Housing & Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

And redevelopment authority to order. Roll call, please.

Bowie? Here. Coleman? Here. Jost? Here. Naker? Here. Yang? Here. Chair Johnson? Here. And commissioner Kim is excused. There are six present and one excused absence. Item number one is MIN 26 Dash one five approval of the April 2026 HRA meeting minutes. Alrighty.

Well, I hope everyone had a chance to review the minutes are also important meeting minutes. I'll take a motion from Vice Chair Jones to approve. All those in favor?

Aye. All opposed? Six in favor, zero opposed. The minutes are adopted. Item number two for discussion is RES 20 six-seven 52, authorization to designate DC Commercial and JB Vang as development partners or another entity that is affiliated with the control affiliated with and controlled by DC Commercial and JB Vang developer, Tensive developer of 0 Jackson Street. PIN 19000292221112District6Ward5.

Thank you so much. I feel like that's just to pinpoint the exact project we were talking about. And so we did have a chance to hear from the developers last week as well, or I guess two weeks ago, yes, because it was last week, was the fifth Wednesday. But we had a chance to listen to them, we asked a few questions. Also heard from Commissioner Kim, who while she's not here today, did give a lot of responses and a lot of comments around and in support of the project. And so would love for those to be continued to be noted for the record. At this time, I'll take a motion from Commissioner Yang to approve. But is there any discussion? Commissioner Yang?

Thanks, Chair Johnson. Well, I see the representatives from DC Commercial and JB Vang here with us in the crowd today. So I want to say thank you for coming back and joining us. I am excited to share my full support for the project here. I just can't say enough how grateful I am to especially emerging developers who come into our city energized and just really excited about supporting us and our goals to build more housing in the city here to also expand our tax base too.

Like you all play such a key role in that. So I want to say thank you to you, David, and I wish you success in your project. And also thank you to the representatives from JB Vang for your important role in playing the role of a mentor. I mean, you have clearly been in the space of being an emerging developer too. So it's just so great to see the ways in which you continue to really invest in other companies to grow to be at your scale too. And so I commend you all. And again, wish you and the entire team success on your project here.

Thanks, Commissioner Yang. Any other commissioners? Well, I echo a lot of your sentiments. I think one of the things that's really unique about this project is just how the mentorship component, I think, is super notable. It's something that I hope and that we continue to see as the years progress, especially with the full knowledge of how hard sometimes it can be to break into being a developer.

Especially, I think one of the questions, especially as being ULI ready cohort alumni, one of the questions that came up in our cohort was around how long are you emerging? And just how long is an emerging developer emerging before they make it? And so I just really was excited to hear from David as well as just hearing from the strategy behind the partnership with J. P. Bang. So commissioner Yang has moved for a motion for support. All those

in favor? Aye. All opposed? Six in favor, zero opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item number three SR twenty six dash eighty seven, permit ready plans.

Alrighty. So then the next two items, do a staff report on them. I am glad to see mister Spencer back with us. Miller Johnson, excuse me. But yes, welcome. Come on back.

Chair, commissioners, good afternoon. Yeah, my last name is a mouthful. Thank you. I am back here at Taco Permanente. Excited to give you guys an update. So just a background to start us off. How did we get here? I think you know this. But in 2023, the city council adopted the one to six unit housing amendments. These comprehensively overhauled the residential zoning districts in the city by allowing up to four to six units on almost all residentially zoned properties.

As an additional implementation step, PED published the new dwelling toolkit last fall. This is basically just a guide to add an accessory dwelling unit to your property if you'd like to. Emma Brown gave a presentation on this in the fall about it. You might recall that. And since then, there's been continued interest in decreasing barriers to neighborhood scale infill housing across the city, and we understand that to be a key priority of the HRA.

So in response to that, we are embarking on this permit ready plans effort. Now, ready plans are a set of technical construction level documents that are best prepared by a consultant. So to procure a consultant, we released an RFP in March with responses due in April. We received three responses and selected one team that we're really excited about. We're currently contracting with that selected team.

And the budget for this project, as outlined as a program of the HRA Housing Trust Fund, is $200,000 So the overall goal for the project is to develop at least five plan sets for different small scale housing types that the city can make available to the community for free. To do this, the consultant will begin by conducting a design analysis focused on understanding typical site and lot conditions. So they'll review architectural characteristics that are unique and important in Saint Paul. And they'll also take a look at different surrounding property scenarios because we want to ensure that these plans work in a variety of places in the city and fit in with what's around them. They'll also conduct a feasibility analysis to understand anticipated financial viability of each plan.

The consultant will provide some guidance on maintenance. So like what are the thresholds for when the plans need to be updated in the future because of some sort of like zoning or building code change? And we'll also work with the CAO on liability and ownership of the plans, because that could influence how we roll them out publicly. The consultant will also prepare the different plan sets. Right?

