad would not make any money from having the infrastructure injection. However, I do think it's worth noting that what they were saying is is that it's impossible to build the other component. You're essentially taking a haircut on one end, right? not making money on the houses so that you can pay for the other end. And that's what the grant funding does. Now, how much money Chad does or doesn't make in this market, he may only sell Habitat homes. However, you know, I mean, that's the risk he's taking. And I don't know that a $5 billion grant guarantees you profitability all the way through. So, I think that's worth considering. We just haven't heard anything from DCA. Not all good yet.

Just a quick question. So, I'm going to dive off in the weeds a little bit. You mentioned the exterior packages. Stay true to the spirit of the Lou Oliver Design per the contract. We like that. Talk to me about the interior packages because when we sell a home here, I say we collectively as a community, you're selling the whole home. You're not selling just a facade. And I wonder are how much are you having to cut off on the interior packages? Is it, you know, 20% 25% discount over what Chad would be building out for his um remaining 29 single family homes? And what does that look like over time? Does it sandbag some of the values of the entire project? because we're not talking about like one off homes like we have already in Monroe with Habitat which are, you know, have done pretty well overall, but what does it look like when you have a cluster grouping of them?

Is there any thought on that?

To be clear, the Habitat homes are all going to be designed by Lou Oliver. So, we're committed to that. All of them. You won't be able to tell just by looking at the outside. You're not going to be able to tell one from the other. Um, the Ulleia Group, I mean, that's the design of our group. We're builders, developers, realtors. So, we're we plan to develop the lot, build the house. We're the realtor on the other side. So, we plan to handle the whole process. in an effort to answer your question more specifically. You know, we we're still early in us working through all of our numbers. But if we're going to build the shell, the only thing that's left is I mean, I guess there's a lot left, but if you build a shell, then there's sheetrock

and then trim and then floor covering and cabinets and countertops, you know. So I mean the the variable would potentially be I don't know floor covering countertops if if the habitats houses are more affordable materials it would be I don't know floor covering countertops perhaps you know what I mean like there's only so many there's only so many finished materials that you can alter to change the price we're building with granite countertops

you doing building with granite countertops, met with ceilings, LVP. I mean, I I think our interiors are high quality. Well, can I say something?

Because I've volunteered with Habitat and I am on the board as well. I have been inside um Habitat Houses. I've helped build and um I've also assisted a couple of people in order to be able to apply and acquire Habitat homes. I will say this, I think everybody here knows where I live in Stone Creek and those houses are trash and I paid $300 and something thousand dollars for my house. My friend that has a Habitat house looks better than mine and he has hardwood floors throughout. Their quality home. Now, it may not have the trim or whatever you want to say, big pieces, small pieces, whatever. Okay. Apparently, they're going to fix that, whatever. But the quality inside those houses is better than what this builder came here and built for everybody in Stone Creek. And if I had every homeowner from Stone Creek to come in here, they will tell you everything in there has has broken down. I've had to redo a whole shower because it was trash. But I go over to my friend's house and sit on his porch and chill. And I'm comfortable walking through his house with hardwood floors where I have some rolled out whatever lenolum type stuff

and some cheap carpet. So I mean right now everybody in that subdivision is redoing their whole house. We have to repaint. We've got to do uh floors again. So, if we're talking about the inside, that's not an issue for me. And I'm on board with it being with the habitat component. I know about all of the financing of that, dealing with grants and how you have to substitute one thing for another in order to make the project work. So, I mean, I'm on board with it as long as the habitat component is tied to it. Not everybody here in Monroe that I have come across can afford a three, four, five, or $600,000. Those are the numbers I deal with on my job.

Full disclosure, did you say you're on the Habitat board, too? Has Habitat done this type of agreement with a developer before? So like were they mixed income takes the responsibility of the outside shell and then Habitat just builds out the inside?

Not that I'm aware of. There are mixed income agreements that have been made with other affiliates across the country. Um I can't tell you how groundbreaking is the right word, but like this would be a pretty big deal and it would be something that would be that would people would take note of across the country as far as a different model and a different way to do this. People that study these things really like the idea not only of mixed use but also makes income. The idea that you know Charlie working at the coffee shop um just because he makes a little less money could be seen by someone who makes a little bit more money. It could break down some of those social barriers and like really bring people together and actually build community. There's a reason they say that like little Havana in the Bronx is really healthy when the really affluent person up on the hill that never talks to their neighbors like people they talk together and they they have to mix and they have to interact a little bit more. So, um I mean that's something that excites us. Great.

Yeah.

I want to address something else about this. What I maybe I'm wrong about this, but I I thought I heard that there was some concern about lack of transparency in the way the concept now came about. And you know, we want to be transparent in what we do. Let's just put that out on the table. Am I wrong about this? When we initially came up with the idea of some sort of blind street project, were we inundated with like dozens, scores, hundreds of developers who were interested in doing the project? That's not my recollection.

But how long ago was that? I think we had like one

two, three years ago. And so my point is this. Nobody has called me saying, "Oh, gee, I don't think y'all are being transparent now that uh you have this contract with Yallaya and now they want to do an affordability component partnered with Habitat. I'm really upset about that because I have a development company and I have this great plan and I have a partner with the assets and reputation of Habitat that wants to partner with me to do this. I don't think there's one out there. I think we could go over this thing a dozen different times and I think we would come back to exactly the same people. Now, one other thing, Mr. Draper, when you came up with this original plan, did you know about all of this? And was there a subtrifuge that, well, I'm going to sell them one thing and bait and switch them and then I'm going to come back with some other plan somewhere down the road? Is that what happened here?

No, sir. But did you think you could do the project without them? I mean, I never

So, you came in, you signed the contract to do the project, and now we're here. So, you might not have thought it in advance, and that's fine, but you thought the product and the project was going to succeed, or you want to sign the contract. And look, I'm I'm Your quality is outstanding. It's outstanding. And habitat quality is fine on your infill development. I've worked on it. I've worked on several of the houses. So, it's it's not about that. It is about we have a contract, we need to proceed with it, or we don't. And I would really feel a whole lot better if somebody from DCA would have answered the emails that we sent that said, "What can we expect on this grant? How long are we going to retain ownership? Is the developer going to continue to own the property?" They're not answering. So, I'm not understanding why we should change anything.

Well, we have answers to those questions. Also, they don't answer them. Also, you were on a phone call where you left early when you could have gotten some of those questions answered. You when you gave me 30 minutes to get on the phone call. No, I I gave you every bit of time I could and the folks were not. That's fine. But I'm just saying you've had opportunities and not only that DCA, we have sent the director of DCA and they did not answer the questions. Have you We already have answers to those questions. What's your question? How did we get here? How did we go from sign sale delivered, Chad's buying the property, yada yada yada to we're looking for a grant writer, Habitat's involved, like how did we get there?

