City Council - Regular Meeting

Rochester City Council study session and we are in our more informal setting again which I think uh really is conducive to a great dialogue which we had two weeks ago. Uh on today's agenda we have four items. We have spongy moth management in Rochester. Uh and then we have a supporting transformation update, a housing code update, and then we'll hear from our colleague uh council member um Dory on any path home program update. So with that, I am going to turn it over to Kimberly uh Ke Tin Framers and John Larson from uh the Department of Agriculture.

Wonderful. Well, thank you uh council members. Uh thank you so much for having us. My name is Kimberly Taling Kramers. Um I'm with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. I'm a manager at the department and with me is our uh spongy moth treatment coordinator, John Larson, as well. And so we just wanted to come before you today to share a little bit about spongy moth. Um my hope is that we'll uh share with you a little bit about what what is spongy mouth, why the department of agriculture u manages for this pest uh the damage that it does cause to local environments and then what our proposed management uh strategy is to assist here within the city of Rochester. And so we'll jump into it um a little bit about spongy moth. Uh we were just talking about this before we started uh this morning or this afternoon. Spongy moth was originally called gypsy moth. So, if you're familiar with the term gypsy moth or I've heard that uh uh past in the past, this is the same past. It just got a name change just a couple of years ago and is now referred to as spongy moth. It is a federally regulated plant pest. So, it's one of those pests that is uh it's an invasive insect pest that's introduced into the United States. It's not a pest that we want here. It's not uh uh established at least in the Minnesota. established in the United States back in the the east coast uh back in the 1800s. And so it's moving kind of westward and we'll talk a little bit about that, but it's an incredibly defoliating uh impacting insect. And what it does is it's it eats leaves on over 300 species of trees and shrubs. So it's a defoliator. So it's the caterpillar stage that's the most damaging. And this is the pest that will come out. And it has and that's the invasive nature of it is the fact that it can feed on over 300 species of trees. So it has this really wide host range and some of the preferred species of trees in which it prefers particularly down in southeast Minnesota is your oak um oak aspen birch willow basswood. Those are some of the

preferred but again 300 species of trees. On average annually this pest is defoliating just under 800,000 acres annually across the United States where it is established. And back in 2023, just a couple of years ago, the state of Wisconsin had just under 400,000 acres in their state alone defoliated, trees defoliated from this particular past. Uh so it is definitely a damaging past from both uh the environmental standpoint, but it also has some impacts to human health um and impacts to potential property value due to mortality or trees dying uh due to stress. But some of the human health concerns is the large cat the caterpillars um break off. They have these very long hairs and those hairs can break off into the air and float around in air and folks during outbreak levels if they have sensitivities, asthmetic conditions, very sensitive people can have some um temporary responses to those. Other folks who handle the insects can potentially have some skin irritations uh with handling the caterpillars themselves. So uh the property value, this pest is not a tree killer. You may be very familiar with emerald ashbor which is currently established here in the Rochester area and all through southeast Minnesota. That is an invasive. That one is a tree killer. That one causes direct mortality to ash trees where this particular invasive pest actually stresses trees where it then leaves those trees vulnerable to other insects and diseases that then will move in and that is what actually causes mortality. Just similar to emerald ashbor it is a regulated plant pest. So, it's not only regulated in the state of Minnesota. This particular pest is regulated nationally. It is currently only established in one-third its geographical range across the United States. We are protecting the spread of this insect into twothirds of the United States, basically the rest of Minnesota and 2/3 of the United States that does not currently have this established

pest. We partner with both the US Forest Service uh on this and uh USDA uh animal plant health inspection service to kind of slow and manage this pest across the United States. You may ask, okay, you just mentioned this pest was introduced back in the 1800s. Why is it not currently established in the rest of the geographical range in which it can be established? And that has to do with the biology of this insect. Um the female moth cannot fly. She has this incredibly large abdomen that's simply full of eggs. Each uh she will lay a single egg mass and each egg mass contain between 500 and a thousand viable little caterpillars. So it doesn't take uh too many egg masses, too many females to have established populations. Um it is the male moth that is flight and this is the male that we've been serveing uh for some time and I'll get into a little bit of our survey program. Um, and that's the the pest in which we we will be managing. Spongy moth naturally only spreads about a mile to a mile and a half naturally on its own uh across that. And the only way this insect can naturally move is when it's in its tiny little first instar caterpillar. It'll put a silken thread into the air and it will balloon or blow westward. So, it it relies on the currents of the wind to actually move it to new treetops to get established. However, human assisted movement has accelerated this movement of this pest across the United States. And it can anywhere be from firewood, household moves, outdoor equipment, you name it. There's a lot of avenues in which this pest can get a free ride or hitchhike to new areas of establishment. Uh it is a federally regulated quarantine plant pest. So we would then uh what comes after established populations get established in the area we do look at then regulation and quarantine to minimize the artificial movement of this pest to new areas. Minnesota's been very fortunate to be a part of a national program where we have 10 states that are partnering together

around the front the advancing population front and we work with US forest service. said there's a program the US Forest Service uh slow the spread uh slow the spread was in existence long before COVID came into play and used the the term slow the spread we've been slowing the spread of spongy moth for over 25 years the program's goal is to reduce spread by over 60% so we're now we're talking about that natural movement and that artificial movement of 15 miles per year we're trying to reduce that down to six over those that lifespan or that time frame of this program's existence we've been able to reduce spread over 85% % in many years throughout that project and throughout the years. The map that you see is a an area that we would had we not been managing for this pest and slowing its advancing front. Our first treatment in the state of Minnesota happened in 1980 in St. Paul. Since that time, we've been treating hundreds of thousands of acres across Minnesota trying to slow the advancing front into our state. And had we not been doing that project, you can see the red line. spongy moth would be completely across the state of Minnesota in 2045. Um, but you can see that jig j that zigged kind of blue line is where we have been able to slow that spread coming into our state protecting over 96 million uh hectares uh nationally across the the entire front of where it's advancing across the area. This maps uh depicts kind of our survey uh populations kind of eb and flow along that advancing front. they co how they how uh spongy moth populations move westward. It's like a forest fire. You see those isolated populations uh tiny little pockets. They will jump out in front of that advancing front. They will coales and then move westward. Our goal is to kind of suppress those populations as they're moving westward. And you can see in 2023 um we are feeling the results of the outbreak populations that occurred in Wisconsin.

uh we had significant outbreaks down in their w south the central part of their state up in the Bayfield area. So there's two kind of areas where they had massive outbreaks. Uh those populations did crash and that's where we're starting to see the resolution of where they become actually established in our state to be able to manage and monitor for those. We use the the life stage of spongy moth to our advantage. This is the most researched insect probably in the United States today. Uh there's a lot known about this insect. There's a lot not known about this insect because of the invasive nature of it. However, we use the biology. It goes through an annual life cycle per year. So, we utilize that biology and in which to manage. Uh what we're talking about today is we're actually going to be managing or proposing to manage this pest at its adult stage when it's in the moth form. And the only um goal or only life stage uh what it's doing in that life stage is to mate. It's not feeding. Once it gets to the moth form, it does not feed. It simply is alive just to mate, reproduce, and then start the next generation. And so that's the area in which we're going to target. It's also the area in which we target for our survey. So annually, we set 20,000 early detection traps across the state of Minnesota. We've been serving for this test since the 70s, uh, finding isolated populations and doing management. Um, in the city of Rochester, we've been uh probably managing annually from right in the middle of 20 in the middle 2000s about 2005 or so if I look back. Um, we've been managing uh your community and putting these placing these traps for, you know, over 10 years already and we yet have not yet found isolated populations enough to come in and do management except for 2026. And we'll talk a little bit about that. So these uh what the traps do is they give us an indication of populations and then we do additional surveys in the area to determine if populations become established. Our goal is to identify populations at extremely small low population thresholds become before most

citizens will even know they're in their backyard. So our ability to detect these is incredibly sensitive. So, we're able to determine that very early on in the population threshold to be able to utilize a very unique opportunity for management. And we'll talk a little bit about that. In 2026, we're proposing across the state of Minnesota, we have 35 areas in nine counties in 13 cities. And you can see those listed in the north. Uh we're doing a lot of work around the Duth. So, the Carlton Cloquet area, we've been working and managing pretty significantly in that area. And then in southeast Minnesota, uh, Filillmore, Mau, Olmstead, uh, Wabasha, and Winona. I will tell you that this is the first year, uh, since, uh, sponty is moving westward that we've had a management in the in in the county of Mstead itself. Uh, so this is fairly new to this area, but it is moving westward, and we continue to monitor as we move westward and trying to slow that population. Minnesota is proposing to treat about 152,000 acres and um we are experiencing some of the greatest uh population pressure and movement across the United States nationally along the 10 uh state front. We're we're pro proposing to manage about just over 300,000 and you can see 150,000 are in the state of Minnesota alone. So we have a lot of work here in the state um in which we're working to kind of slow that advancing population. For the city of Rochester specifically, we have three regional or three areas in which uh proposed management is looking to to occur. It's about 36,000 acres in size. So, uh you've got a couple of blocks, they're 8,000, 10,000. There's just uh in size, but there's three geographical areas. This particular project would be proposed to be take place uh in late July um or late June excuse me early July would be the time frame in which we are proposing to do the management and how we do this is by using a very unique

method. So it's called mating disruption which is quite unique um and it can be only utilized in extremely low population thresholds. So our goal is to use a synthetic pheromone. So, it's the female sex attractant. Um, it's in a synthetized a man-made product called Splat. So, specialized um specialized pheromone lure application technology. And it's G Gypsy Moth Organic is what that GMO stands for. It's Gypsy Moth organic. They are in a name change. They're going to soon be calling this smoke for spongy moth organic. Um, it is an EPA certified organic product. It's non-toxic and it's biodegradable. uh the the product is basically made of food grade products and often used in makeup products. Uh that is the carrier in which we uh it it's to adhere the product into the canopy of the trees. So then it can release the pheromone. The pheromone is very species specific. So this is a product that's only specific to male spongy moths. So there will be no other impacts to other insects, mammals, birds, humans. It's specifically it's species specific which is pretty cool and pretty unique. Rarely do we get a product that is species specific to the point. It will only impact the insect itself. So we what we do is we flood this area um with very small droplets. Um this particular vial that I'm holding is approximately about 2 and 1 half to 3 acres of product. So it's an incredibly low threshold of product which will be uh dispensed through aircraft. It is low flying aircraft that will be dispensing. Uh so most people don't even see the product coming out of the aircraft. It's at such a a low rate, but we flood the area. The male moss emerge um and start flying around looking for females and which to mate and they simply die before mating occurs. So, we don't even actually kill the insect. We simply flood the area enough where they can't find a female and which to mate and they die before that occurs. So, it interrupts their mating, thus reducing populations and

being able to suppress the populations as they move westward. Um it is large one of the largest um integrated pest management programs in our country and we're very fortunate to be a part of of that success. Prior to operations, we do do a lot of public notification. As you can imagine, low-flying aircraft is something that you may have concerns and your citizens may have concerns about. Um that is not uncommon. Uh we've been working in large communities across not only the country in Cleveland, Ohio, but here in Minnesota. We've done operations in Duth, Chisum, Hibbing, um the Twin Cities metro area. So, lots of areas that have been impacted directly from these operations. In 2026, we have proposals in the city of Steuartville, Winona, uh Good View, uh just to name a couple of larger communities and which will also be impacted. But our goal is to make sure citizens and that's why we're here today. We want to inform you as the city council. We were in front of your county, the county of Mstead, the county commissioners last week, uh shared our message with them as well. We've been in front of the city of Steuartville to share our message with them as well. But we want to make sure you're informed about the proposal. Your citizens are informed and can get uh questions and answers. Um we will do media blitz, whether it be in the legal uh media. We'll do press releases. will do direct mailings to your citizens and alerting them about a public meeting that's upcoming as well as then prior to operations occurring in late June. Um there was a few more slides but

it looks like that might be the end but that's okay. Uh I can I can summarize it here uh very quickly. The only other slides that we're going to show is just a little bit about our public information sharing, our public meeting coming up uh that we have proposed. And John, you may know the actual date on that. Tuesday, March 31st. Um we'll be holding two in Olmstead County. Um Tuesday, March 31st, we'll be in the city of Rochester at the Developmental Services uh building if that sounds right to Jeff. Um

yeah, thank you. DSIC. Um and then April 1st we'll be holding a town hall in um Steuartville as well. So a few opportunities for folks to uh come and you know ask questions, express concerns. Um and then we'll also have a virtual uh public meeting option for all of Southeast Minnesota. Uh so there's lots of opportunities for folks to come and us for us to share our message for them. Um, with that I will end my presentation and we can turn it over for questions and answers.

Great. Thank you. Very informative. I'm sure my colleagues have loads of spongy moth questions. I I'll start off. So, you you mentioned this is the first time that Homestead County has been uh targeted. what what happened last year that uh that uh put us on the map as far as as far as some uh mitigation and and uh and why the three uh areas in here in the city of Rochester.

Yeah. So, we base it all on our our trap data as when I mentioned we trap annually. We've been trapping annually in the city of Rochester for many years. And so it's it's uh we watch populations over time and once they get to a certain threshold where we're seeing um increase in moth capture in concentrated areas, we can start determining that populations are becoming established. We also have a great uh model uh system as well that identifies like looking at all the data um how far away from the advancing front, how many populations are behind there's lots of research behind it to identify these kind of potential problem areas. And then we do some boots on the ground surveys as well where we're trying to look for life stages. Um again to find a lifestage you know it is based on moth data. So we we can see an increase in population like we just over time it has been increasing in this area and it's definitely an area where it needs to get suppressed before we do we have other options to utilize for management. Um in the city of Winona last year we were proposing a product called BTK. So once the populations get to a certain threshold, uh, we can't use mating any any longer. Then we have to rely on other opportunities and other products to be able to utilize to suppress those populations. So

So what you're saying, we're at a low threshold. You're extremely low threshold. So uh, should people should the city or residents worry about their trees

at this stage? Absolutely. They should not. Um, we do not see impacts to spongy moth at this early stage. So, we're finding spongy moth populations extremely early. It will take approximately 10 years, 8 to 10 years after we leave, after we stop managing a community that we start seeing outbreak populations happen. Now, that's give or take. It can happen faster or slower depending on where we're at. We are seeing our biggest outbreaks are some populations building in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. That's not that far away. So we've seen that increase pretty rapidly in the last couple of years and it just is population dynamic. So I don't have like a crystal ball. What I can tell you is that oak habitat is their preferred uh area. They love oak and so when we see them go through oak belt areas, they move a lot quicker than they do like in an aspen type uh component.

Council member Fredericks, how many insects per acre before you pull the trigger? We don't have an exact number on insects per acre. It's based on trap data alone. Our traps are set at different grid densities depending on the uh the background in which we found in the past. So we don't have an actual moth per acre kind of threshold. It has to do with increase over the the geographical area. So if we have increases of tens and that that's a high number compared to a background of zero and ones in the area. So it has really a lot to do with concentration of all the traps in that particular area having an increase in trap data.

When you say there's an outbreak in Lacrosse, what's that looking like per what do you go by? Acre, mile, square mile, what do you go by?

Yeah. So when we get to outbreak levels, they they base it on um acres of defoliation. So we're not necessarily seeing defoliation in Lacrosse, but what we're seeing is easy to find egg masses and alternate life stages. So, it would not be common uncommon for a citizen to find an egg mass already on their on their trees or see certain individual trees being uh defoliated. It wouldn't be widespread, but it'd be individual. So, they're seeing life stages. They're starting to to notice it in their backyards where we're way in advance where we're seeing just uh it would be very not that you can't find them, it would just be uncommon for citizens to find them at this low threshold. Why wait to take drastic measures till it's a problem? Why not take the measures before it's a problem?

Yeah. And that's exactly what we're doing um with this program is to try to get them in advance. So that's why we're trying to treat really far in advance using a pheromone based product that only impacts it's very species specific trying to get ahead of the front reducing it and actually the slow the spread program which has been in implemented back in 2000. Um what I mentioned about slowing that reducing that spread there's an economic study that's been done on that program to make sure we're are we using taxpayer uh dollars accordingly. And so for every dollar we spend, we save $3 in in cost and impacts once that becomes established. Um particular like in those outbreak areas.