So perhaps that could include an ADU, a single family house that's maybe uniquely set up for a narrow small lot. They may come up with a couple different duplex layouts, types that will kind of determine with them throughout the project. And then finally, they'll package all this information in a well designed program catalog that I'm personally really excited about, because it's an opportunity for us to get kind of like a marketing deliverable out of this, where community members can actually like flip through this program catalog, look at the different variations of the housing types, and understand it in a more user friendly way than just like those construction level documents. For city staff, we will focus on outreach opportunities. So we're hoping to do some interviews with developers and anticipated users of these plans.

We'll also be responsible for internal coordination with departments. And that will be primarily particularly important in this project because we're looking forward to partnering with DSI in a pretty robust way. Because in order to get to a place where these plan sets can be considered permit ready, will really need to all be invested and bought into the process. And then finally, we'll go through the review process. So bring the plans, the program catalog to you all, and to the city council to go over everything.

Now expect this project to kick off in June. At that point, the consultant will just start with the design analysis. We'll meet with stakeholder groups throughout the summer and probably into the fall just to better understand what they're looking for in these sorts of plan sets. Feasibility analysis will occur throughout the fall and into the winter. At that point, we'll also be reviewing maintenance and liability of the plans.

And then we're hoping to really have one plan set that runs out ahead of the rest, so that we can work through some of the potential roadblocks early and kind of get that internal departmental coordination underway. That'll hopefully make the other four plan sets go a lot more efficiently as we move from next spring into next summer. So all that being said, we're hoping to have the five plan sets done sometime next summer. This timeline, just over a year. That about wraps it up for what I've got.

I will just note on staffing that I'm currently serving as a project manager, but I would describe myself as interim project manager until Emma Brown comes back from maternity leave, which we're expected to welcome her back later this month. So excited about that. At that time, she'll take over as project manager when she's up to speed, and I'll play more of a support role. Thanks.

Thank you so much. I see two hands, I believe. Yes. So I'll start with Vice Chair Joe, and then I'll go over to Commissioner Nager.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for being here. I have a question about so I understand that there will be permit ready plans for maybe a couple of different housing types. How will and they will be able to be used in a variety of typical site conditions and locations. How will someone, if they want to use the plans, know if they apply location? And then second question, if they somewhat apply and maybe there's something that needs to be tweaked, is there any path for that person other than having to basically hire their own consultant to develop new plans?

Yeah. Chair Johnson, commissioner Joe, good questions. So first question on location. I think the consultant has expressed interest in typically, when they do this, they like these plan sets to be available and usable in any zoning district that that building type would be allowed in. So that's the goal.

However, we do have a particularly large city, and how that rolls out here might be kind of different than in some other places where permit ready plans have been prepared for more like smaller midsize cities. We'll have to figure out if we have certain plans that might be more appropriate in some neighborhoods with certain lot conditions versus others. So it's kind of a TBD, but the goal is to just hopefully they are universal and usable across the board. Your second question was on the path for if they have to hire their own consultant. So for that, I think, you know, the goal is for these plans to be, you know, ready for a building permit.

So vetted through city staff and applicable. But if there is additional, like, site plan review needed because maybe there is an extra special unique lot, I think that is something that might still be on the table, but that doesn't that diminishes some of the importance of the plans, but at the same time, just getting a free plan set that you can start from, even if you have still go through site plan review, still a step forward. So that still may be necessary, but hopefully we can avoid that when possible. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. And Commissioner Neeker?

Thanks, Chair. Thanks so much, Mr. Miller Johnson. I am excited about this as well. I think when we originally started talking about the idea of permit ready preapproved plans, it was in the context of ADUs and the ADU toolkit.

But it seems like this is going to encompass more types of structures than just an ADU. So first of all, can you maybe you said this, but I missed it. Can you give some examples of what kinds of buildings might be covered by this? And then secondly, assuming that ADUs are one of them, will part of the charge to the consultant also be integrating the brochure that they come up with, the portfolio they come up with, with the existing ADU toolkit? It seems to me like it would be a very nice flow to have someone who wants to build an ADU go to the toolkit, immediately have access to the preapproved plans, and have those things really be seamless. So those are my questions.

Yeah, sure. Johnson, Commissioner Nacre, those are great ideas. On the examples question, I we're kind of still kind of figuring out what exactly those typologies could and should be, and I think that's something that we'll work with the consultant right away in the beginning of this process to really iron out as they do their analysis of design and lot conditions. Because we really want the biggest bang for our buck here. Like what's going to fit on most lots? What will be most beneficial to the community? It would be we do definitely anticipate getting at least one ADU typology out of this. There are a lot of iterations, different versions of ADUs that you could have. So maybe there's maybe we do end up with a couple one's just an ADU, maybe one's with ADU like over a garage or something. We'll see.

