##VIDEO ID:7EIRi7SbHmE## okay folks we've got a green light we'll go to work well good evening everybody it is uh October 1st 2024 and this is the city council meeting for the city of Viana it is 7:03 p.m. and uh as director benro indicated we've been handling these meetings since Co on a hybrid sort of basis folks can uh uh watch and listen remotely and call in to participate in different aspects of the meeting uh tonight Community comment is one point which they could uh provide information to us on any any item that's not on the agenda this evening or scheduled for a future public hearing and then as director benot mentioned we've got I think about 12 public hearing matters uh that we need to take care of this evening as well and so there'll be abundant opportunity for those that have interest in being able to testify uh on some of those matters so uh having provided that information I think we will next call the meeting to order and I'll ask Sharon Allison or clerk to call the role council member Jackson here council member Pierce here council member Risser here mayor huin here and council member agne is absent all right very good Pledge of Allegiance is next folks pledge of allegiance to the flag flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indiv isible with liberty and justice for all and now uh we have a meeting agenda in front of us is there anyone that wishes to remove or modify the meeting agenda any form or fashion okay is there a motion to approve the meeting agenda as shown so moved second got a motion to Second approve the meeting agenda is shown uh any further discussion all those in favor of appr approving the Mee meeting agenda agenda say I I I opposed carried the meeting agenda is approved uh and next we are at Community comment and we're going to take folks in the audience first that wish to address the Council on a matter of concern to them and then we'll go to the virtual world to see if any of our fellow residents wish to address the council and so let's uh let's now go to community comment a reminder you'll have three minutes you'll get a yellow uh light you'll have 30 seconds to go please be mindful of the time involved and we treat everybody at the same here best we can and when the red light goes on I try to wrap up your comments uh yes sir welcome welcome mayor council members my name is Ralph siker I live at 4311 Cornelia Circle transparency and accountability two things I believe the city staff and you the council ow to Residents and when a fair and reasonable question is asked regarding millions of dollars of City spending it's my expectation that a clear complete and timely answer be provided an answer not a reply during the August 20th council meeting I noted that staff's presentation presentations were clear that without Tiff the Macy site developer was unable to achieve their desired rate of return however what was not clear and was not shared was just what that rate of return deel the developer required therefore it was unclear whether additional funding Beyond a din's offer of $23 million would be needed to make this a viable project which I in turn LED which in turn leads to the question was additional funding Tiff or otherwise needed to close that potential Gap it struck me as a particularly important issue there were two other Tiff districts on France one being an empty fence lot at 7200 and other an empty hole at 7250 some 5 years after their Tiff District approval therefore at that August meeting I asked does the $23 million of Tiff close the developers entire shortfall of funding and if not how much more funding is needed to which Mr Neil posted a word salad reply on responses to public comment saying no Gap existed following Mr Neil's reply I once again came before the the Council on September 3rd and pointed out that not only did his posting not answer my question what he had posted was in direct conflict with his email response to member Risser a response which was cc to the entire Council Mr Neil's email clearly noted that the developer absolutely positively needed additional funding Beyond ad's $23 million of Tiff but his reply to member Risser lack the completeness of including any estimate of just how much that amount might be which was the Crux of my question using the numbers from Mr Neil's email the developer is at least $35 million short and it would be even more if a realistic Market numbers were used therefore like the two dead inth water Tiff districts it would seem the Macy site developer not might not be able to proceed if you take at face value what city staff knows but has failed to share with residents hopefully this time it won't take Mr Neil 14 months to acknowledge the issue and share a more realistic number supported by data thank you thank you Mr Zer good evening good evening yes you can and you can have a um handheld microphone if you want to if you want want to work off of your overhead thank you thanks and good evening my name is Sarah roer maker I live on conord Avenue south of Valley View on what current sidewalk maintenance documents Define as an active R the school I'm here tonight to ask that city council revisit our neighborhood's maintenance petition so that residents don't incur further Financial damage and so that pedestrians have a safe path to walk on it's been been almost 6 months since staff asked that the council forall its vote on our maintenance petition having heard that snow is expected in October I obtained a quote from a local company that it would cost my family approximately 900 to $1,400 a year to shovel the city's sidewalk it was disconcerting to think that we could be expected to pay this amount year over-year on top of the large 13 $1,400 assessment amount in addition to the other impositions and concerns that the sidewalk Boulevard and very narrowed road with have caused and despite the numerous comments made by City staff and City Council in support of a