Housing & Redevelopment Authority - Regular Meeting

Roll call, please.

Bowie? Here. Coleman? Here. Jost? Here. Kim Naker. Here. Yang. Here. Chair Johnson. There are five present, two absent, those being Commissioner Kim and Chair Johnson. They are excused.

Chair Johnson will be here shortly. And Chair Johnson will be here shortly, I'm told.

We're going a little out of order this afternoon. We'll start with staff report SR26-ninety three, economic development strategy update.

And I believe that we have Director Lloyd here for the economic development strategy update. Welcome, thank you for being here. Thank you Vice Chair, happy to be here.

Thank you, Commissioner. Today, be the opportunity to update you all on our citywide economic development strategy. Very exciting, very promising effort. I think it's going to really bode well for our city. I'd like to share with you why I think that way and what we're working on.

Really quickly, I'll just go through

the project background and the consultant team and goals, schedule, how I believe this powers our work, what we did in April to kick this off, and next steps and any conclusions for you all to have any questions along the way or after.

So when I first started here,

we had an old economic development strategy that was done in, like, 2017, and I was really pushing and hopeful that we could get one that was updated. And over time, I I was able to convince everyone that we should get this going. So we issued the RFP for this in 2025, and we, you know, launched with our consultant TIP strategist in March. What we're trying to answer with this RFP is three questions. Where are we? Where we should go? And how do we get there? We want something that's going be tangible, some actionable, something that we can point to our work on, and also, you know, be able to make some smart strategic investments alongside of this strategy as well.

TIP strategies is who

we selected. We received about 11 proposals for the strategies, all very capable companies and organizations. We landed on TIP strategies because they were the most qualified in our opinion. They were the most prepared for this work. They've also done work recently in the region. So that was something that was key and critical. And they understood how to deliver on something like this from their from their previous work. So we felt really confident about them being the people that lead this effort. By the numbers, they've had over 600 engagements, over 425 clients throughout 44 states and seven countries. So they're expansive in terms of experience.

You'll get a chance at some point to interact with Jeff Marcel and Elizabeth Scott. They're each leading point on this project for us. Jeff's a very seasoned experience economic development professional and Elizabeth is very good at so far what I've been able to tell him just community engagement, organizing, asking the right questions, and being able to to find out what people are thinking. Both of them will be here again in the future, and they'll be able to discuss we'll be able to discuss more alongside with you. And I will also say, be on the lookout because they'll be reaching out to you each individually to schedule meetings and interviews to talk to you about the strategy work and hear your opinions and thoughts as well.

So here's the schedule. As you see, we started in April. We have now cruised into May, which is amazing how quickly it feels like May But arrived we are deep in the discovery part. So we've provided them information along the lines of all the studies and strategies that have been done recently. They've asked for some specific information around like businesses at Saint Paul and like how many there are, etcetera.

So we provided a lot of information and data for them. They are combing through that now, going through that, and we already kicked off our stakeholder engagement. So this entire portion of discovery will carry us through July. August and September, we'll get a little bit more focused on the strategic direction and opportunities that are in place. And October through December is when we begin to work on the workforce implementation and how this will look on the implementation matrix.

So what we will receive is a deliverable. We'll get a broad plan, economic development strategic plan, pretty dense document. I had an opportunity to check out Bloomington's and it's, you know, it's not shown on details. We'll get an implementation matrix, so we'll know what our goals are, who our partners are, timelines, budgets, funding sources, etcetera, to try to work through. Interactive dashboard for data, so we can embed this in a website on our end and we can update that on the back end and give progress reports and updates to the community on like where we are with this.

And there'll be a final presentation implementation workshop in December, which we hope to have you all a part of that presentation and workshops as well. What I feel the value of this is, is that it's a living budget and investment tool. It's not just a document meant to sit on a shelf. It's meant to help try to direct not only economic development work, but make recommendations through all of our leadership throughout the city from the mayor's office to HRA, the city council on where we should put our efforts. Optional, we've included inside of the contract an annual update and strategic check-in through five years.

