##VIDEO ID:2bCr3J9dblk## [Music] the meeting of uh the Port Authority for um October 15th to order hi first item on the agenda is the approval of the Port Authority minutes from September 12th any discussion I thank you second we have a motion on a second all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed AB that's right okay all all good okay next item on the agenda is study item on the South Loop District Plan update is your microphone is okay thank you thank you apologize by interrupting can I just ask one quick question would there be any benefit of holding this over until the mayor could also be with us um given the role he has and the vision he has and the importance that this area has to the entire Community I don't want to take away from it and I appreciate everyone being prepared for this but um and exactly that was the next comment so yeah no he's he's not going to be here yeah neither neither he or the president are here and so for that reason I I just thought it might make sense um if there isn't like a timing issue to what we're doing here that we had to get something done and which I don't believe there is would it be possible to just hold this until we had them because they they obviously I think their input and opinion on this is important commissioner hunt may I may I acting presid I forget the titles uh appropriately here I think acting president maybe but uh I was going to say I had a I think Tom and I Tom ramler Olsson uh planner Nick Johnson planning supervisor uh probably had a good solution for the mayor but maybe not president Ericson and that will also be uh connecting with the city council uh on this item obviously wearing different hat um but uh yeah I mean we welcome your guidance as how to do it the one thing about the schedule was that we hope to get guidance and feedback from all the advisory boards and commissions prior to uh the city council uh discussion uh so that sequencing probably would have to uh move around a little bit in terms of when we presented it to the city council um if we kept the same uh schedule or goals uh in place well perhaps our our board authority um administrator could weigh in on this and ask and speak to the possibility of giving um some feedback by way of email if that's you know permit it or not but I I agree with my fellow um commissioner commissioner that's the word uh and and you know because Bob Ericson has the roots deepest in history I have always found his uh input and ins sight to be of particular importance we we all have different tenders here but but um I the that's my two sents on the subject um Madame acting president commissioner Peterson um the uh I guess on this sort of item um given that if it was two people I'd be kind of in the bucket that you were um but given that it's just one person and that we have a video that could be watched and we have another means for feedback for Bob to give feedback I'd be okay with going ahead here and and having the conversation tonight yeah I'd be okay my assumption he's probably also in contact with reviewing this beforehand too yeah well the mayor will be at the city council meeting exactly exactly okay we'll hearing that all in favor then of proceeding okay yeah taken away terrific uhoh don't want to give it away thank you for accommodating uh this presentation really appreciate really looking forward to presenting what we've done so far with this project and getting your feedback uh we think that's really valuable as we understand there's a lot of knowledge on this board that could really uh benefit the update so let's get to it oh my Lord wa down kidding me there is ah no okay I think it's working sorry about this technical difficulties Okay so this is an update to a 12-year-old plan adopted in 2012 it's part of the 2024 Planning Commission work plan um it is a project that's looking to um in uh Institute priority updates to the 2012 document I'm highlighting and underlining priority updates that will be discussed later but we want to bring the document up to date we want to make it current with conditions on the ground and uh adopted City policies since 2012 um with the work we want to evaluate the implementation plan that's at the end of the document we want to give that a thorough vetting um identify and propose new projects if possible um for hopes that they could be um uh maybe considered for a future Capital Improvement plan so that's um that's part of the the impetus for this project is to bring those projects or to bring those um proposals forward okay uh but it might be helpful starting from a pretty basic Foundation uh this is U this uh this plan is at one geography that the you know the city operates at there's also the Citywide uh comprehensive plan that's um that covers everything and a lot more topics than just the specific District plan although that a district plan can be pretty thorough but nonetheless it is subservient to the comprehensive plan so it needs to comply with that comprehensive plan plan uh the benefit of a district plan is it gets into more detail it can actually address G um certain challenges and opportunities uh specific to a geography so it has that benefit and below that are small area plans and site plans those just get into further detail um with building form and um other sorts of details that District plans and comp plans wouldn't bother I have a quick question on that yeah certainly um so paying attention to what you just said MH at this being subservient to the original um so what's the differ put an update in a change or an amendment is the way I would think of it as an lawyer oh okay um uh uh president Hunt is it president hunt I'm sorry I'm still not acting president acting president hunt and uh commissioner commissioner Keller uh the well so this is when I say subservient I mean to the comprehensive plan it's still going to uh and then I'm going to get into the scope of work you know we're we're talking about uh updates not a full rewrite um we don't um I'll be discussing that in other slides but that's the um that's the scope of this project is just to Institute um rewrites to bring the plan current does that answer your question I'm sorry if if I didn't answer okay U could you rephrase or restate your question well how about we do this when as you're going through it m and you get to a point where it's an adjustment okay but it let us know where it conf where it might conflict with the original document and how this relates to it because if it was subordinate to the original document then the the revision change or we want to describe it adjustment then wouldn't have any consequence if they in Conflict right uh commissioner uh we're going to try to avoid those like there's a there's going to be a vision and goals that we're going to be maintaining that are in the original document again as this slide says it's subservient to the comp plan that's those are district plans okay this is in a an update that will be um taking uh that will uh taking precedence over the original document okay in specific parts we plan on structuring the update so that it's in um uh this is our our draft approach is to construct an addendum that will refer to text and pages that are proposing to be revised okay so the way I think that so this is a draft of for the sake of discussion M of where of of something we might Implement in a more formal way as an actual change to the plan uh commissioner correct yes this is just a study session to you know introduce the project and also get your feedback on the research that we've done so far great but we plan on uh between now and I'll get into this even fur or later when we're talking about the schedule because this is the first round of study sessions we'll have a second round at the end of this year and then we'll uh uh move into public hearings next year to have you know to get to that adoption so we're studying what we might do to make an you know honest G I'm sorry what's second we're studying with the goal of making the UN G change yes all sorry that drag off topic if that's what I commissioner yes yeah um before we start the underlayment of all this is the district vision and I pulled up the existing one offline is the district Vision changed from the old one to the new one I didn't see it in materials here I hope I didn't miss it but oh acting president hunt and uh commissioner luns the uh the vision has not changed this is we are operating from that 202 12 document where they adopted the vision and goals at that time nothing has changed since then and we have no intention of changing that vision and goals that would this is an uh because we've uh constrained ourselves to an update as opposed to a full rewrite we don't want to go through the um necessary work but still resource intensive work to construct a new vision and new goals that follow from that Vision so we are maintaining those two based on the resources we have for for this update yeah no problem okay um yeah continuing on um so I've kind of already addressed some of these points but I'll just restate them uh this update is important because it's a 12-year-old document there's been a lot of changes in the area not only with uh the on the ground conditions but the people living there the demographics have changed household numbers jobs uh um a a lot of shifts that we need to account for especially shifts in the real estate market um it's no secret that office is struggling with this post-pandemic reality and so how do we accommodate this this change in in in that market and all the other markets that are filling that void so we're going to want to take account of that there's been a lot of new development in the South hoop area so uh we want to account for that and how is that align Ed with the original in uh intentions of the of the plan adopted in 2012 do those follow through that's going to be a good discussion I I think um at the end of this presentation but nonetheless we want to uh account for that new development we know there's been significant public Investments that's really important to account for we have new staff and resources since 2012 we we have sustainability staff we have creative placemaking staff those are important additions to the city's uh to uh the city's Personnel to bring forth that expertise and have that directly um accounted for in this update they didn't have that back then but nonetheless they they made efforts to have you know to talk to creative placemaking and sustainability but now we have that expertise and staff available to facilitate this update and since 2012 we've had we've had a bunch of new plans adopted and we're going to have to account for those and how do we incorporate the bigger points from those plans into this update they don't they don't they're not all specific to the South Loop some of them are Citywide but nonetheless how do we how do we tailor them to the South Loop update or South Loop uh District Plan update and why not a rewrite we just um as I mentioned before the resources we have are more suited for an update and not for a full a fuller uh rewrite would be much bigger process plus we're trying to accommodate the timing of other plans that are coming up we have the 2050 comp plan that's kicking off next year an economic development plan uh in the making uh creative Place making has her own strategic Plan and there's uh other plans that we want uh that are going to be adopted after this plan or this update will be completed and so we don't want to go too uh full force with an update while knowing that these other documents are um being prepared and adopted after us so um a fuller rewrite would be more prudent after those those other documents have been adopted and um staff is still or I mean I I I I think the entire Market is still wondering how office is going to play out in this post pandemic world is it going to recover is it going to take a different form we just want a a fuller accounting of how it's going to shift with um with New Market realities in real estate um the original South Loop District uh plan that was meant to be a guide um for development and Capital Improvements up until 2050 so several decades and it arranged it structured