Let me let me go ahead and say one thing just because of the way that So again, my job as I deal with these grants, community development block grants, right? Chad is the recipient of many grants from the city, right? The brewery is one such and the city does a lot of grants with business owners with different folks to be able to make projects go. That's part of what DCA does. That's part of how economic development works. So Chad came to me one day. I mean we were chatting whatever. It wasn't intentional. It was just hey we're having a conversation and says what grants don't I know about? And I said well I don't know. Let me look at it and see. And so at some point I told them about different opportunities and different grants and then we ended up with a discussion about the innovative grant. What does it take to do that etc. So like one of the questions is why is Habitat involved? Because without a a nonprofit builder this grant is not an option period and neither is most other workforce housing grants. Okay? There is usually more often than not and by that I mean like 99% there is a nonprofit entity involved because of the LMI structure and typ so for instance Habitat has the infrastructure to be able to deal with that clientele and that means like screening and putting through so for instance Habitat will take each of the people who apply and put them through several different courses including um you know how to manage finances, how to repair a home, how to deal with all these different things. is a part of what you do. And the reason DCA does that is because they know it makes a better homeowner. It makes a more quality citizen, right? And so they don't want just throwing up cheap houses and selling to people because that doesn't actually improve the quality of life in the place. So those are answers to two questions. That's that and then Chad can go ahead

and jump in on the rest of it. I told him about the opportunities. Habitat got involved because you have to have somebody like that. Uh and then from there, how many times has this innovative grant been accomplished? So, it's been awarded to one community's had to give it back. The reasons that it has had problems is because first off, it's a huge buyin. 700 Wait, what's the number? 750,000. Yeah. $750,000. Rarely do people have that type of money no matter what the organization. So it hasn't been successfully deployed yet which is just another risk of I think 100% on the private side and then also on the public side right

well I don't know it's not a monetary risk right saying it's a monetary risk but it is a huge drain on resources right and what happens if we get down the road with an innovative grant that has not been successfully deployed and then we have a bomb that gets dropped in the middle of it and now the the the entire our project goes back to square one. All right. That's the risk I'm talking about on the property. Yeah. Yeah. So, I I think you misunderstand what's going to happen. So, let me ask a couple clarifying questions. What are the drain on resources? That's number one.

Well, all of the time and effort. I mean, I'm sitting here on a called meeting, right? Which is I'm not talking about me because we're here because we want to be. But city staff is going to have to work through this entire process in some shape, form, or fashion, which if this was the only project we had going in the city of Monroe, I I think we would all be hungry for the challenge. But we have how many hundreds of millions of dollars in development? Close to a billion. Close to a billion. I mean, so that I think that would be the answer to that question.

So the reason that you hire grant consultants is so that the city does not have to do that. You are essentially outsourcing that, right? So the only thing that's required after that is you begin to have site visit. So actually the bulk of the work goes on to the developer, which is both Habitat and Chad at this point. All that stuff plus the grant stuff goes on both the grant writers, the developers. The city has to deal with perhaps monitoring, right? And so what happens is DCA comes in, the grant writers have all the documentation there and they go through that. Well, let's not get in the weeds on that, okay? Because I have a I would I'd like to call Brad and ask him how much time he thinks he's going to be putting into this during the unintrusive part of the process you're talking about.

Okay. We don't have to do all that right now. So, what was the second question? I well I I think it's important to understand that I'm not making something up here. I'm telling you the factual way that it will be. Yeah. As far as the grant's concerned, right? There will be a minimal drain on resources. And not only that, so the city's not paying for the grant writers at this point.

Both the developers have agreed that they will cover those costs. So there's no monetary cost and there is minimal and by that I'm not even like brushing over it uh need for the city staff to be involved. Uh you had a you had another thing. What's the risk? So one thing that's going to happen is see we haven't even applied for the grant yet. So right now we're just talking about saying hey we'd like to apply and and get through and start talking about this which is what you need the grant writers for. The reason you need the grant writers is because they need to sit down with these guys and form that project in such a way in discussing with DCA what it looks like, how it works, what is legal, what is not, and how they can accomplish the project and does it fit within DCA guidelines. Okay? So, you still are going to have to apply. So, you still have to get funded right now. None of this uh interrupts Chad's current process because the grant writers again are doing all this process in the background. Um, excuse me. What was the what was the previous piece? Oh, the risk. So, if you did get it, if you got the grant, uh, if you didn't complete the project, it still doesn't cost you anything unless it cost you the upfront costs, which are not costs that the city is paying for.

Cost them a lot. That's right. Yeah. And that's their choice. Correct. Right. So, but then we be back to square one, but there's no risk to the city. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I don't And when you talk about that first phase of writing the grant, what is the timeline estimate on that?

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean there, but let's start with the beginning. So, if you were to u if you were to select your grant writer and they were to begin the environmental process, which is the first step, section 106, which is HPD, looking at historic properties, that kind of thing, and the NEPA process, at most you're looking at 90 days, and you'll know at that point whether or not the project is cleared and ready to go because once that environmental is done, you're you know that you can apply and at that point, you can begin to draw down funds. But I don't know how far along you'll be in the application process. But the the NEPA process starts and can start outside of that. All you need to do is get the grant writer. So once that's cleared, you can draw down funds, which means as soon as you go through the process of applying and they award it, then you can get funding.

I mean, I'm I'm looking back at a September 26 September 30th 26 closing date for the first phase. Mhm. Is that going to be attainable? Yeah. So 90 days if the grant writer starts now, May, June, July, August, that's 90 days. You still have September 30th. You have an extra whatever 20 something days in there.

What are we going to know? We Well, we just it just closed yesterday, so we're going to have to go through the evaluation process. That'll be another 30 days. I'd like to hear staff sitting over there and Logan. This is this is a very complicated situation development. I mean, if it all ends up the way it's supposed to be, it's fine with me, but we also know that there's a lot of things that can happen and a lot of things don't end up like they started out. What's your What's your opinion? I can't vote on it right now. I can't vote on anything right now because I just don't sounds like there's too many arrows flying in different directions

from DCA and I'm not comfortable with it.

Well, and I'll say from my end, so the CDBG advertisement, I mean, that's been going for, you know, 30, 40 days, give or take. We had uh we had a good many email u companies reach out to us, responses to them, putting things on website, advertising different things. Now, we'll have pretty good staff time in evaluating 11 responses. Um, and then, you know, I'll say this much, you know, even even when you hire a grant writer, even when you know, it's just like, let's say this tap grant for instance that we have out here, you have Kekken Wood as your engineer, Kekken Wood provides a project manager, etc. We still spend a lot of time monitoring the overall project. Um, I mean, you've got accounting staff time, you've got our staff time. Um, it's not going to be, you know, completely exclusive, I guess, to the grant writer. We will have involvement. I think we have to I mean, that's that's obvious.

Plus, a resone down the road, correct? And then there'll be a lot of review from this end. So, you know, we'll have to go through evaluations. I don't know that we have that ready in a day or two to get that on the agenda for next month. So, I mean, rush it through potentially. If not, you're looking at a June to where council would have to vote to approve the recommended grant writing company. Like I said, 11 evaluations are quite a quite a few for multiple two, three employees to evaluate.