I like the responsible tax dollars piece. That's good. Uh council member Low, is there anything besides looking for hitchhikers that residents can do, traps or otherwise that would assist? Okay. in the early stages. Um, Council Member War, um, what we'd encourage is that citizens definitely, um, it's the hitchhiking that's problematic. Um, we've been seeing, um, increases in the Rochester area for some time and it has to do with human assisted, you know, human that artificial movement component to it. So, we really encourage people, you don't have to go far into Wisconsin to go do your recreation. So if you go to Wisconsin and areas where this pest is established and having uh impacts could be easily hitchhiking, you know, sitting on your trailers and your campers and then you're moving that product back home. So being very cautious of that. We talk about firewood all the time as being a vector of movement of different forest pest. This would be a similar thing. Um at this stage we don't encourage any citizens you you may find traps in your local hardware store that are spongy moth traps. We encourage folks not to to buy those. The reason for that is you can't necessarily trap out the pests because you're only trapping males. You're never going to have impacts to the population, but what you will have is impacts to our survey that will survey data from us knowing where those populations potentially are. So, it could actually negatively impact the program versus have any kind of control at a local resident's property.

And you talk about halting the spread. Is there any hope for eradication? At this stage where we are, we do hope that in the city of Rochester that we could hope for up, you know, early eradication to delay establishment, but we can't say with 100% we're ever going to get eradication. When we see these isolated populations way out in advance of the front, for example, in the city of Austin, we have a block. We do believe there's an eradication possibility cuz that is way out in advance of the front. It was definitely an artificial movement of some sort. We hope to have eradication where we eradicate that population and they may not see it for another, you know, 10 years, 10, 20 years. Yeah.

Council member Miller, just to build on Council Member Wall's question, could you lay out some potential future scenarios for us? So, you treat with the pheromone, if that's successful, great. We're delayed 10 or so years. But you mentioned that once these would become established, the pheromone treatment wouldn't be the product of choice anymore. Can you talk about what would be and how the different scenarios go moving forward for us timelines and products?

Yeah. Um, that's it's really hard for me on and the crystal ball to know 100% on where things could be. Um, but I can give you kind of philosophy or thoughts on where this would be. Um, I will say that is very early in the management. So, we're very very early. We're like I mentioned this the first time we've been in Mstead County. uh we hope to suppress and slow that population. It really has to do with the dynamic that's happening behind the front in Wisconsin and how those populations build and push westward. Um whether that this will not be our last time we'll be uh here and in the city of Rochester probably or the city of or the county of Mstead. Uh we anticipate managing for some time. Um I don't have a time frame on how long that is, but I could say it's we're very early in the stages of this pest. um by helping manage and slow these down, we're hoping to suppress that. Now, once they get to a level I mentioned another great product and I want to talk really positive about we have another product when we do have isolated population where there's actual life stages and it's a concentration of of insects in in establishment. We use another product called Baxylus theensis kstakia or BTK. It's a biological uh product that impacts the feeding of the caterpillars and it only impacts moth and butterfly caterpillars. So we use a very environmentally kind of sensitive products. What happens when this pest gets established in areas people don't like insects and they go to the extreme. So they will go to their local hardware store, they will buy kind of a a generalized insecticide and they will be spraying for their trees and it'll be killing all kinds of things. So our goal here is to do as species specific products as possible to not have those negative impacts but yet still have impacts of slowing this advancement.

Okay. Thank you. Council member uh Keane. Uh yeah, first I want to say thanks for being here. It's it's good to know like in March before lowf flying planes start showing up in in June. Um but I kind of a follow up on these other ones. I'm still looking at the maps, the earlier on national maps and the Canadian maps from page nine and saying when you're in quarantine is this been is that a forever state?

Yeah. So once we get into quarantines it it becomes almost a forever state um because of the fact that these populations we would not be able to once they get to those thresholds we simply can't we don't have enough resources to actually eliminate them and eradicate those in areas of establishment. That's where you see we keep adding to the quarantine slowly as it advance westward. Once the pest goes under quarantine, then that's when uh regulations come into play for uh anyone moving wood wood products uh your lumber industry uh firewood becomes restricted. Um we nursery uh trees and products become regulated and so we work with them to uh certify those products and be able to move those westward. So there is a program that we have established to help um move those commodities to make sure that they're treating them, certifying them and that they can move uh out of that quarantine area.

Okay. So let's just take up you like Western Pennsylvania's been under this for years and years. Um with with the existing treatments that you're talking about in quarantine, they're seeing like nominal impacts to their is it affecting their their canopy in a big way or small way? So, we're seeing continuous outbreaks of spongy moth um happening across the nation and that's why I mentioned the 880,000 acres happening on average. Uh that es and flows uh up and down. Um different states can implement different programs to help suppress outbreak populations. You mentioned Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is one of the states in the entire country that has the largest suppression program going on. So it's their state department of natural resources that does a lot of aerial application to suppress their natural woodlands uh spray when they have outbreaks to reduce those population to protect their their forest. Uh they are seeing continuous mortality on their oak dominated forest. They still see uh outbreaks happening and where they're seeing some decline in and loss of tree.

Okay. Yeah. Um, I was also interested in your local maps when you showed the the different um rectangles around the city, not the city center. Um, and these are I'm assuming just coming from the results from the thing. Um, some of those are in the airport model and is are you aware of like flying within the airport canopy?

Yeah, that's that's a wonderful question. Um, we do. Yep, we uh so we've worked in a lot of different airspaces including the international airspace in Minneapolis. So our our applicators work very closely with all the local uh airports and and traffic u military routes uh towers we work very closely so they we work uh very closely with the airport on those type of so anytime we're actively near an airport that is definitely a communication that occurs um we haven't they it is a US forest service contracted um group of individuals they've been on the contract uh since 2000 since the existence of this program and uh they have more probably acres of treatment of forest acres than anyone in the country. Uh they're really pretty pretty very experienced pilots.

The areas around Rochester you you noted I mean they're very there's some urban areas but mostly more rural areas. Does it have you found any sort of pattern that it moves faster in the rural areas or moves faster in the urban areas or no no correlations? There's not really a correlation. The only correlation that we see is that urban centers tend to have more artificial movement. And so like the Twin Cities metro area is hot a lot for us. And when I mean hot, it we have a lot of uh trap catchers in particular year and they may crash or it may get established and then we've we've had done an awful lot of applications in the Twin Cities metro area and that's dealing with that artificial movement.

Um we've gotten that question because it happened in 2026. It just happens to be a lot of communities this year. um little cities, you know, the Steuartvilles, the Winona. Um it just is coincidence of where those populations kind of happened. It didn't it doesn't have we don't have any correlation like it was an artificial or it was natural. These these are more of our we're seeing natural kind of isolated populations. Okay. All right. Thank you, Council Member Dory. I think you answered this, but I'm going to ask anyway to make sure I heard correctly. It's not a is it a oneanddone application or will it be repeated and should our residents be prepared to see these mitigation efforts continue year after year?

Yeah, for this particular project, we hope that it we will not repeat the product project again in the same area the very next year. Um, however, there is could be potential that we could. Um, that I can't say with 100% certainty that we wouldn't. Um but it's unusual to come back to an area to do management again in in the near future. Um we we typically see where we suppress these and we tend not to be back into these areas for several years later. So that's our hope is that we don't have to come back uh to this area. Now whether it be a new area um within your city, there is that potential. And then other than uh more dead moss around their property, have there been any reports of adverse uh reactions of residents to the application of the product itself? What should our residents be looking out for?

Yeah. So the I I appreciate the question. Um we have not heard any um impacts from any human health kind of situations. Um the only concern we may have had is like um horses, append horses concerned about them running through a fence. Um but we have been out in those operations. Those typically the horses are not, you know, too too fearful. But we encourage farmers or folks that are concerned to, you know, corral them, keep them inside. Um it tends to be more concerned from citizens if they see a low-flying aircraft. And the more the bigger concern is they look up and they don't see product actually being dispensed from the aircraft. So then that raises concern of why is an aircraft flying low and not actually doing any dispensing of product. That tends to be our biggest concern is that people just don't understand that low rate. And we won't be applying on every single area within that big polygon area. You know those big blocks. We are targeting tree canopy. So the aircraft will be shutting off over open water, over fields, over large pavement areas. They will fly a single pass over those areas, but their booms, they'll shut their booms off. So we are only targeting tree canopy in those regions.

Thank you. So a question. Um, so when you do target the three polygons in Rochester, well, we know those dates and and have the ability to tell our citizens these little uh flying planes will be here on this date, this date, this date, so that they can get their horses in or they even though I I I heard you that it it doesn't impact humans that they can stay in when that's happening and is there another is there a way to identify the planes like are they all yellow like there?

Yes. Um couple of great questions. Yes, our planes are intentional. We do our outreach intentionally to show you the exact aircraft that we'll be flying over so you have a visual you know that they're going to be yellow and flying and they're going to look like this. So that is intentional uh on the outreach that we utilize. In regards to notification um we will be doing a couple of things. uh we put together what we call a local government listerve and so each and every one of you will be on that special lister. It's only for uh leaders and as administrators of cities and county governments and their leaders. So the council members, mayors, county commissioners and our goal for that is to notify you before we notify your citizens. So if we send out a press release, you will see that press release before it hits the paper. um if we send out a postcard to your citizens, you're going to see that postcard before your citizens when we get close to operation. So, this asks this answers the question about how will my citizens know? Um we will let you know approximately a week in advance of our targeted uh application. What I can tell you it's going to be right now we have a targeted week of the end of June into the first week of July uh through all of southeast Minnesota. Once we know the Rochester area a little bit tighter, we can give you a better date. Um we'll let you know about a week in advance. We'll send out a notification not only to you but to any citizen that wants that notification approximately a week in advance. The night prior we're going to let you know again and then it's all weather dependent. Then the next morning you're actually going to get another email saying we're going to start operations this morning and aircraft are going to be in the air around 6:30 a.m. and they're going to be applying pretty much all day long. And then once they're complete we'll send you another notification saying we are completely done. We're moving out of the Rochester area. We're moving into a different region. So you will get those notifications on that on that special listerve. But your citizens, which is incredibly important, is that they they will get a postcard approximately 2 weeks before notification before we do

operations. So they're going to get a notification by a postcard saying then that this project's going to be occurring. Then the second thing we really encourage citizens to do is sign up for either a text message or email notification. And through those text message and that email notification, that's when those citizens who say, you know what, I'm just not comfortable with this. I just want to be inside during when your aircraft is in that area. This is the way they are able to get that notification. So, they're going to get up-to-date information immediately when we're in and out of that area. Thank you, Council Member Wall. Do you have any idea what percentage of defoliated trees recover?

I do not have that particular answer. Um it really depends on the health and I and this would be a great question for you know somebody in the department of natural resources that deals with civil culture. Um it does definitely stress and it depends on the health of the tree. So if we're seeing uh dry years and drought and impacts you're going to see a lot more mortality in a one year of defoliation or if you have other insects that are defoliators or other stresses on those trees that can cause the mortality. So it could take it's a it's multiacet. Council member Miller, just one quick question. Should residents only living in those um polygons expect mailings from a postcard or would it be citywide or countywide?

We would be focusing just on the citizens within that block and close proximity to that block. Um unfortunately mailing costs are incredibly expensive and it's so unfortunate. Um, and unfortunately sometimes citizens don't even, you know, don't look at their mail. They're thinking it's junk mail. So, we're doing a really, we're doing a really hard, we're trying really hard to do like very colorful postcards, bringing notice to it so it's not a black and white. We we do that extra step to try to be eye-catching uh so people pay attention. All right. Thank you very much. very informative, very thorough, and uh looking forward to your uh strong communications.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Next up, we have our uh supporting transformation update. And I think um Miss Steinhauser is going to lead this off for us. Thank you.

Thank you. Go for it.

Go for it. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, so we have um a great presentation for you today. We have a three-part presentation. Um Ian and I are the first part and then we're going to flip and let Jenna and Tim come over here because they have the second half. And so um today is really meant to be provide you an update on a component of the supporting transformation work that's happening in Rochester. Specifically, we want to talk about the $38 million that uh you approved as part of the budget process to invest in infrastructure in the downtown and greater downtown adjacent area. Uh so we want to talk about our approach to project management and project phasing. We want to talk about the communication and engagement strategy that the team has been working on very diligently. And then also want to have a conversation around your expectations and understanding of um the the question of overhead wires and and how to approach um any potential policy changes going forward. Um want to ground us in this conversation today tonight or this afternoon. really when we think about um these guiding principles that were developed across our partners city DMC mayo thinking about the work uh over the next five years and using these guiding principles as that north star for us in this work tonight is really or this afternoon is really about two of the guiding principles and that is specifically focusing on the maximizing opportunity how we're approaching this in terms of making infrastructure investments that um are work for the next 15 years for preservation or replacement or for 50 years. Um but also that providing the best experience possible throughout construction and that particularly that first bullet optimizing and aligning schedules across uh other projects um in the private sector so we're minimizing disruption to the public. So again, just for a frame of reference, uh this is the area that we're talking about and specifically we want to talk

about the $38 million that's happening in the green areas for investment. Um and again, they do align um what you'll hear tonight from the end team is how we're aligning those um with particularly with Mayo's goal board and balance. The other part of this for that we really want to convey is that this approach is very integrated. We spend $38 million, right? This is about how do we make these investments in the context of the sanitary sewer master plan, the storm water management plan, the um transportation improvement plan. So you can see the um the different plans that are informing how we create alignment. So alignment not only happens in when do we get into the road when everybody else is in the road, but when we do so, do we do it in a way that's very intentional and matches up with all of these other um documents that you have ultimately approved over the past few years. Um and with that, I'm going to turn it over Oh no, next slide. So for me um and again to help you understand, it's very much an integrated approach. It's not just the strategic transformation team that's working on this. We have our partners in development services, city administration, communications and engagement, legal, finance, uh, parks and recck fire, RPU, lots of um, city teammates that are informing this work and in fact had a really great kickoff project management meeting last week with the team and our partners at DMC attended and um, I think what we were able to convey to them is there's a lot of intentionality and a lot of collaboration we need uh, happening across city departments in implementing this so that we're doing it in a way that's responsive. to your expectations as well as um trying to again minimize the impact as much as possible for the general public. With that, I'm going to turn it over to so um as Cindy said, we've been busy uh in reviewing what uh construction's going on, the timing of it, the phasing,

when are blocks going to be under construction and what's going to be done and when. And so this is the project list that we developed. Um, as you can see here, uh, you might recognize some of them. Um, like 6th Avenue, uh, has come before you a few times. Couple of the projects listed on here are not, um, location specific, but more of a broader program to, um, help identify, uh, the um, investment of the 38 million. Um, a little bit more on the that RQ later, but as you can see here, there's different uh, projects with different um, stages going on. You'll see some maps later on when those are going to occur. Some projects are further along than others, but most of them are still in early uh stages with with it being scoped. Um, as Cindy said, uh just recently we got a kickoff meeting with all the project managers. Um project managers were assigned based on their skill set of uh what the project needs are and when they're available um to work on the project because some of these projects are going to be a few more years out yet. And so you'll see the project managers are identified there. Um we we did also um initiate a project management approach um for these project managers so that we're all aligned. Um and then also uh we're going to be having an ongoing monthly meetings with these project managers so that we're all aligned in regards to the focus of these projects moving forward using the project management approach um guiding principles so on communication so on and so forth. So um ongoing uh coordination with um all these project managers uh and then also with our um partners uh DMC. What we have also here are the estimates um assigned for or not assigned but um uh estimated for planning and construction. Uh these are all very very broad level at this point and as we start scoping and bidding out these projects we'll be updating this. So again, working closely with our finance team, um, meeting regularly to review

these. Uh, right now there's not a lot of changes because it's really broad, um, at this point. And then this responsibility matrix exercise is really just an an a sample of what we're what we've been doing. Um, there's a lot more that we are reviewing in regards to who's responsible for what. Uh, who's going to be there first, who's going to be there last. Um, we have funding responsibility here, but it's just not funding. It's also uh design and construction, who's going to be responsible for that? Um, what makes sense? And once we get to a better understanding of which uh area is going to happen and who's going to be responsible, uh, we'll be memorializing that and an an agreement or a amendment to an agreement um, still to be determined. we've got our attorneys working together and so when that does um get decided upon we'll be coming to you again for review and approval of those agreements. So more to come on that and these next several slides are maps. Uh this is an overall map of all the projects um in the next four years starting this year to 2029 and then the subsequent maps are based on um construction years. Um, and so you see here, uh, a lot of these projects will be, uh, primarily just one-year construction, but a a few of them will, um, span over a couple years. What we wanted to show is in this area here, what are the city projects, um, that will be impacted in that construction year. And you'll see in 2026 here, yet um, there will be construction going on. The part that's in green, I can't remember. Um, yep, the construction uh that's going to be later this year. So, you won't see that in early um 2026. But uh as of now for these projects, we're a little bit behind um in regards to our design and getting um uh coordinated with the uh