So they are willing to come back annually over the next five years and check how we're doing in our implementation, give us more recommendations and update that with us and proceed, you know, as planned on the strategies. It also helps us with our business retention and expansion work. We just get some really good data backed information in terms of how we can recruit new businesses, retain current businesses, position ourselves for attraction. So what things make St. Paul amazing?

Like I said last week, you know, I have my own opinions of what makes us amazing, but it's really great to have data and information attached to that that makes sense for the business community at large to make a decision to be here. We have also a land use and redevelopment site selection process. So when we begin talking about, like, how should we use our land, what things should we push for redevelopment, how should we play a part in that, this will hopefully provide more insight to us on where we should invest our our dollars towards towards land use and redevelopment as well. Small business and lending support. We'll find out what places that we're not doing so strongly in, what corridors, basically through the Community Reinvestment Act.

There's data maps that show where loans are being made, whether or not, and maybe we can, you know, begin to really look at how do we focus on the neighborhoods that aren't being invested in with capital access and help them secure that. Corridor corridor revitalization. We've talked a lot about this, and we are working on our second round of commercial corridors work. But obviously there's so much to be done and all can't be done through the commercial corridors program. So we're looking at opportunities and ways to attract retail and what corridors have the highest potential so we can, you know, speak smartly and strategically about those.

We'll look at workforce development as well with this document and with plan. It'll help us talk about what quality of access to jobs there will be and map pathways to careers for industries that we feel like we can attract here in St. Paul. We'll again talk about workforce investments where we where have we traditionally put money, where have we worked with in partnership with other organizations, how can we begin to you know, build a better spot for people to transition into the communities or excuse me, jobs of the future in the community. This past April, on the twenty third and the twenty fourth, we kicked off our work, so we were extremely excited.

TIP came into town. We spent time showing them around some development sites around Saint Paul. So we showed them, as an example, United Village as one. We also showed them, you know, the old Ford site and we walked them through, you know, how do we get there, Highland Bridge. And then we showed them, you know, some of the West Side. We showed them some of East Side by being over there. So they had a really small window. We talked to them and brought them to also the The Heights. So we were just trying to get some high level things in while they were here. They're coming back next week.

We have have more plan for them to see. So hopefully, they'll get a broader scope of where our city our city sits. We got a chance to kick off with our steering committee and our stakeholders. So we sat down with five stakeholder groups that range from community leadership, economic or excuse me, economic development partners. We looked at developers.

We looked at small business. And we all sat down and we talked to them and spent about an hour of each of those groups to hear back from them on saying like, what are the of working here in Saint Paul? What are things that are, you know, kinda holding your progress, so how can we be better? So that was the first kind of conversation around understanding some of the challenges people on the floor are experiencing. Arlington Hills and Sunray, so we chose two different locations within the community. We wanted to have them see different sides of the city, and I think that worked out well. And it was very exciting to hear what some of the people have brought back in terms of, you know, pain points for them. And I look forward to sharing that information too as we go go further.

Director Commissioner Bui has a question.

Yes. Thank you, Vice Chair Jones. Thank you so much, Director Ford. I just have a question regarding the stakeholders. If you could talk about just those five stakeholder roundtables, just kind of the complexities around that stakeholder table and how are they engaged or invited.

And also, I can tie my second question that's related as well. As commissioners or council members, you know, we are hearing from our residents and constituents every single day. I'm really curious to know how like commissioners are being included, not only as stakeholders, but also can help with ensuring like certain partners, whether it's the nonprofit community or the business community, how their voices are also part of the stakeholder roundtables or this process?

Yeah. Vice Chair Jones, Commissioner Bouley, thank you for that question. Excellent question. What we did was we started with our community partners that we already have like strong relationships with in economic development and working through our district councils. Also, we work through some of our chamber groups.