Brad, the only thing that's I'm obviously only dealing with the zoning aspect of this and the only thing that's caused some concern is timing at this moment. working with Paul and staff because this meeting in particular has caused a delay in the zoning process because we're not going to send any comments to Chad and his team because this meeting came up. So, we've delayed our comments and sending zoning package back to Chad based on whatever the outcome of this meeting is because this is whatever this meeting is has caused some concern for me in sending zoning comments back to Chad. Um, but he also is under obligation under the contract to have the property zone, but I think there's plenty of time to have the property zone because he's got his application and has met the contractual deadline of March 31st. Um, we have to send comments back to him and his team and and so he can get those comments addressed and we can get a public hearing scheduled. His comment, his consultant has contacted us and asking us when we can get a public hearing scheduled. So there's this background pressure about a reszone going on and then there's all this going on and I don't know how all this affects that at the same time. So there's this unknown cloud floating over the zoning process of all this nonsense. And how does that affect the pattern book? Right? How do these things affect the design of the project? So does that need to be included in the pattern book? We don't know because the things that we're hearing tonight are not in the pattern book. And that that's creating some confusion with staff. that's what's driving the design of this project. And so, I mean, I think Chad has gotten the design locked down from his perspective of what he wants to see in the project, but we've yet to give feedback to Chad based on there's a contractual obligation he has with the city. There's certain stipulations he's got to comply with. We've not given any feedback regarding all of that. So, I don't want to interfere with that process right now because we're under the zoning procedures law. I don't want to interfere with that process right now at this moment. I want to stop talking about that so we don't get in trouble. So, I've got to give him comments on his reszone application, but this meeting has caused a delay in that.

Y Well, and I apologize because I think I derailed the initial question from Julie, which was, "How did we get here?" So, if that satisfies your question. No, I still I want to hear from Logan. And if Mr. attorney's got anything to throw in there? I I want to hear staff because I mean I guess everybody else has got their opinion, but I know nothing about the project. So, you know, all except what we've talked about and that's it. So,

so Mr. Thompson, going going back in time, way back in time, um I'll address your question with something David pointed out. Well, there wasn't a lot of people uh beating our door down for this project. No doubt. And I think it's even better that we to me that we landed with somebody locally that's proven to do good quality work. Agree. That's that's great. That takes the big unknown off.

Um at the same time, you guys tasked me uh this board did some time ago of creating the most value possible out of this redevelopment, right? And so that's what we've tried to do. Um and and nothing against habitat per se, but ultimately this was a a huge um boomerang to us where we're suddenly hit upside the head and we're trying to, you know, make a hard left or U-turn and try to try to figure out how to make this whole process work. It's um it's not insurmountable, but it is very convoluted and it is going to have to require some unwinding of the contracts. I think I think that's inevitable based on timeline of reasonzoning, based on the URRA involvement, based on a lot of factors. I think it's just going to take extra extra time if you guys are understanding that process. What is the um long-term effect of this project? I don't know when I try to look at some of these things that we've done. I mean, I'm not thrilled with some of the just baseline development that's going on in the city, right?

I'm not. But what what happens when we start intermingling this? Could it be great? Sure. Do I have reservations personally? Yeah, I have a few reservations about how it may um affect the other free market components of the project, but you know, that's just me studying the elements around the country for a long time. Um staff time. Yes, there's going to be a lot of staff time. The CDBG grants that we currently work on taking an inordinate amount of time. There's no doubt about it. Okay.

I mean, we have our grant administrators. No. Yes, we do. But to make sure everything follows as it should, it takes a lot of time to do it right. So, um I'm not saying just because of this particular one, but if we keep piling on our CDBG grants, I'm going to ask for some additional help in the finance department just to handle these kinds of kinds of things. Yeah. Because it does take a lot of time. So, um I'm not trying to sway an opinion either way. I'm just trying to give you facts.

I just want to hear from I mean the the the concept of the project sounds really good and I think it would make that side of town if it all falls like it's supposed to. I think it would be a pretty good project, but there's just too many unknowns for me right now. And I'm sorry, Paul. I just wanted to Yeah. No.

Do you have any comments? No, I mean just from the legal perspective, I don't want to get into the legal weeds and again this you're not here on the reszone, but you do have a condition precedent in the contract. It has to get reszoned to close. We do have a September 30th close date for your first phase. Um things could move along just fine, quickly enough to where you can meet all those deadlines, no problem, but things could also very easily not move along e uh enough to meet those deadlines. So, uh, Ulleia and the URRA would need to address some, you know, contract revisions potentially as to timing, but I mean that's that's up to to to Chad and Ulleia, but also up to y'all considering the reason because that's got to come before you as condition president. So, the short answer is, I mean, there's no question that adding the grant certainly complicates the situation. Does it does it make it um insurmountable or whatever? I mean, that's not my position to to read, but it absolutely complicates it.

So then to that point, would it not be would it be more kosher, for lack of a better word, if the current contract is honored as far as ULIA Group going ahead and buying the property and then having this con this conversation subsequent to the actual close and sale of the property, right? Would that make things any easier? Take friction out?

I I mean I mean from my perspective was certainly I don't know if it works on the grant side of things, but if y'all no longer own the property, it's not sitting on y'all's books and we're not worried about timing of contract deals and all that and y'all just were participating in a public private partnership that isn't y'all's dirt. Of course, that that that certainly could, you know, simplify things. Yes, Tyler. Is that something we could do? So raised dirt. Let me Yeah. So here's what you can do. So once the con once the once they buy it, that's called a limiting action and you could no longer do this. That's one of the reasons that we were trying to do this and trying to do it sooner. Gotcha.

Um as long as you could procure your grant writer before June, uh then there should not be a problem. The 90-day number that I gave you is meant to encompass and typically and there should be no reason it should go beyond 90 days. That's running into every issue you could run into. Um unless they found an Indian burial ground out there in the parking lot, which you'd have to dig up the parking lot. Yeah.

So, uh the 90 days if you get the grant writer in there and they do the NEPA process, you can do whatever you want. they can buy. That's one of the reasons to do it is because then you can buy it. The the the grant can proceed or not proceed. You've cleared what you have to clear. And that's why the that's why you go ahead get the grant writer, do the NEPA process. And even if you do that, you don't have to proceed with the grant. So again, I think another thing that's important to remember is that and first off, I want to apologize. Okay, perhaps I misunderstood how much time that it does take staff and I want to apologize about that and I would love at some point to come and like understand that a little better. So, I apologize for that. I could I can be completely wrong about that. Um, but if we go ahead and get that done, we are able to apply for the grant with all flags kind of cleared except for the application process. Uh, and the timeline can proceed as it was meant to. you don't have to go for the grant or you can go for the grant because here's the thing at the end of the day nothing says we have to apply for the grant and if what you want to do is stipulate that if it over complicates things to whatever threshold you decide is a breaking point

then or you know if too much staff time or whatever else you can say we don't want to go for it at this point yeah I think that would be getting way too fine tooth comb for a contract for that Chad just to hire the grant writer. How much are you outlaying for that? 350 and 350 I think, right? Or 375 375. That that So I mean that depends on the grant writer. Uh but you could expect somewhere around Well, would it 750,000?

It's typically 6% of what? Well, 6% of the award for administration and then whatever the fee is to write it, call it $20,000. Now, depending on and it can't go above a certain number. So, again, you can't just like get this project and then ride off into the sunset. Um, and that all works out DCA. So, they wouldn't be making $600,000. They would that's up to, but at some point DCA starts to question if you're just like making that much money, right? So, it would probably be somewhere much further south of that, but still a lot of money. Sure. Yeah. More than a dollar. I'm sorry.