packages that are going uh package D and the UPUI um projects. But we are going to we're continuously looking at it and making sure that we're going to be aligned when they're there. 2027 is a little bit more um busier uh in regards to construction. uh again working in coordination with what is happening out there with package B3 and package D and 2028 becomes a little um again just working with the package D as you can see here and these are all uh uh as we continue to work and coordinate when things slip or move these will also be impacted and then 2029 will be um kind of the ending year uh with the downsize upstream project. I think I said that right. Um and so that ends with our uh in 2029 if everything goes according to plan that will be the end of the construction seasons for this um 38 million program. So as we've been talking about this work across our teams, we've been wanting to make sure how do we have continuity? How is when not only at the end of this work do we make sure that we still have a vibrant and healthy downtown but that we have not what doesn't look like eight separate projects that there is synergy in terms of not only the infrastructure below ground but what does the above ground streetscape look like and so that when you arrive in this space 6th Avenue doesn't um line up nicely with Third Avenue or Fourth Avenue or First Street that there is a there is a language that lives across this $38 million investment. Um, and so one of the, as we've been talking, uh, one of the criteria for that came from this DMCC board was that not only do we think about that synergy of design and having

a pallet of design, but also that we consider in innovation as a part of this, right? As we're America City for Health, what does that mean and how can that translate into some of the work that we do in this using these $38 million So as a team we have decided that maybe the best approach would be to go out for RFQ and that RFQ would be with the intention of creating a cohesive design strategy. We already have um tools like we we have design guidelines for this district but those design guidelines are pallet that um provide a lot of variety for how some uh a project might um address really great streetscape. What we want to do is create a cohesive design. We also want to use this RFQ as an opportunity to not for us to say this is what we feel like innovation looks like, but rather do um explore, do an exercise, a g engagement. Does innovation in this $38 million look like materials? Does it look like means methods of installation below ground? Does it involve some kind of I hate to use the word gadget, but a sensor? Right? What does how do we when we define innovation, what does that look like? And so we want to recommend using a process that is bringing people together. The schedule would be to come to you with a recommendation for a consultant to hire who will guide the design cohesion strategy and the innovation development for this space and with the goal that there would be neighborhood and community engagement throughout the process. And we have a recommendation that would come to you by November. And why we say that is because that still gives us time to walk it nicely with the sixth avenues um design project which we hope to be completed by the end of 26 and go out for bid for construction in winter of uh 26. Um it also then tease up the design work that will be beginning for the projects that

will go under design in 27 specifically 3rd and 4th Avenue. So that has um been the discussion that we've had internally along with our partners at DMC in terms of how do we approach integrated design and innovation in this work. Um for a minute council member of Miller I guess I'll have some questions after the wrap up of this. So, I don't know if you had any. No, that was just going to be my We could We could pause here for questions or we could go into the communications engagement piece and pause there for questions. What? It's broken up into three seconds.

Yeah, perfect. I I just had a few questions about you mentioned in education and coordination and planning and I feel like we've had a few checkpoints on pieces of that and I I just hope for some clarification. But when I look back at our our recent decisions, we've we've looked at the site development plan approvals in December of 25 for the north and south parking ramps for Mayo, which included some maps showing um public art, uh screen art at the street level, a pocket park, but that feels like private space that's not necessarily contemplated by this. Could you just talk about like the projects like that are approved for Mayo site development plans that contemplate some of these elements? How do we expect or what should we expect for coordination with Mayo on an integrated approach?

Thank you for that question. It's a great question and I failed to bring that up. So we have been also in conversation uh with our partners at Mayo because and and we would do so also with any other development that comes along the way for example citywide right. What we want to do is at the end of this make sure that it is a process that brings all those design efforts together. what we're doing in the public realm, consideration of what Mayo is doing in their campus landscape plan, what Citywalk has, we want this to be a process where it it um it looks very synergistic

and and I appreciate the the mention of other private projects, but I I just I want to stay with Mayo just a minute because uh when we look at this timeline plan delivered November 2026, my understanding is that north and south uh parking ramps are largely complete by that point. So, how does this plan specifically inform the the north arrivals and the south parking ramp which include public um space elements?

Sure. Sure. So, those projects were were approved to have a site development plan and the um the landscape components of those the public realm components of those even though we say public run but on private property are at a staff level uh review and approval. Okay. They what informs that are the city's design standards for DMC district which are a higher level of design standards and so that is what informed both the the north and south arrival. It's also what will inform the the um west logistics final site plan approval including the the park the pocket park own. Yeah, and I appreciate you bringing that up because I was actually curious and I looked up these site development plan approvals that came to council and and just in the recent update on 6th Avenue, we saw a different intersection design um in the in the packet from I guess our January 21st meeting there. There shows a diagram of Center Street West and 6th Avenue Northwest showing a a roundabout of sorts. And I brought up this question about the expansion to include turn lanes and how much that encroached on the available public spaces. And so the reason I I bring this up is we see versions of this and then we hear that it's at a staff approval level, but it does seem like some of those things are subject to change and and we've talked about expectations and setting public expectations. So, you know, I look at the uh north ramp, the south ramp, and there are mentions of potential art locations and other things like that. So I guess what assurances do we have that those elements that are included as potential or future are actually carried through when they're public or public realm privately owned

and so I will uh I want to answer but then I will also uh we have other teammates not here at the table but also available to help with answers. Um so first of all I think we heard we heard that very loud and clear um communication from you over the um most most recent items. We plan to come back at regular intervals not only providing updates on transformational capital projects but in this case it's very important that we bring forward to you our um here's where we're at in terms of engagement around um a unified uh landscape plan for this you know 2530 square block area. So, that's our intent to bring, you know, continue to come back with updates. Um, show you how we're responding to what we're hearing from, uh, the neighbors that participate in these engagement processes. Um, I would then, I guess, defer to uh, Miss Woodward or Mr. Yzer to speak to the site development plan. I know they try to enforce the the plant as presented. Um, sometimes there are unforeseen conditions that are discovered in the process and then they work with staff to try and address it and meet the intent of those designs that were submitted. But I I would just ask Miss Wood if she had anything else to answer.

I'm just going to talk about we'll see what everybody has. Um, so as we are still moving through for the north arrival and south parking, there are still back and forth with Mayo. There are items that are identified in terms of what needs to be completed for those landscape plans. Um, most of that is happening on their private property, but also identifying items that were in the condition site development plan approval. Um, and so those items have also been identified in terms of showing construction documents for some of those items. So there is continuation of conversations back and forth that those get finalized and we will need to sign off. Um so there was a conversation last week I had with Mayo of what still needs to be done with those items. Um in terms of I'll also briefly speak and I'll let Tyler jump in if I'm um inaccurate but as the Sixth Avenue was kind of being refined. some of that west logistics came in first with the site development plan and there was some um within the traffic study the need to do something with that intersection and those as 6th Avenue move forward some of those things made adjustments and so as we kind of move forward with some of these um I think those will get resolved as we kind of move forward um and any of those site development plan agreements that there are ongoing things there are back and forth with Mayo um in terms of what they need to provide for that full approval and then we also still kind of go through that process us with the building permits as well.

And so I guess quick followup. So between when the site development plan is finally approved and when we see what's built, is there a touch point between your approval and the construction of it? Like how will we or the public or anyone else who's seen a set of expectations or potential elements? like if I walk to, you know, the pocket park uh at the south parking area, do I know what's going to be built before it's actually finished and open?

I think we had committed to bring providing updates to city council as we move forward and those items get fully realized. I think right now some of them are still conceptual as they're finalizing that. Um and that we will provide some updates to be able to share out. I think there's also been some commitment by Mayo to have some of those conversations with neighborhood groups and continue to provide updates as they move forward as well. Great. And I would if I could just say the um the agreements that you approved may has to be done by a certain time. So um depending on the the uh site they have to either be done by June this year or by November this year on that site that campus landscape plan specifically.

So slightly different question. Uh could you tell us how this um sort of cohesive public realm design strategy is different than like the Kutsky Park engagement with Gell? So the cutscape that engagement only

included Katsky Park did not go over it did not go east of 7th Avenue. And so what we're talking about is east of 7th Avenue and capturing I think the what Gail did in um themes that came out of that Kutsky Park engagement are going to be really helpful particularly on the the west side of the investment as we transition and step down from a very intense large development into a very um neighborhood scale uh that has some you know multif family but a lot of two stories three story. So that's stepping down. So a consultant is not starting from scratch, right?

This is not a new project that's similar to an old project because I think also with the the historic district plan, one of the the things I heard from stakeholders when I participated was you ask us over and over like what we should do. Do we want some follow through? So I just want to make sure that this isn't like doesn't feel like a brand new thing.

No, there's going they're not starting at zero. there is a lot of engagement work um and planning work that has already been done that we want them to build off of and and to that event end um we think and Jenna can can talk about this more during the engagement process we are not starting with zero on engagement either right and so our engagement strategy is just a little bit different as we think about this 2530 square block um and but also Kudsky Park is a little Kudsky neighborhood is is a little bit unique and so we feel like there's a a little bit more in-depth engagement that can be that neighborhood specific when we get to there.

Does this inform then continuity to other neighborhoods that are adjacent to downtown lower town? The six street bridge goes into Slatterly Park. I mean, is that a design set of at least principles and concepts that other neighborhoods can feel like there's some interest and focus on like feathering the the border there too?

I think it's really more about feathering the border. it does not penetrate into those neighborhoods, right? That was not um that was not contemplated in the $38 million that we asked for. Um and so but certainly it isn't suddenly a you know a hard line and we don't think about how we taper and and actually it can help inform you know what might happen in the future to other impacted neighborhoods. Thank you.

All right. Uh council member uh Palmer. Thank you Mr. Miller. You have some good questions. Um, Mr. Miller brought up update, but or you said update to the neighborhood groups. That's not a negotiation. That's just, hey, this is what we're going to do. Am I getting that correctly? in terms of when are you talking about Mayo's projects going back to so um yes but um the community development team when they review those site plans they very much take into consideration what they heard at those neighborhood meetings and try to press for that to also be um translated in the final design and final time that gets done

okay so if I go to that meeting and say I want 100 oak trees then I expect 100 oak trees to be well I wouldn't I couldn't I couldn't comment on that specific example, but I know they take the input of the neighborhood into consideration when they do the site development. Okay? And I'm just trying to be outrageous because you're going to get outrageous. We want all pink flowers. And you're going to say, "Well, I heard I want all pink flowers." That doesn't make much sense for me. So,

but what they might say is, "I understand from that, you're saying 100 oak trees, but what I'm hearing is an outcome that has a tree canopy. And so, how do we how do we protect and preserve a tree canopy? Is the solution adding a new making sure that there's 100 oak trees or is the solution come in a different way but still has the same outcome of tree canopy?

Well, I would disagree with that because if I asked for 100 oak trees, I'd expect 100 oak trees. And so that's kind of the example that that's but let's go a little bit different here. In 2029 at 6th Avenue is going to be into Lowertown area. Um and so how are we going to back to Mr. Miller, you know, I wrote down here, you know, what do we do at Lowertown east of the river here? um 6th Avenue, east and west um you know of the bridge. I mean are we including all these neighborhoods involved in this? Um but I'm looking at that red spot up there and and that is definitely affecting lower town.

So that area is uh that is the downstream upsizing project. Um it is not a streetscape enhancement project, right? Downstream upycling. Yes. Okay. Um so again when the So basically wastewater pipes. Yeah. Okay. But if we're tearing up the road, why wouldn't we upgrade that the the atmosphere of that road um as we move ahead? Why wouldn't we want to put down trees and and in and boulevards and stuff? The roads ripped up.

So part of um and that's not to say that that can't happen. It's to what scale, right? what we're trying to identify in in the map that we've maybe previously in the um well no it doesn't sorry it doesn't um give that level of detail but we identify what are more pedestrian oriented corridors what are likely going to be more vehicular oriented corridors and so depending on the nature of the corridor does it get curb sidewalk and some trees back in or does it get curb sidewalk street trees um wider boulevard cycle track uh bumpout nodes. To what extent does the level of enhancement happen in the looking at the again what was what was why we decided this approach of seeking $38 million for of investment was to not only create um development capacity with the underground infrastructure but to provide and lessen the impact of the neighborhoods that were most intensely impacted by May's bold forward bound and there consensus that Katsky neighborhood, not that the other neighborhoods aren't impacted, but there is absolutely a greater impact to Katsky neighborhood. There already is now with traffic cutting through. Um, and so how do we address and mitigate that very intense impact in Kutsky neighborhood? It's not to say that it isn't also happening elsewhere, but not to the extent. So, um, about two weeks ago, I sent out a a question and I asked about the pocket park and center street and 1st Avenue um, by the, um, East um, logistics building. It's a it's large size rocks right now. Um, I would expect if you're doing logistics building that that would have had some green space at that time. Then you go across the street to the um, Proton Beam buildings. The buildings are all shelled in. It looks like it's under construction, but really all they're doing is is parking their their construction vehicles on the yard.

Why aren't we why aren't we pushing mail to do what they said they were going to do there? And so it goes back to what come Mr. Miller's kind of say is, hey, we had this idea east. We didn't do anything. Why should I trust you that you're going to do it everywhere else? Yeah. And that's a great question and we um we have to pull up and what see what the criteria the conditions for putting that pocket park in because they did agree to put something in. It was dependent on when a building was done and I don't know the east let's hold a minute. Uh east logistics completion of that construction.

Yeah. So both of those the pocket parks were going to come at the end of the construction and we've actually been meeting with Mayo as they are finalizing to start probably construction this summer. I think it's around April May for both of those items. So they are outstanding items in terms of what they need to um complete at both of those projects and we've been having conversations as they're finalizing those items and going into construction starting I believe at the end of April through September. But but the finishing of the east logistics building was done two three years ago. Yes. And it's still an outstanding item and there was some coordination with construction of the other. And so we've had discussions of what does that look like and recognizing that both of those still need to be complete.

So as you stand there and you look at large rock which which is a a heck of an investment that somebody put into that area, it surely doesn't look like they're they're they're getting ready to sit. Um and I again I'll go back to what Mr. Miller is saying is if if it took 2 or 3 years after the building's completed there, what's the rest of it going to look like? And in and are we allowing I'm confused on that.

So that would be an outstanding item to get a full certificate of occupancy that they have to complete all of those items. So those are outstanding items and we've had those discussions with them to be able to complete those and we have been working with them to identify those and we follow up with them that anything that's outstanding and we've had that on other properties as well. Um, in terms of these are outstanding items, it generally have to take a little bit longer and we're working with them to get those completed. Well, if I have a temporary CEO, you don't typically give it two to three years to get done after the billing is done. So, more questions. Can I chime in on one? Sorry.

I I'd have to go back and look, but I believe a condition of that particular conditional use permit was that it would allow Mayo to use that as a layown site for a number of years. That's why that that hasn't been completed yet. So that is something that we have brought up as an example to mail and they acknowledge that part of their CU is to close out that landscape and it was part of their agreement too. I'm just I'm just backing up with Mr. Miller has doubt and everybody says well trust us but you know it's hard to trust when once we have this other agreements done. So point made. Thank you. Other questions? I am done for.

I have some questions that kind of take off on uh council member Müller and council member Palmer in that I don't have a good sense of what the geographic scope of this uh innovation in innovation RFQ is and it causes me a lot of angst if we don't know what that geographic scope is uh to go out for bid on it. They're not going to know either. And then we're going to have some mi mission creep and I'm not sure what we're going to get for the $300,000. So So I guess I need to have clarity on that geographic area. And I also need a little clarity to to council member Palmer's point on the 100 Did you say oak trees? Oak trees that will be infested with spongy moths. But uh that uh that what what are the amenities? what what actual uh materials that is this pallet going to be incorporating their their uh design ideas to and can you give me kind give us kind of a sense of what you know there's trees there's benches what are we talking about

sure sure so to the first part of your question I pulled this map back up again what we're talking about this is the geographic area right everywhere where you see a color where we're going to be in doing um improvements, right? Uh this is a geographic area that may or may not have innovation. We're not saying innovation is going to live in every single block. It might be one specific area, right? It might be one block and what does what does innovation look like? I share your concerns about, you know, how how big is the universe in terms of when we're talking about innovation. And so, um, how do we tighten that up and not say we're going to do 50 innovative things, but we're going to lean in really hard on one or two and become known as the city of innovation in this space, right? Is it like what we did during CO and we measured wastewater and saw when CO was getting peaky in our community and you could forecast when it was going to start to spike. Like that's innovation, right? So, is there something like that in the underground infrastructure that helps with um s how much water people are using or the you know something like that? So, I think we're still trying to get our arms around how we narrow that and tighten it up so it it um is easier for a consultant to submit a proposal on. Um to your second question in terms of the pallet and materials again we already have a really good foundation in the design standards for a DMC district right um but it's it has everything you can have saw cut you can have in you know when you're thinking about pouring concrete you can have saw cut you have tool joints you can have um stamped concrete you can have pavers so I think we want to lean into what have we learned about what works and doesn't work in the public realm in this four season community and um think about what's or what already is in the um design guidelines that we have and pick

from that larger pallet and say this makes sense for the area that we're talking about. Highly urban, not as much green space. So what does the heartscape look like? How does how does that heartscape feel to someone with mobility impairment, visual impairment? So um that and that is why as we get to you know on a construction project we say 30% 60% 90%. What we want to say is for in this area we want to tighten up the pallet of materials to say this is what's going to work in this area. Now let's think about what works specifically for 6th Avenue in this pallet because it's all it all relates to each other. So if we say no pavers anywhere, none of these projects will have pavers because that's what's come out of this process. If we say no pavers but stamp concrete, where does it make sense to do stamp concrete, right? Not everywhere but on, you know, interesting um nodes or intersections um where people gather. Right. So, so one followup and I'm going to go to council member Keen and then we'll let you wrap up the communications engagement uh piece. So, uh you you talked about uh 30% 60% design. So with this innovation uh consultant coming on board, will we have some efficiencies of design that we can actually uh see some savings on that process because of the work they're doing?