We work through some of our community organizations like you maybe would think of NDC or, you know, I'm trying to think there are so many that we that we had touched on, but like for sure like NDC, LEDC, etcetera. So we really worked to find our Saint Paul community groups that we could first start our organization and touch points with. Then from there, we were able to build a list of, you know, stakeholders and and put together a very comprehensive list also from our experience on our economic development team. So our staff members who have been working here for a while and also understand the community members. We pulled in as many people as we could from a wide variety of places.

So we felt really good about that list. And our expectation and our hope is that you will, as commissioners and council people also get a chance to give us more people to talk to. So we're not done by any stretch of the imagination, we just started. So like I mentioned, like kind of at the top of the presentation, you'll hear from the consultant soon scheduling individual meetings with you all as commissioners and you'll be able to talk and say, Hey, I think it'll be great if you talk to this person in the community and get some feedback from them as well. We want your input and that's how we're structuring. But to begin, we started with what we knew and the people that we work closely with and put that list of stakeholders together for you.

Okay. Just clarity. So it sounds like next steps are there will be one on ones with each of the commissioners.

Yeah. That's part of next steps. I'll share the next like immediate steps very shortly at the end of the presentation.

Thank you.

I'll let you know. So any other questions on that? I'm so sorry. Did I miss anything?

Council Vice President Yang has a question.

Thank you, Chair Choles. Well, thank you so much for the presentation. This is a really great layout of just what we can expect for this year. And so I really appreciate getting the rundown of that. I'm very supportive of everything that you've presented to us today. And I have a couple of questions. I'm wondering on that very last slide when you let me see here when you drop under citywide economic development strategy in conclusion. Like the part about we want to position ourselves to be able to compete. Can you say a bit more about who we want to compete with? Because I like just putting an example out there, it's like a whole different story to say we're competing with a city like Mankato or Minneapolis.

And so like I think it'd be really helpful for us to be able to define what that means to us at the city just so that we also understand who we aspire to be as a city and where we want to go to.

Absolutely. Commissioner Joe's, excuse me, Vice Chair Joe's Commissioner Yang, absolutely I agree with you. What we're looking to try and do throughout this process is to find more comparable peer cities that have similar populations, similar features, similar city structures and dynamics that we do to be able to build that road map. Immediately, we wanna try to compete regionally. Right? Like, so we understand there's gonna be some challenges in competing against a Chicago for example. Like, we just we just can't we're smaller, you know, we don't have this maybe broader resources. But could we compete against the Cedar Rapids? Could we compete against the, you know, Milwaukee, some some cities to that effect? Absolutely.

So we wanna look at a regional aspect of what makes us dynamic, but there'll also be a broader examination of that because peer cities exist outside of our region as well. You know, I think that is yet to be discovered and like how do we want to be and that's part of the process of discovery right now.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks for the clarification about that. I thought that was a really great response and I'm very supportive of that. And on Slide 10 here under project kickoff activities, in terms of the topics that the roundtables have discussed, you have permitting equity, downtown vitality, housing, commercial corridors, which to me really covers the topics that come to mind right away too.

And I just really wanted to uplift that. In my ward, Ward 6 in the East Side, we aren't a ward that is abundant in terms of like having large chain stores or even corporations. And so to me, it's so important to make sure that as part of that the economic development strategy does truly have a it's like it really covers each of the uniqueness of the wards and can serve each of the wards. Because to me, like for sure, like finding out ways that we can support and boost our small business community is very important because that is what we are abundant in the East Side. And that's something we're very proud of and have a lot of pride in.

And so I wanted to uplift that to make sure that we don't lose sight of that. I think that typically, like when I think of a very large plans or just even ways that we can boost our cities, folks often tend to think about the larger corporations, businesses that you hear of nationally or in a state. And so, it's just so important to highlight how we can keep supporting our small businesses to like they are the core to our city thriving as well. Even when sometimes corporations choose to leave, our small businesses are still here. So, would really like to for us to have a continued focus on that.