We know that can work on a lot of lots in the city. I think the small lot, single family house is something that fits uniquely on like HRA owned sites, or just narrow lots in the city, could be really useful. Even if it's just a single family house, it's still, like for these underutilized properties, something that we could really benefit from, I think. As we go up from there, there's a lot of different, also, versions of duplexes you can have. We have a lot of them in our housing stock in the city.

Side by side, up and down, those sorts of things. We'll see if that could make sense on, or kind of give us a good output for this project as well. I've kind of started to think about like beyond that, what other like would it be worth doing a triplex or fourplex? And you start to have some diminishing returns on like how universally those can be used, just based off lot size. So all that to be said, I think we're figuring it out. But that will be kind of a critical decision, and I'm happy to bring that to you, too, once we get to that point. Your other question was on I wrote a note, but I can't read it now. Compiling

integrating the tool template.

Yes, the ADU tool. That's a great idea. Don't think we've really thought about that. I mean, there's opportunities to integrate this process with that, I think that's great. That is set up to be like a user manual, definitely at like the highest level of kind of understanding. It's kind of an education tool too. Like, hey, can do this, and this is like a quick version of how. Priority plans will obviously be very technical. That program catalog, though, that you mentioned will hopefully pair nicely with that. So I think that's a good flag, and I'll bring that up to the consultant.

Thank you, Commissioner Neeker. Commissioner Coleman.

Thank you, Chair. Thanks for this presentation. I will be the fourth person to say, I'm really excited about this.

I think this question applies more if

we were to get into the larger, like, three, four units. But it seems to me that the primary purpose of having these permit ready plans is to make it easier for people to develop in the city. Seems like a secondary benefit is maybe to get the type of development that we want to see, development that fits in the architectural characteristics, melting with existing neighborhoods, etcetera. So I'm thinking about ways in which having these permit ready plans cannot just make it easier, but we can kind of use them as a incentive potentially for people who want to develop. Like, you're choosing these plans, obviously, they're permit ready. It's going to go a lot faster, which is a long lead up to ask a maybe simple question, which is how much time do we anticipate that this would save for a developer or somebody who is just developing their first project?

Yeah. Chair Johnson, commissioner Coleman, great question. I you know, I'm happy to report because of some of the recent ordinance changes, especially related to, like, the planning commission, our permitting times are going down, and and we're able to be more efficient through the process. So that's great. This will be an incentive to you're absolutely right. This is an incentivizing tool that I think we can we should all brainstorm as a collective how to roll this out to get the biggest benefit. You know, the HRA properties always stick in the back of my head as, like, a key thing. Those are unique sites, and hopefully these can apply to them. But let's see. A question on the timing.

So I do think, you know, if we can it depends on the size of housing types that have to go through site plan review. And sometimes, you know, like a single family house, a duplex doesn't typically need to go through site plan review, so we're already saving time there. But having a plan set that you don't have to, like, reach out to and kind of do your own due diligence on to, with different consultants or however to prepare for your lot, I think, will save time, like, more independently, so it might not save as time, like, through the city process, but it would save time, I think, in your own independent journey. That being said, I I I do think that this should when these are prepared just, like, straight away for building permits, it will decrease the time by a few months, I would assume, just in terms of the process that you'd have to go through.

Thank you.

As we go forward, I feel like more of the questions are being kind of provoked by just learning more about it. So I see the hands as curiosity. So we'll go to Commissioner Bui, and then back to Commissioner Nager. Thank you, Chair Johnson,

and thank you so much, Spencer. I just have a question or two questions. One is, what is the reach? You might have said this a little bit earlier in your presentation, but what is the reach? Because I just imagine that there's so many different parcels.

I mean, there's massive amount of parcels that have unique conditions and might have different zoning types, different type of residential types. So, that's my first question. My second question, I'm curious to know what the consultant, as they're looking at potential sites or potential plans for areas that's ready, that's permit ready, for also taking into consideration like the CAT board, which has their own jurisdiction of zoning. And if like county or Met Council. I know I was in a development predevelopment meeting earlier around looking at utilizing MnDOT land and not even knowing if MnDOT has like their own I'm sure their own technical process.

So, I'm just curious to see if there's some partnership with the other entities as we're looking at what could be potential land for residentials that may property or may not be just private property? Just curious about that.

Yeah, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Bui, those are great questions. I think, you know, again, I think the goal is for these to be as universally applicable as possible throughout the city. So we are fortunate to have actually a, you know, very robust block and street network that sets up our lots to be pretty streamlined compared to a lot of places in the country. So I think we know, even if we're rolling this out at a large scale, that they should these plans should be able to work in the vast majority of places in the city. But your question on just other jurisdictions, I that's an interesting one.

