Licensing Hearing - Regular Meeting

🎵 Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

St. Paul City Council Policy Committee to order. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bowie.

Here.

Council President Naker. Here. Council Member Jost. Here. Council Member Coleman.

Here.

Council Member Kim.

Here.

Council Vice President Yang. Here. And Council Member Johnson, who will be arriving shortly.

Great. Thanks so much. Good morning, everyone. We have two items on our agenda today. The first is a presentation, an update on our Sustainable Building Ordinance. I would invite Kurt Schultz and everyone who's with him, who he will introduce hopefully, to join us. Welcome.

Good morning, Council President Naker, members. My name is Kurt Schultz. I'm the Clean Energy Coordinator for PED, and I manage the Sustainable Building Ordinance for the City, along with support from my colleague Dave Schrader and our partners at the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota. We have Liz Kutschke here, who is a research fellow at CSBR and also is leading the policy update process this year. So today, I'd like to review the current ordinance, talk a little bit about the history of it, how it works, provide some context, and then describe the update process that we are currently engaged in, summarize what we've been hearing back from stakeholders, talk about what we would like to do next with the proposed changes, and then Q&A. And of course, please interject at any time or ask questions during my presentation. So why would a city adopt a sustainable building policy? There's a lot of reasons. This slide shows a number of those. One of the main reasons cities adopt policies like this is to reduce emissions. And as you know, in the recently updated Climate Action and Resilience Plan, the city has set some pretty aggressive emissions reductions goals. 63% reduced emissions, 63% by 2030 from a 2018 baseline, and then carbon neutrality by 2050. So we have our work cut out for us. I should say that on these slides, each of the buildings you see are pictures of projects that have complied with the SBO, the Sustainable Building Ordinance. This, of course, is the Penfield and was one of the earlier projects that complied. Buildings in St. Paul are the primary emitter of emissions. This is common in cities like St. Paul. In fact, it's 67% of the emissions in St. Paul come from buildings. And so if we hope to reach those goals that I just mentioned, buildings need to be a priority. So a bit of context, a bit of history, stepping back. In 2007, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency approached the city of St. Paul and provided a grant to the city to develop a model policy that could be replicated by other cities around the state. The idea was to create some sort of consistency between building policies in different cities. We used the grant. We partnered with the folks at the Center for Sustainable Building Research to guide us through the process. And we launched a two-year stakeholder engagement and policy development process. We invited virtually every stakeholder group to the table, including developers, contractors, architects, green building experts, affordable housing advocates, and others. And in the end, everybody who was part of that process supported the new policy, the proposed policy. And all of the testimony at the public hearing was in support. And the city council adopted it in 2010 unanimously. The policy applies to all new and renovated city buildings, as well as all new and renovated private development that receives more than $200,000 of public investment. We updated the policy in 2018, at which time we added major renovation. Prior to that, the policy only covered new construction. And in 2018, we added, as I said, major renovation. This is Hamlin Station on University Avenue. And virtually every new apartment building, everything that's been constructed on University Avenue in the last 10 or 12 years has also complied with the sustainable building ordinance. There are two key steps to compliance with the ordinance. This is Kendall's Ace Hardware on Payne Avenue on the east side, which has also complied with the policy. Two key steps to the ordinance. The first is to comply with a green building standard from the eligible list. And I'll talk more about that in a moment. And to comply with something we call the St. Paul overlay. And I'll go into detail about that as well. In 2009, we conducted, or I should say CSBR, Center for Sustainable Building Research, conducted a nationwide survey of city policies, city green building policies. And very few cities at that time had a policy. And those that did leaned heavily on LEED, which is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which is the best known green building standard in the country. But in our community engagement or our stakeholder engagement process, we heard from developers and said, please don't have us just comply with LEED. Can you give us some flexibility, give us some options? allow us to choose from more than one green building standard. And also there are other funders that will require builders to comply with one standard or another, such as green, excuse me, such as Minnesota Housing requires the use of green communities and if a project receives state bonding dollars it needs to comply, that project needs to comply with Minnesota B-3. So instead of having a developer need to comply with LEED and green communities, or LEED and B3, we created this list of green building standards that they could choose from. And that list includes LEED, B3, Enterprise Green Communities, Green Star, and if it's a parking structure, it needs to follow Park Smart. When the decision was made back in 2007, 8, 9 to give developers an option to choose from one of several standards, we understood that the standards were not necessarily created equal. Some were stronger in some areas, and some were stronger in other areas. And so we created the St. Paul overlay to provide a level of consistency between standards. We identified what the city's top environmental priorities were. And we created requirements that reflected those priorities. Those requirements are found in the overlay. And this ensures that every project, regardless of which green building standard is followed, meets the requirements that the city has prioritized. So if you follow LEED, you need to comply with each of the requirements in the overlay. If you follow B3, again, you need to comply with each of the requirements in the overlay. The priorities that we set back then, and that was a lengthy process, but the priorities we set back then are energy conservation and the reduction of emissions, proper conservation of potable water, both inside the building as well as outside the building for landscaping irrigation, stormwater management, diversion of construction waste from landfills, and indoor environmental quality. That's those things that make the space healthy and safe for its occupants, whether it's residents or workers. And as a model policy, this allows cities to identify their own priorities and develop their own overlays. And I won't go in at this moment, I won't go into all of the requirements that are found in the overlay. I'd be glad to do that later or if questions arise. So we think this policy has been a huge success. There have been over 120 buildings that have complied, representing over 8 and 1 half million square feet and a total development cost of about $2 billion. It's been applied to virtually every type of project, residential from single family to multifamily, affordable to luxury. It's been applied to commercial projects like the hardware store, a grocery store, a restaurant, and venues like CHS Field, which is pictured here, and the Ordway. It's also been applied to a museum, shelter, fire and police stations, and libraries. So it's well suited for just about every type of development. And perhaps the greatest sign of success is that other cities are using the St. Paul model to develop and adopt their own policies. Cities that have adopted policies based on St. Paul's include St. Louis Park, Rochester, Eden Prairie, Edina, Northfield, and Hopkins. And there are other cities as well that are looking at doing that. St. Paul has been a leader in this area for a very long time. So it's generally agreed that policy should be reviewed and updated from time to time. And because this policy was last updated in 2018, we felt it was appropriate to take a look at it again now. Also, the recently updated climate action resilience plan calls for this policy to be updated. As in the past, we've contracted with the Center for Sustainable Building Research to guide us through the process. Oh, and this identifies the items that are in the scope of work for CSBR. Perhaps the most important and informative part of the update process was the engagement of stakeholders. And we did that in an effort to find out what's working, what doesn't, what adds value, and what doesn't. We sent an exhaustive survey to 95 individuals from folks who work with the policy on a regular basis. That includes developers, architects, engineers, home builders, consultants, property owners, downtown alliance, and city staff. So we sent that survey to 95 individuals. We received 62 responses. And then we had four listening sessions, both in person and virtual, and invited people to participate in those and provide additional feedback. We had about 20 participants. And then we held a fifth session for city staff only, and we had about another 20 people participate. So what we heard. from the stakeholders. These are some of the key findings. The SBO, the Sustainable Building Ordinance, does not work well for small buildings, single family homes, that type of building. And this is not a surprise. We've been hearing this for a few years. We've also been asked to add to the list of green building standards that developers can choose from. So as I mentioned, we got LEED and Green Communities and B3 and Green Star. They would like to have the option to choose from a larger list. We've been told that the office to residential conversion in downtown St. Paul is vital, is key to the vitality of downtown. And we've been asked to try not to impede that progress to the extent possible. SB 2030 is the green building standard, excuse me, the energy standard that is embedded in the overlay. It's the tool that we use to ensure that projects reduce emissions and reduce energy use. we have been asked to identify alternate pathways to compliance in that area. So instead of just needing to comply with SB 2030, we've been asked to identify different ways to get to the same end. And finally, we know that developers and others in the private sector appreciate the fact that the that the city is held to the same standards as the private sector. And in some cases, leads by example. We have in the past adopted practices and policies for city buildings before we have imposed those requirements on the private sector. And we know that's appreciated. So those are some of the key findings. And the proposed amendments. to the policy will reflect or are based on the feedback we have received from the stakeholders.