Scratch the project. Yeah. Because I mean, if it's, let's just say it's $300,000 to hire the which it's not going to be. Okay. Call it 100,000. Yeah. Call it 100,000. It's a lot. That's a lot of money. If it doesn't go through, I mean, do you still fully intend to move forward with the project as you originally planned to if we don't get this grant? Can Can I answer your earlier question was what got us here?

Yeah, I was about to ask what's your perspective. I'm trying to hold like 15 questions in my mind and how to answer. Sorry. Um I mean what got us here was you know my passion for downtown Monroe and you know I'm a developer and in order to develop you got to have projects out in your pipeline to you know what to do next. Um, you know, the city released the RFQ for that property and like Logan said, nobody answered it, right? Even the big players, I'm not a big player. I mean, I'm just like everybody here. I'm just, you know, bootstrapping a lot of it to to get to where I've gotten now. Um, and so, you know, what got me here is just, you know, two or three RFPs failed, right? And then I showed up and said, I'll do it. And you know, I engaged Lou Oliver, who's an award-winning, you know, designer. And, you know, literally, one thing has led to another, you know, and then, um, just lost my train of thought. You know, as part of that, you're trying to figure out, you know, you can't figure out what this the project cost without doing a design, right? So, we entered into a design and then, you know, the contract with the city stated that I have to apply for a reszone. The reason said I had to have engineering and architecture and blah blah blah. And so I mean I've probably spent I don't know to be honest but $200,000 already.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Sure.

I'm serious. Somewhere in that neck neck of the woods. You know what I mean? I've spent that already. So I mean you know the big big developer players weren't interested. And frankly if they were I don't think you'd be happy with what they built. you know, and so what you have in me and our team is people that care about the city and we don't want a disaster to happen for me or any of you, right? And so, you know, we're what got us here was one step at a time. I guess if that I don't know if that answers your question, but it's the truth. You know, it's it's literally we design it and then we take all the next steps that Brad or whoever tells me is next. We're taking the steps as they appear, right? And um and then you know I had a conversation with Tyler um I've on the on both Taiwan and the Ford building we've used other grants andor lowinterest loans and those helped those projects happen you know and I think everybody likes Taiwan and Grizzlebeer those tools help those projects happen and so I asked Tyler are there any tools to help make this happen you know and so literally it's just one step at a time I mean there's nothing disingenuous or surprised intended for anybody. And you know, to John's point, I mean, we're ready, willing, and able to close part of the contract. And hopefully this answers your question, maybe we're ready, willing, and able to close part of the contract whether this happens or not. And that's my intention. In other words, I'm not trying to make I'm not trying to back out of the contract. I'm not trying to make the contract contingent on whether this works or not. you know, we intend to close. What I feel like we're presenting the city is an opportunity to do a model that will probably be recognized around the country as a really cool project that accomplished a lot of the goals that we've stated. So, I mean, I feel like I'm presenting you an opportunity.

With opportunity comes challenge and some sweat and some doing some things we might not want to do, but I genuinely feel like that's what we're presenting to you, you know, and with that there's a lot of risk to me. I mean, people a couple of people have stated that, you know, there's some risk to me, you know, I believe 100% in habitat. Um, I believe in, you know, everything, you know, but the grant writing process, there's some unknowns that, you know, I've never been through all that, so I don't know. There's some unknowns. Unknowns create risk, you know. Um, so the the risk is the financial risk is mostly mine, right? And I can't afford to lose. I really can't. But, um, it it I really do feel like we're presenting the city an opportunity. Um, I intend to close the property, buy the property, whether you guys vote for this or not. I think the question is, do you guys want to find a way to pursue attainable housing? you know, in the city via this project or not. I mean, I think that's kind of the that's kind of the question.

That just goes back to where I started. We just go in a circle. You know, the city has nothing to lose here. No, no one has yet told me some quantifiable serious thing that the city loses if we support adding this affordability component. If this doesn't work, he goes ahead with the project as the the standard thing. You understand? It could still fail. That can fail miserably. And you could end up we could end up with an empty development out there. A half built, quarter built, 10% built. That's always a possibility. I swear I don't see the downside to doing this. And I am not going to look people in the eye who live in this community who aren't making the big money, who want to own a house. I am not going to look at them and say, "Well, we just thought it was too much trouble for the city to try to do something about affordability." So, we're just going to keep talking about it and say, "Oh, yeah, affordability, that's a great thing. We think that's a wonderful thing. We're not going to do anything, but we think it's a great thing. So, and I I'm a little fired up about it, but dog gone it, it is time to actually do something and not just talk about it. He's taking all the risk. What the hell are we going to lose in this? Nothing. Nobody can point to me. Tell me how much money is the city going to lose on this. Somebody tell me that.

None.

Nothing. He's the one with the risk. And the reward, if it works, is incredible. And people look at Monroe and say, "Dog gone, somebody finally did something." Instead of just talking about Mr. Dickinson, I appreciate your passion and I and I think we all share a passion to take this city from here in in the race to the top, right? And we see different ways to get there and and I appreciate your passion. And of course, I appreciate Tyler's passion as well. We all what is in the best long-term interest of the city. We just see different ways to get there and that's fine. Um I think Lee had a question and then I'm going to have one more question for y'all. Well, I think there are two things that I go back to what Julie said about when you brought the project before the community and you had the chetses and people were very receptive to what you presented and um in that initial plan and things have made, you know, a big twist and a big turn and I don't I don't know that it's right that we don't take the new plan back to the city to the citizens and share that as well. I don't want them to feel like that all this came about and and now it's a totally different project. Not to say it's a bad project. It's just a different it's a whole different concept in a sense. You don't see that. Correct.

Is is it okay if Yes. Yes.

We we haven't changed our plan at all. I'm I'm not sure what you're referring to, but we haven't changed our plan at all. The only thing we've done is exploring the idea of the innovative grant, exploring the idea of involving habitat, but the drawings that Lou Oliver has created have not changed. Now, let me preface that a little bit with the way his process works is I'm going to meet him tomorrow. Actually, I go sit in his office in Clarksville, Georgia, and he sits there at his desk and draws. I've been with him, I'm not sure exactly, but seven or eight times. So the the he draws and that as we discuss and we have these kind of conversations, the drawings morph and change and improve, but little to nothing has changed from the chet that you mentioned. I guess you mean the meeting we had at Grizzlebeer.

Yes. Very little has changed. Very little if anything has changed. It's it's only he's only created more drawings, but the site plan essentially has not changed. the involvement of the innovative grant or habitat has not changed the plan. Okay. Um we've created more drawings, but it's it's you know it's an it's an ever evolving ever growing vision that's that's growing but not we haven't done a 180. It's it's evolving. Well, and then on on talking about the city doesn't have any risk. We do have a risk.

What is it? And that is that if this project fails, which god forbid that happened, but we have to think about all the property owners surrounding in that area and how that could affect their property values if this were to fail. What how would it fail in a way that it would affect the property owners? Well, if it's left unfinished, it yes, it could affect that area. Why would it be left unfinished if it fails? What about it would fail? You said it earlier, Tyler. I'm sorry. You said it earlier. What's that?