Hadn't really thought about that, and it made me think about when we do stakeholder outreach, making sure that those folks are involved. Because at first I was envisioning that more as reaching out to small scale developers, seeing like they feel could be most beneficial from these plans, what they would like to see. But in addition to that, it's maybe talking to affiliate organizations and other partners that have some land ownership or interest in the city. Because I don't know you know, with our limited control, these will hopefully apply and be available anywhere that we have zoning jurisdiction in the city, right? So other places that may like the cap board area is something I hadn't really thought about yet.

So I think we'll let me think about that in the outreach process, and be happy to get back to you on that.

Thank you. Commissioner Maker.

Thanks, Chair. Just a couple of thoughts that have come from the conversation. One is I really appreciate Mr. Miller Johnson, comment that one of the types would be smaller single family homes. I don't know if we officially have tiny homes in our zoning code lexicon. I know that has a lot of different definitions. But the idea of making it easier for people to do more on smaller lots or harder to build lots makes a lot of sense and also to have smaller, more affordable homes. It also occurs to me that what you were saying about saving people the time of having to get those plans drawn up by somebody else on their own dime doesn't just save time, but

also hopefully saves costs. And we keep

hearing about how difficult it is to even finance the building of new construction in general. And so my hope is that this helps people get past that obstacle. And then the last comment is just and this is spurred by, I thought, Ms. Coleman's excellent question about how will this really save people time. I hear you saying a lot of this would be saving time and money on the individual person's end.

But I do hope that we also do the work to socialize all of this with DSI, with the Planning Commission, maybe even with district councils, with BZA, with HPC. I would hate for someone to have this permit ready plan presented and then get a whole ton of questions. Some of them they may need to get, but some of them we might be able to avoid by just making sure the left hand knows what the right hand's doing. So anything we can do on that front in advance I think would be appreciated.

Yeah, Chair Johnson, Commissioner Nacre. That's a great point. I mean, this is a uniquely, I think, complex project that I think we're really excited, at least in the planning team, to be taking on and starting to have some of these challenging conversations. But you're right. Like, we there's a number of different departments and divisions in the city that could be managing this project. It kind of fits in a variety of places. We're doing it in long range planning, and we're excited about that. But it's, you know, it's not a we need a lot of buy in from a lot of people on this. And it's both internally, and then it's also with, I think, different review bodies as you flag to make sure that this is put in front of them. So thank you.

Well, you so much for just being able to provide that update for us and to go a little bit more in-depth afterwards as well with our questions. I think folks are excited to just see what comes of it. And so I appreciate knowing the timeline and when we can kind of expect to see some of the plans. And I think one of the things that will be really helpful for us to talk about is where along the process we would like to see feedback or updates as it moves along. So just thinking about that and that will be what I look for commissioner's feedback on whether or not we, especially as we head into the second half of the year, want to schedule to bring Mr.

Miller Johnson back in front of us or not if we want to wait for the conclusion of the overall study, which will most likely be next year. So we'll look to you all for that guidance. Thank you so much for being here.

Item number four is SR twenty six-eighty eight. 2026 housing redevelopment authority work plan. Alright. So in 2024, we had,

something that resembled a work plan. We had the same piece in 2025. So this year, we had anticipated doing one for 2026. So I asked Director McMahon to come up with something that I felt could resemble what the HRA's work plan looks like for this year. There's a lot of things and moving pieces here, but it's meant to be a working document and honestly a preliminary gut check with our commissioners to make sure that if there's things we want to add, I know that for myself, have a couple of feedback comments reviewing it from today.

But it's meant to be kind of like a discussion and open ended for feedback and questions and additions. But do you want to take a minute to allow Director McMahon to give us the run through of what is written here currently as the twenty twenty six working HRA work plan. And just wanna say thank you for taking the time to put this together and also being able to encourage commissioners input as we move along. Welcome.

Thank you, chair commissioners. Melanie McMahon, interim director of Department of Planning and Economic Development. And thank you chair for that for that context. I really appreciate it. This is the opening salvo.

This is the, you know, bringing it forward for conversation and so more than happy have conversation here now, obviously, but also to follow-up, to follow-up individually, follow-up as group, if you have any questions, if there's anything you want more information on specifically, happy to to find more time with with any of you to continue the conversation. I'll start with housing and our our broad goals in housing, looking both at starting with affordable housing as well as housing production. So really looking at that front end, the strategic goal of increasing the production and preservation of affordable housing throughout Saint Paul. And looking specifically in this goal at the financing and really being a resource, not only us individually with our financing, but also to help those that are, know, interested in looking at developing affordable housing and what tools and financing sources are out there, whether we can be a conduit and a helpful resource to access other funding and capital as well as our own. With really that goal, again, to help that developer secure all funding sources to get to the closing date.