That could be something that we might say you to look to that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Innovation doesn't necessarily mean oh this is a thing we can touch or solar on something. It might be a a uh means and methods of installation. Okay. Council member Keane.

Yeah. Thank you. Um I guess higher level I'm it is kind of daunting when you look at that projects page on page 41 and just try to picture if we didn't have the DMC funding. What would we be doing with these different areas? Those obvious ones on here we've been dealing with S 6th Avenue and also the Ksky stuff. Some of the other projects I looked at and said, I think those are being chosen in a in a good way. But here here's my input on it. I think Mayo is going to be very obsessed and concerned with how the north and south uh arrivals and how the west logistic and they're going to make sure that their their um medical business is integrated and working well. I still want to make sure what we're doing here with the city is make sure we still have an integrated downtown that allows this to happen but also has other things that are capable of happening. And I and I want to kind of stress that as we go through it. Uh, as far as looking at the projects, the one that surprised me is project I. And I just want to make the comment here, this idea of like the mail when you get done with uh the package D where you're doing the first street southwest of 4th Avenue and then you're you talk about this downstream sanitary sewer. Um, I'm going to make the comment here that I'm glad to see that being able to happen because I always thought these were the difficult ones because they were outside the zone. Mr. Mayor.

Yeah. Uh just an explanation on that downstream upsizing. That is upsizing work that may have needed uh to serve the hospital after they get done with the development. So that's being done through a contribution from Mount Clay. Um and that's what's driving that upsizing. So we agree it's nice to see that uh being accomplished. It's actually going to be a cityled project with male contribution um which is going to allow us to uh dubtail into the rest of the work. And if I could just add that also is going to serve the entire area that is likely to be ripe right for additional private investment. And so making sure that there's capacity throughout the wastewater system um for what we know is kind of we've seen a lot of projects that are on the cusp that are now coming to fruition that are going to also be served by the same sewer shed.

Yeah. And I actually we have some data on that. I could have I should have included that but we can send that out. We have uh because it isn't just about creating capacity for mam. This is about creating capacity for future growth. Okay. Well, so I'm hearing slightly different things here. I'm good with with the public works update that this is really a city-led project with Mayo contribution, but I'm going to call that different than a DMC spending the $38 million here and having it listed as project I. I think of those as different things.

So, if I could just clarify when we I want to go back to this responsibility matrix. We're all going to be in this space. And so when we say city-led project, we're saying instead of like both city and mayo have work in there, let us take the lead on that project and you reimburse us versus another block might be it makes sense for Mayo to be the lead on that project and we reimburse them.

I I'm good with that. I understand that different work and I and I think we've done a good job with sort of balancing that but that's different than how DMC funds are spent and I want to differentiate that from a city-led project um that's outside the district that may contribute to. Mayo dollars are in my view very different than DMC dollars and I'm not comingling them.

Council President Mr. Go ahead Mr. If that's you clarification, Council Member Kee, um Sydney, can you go to the 2029 slide? So, it's also important to point out that there are DMC problems contributing to just a portion of that. You see the Hay area in the upper right hand corner of this slide. That's the start of that downstream upsizing project. It takes off from there. Goes up 4th Avenue to 13th Street Northwest. So, it is part of a larger project. the fact that it's listed as having TUC funding is because that first segment is in the district. So, it's a combination of funds coming together for that, but that that's why you're hearing both of those things in the explanation.

Yeah, thank you for that clarification. I think again it's important for me that we we maintain that the differences there. I I also want to follow up and this was the discussion with start up by council member Miller about these different projects and I I guess I want to differentiate between you know we see a project that has murals that has this other stuff um and I want to differentiate between we want these projects to meet our standards and that's I think community developments dedicated to making that happen but there are other things that happened in our approval for dem demolition that became conditions of the demolition or things that happened in our our our vacation of the streets became not quite conditions but public statements of what was going to happen based on those. And those are different sort of commitments to me than than meeting our community standards. And I I think and I really do look for staff to make sure like when you talk about um I've gone back through um and council member Wall conditioned things with the demolition and those should we should make sure those happen. uh above and beyond males. This is a private project and they're doing their private project. Um and I guess I I'll leave that out there. If there's something I'm missing there, please correct me.

Thank you.

Okay, quick comment from Council Member Miller. Uh quick the big question. Uh I just again want to go back to this uh request for qualifications and note some innovations that I've heard mentioned on our council. Um, we've talked about air quality and how do we make that space u both visible and improved air quality. Uh, council member Palmer mentioned last week um considering no ride on red policies to improve intersection safety. Uh, council member Wall mentioned uh flexible spaces in in Europe that accommodate different modes and I just highlight retractable ballards as a very innovative but obvious way to protect people in flexible spaces. And then from an accessibility perspective, I was had the honor of being on the sister city trip to Japan this past year and they use what are tactile um like king guides. I believe they call them tangi blocks but thinking about accessibility built into the public space as you're talking about the Steinhauser um for different users of different uh levels of ability or accessibility. Um and I've seen those in Europe as well. So I've never seen them in the US. We could be innovative in bringing them to Rochester for the first time. And I again just want to not reinvent the wheel and and think about the things that we've talked about in this space and we've heard from other engagement and make sure that we're thinking about how to incorporate those.

I'm I'm happy to share that BRT will have a white king feature. Okay. And you'll see that on the tour.

Great. All right. Let's go to communications engagement and partnership. All right. Well, we'll start first with um communication and engagement and thinking about partnership. Uh so I don't think anything necessarily new not trying to reinvent the wheel but just really hammering home um four particular points with our intentional communication. Uh lead with transparency and timeliness. Communicate early and often across trusted channels. Uh this one I think is especially important. Make it easy to find verified up-to-date resources and information. Um, and you heard it mentioned in kind of the first part of the segment and also very important in terms of communication and engagement, but leveraging our partner channels. So when we think about whether it's DMC, the RDA, UMR, etc. that those partnerships are incredibly important. We're talking about community confidence around information and and being aware of what's happening. Uh, also not new to you, uh, but I think important to note is the AP2 spectrum of engagement. And I always uh if you don't live in it every day, a good reminder that um inform that first um level of engagement is a level of engagement and it's one that is really important. Right? So uh when we think about the work that uh we're we're discussing today, you obviously heard there's going to be pieces of engagement that pushes outside of that inform area into that and consults are involved. Um but also you saw in one of the slides that we've done we have all done a lot of work to date and that means that we're in a really great position that we can leverage that foundational work to

um focus on the inform where we're also um you know back to points made today that we're not asking the community again and again you know the point about a historic district or anything else that largely we know what the community feels on things and then we're really trying to focus in on what else might we need to know. Um I think really good points too on um how can we as the city team as we work with the selected consultant make sure part of what we're leading on uh are leading with is hey here's what we know here's kind of where we're starting with. Um does that sound right to you or uh what might we be missing as we start off on that work? But again just the focus here is that really we will be spending a lot of our time um in inform and and then that's out of respect to the community in terms of all the work that's happened to date. So, what have we been up to? Hopefully, these things on the screen are familiar to you. Um, first being the downtown rochester construction.org um website. You can see a couple of the screenshots from there. Um, the link newsletter on the build newsletter. Uh, being thoughtful of the email communication that's coming to you by way of Alison's Friday email. um mentioned today, neighborhood meetings, social media updates, uh PSAs that I'll mention or I'll get into a little bit further here, um media releases, which slightly different than the PSAs if you're split hairs, and then comm uh community special events. So, how are we showing up in spaces where community is at? So, wanting to highlight just uh here is specifically with the website. Um it launched just about a year ago. It's hard to believe. Um, but we've been very happy with the utilization of the website by the community. So, thinking about in 2025 close to 30,000 visits, um, 20,000 of those being unique visitors, um, which is really positive, uh, 46,000 page views and 19 email submissions, um, when you think about the 19 email submissions last year and thinking about four thus far, um, that

is one of our ways that we ask people to let us know if they have questions. Um, and while we might be able to see more there, that also means that we likely have provided them the information they're looking for. Uh, also, as we know with 311, uh, that is, uh, our team there is also keeping us informed if we were to see an increase in calls coming in, uh, that we have an opportunity to address. And I can say confidently that we have not seen a big spike in calls coming in about downtown construction, which to me says we're heading in the right direction. And then just thinking about the link newsletter in terms of data um we have 381 subscribers with an open rate um consistently of over 60% which if you know that spa space that is a really positive percentage of folks who are actively engaging in that in that newsletter um with click-through rates ranging from 6 to 10%. So for those folks looking for more information that's when they're tending to click through but uh positive to see uh metrics and how we are being successful in those spaces. So I want to just mention um the public service announcements and particular you know why are we mentioning this but you're aware that we have the PSA process it's existed for quite a long time um I won't go through all the steps here but what I will say is that through this um we have a different approach in the way that this work is happening and by that I mean how we work with our partners so if it's Mayo Clinic that we're working with and their communications team uh we have bi-weekly meetings with that team as well as represent representatives on the call from um DMC. And so as we see potential um impacts come through, we're in communication with the Mayo team and and with the DMC team as we think about um those major and minor uh impacts, but also how are those things being communicated not just by the city team about anticipating media requests, anticipating potential questions um inside the clinic by male staff. So again, something that seemingly is part of our day-to-day process that's just elevated as we move through construction.

Um and then this last slide for my portion I wanted to highlight um uh this was shared by Miss Steinhauser and I think it's a really great um visual um well not ours it's uh the RDA's uh and you may have seen this but this is another piece of data that we can use to say how are things going right so I want to call your attention to uh the different lines specifically looking at the blue line and then that orishest red line so the blue line as you can see is 2019 monthly foot traffic. Um the the reg red orangest line is 2025. So the positive even through construction is that downtown is seeing close to prepandemic numbers of traffic. So we hope in 2026 that that um traffic uh surpasses what was 2025 or right in line. So again, these are things that we can monitor um in partnership uh with folks like the RDA to understand are we in a in a positive trajectory or are there things we are are are there things we are seeing through the data that indicate we need to change our approach.

Council member Palmer, I had a quick question on your data on the left in the bar graph. It looks like the residence has pretty much stayed the same since 2019. And I really appreciate you having 2019 information on there. That's really helpful. Um but but it looks like the blue is almost the same amount of people the entire time and then you turn around and you look at employees and the employees still have not come back to 2019. Um is that how I read that correctly? I I think so. That's what it looks like to me. Thank you. Council member Miller.

I guess if I might I I was curious pulled up their website. Um it looks like residents have increased from 389,400 in 2019 to 526,700. I a lot of questions about how the data are sourced. Um but yeah, it does look like that increase is minimized because it is a smaller number than the other groups. Thank you. Got to squint pretty hard but yeah and I think to the question or the point on data um miss time correct me but I think it's the place AI data correct. Yes. So, Council Member Miller,

I do have a question, a comment u because you mentioned trusted um messengers and trusted communications channels and this has come up a couple times in our our council as well is the difficulty that we have as elected officials to communicate directly um but not having tools and I just don't want us as elected officials to be lost as as trusted communication channels and people who are communicating with constituents outside of the city organization but related. And I I'm still kind of wrestling with how we are more effective in that.

If I could just jump in and and um I think it's a great question. It's actually one that we've been working on and I I hope that uh at the next study session where we're talking about transformation capital projects. Um with Miss Bowman's team, we've been talking a lot about how do we give you the talking points you need for projects, for initiatives. Um, and so that's some of the work that her team's doing right now is kind of populating the story um based on um both by projects but also in other spaces both as we're hearing stuff and her team is you first point of contact whether the calls are coming in through 311 or some other way but we know that's a gap and we are working on um a strategy to fill it and hope to have that update in April with the study session. Okay, I think that's great and I I agree that that's a gap that we don't have a compository of information, but I I think the tool set is also a gap because it leverages only the personal email alerts or Facebook or social media followings, etc.

Uh, council member, if I can, I will say I know there's been interest um specifically with uh the platform Indigov and um a couple council members on the latest better public meetings uh call. Um I did give an update. We have been in active conversations with them uh most recently getting an update on some questions with the sunshine laws and and data uh as well as um pushing for the best pricing we can get. So I have uh the forthcoming internal meeting to discuss that to see if there's any additional questions both um from legal and just uh the nuts and bolts of how that potentially would work. So I would hope within the next month here um either by way of city administrator Elms um or otherwise we could provide an update on that. So we we have been hearing you and working through the process to have a response on that topic

as well as a lot of other things. We heard a lot from um different council members, elected officials about being um sort of a toolkit for how to be more present at events that already exist and um so the throughput of what Miss Bowman was sharing earlier on an earlier slide about trying to be more intentional about how we utilize the tools that already exist to make sure that we're ahead of things with you is really being intentional across the there are a lot of people involved in this and other things that aren't even on the list of projects that were shared earlier um to make sure that you have the changing information but also at a high level so that if it is changing that you're sharing a higher level information and not this is what the corner looks like right now that it might change in you know 3 weeks 3 months 3 years um so we're trying to be intentional about putting all of that together in a way where each of you also might show up differently in those spaces you may have more interest in some things than others some things might be impacting your board way more directly than others

I would say um when it comes to the n meetings the neighborhood information meetings that process is you do an amazing job of giving us I think on a weekly basis here are the names of the of this weekend we can pick and choose where to go. If if we could get something like that with community events as well that uh that all in one place because then we can we are working on a process for that where we also just send the calendar invite and then you can say yes or tentative and decide if you're

that is that's good too. Other questions on community and partnerships? Turn it over to our lead at RPU. And now for my favorite part of the conversation, underground power. Uh thank you for the opportunity to speak to some policy considerations around undergrounding overhead wire infrastructure. The goal for this presentation is not to talk about any specific segments, but just to frame all of the different policy aspects that need to be considered as we assess questions like we'd like that undergrounded. How do we make that happen in conjunction with these co-investments? I would encourage this council, I'd encourage the RP board to consider that in undergrounding it is always possible. It's just a matter of cost and coordination. We have many examples of successful undergrounding projects and we have a few examples of failed undergrounding projects and it really comes down to how they're approached, how they're funded and how they're coordinated up front. So to start with that, um the RP board does have a policy regarding underground conversions. Typically speaking, if overhead wires seek to be brought underground, the person requesting, the entity requesting is typically the funding source. We have many examples where RPU is the entity driving the undergrounding project. Uh, a relevant current example is 18th Avenue Southwest. It's a project that's in open active design right now. It's a over a $2 million contribution from RPU seeking to pull the overhead feeder underground as a as a part of that project. And we're working uh coordinating with other city departments to do so in conjunction with that road project. Um, there are often cost savings. I will say sometimes these are minor compared to the capital investment. Um in the later slides we talk about overall in the low teen

millions in this DMCI DMC broad impact area of what it would take to pull all the wires underground. If you look at call it 13 to$15 million of investment overall over a 20-year period that would save about $220,000 of vegetation management costs. So, you're spending 15 to save a very small fraction of that. Now, there are other benefits to reliability improvements. Um, there's benefits to aesthetics. There's many benefits to even there's even some safety benefits. Um, those are all considered here, but often the costs far outweigh the monetary benefits of these type of projects. Um when you see a pole uh I would encourage you to think about it touching up to seven different entities uh six of which are outside of RPU that are outside of our control. These are joint use structures. RPU is typically at the top and a couple wires below and then below that lives a whole host of private telecom attachers as well. Speak to that a little bit later. But all this has to be coordinated for all of those to successfully come underground together and coordinated. Um, and there's also the customer to consider here as well. That last wire that connects to the home of the business. RQ owns it if it's overhead, but if it goes underground, it becomes a private asset and it's funded privately and that often comes in the form of a tax assessment to fund that type of infrastructure. Talk about the cost of that in a minute as well. Um, these are relatively high dollar capital investments on the RPU side. Anywhere in the range of $2.5 to $5 million per mile to coordinate just the RPU side of this. And then there's other private investment that comes with that with the service laterals, the telecom providers. Um, those include costs such as acquiring easement. Um, there's often an additional room outside of the right away that's needed to put this

infrastructure underground. So, there's private property easement that's often needed here. Um, and then rough cost for a single family home, it's about $10,000 average cost to pull that wire underground. And for a business, it can be upwards of $30,000. That also requires building side modifications. You need a new service riser instead of a service mast, new meter socket, bring it up to code in some cases. So, the the costs are not uh minor in some of these cases. So the two graphics there are from our service assured program. Um but they just represent kind of the the difference between an overhead wire and an underground service. Um spoke a little bit about advantages and trade-offs here. Um many requesters

maybe I missed it but I think there was one thing missed on that. What's the charge to bring in overhead free? Right. So uh very good question question about what it what it means to bring in overhead for all new development underground is the standard. So we're really talking about redevelopment and infield development. That's what I'm talking you know it said you had the underground piece to bring it in. It's already existing obviously so that doesn't cost anything but in those areas if you have to bring in a new line what's it cost to bring in a new line overhead? You're talking like a main overhead from off the overhead into the house into the business into all that. Sure. there. If I could just park that question for a moment, I'll show a couple examples of where private service laterals were left overhead and we can talk about the specific cost there.