Thank you, and thanks so much for this presentation. It's really interesting, and I'm really glad that we're diving into this. I have a bunch of questions about this slide. I'll try to limit myself. I'm curious about the first two bullet points, and if you could share a little bit more about why the SPO does not work well for small buildings, and then also what it is about alternative green building certification options that people are interested in, or why we would want to add to that list.

Yeah. Yeah, thanks.

Let me go back a page.

When the policy was originally adopted in 2010, we set a $200,000 threshold. And at that time, $200,000 was quite a bit of money. And we weren't capturing small projects like single family homes. We just weren't investing that much in smaller projects like that. Over time, costs have increased. And we find ourselves capturing more and more of those projects. And it's the cost benefit. of applying all of these requirements to a small project, it doesn't work out. And so that's why it doesn't work well for small buildings. And then the second one, provide more green building certification options. Census was first adopted in 2010. More green building standards have become available nationwide that are good standards, that are on par with the ones that we already have. And some standards that existed back in 2010 have beefed up and have now come up to the level of these others. And so folks have asked for those to be added, and it seems reasonable to do so.

Thank you. Ms. Jost. Thank you, Council President. I have two questions. First, I understand the need to provide more flexibility for developers to be able to meet these requirements, and I do agree that much smaller projects, maybe they even need their own or to be able to meet these standards because that would be very challenging for them. So my two questions about that are, do you think that we can provide that flexibility while also still being on track to meet our own goals of carbon neutrality? And then my second question is, what are the opportunities for any type of funding from the state or federal government, which I know that we're in a very difficult situation right now, but maybe even thinking several years into the future, but to help provide some support for grants or things like that for these projects that are meeting these sustainability building requirements, or even if they're exceeding the sustainability building requirements, what impact do you think that will have or potential for it?

Thank you, Council President Naker, Council Member Jost. With the first question, yes, I do believe there is a path forward for smaller projects. If you remember that we always have the overlay. So if we were to pull back on the requirement, for example, for smaller projects, pull back on the requirement to need to comply with a third party green building standard such as LEED. if we back that out of the equation, we still have the overlay, which will ensure that those projects meet a high level of energy efficiency, for example, or water use. So we can, I believe, still not not pull all the requirements away from small projects, but apply those that seem reasonable and still get us the benefit of reduced emissions, for example. So does that answer that question? Yeah. Okay. And then with regard to other funding, I think you're right. I think it's unlikely that there are many outside sources to go to to move this along. And I'm not sure that it's really necessary. This in St. Paul has become the norm. Developers understand what those costs are. They're building it in to their sources and uses. And so I don't know that other funding is necessarily needed. When we first developed this policy in 2009, 2010, we asked that question. do we want to incentivize developers with additional funding, or do we want to have a list of requirements that they need to comply with if they receive a certain level of funding? And we went with the latter, because we realized at that time, and I think it's probably still true today, we don't have additional funding to incentivize. So the decision was made, $200,000, this is what you need to do. And it's worked out well.

I agree. I think that I know that a lot of developers are aware of and used to what our standards are, and they do at a cost. And I do think that it's the state government and the federal government's responsibility who also have these same goals and want us to meet them to be able to provide support to cities and counties to be able to help everyone meet those goals. And so, I mean, that's something that I'm certainly interested in. And even being able to exceed the goals, I mean, a lot of these things are minimums. If we can do better, we can get to carbon neutrality faster, hopefully.

Council President Naker, Council Member Jost, yeah, and... I think trying to find additional funding is something we can and should do. I'm not aware of where that funding might come from at this point.

Thank you.

Ms. Willey. Oh, thank you, Council President. Thank you as well. I just wanted to reiterate, I think overall the goal, especially for the city of St. Paul, is when it comes to affordable housing, how do we make affordable housing more affordable? It's very, very expensive to build affordable housing. And I'm curious just to know, to the point around the cost benefit for small buildings, And for developers, can you list in terms of, because I know we're kind of talking at like a 10,000 foot level around the building requirements, but are there, when you're saying what you're hearing in terms of like not impeding on the downtown office or residential conversions, how many standards are there? Is there 40 standards and we're looking to reduce them to 20 or 30? I'm just trying to understand the scale of how we're trying to ensure that these requirements don't end up being barriers to actually helping to accomplish our affordable housing goals. And if you can address around what is the cost ratio for a building that may not meet these goals, but will be able to meet the building codes, like DSI standards, versus our energy standards, in terms of, I'm just looking at a range, like is it additional $200,000 to meet these requirements are additional million dollars, or what is that cost you know ratio for for these standards?

Council President Naker, Council Member Bowie. Excellent question. Studies have been done to determine what the average incremental increase is on buildings that need to comply with green building standards. It varies is one answer. It varies different from standard to standard. And I'm going to look to Liz and see if she knows. But what I've heard, the studies that I've heard about, it's maybe a 1% to 2% additional cost for compliance with a green building standard. Yeah, I'm getting a nod on that.

Yeah. Go ahead, Ms. Frey. Oh, well, I appreciate that. And also, if you can follow up, I would love to just, like, see some of those studies. I know this is kind of, you know, a general overview here. My other question, too, was around the St. Paul overlay. Is this a geographic area as, like, an overlay, or is this, like, the entire city, anywhere that buildings of this magnitude are built? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, thank you, Council President Nake or Council Member Bui. The overlay is, it's confusing because we think of overlays typically as a particular part of town, geographic or zoned area. That's not the case here. We based it on the Minnesota overlay that Minnesota Housing has adopted. And what it is is that the overlay is that separate list of requirements dealing with energy efficiency and emissions and construction waste and the use of potable water and indoor environmental quality. That's what we mean by the overlay. So you've got the green building standard that you need to comply with. then you need to comply with each of the items in the overlay so it's not it's not a geographic uh distinction okay thank you and if if if i may just go back to the earlier question too that you had council member bowie um uh there There are additional costs, and there are additional benefits as well. So for example, the overlay includes that indoor environmental quality. And that ensures that the residents in the affordable buildings aren't exposed to VOC, the off-gassing of carpets and finishes, that there's proper ventilation and all of that. So the additional costs also bring additional benefits to the people that are living in those buildings. Thank you.