pathway that connects the broader Community with area schools and Parks yesterday I discovered uh I didn't receive a positive response for management on on that request and uh but I made a data request of my own known and discovered yesterday that the city has in fact been kicking around a formal policy since 2018 and this is the document discussed during a working session in 2018 from what I can tell according to this this draft the current practice is for the city to maintain active school routes which is defined to include in A din School District walk boundary of 7 miles within an elementary school and 1 mile within a middle school every house on the two blocks of Concord Avenue at issue is within an active school route staff never mentioned this current practice previously in contrast it told City Council on December 11th that having Concord Avenue residence maintainance sidewalk would be consistent with current policy how is either possible in reviewing the underlying guidance documents that staff referenced throughout this process in obtaining appr approval I also discovered that the Pax Revenue has in fact been authorized for the maintenance of the city's non-motorized Transportation networks there are numerous references in the city to the city's maintenance of the twin loop Pathways most notably to provide for safe walking resident engagement is reiterated throughout as being Paramount why haven't we been informed of these facts to date I to make good on the city's commitment to safe and accessible pedestrian Pathways and negate the material hardships otherwise imposed on residents without due process I'm asking that city council act on residents petition in the near future use its Authority and knowledge of these facts and direct that staff plan for maintaining the two blocks of Concord Avenue that connect pedestrians to their local schools and Parks thank you thank you m r marker I think we'll be taking it up later tonight but I uh I hope you'll be home in bed by then when we take up the topic tonight thank you I guess I'll add to that that was you would you give us your name again please oh hi my name is Ryan geick I grew up at 5234 Richwood Drive just by the library over there I currently live in right off of France in Idina so Minneapolis right on the border and I wanted to come talk about bike safety I know I've seen you guys discuss the bike safety around Edina and I saw that we know we've built a few larger sidewalks over here and I've biked around Edina a bunch I have a lot of family that lives here and I would like to start my time asking how many of you guys actually bik e Dina often like raise of hands in the room and I was going to ask how safe do you feel biking Dina currently is there spots that you feel safe is there spots you feel unsafe Mr G would you address your comments to the council please yes I can I was just trying to make sure the room's engaged um the big thing I had was and I've seen from your guys' comments is there is an increase of students kids people my age people older all on bikes especially the summer this includes ebikes um and I've seen some concerns about helmets speed pedestrians bikes on sidewalks and the one thing I was concerned about with the comments that I've seen the council make is that there was no comments about improving the bike safety in the bike Lanes we currently have in Idina this includes gleon this includes Vernon this includes even Tracy going up to the middle school and high school there is no bike lane besides a painted line and I I feel like even for my safety I'm comfortable but if I was a new biker or if I was someone who was a middle schooler I would feel safe biking there and I I came because I I know you guys talked about helmets and I agree with all of those points and I agree we should get fast bikes including me off the sidewalks but I just don't feel like there's a good spot for us if we're either in a a lane of traffic or on a sidewalk you know in getting in front of pedestrians and I felt like none of the comments that we've had so far were discussing just quick ways to improve our bike safety on some of those busier streets um that's all I had thank you guys no thanks thanks for that thanks for coming over to Express that thought I appreciate it talk about that a little bit later too um anyone else in the audience okay let's check them with director benro see if we have anybody online that wants to visit with us okay um I don't know if he wanted to address any of Mr gord's comments director Milner I mean we've got this steady methodology that we've been employing of trying to take this fully developed town and make it safer bicycling and it's it's got its challenges no question about that it does yeah so I think we can respond in our normal process and have some answers by the end of the week on the on the website and manager will address them next time he he just came back in though so why don't you go ahead and give your well we're always looking to improve bike facilities with our street reconstruction is really our main focus so we do about three miles a year um um you know you can always submit a traffic safety request if there's a specific location there's concerns because we've added markings and lights and flashers and stuff like that so we would just engage with that person to submit some more comments and we can look at specific areas all right thanks for that so Mr Geer when you came back in now um if you have specific concerns about specific streets uh just write to Mr Milner at the engineering department at car of City Hall I think you get on the website and go to we anim and and they'll try to answer your questions and show you some of the other things that we're working on on a a deliberate sort of basis to improve uh improved non-motorized movements and the safety of non-motorized movements yeah I just expect more kids to be out next summer you knows are without