That's fine.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I'll I'll remember to come back to that one if you let me pause that question. The answer is $0, but there's an impact there um of remaining overhead wires. Um there's tree canopy um uh advantages. The most fun and most challenging part of my job often is regarding trees. Um, everyone has an example of a big Y tree or a half of a tree that comes from trimming around power lines. Um, and so just recognize that tree canopy is a valued community asset here and many of these trees live on private property as well. And so that's that's something to be considered and there's value to this. Um, but it often doesn't outweigh the capital cost and many times going underground can disrupt the root ball and damage the trees if you have to go from overhead to underground and so it's not always a free ask to go underground and avoid future tree damage as well. Um, the easiest uh safety improvement is there's just less exposure. If a car hits a pole, that can create not a risk of I think they're magnets for cars sometimes to hit them, but often that creates safety hazards. And so going underground often generally has a lot of safety benefits for the community as well. Um I think I've touched on the trade-offs there. So for the sake of time, I'm going to move forward. Um I touched on joint use structures. Uh and coordinating the telecom here is not an insignificant part of this. um the city has the right to manage their right of way but they don't always have the right to force telecom providers to go underground without compensation there. So from a cost perspective sometimes uh achieving a full undergrounding outcome can require cost investment not only to utility to a private entity but also to another uh telecom type private entity

in the community as well. And if you miss some of these things from a policy, you being we miss some of these from a policy perspective, we can be left with elements of overhead wires that exist that kind of miss the overall outcome altogether. Underground doesn't mean invisible as well. So I just wanted to remind everyone of those great green boxes that live in the community are required and often are required exactly in the spots where the poles are removed from. A true subsurface is uh is possible but it comes at another scale of cost higher that is not within our current design standards. It is achievable and there are some cases where we are able to move those transformers indoors if they go to a privately run dry type transformer. So it is possible just comes at a higher level of cost there as well. Let's look at a few examples. Um on the left is a preerkman apartment. On the right is a post Birkham apartment uh or hotel. This is a a great example of where a coordinated undergrounding project that was funded primarily by the developer was successful. Lines moved underground and for that corridor there's really no overhead lines and the um telecom providers moved successfully here as well. Here's what I would call maybe a couple unsuccessful examples. I think on the left is a view up 6 Avenue Southeast next to the 2017 development lofts at Mayo Park. This was one where there was I think tiff funding available and the developer used the tiff funding to contribute to even some of the undergrounding of private service laterals on homes and there were some holdouts. If you zoom in right there at that first driveway on the left, there's a remaining pole in the air and you see some wires. there is not a means of forcing uh private uh private services underground. So sometimes there are hold

outs where you end up saying no, I'm not interested in undergrounding or being assessed or paying $10,000 and even if it was offered from the developer to pay for that. You can lead a horse to water, but not always have a successful conversion there. And then on the right is a picture from North Broadway from last year's undergrounding project. If you pay attention as you drive by, you'll see some examples of secondary lift poles that are left there because we offered coordinated undergrounding, but there was not a participating private entity and there wasn't a funding source. Um, we also have to talk about responsible use of public funds because this becomes private infrastructure. We don't take rateayer dollars and move them into private entities. So that is typically born a cost cost borne by the private homeowner or some other contributor who's willing to make that private infrastructure happen. It's a would not be a responsible use of public dollars in that regard. Um we assess overall the expanded impact area. These are where the kind of project areas would exist if we sought to underground these as a part of coordinated project areas. Um call it $13 million overall. There are e uh easement costs u legal uh work and some contingencies. You never know what you know until you get into those projects as well. Um so uh looking for some level of direction here from the council that I can bring back to the board of how to uh maintain our goal towards undergrounding. Um we're right at 66.33% underground overall. So we've made progress even in the last year with some undergrounding projects. There was no budget for this DMC area as far as 2026 27 budget that was focused on 18th Avenue Southwest. So to move forward with these, we would be looking for

contributions or other sources of funds outpayer dollars in this area. And that's what I have prepared for you all this afternoon. Questions? Council member comments? Council member Miller, I guess just a start of a question. There are some other proposed developments in this um map that you're showing on preliminary estimates including like the onward project um on the north end along Civic Center Drive and Fifth Avenue Northwest. Are there any preliminary discussions with them as far as expectations or no?

This was just done at an early this work here was done at an early planning stage when the road corridors and what could be associated with this DNC expanded area was done. So there's been not a lot of work done here to coordinate funding sources. It's just budgetary estimates. But it's reasonable to expect that some of these corridors or blocks might likely have a private developer interested in undergrounding portions of this.

I would agree that would be a reasonable expectation and it might be valued by a developer to contribute towards undergrounding. It often is something that's desired when you're putting investments in to to bring that aesthetic and and sometimes there's uses of property that's desired all the way up to the edge of the ride of way that would lead to those contributions as well.

Great. So then an actual question along the 6th Avenue Northwest corridor. We've heard about this double boulevard um from Tulle. Does the viability of a double boulevard with overstory trees conflict with overhead power lines? Um I would say overhead designs can be incorporated into any type of cross-section. Okay. So, and depending on the change of the I'm not intimately familiar with the road section that's being described there, but um one of the challenges in general here it is you're taking existing infrastructure that's overhead that's never existed in the ride of way and it often requires coordination with the left utilities to move and make space or private easement. And so that's part of the design challenge that would be um that would be part of the design goals once we've uh bid off one of these projects. My final immediate question is if if so we've we've heard about this dig once philosophy and how much of the downtown is uh under construction through 2029 if we pass on these blocks what is the reasonable next point how many how many years might they continue to exist overhead like how many it's like the intersection design of Broadway and highway 14 we we reconstruct that and that's a 50-year lifespan

y from RP's perspective. We always assess when there's a time for an asset being needing to be replaced. Is that the right time to underground it? The pole assets in this area have all different types of vintages. There are some examples of poles that were set within the last 2 years. That would be a challenge to invest and underground those. It's not always a waste. I would say we can reuse some of those newer poles. So, there is some recycling reuse opportunities there. So um from RF's perspective, we look at opportunities anytime there's a coordinated project, it's an opportunity time to look at putting that together or if there's an aging asset, but it's also a challenge to do it unilaterally from RP's perspective because to go underground requires coordination with all the other utilities. So we take opportune times when there's work happening together.

So realistically 40 years from now, that's still the overhead configuration. We build assets for 40 year life. So yeah, the renewal assets could come decades down the road for council member Dory, the 60% figure you just gave to us, is that citywide? Is that in the project?

That is citywide. 66.33. I just looked up the number. That's how we close 2024. Okay. And there's two PE there's a how much goes from overhead to underground? That's the top number that we divide that that's in the numerator. The bottom number new development all goes underground. And so that that percentage blends down with city expansion and new underground going in and conversions happening. Thank you for that clarification, Council Member Keith. Uh yeah, I appreciate seeing this and I've seen it a little bit before. The one that surprises me though is the sixth Avenue coming off of uh center uh uh civic center and that not being part of this discussion we've been having about a 6th Avenue. Uh can you talk to that or why that's not a part of that project? So, uh, first there the the funding sources haven't been identified yet to contribute to the undergrounding piece on the 6th Avenue from a outside of RPU investment. RPU didn't budget in these undergrounding areas. So, there's not current RPU sourced funding for it. And so the the whether it's going to be coordinated with outside funding opportunities whether it be development or um taking other sources of funds and we haven't identified that yet to find a source to bring it all underground.

Okay. So when I when I hear uh all this talk about the all the duck work and all the uh the undergrounding work for utilities, it's everything but electricity. Yes. For the the DNC contribution. Can you talk to the uh the genesis of why that is why it's not considered a utility when we say undergrounding utilities?

Well, I do believe and uh Cindy, you could jump in and help me here as well. The the contribution of the the upsizing of the infrastructure was focused on the underground wet utilities that already existed there on a per block basis. It did not include the overhead components of utilities or RPU or any of the private telecoms. And that is correct. And and I would say part of the um what we were focused on in the U below ground was uh increasing capacity of the wet utilities in particular.

I I I hear that. But I I know there's all kinds of work moving electric capacity from the new south southeast um uh trans transformers and moving it into downtown all underground. That's totally different work. Uh that's you major major lines. That's but I I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that but if it's an existing utility or does it have to do with whether it's servicing the downtown buildings or whether it's servicing the neighborhood to the west? So, let me ask a little bit more. You're not you're talking about other duck banks and electric infrastructure.

Well, I'm talking about I I've been I know there's a lot of other when we talk about this duck the underground, there's been a lot of electricity work done there, but it's not individual lines going to homes, it's major sources coming into downtown. So maybe they're totally different things, but I I guess I did not accept upfront that when I hear that we're under that they're doing all this underground utility work that it was everything but electricity. There's a lot of underground electric work that has gone into the bold forward direct Mayo investment, direct RPU investment that's funded a good portion from Mayo to provide new backbone infrastructure in and around the downtown. But none of those conversations to date have been around undergrounding other existing infrastructure that serves other uh customers until very recently with the approval of the $38 million and the idea of aesthetic undergrounding and protecting trees. So the undergrounding of these pieces here on this map have really been a very recent conversation um within the the timeline from when the DMC contributions towards uh utility upsizing for the wet utilities have been brought forward. Okay. I I'm I'm reacting a little bit to a discussion in another public meeting where it was said that these don't service the new buildings in May. They service the neighborhoods to the west, not to the east. And I guess I didn't think that should have come into uh into discussion. But going back to your request here as far as direction needed, it it doesn't seem right that that this the work that's happening here should be f we should be trying to find a way to route those expenses to RPU rate payers. So I would not support that as the direction of uh which I think means maintain the consistency of the RPU policy. Um, as far as system cost and benefits for existing rate payers, it's my understanding that RPU does have an outlook in 5 years and has a a nominal budget for undergrounding and are trying

to slowly but surely do this stuff. And I guess I I I think that's the consistent way to do this. I guess I still question when someone is doing something like putting in a park or or changing the the work on one side of the street that that wouldn't be the project that would include undergrounding. But I think the problem with that is you've got to have a select like distance to underground. You can't just do one city street and have it up on both sides on the other sides. It's just inconsistent. I would agree there's limited benefit to doing peace meal undergrounding especially when you're going over under and back over again. So we typically like to find larger projects that can be coordinated together that provide the most.

Thank you. Uh Council Member Frederick. Thank you. When you put in your new underground electric, are you running in a pipe? Are you pulling Are you putting in a pipe first and running through the pipe or is it just the line going in the ground? Most over most higher voltage pieces are in pipe. So pipe goes in the ground first. You consider a new subdivision for example, the pipe goes in first and then RPU comes back in and puts our wires in behind it. So do you have other utilities renting real estate in that pipe and running through it as well? Look for joint trench opportunities with other utilities like telecoms for example and we try and put those pipes together into a common trench but not in the same pipe.

Not in the same pipe but in the same trench. Very good. I was curious about that. We try and maintain separation and sometimes that includes gas in that same t. There's a reason for it. I get it. Yep. I don't need to get down that rabbit hole. So I just uh I just want to just like Mr. Keane mentioned what he's in support of. I'm in support of whatever provides the most reliable service for the best value for the best price. That's what I'm in support of for the consumer. Council member Wall, I was unsuccessful in getting recognized some while ago and time is appropriate. Uh, I'll have a couple of questions for Miss Steinhauser, but I can wait.

Okay. Um, council member, council member Palmer, real quick. I agree with Mr. King. Council member Miller,

just a question. Since we've talked a lot about Kusky Park and the special $8 million to the DMC public realm, have we asked them what their preferences are of the space? I mean, I say that rhetorically because I I have heard it come up in public meetings. Um, but I feel like it's been in this NIM um style. We'll take your feedback. We'll write it down and then we'll come back to you. But it does feel to me like there's been additional engagement with Tusky Park, Miguel report, etc. And I just sense that there's from Mr. McCulla's presentation some precedent for paying for private service connections um when there's a broader um benefit to the public experience. And I'm just curious about that, like how much has the neighborhood been engaged in the potential use of the $8 million in Dc funding

for and and when you're talking about wires, you're talking specifically 7th Avenue, 96, correct? That's where I heard it come up the list. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's a great question and actually one of the things that um we have been talking about internally is that that $8 million in um Katusky Park, Katsky neighborhood needs a special process. It needs much more engagement, much more co-design. And so just from a scheduling perspective in talking with our partners over at DMC who very much want to be part of that process, we really feel like 26 is not the year that we have capacity to do that, but rather it's in 27 and it's a very intentional um much more intense process to engage the neighborhood. So it is it's in our work plan just not for 26.

Okay. So, I I guess I'll I'll just reiterate that I I would agree with Mr. Keen that I wouldn't be in favor of shifting these costs under repairs, but I do feel like we have a special potential funding source to work with the neighborhood to consider the best use of that fund through the Y report and otherwise. And what I've heard over and over is the importance of overstory trees and shade in the West Logistics Center Park. And that's felt like it's been in conflict with overhead lines. And I would just encourage staff and the DMC press pro process to work intensively with them to resolve that and present some of these numbers and it really be a process of co-design or shared decision making on how that is best used in the public realm.

The email that's that was our intent. We're not here to say here's what we think should happen in your neighborhood, but what do you think should happen? Okay. Because I don't think anybody's ever said this is what it would cost, right? And so you there's been an allocation of $8 billion from the DMC funding source, but here's how much could go to this undergrounding. Should should that be possible? How much of that would it take off? And I I appreciate the specificity of this analysis that among the other. Sure. Absolutely.

So I'm going to ask a a more pointed question regarding the undergrounding on 7th Avenue Northwest. Well, I see a a a estimate of 1.99 million. And to the the following up on council member Miller's kind of public good, has this been a discussion point with our partnership with Mayo Clinic as far as I I know Mr. McCulla mentioned if there's a private funer that uh that is available to fund it. Has this been an ask or or a point of discussion with Mayo Clinic regarding the undergrounding on 7th to fulfill what I think was the initial intent of uh the linear park? So we have not asked them would you be willing to fund 7th Avenue right but we have have raised the conversation around cuz we've been asked will Mayo's park include the bearing of overhead wires for that when they do the park and that is not something that they had anticipated as part of the park design. No. And is are these expectations have they been delivered to our neighbors in Kutsky Park? Because part of what my concern is uh setting expectations. I am of the uh of the mind that uh council member Keane, Council Member Miller, the what uh the the uh rules and guidelines that uh Mr. Makulla uh clarified for us and and uh so I'm in line with that. But if there is a private funer out there for this project then uh I would like to see us pursue

it. If that private funer said, "No, this is not part of our plan," then I think it's very important that we as early as possible. I hope today isn't the first time where we set the expectations to the neighborhood that that is not likely to happen and I know they had a meeting last week. Is was that message delivered to them? I was not at the meeting last week so I'd have to check with staff. I have not personally delivered that message. I know we have I would say it implied it in various conversations but as directly as you've just said no so we will do that tomorrow oh tomorrow so they will hear tomorrow

all right council member as far as feedback for our PD I believe Mr. team's uh approach is very fair and reasonable. Um I hate to drag us back uh 45 minutes uh but is the design the design consultants cost uh how much is that is that included in the planning estimate and in the final 38 million. So we are budgeting about 300,000 for that project uh for that consultant and there if you recall that um included in the current DNC in the budget in 25 was a million dollars for planning engineering and design and so it would come out of that million that original million dollars so not in the 38 million.