itself around four um signature elements that were identified in the plan those were land down Lane 24th Avenue 34th in American and the bluff area so it IT addresses each signature element and um discusses them uh through the framework of land use Transportation Parks um Economic Development all of those are kind of analyzed through those different lenses and uh U I know you uh you you have a copy of the the vision and the goals U they're here before you on this slide um something that worth highlighting and uh might generate additional discussion toward the end is this plan was intended to transform the South Loop from a dispersed suburban area into an urban area so a lot of the policies are trying to facilitate that transformation and um we're we're going to be evaluating those that's going to be part of this and seeing how successful uh some of those U uh those strategies or policies have have been since 2012 the schedule um uh before you shows that it kicked off this project kicked off in July hopes to wrap up in April of next year and um I include a little bit at the uh right end of that schedule showing that you know we're hoping to get ideas for projects that can make it into the plan and then they'll be more supported when uh the city um develops its capital Improvement program some of those plans could actually make it into that um into that uh effort so we want to make sure that those plans are identified or those projects are identified in this update uh the the team that uh composes that for this project um each member of that team did their own review through the lens of their expertise and um Port the members of the Port Authority looked at the plan and they identified some issues that the uh that the 2012 plan uh has to deal with uh office Market trajectory is clearly a big issue that we'll have to have sorted and um we'll have to take another look at Linda Lan because it's it's developed a little bit um differently than what was intended uh as shown in the 2012 plan so that's something that's going to have to be examined as well and um they noted that uh the a business improvement district was something that was was proposed back then but I oops sorry I don't believe it's or um I haven't found any evidence that it was actually studied that was one of the projects to come out of the 2012 plan but um otherwise yeah I wasn't able to find any evidence of that study yes commissioner yeah if if you go back a page to the uh SLP vision and goal that that is the vision I had missed that going through because it's been retitled someone someone it used to be District Vision but I see is a new one I mean the it it's been it's been restructured it's basically the same but five create a sustainable District that appears to be an addition so by sustainable that's that's coded word for environmentally sensitive I'm guessing is that correct uh acting president hunt commissioner l i I don't know about coded um I think that was a a topic that was talked about uh pretty extensively in the or not extensively but it was addressed in the plan they have an entire section dedicated to sustainability not only that but all the signature elements that I identified before are examined through a lot of um principles of sustainability land use water resources utilities um so I think it's it's it's accounting for not only just sustainable development uh well I guess there was other initiatives proposed that spoke to sustainability like uh certain areawide District energy so um but I think uh some of that stuff needs to be reexamined and reconsidered um with this update that's what we plan on doing but um I I didn't mean to slow you down it's it's it's primarily the same as been paraphrased and restructured slightly okay but number five I've got the old one in front of me the one that's on the website now that I don't see a mention of that so anyhow sorry go ahead oh no problem commissioner okay so uh as part of the review of the document there is that implementation section at the end of the plan that shows um a list of projects that was proposed back in 2012 team members were tasked with examining that list and looking at individual projects and giving a status update um there were numerous uh projects that were um that that uh are relevant to the Port Authority that were found to be complete um numerous that weren't started and others that were just removed from consideration so um we did look at that uh we um uh we will be again evaluating those projects especially those that um have not started to see is it are they worth pursuing um still if they haven't if they haven't even begun so and then introducing other projects probably to take their place that's something worth examining through this process okay and uh from all these analyses of not only the document but the implementation plan uh staff with the within the scope of the work has tried to narrow the focus of the updates to a list of priority areas that staff has developed and we're happy to get feedback on it um that's certainly one of the questions I I post to you all is if this list is adequate should something be added or removed granted adding something um you should be aware that does um mean more staff resources dedicated to updating that and we're trying to manage this project uh adequately within the within the resources that we have available so uh we have five different priority areas identified dealing with parks in open space uh Transportation uh development land use Street Scapes plazas Open Spaces like that and uh sustainability updates again sustainability wasn't uh expertise that we had necessarily in the city at the time of the development or at the time of this adoption the adoption of this plan but now that we do we want that um that uh priority area accounted for in this update and now we can move on to uh questions to you all that we uh that uh me and uh Port Authority staff have drafted that you know facilitate a discussion getting to the first one um like I mentioned before we have that list of priority areas I can go back to that slide but um in your judgment is there anything you would like to add have seen added or removed or how would you um revise this list of priority areas in a way that speaks to the concerns of the Port Authority commissioner nson thank you acting president um two quick items on there for potential consideration are Public Safety I know um there have been concerns about that in the area with the transportation Network in particular um I know that this city has uh done great work on that to make sure it is but I think it's an area to take a look at and if it's something we need to plan and how do we design how do we approve things with regards to that um and then I don't think this really fits in there but just throw a grocery store that can that can survive so uh but th those would be the things that I said commissioner uh thank you one um one area and you talked about it a little bit in the introduction is something that you kind of holding back on because it's unclear where it's headed but I think the kind of the trajectory on on office based utilization is something that if it's not something that could be addressed in the update needs to be on the list of things that we need to and and and I suspect we're doing it on a Citywide basis but um in this area in particular given the amount of office space in this area something to consider in the area to make sure that we if if there's things that we should be doing to either make that be more viable or make successor uses um kind of more viable you know I'd be curious to hear about that uh acting president hunt commissioner Peterson if I may uh so um that I was I'm glad that you picked that out from the presentation that is a a topic that we do want to have addressed so we're not going to be pushing that off um to uh to a later date or to a a later update I suppose I mean again we have to be cognizant of the of the resources we have available in the time that we're hoping to accomplish the adoption of this of this update but nonetheless we think the um addressing the office uh office Market might be wrapped up in the third bullet point um development goals and guidance by area we want to make sure that we're addressing the office Market within that priority area and um to also uh update you uh staff planning staff will we're uh this hasn't started yet but we do intend to look at uh rules and regulations about office to non-office conversions um I mean the the alternative to office has primarily been residential and so we're going to be examining that to see how we can adjust any of the the code that we can't uh that's that's that that we're able to to see if we can help ease any sort of burdens or stress with converting Office to residential oh that was an additional comment that our concern that I had is just just because the office Market is what it is right now that we don't discount that entirely but still keep that as maybe something how we can pursue other space coming in there and so forth other um um business owners and so forth would be still to keep an open mind on that and just not say oh the Market's bad therefore let's switch switch gears so yeah glad to hear that commissioner yeah and to extend that um one of the things I think about when we talk about an area and how we will or will not have goals that are very specific um and clearly you know the vibe here is about what's going on in our office space but if we make a move one way or the other the question I have in my mind is are there other parts of the city where adjustments can be made to accommodate for example to put a p point on it we look at at at offices going down and make an adjustment in the relationship between residential office in South Loop such that less office and knowing that office as a Citywide thing has always been and always will be a goal um if we slice out a chunk of the office we had planned for are there other places where we could promote office to accommodate an upswing in that market uh acting president uh hunt and uh commissioner Keller uh that comment is almost reflective of some of the feedback we got at the Planning Commission meeting on uh October 10th last Thursday where some of the goals that are specific to the South Loop do they see them being applicable to other areas if they're if they're not emphasized so much in this update so I think office certainly Falls within that sort of examination is where does office if it's if it's not thriving in the South Loop where else could it possibly go um and uh and I I I think that's something we we can examine I we'll probably um we'll probably Reserve all the bulk of that s sort of analysis to the um to the comp plan update I think that'll be more thoroughly examined by then but we're certainly going to be addressing office as it um as it's seen as or its viability within the South Loop within this update we're I see this as a how people look at Bloom now we promote this city as a whole and we're putting an emphasis on South Loop so if it I have no idea the reality of people's thinking out there but but if we start backing away from from Office Space does it make people interested in office space decide that the city as a whole not so interested so we just I the concern again find point it is that do we have other places we can that are susceptible that kind of development so that the city can as a city continue that message without it seeming to be deemphasized because of one area of the city does that make sense yes yes any other comments okay uh we can move on to the next question um so with your experience uh examining the South Loop being in the South Loop your history with the South Loop are there any recent developments that occurred there where you feel like it was inconsistent with the plan as it was written in 2012 um and do you and can you offer a reason for why you feel Why You observe that inconsistency commissioner Nelson excuse Keller and I can't believe I'm actually weighing in as as him but but the last one kind of struck me when I was prepping for this meeting and and two things about it one is I don't know what the metric is for successful and the other