I just had a question on the bullet point we didn't talk about. We're doing a great job digging into each one of these because they're each very substantive. The downtown office residential conversions don't impede. Just wondering if you can say a little bit more about what that would mean to not impede. Does that just include all the other things we've just talked about to make the ordinance easier to comply with? Are we talking about waivers? And is there a process for that? What are you hearing?

What we're talking about is, first of all, it would only be for renovated projects. It wouldn't apply to new construction. So we're talking about specifically those office to residential conversions. And what we're considering are a couple of things. increasing that dollar threshold that triggers the policy from $200,000 to $500,000. take some of those projects out of the equation or would not require them to comply. And those that would receive over $500,000, what we're suggesting, and this will be on my next slide too, what the next steps are. But what we would be suggesting for those projects is rather than having them comply with a green building standard, which does add cost, we would have them comply with all of the applicable overlay requirements. So we remove the cost and the burden of complying with for example, or whichever they chose. But we would still hold them to all of the applicable, the energy conservation, the water conservation, the construction ways, the indoor environmental quality. That would reduce the onus on developers or on these folks who are retrofitting downtown buildings.

Thank you. I see a question from Ms. Johnson.

And then just to be clear, just that that sounds like that would only impact the downtown area. So would that be specific to the downtown geographic area? This isn't going to be citywide. So we'd be potentially changing an ordinance again for downtown specifically. And I'm just wondering what that would look like.

The idea currently is that we would identify what constitutes the downtown area. We've been given... 12 maps to choose from there's one called the greater downtown area that we're looking at and that partial waiver that i was just me talking about where you would remove the requirement to comply with the green building standard that would be applied only to the downtown area where those office to residential conversions are happening

Okay, so yes, it would be specific to just the downtown area. Also, could you just kind of share then, like, for the bullet points then, what are the recommendations to some of those? Like, I know the next slide is just the process, but then I appreciated the question around the downtown conversions because it allowed you to go a little bit further into what you'd be doing to kind of remedy that. Could you do that for all of them? It's hard to hear here sometimes I can you can you restate that we asked the question about the downtown Office to residential conversions and then your response allowed you to go a little bit further into what you're thinking Could you do that for all of the like you heard that it doesn't work for small buildings? So this is what you're thinking to remedy that Could you give those examples? Oh, yeah, I did.

Okay, so a preview of the recommendations.

Yes Yeah, sure

So I've talked a little bit about the small buildings, about why it doesn't apply. Let me talk about possible or proposed responses to each of these. So one would be increasing that dollar threshold from $200,000 to $500,000. And then for buildings such as single-family homes, between the current $200,000 and the proposed 500, we would only ask them to comply with the two items in the, I'm going to look at some notes here, the two items in the overlay. One would be the energy conservation requirement, and one would be I believe, water conservation. So you don't need to comply with a green building standard, and you don't need to comply with all of the overlay requirements. You need to comply with the two most important ones, water and energy. So the 200 to 500. Provide more green building standards. There are several to choose from that we can add. I mentioned the downtown renovation projects. We are suggesting that major renovation, the definition of major renovation be changed. Currently a major renovation is a project that is at least 10,000 square feet and includes a replacement of the HVAC system. What we're suggesting is moving that threshold from 10,000 to 20,000. So we're trying to focus on those buildings with the greatest impact on emissions. And again, the cost-benefit analysis of applying this whole policy to buildings at 10,000 square feet is a little lopsided. It doesn't work very well. Currently we don't have a minimum square footage for new construction and you all have been responding to waiver requests for buildings that come in. For example, Parks has been building pump houses and three-season bathrooms. And it doesn't make any sense to apply this policy to really small buildings like that. But there isn't a built-in exemption currently in the policy. And so we're suggesting that we put a minimum 1,000 square foot threshold into the policy. So anything less than that doesn't need to comply, and you don't need to pass partial waivers as you have been. We do believe that we can provide multiple pathways to compliance with SB 2030, which is this penultimate bullet here. And We're thinking of proposing to remove a couple of small items in the indoor environmental quality, which are already covered by state code. So we can just pull those out and remove duplication. And then with regard to the city leading by example, we would like to propose that all city buildings be, not all city buildings, all city buildings complying with this policy be required to be electrified. So getting away from gas infrastructure. And that all new HVAC systems installed in buildings, in city buildings and HRA anything that's owned or operated by the city or HRA, that all new HVAC systems also be electrified. Now if it becomes, if that simply doesn't work for a particular project, there are obstacles that can't be overcome, there's always the waiver process that you're familiar with that can be used to exempt those projects from that.

Thanks so much for that additional detail. I thought I saw a question from Ms. Coleman.

Yeah, thank you. Some of these seem like very basic common sense, let's clean up this ordinance and not require a waiver to build a three-season bathroom. That seems good. I think some of these seem like harder conversations and bigger trade-offs. And obviously, we have multiple goals in the city that we are trying to achieve at the same time, including trying to encourage development and get the housing online that we need. and also meeting our climate goals and ensuring that we are doing that in a way that really is truly sustainable and cuts down on our emissions. And I'm just, I am, mindful of the fact that we're having this conversation in a moment where the development conversation feels really dire in the city, and we really desperately need to do new development, but also not wanting to do anything that would undercut our long-term progress because of the short-term crisis that we find ourselves in. which was a lot of context that was not necessary for my question, which is just that I'm thinking you mentioned Rochester is one of the cities that's followed our example and adopted a similar ordinance. And I know that Rochester is also often held up as one of the places in this state that is seeing the most development, most new construction. And I'm curious, I guess, from the process that you have gone through so far, what you're seeing from other cities, if other cities are considering similar changes to the ones that you all are exploring currently. just what learnings you all have that we might benefit from knowing about.

Thank you, Council President Nacre, Council Member Coleman. As it relates to other cities, I think if these proposals are adopted, we will be again leading the state. Most other cities that have adopted a policy similar to ours using our model have adopted most of the same overlay requirements. These proposed changes are in many ways intended to lighten the load on developers from what is currently required. So to the point of citywide not wanting to impede development, these proposals will actually, I think, make it easier for development to happen in St. Paul. But we will, again, St. Paul will be leading the way if these changes are adopted. Does that answer the question?

Yeah, it helps. I mean, I think I would just generally, and as this process goes forward and the recommendations concretize a bit, I think it would be helpful to continue to learn more about what you all are learning from other cities and what you've seen work and not work and whatnot. But for purposes of today, that's helpful.

Thank you, Council President Nager, Councilman Coleman. As part of this process, we have done an analysis of all the other city And again, they reflect what we do in St. Paul currently.

I see a question for Ms. Johnson, and then with six and a half minutes left, I'm going to let you finish up your presentation after that question, Mr. Schultz, and then we can take the remaining time for further questions. Ms. Johnson.

Thank you. I guess I can, you can go to the next slide if you want to with the process. I just had a question around just a reminder of like how many, like what is our current staff capacity and like how many people do we have doing this work or reviewing SPO and enforcing it when there are questions that come up, like just out of curiosity.