Yeah. Vice Chair Jones, Commissioner Yeehee, thank you for that. I want to also give you the confidence that we're not just focusing on large scale competition. We understand the backbone of our community is our small business community. I get the honor and privilege to try and help these businesses every day so I never lose sight of like who's important and and all of this. So I just want to hopefully instill some confidence that like I would never let that happen and one to like we recognize that there's a lot more than just attracting a Fortune 500 company or a larger company as well.

Thank you, Director Lloyd.

So really quickly, as I close our next steps, next week the consultant will be here for an additional set of roundtables and discussions with people that we were unable to connect with in the first round because there's so many. So that's positive. Like I said, be on the lookout for invitations for each of your offices to participate individually in interviews and other, you know, ways to communicate as well. So we really are going to ramp that up and we really want you all to be a part of that. And we don't have a long runway.

It sounds long. December feels like, you know, a million miles away, but truthfully, we're we're almost halfway through the year. So this will go quick and and we're gonna need everybody's hands on deck to help us with this. So in conclusion, like I mentioned, this is just a roadmap for us to do equitable sustainable economic growth. We're looking at this to be more data driven. Like I said, we oftentimes can talk about our affinity of St. Paul and we can share information, but we want something that can be very rooted in data and provide more glaring information. The implementation matrix is meant to be a living tool. It's something that we would do and monitor and work on for years to come. And won't this be something that we point to on the shelf?

And lastly, this is intended to hopefully help us think of more creative ways to close racial and economic gap, growth tax base, and again position us to compete across industries big and small.

Thank you, Director. Any other questions? Oh, Council President Aker.

Thanks, Vice Chair. A couple of questions, one of them is just very specific to I remember the budget for this is $250,000 is that right? And is that the amount of the contract?

It

is $200,000

$200,000 Are we did we structure the contract in such a way that we pay only as we receive the deliverables?

Yes. What we did was we structured the contract to have quarterly payments and those payments should align with bigger chunks of like deliverable work. So, I say should be because the schedule has, you know, opportunity to maybe like change a little bit whether it's we get more work done in a period of time than we thought or less work done or whatever. It should align exactly with them being able to say we get this part of the the plan, we're receiving payment for that.

And we won't make payment unless we've received the deliverable for that period?

That is correct. Like we plan on making payment throughout the year as we receive the work being done.

Great. And then my second question is, what's the level I feel like I'm appreciative of the idea that the report shouldn't sit on a shelf. I think that's always the goal. I think what determines whether or not something either literally or figuratively sits on the shelf, how useful it is, is the level of specificity. Like I think about the I think many of us can sit here and say these are the things we need to do to attract businesses to St. Paul's sort of high level

or grow jobs high level.

But what makes something useful is being able to make decisions and decide the trade offs and what is the relative value add of using land in this particular way, for example, or that particular way when everything could be beneficial, but we want to know how beneficial. And we wanted to be able to actually guide the work of your team on a regular basis. So I'm curious, what is the level of specificity that you expect? Can you give us some examples of like this type of thing is what we would expect to find in this report or in the implementation matrix when you say it's a living tool that we'll use like what do you hope specifically that this will tell us?

Absolutely. Vice Chair Jones Commissioner Maker, I expect for there to be tangible measurable goals. So for an example that you're requesting it would be something to the impact of create x amount of jobs through, you know, investment in these types of job programs. And so we could say, we put money here and by us putting money here, we were able to get this many people trained, which afforded for this many people to enter into the workforce. So that level of specificity is what I hope to get throughout the entire document. How many parcels of land do we own? Okay. We own this many parcels of land. These are the best outcomes for development. We can then say, let's get these out to the communities of developers for development and work on a strategy to help support that level of development.

And then we can track. We put out five properties. Out of those five properties, we got four of them, you know, under tentative development status. They're scheduled to be, you know, finished here, here, and here. That is the granular level that the plan hopefully will give us so we can then come to you all every year when we, you know, having these discussions around work plans and what we're doing and we can point to the strategic plan and say, we're working on goal one, you know, item three on the strategic plan right now and here's what we're planning to do for that.