is um that's a perception of people outside this room I mean you everybody in this room could just say I love it I'm moving there in the next minutes but I'm not sure that's the audience we're looking for so who who is is it that we're trying to succeed with and how is it we Define what success is oh commissioner Peterson thank you Madame acting president um so on your second question there um I felt that the in the sick development the the the warehouse component of the sick development um and I understand it kind of came as a bundle and and and they wanted to have a single location but if um if you had built the office and then built the warehouse separately as two separate developments it would I would have more of an internal conflict over that particular kind of use in there because the warehouse component isn't a super intense use and doesn't make doesn't make as strong of use of the infrastructure we put in there as and from an occupancy perspective as the um as the office uses are in there um you know on your third point you know I tend to be pretty patient about this sort of thing and be willing to wait um to wait for stuff to happen um you know if you look at um kind of what we've been trying to make happen in that area um it it took you know with the folding of control data in the 1980s and the process that that parcel kind of went through it took a long time for that to kind of get in a position where there was a developer you know and a Marketplace that kind of got together and kind of created what what they've been able to create over there and make that work um and we were patient and allowed that to happen um and so I think uh I think sticking sticking with something and um and saying this is what we'd like in the long run is what I would like to do um personally you know and I compare it um um you know when the um and I I think it's called Market point it's the um shopping center that has like Trader Joe's and Total Wine and that shopping center and that that parcel was originally part of the office tower next to it and the developer and their representative came and said we want to do this this power center is kind of a holding use until the office Market kind of comes along and and makes a spot and um I can measure when that happened because I was on the planet commission at that point and that would have been between 1996 and yeah you know and that was Circuit City wasn't it yeah and Circuit City and that sort of thing and so and and I think I think um you know you could you could go back and look and say is would there is that is there a different use that would have been a better long-term use on that site than that particular that particular kind of use um maybe maybe not you know at that point you had the pressure of um you know more office being developed it might have just moved that office building that that I think of as being it's just to the west of um it's just to the west of uh um of uh Trader Joe's that has the CB the CBR building I might have just moved that building kind of one parcel down on the in the rank of buildings but um I think being patient for those those sorts of developments to come along and saying this is what we'd like um at the same time having stuff stand for 40 or 50 years and not you know having a having a use is that really the right thing to do either um and I think the other thing in that third bullet that's um that's something that needs to be thought about is um you know we have in in different developments that the port have been along been involved in we have different developers with different Financial ability to kind of execute currently you know some of them are in a pretty good position to be able to finance projects and make them happen other ones um I guess we we'd say struggle you know kind of with their ability to bring Equity to projects and kind of make a deal come together and so part of I think what we have to look at is you know what who are we partnering with on particular projects and what's what what um and or in developments where there's going to be a series of projects and you know do they have the financial capability to perform in the future so um and on the final bullet I think I think we're making progress on making it be a branded place um I think the investment in public art has been a good thing I think the we have the the neighborhood by the BCS train station that I think is largely becoming a place like that and you know with the completion of the square and so on um I think is working the you know lindane I think to your point is a little bit less you know it's it's a little bit less a place at this point as opposed to a road that's got some hotels along it um um but will that will that change is is there's a little bit more development along there probably um so there's one person's feedback on that I'll pick it back on your comment about the the where the Trader Joe was and that was a to be a temporary yeah right that is youall yeah office and and that that that complex and and again that that you know that lindel lane hasn't developed like we'd like to see I mean we have a whole lot of as you drive through there you're thinking I am am I in South Loop am I in Bloomington when you go through all those apartments and on 34th and every time I go I've got clients over there and I look and it's like there's another building that's come up and and I think we've got a lot there so if we can get more and I I know I know we're focusing on that and what we can do and that that yeah grocery store that just doesn't ever come back can I can I just follow up a little bit more on that I think sure I think one of the things that that I take away from the the relative success of the BCS parcel versus the Parcels closer to the mall is I think the the I think the BCS parcel is it's a little bit more of a neighborhood you know it's it's kind of a place you can get to the river bottom you have the had some Development Across The Street the two the the uh Health Partners Tower and the um Reflections towers and the seran headquarters across the street um it has much more of the vibe of a of like a complete thing and the um they're there by the mall there's still like a patchwork of vacant Parcels you you know that you have to face the giant six-story parking garage across the street you know which is a kind of a brutalist kind of structure if you you know if you like that um you mean brutalism architecture a brutalist you know like like like the well like the tower there's Towers in Minneapolis down by the university that are that way the Ric Center and the you know is is a great example of one but um you know that that area I think you know from a kind of an arrangement of uses and and making a place we've just been much like successful over there at making a place and maybe maybe the the key thing to that is to take that away and so okay we need to redouble our efforts to make that into a place um and uh um and and figure out what needs to be done in order to make that occur um because that's I think what made what's made it work on the the East End is it's a combination of having a developer that's that's been consistent about it and a u and it and making a place commissioner lens yeah um I'm a little bit couple little questions here I printed out some of these sheets earlier in the day and on this on this one here that which was online earlier today there were six bullet points we're down to four now in this presentation and there were a couple things in there I thought were good in the SI in in the six and one of those what is your patience for implementing the plan as written which Steve addressed then and then I didn't understand this question what if the market demands something else like sick and I believe you addressed that too having a warehouse component that really isn't an urban use per se but that's such a great development employ employment employment income wise and everything else I I took that that was like the the the vegetables you had to take to get the other part yeah right that's a win-win but the other bullet point taken out was was should the city be willing to move away from walkability I don't know how you have an urban neighborhood without walkability I mean I just think that's contradictory in a statement you've got a narrower streets closer buildings height density and height you've got to to make make it walkable so you know and and this other one got taken out too what is the preferred zoning code framework for the South Loop form based or uses I don't know what that means so I'd need a little more definition on that uh and are there any concerns about mixed use I don't any concerns about mixed juice but I mean there must have been some reason this got Whitted down to four and and readapted and it must have been fairly late well I'll I'll take the blame on the second to the last one because I said that the the zoning framework is a wonky planner thing and that the Port Authority Commissioners aren't into wonky planner stuff wonk wonky yeah so I don't know if I insulting the planners I I enjoyed being a Wy planning commissioner and I think commissioner hun enjoyed it too but it's not that not this group is about so commissioner Keller did you have a comment uh yeah I wanted to support commissioner LS about the walkability and strangely enough that has some relationship in my mind to the whole grocery store thing um I don't know how many people have spent you know an Extended Stay in a rental apartment or what have you and you've done it near a highway and you have to uh either take your life in your hands or a cab just to get there and it's not worth it then then you get to the delivery thing and da and that kills the grocery store so I I just don't see how we can avoid that and and I this is maybe a ludicrous analogy but there used to be incredible street cars in this region and once you lose that right away that is gone and I think you do have to even if you don't put a sidewalk in right away you got to make the space and the other thing that I have said in a couple of different context before is if if we are going to have a sense of plac making can we at least have some residences that aren't square with square balconies that are supported by iron bars because otherwise it starts to look like a military headquarters because everything's the same and I just I I don't know I thought they was they were all very cool when I first started seeing them and now that's the only thing I can see and it makes you want to move to St Paul I mean you know it's just the truth of it there's there's a lot the coolness goes away after you get to a certain point and and and it's not the school of of barbarism um so that yes that's yes bulk it has a certain uh bulk by kind of did did we get a good deal on the same building it's a nice opue to the uh pause with that a lot of lenders have on apartment lending that uh we don't have these same properties going up block by Block City by city and they've metastized everywhere in the Twin Cities the newest stuff on yeah it's not just Bloomington Shane Shane rley God bless him always referred to the Hilton at France in 494 as the Moscow Hilton so and that's one of the nicer ones and anybody who's traveled East Germany in the 70s will uh recognize that yeah commissioner Nelson thank you um I remember that Circuit City I was in high school so just throwing that out Sean you're not old enough I remember when it was the France Avenue Drive-In and before that I think it was a massive dump landfill I'm impressed you remember okay moving on um but I do have a couple comments on this I that wasn't my only comment um in terms of um inconsistencies I I think one of the challenges that I see in the area is there are at least three different things going on you have the entertainment uh with particularly driven by the Mall of America there's some other Concepts that have come forward that maybe haven't really moved forward you have a actually really great strong high-tech manufacturing capacity with the semiconductors with s you know great jobs um and then you have the BCS and some of the stuff going on around it with more um mixed use residential