Okay. And then uh the second question, a short question, but it actually intersects pretty uh quite well with what President Schubin was just talking about. When I first saw what the title of this would be, I thought we might get an update on uh the uh vertical park on 7th. Uh do we get some kind of update about that? because I I think that seemed to be some considerable interest on the part of the council in the vertical park linear linear park on 7th Avenue. Yeah. So, uh I apologize that that was the expectation.

Oh, it wasn't I just thought there but we can we have a study session with you um on transformation capital projects next month and we can include in that um any information that we have on where that project is at. Again, it's at staff level approval and I but we can provide an update on where where we're at with getting designs for Mayo and what we are what we know about the design. That'd be great. Thank you, Council Palmer. C can I just clarify? Um, so on one of the slides, there is um so it is included in that 38. Um, so I just

Oh, the consultant. It's not in that my um but we do have a million. We do have council member trying to go back to clarify something. Um I think Mr. Miller said the G report. I don't know. I have a copy of that and I don't quite know the history and I asked the question prior weeks ago. $8 million of DMC money can't be spent outside the DMC area. How are we going to pull that off? So So first of all, we'll get you a copy of the Gail report. It's just an informal um report that DMC did. It's not something that's come to you that you initiated that you adopted. It's just been it was an informed engagement. So, I did miss it. You did miss it.

Thank you. Um and then uh we in our conversations with DMC, the very question was of this 8 million, what if through the neighborhood process they identify investment beyond your boundaries? that would require coming back to both the DMC board and to the city council or boundary modification if you wanted to advance those recommendations and to spend the $8 million.

Okay. And and this just a bad point for me is one of them we asked them I believe or we thought we did on the parking ramp up to the rec center to extend the boundary. They said no. I know our friends at the county want us to extend it out there to their um um Senica site. Um which I don't know if we're going to do that, but I would not be in favor of extending the the boundary for DMC and Yeah. Anything else on this topic? Council member Mar.

Yeah, just this is goes back to Miss Bowman here just on the this uh spectrum of engagement and I I know I've used this seen this before. I really like it as far as a method of communicating. But my input is that a lot of times we imply that we want to collaborate or that we imply that we want to involve the neighbors where I think what we really are trying to do is inform and even consult with them. And I I think I think it would help head off some problems to be more deliberate with that and say we really we both mainly informed but we also do want to consult and we want to have these ideas and they may come to be but the there seems to be an implication of well we need your ideas. We need you to tell us what to do and then we don't do it and I think that's where a lot of the bad feelings come from. Great.

All right, we're going to take a 4m minute break and uh come back with our two other agenda items.

Housing code update. Thank you for your report. We'll move on.

Are you late now or short? Go ahead. All right. We ready? Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Taran Edith. community development department. I'm here to provide you an update on our proposed update for the housing code. Um eventually you will be asked specifically to adopt an updated housing code with our intention to better align with the international property maintenance code. I just want to give you a quick outline of what we plan to discuss. We want to give you some context and history around um our rental inspection uh program and process. We want to talk about some of the data to inform some of this since we haven't had the opportunity to share this program with all of you where it's been some time. We wanted to kind of give you that context up front. We'll talk a bit about some of the internal and external discussions we have within the city and housing providers to to uh bring you these housing codes to you today. I'll transition it over to Heather Barnes, the new manager of housing and neighborhood services to talk about the specific uh updates and we'll have time for questions at the end. So, just a quick overview of housing and neighborhood services. This is a division within the community development department. Uh we rely on the housing code as our our guidance for enforcement. It's also known as chapter 7 of the Rochester code of ordinances. Uh worth noting is we use it as a mechanism to enforce rental properties and there's information there on what a rental requirement but technically it's also it can also be used for any residential property for uh for sale uh included. So, I just wanted to share that we require in the city of Rochester for every property that does that is occupi in which the property owner um has another let me rephrase this. We require rental license for every property in which a property owner does not reside at the property to have a rental license. There are some exceptions um essentially require a rental to uh renew their license on an annual basis and we have in inspection requirements for that as well uh through our property setup program which I'll talk about next. We have a variety of different inspections that we do, but the intent is to regularly inspect our properties for property maintenance. Essentially, uh, historically, we would inspect

properties every two years or by and we changed that with the adoption of the property incentive program in 2023. Uh, but essentially we we would have perhaps a new use rental inspection for a new rental. We would have a routine, a renewal. Um once we do that, we give a a notice of violation and list the corrections needed within 30 days and then we would come back for a reinspection till all those items are met for compliance just as so so really we're intentional about going to properties and trying to maintain compliance and property maintenance. Um however residents community members also have an opportunity to uh submit concerns to the city to investigate separately if needed. That's done through our 3001 system and if that occurs for a rental for example, we would investigate that separately. We go through a different process and we call that an investigation inspection. So just know that all those exist uh to ensure um uh property maintenance and livability. Our team has four housing inspectors. We also have a teammate who is a halfousing inspector, half code enforcement and then we have a zoning uh compliance liaison as well. So as mentioned the property center program really what this is is we go out for a routine inspection uh and based on that inspection will result in a one two three or four year inspection cycle. So once again council approved this in 2023. Our intention really is to incentivize compliance uh uh for those inspections and I'll show you kind of how that's been going for us so far. Other things to know is the specific criteria that scoring is kept is kept confidential on purpose. Our inspectors actually asked to not know it to avoid bias. Uh so we vetted that. We've looked at other communities for designing this. We looked uh we vetted it internally with other city staff to to look at this and we've really just been tracking how it's going to see if we need to make baseline adjustments to that scoring. All right. So some quick data if you're interested uh how has it been going? It's been going pretty well. We would like to see this is just sort of a

baseline once again of the 1 2 3 4 year inspection cycles. We would like to see more properties result in that three and fouryear number. Um, this is looking at property licenses. We're not looking at by units and that's worth noting and I repeat that that a license is for a building. So we require a license for each building. So it could be one unit, could be hundreds of units. So keep that in mind. Another thing that we will take a look at is we intentionally for every new use rental, we automatically result them in a two-year result. Uh we do that because we find often um their score sort of uh results in a lower result because we have more findings the first time not always but often. And we used to do 2-year uh insec in inspection cycles previously. So we made that decision that a 2year excuse me a new use rental will come back in two years to sort of maintain that consistency. Um, so you see that reflected in the data and that's something we can consider going forward to show aside from new uses how is it looking uh by the numbers. You've seen some of this information recently in your action plan update, but we we're seeing the numbers trend upward slightly. Keep in mind when we're looking at this, it's sort of a net increase because rentals can come off of our rental license program and transition to home ownership as well. But today or fe as of February 12th, we have over 6,000 rental license. Remember licensed per building over 23,000 rental units. I think if we look at this data from last year the same month that's a net increase of about 300 rental units.

Uh council member Dorian and are those rental units uh multifamily rental units or what what is the largest percentage of those? All of the above is captured in that 23,000 number unit. I I we could clarify. I want to make sure I have that right. Most of them are multif family. My quick I'm running through the numbers in my head is that yes the highest proportion are going to be multifamily and that data was sort of captured in your action plan update as well. Okay, council member Miller had a clarification this includes short-term and long-term rental does include short-term rentals as well? Mhm. So uh council member Thank you. So we have a large brand new building.

Mhm. We don't inspect it until the second year or do we inspect it right away? If it's a brand new building, we're not going to inspect it for two years. So, we make a note on this certificate of occupancy. This is new. This is two code. We're not coming back for 2 years. Why would you wait till four? Why would you wait till four? Like I said, primarily consistency with what we used to do and what we see. And typically, um, we find those issues 2 years in. So, it's certainly open to discussion, but it's intentional for us to be more consistent in what we're finding. But we used to inspect them every 18 months. Years ago. Sure. But you're suggesting to go four years. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Mhm. Continue. Uh rental license applications. I know we we figured this might be of interest as well. This is showing new use rental applications by the month uh last year. Uh you can see this number fluctu fluctuates a lot. Um I'm just double checking here. Uh the range is from 21 to 40 with an average of 27 a month. Um and and this could also be we have instances where a rental changes ownership and their time to transfer that sort of lapses and then they have to apply again. So that that could also be encompassed by this number. But just interesting to show the change in often we get new use rentals. And that's worth noting because this next slide shows you how many inspections we're doing and that sort of correlates with that data of new use rentals. Uh this is showing um certificates again. So not respective of all the units. So one certificate could be hundreds of units but it's showing as one inspection. It's including new use inspections, routine or renewal inspections, reinspections, um complaint or investigation inspections. Um and the range for this is between a,000 to 2800 inspections a month with with an average of 2,200. So that's about how often our team is doing these inspections. Um September was a smaller month. We had less new use applications. I think we had a staff out and we had a lot of large building inspections. So, lots of units were showing a smaller number. So, with that, I'm going to transition it over to our our man our new manager of housing neighborhood neighborhood services. Heather Barnes has to talk about the housing code updates we are proposing.

Awesome. Thank you, Taran. Thank you for having me, council. This is the first time, so we'll see. Perfect. Okay. Um, so as Taran kind of mentioned, we last updated in 2023. That was our that was a complete rewrite and the first go at aligning with the International Property Maintenance Code, also known as the IPMC. Uh, these most recent updates are to better align with the 2024 IPMC. So, a lot of the updates are small in nature. We wanted more clarity on code language used for violations. We often see uh most of the updates uh for example the an example of the clerical change is we reorganized the code sections to just be a little bit more uh reader friendly uh and clearer in manner. Prior to 2023 our housing code was local customized code that people had to adapt to. Uh basing our housing code on an international standard as a best practice to be vetted by experts and more predictable for our community members. Some of our guiding sources are listed here. As mentioned, we follow the IPMC. Uh it's the standard as a city as Taran mentioned in 2023 we've decided to follow. It's also our guidance for making decision our team makes daily out in the field. Um and the IPMC has gone through a few of its own updates uh since its inception. Other references and guidance uh comes from a variety of places, some of which are listed here. We really wanted to be very detailed and intentional on our housing code updates. So, this is a list. I realize it's quite small. I apologize. Uh but of internal external engagement. So, starting in August of 2025, uh we have a quarterly Rochester Multi-Housing Association, also known as RMHA, uh their management committee. We let that group know that our housing code update was taking place over the next few months just as that

initial onset. On October 22nd, we had an annual RMHA in-person event. Uh that same announcement was given of, hey, housing code update is coming. Around 60 housing providers were in attendance that day. On October 24th, we communicated to all housing providers on file in our system for active rental licenses. So that 6,000 uh or so rental licenses that Taran mentioned on upcoming changes and how they can remain informed. And then from September to December, uh, our team reviewed the current code line by line comparison to the 2024 IPMC. From December 2025 to February 2026, the internal review expanded outside of our uh, housing and neighborhood services division that include administrative assistance, uh, the building official, Rochester Fire, and the city attorney's office. On February 13th, an email again went out to all housing providers on file for active rental licenses informing them of this meeting. uh city council study session today, March 9th, and a summary document that was given of the housing code force changes. And then on February 19th, during our next quarterly RMHA meeting, we gave space for any questions that that management group had uh from that email that was sent out just a couple days prior. So, we want a better equipped housing providers to be compliant. We want properties, as Taran mentioned, to score higher on that property incentive program. This is achieved we feel by clear and predictable housing codes. The expectation is housing providers know what we are looking for and what we would write in a letter of violation. For example, um pictured here in 2025 along with the help of our uh communications department, we updated the complete pre-insspection rundown document for a detailed list of items to look for before a city inspection takes place and the pre-insspection checklist for a quicker review. These two

documents were released in 2025 to help aid in clear and predictable housing the code updates being brought to you now in 2026. So I'm going to go over four kind of noteworthy updates. Uh just a highlight of those. The first is we did remove the offer to rent while waiting for an inspection. Prior to the full integration of the property incentive program, at some points in time, scheduling an inspection was months out. We are now in the third full year of a property incentive program and we're currently around 1 to 3 weeks out for scheduling an inspection. So we see the intent of the property incentive program coming to fruition by these higher intervals between inspections. This change will also improve a renters's in experience by ensuring they move into an already inspected property. Secondly, and along those lines, this is why the change to late compliance fees are being made. Currently, this fee is assessed either 90 days after the rental license expires or 90 days after the most recent inspection. We're removing the or the after the most recent inspection clause due to inspection scheduling availability as being more available like I previously mentioned. And then probably more importantly, this clear deadline prevents confusion on when late compliance fees will occur. It also keeps the rule being applied consistently to each rental license. The third highlighted change here is if a conversion of a single household dwelling to a multi-house dwelling takes place, the updated code gives a list of criteria of what's needed for compliance. The property owner can either comply with and complete permitted work to bring the property up to code with the change in occupancy. One example would be fire separation. That's the most common one. Um or would need to remove interior doors that created that separation. This update also aids in the effort to have safe living conditions for those occupying the home. And lastly, uh measurements detailing for egress windows. This is

codifying policy. We recognize that there are cases where new use rentals have approved permitted windows that met the building codes at the time. These details added to this housing code update gives us direction to point to when inspecting while providing clarity to those to what those requirements were in that year. Council member Palmer, just a quick one on that slide. The third one there, you have single family into multi-unit dwelling. I don't know how many you do in a year or an average, but basically that makes it an ADU. Take that.

It's more reacting to what we see a lot is folks illegally adding a unit like making a duplex out of single family dwelling more than anything else. Does that make sense? That does make sense. And and you have a lot of those. We're seeing a lot. Yeah. Okay. And so you you mentioned one of the requirements is the separation of fire 1 hour separation between the units but also separate um electrical separate furnace separate everything right um so everything has to be completely separated right there's a huge cost to that y and so you're saying that it's being done and then you all find out about it and now they got to go backwards

and then we have options for compliance or converting back to how it was approved. Council member Fredericks, for clarity on that, I do want to just reiterate for the 20 people listening today that that uh it is very expensive and it's not just you don't just go buy a house and turn it into a duplex. It's it's not that simple. And I just don't want people to get the idea, oh, we can just take these houses and split them into duplexes cuz the the just the fire separation is a huge deal and so is all the separate utilities and all the things that go with that. So, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, Council Member Miller.

I guess to build on that, but more broadly an engagement, is there engagement practically to the community of saying, you know, I think we talk a lot about the example of a a senior couple or individual living in a house that's too large for them. And it seems very sensible that one pathway to staying in your home is to finding new flexibility within that, finding a renter. Have we thought about workshops or engagement to the community to help manage that? Especially if you're seeing more um of these situations where people are coming in and you're finding out about it after the fact. I will say we haven't explicitly thought about communication campaigns to describe what we're seeing, but we are trying to consider other pathways to this that are legal and ways to provide resources to do that. So without committing to specifics, we have some in mind that I I I think would align with the action plan. for example and would also address this.

Okay. Second question about engagement. It seems like this internally and then focused on housing providers. Is there engagement with um any groups of tenants, renters and and how might that inform some of the inspection process? Obviously, I would agree that we would want uh buildings to be in compliance and those buildings or licenses to be granted for longer inspection periods because they're in compliance. But I just wonder where there's an opportunity to hear from tenants. Um, and especially as we have some enterprises that are managing a lot more property, making sure that we understand from a tenant perspective where those management companies are in compliance with our code, but also some of the pitfalls.

I think that's a good point and good feedback. When we did the larger update in 2023, we didn't have avenues to reach um tenants and residents. So, did we to this point? No. And certainly that's something we can think about um in trying to Right. We'll have to think of more organic ways to connect with tenants. Okay. Council member Palmer to go off what Mr. Miller is saying. Um I agree 110% with that, but also are you planning to bring into a public hearing to the city council? I believe since it's going to be a proposed ordinance um your next slide. a little unforg kind of a conversation by email on this. Um,

if I have an existing house and I'm going to change my window out, all I have to do is just not make it smaller. And we've gone back and forth on dates on when when we had egress windows, when we did have egress windows. So, if I have a house built before 1965, you're saying there are no egress windows, we don't really care. in the code. Is that is that kind of what we're saying?

I'd say it's very situational, right? You can replace like the lights. So, we're looking at the situation when the property was filled, if there existing approved plans, if they original windows. So, we do a lot more in-depth work. Um, and something I think you're also aware of is that we also have a process called an administrative modification process with windows. We're trying to be more explicit this is approved or not but we have a secondary process essentially if you're asking to stray from the code and you have rationale to do that we have the opportunity to do that deeper dive so it's not a clear answer right but right there wasn't a code before that time explicitly that called up size of eress windows and minimum requirements in that respect so I have a house built in 1970 I have an awning window which was approved at that time for a bedroom

unless I'm changing the use we really don't we we can't make them change that window to an egress egress window. If it was approved, we're replacing like for like, right, we couldn't make them meet today's standards and we're looking to make that more clear in our code. So again, if I'm at a house in Elton Hills Drive and and I had an awning window and I'm going to rent it out now, um I can rent it out and I don't have to change out the egress window. I I would generally say yes. Still situational, but generally I would say yes. Well, you see, when you say situational, that's where the problem comes in with with with tenants and landlords and and if I'm going to buy a unit, do I have to wait to find out and get a gotcha or do I This is the rule. Yeah, that's fair.