That it could fail. No, I hope could fail because any construction project can fail. He can run out of money that everything could take your question. What does that have to do interest in in making a decision that we feel like is okay in the best interest of not only that project but the surrounding properties in that area. I understand that and I appreciate that. I think what we have the ability to do is to inject $5 million into the project to make sure that it can be helped along. Well, I don't think involving Habitat's going to make it fail. Like, I don't think that that's that's not what anybody saying here. And I don't think anyone is sitting up here saying

we don't want to offer that price point of housing for people that live here in Monroe. I think we all have an interest in providing that type of housing for our citizens here. My only concern is that we do it the right way and that we go through the processes the right way. We started in a process. We have guidelines and things that we have to do and now we're changing what we're doing. And so I just want to make sure that we go back and just do it the right way. And if that's start over from the beginning and put it back out and we end up right back here doing what we're talking about tonight, cool. I'm happy with that because that's what I ultimately want in the end anyway. But I want to make sure that we're transparent with our citizens and that we're doing things the right way.

So one not about affordable housing for me. It's not about Habitat. I'm with you. I mean I'm Chad or the plan or the drawings or the renderings or any of that. Tyler mentioned it earlier. So, one thing I think we're going to have to do is the developers are going to have to do a bid on it, right? Yeah. Resubmit. They're going to have to basically resubmit throughout all this at the end. So, technically, it's a roll of the dice. Chad get his own project. I hope so. I mean, I guess so. I don't want to I don't want to

taint that. I mean, I hope so. Anyway, but but it it is a is a very unique kind of situation that I've never seen before.

So, yeah. And and that so again, that's a risk for Chad. So, Chad has to decide, is he willing to put his own project up for risk, right? Because what essentially would happen, I can't imagine it happening any other way, but I'm open to any kind of suggestions. What would have to happen is a project would have to come across your desk that you thought was better well that met the criteria but essentially was better funded you thought was a better project higher quality it met your standards more so with still the affordability component and you would have to select that project now and that's what you're doing you're looking for the very best project so essentially the idea would be that if you didn't select Chad you would get a better project

can I go back to our premeating from a a ways back. How comfortable are you? Cuz we did we dealt with this forward building. It was it was a bit of a a pain, right? Going through the process. It was long. It's a bit of a learning curve, but it was well worth it. I mean, I would do it again. It was long, but project wouldn't have worked without it. Probably not.

I just want to make sure you have comfort here to go through this process with the Baba Act and, you know, full Davis Bacon, etc., et etc. said everything that is going to be required that you know the bureaucratic timelines I just want to make sure you're fully comfortable with that or for our council members here

I'm comfortable with the bureaucratic timelines the to the best that I understand them right I've never done it but I'm I mean this way but I'm comfortable to the best of my understanding you know this is the first time I've heard that it's a roll of the dice whether I get the project or not I mean you know I don't want to publicly say I'm gonna sign up for that, but but but most likely I would. Most likely I would be. But I mean, you know, that's the first I've heard of that. I'm saying, you know, see, and that's I think that's one thing that we're all feeling really shaky about because we don't have all the answers.

As Tyler said, though, y'all, you can create some standards of what you want in a project. And based on our other RFPs and RFQS, nobody comes to the plate to to meet those standards, you know what I mean? We we set the standards, you know, and I, you know, I don't I don't I don't have any fear that somebody else is going to show up and meet them, you know? So, and is there another affordability partner like Habitat that could possibly partner with another developer? Because I would assume that Habitat would be committed to you and your submitt. I guess in theory, Habitat could choose who they work with. I mean, I don't know if that choice is up to them, I guess.

And that's what I meant earlier when I said we're kind of the only ones in the game. There are a couple other organizations out there that do this sort of thing, but not on the scale and not with the track record that we have. And I I just want to go back real quick, speaking to your earlier comment, um, Counciloman Sams, just the value ad that Habitat could bring to the table. If we do get to a point where we're well along with numbers and that the math is making sense, we can bring a certain amount of relationships to to the project and that doesn't mean like signs of Home Depot. This is a nonprofit project. Nothing like that. I could care less if Habitat's name is on this. We get the people in the houses. I'm going to be thrilled. We have deep relationships with Home Depot across Habitat as well. And it would be cheaper materials. It' be really high quality stuff. Exactly what human would want. We also have a strong relationship with the Georgia Utility Contractors Board who may be able to offset some of that infrastructure. They die for projects like this, but no one's doing them. So, until someone really dives into mixed use and mixed income. I I went and did a presentation for them uh just a few months ago, and they're like, "We're dying for something to sink our teeth into." They have a little bit of money that they can do out for philanthropic efforts. They want to donate their time and talent and do some some some inind donations of that infrastructure that could also hopefully help some. What is the like process? So if we spend said maybe 30 days

30 days say we're in June it comes before us in June to approve whoever whoever is selected right so then they're going to do an application with DCA for this innovative grant. How long does that application process take? Is that the 90 days? 60 days or so.

90 is is the NEPA process which begins as soon as you get the person in. So, and right before I jump into this, one quick thing. So, let's assume that it does take longer to select the grant writer than expected. And let's assume that the 90 days did eventually cut into the September timeline. One thing that could happen is that it's possible, and you'd have to discuss this, but it's possible that Chad could purchase the one piece of property that he's slated to purchase. he could still fulfill all of his legal obligations and you could make the rest of the property the part for the grant. So even if you cut into the timeline, it's still possible that the project can proceed using the other pieces of property. You could not use any of the grant funds on the pieces outside of that. Well, that would probably comport because phase one is the uh commercial redevelopment

into residential that he wasn't

slating for any habitat. But again, if you get them selected, if you were to if I were to ask for some of that time that I said that you weren't going to have to put into it and you selected the grant writer more swiftly, you could get past the 90 days, which would allow you to do all this to do the purchase of the property, all that stuff without and and all of it would be viable for the grant funds and you wouldn't have to worry about that. It truly actually complicates things like as in going back to hey can we do this if we don't get the guys selected and get the NEPA process started and that in of itself again has the fall back of just using the other three parcels.