type stuff and they seem a little bit segregated and how do you pull those together uh in a way that makes sense because you have great jobs residential very near each other and so I think there's a good opportunity there but um you know sometimes when I drive through particularly in some of the manufacturing stuff like I wish it was more vertical I wish we were using you know more of this land for more stuff but these are great manufacturing jobs great things and I think you know the the community has a great opportunity with um you know uh some of this high-tech manufacturing Medtech things of that nature I think the clear challenge is how do you integrate it how do you make it walkable so you can walk or bike over to your job there and and live there how do you have enough residential to support some retail obviously got the Mall of America with retail but you know um some other types of retail particularly that grocery or you know glad to hear we have a a new uh coffee shop in the area now you know you know those types of things are absolutely critical for that neighborhood feeling that you can go somewhere and grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine or something with your friends and family and so um that that's the biggest challenge I see in that area is defining a vision that includes all of those and integrates them somehow and when you look at you know an area like downtown Minneapolis I mean that is residential office and then the manufacturing industrial is kind of outside of that area and we're trying to squeeze it all into one place along with the most visited attraction or Mall in the country so and you'd like to have the people the residents there or even the people like the Polar Polar Fab and uh and not just sick we we we tend to focus on that but polar Fab's been there for years um and rather than just getting out and heading out how can we keep them here how can we keep the the residents of the tenants perhaps working in the area but certainly shopping and uh you know it's kind of a repeat we all repeat that one grocery Grocery well if I might just add one comment I mean I remember when my wife worked downtown you know you'd work and then you'd go out with your colleagues and meet friends and stuff and and there were things to do there and you know that for that livability part you know there isn't a lot of that unless you go into the mall um P Wood's fantastic I think it is but you know having some more options like that I think would really help out that area what first farmers yeah actually think they do that at BCS and to commissioner Peterson's point when you're looking at the the lovely Eastern structure of the uh the parking ramp and you've got a lovely restaurant right across the street Hazelwood a nice hotel AC and you know you they come out of there and they look at the monstrosity and it's part of the mall I mean hey I was there when we built it so um it's it's just what we have to deal with so any other questions okay um actually president hunt um Commissioners uh uh commissioner Peterson kind of addressed all the questions if if if by um himself and so if any if there are any other any other thoughts to the questions before you or um or you just have any feedback to the presentation itself happy to take it Mr Nelson yeah thank you um just one on the last question about the branding because this is an issue that came before the council at one point they were going to put the big bird um by 494 and we moved it into the back of house so um I in my opinion I think it's good that self Loop has its own identity but I think it's important that it's Bloomington and and that was the concern that we had you come in and it was South Loop and and uh that sort of thing so that's just one person's opinion is I want to make sure it's still even though it's a distinct part of it it is still Bloomington Bloomington MH okay okay um uh thank you all thank you thank you appreciate it uh have a good night and I'll well you'll be hearing from us as we again as we advance this update we'll be providing uh providing you all uh those updates as well we have a let's talk Bloomington page where we're going to be updating that page regularly as we move through the project and it'll serve as a repository for other documents too so again uh if and and uh staff is always available to take any questions or comments that you have so again thank you very much appreciate it thank you than presk thank you again for the uh attention and if I could just add one last thing is just to thank your staff uh who are working with us directly and who are conduit into this project so you have our contact information but also you can reach out uh through Holly through Barb through Kevin uh through all the port members um who are engaged in helping us in this process and so we'll we'll continue to collaborate with them and report back to you so thank you thank you can I ask one other question sure that I forgot to ask earlier since Mr Johnson came up he can take this one so um is is there any benefit or any reason why we might consider slightly delaying this because of those other projects that are ongoing um there was a slide earlier with five other studies that I think are happening over the course of the next several months forget about the comprehensive plan that's going to happen for a long time and always part of the cycle but would this benefit from those being done before this or have you coordinated the timing of this to um I just don't want something to come out of those that would have maybe changed something in this plan yeah acting chair hunt and uh commissioner Nelson the one thing I would say to that I guess is planners like to plan so there's always going to be another plan um to you know much to the shagrin about actually implementing these things is always the Second Challenge right um but you know next year we're going to start the process of looking at the 2050 uh comprehensive plan um in addition to that that we're contemplating different ideas about uh doing some small area plans that connect to the South Loop potentially an American Boulevard corridor plan if they continue to build up Transit um Along American Boulevard that'll be an opportunity um and so I don't think there's a a perfect time in terms of um how to sequence all these things would you know would South Loop benefit from knowing the exact uh strategies and tactics of the economic development plan certainly uh but I think that one can continue to feed into the other and um things can be adjusted on the fly as you kind of rep prioritize uh things and we certainly can look back when we do the 2050 comprehensive plan as well um right now uh just from a perspective of big picture what we're trying to accomplish here is we have a few key opportunity sites left in South Loop uh and we want to make sure that we're having an updated 2024 conversation as opposed to a 2012 conversation uh as to how what staff should be focused on uh as we look at those sites and do we have the right land use guid or zoning if you want to get into the wonky stuff um and what other things can uh should we be integrating into those spites with respects to public spaces and parks and those things so that's the conversation we need to have um and uh uh it's probably best not to wait too long to have that conversation thank you very much for those comments um and I also partially see it the other way too that I think it'll be positive to have this at least in the works and have some feedback um from all the groups as the plan moves along when we get to the um the airport parking in particular because I think a big part of the airport parking conversation is about the vision for this area and and what we want to do in that area and if if Airport parking is part of that plan um and and how how it's part of that plan I guess I don't want to freak anyone out but no I agree with that um uh last before I leave just uh also just want to extend an invitation to president Ericson if he wants to follow up with us individually uh we certain can make ourselves available to make sure that his voice isn't lost in this process thank you yep thank you all okay next item on our agenda is item 2.2 annual housing report 2023 presentation all things housing and we have uh Michelle Lincoln from our planning division presting in to us welcome thank you acting president and Commissioners it's a pleasure to be seeing you all um some of you have met me it's great to see you again um I presented in a joint H Port meeting this uh presentation for the 2022 housing report last year and now I am here uh to present uh the the next iteration of all things housing no budget nod there we go there we go um so I have a a a pretty short presentation for you but tonight I will be going over decog Graphics existing housing affordability and accomplishments in housing for 2023 um and we will move through those at a a good pace and then at the end I will of course pause for questions and we can disc discuss more oops let me go back here so as you can see Bloomington continues to grow um in 2022 this is based off of census data um which is also what the Met Council uses for their projections um we have increased to over 990,000 uh which and that will continue to happen over 2023 and 2040 through projections and our house number of households will also increase so we'll have more people and more households in the coming decades and 2022 uh data shows that that is the case our average household size has increased just a little bit but it's so small that we're kind of just holding steady um our households with children decreased slightly that's the uh from the last year's report so if you're looking at that that typically is um something that you look at in Trend so from last year to this year it could be a decrease that you might see in coming years uh but based on the previous five or 10 years of data this is about right about where households with children have been also it doesn't necessarily indicate the number of children in the city um households can have multiple children but they're still only counted once uh so uh a slight decrease if you noticed from last year isn't really um something to note fully right now until we have some more census data in the coming couple of years um our residents that are older than 65 have increased um 3% from last year about 3% from last year um this is also in line with Bloomington continuing to age as a whole uh like as the population the average age uh the median age is 41.8 which is a little bit down um which can be really kind of a representation of the data but it's still kind of staying steady it is the uh the fourth oldest in pure cities uh and those pure cities are listed on page five of the annual housing report uh which was in your attachments but it's also available online under HRA reports sorry I got a little rambunctious um our demographics from last year to this year have remain fairly steady um the distribution across uh across race and ethnicity have stayed about the same and so we are continuing to be more diverse every year and so looking over the next couple of years we'll probably continue to see that Trend our existing housing types are also staying the distribution of those housing types are also staying about the same 50% of our housing units are single unit detached homes um as you can see we're um the multif family is at a third um and then we have other homeowner opportunities which also could be rentals but home ownership condos Town hoses co-ops miscellaneous residential is a category that might include um properties that have had different types of improvements and don't quite fit into the other categories um so it's a little bit on the miscellaneous um miscellaneous side um but this is all of our housing we have a a a good spread of different housing types um and in the future you can consider uh continuing to uh um increase housing as well as increasing the types of housing um which could give more residents and future residents opportunities to live in the housing type that is uh right for them at the life cycle that they're in this is showing our single family rental