having a car or even being 16 out and having that freedom of biking around we don't we don't disagree with you okay let's let's look at some of the other uh this rocker's issue about the maintenance of the new sidewalk on coner Avenue south of Valley viewy I think we'll talk about that later well I can offer we promis to come back to the council to have that discussion this year uh we had a work session scheduled in the summer but a different topic had higher priority and we're still gonna come back to the council and have that discussion this year no I think what I what I think uh was implicit in what she was saying was that they've got to make some decisions over there about plowing Services if we're not going to maintain those two blocks and so if we have that work session sooner rather than later before the snow flies or before they have to make a decision that would be important we will we will have that work session okay very good all right all right um and Mr ziker I think that will maintain the usual sort of policy with his comments and that is that by Friday of this week you'll have some comments online and then um you as is our practice you will supplement those comments that you made online tonight uh with respect to comments that were made at the prior meeting and so if you have anything you want to add we'll move to you now to see if you want to have ADD add anything with regard to comments made at the prior council meeting we we did not have any Community comment at our previous council meeting I'm I'm sorry uh Mr Mayor if we could go back to for a second the the um issue on plow on the sidewalks so we are going to have the working session you mentioned that in time I think just to be specific are we going to be making a decision in that working session to address the issue it depends on the scale of the issue that you want to take on that night right if you if your question to us is you want us to you want the city to begin removing snow and ice from all residential sidewalks everywhere in the city we won't be ready to talk about that in two weeks okay um but if you if there's a more specific kind of definitional issue that you want to take a look at in in uh really going back to the October 16th 2018 Council work session where we was the last time we had a uh kind of a broad policy discussion with the Council on this we we'll bring that back to you and you can take a look at that okay no it's not a not a public hearing um just Council discussion so M uh member rusher um I I myself am confused by what I've heard because I initially heard that we would be making a decision um before the snow started to fall and they would have an answer and now I'm completely confused um as to whether that's going to happen or not yeah so what I heard you say was we're we when when are we going to have the work session Pro probably on the 15th or the 6th of November one of those two dates okay um well do you want to hear any sentiment from Council Members tonight about sure I mean we have haven't really shared with you the the the stuff from October of 2018 I think it would be helpful for you to see that that gives we really went into quite a lot of detail and study about what that might be like for the city what would be involved for the city to take on a larger sometimes a much larger role yeah I think that's that's a good issue to address at a work session is the broadness of something but with respect to this particular issue it's more specific in nature ties into that uh safe roads to school active roads to school um anyway I think there's there's some distinctions that could be made that would allow us to potentially ACT earlier rather than later on that request that we maintain that two blocks of sidewalk just like just like we do north of Valley View UNC conquered and then it also connects to the trail system to the park so I think there's some pretty good arguments about we ought to keep the guy who's doing it north of Valley View on conquered going south for two blocks spend that extra 10 minutes doing that so anyway and if I could I um and then my my question is um I think it's really a simple question so I think it makes sense for us to have all the detail I mean the staff has gone through and done the work we should see the outcome of that at work I am just making sure that when we do that in a working session are we able to take a decision in a working session because I not in the working session but you could later in the council meeting that night okay all right so just an hour or two later yeah I I would I would be in favor of sooner the better so I would be in favor of the 15th of October so that just in case we'd hit a snowstorm on Halloween like we've had before for that we've already made that decision one way or the other Risser um I would agree and I I do want to add that we are we put in new sidewalk along 64th on the South Side so that has to be maintained by the city and so what we're talking about is two blocks of sidewalk that if left um unmanaged by the city really kind of creates it's sort of like breaking a loop and it doesn't make much sense to me so I see the logic actually of even trying to resolve this I don't know if it would make sense to well definitely I want to do it sooner rather than later and I don't know if there'd be an opportunity to take care of it tonight yeah I think we should probably wait till the 15th of October and he the presentation and make a decision that night I think that makes sense I I just want to make sure that we get access to the data and we can make a decis decision um and if we can do that on the 15th of October I'm fine with that I just don't want to have to have a working session and then wait for a later council meeting to take a decision and then I also uh manager Neil understand your point of the broader view I don't know that we'd be in a position to make a decision Citywide on that U