Thank you, Council President Naker, Council Member Johnson. Well, about a year and a year and a half ago, we doubled the staff capacity by hiring Dave. Hi, Dave. There's one person who works, spends most of his time on managing this policy. That's me. And then Dave supports me. We also rely heavily on the expertise and the support of the Center for Sustainable Building Research. In fact, in the last year or so, CSBR has been picking up more of the work, more of the review of the the projects complying with the sustainable building ordinance. And so I think we are adequately staffed. I will say that it's a challenge when we have so many projects out there. We sometimes find ourselves being more reactive than proactive in the sense that we don't have the capacity to call all the developers and say, well, where are you in this process? Has it stalled out? Are you progressing? And why aren't you keeping up with reporting? It's not perfect, but I think it's adequate.

Thank you. Thanks. We'll let you wrap up, and then we'll see what questions folks have.

Fantastic. So what's next? And we've covered some of this through the questions. We want to go back to the stakeholders with our recommendations, most of which are based on the feedback that they've provided us. We want to know, did we get this right? Then we want to return to you, make any additional edits, changes to the proposals as you see fit. Then we'd like to work with you on the adoption process, including the public hearing. And we'd love to have this policy adopted by the end of the year. And then there's an educational component. And we will be developing materials, reaching out to those who, the stakeholders that we've already spoken with, but others as well that work with the policy, let them know what's required and be sure that they understand how to comply. And finally, implementation, which would be great if we could do that, start the implementation in early 2027. Great.

Thank you so much for the helpful presentation. I know we probably answered a lot of questions along the way, but I will just make one comment, which is I know Council Member Coleman and I in particular, maybe others have heard questions about timing. It's helpful to know that the plan is to have the recommendations adopted by the end of the year. I would suggest that if you haven't done so already, letting those folks who participated in the process and the community engagement along the way know that that's our timeline, I think would be really helpful, especially since they'd probably want to weigh in when we have our public hearing. Looking to my colleagues to see if there is maybe one last quick question. Ms. Coleman.

Thanks. Sorry, I have a lot of questions. Just looking to what I think is the index or the appendix here and seeing the challenges, a few of which we didn't have a chance to talk about, including the lack of an enforcement mechanism. And I'm curious how that has played out. Have people been violating our sustainable building ordinance? Or we suspect they've been violating it?

Thank you, Council President Nanker, Council Member Coleman. As you know, until recently, we didn't have an administrative penalty available to us. And so having this be a criminal situation was not palatable, and so we've just never had that. Having said that, compliance is very high, even without any penalties, administrative or otherwise. And we've talked about the possibility of applying an administrative penalty. It gets a little tricky because there are Compliance doesn't happen at one time with the SBO. It happens throughout the design, construction, and occupation or the operation of the building. And we sometimes don't know if a building is fully complied until well after it's constructed. And I think the fact that the compliance rate has been so high without this, We're not recommending adding any penalties at this time. One of the things we will tell developers is, listen, if you want to continue doing development in St. Paul and you want to continue receiving investment from the city, understand that this will be considered your compliance or non-compliance with this policy when you come back. And I think that helps.

Thank you so much. We really appreciate the update. And I know we will continue to be in touch about this. Sounds like we'll be hearing more very soon. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

With that, we will gently pivot to our second item, which is tenant rights protections for the State of St. Paul to consider. I'd like to welcome up our friends from Homeline. Thank you so much for being here. And we look forward to hearing your presentation. Kim, did you want to say anything in advance of this?

I know this was your item.

Sorry. Oh my gosh. I'm just talking this morning.

It's great. I'm looking forward to the presentation. I just so appreciate them being here. They've sort of helped us by offering recommendations for the council to consider. So this is going to be a really great overview of opportunities for us to take things on with, I think, key points and some of the lower hanging fruit. But Thank you so much for being here, Michael Dahl. Please take it away.

And actually, just before you do, to that point, I really am eager to hear this. I note, as I'm looking just ahead at the slides, that some of these things seem like things that we've already got on the books in St. Paul. I'm sure this is a presentation you give to lots of jurisdictions. So you're probably already planning to do this, but it would be great to know which of these things would be additional for us that we haven't already got and what we already have on the books.

Council Member Naker and Council Members, good morning. My name is Michael Dahl, and I'm the Public Policy Director with Homeland. It is our intention to sort of highlight about 12 areas that we think could really see improvement. I know it's presenting more than just 12 in our slideshow, but just wanted to make that point. Thank you again, council members, for the opportunity to come before you. I'm Michael Dahl. I'm the public policy director with Homeline, a statewide tenant advocacy organization. I know you know about Homeline, but probably most know about us because of our tenant hotline. whether any Minnesotan can contact the hotline to receive free and confidential legal advice about their housing situation. But the hotline does other things. We also organize with tenants. We do advocacy at various state, city, federal level on protections for renters. We also do education. And all of this is aimed at dealing with what we think is a significantly out of balance situation power dynamic between landlords and tenants. And what we do is to try to level that playing field. Homeline has a staff of 25, including attorneys, tenant advocates, tenant organizers. We also have a network of volunteers and interns who help us to extend our reach. The need for these services is growing. Last year, 2025, was a record-setting year for us. We had the highest volume of client contacts in our history. Our staff handled over 20,200 calls from new contacts from all 87 counties. And when you include the follow-ups that we did, we had 36,000 contacts with tenants on issues that they needed help on. And St. Paul is significant in its share of that activity. In 2025, HomeLine worked with nearly 2,900 St. Paul renter households, representing about 6,000 individuals. Those numbers give us a good picture into what would be useful to deal with the challenges that St. Paul renters are facing. We have information in your packet that highlights the top 10 reasons that tenants contact us. Before we get into the substance of the presentation, I just want to briefly say again what's in that packet that we handed out to you. It includes the information on the top 10 reasons that tenants contacted us from St. Paul in 2025. It includes a district map so you can see where we're getting a certain call volume. It also includes a four-page digest of some of the policies that we think that cities can take to make tenant-landlord power dynamic a better one. And then we have a more extensive city bill of rights that is written for the state. It's not for St. Paul specifically. And so you're right to point out that there are some things that St. Paul has already taken some action on, and we appreciate that. Our goal today is to demonstrate that the city has a range of options. We are going to highlight about a dozen of those that we think are particularly ready or very urgent to take on. With that, I'll turn it over to Maya.

council president council members my name is maya graham i'm a housing attorney at home line this is information on how tenants can contact our hotline for free legal advice and landlord tenant law our main hotline number is there at the top with a toll-free number below but we do offer our services in four different languages english spanish mung and somali so there are three numbers specific numbers to contact one of our non-english tenant advocates as well as a way to contact us via email on our website there at the bottom. And this is a breakdown of calls we received from St. Paul last year in 2025, broken down by your awards. In 2025, we had 2,892 renter households that contacted our hotline, which represents 6,015 total residents from St. Paul. The most common issue that we received questions and calls on were repairs. We took 830 calls about repairs in 2025. The second most common issue was evictions following closely behind. Homeline helped to prevent an estimated 363 evictions in St. Paul last year and have found that renters with repair issues who did follow our advice were 37% more likely to get those repair issues addressed by their landlord. So in this presentation, we're going to be going over our tenant Bill of Rights City Edition, like Michael mentioned, which includes... Lots of proposals, as you can see, on different policies and ordinances that cities can consider to protect the tenants of their city. We've broken down the list into six general categories. The right to a fair application process, the right to a fair lease, right to a habitable home, the right to reasonable rent, right to safeguards against displacement, and the right to retain affordable housing.