licenses um there was 190 new licenses um last year you can see that there was 184 um it stays about the same because some people don't renew and some people um have new licenses so it stays fairly steady as you can see for the last few years um it's been increases of 30 you've had some dips and and but it stays fairly level Madam chair so one thing I've read about a little bit is at least at the national level there's a trend toward like corporate buyers of housing for single family homes for rental you es um and it seems like that hasn't happened at least in Bloomington do you do you think that that do you think that's like a regional thing where they just haven't come to the Twin Cities and bought up homes like that or what do you think what what when I read about that and then I look at this I'm like why why am I not seeing that Trend here so um acting president and commissioner Peterson um so with Bloomington uh Lyn Moore or environmental health um uh uh uh supervisor spoke a little a little bit about this and um there are a few I guess you could say corporate landlords that do own some housing single family housing in Bloomington um but those are people that have kind of been here uh for like established like they've been here for a very long time um the and the kind of coming in of of of maybe do you mean like National other National or investment yeah I just that do that and I know I know some of that market is where they're off buying like part of a subdivision or having something built built as single family for the purpose of renting it out but I also know that there have there have been businesses that just accumulate property then um yes I just wanted to clarify to make sure I knew which corporate uh landlords you were were you talking about um I think that in Bloomington um some of the factors that go into that might be holding that office we don't have like a ton of vket land that we're building large subdivisions in so a lot of times like uh you know Equity capitalists or Venture capitalists that might be doing that don't really have the opportunity here um also uh um it just hasn't been as present I'm not clear on why um it could be a lot of things to do with our zoning ordinance or our policies that have um made it so that way LGE large SVS of single family homes are being purchased also or single actually this might help here let me go to the next slide here that might also help contribute there's many characteristics I'm actually going to skip ahead just a little bit I'm hoping that I have this in here um our medium home value in Bloomington is 361,000 um so that means 50% of houses are more expensive and % houses are less expensive than that number um sometimes in those cases purchasing at that price in order to rent out doesn't make sense and also in the last you know three years with the cost of debt makes that even less appealing um so it does affect our affordability for you know residents who want to live here for rents and Home Ownership um but may have also deterred um uh people from purchasing in this market for that purpose uh so it's a little bit of a double-edged sword um so there's the um and that could this might be a good place to operate where we try to have more build more housing have more affordability in order to get it to people who need housing like individuals who need housing um without having as many as much impact from the trend that you're talking about nationally okay in some places yes yeah Michelle yes yeah um would you go back to rental licensing yes the line the two Lin can you give me a little clarification on that they're I don't know what we're showing here we got a Gold Line and a blue line I don't see a key on it and so I don't yes the blue line is the total Ral licensing and the Gold Line is new licenses oh those are new licenses okay thank you I missed that I apologize thank you um just one thing to follow up on commissioner Peterson's comments um uh I don't know why historically there haven't been a lot but I think one of the things that those corporate larger investors look for is buying groups of houses at one time and our rental licenses tend to be um from what I recall that we got information on last time this was asked about is um individual or maybe like you own just a few houses and so we just for whatever historical reason we don't have someone who had 50 houses and had someone from you know a hedge fund come in to want to buy them and it's much more difficult to buy one at a time than to go buy you know 10 or 15 at a top portfolio of them and so I think a lot of this just has to do historic Ally with you know strong home ownership and you know um you know the rental market was maybe largely people in this community that moved into a different house and rented out their previous house or something like that so that just I think it's a great question though I think it's really important to keep an eye on yeah and I don't just to follow up I don't I don't think it's necessarily like a good thing or a bad thing necessarily um you know some people accuse them of jacking PR up um I just I'm just it's more of a curiosity question yeah acting president and Commissioners additionally Twin Cities as a whole um it's showing that investor owned single family rentals are actually only 3.4% of rentals in the Twin Cities as a whole so it seems like there is kind of a regional um uh Trend as well and so Bloomington being in the region is also kind of falling into that this is um housing tenure I show the United States Minnesota and Bloomington and then break it down by race and ethnicity um Bloomington has a larger uh home ownership percentage of uh housing of people households that are owner occupied or renter occupied um it's greater than um the us but not Minnesota as a whole Minnesota has a strong own homeowner residential population as you can see there's great disparities between white Hispanic and white non-hispanic and other races in home ownership uh the largest gap being between white Hispanic and not and white non-h Hispanic and black or African-American home ownership um a majority of uh people in housing or households in uh Bloomington that are black African-American are renter there's a lot of s that go into that but it is something of note in order to uh be mindful of as we are trying to increase home ownership um people who want home ownership we want them to own homes not everyone does but many many people do so it's just kind of being mindful as we try to increase those numbers and getting the people that want homes into homes that they own um Madam president I got the question here commissioner Peterson um so considering the second and the third lines on here the second one being the Minnesota Statewide and the third one being the Bloomington one mhm um and you see there's about a 4% difference in ownership percentage for Minesota versus Bloomington um how much of that is do you think is attributable to differences in the demographic comp composition of the City versus the state in other words how much how much of this is how much of that difference is reflecting just demographics of the City versus some other factor I think that there's a lot of considerations going into the difference between Bloomington as a like a locality municipality versus the state one of them also might be um uh there are just less renters outside of the Twin Cities metro era like per capita I mean like in some place that might be more rural you might be seeing where people have uh just bought land or their homes um or they might have a generational kind of ownership as well where parents may have passed due uh to children and then their children to their children um as well also cost of land is also less um outside of the Twin Cities metro area which could mean that people uh the affordability might draw more homeowners or land owners to those other areas um so there's uh when you kind of look at the city as or excuse me the state as a whole and you start kind of putting every single um you know person in the pot and and determining um r owner or renter occupied housing um you kind of get this this difference this about 3% difference um which is in the sheer number when you think about like people is quite large but in percentages are fairly close but those factors those factors I mentioned could also impact why there might just be less renters outside of the metro area based on like cost of land and housing so income and employment uh Bloomington uh continues to uh increase in the median income uh year-over-year um along with the henpen county and the region um the henpen county Bloomington and the region are all kind of increasing at a similar rate except you see here in the region that in 2022 the income uh uh stayed fairly the same while incomes for Bloomington and hanban County increased there's still a lot of impacts that are kind of coming from uh covid and uh the change in a lot of employment Industries um and salaries which could contribute to that um so that's why we might have seen this um you know 2021 and 2022 kind of stay the same things are still adjusting from that time additionally I have the regional area medium income here these are the numbers from HUD this is what they consider um 100% of the area median income is $124,900 this is $6,700 more dollars than last year um these important these numbers are very important because it determines these are the thresholds for affordability um these numbers here in their formula extrapolate to what's an affordable home price and what's an affordable renting price um so seeing that increase also me means that it's responding kind of prices you know the economy but it's also um showing that as these increase 6,700 more dollars median or like incomes for individuals may not have increased in the same amount so more and more people are being captured in some of these 80% or below am uh which means that housing affordability as well as other necessities are uh very important and and at the very Forefront of many households Minds Medical Care daycare and how their income is responding to that um and will become like a greater concern to anyone in Bloomington as time goes on commissioner lens yeah um I'm just noting the disparity between henpen County and Bloomington and uh if you go back to 2010 it was really close widened a little bit 2020 24 widened quite a bit and it narrowed a little bit in 2022 do we know why I mean what's happening why are we falling behind the county I know or have been um numbers disparity is increasing is what I'm saying I'm not sure okay thank you commissioner Nelson thank you can you help me understand the difference between the region median income at 87,000 and the regional area median income at 124,000 I mean that's $37,000 difference between the two can you just help me understand how those numbers relate or don't relate I would do the best I can to to explain HUD formulas so this is um so this is what HUD calculates in order to determine thresholds for like assistance and benefits and a lot of agencies and uh governing bodies follow suit um so 100% Ami is 124900 100 um and we're probably between 60 and 80% Ami for our median income um for that it kind of means that a lot of people who are in that bracket are available for like can get assistance as costs go up um this does put more strain on programs so you know being mindful um and making sure that those uh you know we we're taking Tak advantage of money that comes down from higher levels of government or um the the monies that we produce at the municipality level um are there in order to respond to the market and incomes changing in this way um it also means that the people who might need benefits are have are eligible for them and I think HUD there's a lot of things that go into it their formula isn't public like super public so but uh it's kind of showing like if you make this amount of money in this region then you're good there's probably housing available that is Affordable to you um you can afford the cost of necessities and that's kind of what they're saying here um it's not necessarily indicating luxury or like extreme wealth but it is showing that the thing the things