because I I think that that for sure would have budget implications as well major yeah yeah definitely implications so all right we've got a uh sent agenda in front of us here with numerous items on it uh director Miller would like to remove item 6.7 for a separate discussion are any other council members desirous of removing any other items from the consent agenda member rer also from um 6.7 um item B2 from the traffic report I you I'll pull 6.7 for you and for director Miller then you can handle that as a subset of that uh all right then with the exception of item 6.7 is there a motion to adopt the items on the consent agenda a single motion so moved second Jackson moves member Pier second the adoption of the items on the consent agenda with the except exception of item 6.7 which will be handled separately uh any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion to status say I I I opposed carried motion carries and uh all the items on the consent agenda are adopted except for item 6.7 which we will turn to now and um let's go to director Milner first that may help member rer too although I noticed you guys had a sidebar before the meeting so you want to you would want him to go first or you want to go first uh it does not matter to me Dr Milner uh we request that you remove item A1 from the traffic safety report we have some residents and parishioners that would like to discuss the item with us before you make final approval of that item so if you could remove it from the report Table IT staff will bring it back on a future report after we had that opportunity to discuss their concerns on that very very good all right and then um member rer um yes and if um director Milner could provide a little more information what we're talking about is item B2 which is um action to address to do traffic calming along Blake Road and the recommendation is to consider um targeted speed enforcement from 4: to 6:00 p.m. um but also consider this site for a future Dynamic display speed sign and my question question is what would the time um line look like for that and I understand we're um developing policy for these so if you could just sort of speak to that that would be helpful yes thanks member Risser a dynamic display speed sign is a permanent sign we have two of them for sure any Dino one on Tracy one on Blake actually three we have one on Tracy we have one on interlocking and one on 70th Street so when you're driving it shows you the speed limit above but it has a display sign that shows your speed um so that can inform the drivers that you're going way too fast um and and it's a dynamic display we're developing a policy right now to determine what kind of metrics and warrants similar to a traffic signal that we should consider putting those in so that policy is in development right now we would come back to this item after that analysis is done and the policy is written to see if this specific location warrants one of those it's something that would be installed during the summer so we have this winter season to develop the policy and then see if this warrants uh that installation along Blake Road thank you director Milner with respect to uh the removal of item A1 did you want that set for a definitive future time or we'll bring it back when when we get the opportunity to meet with the residents and we have a time to adjust it so just table it and staff will bring it back on a future report traffic safety report is there a motion to table subsection A1 of the traffic safety report so moved second Jackson moves member here seconds the uh tabling of item sub item six uh A1 from the traffic safety report of August 27 2024 any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion St say I I I opposed carried uh item A1 is tabled uh indefinitely and director Milner will bring it back uh is there a motion then to adopt the to adopt the traffic safety report of August 27 2024 with the exclusion of item A1 so move second member Risser moves member Jackson seconds the adoption of the traffic safety report of August 27 2024 uh absent the item sub item A1 any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion is stated say I I I opposed carried the traffic safety report of August 2027 August 27 2024 is adopted uh with the exception of item A1 which is tabled indefinitely all right then let's go to the next portion of the agenda uh Beyond uh the consent agenda and that is special recognitions and presentations and we have with us this evening the diner Chamber of Commerce explor Dina group uh manager Neil is going to introduce introduce the topic and we're going to hear the annual report for explor Dina good evening we welcome we welcome Shelley lerg good evening members of council Mr Mayor I want to introduce Shelley lerg Shelly uh is the president of the Chamber of Commerce and also explor explor is the city's convention and visitors bureau under under state law uh and when we collect a a a lodging tax a local lodging tax there is a protocol through which the city uh can create a a Convention of visitors bureau which we did probably 12 years ago maybe maybe more um but we but part of that process that we have this agreement between the city and the Chamber of Commerce is that we get an annual presentation from uh the chamber to talk about the explor uh how much revenue has been collected what um and what has been done with the revenue and maybe what's coming up in the year ahead Miss lber thank you Scott um good evening council members mayor huband happy to be here tonight again my name is Shelley lber I'm the president of the din Chamber of Commerce and we host explor Dina our office resides at 7201 Metro Boulevard we are in the new e building enjoying our space there um I'm just going to go through my presentation feel free to stop me at any time if you have questions but then I'll take questions at the end as well um explor din's mission is to attract Regional