Why do we need to protect these rents and have them established in federal state or state law or city ordinances? It's because landlords write the leases. And understandably, those leases are generally written to protect the landlord's interests. But if you think about it, how many times have you heard of a tenant taking a pen to their lease and indicating what rights they thought they should have covered in that document? It doesn't happen. Tenants generally don't negotiate the terms of their lease. They sign it because they need a place to live. And that's why we think the laws and ordinances help level the playing field. Tenant protection shouldn't depend on whether or not You have the ability to negotiate with a landlord or the knowledge of things that you could get to have additional protections. We think that these things need to be established as a basic right and that every renter can count on them. That said, the first right we're going to talk about is about the right to a fair application process. Searching for a future home is costly and stressful for many renters. This is especially true if you're low income, if you have a criminal background record, if you have bad credit, or if you belong to any population that often has to contend with prejudice or discrimination. Reducing unnecessary costs and addressing discrimination will make the application process fairer. We recognize that the city has already begun to address the issue of application screening fees. Homeline's position is actually that we should ban them. We think they should be rolled into the cost of doing business by landlords, and so we would ban them outright. We also believe St. Paul should require a standardized rental application and further limit the grounds for denying rental applications. I want to spend some specific time with the need to prohibit source of income discrimination. Because source of income discrimination, we see renters struggle to find housing even after they've received rental assistance. In some cases, people are unable to find a landlord who will accept the housing voucher or other form of assistance, and so they may ultimately lose the assistance that they received and waited many years to actually get. Too often, source of income discrimination is a thinly veiled form of discrimination based on class, disability, or race or ethnicity. When landlords can categorically reject applicants because of how they pay rent, we undermine the very programs that were designed to help obtain and maintain stable housing. Prohibiting discrimination would help ensure that new investment in housing vouchers, rental assistance, and other programs work as they were intended. Without these protections, we believe that we leave ourselves without many of the tools we need to actually address the worsening housing insecurity that we're finding in our communities. Minneapolis has enacted an ordinance prohibiting disorders of income discrimination, despite withstanding years of court challenge. And we do think that other cities should follow suit. I also want to highlight a proposal that's much more straightforward, requiring landlords to show prospective tenants the unit that they're actually going to move into. We hear from renters all the time who are shown one apartment when they're looking for housing, only discover that the unit that they are looking at for housing is substantially different. Sometimes a landlord will show a prospective tenant a modeled unit, a newer unit that is newer, cleaner, larger, or otherwise more appealing than the actual unit they will rent. Renters should have the opportunity to see the home they are going to actually be asked to rent and commit to that in a lease. Under this proposal, landlords will be required to inform prospective tenants of their right to view the unit and the prospective tenant requests that they want to see that unit, the landlord should be required to show it. It's plain and simple that before you sign a lease, you should have the right to see the home you are going to rent.

Ms. Kim. Thank you.

I've just got a quick clarification or just, I guess, more of a comment. So initially, some of the most interested policies are actually in this section. So I'd approached Homeline around eliminating what I would consider junk fees on an application screening. There's no regulation around that. Creating some sort of standardized rental application as a minimum in St. Paul, that's not saying that they can't have more, but wouldn't it be great if renters in the city could rely on at least one sort of standard language that they understood in terms of what their rights were and what's even being included in that rental application. And I have a question on the grounds for denial, because I don't see it in here quite yet. But I was also really interested in the right to renew. And so while this is like the entry application, but I kind of wonder later on if you can speak to You know, what considerations, if anything, would Homeland consider for the right to renew, which I know is up at the legislature but didn't get done?

Yeah, we actually are planning to go a little bit more in depth on right to renew in a couple slides. I can talk more about that now if you want, or we can wait until that slide comes around. And these are ordinances we encourage St. Paul, but cities in general, to implement to give tenants the right to a truly fair lease. As Michael said, landlords write the leases, and they are very, very rarely willing to negotiate on the terms of the lease. That leaves tenants with the options of signing it as is, maybe unhappy with the terms of the lease, or they have to start the whole process over again, pay more application fees to find alternative housing. This results in leases protecting landlords usually much more than they do tenants, and these are proposals meant to address that power imbalance between landlords and tenants. Firstly, landlords should be prohibited from unilaterally changing the terms of the lease during the lease term. We often see leases that say landlords can change the terms or rules of the lease, usually with some amount of notice, but the tenant is not allowed to do that. And tenants should also be provided with freedom of expression, like posting signs in their lawns or windows. We get asked about this one every once in a while as well, because landlords do fairly often prohibit any types of signs or things in lawns or displayed in windows. And the law should require landlords to disclose local contact information in full to tenants so they have an accessible way to actually get in contact with the landlord. There is state law on disclosing contact information for landlords, but I believe, if I'm recalling correctly, it's just name and address. It doesn't require a phone number or any super easy ways to contact the landlord. So that is something we'd like the city to consider. We also recommend that city ordinances clarify allowable methods for paying rent and prohibit leases from limiting when tenants can actually end the lease. In other words, that one is mostly referring to the no winter move-out clauses that are very common in Minnesota leases. Some of them are mostly reasonable, spanning from October to December, November to January. but then we see leases that have it like a seven-month no winter move-out, and so on like a month-to-month lease. I have a tenant who is on a month-to-month lease, and they did that for the flexibility, but there's a seven-month no move-out clause, so effectively they are locked into that lease for seven more months. And one of the two items I want to focus a little bit more on is prohibiting class action waivers and arbitration requirements in leases. More and more, we're seeing leases require tenants to waive their right to file a class action lawsuit against the landlord or participate in one that somebody else files. And we're seeing tenants be required by the lease to participate in arbitration when there's a conflict with the landlord, meaning that tenants cannot file court cases to have their issue heard in front of a judge. But these types of lease clauses usually do not bind the landlords to the same requirements, and the effect of these types of clauses is to dissuade tenants from enforcing their rights before an independent court. And we think it's really important for tenants to be able to sign a lease while also preserving all the rights and remedies that the law affords to them. And another common issue, but one that might be less known or less familiar, is landlords towing of vehicles that are parked on the rental property. This is a really common issue we get asked about at Homeline in large part because it's almost completely unregulated, at least at the state level. Right now, the general rule is that landlords have to have something in the lease authorizing them to tow and then the landlord has to follow their own rules. But issues arise when there either isn't anything in the lease about towing and then a towing occurs or the rules are unclear or applied inconsistently among different tenants. This puts tenants, especially very low-income tenants, in a really difficult position because maybe they can't get to work without the car or maybe they simply just don't have the money to pay the towing company to get their car back or they have to make the hard choice between getting their car back and paying rent that month. And if that's the case and the tenant can't get the landlord to reimburse them, the tenant's most common remedy is to sue in conciliation court, which can take three to six months right now to get a first hearing in. So tenants can often be left in a position where not only do they not have access to their vehicle to get to work, to take their kids to school, but oftentimes the price for getting the car back increases over time.