Who inspects it? Well, in what Mr. Frederick is talking about is so who inspects it? And and I know that that one of the hardest things to do from inspection perspective is be um consistent with all your inspectors. So, how do you how do you as a department make sure that everybody is consistent? I walk through an apartment, Andy walks through an apartment, and and we we all are looking for the same thing.

Yeah, I would answer both of those questions because, as you might anticipate, we get that feedback a lot. Um, and we do a number of things, and we're certainly open to discussion because it's important to us to try to be consistent as possible. Um, we've done mock inspections before as a group to try to observe everyone. Generally, everyone's going to be at a a heightened level of review when we're doing it all together. Um, and I know Heather's team meets bi-weekly as well, and generally all those conversations are technical in nature, and we're talking about are we consistently calling this out? Are we consistently calling that out? We certainly get our own inflow of um of feedback from housing providers as well. So, we we take all those very seriously and we're usually re researching those internally and making sure we're consistent. So, it's not a perfect process, but we are aiming towards that and those are some steps we continue to take to try to be more consistent. I think your other question about the auging window and what to expect. Um it's true that we put in our code explicitly to say if you have a window that's approved uh excuse me it's original or you replace like for like at this time it's approved. We've had rare examples and that's why I have to add that in there. We found a window was reduced in size. Usually you don't see that see that but it's happened. So that's therefore is my caveat.

Thank you. Council member Frederick's.

All right. So uh first of all the owners paid for these inspections. I didn't go over. the owners pay for all these inspections and and it can get pretty costly. So, I want that to be out there and they ain't just you guys just don't send us our notice and say, "Hey, we're going to inspect." And just show up. They're required to pay for those things. Which adds to the cost of things. The next thing is this. There's a fine line between there's there's people out there doing market rate housing that's expensive, but some of us are in the affordable realm of things. And all a sudden when inspections get extremely nitpicky, out of bounds, things get very expensive and things that things that probably aren't imminent danger. Okay. So, what what code is the most nitpicky? Is it international? Is it Minnesota State? Is it Rochester City?

I'm going to answer that in a few ways, right? Cuz one of your points was the cost to inspect, which is true. So, thank you for pointing that out. I mentioned that rentals pay an annual uh license fee. So that cost is $66 per building and an additional $20 per unit. So that's the baseline cost of what it costs to um do inspections for us to respond to complaints as well. That's all covered. Um we have penalty fees. We try to offer an incentive right for complaints and then penalties if we have um expired license which we have our fair share of those as well.

I want to feedback for you on that too. 90 days is super graceful. I mean, that's absurd. In the private world, you get about 2 weeks to pay your bill or 30 days at the most. So, 90 days is more than sufficient to pay a a deal, fix the problem. You know, don't pay a fine. So, I I I just think you're extremely graceful that way. So, go ahead. Don't do the rest of it. I appreciate the feedback. I think your other question is where is the higher prevailing code? Uh, and there isn't necessarily one, right? The IPMC I guess is our standard and that is generally the guide that says you should maintain things. Let me ask you guys in case that's it

just so we don't go down the whole path. We don't need to which one gives you the most movement which one gives you and the and the tenant and the property owner the most movement. Um it's a difficult question right because one gives us the property maintenance code tells us that a property should be maintained then the building code gives us restrictions right so in a way the property maintenance code is is the code sort of to your point that's saying you need to maintain it and gives us flexibility but then we have a balancing that we can't be more restrictive either building code

because you know is it could a person just adopt the Minnesota state code done could a person in could a city I should say adopt the international code done then we don't have to make our own policies do all our own thing we just have it let them take care of all that stuff that way anybody moving this is a huge transitional community people move from elsewhere know what to expect we know what to expect boom not oh well this says this and this says this and this says this but this you know there's a lot of that and you know the situation a lot of people in the realm of affordable housing which means not let's face it not to new code They're faced with, okay, how do we keep this affordable? How do we, you know, cuz you hear, "We want affordable housing. We want affordable housing." And boom, next your taxes triple. This goes up, that goes up, then you're slapped with $10,000 in improvements. It's like, okay, how do you keep it affordable? Less regulations. That's the answer. You know, it is. Things need to be safe and it's super important. But there's a line. There's a line there. And I want to know which code would come more in line with keeping things affordable because we talk about a lot in this community, but we talk out of both sides of our mouth. We don't we don't go down that path. We go down more of this, more of this, more of this. So, thank you, Council. I I wanted to pick up on a a point that uh Council Member Frederick's made in that the different codes that we use. Is there an effort to bring them all together and have u transparency about what the code what the codes are here in Rochester regardless of which standard it comes from so that when new uh developers builders uh are here or somebody is converting a single family home to

rental that they can say these are the this is how I comply from an Yeah, ease of regulation standpoint. Yeah, I would say that's what we are setting out to do with this code update. It's based on the IPMC which is a standard that folks should know and expect in some communities just just adopt the IPMC standard. This is a way of us also pulling in some of the state specific code requirements. So we're trying to merge the two in this respect uh for clarity. So that's what I would say that's what we're setting out to do to provide clarity and balancing between those two guidances. And how is that going to be then communicated to the end user?

Sure. Uh I I would say we've been communicating it all along. It reflects our pre-insspection checklist as well. What you're seeing isn't isn't large changes in actually what we would look at. It's just written in a way that's more predictable and clarifying where those sources are. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Keane. Yeah, I wanted to clarify. You talk about if it's owner occupied and they have a renter, is that an rental unit or is that a different scenario? That's really to clarify. If the owner does not live at the property, then certificate is required. One can have uh roommates in theory without requiring a rental.

Okay. That's that's what I was I was checking on. You didn't have a there wasn't a way of saying and and there are no rental restrictions other than for an owner occupied having a a roommate. Correct. There are no requirements if an owner occupied lives at their property that has rebates. Okay. Um I want to kind of cut through some of this stuff, but uh what is the number of like renter complaints that drive inspections? Is that a is that like a 2% or like a

we would like to get back to you on that. That's a great question and it's a it's a big number that fluctuates. So we could I think we'd like to get back to you on that data to be specific. I and I also kind of I'm struggling with this input from my peers here as far as like let's make it I the problem here with policy a lot of times you someone will approach this with the mindset that we have to make sure the evil landlord doesn't exist in Rochester and we set up a set of policies to assuming they're all that way and then we create trouble for most of our most of our good ones. But the flip side is you know you can also do the thing of saying like oh no we assume everybody's good and then we end up with these bad situations. So on those two extremes, where do you think we're where do you think we error

with with how our code is written today? Yes, the spectrum of evil. That's a great question. I I mean I would say the context I have is our original code uh was uh customized and was pretty restricting I would say. So we have looked to try to better align with other standards to meet somewhere in the middle. Um, so it is a tough policy kind of balance, but today I think that's us trying not to be more restrictive than we are able to as the state building code tells us we cannot.

So my my input what I thought we were doing back in 2023 was trying to come up with a system that said if you're running good places, you're we're going to we're going to move out the inspections. We're going to like give you grace and credit for being good good operators. I thought that's where it was going. I I think that really is the goal and that that 2-year thing might get down like if I looked at it in a couple years, you might be in that 60% in the 3 and four years. So, that would be a good direction. My reading of this is I think we should assume good outcomes, but when we don't get them, I think we should be very uh punitive, but we should assume good outputs until we don't get them. But then I think this is where it's different. Then then I think we should be punitive. That's that's my input. I want to pick up on a question that or re-emphasize a question that uh council member King asked which is I think if we get the data on where the complaints are coming from and can use that in really then getting a handle on you know where we are in that spectrum and and can then adapt our incentives and penalties to uh to fit you know what we're seeing. So, I want to encourage that. Council member,

yeah, I guess I think that's a great point and also just looking beyond just the address uh but looking at ownership uh if we see a particular bad actor across multiple spaces to to take that into consideration. Uh just a comment I guess I wanted clarification on council member Keen's um question about roommates. At what point does that move from roommates to a separate unit? It's also a rather gray question. Um, we have encountered situations once again where properties look and feel like they're operating in separate units. So, it really sort of depends and we're looking for separate facilities and separate entrances and we're looking for conversion and it's going to come to our attention if we're not there.

Sounds like council member the simple answer for that is a lease. Sure. If they sign a lease that's a tenant that's not a roommate. We still might not necessarily require a rental license even if an owner decides to That's where it gets really great stuff like that because to me if they sign a lease that's a se that's a tenant today if it's a roommate I'm Sean's going to come live with me for a while he ain't signing a lease you're not living with me yeah and today that's that wouldn't be enough for us

and I guess I'm just looking at uh like what a success look like and I see these checklists as well. This is a different topic, but related to our uh strategic priorities, we talked about housing access and accessible units, but often that can be a binary yes or no. This unit is accessible or it's not. It doesn't capture what features would fall into an accessibility um matrix. And I guess I'm curious as should we be successful in moving more properties into that 3 and four year reinspection cycle, are there opportunities to better capture um accessible features and better communicate that to potential residents? because I' i've heard that there's often a mismatch between available accessible units and the people who are looking for specific features, but the the more granular look at what features make it accessible is the challenge.

Yeah, we're also familiar with that experience and recognize that that's specifically been called uh uh um asked for community development to respond to in the city's action plan. So, we are looking at ways that we can capture that information and that will be brought back to council. Okay. Thank you, council member Paul. Well, thank you. Um I'd be remiss if I didn't say in the original that I remember the housing code was two pieces of paper um but back and so um I I like the code 1952. No, 19 Well, probably 1990. Um

thank you for throwing me off. Um, I like the eye codes and I'm assuming with the rest of the eye codes that Minnesota has that you can go to the eye code and read it. You don't have to buy it. Otherwise, it's like an $80 document. And you and I had some emails back and forth. Um, one of them is 713-14 is opening protections according with the state fire code. And and I don't want to have to go out by the state fire code. So, you're saying that the fire marshall will somehow be able to link that so that we can find that. The other thing that you've said is that, correct me if I'm wrong, uh, you've said that every time we do a code violation on a, we write the code violation so that landlord can go, it's not like Dan just made something up that that it's actually a code section. Um, this appeal thing on 7613 you have in there. It says 10 days and I know some landlords are troubled by that because the mail doesn't typically come and I might have to get a bid or get something. And your answer was, well, from a building code perspective, they want to move fast. But, but if if I'm a landlord and I get this letter at day eight, do I just send you a note saying I want to extend this and give me a 30-day grace or 60-day grace before we have an appeal? So, a couple of clarifications just for everyone to know. We have a board of appeals and they see appeals for the building code, the fire code, and the housing code. And so, we're referring to a building code that says we have to hold a well two twofold. Um, the appeal must be requested by the applicant within 10 days of a determination and then we have to hold a hearing within 10 days of filing that. So, we've um that's mostly uh for properties under construction, I would say, so that we're not delaying construction. Um and we generally work with the applicant to respect extensions, to your point, because it's in everyone's best interest. So, I would I guess I would say we haven't we don't have very frequent appeals. We have them on an

annual basis and in that respect, we have honored some uh written extension or process for that. To your point, does that answer your question?

Yeah, it does. And then the uh to go back on to the appeal part of it, we charge for them and I don't think it's a right to charge for that appeal. I think that makes it a difficulty for people and I'd also like to see the city council get a u report back on what what is being appealed. And so if there's a a large area that we're being appealed on and what were the the turnout on, I think that be anformational item for the city council. I don't know. I think $75 can be a a hardship and most people will say, "Well, they're not going to give it to me anyway." Um, I think having no fee would make more sense, especially since we don't have very many of them. I'm going to I'm finish it up. Um, I'm going to go back to what Mr. Miller kind of hinted at, and I think this might be a different way of doing this. And, um, if we have a standard for for for rental, the landlords know that instead of licensing the units, why don't we just license the landlords? Because what Mr. Miller's kind of get at if I own five houses and this one's a dog, um, I can't go to these four and punish that landlord. But, but if I have a landlord that has licensed, then we know who to contact and we know uh, what it is and we don't have to worry about doing inspections. I'd say receiving what you're saying and I would say this also aligns with the specific uh uh task within the action plan uh to take a look at our uh rental processes and specific calls for action for um making contact information more public. So I would say this is something we will be addressing and bringing back to we might have some software challenges with your specific recommendation but I think the spirit of what you're both getting at will be coming back to council this year. Well, I think what it does is that it gives a tenant if they have a problem, they can get a hold of you and say, "Hey, I have no running water." Then that's a violation. You get a hold of landlord, say, "What's going on here?" And you can kind of track that. But but I think going especially now that we have all these new units and everything going on, it's really I'm assuming most of your your correctional letters are none. Um, and if we have fire code in there, we

have fire sprinklers in there, the the fire marshall's already doing his inspections every year. And and so from a safety perspective, that's what we're going after is safety. I think I think getting rid of doing individual inspections and having an inspector go through and look at the closet and look at the the the bathroom and all those other things. I I think that the tenant can do that and and and look at our standard and say, "This is our standard." I hear what you're saying. It sounds like a policy recommendation, but I hear what you're saying. That's a policy recommendation. Council member Keith.

Yeah. I know this isn't exactly on our topic for today, but I am interested in the fact that you said like that um the rental licenses 6,000 and then there's 23,000 up about 300, but a lot of these are and we we've talked about this before. How many of these are the single family homes? I know our coalition and our housing things we've been trying to do more home ownership and at the same time we're wrestling with the idea that most of them are getting purchased and added into the rental market. And I know that we're not talking about like we're talking about now right now when they're rental licenses, but I'm also going to talk about like is this a a positive thing for the quality of life in Rochester or is this actually causing us more problems on the housing coalition and the housing direction of having more home ownership? And I'd like to think of what ideas we could have to um stem that from happening as for more and more of our more of our entry level housing market. and I'll have a similar response. So, that's specifically called out in your your action plan. And what we plan to do is provide um data of what's going on, what we're seeing in Rochester, similar to what you saw today, examples from other communities, and probably policy considerations to your point. So, we hear that we provided this year.

Council member, I would push back of the word most. I don't know what what the number is and I think that that's blown out of proportion by some people and I think some facts would be nice to know. But I will say if you've looked at the federal um legislative stuff that's going through they're looking at corporate landlords who own 250 unit 250 single family homes or or more and I think the state's about the same about a level that they the state really does know how to do this and they're going to come down with some kind of a recommendation. Whether or not they do I don't know.

Yeah. And I I agree with Council Member Palmer. we don't have our arms around it. I I've met with the community development on this and is it is it you know 6% is it this and and we don't know right now. Um but it is something that I'd like to make sure we get our arms around and I and anecdotally I've heard that it is growing.

Council member Frederick, another thing that needs to be discussed is is the privacy fact and the intrusiveness of inspections. A lot of people don't like having their places went through. It is a it is a large source of contention and especially if there's a reinspection for something. You know, two three times back in a person's unit, it's excessive. And you know, once every four years, that's fine. That's fine. I I would I'm not much for being reactive to to things. I do like the proactive piece, but with this exception, if there is a problem, person is going to complain. A as a as a person that owns a property, it's in your best interest to take care of that person, to take care of the property, all this. Nick's absolutely right. Is there bad landlords? Of course there is. You know who they are. You know exactly who they are. And you know, being more proactive with people like that. But for the for the people you know that are doing a good job, a reactive approach would be okay. It would be okay because if I don't want to turn this into a personal thing, but when I get a call, I'm over there the same day, sometimes within the 20 minutes. Okay? So that ain't a level people want to operate on. It's just like any other business out there. You have to provide service. You have to take care of people. You have to care. And if you're not doing those things, you don't got a business. You just don't. So, or there's the other end of that spectrum. You can go all the way the other way and say the person that maybe runs more of a loose entity, they have even 10 rentals and they run it really on the cheap end of the spectrum. They're still providing a service for people that want to rent a home for 500 bucks. There's not there's you know you start remodeling that whole thing getting it all the code everything like that all a sudden the rent's 1 1500 and

that person that's renting the $500 place can't afford it anymore it's a real thing so there is a place for each person there is different living situations for each person and I like to see it be up to that person without sacrificing their safety where they want to live because it's there needs we say we want to be everyone welcome all-encompassing in this community. Well, let's do that then. All right. Anything else on this topic? Thank you, council member. A little passionate. Sorry about that. No, that's what we're here for. Thank Thank you very much. Next steps. Oh, do you want to do next steps?