National and international visitors to ad we want to create um positive um promotion for our tourism assets here in Adina that includes city-owned attractions and our shopping and Hospitality Partners in our hotels this is an operational expense breakdown so for 2023 over on the far right column you can see um our holistic 12 month um income and the expenses right below our staffing comes in at about 24% of that income and then also uh rent at 3% and we have about 12 months of operating cash in Reserve at this time explor this is just an overview of explor din's um marketing programs and assets so we have a website explored.com and we also have a destination guide um since the pandemic it has largely been in digital form and downloadable on our website however um we did print some this year for distribution at some of our larger events in the community uh we have social channels our active channels are Facebook and Instagram we do event sponsorship and support um particularly for events that we feel draw in visitors from outside the community uh we do local venue advertising in some of our city-owned attractions including Brar Arena and Brar golf course we do print media buys digital media buys which are local and Regional local media placements on television to promote different events and goings on in the community and uh we normally uh produce a signature event with our retail Community called style Adina we um have we are not doing that in 2024 due to the fact that we are shifting it from Fall to Spring um fall has gotten to be extremely congested with fashion events in the Twin Cities um we've built um a really um great following with the event and so we've been communicating with our customers about that change and then also finding other ways um in programming and events during the year to activate our style ad sponsors and um participants um we do also have a partnership with a company called daty and that's just um we have digital polygons all around the community around areas of Interest including our hotel properties our downtown area um and our attractions and when there are events or things that we sponsor we like to go back and look at the um Digital Data from those things we can um look at economic impact um there's a partnership with MasterCard so we can look at spending data but more importantly we can see where people are coming from so that when we make media buys again the following year we can go back and refer to that data to make sure that our markets are in alignment this is just a snapshot of our social media channels our Facebook and our Instagram we've had a really lovely increase in following on our Instagram since the beginning of the year and um due to some new technology in Instagram um really collaborative posts and collaborations um we have more content and more engagement local event sponsorship and support is really important for The Visitor Bureau um this is just a list of current year-to-date events that we have sponsored with um with cash um at varying levels um the Weston Adina Galleria does a winter installment that starts in December and goes um largely through February called winter village we enjoy um sponsoring that and promoting that we are a sponsor of the Adina art fair at 50th in France the um annual 4th of July festivities and fireworks the 9mile creek bike event this was new event put on the Morningside Rotary Club to promote Wellness in our community and uh we loved that they were taking advantage of promoting that the 9M Creek bike trail uh we also um promoted and supported the lighthouse night in torch light concert which is an annual event at Centennial Lakes Park the Adina fall into the Arts Festival the Chamber of Commerce acts as the administrator for the contracted administrator with the Adina crime prevention fund um so we plan and execute that event from an Administration standpoint then The Visitor Bureau acts as the marketer for that event and then we recently sponsored the Adina car show which is also a noon rotary sponsored event at 50th in France and that is a growing event for tourism as well at this time that um total is about $118,000 in support recently um we've developed a marketing Grant application um we had a unique situation with the 50th and France Business Association was having um a lot of impact from construction projects over the summer as I'm sure you've heard about um and one of the um uses of lodging tax or the main use of lodging tax is to market the community and we know that our downtown area 50th in France is a shopping and dining destination in an important area of our city um so we they came to us to talk about what kind of support we could provide um we developed an application to make sure that any expenditures would align with the state statute on lodging tax spending and we feel that this program can be developed to support other stakeholders moving forward in the community and when they're in times of Crisis and that makes us a great Community partner going backwards instead of forwards this is just an example of what some of our print ads look like um our print ad Partners this year are MSP magazine Madison magazine the Vikings and Minnesota Wild official programs a dyam magazine the suncurrent and the Star Tribune we do um a large insert promoting the Art Festival that goes to the entire circulation our digital marketing over overview is targeted email sends these are both demographically and geographically um specific as well as um that also um relates to our online content marketing content marketing are developed articles that talk about how to experience our community in different ways um it's a great way to feature our laring properties and lots of different retailers and business owners in the community um and then we can repurpose that content both on our website and social media we do paid ads on Facebook and Instagram we do graphic ads and then we also have