you need for quality of life you have access to and can pay for and so they're saying if you don't have that here are the other percentages of area medium income and then programs are developed from there in order and who they service I appreciate that I as a policy maker my concern about it is that if the median income really is in the region 87,000 not 124,000 you know as a community we are investing significant money through Tiff and other programs we got a Housing Trust Fund and all that and a lot of that is going towards people at 60% Ami you know to what we would call Affordable but that just seems to be the median and and I just that's how far out of skew housing is for most people that you know we have to look at ways to subsidize the construction of housing that frankly someone at the median can afford and and uh yeah it it I think it exac doesn't exac it highlights the huge issue that housing and the affordability of it is within the country and the region commissioner Keller um I'm sure because I'm uh completely lacking in the ability to deal with numbers that it's obvious to all other humans here um but I noticed that there 20% increments reflected here except 50 to 60 being a 10% in in increase Step Up rather bracket what have you what what's what's the deal with it why why this seems like an odd sort of um shrinking in one bracket that's inconsistent with how the other ones are defined is there per behind that acting president commissioner Keller I am unsure of the Hud's reasoning for that distribution that consistent with my apprehension of the federal government so I I too accept that response thank you so here's the unemployment rate over time showing Bloomington and the county and the region um Bloomington is the blue line um as you can see we um the region had an increase in unemployment from 2022 to 2023 uh these numbers come from uh the Minnesota employment and economic development um uh state agency which is why we have 2023 numbers and we don't stop at 2022 just to clarify kind of where the data is coming from so as you can see in 2023 the region had an uptick in unemployment um and blue maint continues to uh drop uh there was a very dramatic drop from 2020 to 2021 and now we're kind of seeing marginal drops from there likely attributed to co yes yes acting president there uh covid was definitely responsible for that spike in 2020 um which kind of produced just a like broad industry impacts um and seeing that's why also as the area every geography kind of adjusted and and new things where um new Solutions and strategies were implemented we saw kind of this this drop in in unemployment um also some people may have exited the employment Market but I would also like to attribute to adaptive strategies also helping people retain or get new jobs commissioner Nelson I did it again commissioner Keller well we are the same in all important respects okay um and this comes less than a form of a question I think and maybe more of an observation but when we were talking about uh mediums medians um I mean this 2.5 is a crazy low number um and and one wonders what from the 76 the 25 what income levels are reflected in this nearly full employment so in other words um has their has the median gone down or up depending on and I obviously it does depending on the um income of the added job so if we get a whole bunch of low paying jobs is going to drag the median down because there's that many more low jobs right and that many no matter how many high paying jobs there are there is if the bottom expands the median got to come down or I I'll ask all my people who AR numerically competent to correct me yeah well that's but that says something and I'm trying to figure out what it is I think it's good okay I'll buy that but but there's there's something underlying all that I think is is is it that it it it isn't reflected within the realm of my intelligence or competence I think um in inflation and a tight labor market puted the wage that people are making or the salary that people are making up the last couple years okay so the new jobs if you will are not coming in at the bottom at the rate perhaps they have in the past or what have you because the inflation and the economic pressure unemployment has I mean these are not you know migrant labor jobs obviously but but so that's but even the low income ones I mean drive past McDonald's and they're paying over $20 and you know even the the lower income jobs are paying more now than they did okay pre pandemic and that's the answer I was hoping to hear yeah uh and I don't know that that's the answer that's just my opinion well so if it comes from you it's got to be right yeah I don't think that's true thanks I didn't I don't mean to drag us too far in the weeds but acting um president and commissioner also the median is showing where the middle is an average would show kind of like if there was an influx um or there's also like there could be high paying jobs leaving the market as well as low paying jobs coming in there's kind of a lot of different factors here um but any of those in the direction could skew an average in pull an average in any direction but the median is showing the middle um where 50% of of salaries are higher and 50% are lower so there would have to be you know in your question a significant amount a number of jobs at a salary below the median in order to shift the median um uh in a significant way and but and all of the presumably changes housing values because the dollar is chasing the housing which influences tax base so it has that positive cascading I guess is Posite of a Cascade it's an uphill scade um just just just wanted to understand that because I we're back it's how it relates to our economic health in general and and the trend in is good in many ways I guess for those of you who understand it thanks it looks good thank you Additionally the state is also increasing its minimum wage number for uh companies that are larger than 100 employ or yes larger than 100 employees starting January 1 um so we're kind of seeing an adjustment at all levels which kind of shows the the increases there this is housing cost burden broken down by income um housing cost burden is where you spend 30% or more of your income on your housing um from last year the uh number that has changed is in owner occupied housing which is yellow that's less than 20,000 um that number decreased by 3% so was 93% last year um a lot of things could have contributed to that if you're kind of looking at last year's report in this year's report a lot of things could be contributing to that um either uh th those households sold their home um and theyve uh moved into housing that is more affordable for them they could have also paid off their mortgage so um housing is no longer a part of their expenses except for things like property taxes and insurance um so with home ownership uh there's a lot of factors that can go into why that number decreases um and would take a little bit more digging in order to uh figure out kind of where the main considerations were for this drop from year-over-year additionally with Census Data it's kind of the best available data we have but it's also a survey and they extrapolate numbers and estimate numbers um so it' be very interesting to see in coming years what this trend is um could be something to look into in the future for noticing sharp decreases over time um for other income banss um they've all increased just checking here they've all increased in housing cost burden so from $20,000 or more and including uh for $20,000 and more uh housing cost burden has increased as housing costs rise owner occupied housing as you in Combined uh that between owner occupied and renter occupied owner occupied has decreased which makes sense when we look at the less than 20,000 band and showing that decrease in housing cost burden um and for renter occupied housing it has is increased by 3% from last year so just continues to kind of show um the Imp impa that unaffordable housing has on the population as a whole uh because even those who make 75,000 or more are seeing increased housing cost burden uh last year it was 3.9% and 3.7% so next year it'll be when the data comes out it'll be important to kind of see if that trend is continuing where more people are becoming housing cost burden commissioner Lin yeah Michelle the first bars on the left got me a little puzzled if if your income is less than 20,000 oh my question just is how can you afford to own a house to start with if your income's less than 20,000 I mean I understand the 981 you're a senior seniors seniors think about seniors exclusively yeah thank you I rely on Mr Peterson a lot acting president and commissioner lens yes I agree with commissioner Peterson um it's often because they might have uh retirement income Which is less than $20,000 a year um and or they may have other things that are supporting them um where the the housing is might be the biggest expense they have um but as mortgages get paid off then it's great and this is why income not a accumulated wealth or yes this is by income now this is a little this includes um things like dividends or interest payments um what is considered just pure job income um is called benefits or excuse me is called wages and compensation under the um under the census so this is including is it it's expanded to include other sources of income um our median for benef uh wages and compensation in Bloomington is something like 64,000 if you're only considering what people earn from their jobs so it's much lower when you do wages and compensation um but typically you see the the expanded like where from all income sources we looked at the slide a little bit earlier um here's the the HUD area medium incor uh coming in to play again um those family income levels are what uh was shown earlier but only in the 80s per and Below excuse me and this is an affordable home price um for each of those Ami bands um so as you can see for 80% Ami uh which is the next band down in the HUD levels an affordable home price would be $334,700 and in 2023 our median home value was $361,000 uh $800 um so that means that likely more than 50% of the housing would be considered unaffordable based on the HUD numbers um in in Bloomington uh so definitely indicates uh a very tight market for the houses that people can afford High competition um and also um a lot of houses that for those who are in search of housing they can't find affordable housing commissioner Peterson um I was I was think this slide is an interesting one because is um the like if you if you look at that 80% number for example and you say that there's a that that I think the I think thinking about kind of kind of Supply demand balance in this area requires knowing like how many how many houses were available in that $34,000 range and how many people were in that 88% Ami bucket because that's really where the market is meeting in terms of supply and demand um and you know I think it's it's clear like you know at the 50% Ami you're probably talking a townhouse in Bloomington or a condo um is really your choice for housing you know anything that's reasonable in the city that that a single family home under $200,000 is not much of a single family home if we had any sales and under $200,000 in there but that's you know when I look at this I that's what I always wonder about is um is if you if you stratify the the kind of number of families and the number of properties available that that would be the interesting analysis here for me to really to really look at the supply demand balance situation and I just want to clarify one thing the source of this are assessment reports met Council these are not on actual sales I mean except that of course assessments reflect sales to a certain thing but you can go on multiple listing service every day and find out what the average sale price of a house value is different from sales so just acting president and commissioner the Bloomington housing transactions table on this slide in the well I guess for me in the upper right um that is based on the assessment data um so that's coming from City level collected data and that lets median