Well let me throw two cents into that. Yeah,

getting getting into the practical realities and not only the timing is difficult I think at this stage for staff and for Ulleia group but also I think there is a practical component just to think about on on um u qualifications and you know and making it work is is the phase one that he's slated to take down by 9:30 is the commercial building that under the application he has in is for a conversion to multif family rental at market rate. Um and very little public infrastructure on that track. Um it's the other part of the project that's actually a harder do right as a developer. I think Chad would say that. So it may actually lend itself to the grant process to where it's like I'm just talking out loud here. spitballing. It's like the phase one that he's obligated to take down by September 30th. It may stand on its own. I mean, right, it it probably stands on its own. I haven't napkined it, but I bet it does. But the other tracks with the intended uses and the intended infills may not stand on their own, but for the CDBG grant. And so it may actually help the conversation if one is already going and the other isn't. I don't know. I just thought about that when you were talking about your timing. I do think September 30th visav the reszone visav the gran all is going to be really tight. Yeah, I think

but maybe splitting it actually helps everybody and and again let's call that plan B and know that there's a viable way because again so and let me just explain what I'm talking about when I say section 106 and NEPA because you guys have zero idea what I'm talking about when I say that right I've been wondering

yeah yeah sorry sorry you guys don't speak grantees uh section 106 what's going to happen is your grant writer is going to go out there actually he's going to take the pictures that Chad just showed you of the current site and he's going to send them in to HPD which is Georgia's Historic Preservation Division and they have 30 days to respond and say here's the issues that there are or there is no adverse effect. Once you get the letter of no adverse effect it means that that property is cleared as far as that's concerned. Once you have that and once you have submitted so at the same time that grant writer will submit to the tribes whatever tribes are in connected to Monroe there's a list it's called TAT and it's the tribal information data whatever I got it wrong but anyway you got all the all the addresses and stuff for the people that you need to connect and they have historic preservation officers themselves and you say this is the track of land we're looking at this is what we want to do and they send a letter back they either don't respond at all or they send back and say yes we would like to uh you know talk on this project. Now what that typically means even if they say that is once you get your NEPA done which is after you get that tribal response you advertise in the paper that you have looked at all these things and come up to city hall after 30 days and give any comments that you may have or questions that you may have about the process. Once that's cleared, you um do another final notice in the paper saying that it has been cleared, there has been no comments. Then you send it to DCA and you say, "Look, we went through this whole process. Here's your HPD section 106. Here's your tribal responses. Here's the ERR, which will it's a whole document that explains that there's no bombs on the site, that there's no toxins, that it's not near a river, that it's not doesn't have wetlands, doesn't have flood planes, all these different things. Innesota and and it shows that there's no issues environmentally with the property and you send that to DCA and you say okay we did the entire

process and then they send you a letter back that says okay you have a then you send them what's called a request for release of funds and that request for release of funds allows you to draw down money on the project. So but once the ERR is completed and you've submitted that technically once tribal is done you're good to go. So that if if you run those processes in parallel, that's 30 days. And as long as you don't run into anything, then you're good to go. And even if you ran into anything, they may say, "Well, we want an extra picture of this, or we need to know about that." But again, you're dealing with a parking lot. It's unlikely that anything of historic value is in the save a lot parking lot. Sure. There's not like buried underneath the the asphalt.

Right. We have a story about a local I was going to say we find at the town green. Yeah, we found some sort of So, but but if you do that, then it just makes it clearer and cleaner and you're done with that piece of it. And that excludes the application process. Now, you've got all the time in the world to go through the application process. And to answer your question though, DCA both understands that this is a building project and that it's something that they want to get through and done, right? So, they are going to be more responsive than they typically would. There is not a submission date. This is a rolling submission and in fact, you have to be invited essentially to apply. So, have we been invited to apply? Yeah. So, we So, we have to go at least present. I'm sorry. We have an invitation of sorts.

We've had conversations. So, you and then so it's the initial kind of, hey, do you like this idea? And they say, "Well, you got to tell us about the project." So, we've told them to the extent that we have and they say, "Yes, we'd be interested in seeing that application." Right. So, it's not like, "Hey, they have something they're interested in seeing." That's right. Right. So that's where we're at in the process. So that's where we're at in the process. And then, you know, call it 60 to 90 days. You could be through with the process if it So or they could just not award it and then you're

right. So 30 days before it comes before us in June. Okay. Hiring the grant writer, whatever. and then 90 days for an application process. And at the end of that 90 days, we submit an application. How long does it take DCA to decide? I have no idea.

They're going to let you know pretty quick. You're talking to the decision makers throughout the process. The people that you're talking to are people that are going to decide. And what they're trying to do is guide you to a successful application. What they're going to do is they're going to have guard rails from these folks that help them understand what they can and can't do. And at any point, and this is what I told Chad, this is what I've told you guys at the last meeting. If at any point that doesn't meet with Chad's standards, expectations, if they're pushing on something that he doesn't want to do, I've told him to not do it. I said it the last time and I'll say it again. An incentive does not make a bad deal good. It makes a good deal better. We've got a good deal. This incentive makes it better. It allows the opportunity for people to be able to afford a home in this type of environment that would not originally have it. They would be stuck rental. They would be stuck somewhere else. We have been blessed in this town.

We have had an abundance. Yet we sit here with a poverty mindset saying, "Oh no, what happens if?" The truth is is that Chad has more risk without the grant than he does with the grant. You're talking about slowing down timelines maybe by a month or two. It's already a four-year takedown process. Just to do what he's planning on doing is four years. And you talk about hiccups in the process. You guys have all done construction. All of you. You know that every construction project will encounter problems. It will come in over budget and it will come in past time. They all do. That's that's not new. I mean, and what we're asking here is, can we be a pass through essentially to be able to help the community to be able to help the folks live in this town that work in this town? And can we allow the the local developer who wants to build a quality product? Will we give him the tools that he asks for to be able to complete a project of highest quality that serves all of our people? I'm with David. I I don't know what the issue is. I I do I sorry I hear that you have concerns about a possible 30 or 90day extension on the project. I hear that you're I I do I hear that you're concerned about a failure, but I believe those concerns are misplaced because again a private developer on his own on his own dime has more of a chance to fail than without some sort of investment. So you've had him come to you and all I feel like I heard for the longest time it's like if we had a quality developer probably somebody local who wanted to build a quality product who wanted to do this and did it locally and made sure that all these people were there and it it benefited Monroe and all that stuff. It's like that would be the green light. So really when Chad brought this idea

and and said where is this thing I was like man boy this is going to check all the boxes like There's there is and not only that I got him to agree to pay for the whole thing. Like I mean it come on what you there listen nobody in Georgia gets this deal. Nobody has gotten this deal. Nobody's going to get this deal. They're paying for the whole thing. All you have to do is say yes. And even if the grant fails, you still get the product that he's promised. There is no downside

that again it for me it's not about habitat or the affordability piece. Sure. Even though we end up getting back there somehow there per se are numbered. Parcel two, I'm calling it a parcel. I don't know what the appropriate name for it is. Is where you're proposing to put the habitat houses. Correct. It's two and three. Two and three. So you spread them out. So it's not He has I believe it's two and three. I believe that's accurate. Yes. One is the existing building and two and three is I believe that's accurate. So they'll those 20 homes would be spread out between those two. Yeah. And perhaps a little bit into four perhaps two, but two, three, and four. Let's just say that

since and I think you know we all want to see the property close on the 30th of this year. Um because that was what we originally agreed to. I mean can we rearrange those to ensure that the the contract allows the developer the authority to choose the next takedowns? So the contract is is agreed upon such that uh track one which is the existing building track has to be taken down in the 2026 take down. The remaining three tracks the contract the developer is given the discretion to take them down in the order he so chooses. So that's already baked into your existing contract between the URRA and ULIA group.

Okay. It would be very appealing to me to just buy track one per the contract and keep going through this process if it will work with legal and DCA. That would be very appealing if if that will all work.