social media influencer Partnerships media appearances here in the local Minneapolis St Paul Market are also an important um way to promote the community of Adina and keep us in the news um one of our main Partners is jod May mayor and style partners and that is who executes and produces our style Adina event and so we've had seven TV segments so far in 2024 at various stations promoting Edina Care 11 Twin Cities Live w CCO and KSTP and actually um one of uh the recent um appearances that I did on KSTP was due to um a press release that the Communications Department here um released so we're we're grateful for City's support on that too the sty AA date for um spring 2025 is May 18th that will again take place at the Weston and thank you so much for your time I appreciate the opport o Unity to come before you each year and I'm happy to take any questions yes thank you questions for dror lerg yes member Jackson thank you well thank you for the presentation yeah thanks for promoting our business districts it's wonderful so two questions one is there was recently a press release about St Louis Park and Golden Valley merging their explore um that things have we ever it it sounded like they were kind of focusing have we ever done any kind of strategic planning similar to that I mean we don't partner with another Community but do you generally do a review of sort of saying this is how what Ed means to for businesses especially shopping and Retail yeah I think you know having having explor din visible within the Chamber of Commerce and consistently partnering with our rotary clubs in our city are important visibility um in terms of that specific partnership that you just mentioned um the St L Park Visitor Bureau has actually been collecting lodging tax from Golden Valley and cross promoting them for several years um the new development is that they have a brand name for that now that they're going to call westopolis and so um yeah that's a partnership that's actually been going on for maybe five to six years already um we try to stay active with with other Community Partners because in the Twin Cities because when a visitor comes they don't know when they're going from one Community to another um but obviously our priority is to promote the city of Adina okay great and so that Segways into my next question is we've got these two regional parks that are being developed do you have a plan for attracting um hockey tournament families to come shop and Dina and E Dina and similarly um when people come to Fred Richard's park for the nature experience um is there a way hey let's go get a picnic you know you or hungry let's go eat or well let's what kind of outdoor activity um clothing do we want to buy when we're in Dina so do you have a plan for that going forward that's a great question Caroline and I do think that um continuing to expand how we promote outdoor activities as those attractions become developed um will be super important and we'll definitely do that that may look different than the media plan that was just presented to you because we'll want to meet with um media Outlets that Focus on those activities okay great thank you my pleasure other council members member rer um it's I like looking at the website and just seeing what is up there and then I start thinking why isn't the farmers market up there or why isn't and maybe it's up there sometimes but I just sort of how do you pick what ends up on it so on the website um think of the website as big picture so stay shop dine play um Broad and then um things like the farmers market are a recurring event so we promote the farmers market largely on social media um and actually we do that in our chamber Communications as well because the city is a chamber member and we always like to promote the city's activities so just if I don't see it on the website doesn't mean it's not beinged okay thank you you're welcome you one of the important comments I thought you made tonight was the work that you were doing with 50s in France with uh Line Construction and the construction we had up here this summer it was really difficult for those small businesses down 50 70% um impact decreases on revenue year-over-year is what I was hearing and when we inquired to the Met Council where was your impact fund they said they didn't have impact funds so we have an impact fund thanks good you know and we know that we have some statutory limitations under Minnesota law about how we can use it to promote Edina but it seems like that's there are many good ways to promote Adina at 50th in France because that's kind of our old town uh it absolutely is it's an amazing asset not every Community has that and we want to embrace it and lift it up when it's experiencing difficulties so um Rebecca senson and I meet regularly we have a great relationship we love to partner one of the things that she shared with me that's really um positively impactful are some of the reals and creative things that they're doing on social media but they are costly for them to produce and so that's one of the things that we're helping with and let's not forget that this week is Restaurant Week at 50 FR yes starting on the third I think yes it is we just started promoting that today in fact I think there's deals every day mayor so you should be eating out at 50th in France this week with your lovely wife it actually ends on the 3D right it started Sunday and it goes through Thursday I believe it's the whole week yeah because um yesterday was P Lima's deal or they were they were being featured $35 you can feed two people all right all right and you've got some of your board members with you I know I do I'm super grateful to folks in the board stand up and thank you for your good work please Paul Moody and Mark Jus and our current chair Heidi Stenson thank you for being here this evening any other questions for president lerg okay all right thanks for being here this evening