And you can look at specific projects this year, four of them that are there, two of which are new additional affordable housing units within our communities, two of which are rehab and updates of existing affordable housing units in our communities. That would result with those closings and closing on more than 250 affordable housing units within the city of Saint Paul. But also then, not just the closing and the financing, but actually getting residents and people in the buildings and looking at closing dates specifically. So really working and supporting those developers when completing the construction, getting to that certificate of occupancy and as I always like to say, welcoming new friends to the neighborhood is what my kids would say when they're little and they'd see new housing going up. They'd be like, oh, more friends?

New friends? Like, are there going be kids at the playground? And so whenever I see housing going up, I'm like, friends in the neighborhood. This is fantastic. More neighbors.

So wanting to have more friends in the neighborhood, wanting to have more neighbors and folks in our community with the opportunity to live in within the city of Saint Paul. Those four specific projects that we're anticipating closing would result in, again, an additional, and this would be new, 252 affordable housing units. Continuing with housing, looking both at housing instability and ownership opportunities. A goal of preventing displacement and supporting economic stability. Last year, opening the emergency rental assistance program, really having a goal to try and continue to refine and improve the program so that we can process additional applications, increasing our efficiencies and shortening the turnaround time to ensure that we can get as much of the money out to the folks that need it as quickly as possible to provide as many resources and support as possible.

We expect to be able to process over 700 applications this year. And with that approval rate at what you know, looking at sort of past applications and what we anticipate for the approval rate, that would result in, you know, three eighty five to four fifty five applications actually processed, approved, and paid. So those are housing, those are individuals, those are families in our community providing that support. So continuing to work on that to provide housing stability for folks. But also looking at ownership opportunity.

You know, a lot of what comes before you and a lot of the work that's done is on rental, but wanting to ensure that we are both wealth building and expanding our pathways to ownership. That includes a down payment assistance fund, trying to increase the amount of individuals we can serve in that down payment assistance fund, and opening the inheritance fund under the expanded guidelines that you just recently approved. Looking next within economic development, both business supports and actual development opportunities within our city, wanting to ensure that we're investing in business as a community anchor, that we're fostering vibrant business corridors, supporting equitable business growth. We're creating an economic development strategy, and actually, you'll hear next week on the economic development strategy where that is in process and what the goals and outcomes for that are. So that's a little you'll get a lot more details and information next week on that one.

But again, continuing to administer our Commercial Corridors Fund, our Business Assistance Fund, and creating and administering the downtown vitality fund. But also looking at development opportunity, you know, just hearing from Spencer Miller Johnson about permit ready plans and really wanting to ensure that our land is utilized, again, to welcome new friends and neighbors and for our tax growth and development with our city. So we plan on completing our eighth RFP for the inspiring communities projects and continuing to focus on those remaining neighborhood stabilization program projects as well. We expect to complete marketing on all HRA lots that are identified as ready for sale and really hope like hone in and refine. You know, we've talked broadly about our HRA disposition strategy, but really having a year to year disposition strategy of what would be an RFP this year and what is next year.

Let's look out five years and be really refined so that you all know in your communities and can begin to socialize and talk with people that you think might be interested in those opportunities so that when we put them forward in partnership with you, we can ensure hopefully as many robust responses as possible. And then also, of course, looking at planning and a theory of work being done within planning. There's both long range planning and, you know, to ensure that we're ready for, you know, resilient livability growth while also modernizing our tools. A of lot times, you'll hear about plans and wanting to make sure that our plans within our community, plans that your residents, your neighbors, your folks are looking at, that they're modernized, that they're updates, that they're updated. They're what you all support for the vision moving forward and planning throughout our communities.

And so that involves both the Downtown 40, 2,040 plan, which you heard about just recently, as well as beginning again our comprehensive plan updates. And this year, really focusing the work plan on completing our scope and outreach strategy, kicks off that three year regional planning effort. And then for development support, this one you already got the details and all the interest in those permit ready plans. But the goal and the execution of those permit ready plans and doing that now is really to ensure that our planning initiatives support increasing housing supply. It's a really tangible way.

A lot of times we talk about goals and it's great to have a goal if we want more housing, let's increase housing supply. What's a really tangible way that an individual can, you know, pick up something we've produced and then execute on that to do it, to get it done? And I think Permit Ready Plans is a great and really tangible example of an effort to advance those planning initiatives to support increasing our housing supply. Again, that was the broad overview of the work plans for 2026, and excited to, you know, have the discussion now and continue the discussion however you'd like.