One last Thank you, Director Lloyd Wood. One of the conversations we've been having and I think we'll continue to have especially with the Port Authority coming to talk to us about their recent report on industrial land is the value relative value of industrial land compared to other uses citywide. Do you expect or could we ask that this strategy include guidance on what's the right balance of industrial land in a fully built city, how to encourage that? Is there a no net loss of industrial land policy we should consider? Like I think that that very much ties into economic development, but I didn't hear it mentioned in anything that you reported.

Absolutely. Vice Chair Jones, Commissioner Nager, yes, we can ask for there to be an examination of that. It's something in juxtaposition to you know, retail or excuse me, residential land and industrial and also other retail commercial quarters, lots of of land. That is something that we haven't specifically gotten into the data on just yet in relation to that. We're, like I said, we're still doing it, you know, a lot of discovery in this point. But I can definitely incorporate that as a talking point to see how much information we can get on that too.

Thank you. You. Great. Any other questions? Council member or Commissioner Bouie.

Thank you. Vice Chair Charles. I have a question just I don't really see it covered here and may let me know if this is something that's not part of the scope of this strategy. But I'm hearing a lot about external mapping and creating a landscape in terms of where investment should go. But I'm just also wondering, just as you're saying, like, this is going to be a living document, a living tool, do you foresee that part of the recommendations can also be some transformation or some recommendations that's connected to like internal changes because I think about, you know, it will be helpful, yes, we get a report and saying, you know, invest into this, create this program, but we're just kind of like we're paying for a fisher instead of learning how to fish.

And I'm just wondering, is there going to be some translation around how we can restructure PED or restructure some of our departments to be able to efficiently drive some of these strategies. So it's not just a report and we have a compass or a roadmap, but we also are getting some feedback, some valuable feedback around what type of staffing we should be creating, what type of programs we should be developing, what type of management styles, know, looking at other cities from across the country. Just because I want I think would be really important is that we're not just like we're not looking external to like have someone be the brain trust and ensure that we are confident in our strategies, but we have that in house. And we can get to a place from managing economic development programs to like leading, you know, and I understand that's like a very systems change type of ordeal, but I'm just curious if that's also what we're getting from these consultants as well.

Thank you, Vice Chair Jones Commissioner. Lee. If you look at the project schedule, you'll see in July, there's a spot for organizational review and September, there's a space for operational review. While this document is this project is meant to really highlight our our external economic, you know, landscape, yes, and how we can compete. There will be some touch points on how are we operating as a as a function of a city or as a function of I believe what you're looking for may not be in the full scope of best in terms of like operational review or, you know, workaround, but we will touch on some of those highlights.

I can definitely see how much we can get into this for what we've outlined as deliverables. But I just want to show you I just want to show you that there is a discussion around like how do we best execute because I have full agreement with you that like I want to get from a posture of just being in a space of responsiveness to being in a space of proactive leadership on economic things.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Chair Johnson has

a question. Yeah.

Thank you. And while I wasn't here, was able to still catch the presentation live. I have a quick follow-up for you just around like in during the operational organizational review stages, will there also be kind of a preface for the budget season? I noticed that the deliverables will be in December, well after the budget discussions have already taken place. And so I'm just wondering the checkpoints for staff and how that will play into our economic development team being able to account for maybe what may come from some of the stakeholder meetings knowing that that's right in the middle of when our city will be doing budget discussions and we won't actually have like a final product from it until the December.

Yeah. Terrence, thank you for that question. I spoke directly with the consultant in anticipation us trying to get some data and information to respond to or give you all to respond to for the '27 budget. I know we're beginning those talks and those talks are starting to happen. I want to be clear that I asked for us to have things that I can give you even though this is still being processed and completed.

So my expectation, my hope is that there will be items that along your budget discussion that I can provide for leadership, director McMahon, director Green on how we can, you know, try to weave some of those things into the budget with anticipation of that being inside of the final document for execution. So we will do our best to try and get there, but, you know, like I said, this was this is really focused on the external piece and I just wanted to try to get something tangible to to to start and and and give you an update on. And there's gonna be some some pieces that get, you know, flushed out as we go along with your request and with your information that you're looking to gather. So, is helpful for me.