thank you my pleasure all right we're going to move now to the um public hearing portion of the agenda that was the the explor report was the only report uh or item on the special recognitions and presentations portion of the agenda so let's turn to public hearings and the first public hearing we have tonight is the uh potential certification of some delinquent utilities and Kau our finance director uh has this matter uh will give us the introduction on on these delinquent utilities and uh then we will open it up for a public testimony and and uh make some decisions here at the at the council level good evening uh mayor and council member I am going to pull up my presentation and we'll get started all right so um a little bit about what is the utility certification process so we certify any utility accounts with balances over $50 and has been delinquent for 30 days or longer um residents of course or um account holders are notified in writing uh of the pending certification as well as the date of tonight's hearing uh we sent letters out on September 3rd of this year um after tonight then a $35 administrative fee will be added to these delinquent accounts if not paid and then uh residents or customers will then have until November 22nd to make any payment on these overdue balances so for tonight we have a delinquent list and we also have a resolution for Council to approve at the end of the public hearing which we will then send to the county for certification on November 22nd of course with this uh we'll also certify amounts um the county would then also certify the amounts with an interest rate of 6.5% and these are all one-year certifications a little history on uh since 2018 where uh utility certifications uh starts off and at the beginning of September where we send out the letters through to the public hearing night in October and then the final certification with this being said for 2024 we started off in September by sending out 1,113 letters with an amount of 71 19,26 delinquent uh balances and utilities uh since then the amount has gone down to 544 accounts with balance of 488,000 2474 uh certifying this year's delinquent utility bills to the county otter for collection with the 25 property taxes Mr Mayor can I add one pleas M Neil uh thank you uh we are on a as you know we have a number of different public hearings tonight you it's customary for you to see these public hearings conduct the hearing and then take an action on a following week and we will I think we will have a couple of those but most of these are actions that we're asking you to take tonight just because of the time frames involved y understood okay okay any other questions for director to any other comments director no other comments okay all right uh stand by we're going to open this matter up for public testimony um so let me uh open it up for public testimony to ask if anyone in the audience wishes to come forward and testify regarding this matter seeing no one coming forward hearing nothing it's turned to the virtual world here see if we got anybody online that wants to testify I do not have any residents on at this point however because there is a slight delay in the broadcast I would recommend we wait one minute before moving on my clock shows it it's 7:47 so I will come back to you when we have a caller or 7:48 whichever is first very good thank you e it is now 7:48 and I still don't have a caller so I think it's safe for you to move forward with the thank you director benot um turning to the council is there a motion to close the public Hearing in this matter involving resolution 20247 so moved second Jackson moves member Pierce second the closure of the public hearing with regard to resolution 20247 any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing say I I I opposed carried public Hearing in this matter involving resolution 2024 74 is closed uh and the staff is recommending we adopt resolution 2024 4-74 certifying this year's delinquent utility bills to the county auditor for collection with the 2025 property taxes is there a motion to that effect so moved second rejection moves M appear seconds the adoption of the motion is stated involving resolution 20247 any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of resolution 20247 certifying this year's delinquent utility bills to the county auditor for collection with the 2025 property taxes say I I I oppos carried that motion is adopted uh let's move now to the next matter we have before us from a public hearing standpoint and that is the weed mowing special assessment and Tom Swinson our assistant director of Park and parks and natural resources has this matter am I still the chief weed inspector you are you are just check in check in thank you mayor and members of council uh tonight is the wheed assessment Improvement uh except for the period of May 1st to June 15th of each of each spring weeds must be maintained and Lawns must be made maintained at 12 inches in height uh or less noxious weeds uh that are defined by the state must be eradicated uh when the weeds exceed 12 in in height uh we attempt to reach out to the property owner and send a certified letter they have 10 days to comply uh if the lawn does not come into compliance uh City staff uh will maintain the property and then charge through the assessment process for the correction this year we have nine different properties uh that were affected this is a list of the addresses and the dollar amounts and a little unusual tonight is we did have uh the address at 6332 drop off a letter objecting here at 6 PM just before the council meeting and that person I don't know if they came back to attend the meeting but they they had a lot of health issues they had various things going on in their life that kept them from maintaining the property and at a staff L level sometimes we'll have discussions with people our goal is just to get them to correct the