I see a question from Ms. Coleman.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you both so much for being here today. I'm really excited for this presentation. First of all, this isn't a question. I just have to say that prohibiting class action waivers and arbitration agreements and leases feels so essential. We can make sure that tenants have all the rights in the world, but if we aren't ensuring that those rights are actually enforceable, it is words on paper to make ourselves feel good. And just seeing the different ways large, powerful entities are working to cut out people's ability to enforce their rights, recognizing that government enforcement agencies are frequently underfunded and under threat, that just feels like such Maybe no-brainer is overstating it because it will require some thought to get it right. But it's so, so essential. So I'm really glad to see that on there and really excited for St. Paul to take that on. My actual question is going back to something that you said a couple of bullet points ago about the limiting tenant notices in the winter. So it seems very obvious that you can't have a month-to-month lease that cuts out seven months. I'm curious about you saying that in October to December, November to January, restriction is not as big of a concern. I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about that and why there would be, if this is what you're saying, and if I'm mischaracterizing, please correct me, but that we wouldn't necessarily want to go to absolutely no prohibitions on winter restrictions. rather than just saying, if you have a month-to-month lease, you can break it at any time, and that's the point of a month-to-month lease.

Yeah. Council President and Council Member Coleman, thank you. The logic behind these no winter move-out clauses on the landlord's end, there is some logic to it, just given the climate in Minnesota. People aren't moving in winter, typically. It's harder to rent units in the winter months, which is why we see them in most leases that I look at. Home line's position is that they should be prohibited in full, but I think at the very least limiting how long or how many months those no winter move-out clauses can last would be at least a great first step. But it puts tenants in a really difficult position because oftentimes leases, you can sign a year-long lease, but if you do not sign it after that, it just goes month to month. And many tenants choose to do that just for the flexibility to be able to move in the future if they need to. But then they get blindsided sometimes by these no winter move out clauses, which says you have to pay rent. Your lease ended in October, but now you have to pay rent all the way until January, February. And it just makes it really hard for tenants to plan as well for what the future is going to look like, what housing is going to be available at that time. So our position is that no winter move-out clauses should be prohibited in full, but at the very least limiting what months they are allowed I think would be a good first step.

Thank you.

And sorry, back on the towing of vehicles, it leaves tenants in a really hard position. So we think landlords should be allowed to tow a vehicle, but only for a reasonable business purpose and after giving the tenant at least 24 hours notice. There was some exceptions, of course, for if the vehicle is blocking access by emergency vehicles, if it's blocking or parked in a handicapped space when it's not supposed to be. maybe after a certain amount of snowfall. There are many exceptions to that, but making it clear what rules landlords need to follow to tow a tenant's vehicle will help to prevent the financial and emotional harm that often results when somebody's car is towed.

Council President Naker and Council Member Coleman, I want to go back to the class action and arbitration portion that was being addressed. We often see leases... A lease introduces an idea and then it starts to be used in more and more leases. And this is actually something that we have started to see as an increasing addition to leases. So it's sort of a problem that's getting worse and isn't ever present, but it won't take long before most leases would have a clause like this. So doing something is pretty important. So with that, I'll say that the next right we want to go to is the right to a habitable home. Everyone deserves a habitable home. As you can see, and we've mentioned before, Repairs are one of the main reasons that tenants contact us, and many tenants are reluctant to even ask to get something fixed for fear of retaliation and not having their lease renewed. So it is something that we are very concerned about. We are thankful that the city has a repair and deduct and appreciate that. Other things that could be done is create a rental licensing program, require landlords to maintain yards and remove snow, require landlords to periodically conduct and disclose radon tests and results, as well as perform mitigation. mandate that renters' insurance policies insure tenants who accidentally damage rented homes by no intentional means, not just by fire. Right now, water damage is a lot of times not covered. And it's a problem, and it needs to be addressed. We'd make it easier for neighborhood organizations to help tenants in court cases, and we would invest in city resources towards city attorney's enforcement of response to substandard conditions, specifically the tenant remedy actions. An ordinance I want to put a spotlight on is requiring inspections when a new lease is signed. The results of inspections should be provided to both a landlord and a current tenant, creating greater transparency about the condition of the rental unit and helping ensure that their problems that are identified are addressed. I talked about the repairs being the number one reason that tenants contact us, and I think that's, I move on to you.

and reasonable oh it's me there's a question for mr lee thank you council president thank you so much this is very informative i have um i represent ward one probably the second largest um complaints are you know intakes that comes in um a viable um resource for for our tenants I have a question because one of the things that deeply resonates with me, especially for one of the recommendations that's not in bold, is the creating a rental licensing program. I know early on when we were looking to adopt the rent stabilization and our tenant protections ordinance, and we were doing a lot of comparison to the city of Minneapolis. And one of the things that I realized in comparison to the city of Minneapolis is that City of Minneapolis does have a rental licensing program. While we don't, we just have a certificate of occupancy, which from a systems and regulation and accountability standpoint, that's something that I really will want to see. Obviously, it'll take a lot of capacity and a lot of staffing. But can you just speak to more around other cities you've seen that has a rental licensing program? You as an advocacy organization, would a licensing program help the city or even the tenants? If you could just speak a little bit more to that.

Yeah, Council President and Council Member Bowie. So St. Paul's Certificate of Occupancy Program works very similarly to rental licensing, but it's not specific to rentals and to landlords and tenants. So in reading the Certificate of Occupancy Statute, If there becomes an issue with the property, if their certificate of occupancy is revoked, it is not a surefire thing that tenants are made aware of that. And there aren't any specific penalties or remedies for tenants, specifically when landlords are violating the housing code or requirements of the certificate of occupancy. So I think there's a couple ways to go about it, either creating a wholly separate rental licensing program. Minneapolis, I would say, is a great guidepost for that. Theirs has worked really well, from what I understand, and has been enforced well by the courts. There is also the option of maybe just adding to the certificate of occupancy statute to make a few more rules and changes that are specific to the landlord-tenant situation. But ultimately, it's a way of accountability for landlords and for tenants to hold their landlords accountable, specifically when there's repair issues or really substandard conditions in a unit but also in a building as a whole. One of our concerns with the certificate of occupancy is theoretically if there was an inspection done and the certificate of occupancy revoked, it's not a sure thing that tenants would get notified, at least by the city, that that is happening. And they could be made to move fairly quickly. So it's just not tailored specifically to the landlord-tenant relationship. I think it's more just for the city's building code, and there wasn't a whole lot of thought with how it's going to relate specifically in rental properties.

Thank you. All right. Moving on to the right to reasonable rent. Rents have been increasing far faster than incomes for especially the lower income brackets for decades. In Minnesota, there are only 34 affordable and available rental homes per 100 people looking, households looking for those households. So it's incredibly difficult. for renters to find a place to live. And at a minimum, we think that what we need to do is make sure that renters know the true cost of moving into a place that they're interested in. However, some landlords find questionable ways to tack on mandatory fees or increasing the rent mid-lease. There are several city ordinances that could be put in place to help address this. One is to prohibit rent increases during the lease term, as Maya referred to earlier. We could require notices of rent increases in month-to-month leases to allow for the tenant to vacate or accept the rent increase, giving them enough notice. We could prohibit accelerated rent clauses and residential tenancies. There's reducing late fees to 4% from the current 8% that is usually used. We could regulate corporate and investor ownership in single-rent family rental homes and prohibit mandatory fees. One thing I want to focus on is that St. Paul needs a stronger economy. rent stabilization ordinance. St. Paul is unique among Minnesota cities in being the only city with a rental stabilization ordinance, and we want to recognize that. The original ordinance was an important step forward, but exemptions and changes since then have significantly narrowed the number of renters who are protected, and Holmein regularly hears from St. Paul tenants who believe they were covered by the ordinance only to find a significant rent increase because their housing falls under one of the exemptions. Rent stabilization is effective if it protects all renters who need it. So strengthening St. Paul's ordinance would help ensure the protections of the city are put in place that they reach all the tenants who need it.