Thank you.

Great. Any other questions on this item? All right. Well, thank you so much, Director Lloyd. I really am excited about the path ahead and, you know, the consultant and, you know, where we're heading here. So thank you so much to you and all of your staff for your work on this.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

We're going to do item one next. Item number one for discussion is Resolution RES 20 86, Resolution giving preliminary approval to conduit multifamily housing revenue bonds, 365 Winthrop Street South, Afton View Apartments Project, District 1, Ward 7.

Thank you. It looks like we have Hannah Chung here to give our presentation on this item. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon Chair Johnson, Vice Chair Joe's and Commissioners. I'm here to present on the Afton View Apartments request for preliminary approval for of multifamily conduit revenue funds. So as a brief overview, Afton View is located at 363 Or 365 Winthrop Street South In District 1, Ward 7. The project is an acquisition and rehabilitation.

The developers, Terrain Development Partners. There's a total of 286 units and the proposed affordability is a 100% of those units will be affordable at 60% of area median income, and 268 units are reserved for project based vouchers, and that that is based on an existing HAP contract with HUD. Tareen Development is requesting a preliminary approval of multi family conduit revenue bonds. This is a preliminary step that is needed to preserve the tax credit basis because the acquisition of the site is being conducted before the closing on the financials later this summer. So to acquire this property, the developer went through a competitive selection bidding and would not have been able to acquire without with a closing contingent on financing.

So the property acquisition must take place prior to financial closing on any potential bond issuance and tax credit equity. So that's why they're requesting this preliminary preliminary approval to preserve the tax credit basis and financial feasibility. So this preliminary approval authorizes the reimbursement from the proceeds of the bonds for acquisition and thereby preserves the acquisition as part of tax credit basis. Basis. So this is just an aerial overview of the site, and you can see the site here is off of Lower Afton Road.

And this is the current conditions of the building, some of the units. So the building was the two buildings were built in 1971 and there are 143 units each split between the two buildings and they're three stories tall. Each building is approximately 131,000 square feet and there's 393 parking spaces. There's also an office space and an on-site daycare facility. And the site itself has gone undergone some major rehab in the last ten years, including window replacement, waterline replacements, and most of the roof replaced most of the roof has been replaced.

So Terrine the developers Terrine Partners Development Partners, They're a Twin Cities based real estate firm founded in 2021 with the mission to create high quality and lasting projects. Pete Nelson, vice president of affordable housing at Tareen is here today in case the board has any questions. So their proposed plan is to acquire and rehabilitate Afton View. The developers have submitted an application for up to 20,500,000 in multifamily conduit revenue bonds. They also anticipate to use 4% tax credit equity.

So rehab would include replacement of mechanical systems such as the boilers and water heaters. In addition, the developers also proposed to propose a site improvements on the units themselves, common areas, lighting replacements, office space, amenity spaces, and more. And like I said earlier, the proposed affordability is a 100% of the units will be affordable at 60% AMI for at least forty years. And the project based vouchers that are on the two sixty eight units will expire in 2043 and that's a term that's set by HUD based on a current HUD mortgage that's on the property right now. But that but that those units are eligible to be renewed at the time at in 2043 based on current HUD guidelines.

The developer and PD staff will also work together on the application of a sustainable building ordinance, and the developer will also prepare and submit a tenant communications plan that details construction and any possible displacement or relocation of the current residence. So this is a rendering of the proposed landscape and picnic areas. Let's see it has a slope playground, some picnic tables, and a terrace lawn. So the unit is the unit mix will stay the same after acquisition. There's a mix of one, two, and three bedrooms.

And again, the two sixty eight units are project based voucher units and those have a lower income requirement. So the developer is anticipating a private first mortgage, tax credit proceeds, cash flow from the building, a deferred developer fee and general partner loan in order to finance this project. 26,000,000 will be used for acquisition which is why the preservation of the acquisition for tax credit basis is crucial to this project. The total development cost is estimated to be $46,000,000

I'll just pause you there for a second. Council President Nacre has a question.