Yeah, I think we need to get some determination on that. But I think we do have some flexibility on on tract one. where we're focused on this like crunch of a timeline to get it done by September 30th. If it's going to go back out to bid and we can limit it to just maybe two and three or two, three, four, whatever the combination of the numbers is. I mean, I guess as long as it's for me, if it's going to go back out to bid and there's the opportunity for the public to see that we didn't just change it for the ukulele group.

Sure. Sure. um you know, I don't want the conception out there that we've, you know, made the package work just for you. Um then I mean that makes sense to me as long as we know that that first section is going to go ahead and close on September 30th and then we can work through. But then again, if we don't get this grant, you're just going to move forward with the other three parcels purchased. The intention is to buy it all regardless. Yes. Okay. And continue with the development the way you initially proposed it. Is there an assignment clause in that contract?

Um I believe that there is no assignment allowed whereby he could after first phase sign the remainder of the contract. No, the contract there's no assignment permitted. Okay. Do you have any questions?

No questions. Um I pretty much agree with David. We've been talking about in everybody affordable homes, affordable homes, and the majority of people around here cannot I sound loud um afford a house now, especially 400 and $500,000. It's just not for most people, and I know you don't want it. You can say because you've told me that many times. But if this is a project who's willing to take the risk and we we're not coming out of any money and everybody said habitat is not the issue, but that's the only thing y'all bringing up. So it is the issue and I don't know why y'all don't want it if you helping giving somebody a hand up. Like what's the issue?

I don't understand it. But you keep saying that, but those are the questions that you're bringing up.

We had a contract signed, sealed, delivered, walk away. It was done. It required no further involvement from us, for the city, anything. And now that's changing. So for me, it's like I said earlier, I hope that we go through the process the right way and we end up right back where we are, that we end up with Habitat, that we end up with Chad. But I think we owe it to our citizens to be sure that we're transparent, we do it the right way. Like and like Tyler said, we always wanted this or we had this this this somebody local who cares about the city want to help everybody and we got that but it's still in the issue. Like I don't understand what's the problem. But that's my comment, not a question.

I I appreciate you saying that my issue and and I also understand uh I I do want our housing inventory to get better. Um is the thing I want folks coming here who can completely support our downtown and what we're doing is bringing in folks who are going to struggle. We just are. I mean, it's just the way it works, the way math works. The issue though that that I have another I'm sorry is I have two habitat board members on this council. I don't know that that passes the smell test. It just doesn't. You had an issue before you knew agent was on the habitat board. I had one person who's on the habitat board. But now we have

finding more issues because you don't want to say it's because of this. But is are there any other members of the habitat board in here? Because if there are, I have another issue. I don't know. Okay. But I know that's not we have two. I said my issue was that I have one on the habitat board. I know we even talked about it in the in the retreat. It does. Let's ask the attorney. Let's ask you. So yeah, Mr. Rosenthal. Resign. I resign. Yeah, we can resign the board. recuse yourself.

So again, um you know, Habitat's nonprofit, so there's no pecuniary interest that either of you hold. So when you look at conflicts of interest that are mandated under George Law and under codes of ethics, the issue is is you don't need to be making decisions or uh voting on matters or legislating when there's a pecuniary interest at play. That is generally defined as a dollar figure, a dollar in your pocket. If you can make a dollar off of a deal, you don't need to be involved. You need to recuse yourself from both consideration or discussion as well as any active votes. So, with the Habitat situation, as I discussed previously with multiple members of this board, is is that and I did not know that Miss Adrian was on the board, so I apologize on that, but I did know that that Mr. Gregory was, is that if Mr. Gregory is sitting as a board member. There is no technical conflict because he's not receiving any sort of pecuniary benefit making a decision relative to the habitat decisions, right? Um does it still mean that he could recuse himself? He absolutely could. Uh is it sitting in a legal area? It's legal. Is it a gray area that could be debated? It's absolutely a gray area that can be debated. The example that I gave him is this is if you know, and again this is a different example, right? But if it was your own local church and you're asking some decision to be made, well, you don't receive pecuniary benefit from some matter, you know, being decided on behalf of your church, but you're you're viewed as a member of the church or an elder board on the elder board, you know, should you recuse yourself. So, there is no technical conflict. Uh, let me be clear on that. I see no technical conflict because um Habitat is a nonprofit and I know of no financial interest in urineing to the benefit of either Miss Adrian or Mr. Tyler. Um so there is no technical conflict. Is there room for debate over

whether or not there should be recusal or should not? Is this stuck somewhere in a gray area of of appropriateness or smell test? That is for you guys to decide because y'all are the legislators addressing sort of that gray area, but there is not a technical conflict. No. So, so yeah, the gray area. And I'm sorry, and you're right, you there's no pecuniary benefit and we can all individ individually judge whether or not it passes a smell test for each of us. Okay, that being said, um does anybody have anything else for the good of our community? Greg, should we move forward?

Is this a vote? There's there's still I don't want to I don't do a raise of hands. I want each person to go on record.

There's still a lot of unanswered and I guess that that's the way this project is going to hold out to be. I just don't want to get the city stuck in something that it can't get out of. like the project. I like you Habitat. I just I'm just looking at what could happen. And I guess anything could happen. Hell, a meteor could fall on this building right now. I I I I think for the time being if we can get out of the project, if you know, if it don't all come together and maybe it goes the way that Chad was going to originally do it, u I say we go ahead and and go through the first phase and just see what goes on. I mean, you know, David's right. Much as I hate to say it, we we we've talked and we've talked for the last two and a half years I've been on the council. We've talked and talked about affordable housing. We've done some stuff with the code. Uh but but I do think we need to look at it going forward and as long as the city's got the string on it from what I understand um and sees it going south before it gets too far then maybe we can pull back on it. So that's and that's my only concern. There's just too many unanswered questions for me to go wholeheartedly say, you know, let's do it. But I, you know, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I'll vote on the first process to say, let's move forward. Love the project. I mean, I really do. It makes that whole end look good. And I hope it does go through. I just don't want to see the city stuck with something that it can't get out of.

And and I I should probably qualify this because this is not a binding vote. So, this is like an individual yay or nay. But but I but I want everybody I want everybody on the same page. Ross Bradley move forward with what? With the grant writer, hiring the grant writer and I think probably hoping for the best. Well, we'll finish out the process of the evaluating the grant writers and take it back in June. Y'all can always reserve the right to say your name in June. would be my point is I thought we already said yes, which is why we have the 11 applications and we already are moving forward. Yeah. So, we're moving forward on that. So,

then in June, I guess this is a clarification meeting because y'all had a lot of questions at the March meeting. I wanted to talk to Chad. So, I just want to make sure I'm hearing the mayor's question correct. Like, I thought that I already said yes, let's move forward. And that was in the retreat, which is why we have the applications. And that's what we're doing. So then now is it like is it yes or no to me now? There's no further vote. Not really. No. The discussion. So

yeah. So I mean I'd stand by my comment or my my answer at the retreat and yes, I'm perfectly fine moving forward with where we're at now. I mean it's not an official vote. So yes, no, maybe so. Doesn't matter.