Commissioner Nicker. Thanks, Joe Johnson. Thanks, director. I have a couple of questions. I'm really glad to hear we're to be hearing about the economic development strategy next week because as you mentioned it, I'm suddenly thinking, it's been a minute since we heard about that. I've lost track of where that is. And I thought it was supposed to be done last year, so I'm glad that we're talking about it. What is happening in economic development while that strategy is underway? I'm thinking specifically about business retention and attraction. I know we have all of our funding programs, but I'd like to see some more about what we're doing to support our existing businesses and attract new ones to vacant spaces or to other parts of the city.

So that seems to me to be one, like, area that I'd like to see more of in the plan or know more about. Another one is I don't see historic preservation mentioned anywhere here, I'm curious what the historic preservation team is working on, what's on their work plan for the year. And then finally and I don't, I guess, know exactly what was what the filtering process was to decide what went into the work plan. Obviously, it's not an exhaustive set of what everybody is doing. But noticing that there are, I think, lot of other studies going on in the planning department in particular, downtown.

We talked about signage. I know there's the small scale development program under housing. So just wondering, is this intended to be exhaustive? Otherwise, how did we choose kind of which things are in the work plan versus just also happening?

Sure, Chair, Commissioner. I'm trying to focus in on HRA related items, HRA funded instead of sort of exhaustive department wide. So and I'm happy on any of the specifics that you mentioned. We can follow-up, and I can also try and do sort of a counterpart to make it more exhaustive department wide. I was trying to focus in on HRA specific things is how that delineation was made.

Can you say a little bit more about the economic development part?

Sure. So for the business attraction and retention, absolutely. And we've got our economic development director here who can come fill in as well and follow-up with more. And so business attraction and retention is always an ongoing effort, right? And it's something that it's I wish there were a list where we could go through and it's sort of a lot of it is you tend to hear it's partnership with you all, of hearing from you all like, hey, have you heard about this business in our community? Like, I think it'd be a good time to do some outreach. Like, they might be needing some more support. A lot of it is partnership with our different business associations. You know, there's a few chambers of commerce, but you also have very local business associations. Oftentimes, a lot of that conduit through that Commercial Corridor Program.

It's been great to have there's always a partnership with our business associations, but being able to actually fund and work a lot more directly with some of them through the Commercial Corridors Program has provided that opportunity for more of the direct connection to, okay, this business you know, these businesses on this corridor hearing directly and seeing those applications like this is their need right now and they're struggling because there's been construction, for example, on a corridor, right? And so these businesses have this specific need because construction versus these. And so through our programmatic elements is part of how that work is done. And part of it is really trying to be in community and partner with to make sure that we are sort of the eyes and ears on the ground so that we are hearing from and we are responding to concerns. And we're happy to follow-up more.

Don't know if you wanted to come up.

Welcome, Director Lloyd. And as you make your way up, think it will be important for you to just know we also had a presentation given to us today at the policy committee on the council side where they talked about their economic development work as well their EDA endeavors with their HRA. And so just prefacing of, I think it's helpful to know what we're currently working on our economic development strategy with that lens being that I think this slide item, if I remember from the presentation correctly, they had the potential of $1,000,000 being invested in some of the preexisting programs that we have here as well as some of their own work around business assistance. And they had mentioned the business the business assistance fund specifically, but also just like other opportunities for economic development partnership and bringing businesses here in retaining and bringing folks back to vacant buildings downtown all across the city. And so this question of just, like, what does it look like?

What does that kind of development look like right now for your team while we're waiting for the study and the strategy to get through?

Chair Johnson, commissioner Nacar, thank you for the question. I think right now the challenge has been meeting the immediate need of the community, which was operation Metro Surge. That took up a lot of our bandwidth in the first quarter of the year in response and being trying to be responsive as we could to the business needs there. Multi layer to that is the strategy that I'll be speaking to you all about next week is critical to your BREA efforts that you're talking about. The reason it's so critical is because for a long time, with the previous administration, there was a challenge of having kind of a pack and play playbook on why St.

Paul, what made St. Paul attractive. So when we would go out to have these conversations with businesses, it would be challenging not from a standpoint of just, you know, why we love Saint Paul, but for them to understand the business case of why Saint Paul was here. We could make some anecdotal points. We could really talk to some of the data, but this plan is the strategic vision that we're putting together the way that we're gonna start recruiting businesses to Saint Paul to be able to talk about where we are now, where we're looking to go, and how we're gonna get there, and how the business can find itself in this ecosystem.

Currently, we do a lot of outreach just in relation to what we not only hear as director McMahon mentioned, but what we begin to know that could support programmatically the businesses and the community as well. So your leadership as HRA has really helped us be more forward in the community to talk to the retention aspect. The recruiting aspect is going to come once we're able to finish the strategy and have something tangible to bring to businesses to discuss why Saint Paul makes sense for them to be here.