Thanks, Vice Chair Jost. Can you

go back and try on one slide? I just wanted to look at the numbers of project based vouchers So it looks like the vast almost all of them are project based vouchers. And in the previous slide, you talked about this will preserve affordability for forty years. But then there's an asterisk that the project based vouchers expire in 2043. So what is that, seventeen years? So what does that mean in terms of the vast majority of the units in this building?

So in 2043, the property will have an opportunity based on current HUD guidelines to apply again for project based vouchers. If they do not get project based vouchers, then the building will remain affordable at 60%. They'll just will not have project based vouchers in the building.

And then the 60% AMI would apply to all

of the units

in the building?

Yes, correct.

And if they do apply and become project based, that would then extend their term for those units even further into the future?

Yes, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. And the site acquisition will take place in this month with closing on financials in July 2026. That's when construction will also start and it's anticipated that the construction will finish by February 2027.

So the request for the preliminary approval bonds is before this board for action today. So this only acts to preserve the opportunity to count the purchase price in the tax credit basis. So this allows the project to generate more tax credits than it otherwise would and contribute to the equity of the project. So this action does not commit the HRA to a final bond approval or any subsequent waivers. A public hearing and request for the issuance of bonds and waivers will be submitted at a later date. Anyone has questions?

Does anyone have any questions? And did you say is the developer here?

Yes, he's here.

If anyone has. Okay, great. If anyone has questions for them, I'll turn it over to council president Nager.

Thanks, vice chair. Not necessarily a question for the developer, but miss Chung, wondering, and I know this is only preliminary approval. It doesn't commit us. You just said that. I think it would be really helpful since our 4% bonds are limited.

And this is true really for every project where we are considering at least when we get to the point of actually approving them. I'd like to see where that will set us in terms of our total amount available left and where we have that already programmed or where it's still completely unallocated. Just because and I know we've talked about this in the past, they're limited and we get increasing it's they're increasingly competitive. So it does feel like we're making a decision about our project, but we're also making a decision about what we'll have available for future projects and knowing how much we have left helps us balance that out.

Okay.

Does Director Ntanga or Sarah have any comments on that? Can follow-up with bonds. We can follow-up with you at a later date. When we

get to the approval.

Okay. Any other questions? So this item is before us for approval. I figured you did. Okay. Thank you. Chair Oh, Johnson?

Yeah. I just wanted to know. I know that the developers are here. And so before we vote, I actually had a couple of questions for them.

I guess we'll welcome the developer up. And I guess maybe if you want to introduce yourself too when you come up. Thank you for being here.

Good afternoon, chair and council members. My name is Pete Nelson with Tareen Development Partners.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so much for being here today, and thank you for being able to just communicate with us about this particular development. Overall, for context for my colleagues as well, this particular development is one of the larger project based voucher apartment buildings in Ward 7.

It also is predominantly occupied by East African residents, specifically the vast majority of the East African residents are Somali. And I'm just kind of looking through the communications piece and I just want to hear a little bit more about how you were intending to communicate with those residents, especially during the construction close and just some of the timeline pieces for you, like what the plan looks like, especially from the closing and the construction start to finish. Because I don't believe that residents know this is necessarily happening. I see a lot of things that are positive here, especially around regaining affordable housing and keeping that here until 2040. But knowing that communication has been an issue in the past with this building for the residents and for the tenants that are there, I'm just curious as to what exactly that's going to look like moving forward.

Yes, sure. So we are planning on acquiring Afton View tomorrow where we will give out a tenant notice to each door at the property. Sale management will be taking over property management at Afton View. We are retaining 100 of the existing staff at the property, and they also hired on a very experienced property manager that they've had on they hired her back in April who has vast affordability experience and will be will be property manager as of tomorrow that will will communicate with the residents. I I wish I had a representative from our management company here, but I don't.