sales price for those trans transactions uh last year so possibly yeah condo um maybe a town home depending on on which 50% above or 50% below you're searching for as far as um sales price Bloomington average rent stayed fairly steady steady from 2022 to 2023 see only slight increase in the at total average price um there was a significant there was slight increases in studios to three bedrooms um which indicates why it kind of went up a little bit um the largest increase was from 2021 to 2022 um which could be also still impacts from covid um housing availability our vacancy our combined vacancy for both owner occupied or or owner or home ownership um househ uh homes and rental homes um is below 5% um it's and it's very low for home ownership it's one it's a little over 1% vacancy um and about 4.9% vacancy or excuse me 4.2% uh vacancy for for rentals so that kind of um can explain some uh larger increases from 21 2021 to 2022 to 2023 U but not so much from 2022 to 2023 as things kind of uh uh plateaued and balanced out in our naturally occurring affordable housing um this becomes from um a report of all of the rental units that report the rents u based on their type of unit um by bedroom the total units so out of the 10,18 units that were reported numbers for their rental properties um about 60% of them are naturally occurring affordable housing this is housing that has not received subsidy but it's considered affordable um usually there's other factors like the age of the unit the size of the unit um impact the amount that uh of rent that's charged compared to last year um studio and one-bedroom numbers uh number amount of Noah had increased um two-bedroom and three-bedroom naturally occurred affordable hous housing decreased so they are less of a share of the uh total naturally affordable uh housing occurring affordable housing units so I want to talk a little bit about some HRA program accomplishments in housing um so 700 households were uh assisted with h in our housing Choice voucher programs um we also uh were on purchased one home uh for rental homes for future home buyers um which is where uh it is a a owned property and people can rent there a portion of their rent goes into uh an account to help them save up for um uh a down payment for a home um five there were five moves or turnovers from our rental homes for future home buyer home buyers programs um and then also in our journey to home ownership uh which is an educational program there was 108 people registered over at 11-month time frame and out of those 1089 participants purchased homes this is a little bit of a breakdown of our residential development and services and the home ownership assistance so as you can see in our home improvement loans uh we had 37 loans um approved and we had a total assistance of over $1 million for those people who were in that home improvement loan programs um 35 loans were repaid in full um and the total repayment amount was a little over a million dollar the average repayment amount was just under uh $30,000 additionally in our housing and environmental Loan program um for people who need assistance in making Health like environmental health improvements to their homes there were nine loans approved and the total amount of assistance was 63,000 about an average of 7,000 per loan for down payment assistance we had 14 loans approved in 2023 the total amount of assistance was 147,000 B a about a little over 10,000 uh per loan and the average home purchase price was $377,000 314 uh which if you noticed is really close to that Ami uh affordable housing number that HUD says what's a affordable um at 80% Ami um so definitely these programs help people stay in their homes by being able to have Capital into order to improve them make sure they're still quality hous as well as helping people afford uh homes in Bloomington as far as new development Kenny who is following me with the oo de development or excuse me update will talk about new development uh in his presentation um coming up after me thank you I really appreciate you listening to to me talk about data I really love data and I love sharing it especially about housing so I appreciate a captive audience um and if uh what questions do you have commissioner Keller so I have single family housing and then multif family housing and blah blah blah blah where does a duplex fit into any of those categories duplex would be let me here see here I have a breakdown excuse me here um so just looking here duplexes fit into miscellaneous residential of course all right thank you you're very welcome commissioner lens did you have a question just real quick questions pure curiosity Michelle I I see uh H bought five Lots did it say uh yeah five Lots I was just kind of running what's a lot go for in Bloomington I mean do you do you know have to top your head if you don't that's fine too I was just kind of wondering about that um acting president commissioner I do not know what the average lot goes for in Bloomington that's a vacant be land lot I presume too because you're differentiated from homes that were purchased to be scraped and then okay location location thank you Michelle thank you so much Contracting president Commissioners it was a pleasure if you have any more questions please uh don't hesitate to reach out to me I'm happy to provide more information or even do a little bit more analysis well I could do a lot more analysis actually for you I love it um so that for just putting that out there um and uh you can also reach out to the HRA um with additional questions about their programs um as well as assessment or environmental health for continued data about some of the numbers that I showed you if you have more in-depth questions questions but thank you thank you the next item on our agenda item 2.3 is the opportunity housing ordinance report and we have Kenny NE presenting where did KY go right down there okay there you are I thought I saw you yeah you're going to do this okay thank you acting president hunt and Commissioners so tonight we have our opportunity housing ordinance annual update this is a update that's required by the opportunity housing ordinance and it's required to be brought to the city council before October 1st of each year and also it is brought to interested boards and commissions such as yourselves uh we brought it to the H I believe that was last week or maybe the week before so um yeah we'll cover these three main topics we'll go through the annual update we'll talk through some upcoming projects uh around the opportunity housing ordinance and then as Michelle mentioned I'll quickly go through development updates that have taken place over the last year so just to ground and actually we've already talked about a lot of this but um the rent and income limits uh which we use to establish what we consider affordable rents in our um developments that come into the city here those get set by Hud at the federal level and they change each year um except for this year so this year they they didn't change so from 23 to 24 for the the levels that we consider um affordable for our Bloomington programs that starts at 60% Ami and below the income amount didn't change and therefore what's considered an affordable rent did did not change but it's worth pointing out that it's quite expensive still so we call out for example a two-bedroom is almost $1,700 a month and that's considered affordable for our programs for purposes of our programs so this chart shows um what developers uh have taken in terms of our development standard flexibilities that they become eligible for through our opportunity housing ordinance so as you're aware we've got the two uh two c categories of incentives that the oo offers one are these uh one are the development standard flexibilities the other are Financial subsidies those are actually both in this chart so you can see all developments that have come through the city since the oo was adopted in 2019 have taken advantage of the parking stall reduction uh We've also had a majority of projects receive tax increment financing or request and receive tax increment financing Ing and then I'll point out that in 2023 uh we had the first utilization of the project-based housing voucher so that's that the farthest right um and that was in support of the 700 American Boulevard development that is hopefully breaking ground in the coming weeks and so we were able to partner with them to get eight project-based vouchers in that development which provides affordability at that deepest 30% Ami level Madam chair can you remind me on the previous slide what the difference is between the density bonus and the floor area ratio bonus because I I I'm I can tell you what the FL ratio is but I can't tell you what the density one is acting president hunk and Commissioners this comes up often uh and the reason that it comes up is there's they're basically a duplicate efforts um and so the reason that we don't see that F bonus get utilized is that the density bonus achieves the same purpose we still hold them in the ordinance as an option but yeah that that is a question that comes up for sure so moving on I wanted to provide a brief report on the affordable housing trust fund which was established concurrently with the opportunity housing ordinance back in 2019 and it was originally funded with a loan of around $15 million from Old National Bank so since 2019 we were able to deploy all of those funds um in the form of an affordable housing trust fund loan to th those five developments that you see on the right uh the per unit subsidy amount has varied over the years um and we can see um on the left that second bullet of creating deep affordability um we were able to support 23 units of housing affordable at that deepest 30% Ami level um as a direct result of this subsidy going forward uh we also saw the preservation of 306 units of what what we consider naturally curing affordable housing so we were able to keep those affordable in Bloomington um but the the thing that's important to note is that that 15 million has been expended so what we need to work on doing is identifying a new funding source there are some uh dollars that are coming in that may be appropriate for the affordable housing trust fund mainly the local affordable housing aid which is the Metro sales tax the % that gets distributed to cities and municipalities um we've received our first half payment for 2023 the next payment comes later this year in December and then next year we'll start receiving the full amount um each year so this year we've received a reduced amount but it's it's there that may be a suitable source to support this trust fund so I wanted to briefly go over compliance takeaways um because last year or 2023 was our first year for the um an in-depth compliance process with our property managers that have units that were required through the opportunity housing ordinance so I will note that um low-income housing tax credit projects work directly with the state for their compliance so we didn't do a duplication of efforts there we simply requested um compliance reports from the state um but I wanted to highlight takeaways from the other projects so mainly our mixed income projects um and there was it was basically a mixed bag so we had a lot of success with the newly open projects um after providing technical assistance to get them running to get them through leas up we found that they've been very successful with compliance uh we then also found that some of the older developments that uh have been operating for a couple years now uh aren't were not in full compliance so there have been efforts to um that technical assistance provided to ensure that they uh in compliance and then we did in one case require some back pay um was paid to tenants of a property that wasn't um in compliance so that was the first year results here and then considerations going forward include potentially partnering um with an external organization to conduct compliance and that's something that we're exploring and so we we may have more information on that coming up uh and then I uh wanted to go over some upcoming projects and so the main one will