Commissioner Nieker, does that get at the questions that you had or did you have a follow-up?

No, that's good. Thank you.

Thank you. One additional add on and I guess and it might be a little bit of a question as well for our CFO for PED. But I am curious as to several of the housing special funds that we have. I know we've talked about this at length. And one of the things that I'd really like to see added to the work plan is around the fiddicial responsibility and also just acknowledging that we have depleting funds in the HRA.

And like what is some of the strategy going to be this year to try and identify ways to either alleviate the depleting funds or best strategize, especially as we head towards the second half of the year, which really cranks up budget cycles and budget seasons. It would be really great to know just what our current plan is for those funds. The Housing Trust Fund, the Loan Enterprise Fund, the Parking Fund, several of these pieces that are either currently, A, some support of staff for PDE as a department, but also for other parts in the city. But just in general, there's multiple special funds that we've identified as depleting. I think that when we have work plans that don't necessarily acknowledge that, it's a little bit incomplete.

And maybe we need to spend a little bit of time when it comes to just how we're going to address that as a body. Because the last thing we want to do is have it sneak up on us. So maybe just acknowledging and outlining, I think, an area where we can talk about. That's why we've instituted the budget to actual presentations. And also just some other steps that might be recommendations coming in from the finance team too. I would love to see at least a couple bullet points with an area taking to our actual like our own economic you know, I guess fiscal ability right now within the HRA as a body and as a board.

Yeah, sure. Great point. Thank you. Good suggestion for an addition. I appreciate it. And we'll be adding. You're right, it is it's something something that like

Tuesday night, so I apologize for not sending that in advance. But I think it would be great to just see something around like the HRA entity, the financial ability the financial resiliency of it or something like that. Wordsmith it, but ultimately a couple of points that can talk about what our plan might be for addressing the depleting resources that we have in our special funds.

Yep. Agree.

Commissioner Aker. Thanks, Madam Chair. Your question made me think of two other things that maybe belong here. And again, I'm not exactly sure where we're drawing. Totally recognize PED is one thing. HRA is another thing. Sometimes it's gray. But in case these two might be HRA, as soon as I think of getting our financial house in order, I immediately think of parking. And so it's been a minute since we've heard about the parking management study. And I know that that I think that was on a previous HRA plan.

Maybe it was PD, but to figure out how we're doing our parking management generally and streamlining that. So that's a thing that if it counts in HRA, would be good to see what our, again, goals and outcomes are for that for this year. And then we have also talked in the past about this grants management, loan management, CRM software. I can't remember exactly what it was intended to track. I know Mr. Bistadu was doing a lot of work on it to track our investments, I believe. And I have also not heard anything about that in a while. I'm pretty sure that was HRA. So would also be good to know what our goals are for that.

Yep. Investment tracking system and parking fund. Yeah, and on the sorry, Chair Commissioner. And on the parking fund and the parking RFP, I should say, for operations, I'll tell you that we're closing in on that. I'm looking at Deputy Director Green as CFO, but we are closing in on that and hope this summer actually to issue that RFP with a goal by essentially fourth quarter this year, first quarter next year of having the new operator or operators in place actually for the HRA owned parking ramps.

And I guess just to kind of add on to that as well, I think when we're looking at this category, yeah, I would just love to see a little bit of I guess, Deputy Director Green, I'd love to see a little bit of some of the goals of the finance team within PED as well, but also just in general, just outlined and quantified here as it relates to the HRA. I know that the budget to actuals was a lot of manual labor on the team to get it together. And so I think one of the real it'll be identifying a budget to actuals template that we can use moving forward. But I think also with some of the outstanding studies and I can't remember offhand if the parking one is specific solely to HRA, but I do know that it was brought up to us into this body. And so getting an update on that would be really helpful as well.

For the grants management piece, I think this is also important because we'd like to know just I don't know if there actually are grants that we have pursued as a body at all. But I think just also knowing what the funding abilities are and what kind of solutions we might have for external things that we could begin to think about in ways that maybe, if not for this year, future years as well. So just kind of getting into that habit of we are in May 2026 now. And so maybe it's worthwhile to look into, yes, the rest of 2026, but also quarter one twenty twenty seven, knowing full well that we'll have to update it as we get to 2027, but that we may not get to that until after the year end close of 2026. And so just thinking about these numbers and the reports, it might be worthwhile to see if anyone has anything that they may want to mention for quarter one, especially on the financial side.