Over the the rest of U6. But if it's really just discussion, then you know I mean it is we're moving forward and that was discussion. I would like to add that I want before we get here in June. I want either to have a open discussion with DCA as a group or I want to know that Logan has gotten some answers from them on his questions because to me that is a very concerning component of this. And it and the other reservation I have I think Chad's project is phenomenal. I have utmost confidence in him and what he will do with it.

My biggest concern is simply that we are going to be the guinea pig. This has not been done. And you know we we must accept that there going to be some crooks and turns in the road. There's no doubt about it. And we're going to have to be willing to put we as a council are going to have to be willing to to commit to time and energy in the project as well.

And and you're you're right. There are a lot of coulds. This could be used like you said as as an example nationwide or even worldwide and and we could also be used as an example nationwide or worldwide. Um my since Lee spoke I don't want to skip over you. Did you have anything else to say? It's a yes for me. I think we're moving forward, but did you have anything else to say? Is it possible to get a representative from DCA at the June meeting to kind of talk to us about the grant or a call meeting tonight? Would have been

nice. Can I can I speak this a little bit?

Okay. What DCA is lacking? This is I'm just going to have to go back to this again. The reason we're getting the grant writer is so that they can structure things in a way that DCA can respond. Now, I believe the questions that Logan has, which are in if they are the questions that are in here, there are answers, too. We have the answers. We I keep saying them. I don't know why. In fact, at the other meeting, I said, "So, the answer for the infrastructure is the city's going to retain it. It has to be publicly owned because you can't make a profit." it. My my questions were more strict and that may follow up in in this grant administration process is where are these lines of delineation? How all does this work? I mean, I'm talking nuts and bolts, not is the city going to have to retain? I understand the city's going to have to retain it, but really what is this going to have to look like?

Sidewalks, streets, everything that you put a public dollar into, the city retains. And again, it goes back to what does this look like in terms of the physical plan, the EU that we're working on. So, and I' I've looked at the pre-application process here. It's pretty vague. We just put in what we want to do and I guess the magic buttons hit and we see what comes out from DCA.

Yeah. Which is how you've gotten to where you are, right? So they have said we like this idea and the reason it's vague is because it's the so another question you ask is why hasn't anybody done this right so the innovative grant in and of itself was meant to be an option grants are often strictly for this thing or that thing and there's no variation. What they wanted to do was offer an opportunity for people to come in with an innovative idea. We're building the grant as we go. Well, so except that all the rules that govern it exist and have existed, right? But the opportunity to present a project of any type is what is here. Correct.

And that's why you work closely with DCA and do these all these other kind of things, right? And so again, by the end of it, if the application is accepted, the idea is that DCA has worked with you up to that point so that you've reduced as many crooks in the road as you can. The idea is that you are figuring out what's tenable and what is not. And they will tell you in the process if something is untenable and that's part of the process. That's what's going. So you submit that pre-application and they say, "Okay, we like everything about this except for this, this, this, and this." And then you go back and you say, "Okay, well, let's fix that. How does that need to look?" Uh, as far as um about the chip grant, is that going to be needed?

So the $1.4 $4 million is part of what Habitat's bringing to the table. They will put that in via either land purchase or u vertical construction or whatever that ends up being. So the the federal rule is is that the money has to do what the money was intended for. So they will use it for that purpose and that luckily lines up with a building project. So um sorry does that answer is that Did Did that get you? Adrien, did you have anything else?

Wait. I think it's a good project. I think that we definitely need attainable housing here in Monroe. I have seen Habitat's projects. I stand by them. I also have uh background in the mortgage business. I know how that works. Know how development works. I know how grants work. I know it sounds very very scary. I have a grant from HUD that my organization right now is in that first year of it. It is scary because with this organization, this is their first time having this particular grant directly and they hired me to come in and manage it and I had to hire my own team. It is scary. I mean, but we're making it work. I have people on my team that are passionate about it. When you put that in place with doing something, somebody's got to do something to make a deal. And that's what we decided to do. I'm not giving up on it. I put my heart into it and it's working. We're pulling down the money. We're doing what we need to do in order to make this deal do what it needs to do. And we're putting people in housing and we're making their lives better. People are saving. They're going back to school. They're getting better jobs. This is stuff that comes across my desk. I see it in black and white.

We got to give people a chance. And I'm not just saying the people that will move into this housing. I'm talking about if is willing to do this and he is from Monroe. He is putting his money out there and you say that you respect him and you like his product. Give the man a chance. You're not going to lose nothing because he's on Thank you, Miss Brown. Tyler, did you have anything else? I'm thankful for the discussion. I'm thankful for the questions. I am thankful for the questioning of the process. Truly am. Because that's what our job is. And thanks for doing that. It is scary like Adrian said, no doubt about it. And is it untested? Sure. But there are plenty of models. You see, what we're going to use is a conglomeration of models that already exist, right? but it's in this program itself which is a little different, looks a little different. Um, I'm thankful that we're moving forward. We will see if we can get DCA to maybe we could get them to answer some questions, but again, I just want to explain that the hard part is is they can't what they're going to tell you is show us the project and we'll answer the question. So you it's it's a cart before the horse situation. So you have to have the project so they can answer the question and that's where you're running into a lot of this frustration. I know it's frustrating and that's why grant writers have a job but it's just a part of the process and that's what we're going through. So I appreciate you being willing to go through the process. And again if it doesn't work it doesn't work. It can be undone and it and it

doesn't commit anybody to anything except for these guys. So, thank you for being willing to take your time and consider this. I think it's going to be a good thing for Monroe. Thank you, Mr. Gregory. David,

two things. Number one, I think what we have done tonight, this discussion uh this is how government is supposed to work. Uh tough questions um but done in a respectful manner. Uh, I'm very proud of this mayor and this council and the way we do things in this city and with respect to this project without equivocation I am behind it 100% and in favor of moving forward.

Thank you. Um, and I have uh two last things. Uh, is please don't think either is intended to sway any anybody's long-term decision. I heard a poverty mindset. Uh and I think that what we're really doing is going anti-poverty mindset. You know, Monroe was highly impoverished for generations up until the last 8 10 12 years that that some people came in who actually had money to spend. Um, so you know, when I've when I've said, "Hey, we have plenty of affordable housing." Like I I did on that call in that last minute, it was people have been held down by just a few property owners and and you know, my my thoughts have always been, hey, we got to get those properties out of people's hands and put them uh to work for for the people in our community who do want to raise their families, spend their lives here, and spend their times in downtown Monroe. But secondly, and and really most importantly, and I appreciate every single person's passion in here, um Tyler lives this world. So, I feel bad even questioning. I really do. Um and your passion is is I think we all need to be that passionate about making Monroe a better place.

You're right. And responsibility, right? That that we are trying to make our part of the world a better place. and we're just going to see sometimes uh things that are a little bit different. But yes, we're obviously we're going to be moving forward uh with the 11 applications that we have and we'll have more information in June and hopefully we can get DCA to come in uh to a meeting because although although we know the answers, we don't know the answers. That makes sense. Um, but I appreciate you coming in and taking the time out of of all of your schedules to be here with us tonight. That being said, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn, please. Thank you, Miss Sams. Is there a second?

Thank you, Miss Brown. And I'll give the And I'll give the third to Miss Malcolm. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose, like sign. Motion carries. That passes.