Ms. Coleman.

Thank you. Could you share a little bit more about the regulation of corporate ownership of single-family rental homes? This has come up a lot in conversation. I know that it's a huge concern across the country right now. I also know that it's a concern not just for single-family rental homes, but for larger apartment complexes. So I would just be curious for any more insight that you can share on what you all are hearing from the folks who are reaching out to you or what recommendations you might have there.

We probably don't have enough information to share today, and we can do some follow-up. I do want to say that at the state level, there have been efforts, not successful, but there have been efforts to address this issue by going after especially the larger investors that have many properties, especially when there are many properties that are along the same corridor. dramatically change the quality of housing that's available and rented out to people because these investors have no stake in the community that they're actually buying up the properties for. If you are interested in more information, we can definitely look at options that have been considered at the state as well as ones that, through some research that we can conduct, try to help you with.

And if I might add, I think the idea is that everyone ideally would like to own a home at some point in the future, and right now the average age of a first-time homebuyer in Minnesota is around 40. And the problem with corporate investors buying up all these single-family homes is they're often able to offer a cash price that other families, individuals just can't compete with, and they're able to buy up these properties really quickly, and they're just limiting investment. On one hand, it creates more rental properties, but they're often not well maintained by the corporate investor owner. And it just limits other people's access to be able to actually own a home. And for the right to safeguards against displacement, these proposals are aimed at providing more stability in rental housing. Evictions and lease non-renewals are really disruptive to individuals and families, and they can ultimately lead to homelessness, especially in situations with leases that require very little advance notice before a tenant could be made to move by their landlord. So first and foremost, we strongly encourage St. Paul to consider implementing a right to renew or just cause ordinance. We're aware that St. Paul did have one at one point, and it was repealed. But we still strongly believe that right to renew is an important right for tenants to have and that it can be done in a lawful way. Right to renew exists in other parts of the countries and has withstood legal scrutiny before. And Brooklyn Center is an example of a city right here in Minnesota that has a right to renew ordinance that has not been challenged and seems to be working well for their tenants. A right to renew ordinance, I'm sure as you guys know, would require landlords to have a specific and just reason to non-renew a tenant's lease. Currently, the law doesn't require landlords to have a good reason or really any reason at all to non-renew a tenant's lease, and landlords are not required to tell tenants why their lease is being non-renewed. The only exceptions are if the tenant rents in Brooklyn Center, lives in certain types of subsidized housing, or owns a home in a manufactured home park. So to be clear, Right to Renew does exist in Minnesota already in different aspects, subsidized housing, mobile home parks, and in Brooklyn Center as well. The only real requirement outside of those exceptions is that a notice of non-renewal cannot be discriminatory or retaliatory. But because landlords are not required to tell tenants why their lease is being non-renewed, discrimination and retaliation can be very difficult to prove. And it's really risky for a tenant to assert because it typically has to be done in a defense to an eviction case. And most tenants just are not in the position to be able to risk possibly having an eviction on their record, paying the landlord's court costs, attorney's fees. and things like that. This keeps tenants from establishing roots in their communities, it results in children having to change schools far more often than they should, and ultimately it hurts the community as a whole with this constant turnover of different residents. And apart from the benefit of providing stable housing, the kind of goal of right to renew, it would also allow tenants to fully take advantage of more of their other rights given to them under the law. We hear from tenants constantly, as Michael said, who are just too scared to request repairs or request much of anything from the landlord in fear that they will not renew their lease in retaliation and they just can't afford to risk that. So owners of public housing and other subsidized housing already are required to have a good reason to end the lease, and we believe that all landlords should have that requirement as well. The reasons for ending a lease can include reasonable common issues such as lease violations, multiple late rent payments, maybe the owner is converting it for a different use, having their own family move in, or they need to renovate the property. The benefit of doing this also at the city level is that the council can also cater those requirements specific reasons that a landlord cannot renew to what is needed in St. Paul as well.

I see a question from Ms. Kim, and I'll go right after you.

More of a comment. I came to the, I think it was the talking today, the housing committee in the Senate and testified on behalf of Senator Pausville. And I'll just reiterate one of my comments to my colleagues now is, like, heaven forbid that a tenant is more informed over the reason for their denial. And that might allow them to become, kind of air quotes, a more, a better, or I think a better, more judicious way of talking about it, is a more informed tenant. So if there were issues in payment, then they know why and can then maybe prepare or think about the ways that they could budget differently or consider what their financial situation looks like. But to me, it offers the empowerment back to the tenant to be more informed for the reason for their denial to then potentially change their behavior or their practices around the issues that they were denied for. So I see it much more as having an informed tenant at the end of it, even though I don't like that. But it helps them understand how they can be a better tenant moving forward.

Council President, Council Member Kim, thank you for that comment. The amount of tenants that I have talked to who contact us because they got a notice of non-renewal and they have never been laid on rent, never had a lease violation, never had any conflict with their landlord at all, and they just truly don't understand why they're being made to move. And we have to tell them that that's currently just the way the law is laid out. It just doesn't offer tenants the type of stability they really need.

Council President Naker and Council Member Kim, it's also important is that you can list reasons why landlords can convert and hold onto a property if there are reasons that you want to put those into city ordinance, and it's clear to both sides about those options as well. Obviously, we're interested in protecting the rights of renters, but the bill that you spoke to at the state legislature did provide reasons where a landlord could take the property as well.

Thank you both. And given that we only have eight minutes left, and I know you have a few more slides, I'm going to hold my question and ask my colleagues to do the same just so we can let you get through, and then we'll hopefully have time for questions.

Just a couple more things on safeguarding against displacement. Opening up some more circumstances upon which a tenant can terminate the lease to hopefully avoid eviction would also be helpful, like upon loss of income or when they're adding a new minor child to the family and their rental is not big enough to add another person to the home. Expanding St. Paul's pre-eviction notice requirements so that landlords also have to give those in cases of breach of lease evictions and not just nonpayment of rent. That is something that Brooklyn Center has as well. Expanding defenses to eviction cases, updating the rules for evictions and what happens to a tenant's personal property when they're evicted and maybe aren't able to move everything out when they're made to leave by the sheriff, and updating the laws and remedies on illegal lockouts and utility shutoffs as well.

Homeline looks forward to working with you to address the power imbalance between landlords and tenants and advance ordinance changes that will create a fairer and more balanced and stable housing system for St. Paul renters. As the more extensive City Bill of Rights points out, there's more substance that we can provide regarding each of the items that we talked about and are happy to get into that conversation. I want to thank you for your time and happy to take any questions you have.