But I could follow-up with you after the meeting with our tenant notices for what we're gonna give out tomorrow once we acquire the property. Now during construction, we we will be using Ferrex Construction as a general contractor. They have done multiple projects in the city of Saint Paul. They're very experienced in occupied rehabs. They we typically hold a tenant meeting forty five to thirty days prior to construction commencement.

Specific when when when Fairix is planning on entering in a specific unit, they give a thirty day notice, a fourteen day notice, and then a notice the day prior to when they start entering in their unit. For the most part, will be an occupied rehab. There are 15 units at the two eighty six that will be converted to accessible units, and that's a more intrusive renovation. And we will temporarily relocate those tenants into a nearby hotel and provide them meal stipends and so forth. But that's typically how what we're thinking at this point.

And will the tenant notices be available in Somali?

We can absolutely translate the tenant notice into Somali, yes.

I would highly recommend that. Having knocked every door in that building, knowing exactly the language barriers that come through for residents there where Somalis are native language, I'd highly recommend. Highly recommend that.

We absolutely will do that, yes.

As a follow-up, if I may, one of the things that I want to just make sure is that as this process goes forward, just that the communication between the city and the developers will remain consistent. I know there's a few different things that will be moving forward as the next few months come along, including things around the sustainable building ordinance and other items that have required communication with NPD's housing team. At times, there has been a little bit of a communication lapse. And so I'm just wondering what is the plan for communication with us as well?

I believe that, yes, there was a little hiccup and misunderstanding about the sustainability ordinance. But I've been working really closely with you and Sarah and Jenny Wolf at the city, and we'll continue to update them as the project moves forward.

Yes. I think that will be like definitely just something that I would echo as an expectation. Communication with the city is indicative of what the communication looks like with future residents and individuals who live there, and so it's really important that the communication is tight moving forward. In addition, I do wanna share just I'm my vice chair is chairing today, but one of the things that is typical within our HRA meetings is the two meeting cadence. This meeting, you know, we brought it forward in respect to the timeline that you had proposed for us, But usually there is an introduction item and then a follow through with that, and I intend to be able to do that moving forward so we're not rushed for time, especially on future action items that have to come across this body. And so we just really appreciate your partnership with that in mind.

Absolutely, and I really appreciate what you did for us for this project today. Thank you.

Thank you. And overall, really supportive of the investment that you're making in our community. This is a really it's an important building with a lot of families and a lot of small children, and honestly has been a space that I have been able to spend a lot of time with with a lot of the residents that are there. And so I think that everyone's looking a little bit for a fresh start and a renewal, and I think that that's really important for future development opportunities. And I'm glad that this is getting not only to remain affordable, but also getting a much needed renovation and updating.

And so appreciate the investment that you're placing there. I'm very supportive of this today and appreciate folks being willing to bring this forward for an action item even though it didn't have an objection.

That, Chair.

Thank you.

Any other questions? I'll take that as a motion from chair Johnson for approval. It's a motion for approval on this item. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed?

Six in favor, zero opposed. The resolution is adopted. Item number three is the staff report SR26-ninety four update to housing policy study and plan for 2026.

I'll turn it over to Director McMahon. Thank you, Vice Chair Toast, commissioners. Just a brief update on the housing policy study noting that multiple departments, PED, DSI and HERO met with council staff earlier this spring to coordinate on the housing policy study. After discussing the goals and scope of the study, Director Ledger provided the group with a worksheet to identify the priorities of the study. That worksheet's completed and it's been sent to HERO and a buyer is being assigned to be able to move forward with releasing an RFP which is really exciting. And that after that RFP is released, there will be an evaluation committee to meet to review the responses. And on that evaluation committee, there will be staff from both PED and DSI as well as council.

Great. I appreciate the update. Are there any questions from our commissioners on this update? Alright. Well, I also thank everyone for being here today. I wanna mention that our next meeting date we're not meeting next week, but we are meeting the week after that. So our next meeting date will be Wednesday, May 27. And with nothing else to come before us, we are adjourned.