Commissioner Bui. Thank you, Chair Johnson, and thank you so much, Director McMahon, for this presentation. I do appreciate the framework in terms of just like what are some of our strategic goals. I appreciate the clarity around what each of the programs are, the aspects of the work and what it's seeking to accomplish. I just also want to just echo, I heard it earlier today, but I would like to see definitely for this update on the work plan, it connected to kind of a budget to actuals, because I do think I appreciate having the budget to actuals, and it also lists how many FTEs.

It really showed a clear picture in terms of the cost of doing business for HRA. But it would be nice to see how, for example, housing instability, is that connected to a team? What does that team actually look like? What is the workload of that team? And how that's actually connected to how we're funding that staff?

And I know you had said like there are some things in here that wasn't included because this is solely around HRA funded. But I do think it would be helpful it would have been very beneficial to even see what the PED does manage as a whole, just because I think as this body, when we are getting updates, we don't really use our policy meetings for PED. We usually use our HRA board meetings to get updates from PED. So I definitely want to have that overview. And then I just made a couple of notes.

I also would be curious just to know about how we're managing and what the strategic goals for district councils. When I think about the housing instability and really a lot of the programs that exist within PED, it's really our district councils as the partner with helping to promote and making sure we get as much outreach. So, I'm really curious about that plan and the ways that we can help support that. I know during our budget conversations that was something that we all mentioned. And then, last but not least, I'm also curious about the just the overall plan in terms of like our real estate portfolio and the management of that understanding that, you know, council or excuse me, Commissioner Nacre had mentioned about the Park Fund.

I know there's some big plans around the Roy Wilkins or excuse me, not Roy Wilkins, but the Grand Casino, and had a chance to talk with the Science Museum and Children's Museum and finding out those are city owned assets. And I'm just curious if that's something that PED team oversees or if that's something with DSI. And I know I said last but not least, but one more thing too. Just understanding that I know just hearing from the mayor, like she really has a strong plan around getting back to the basics and really integrating some of our DSI, PD systems. It would be nice just to see like how that continuity is being approached or designed and just seeing, are we sharing different teams and if there's any areas or programs already in the works in terms of getting that stronger partnership.

And I think it's with the Permit Ready Plan, that really was a great example of how both of those departments plan to work in the future.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Bui. And one thing I am taking away that I want to just note for staff, we should probably find another time for the district councils to come back to this body because of the additional funding that HRA gave, but also just the work that most likely has been developed after the first year of having that funding change from CDPG. And because it was HRA funded, it's an appropriate agenda item for this discussion. So we just wanted to note that, and we can add that to the rest of the twenty twenty six year calendar.

What I think would be really helpful, and it's not pertaining necessarily to this item, but it sounds like there's an interest, Director McMahon, in hearing about PED's work plan as well for the year and how that can be given to us. Think it can be done either by way of, obviously, kind of what I've shared as well, is that often PED's items become HRA conversations and topics. I know that for some of the items that we placed on here, it has been mostly a city based, I face some resistance in being able to put it on the agenda. And so one of the things that I think would be really helpful would be either getting that then sent to the spotty, an email, or something that would allow us to see that, or your recommendations on how you'd like to present that. Because it does seem to be an interest in hearing about PED's overall operations.

There's a long list of things that are not on here that could be codified in the PED budget. So it's intertwined in the sense that we just heard from OFS how much of the PED staff we actually support financially. Literally, think 80% or so of the staff. But we know that that's different when it how the city differentiates these bodies from each other. And so just wanting to make sure that we have an opportunity to do that because there is an appetite to hear about the breadth of the work that the staff does.

And so I'll leave that up to you to kind of decide what the best way to distribute that information is, whether that's preferred in a conversation like this, which I'm happy to do. This one, yes, we focused on anything that related to HRA funded things that we could tie back to. So, yeah, I mean, we could probably be creative about how we fit it back in here, especially if we looked at staffing and ask for a report back on that. But I think that there'll be other ways to to get that plan to us. A couple things for commissioners.

Thank you, director McBean. A couple things for commissioners because we have just the next week meeting as well as the twenty seventh meeting because we canceled the twentieth for our lovely TAP members. We most likely, we may have a couple items for both of those meetings that will be introduction and action, which is to make sure that we're able to fit deadlines, either proposed deadlines from the developers or even just deadlines for staff. And so you may see items that come before you that are both an introduction and an action, That's why. Just because we're going to try to make sure that we get through the month of May without having anything lingering over to June because we only have two meetings remaining.

And so you'll see those. Just wanted to give you a disclaimer. I know there's one coming up in my ward next week. And so there might be a couple others that require that same type of piece. But don't be surprised. Look at it. It'll be up for discussion for items that we have coming up. If you have any questions about them, you just want to check to see when they're posted on Thursdays. And feel free to reach out, ask any questions, either to myself or director McMahon or vice chair Joseph. Thank you. We are adjourned.