Great. Well, thank you so much. You have given us a lot of food for thought. And as the council member who I think presents the largest share of your requests. I've always been grateful for Homeland Services, so thank you. I'm curious, going back to the safeguards against displacement and the right to renew, I am grateful for your mentioning that we had had a tenant protections ordinance with that provision in it, which was litigated, which we were required to repeal and then repass. And as someone who was part of that process, it's really painful to work really hard on an ordinance that you believe does the right thing and then have that happen. So I'm curious. I appreciate the point that Brooklyn Center has a right to renew that hasn't been challenged. In St. Paul, we have a strong record of being challenged on everything. I'm wondering if you have somewhere, if Homeland has a list of these same recommendations, as well as a list of which ones are in effect in Minnesota cities and have withstood a challenge.

First of all, I want to say that there is one In the Brooklyn Center example, affordable housing is what's covered by the right to renew. And so that is one thing that sort of restricts. But in that city, they actually have a lot of affordable housing. And so the rental covers most of the units. So I want to just mention that as something that's different about the local ordinance. I think we'd have to do some research for you on what has been done in other cities and also take a look at what's happened across the country in cities that have had a right to renew. We're happy to do that, and we think it's a very important protection that we've been fighting for at the state level for a very long time.

Yeah, Brooklyn Center is at least the only city that I'm aware of in Minnesota that has right to renew. I think that's a pretty safe bet. Like Michael said, I think part of why Brooklyn Center is much smaller than St. Paul, but I think part of the lack of legal challenges to it is that it is limited in some way to affordable housing units, which actually make up most of the rental housing in Brooklyn Center, so it does apply to most rental housing. But we would also be happy to assist in the legal side of things and looking at other states and cities' ordinances that have withstood legal challenges and how they went about that and what specific language, we'd be happy to help with that as well.

Yeah, and in particular for, I'm not sure which ones of these were the 12 recommendations for St. Paul. I'm looking at the bold ones, but there are fewer than 12 of those. But for the most salient recommendations, it would be good to know which ones, again, have withstood a challenge, especially in Minnesota, just because I know there are certain laws that in Minnesota, the state preempts this or that that may not be true in other states. So that doesn't mean that we might not want to pursue something, but I think it's important information for this council to have as we consider what we might want to start with because, again, we do have a strong history of being litigated.

And we do have some, have started some research on the legal challenges of other ordinances before. We just do not have that in front of us today.

Thank you. Other questions? Ms. Johnson.

I guess going back to the bullet points around habitable homes and I guess specifically looking at just some of the, sorry, the fair lease piece, what are examples of regulating landlords from towing cars? What are some of the examples that you have seen work when it comes to that?

So because it's unregulated, it varies very widely. Some landlords have it very clearly in the lease that your car will be towed if it's not registered, doesn't have license plates, if it sits in the lot and does not move for too long, specific reasons that they will tow the car, which is fine. the best case scenario and some of them say that they will give you notice before they actually do the towing some of them do not and some leases will just say landlord retains the right to tow your vehicle if it's it's very some of them are very vague and it's hard for tenants to figure out exactly when or for what reason their cars may be towed but Our recommendation is just that it should be not so much to change what landlords are already allowed to do under the law, but just making it very clear what rules they have to follow and that there has to be something in the lease about it so that tenants also know what to expect if they have a car that's parked on the rental property.

Okay, thank you.

To follow up on Ms. Johnson's question, another element that I heard in it, are there ordinances right now that regulate the towing of cars, and what do they say?

Not that I'm aware of.

I think Council President Baker and Council Member Johnson, the point was made before, but just to reiterate, if someone loses a car, it can have a cascading effect. And especially if someone gets evicted because of things that follow up or they're not able to pay rent, and that can follow them forever. And so we... We are currently doing a survey of our staff to figure out what we should work on at the state level this next year. And towing came up as one of the lead issues that folks have identified as needing to take a look at just because of how frequent it happens, the number of calls we get about it, and the fact that it's unregulated right now.

I see Ms. Johnson, and I'm going to give her the last word, I think. I just want to say quickly, as you say that, that please let us know what ends up being on your state legislative agenda, I think one of our tools as a council is we can support items that are happening on other organizations' allies' legislative agendas, and we'd be happy to do that in this case. So let us know. Ms. Johnson.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be brief in just simply sharing that, like, I think this is really helpful. I think one of the things that will be really insightful to this work as it fully develops as well is just, like, I quickly glanced over just some of the City Edition pieces that are here, and I always love knowing kind of where some of these exist currently. So with some of the things that are here, just like policies looking through, I was just kind of glancing in other places. Now I think I'm most familiar out of the list around Just Cause because I have been pretty involved in some of those conversations here at the city regarding Just Cause. But for some of the other items that are listed, just like areas where cities, and I know that there was a request about Minnesota, but if there are also some comparisons in the country that I think could be helpful, or just to kind of guide us in, okay, these are ideas. Some of these ideas have been enacted yet. have not been enacted yet anywhere. Or these are some of the places that are already doing this sort of thing. So we would just encourage you to look there. I think that would be really helpful to the conversation because some of these aren't new ideas, while some of them are. And I think just to the council president's earlier statement, what my interest is and where my interest continues to be around tenant protections as well as around anything that any ordinance that's put in place at the city level is that not only here at the city that we can enforce it. Been a huge advocate for tenant protection staffing here to be able to enforce the tenant protections ordinance that we do have here, the rent stabilization ordinances that we do have here. that piece is almost equally as important as having the ordinance itself. Because if we're not able to enforce it, or if it goes into effect and then is immediately litigated, it does hurt the movement. And it has hurt it severely in our city. I think of our other places that have strong tenant unions and strong tenant organizations. You know, in some of our infrastructure, especially some of our housing advocates that were doing some of this work early 2020, like, it's just sometimes, and even before that, it's been really hard to just kind of see where folks' energy is, especially at the local level. A lot of our organizations have transitioned locally. to focusing at the state level, which I understand. But at the local level, too, it's like there's a readiness, but not if it's just going to be you do a lot of work and then you get completely overturned at the court. And I think that that's something that is really important to me when it comes to these ideas. It's like, how do we actualize it, but how do we defend it? And how do we enforce it on the back end, too? Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

I'll let you quickly respond and close.

I would just note that Mike Rod, the managing attorney in our office, often likes to say that most attorneys don't come up with ideas. They borrow them. And so there's a lot of these things that are in the 40-some-odd proposals. They've been tried elsewhere, and we can provide information. I think what would be helpful is to understand if there are some things that rise to the level of you're really interested. And then we can do some research that gets at the priorities that you are highlighting to find out what's happened in Minnesota or in the rest of the country. But it would be pretty difficult to do that for all of them right away. So we want to know the priorities that you have.

So that gives us, I think, our marching orders. And that's actually what happens in policy session. We have these discussions. We come back together. with ideas that come out of them and then often ask for more research and information. So I would expect that that will be coming out of this. Ms. Kim.

Yeah, and I'll add to that. Thank you, Coastal President. If there is interest, let my office know. There's definitely a list that we are interested that we're going to be moving forward with Homeline. And so we'd love to kind of like gauge interest in the areas that we are. So if there are things on this list that you want to dig into, please just reach out to my office and we'll coordinate with Homeline. Great.

Thank you again so much for your time, for the information, and thank you for this item, Kim. And with that, we are adjourned.