Real quick. So, next steps, we want to return to city council. Council member Palmer asked about this. Yep. Yep. So, next steps are to return to city council for formal adoption. we're hoping to get on the April 6th agenda. It will be a council item for first reading and public comment. Uh and a goal of June 1st, 2026 for an effective date for this updated housing code. Uh this is still a draft and still pending final city attorney office review as well.

Question, I think we should have a public hearing. I don't know how the other members feel here, but I think we should get renters involved and I think we should have the public at least chime in on it. I am absolutely in favor of a public hearing. Okay. So you notice public hearing required notice period. Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have council member Doring on our any path home update.

Yeah. I'll try to move quickly um through the presentation here. as you know that uh we signed on to a charter for the any path home initiative um in the midpart of last calendar year. Um after we signed on to the charter there was a um there was an executive director who was hired and then that executive uh director simply did not work out. So uh the initiative was left in a place wondering how we're going to proceed forward and and and what our next steps were. And that's what I really want to share with you today. So here's our 2025 progress report. We finalized our leadership council. So uh that leadership council includes uh agencies who provide direct direct service to those experiencing uh homelessness involves representatives from the main uh Mayo Clinic um uh from the county and from the city. Uh we also talked about how that leadership council was going to function and I'll get to there in a second. We also formed operationalized work groups. I'll I'll fill that fill you in on those uh later. A couple of the ones that are are um active and doing really great work so far. Our public space solutions work group and I'll tell you a little bit about their work uh there. And then um uh our steering committee which is agency group uh the agency work group that also does a continuum of care conversation uh quickly. Uh and then that's where you see that uh implemented any path home case conferencing. Uh so this case conferencing happens by a specific name by uh uh uh by name list. So instead of just looking at people's statistics, they get to know individuals there at their individualized needs. This case conferencing all agencies gathered together. uh they break down the silo model that has been um part of

the um people experiencing homelessness um uh continuum of care I guess and and really breaks down those walls. So they they work collaborative collaboratively with the goal of getting everyone in housing here in Homestead County. Um so admission uh the in the past few months uh here's what we've really worked on. We've um we've uh redone our charter. We heard that information from um from this council as well as other uh agencies as well that we needed to uh do uh some continued work on that charter language really laying out expectations. Uh we did not get to the point of of of of laying out specific outcomes. Uh that's that's still in process. Um that charter work also.

Can I stop you there, council member? So when it comes to the council, will that go back to in our case our this body or y the county you know who then will will ratify that that charter? Yep. I have not uh completely verified this with city administrators elms, but our hope would be that that our revised charter which was uh supplied to you in our packet would come back before the city council for adoption again. All member agencies are are redoing that process. Great. Thank you. Continue.

Um in that charter, we clarified structure um and then uh I'll talk about that in a second and then a decision-m process and authority. Also we decided uh who was going to how we were going to go forward as an initiative uh particularly who was going to lead uh the leadership council which is really the authority body in this structure. Um and it is the recommen recommendation of the leadership council that the city and county both take roles in that leadership uh avoiding any direct conflicts of interest with direct agencies. Um so our framework is shared by core values and purposes in the charter. You can read those or um and we can discuss them when it comes before the council for approval. Uh maybe structured uh decision-m and then um member responsibilities in uh in the charter lays out six working groups. First the oversight uh with the leadership council. This is the body that will handle uh finances. and will make all direct um decisions about oversight currently has 10 members. Uh city counc expertise so members from the table here in this community are on there. The homeless response agencies and other community leaders uh the leadership council's role would be to assist with obtaining resources, ensuring the use of best practices and ensure we are not making decisions about people most impacted by them without them. That's why there it was important to us have people with lived experience on the leadership council. Then you have the steering committee implementation of the local homeless response system agency leadership that oversees operational functions identifying resources needed to build the uh ideal response system and then provide accountability for our stated outcomes. Case conferencing workg group. This is the folks who are

managing that by name list. They connect individuals to housing options and uh consists of direct service staff. Uh one of the other documents contained in your packet today was a snapshot of uh 2026. Uh that includes a number of of folks who are on that by name list. Uh that document needed to be revised after it was submitted for publication. So that number is closer to 297 individual folks are on that by name list. Through uh January and February, 30 unique individuals came off that list, but we added 30 additional individuals. So we're operating at kind of a net zero gain on decreasing that number uh of the list. But that's not saying that through case conferencing we haven't had some success in getting people housed. Okay, does that make sense? Also, uh some other interesting factory weights that you're going to see on that list is the largest group experiencing uh homelessness in our community are our demographics are tending to view uh skew younger than than people would would maybe imagine. So, I think on that it's either 25 to 35 or 35 to 40 are our largest groups. there's a large percentage of the the population that is in the BIPO community. Um the intention of the Any Path Home initiative is to give you a monthly snapshot like this and also to share that with the public. Um if we keep going on uh another great functioning group is the public space solutions group that's run by uh Miss Edens from our uh community development office. uh they are working on uh gathering and sharing community insights from businesses, law enforcement and lived experience outreach and shelter providers. They dedicate collaboration and person centered actions towards

addressing community safety and public spaces intersecting with people experiencing homelessness and they create actionable solutions to help decrease unsheltered homelessness and ensure everyone feels safe and welcome in our community. So far, uh, that public space solutions working group has been focused on, uh, the the blocks kind of surrounding, uh, the landing where we've gotten a lot of, uh, community concerns about public safety. um concerns from uh abuing business owners and property owners about uh just impacts of the out unhol unhoused community um on their own private property and and in those public spaces. It's also important to note that a key partner in this public space solutions work group has been RPD uh and the CAT uh team. Um uh Captain Hajjman uh has been invaluable. Terry Dose has been uh invaluable in that work as well. We are also that public spaces group is also spreading now further downtown. Uh as well uh community allian alliance this is just outside community members engaging and learning and connection around uh homelessness. Um the first really community alliance event is happening this Thursday uh March 12th uh as the any path home initiative will be discussed at the landing C2 forum uh at Autumn Ridge Church. So if you need information about that event or would like to attend just let me know and I'll get you more specifics. I'll be representing the city on a on a panel discussion uh for that about the work that we've been engaged in. And then community partner members. These are nondirect service uh providers. Uh and the plan is to connect these non-direct service partner members to the any path home initiative through partner membership opportunities. That's kind of

laid out in the in the charter that was provided to you as well. And these are folks who have a dedicated commitment of core values and mission alignment with community facing active support and shared purpose. This is what this whole thing looks like so far. The idea is to uh work to together and collaborate to identify who is experiencing homelessness. Uh this was difficult to do as member agencies were un uh running as silos because we had no indication of of someone say someone uh came to the landing for um services that person wasn't then being tracked by Catholic Charities or by the Salvation Army at the same time. So it's really this collaborative workg group and then as we gain the identity of these people it's then working collaboratively too to understand what their needs are to have housing but housing that is sustainable. Then that collaborative group works together to figure out what action steps need to happen from a systemwide perspective to get that person uh connected with the resources they need to attain housing and which specific agency is going to partner with that person to attain housing. So again in that in that um in that example of the landing and the Salvation Army, it could be that uh someone shows up to the landing looking for housing, but the landing has no programs that meet their needs and that person in the past could have been left behind. Now because the landing and the Salvation Army are talking about the programmatic offerings that they have to assist people to uh to achieve housing, the landing would then say, "Okay, Salvation Army, work with this individual to get them uh the resources they need." And that's where that match

comes in. As you see later on in that slide, it's Council Member uh Yep.

Thanks. Great presentation, Council Member Doring. Um, great information question, and you know, you know where I'm going with this one. What is the biggest disparity you're finding with, let's call it, transitional housing, cuz we both know there's a large group that needs a lot of services to be able to live, maybe never independently, so on and so forth. But what is the biggest barrier you're finding our group that you're maybe having trouble getting connected?

Uh that's it's a very complicated question. Uh so there are are definite people who need a lot of services to to achieve housing, right? So a barrier to that has been identifying which agencies can provide those needs, right? So that's a huge barrier. There are going to be people who are never going to want to live in in housing as well. We realize that need. We have not yet come up with a a tangible solution for that. That is a large large large systematic problem. Right? So those are the kind of discussions we want to start to have. We've been so focused on coming up and revising the charter operating bylaws, financial policies. Right. Yep.

So we're going to engage in that work. We're not quite there yet is how I would answer that. When you're ready, I'll be waiting. Okay.

Can we can we get to the proposed city role? Yeah. Yep. Yep. So the proposed city role is that uh after a while so skip the case study. It worked for someone. That was the case study. I was going to give you the narrative. So the leadership council recommendation of city county roles moving forward. And these are the responsibilities. First that the city of Rochester serves as the communication support organization for any path home. This includes all community relations and communications about any path home and develop and implement communication strategies around priorities. This is a big role. Um I have talked with our city communications department about this and this is something that they think that they can do. Um the idea would be that any path home as a collective would generate the content. It would be utilizing city structures to push that content out to to keep uh the community informed about how this initiative is going. Then uh that the city uh the city would take over the leadership council chair uh position and that is going to be held by an elected official. So I've been operating in that capacity since December, late November, early December. and that that si that uh leadership council chair would be the community spokesperson for any path home. So again utilizing s uh city communications department to aid in that work but also going and and making themselves available for civic uh other civic opportunities to talk about uh the initiative right. Um then the proposed county role is operational support. they have all the data and they have been uh functioning in this space for a long time. Why not continue to utilize that expertise? So uh again providing coordination and administrative supporting data infrastructure and

systems alignment facilitating communication across partners. Uh the we created at any path home coordinator position that was uh that uh was approved uh by our county partners. So they're creating a new FTE position to fill this coordinator position. This person is going to ensure that the accuracy of data, coordinate the case conferencing worship that happens, facilitate pro property manager engagement, supervise an outreach team that is meeting with those or going out into the community and meeting those who are experiencing homelessness. Uh and again, like I said, it was approved in the county in uh by the county in February of 2026, moving towards hiring this position. The update today was that that hopefully that coordinator will be in this position by miday at at the latest. Uh right now the ass associate director of housing Courtney Dunstead is is taking this work on top of her other work as well. So that is the presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions to the best of my ability.

Well, thank you uh council member and we'll go to uh Mr. Wall. How do we expect any path home to show up in the Thursday night meeting with the landing? Uh the whole meeting is about any path home. It's all members of uh it's all member agencies who are presenting their specific uh program programs things like that and then how we are working together collaboratively.

Good. And uh uh answer as short as you can uh understanding every person as an individual. What's a typical homelessness cycle? So, that's in that uh that's in that uh document that was sent out before. Um I'd have to pull up the document to say that specifically, right? I don't want to miss I don't want to fumble that, but I would I would refer you to the document. Okay. Did you council member home? Thank you.

The mayor's not here, but she literally dragged the county into doing homelessness and did the evening shelter and stuff and we have supported that. Um, I'm going to be um, cynical here. Three years ago, we sat here at Civic Auditorium. We heard all this great stuff. Now, we're doing this other stuff. There's some problems I have in what you've written already. And, um, and one of them is is that, uh, everyone in Austin County has a home, you know, and the definition of home can be almost anything. Um, I don't agree agree with that. The other thing on your core values, you have housing as a right, and I, for one, don't believe it's a right. Um and and you're also in your core values blaming the system failures. Um I'm not particularly sure that I can blame the system for everything. I think you have some personal responsibility to for your actions and I and so I I'm not supportive of that. Um I've been a big pusher on this is that the county gets the funding for this. Um I really don't want to see any city funding going to this. We already have $2 million going to the from the police department, which is a a large amount of money. And our private businesses downtown are spending a lot of money um um on homelessness and it's not being very productive. And so um those are just my my my things when you come to us with it that u um those are things that I I I do not support.

Council member Gain. Yes. I wanted to just clarify. I I have four different places here where I wrote down where there's uh city responsibility associated with any path. Number one is leadership. Number two is police and CAT including uh the social social welfare in the streets. Number three is housing. And then number four is communication. Um housing will be a goal that's not very well defined. Now CAT is a member uh not even a member agency of any path home. they are working in in conjunction with public space. So, they're not on that on that leadership level at at this point, but the other two aspects that you you uh talked about in terms of city involvement are very much spelled out in the charter. Okay. I I'm still struggling a little bit cuz I I I have studied some of this bit when it was towards zero and and some of those different things. But what I recall the the studies from Milwaukee and I think it was also Houston was a structure sort of like any path but it was like uh like authority not just a a collective and somebody would assign something and they would fund something to be done. uh this it's unclear to me that any path has any authority over any organization in the group or am I missing that there really is like a structure to this that we're going to break down and like give responsibility.

Yeah. So, some of that will be spelled out in a bylaw bylaw and financial policy document uh where we will actually be dispersing funds to make people responsible to implement those funds uh to do specific things associated with housing. Right? So the the charter that's going to be presented is the overarching we agree to work on this together implementation of that work will be spelled out more clearly and the bylaws and the financial policies that are still under review. Okay. I mean if if any path home is a communications in a way to everyone to talk that's pro that's reasonable and it might solve some problems but I'm actually looking for some sort of structure that it's more of like when you have a leadership thing and then you have these other core other teams I think of like um authority of reassigning things and I'm not sure that's going to do that. Yeah, sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you. In terms of internal structure, leadership council is that ultimate authority with the subwork groups. The leadership group is going to get reporting from those subgroups and then assign other tasks out to that subgroup.

You're are you going to ask them to work on things or are you going to truly say you don't work on this one, you work on this one? I I don't I don't get the you so Okay, good. That I I believe so. Yes, that's the intention.

All right. All right. That's what I'm looking for with this is more of a like there really is this like I I think council member Palmer is right that there's counties got this lead responsibility. I'm good with the city taking some responsibility especially on leadership especially on the the uh enforcement. We're the feet on the street and we're involved whether we want to be or not. Um the housing stuff is I'm still trying to get my arm around that and the communications. If we can help with that, good. But I'm I'm also looking for some sort of and I'm going to call it, for lack of a word, better word, control over the different players to try to organize that work so that it's structured instead of random. Yeah, you're talking about a system and that's what we're trying to implement.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. So, uh I'm going to pick up on uh what council member Palmer uh said, but first disagree with him. I do come from a place that I think housing should be a human right, but I do want to follow up on kind of the funding. So, we the county, it sounds like they're funding a position. We are contributing communication support. Correct. And so I think as we move forward, I think and and council member Palmer mentioned the $2 million that that RPD has uh said that they put into it. I'd like to see an update on that. Uh and so understanding more kind of where the funding streams that the public uh this the city and county come from in contributing this. And then you mentioned grants or funds. I didn't I don't understand where those are coming from or is there is there going to be a grant making function? Where does where does the funding for beyond what the county contributes and the city contribute come to the organization? Yeah, we're going to seek outside funding for the Any Path Home initiative, whether that's corporate funding, uh, uh, large benefit factor funding, all that kind of stuff. So, that's the inflow of capital. The other component of that

that would be used for operating operating supporting programs that are going to uh, achieve our goals, things like that. In terms of the first part of your question was then the grant making policy to specific agencies. Is that what you're looking Well, I I understand it now. If you're you're you're you're looking for major funding sources than to then we'll delineate those funings through through metrics that are being so I guess more any future clarity to city contributions and corresponding county contributions would be

we haven't gotten over that. Okay. Um, and right now that county has about $500,000 into the initiative. Any further questions? Well, one, I just want to thank you for your leadership on this and uh your your leadership beyond your role as a council member. I know you've put a lot into this and and are committed to continuing to to uh do that. So, uh so congratulations on that. And I'm going to go to council member Frederick's. President just stole my thunder. I was just gonna say thanks for thanks for doing this, Dan. You could say it.

I'm gonna thanks for doing this, Dan. And what I what I'm hearing is that versus going somewhere and and people saying, "Oh, I don't know where to go for that. Maybe try here. Maybe try here." We're going to have a one-stop shop. It's going to be all under one hood. We know where to go for XYZ. And you're going to have your ducks in a row so you can get somebody an answer. Not, "Well, I don't know. Try this. I don't know. Try this. That's what I'm That's what I'm hearing. That's the ultimate goal. I like it. I like it. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you again. 30 seconds session calendar. She said your next study I don't think 30 seconds um city council learning session. Um we're trying that again. Um we will be on March 23rd um at the Rochester Sports Center. So out at RCTC's campus. Um so please do not come here. go to RCTC's campus. Um and um that will be with Beth Avon Steinberg's um strikes and leadership. Um also did just want to note that you do have an upcoming council meeting next week. Um it is so far shaping up to be mostly consent agenda and then a public hearing item related to what you've probably already read about in the newspaper um which is conduit bond issuance um by the Mayo Clinic. Um and of course it's always up to you whether consent remains consent.

Thank you. We are here. Thank you. Thank you.