be the housing Nexus study we this is the um the housing Nexus study is what was commissioned to inform the initial opportunity housing ordinance um it was the basis for the requirement of 9% of units being affordable at 60% Ami and also for the the fee andl rate of $9.60 per square foot and that was commissioned in 2018 2019 and it's reached the end of its uh relevant lifespan so it's been 5 years so we were successful in getting $45,000 from met Council to fund a renewed study and the plan is to open the RFP for that study this month uh which would inform potential updates to those those uh affordability benchmarks which would come in front of these um in front of you the Port Authority as well as H Planning Commission and city council for final approval and implementation the other um some other efforts that are underway I've just listed out here you can take a look and happy to talk through any of these if you'd like and then finally um I'd like to report out on our met counil goals so this is the housing need allocation the Met Council uh um determines based off of projected growth for the the Metro region uh it allocates the need for affordable housing M by municipality so you can see uh on that bottom column or sorry the bottom row is the housing need that has been allocated to Bloomington and we've been very very successful in in achieving that um new development for the 60% area Medan income and 50% area median income band so if all of the projects that are currently under construction are completed will have achieved the the goal for 50% Ami um and that's for the $700 American Boulevard project specifically once that's done we'll have reached that Benchmark but of course we have a long way to go on 30% Ami units so um a lot of success with the the higher uh the units that are affordable to households earning a little bit more and this highlights again um that affordable housing trust fund that I mentioned you can see all of the units um in the 30% Ami band were supported with trust fund loans so the at least so far that's the way we've been able to get those units to be built in Bloomington is by subsidizing through our trust fund so we'll have to um we're we'll need to work to find a new source for that um if we want to continue getting those units built so finally I'll quickly go through some uh updates to development projects that have happened over the last year so we've had four developments completed um since I was last in front of you that's carbon 31 Riser Noble apartments and oxboro Heights um we have currently three developments under construction there's The Enclave development at 671 West 78th Street they recently finished their environmental cleanup so they had some asbestos Laden soil and they were they partnered with the city to get cleanup funds to to clean that up and so that's been finished and they they've now started the actual structure and then 1801 Boulevard is well underway and then the AR is reaching completion there and the AR um to to refresh you is a fully market rate development that elected to pay the fee in Li of affordable units so we're currently holding that fee inl um in the within the city um and if they so choose to to develop a sub a subsequent Housing Development that includes affordable units they can tap into that funding if they don't do that by August of next year that funding gets released and we could then use it to support um housing activities as we see fit affordable housing activities and then finally 700 American which I already mentioned they have reached closing for this deal and groundbreaking is expected in the coming months and so that is the annual housing report for 2023 thank can I see that 10th slide for just a second what can you remind me oh 10 okay page 10 look is that this no that well that actually helps me but going forward the the beginning of the part where we're moving into this last phase of this discussion here back one more that's page 10 yep it's not the 10 all right fine can you go back one more and then I'll quit buck with the here's the reason I asked that so to to support my earlier appointment with the exception that I believe I got this right of a slide slide seven where there's a group of three pictures in the middle of which is not I think every picture of a building in this presentation is of that architectural model that I raised before so just thrown out there this it seems awfully consistent with the idea that there's if we're going to talk about diversity architecturally is a problem just you know not driven to that but I do have an actual question that's actually more helpful so so everything we do that's affordability related is based on these brackets is that correct so the the HUD brackets acting president and Commissioners in terms of reporting and in terms of how we set the requirements for those properties yes we use those uh brackets the banding is that how it's done with respect to individual renters receiving the benefits of what we do acting president and Commissioners so if renters wanted to live in one of these units they would have to show that their income for their entire household is at or below the income level at that ban yeah so that percent so and I as an administrative matter that seems really sensible to me uh it it it just you know when you look at the going $1 doll over the current bracket the financial penalty for the increase in cost is disproportionate and and and that's one of the reasons I was curious about the 10% increment between 50 and 60 as opposed to the other ones uh because some some granularity in these brackets would be um beneficial to the people that we perceive to be worthy of benefit uh and and I suppose because we're we're we're we are founding our decisions on HUD numbers if I understand this correctly there's not a whole heck of a lot we can do about it I guess but there's a fundamental unfairness fairness issue there and mean I mean there's a there's a lot of consequence to potentially small incremental change to the individual so I that's a common question Cry for Help yeah whatever acting president hunt and Commissioners I think it's a great question and it it is an issue that I've heard across programs that work through this framework so for example our our housing Choice Voucher Program experiences that same difficulty I do want to mention with our affordability program once uh households get into a unit M if their income exceeds that threshold they are able to remain in that unit for up to 5 years so they don't they're not uh like evicted the their rent doesn't increase okay that helps me a lot so it does yeah the the goal isn't to displace those households um and then I just pushed some taxes out the door and you know the granularity of tax tables is so much granual all right thank you that helps any other questions thank you thank you okay next item on our agenda is item 3.1 contract for Port Authority Bond Council services and this will be covered by assistant Port administrator thank you acting president hunt uh this evening uh the board is asked to approve the services agreement extension to approve Kennedy engraven chartered um this is the ports bound Council um using it again in 2025 the current Services agreement was first approved in 2022 um will expire at the end of 2024 uh this does allow us to have two one-year extensions uh this will be the first of one no change to the fees $250 per hour for attorneys and $150 per hour for paral leals um and it is expected that all Bond uh Bond Council services for Bloomington will still be perform by Julie Edington uh we do have uh Chief Financial Officer Lori economy Scher here for any questions um and also Julie Edington is online virtually thank you any questions commissioner Peterson uh Madam acting president I move we approve the professional service agreement as stated in the staff report second we have an approval first and a second all those in favor signify saying I I I I motion carries okay the next item on the AG agenda is 3.2 hanpen County business district initiative grant program resolution also to be covered by m wolf thank you acting president hunt so this evening before you uh we're looking at um applying for the business district initiative grant program with henpen County last year we also applied for the program for um dollars we received $35,000 uh to be awarded out to businesses in our community the site and facade Improvement program is a new program in 2024 has been very successful um and so we are applying for it again in uh 2024 uh so just wanted to give you a little background information um the item before you tonight is quite easy it's allowing us to apply for the grant um if we're awarded the Monies to receive them and then also do the budget transfer um but I also wanted to take this time to update you on the program for this year uh we did allocate $150,000 in the budget for this year uh we also did uh receive the BDI Grant last year to be utilized this year for $35,000 we also use some additional funding uh to award 10 um grants this year uh for almost a total of $223,000 so here's a list of the 10 businesses that were awarded um and taking a look at again this is open to all businesses in our community although we are taking uh a specific look at the eight priority commercial nodes uh we'll move to a map next but I just wanted to highlight here for the $223,000 that we're um awarding that's almost 5 .5 million of investment in our community on the map here this shows in the pink areas now this isn't Citywide this is sort of condensed to show you the area War where the awardees have been uh the pink areas are the neighborhood commercial Priority nodes that have been identified by the city council and then uh the blue dots are where the awards have been given the first one that we have uh dispersed a check to just happened last week uh comfort in the uh front faces 494 uh the owner here uh came in and is a small business owner that started his business his first business in Bloomington over 30 years ago uh he owns comfort in um and you can see here doing an update to the exterior of the the building and what it looks like with the completion uh with new windows new siding bringing it uh a little more modernized uh especially with the windows and the stucco sure they stuck over the bricks it was brick right yeah it has to have a special application that was approved by planning first for the siding mhm MH I have a quick question ker I maybe I just read this long I was looking for periods instead of comments but and I see we only gave it somewhere in the name of $20,000 to the hieropolis is that how we EUR opilus okay is that project really $1 and A5 million what the heropolis one okay that business guy here thing uh wow it was a small what former boss of donuts looking yeah I know and I just drove by it this evening yeah I mean wow that's a lot of money it's kind of a messy corner too very rer gas station title problem oh all right acting president and Commissioners just just so an update on that too urab has purchased the vacant gas station in 2020 so the cost for that purchase is outside of this uh we also receed received a grant um that we uh um subrecipient uh was europolis for $8,400 to help with infrastructure and demolition um so current project here is $1.5 million but I would say overall it's a much more expensive project and so this and so for this program it allows for a minimum of $5,000 up to$ 24,99 $99 uh for a one toone match uh with grant funding and private investment and so tonight um just asking for uh action for applying for the program for the grant program with hen County so moved motion by commissioner kellerer second second by commissioner Peterson all those in favor signify by saying I hi hi motion carries thank you uh the only other updates that I have acting president is I would just like to make note that the next meeting in November is on the 19th uh but just as a reminder in December we're moving back to the second Tuesday so it'll be on December 10th in December and that's all I had if there was other updates from president hunt that's it motion to adjourn oh I can do it I can do it we are adjourned [Music]