problem and do the right thing moving forward not necessarily penalize them uh for when they trip up or get behind so uh my recommendation or staff's recommendation would be uh to assess eight properties instead of nine that this shows and exclude the 6332 Ryan Avenue address from the assessment role so which one are you dropping UH 60 332 Ryan Avenue the second one from the bottom questions for Mr swon all right yes go ahead member Jackson yes so Mr swansson does this only apply to um single family residences or does it apply to commercial properties at all uh this is the uh Residential Properties okay great thank you other questions for Mr Swinson stand by Mr Swinson I'm going to open this up for public testimon see if anybody wishes to testify regarding this matter uh of the proposed special assessment so is anyone in the audience wish to come forward and testify with regard to this matter see no one coming forward hearing nothing uh let's turn now to director benro see if any we have anybody tuning in that wishes to address the Council on this proposed uh special assessment Levy for weed mowing I have a consultant on the line now for later in the meeting but still no residents again because there's that delay in the broadcast I'd recommend we wait a minute before moving on my clock shows it at 7:52 so I will come back to you at 7:53 or when I have a call or whichever is first for it's now been a minute and I still don't have a caller so I would recommend you move forward with the matter thank you director benot uh is there a motion from any council member to uh close the public hearing with regard to the proposed to weed mowing special assessment so moved second Jackson moves member Pier second uh the closing of the public hearing with respect to the proposed weed mowing special assessment uh any further discussion all those in favor of closing the hearing say I I I opposed carried the hearing with regard to the proposed weed mowing special assessment is closed uh staff is recommending that we approve resolution 202467422 is there a motion to that effect so moved moves member Pierce seconds the adoption of the motion stated any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion stated say I I I oppos carried resolution 2024 67 with regard to the weed mowing special assessment Improvement number W d-24 for the eight properties identified by staff is adopted uh next public hearing matter with regard to a proposed special assessment Mr Swinson has this one as well okay this one's very similar this is trees instead of weeds so this assessment uh related to uh controlling disease trees and their spread in and also controlling uh trees that have public safety issues uh different from the previous one they have they get noticed by registered mail and they have 31 days to comply uh because it takes longer to coordinate that homeowners have the option to hire their own service and remove them after receiving the notice uh usually we have a discussion with the homeowners after they receive notice uh to make sure that they can find uh reliable contractors and get the work done uh this year we had only one property that needed to have a tree removed that the city handled the invoicing on and they requested that the city line up the contractors and assess them for the uh the full amount of this one tree uh we break the uh payments out over a number of years depending on the size of the assessment in this year this is the one tree for 3,800 so it's a five-year assessment and with that staff requests that this one questions for Mr Swinson from Council Members let's open up this matter for uh public testimony with regard to the proposed uh tree REM a special assessment for the single property on mirror Lakes Drive is anyone wishes to come forward and testify regarding this matter seeing no one coming forward hearing nothing uh director benot I have a caller uh caller if you would like to speak on this public hearing item please press star three on your telephone keypad that will signal that you would like to speak on this um public hearing matter again that star three uh the aster symbol than the number three um we'll wait just a minute here to see if there's any signaling or any additional callers I would recommend no matter what we wait that one minute um for other callers I am willing it to happen I don't think it's going to happen for this public hearing I think it's safe for you to move forward oh nope I am wrong I have a signal all right caller please go ahead by stating your full name and address and to begin your remarks go ahead caller can we can hear you if you can hey caller will you will you mute your teleph or your television or whatever you're listening on so there's not that Echo and then begin your remarks oh the callar hung up all right if you're still there caller go ahead go ahead caller caller go ahead you we can hear you all right can you can you hear us now hello I mean he's clearly unmuted or she or she yeah what's that mute signal on the bottom can you unmute them that that's my computer okay I think you should just move forward I'm I'm not sure what's happening maybe they're just um maybe they can call back in hard to know whether to move forward or maybe we should just hold that one open for few minutes in case that's the one they wanted to talk to us about hard to know the line the line's open it's it's definitely not got a lot more of these to go though nobody calling back in I I showed that he the person has called back in the line is unmuted but we're not getting anything okay all right um is there a um motion to close the public hearing with regard to the tree removal special assessment so moved member Jackson moves second member Pierce seconds the uh closure of the public hearing with regard to the proposed tree removal special assessment on the property at miror Lakes Drive any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public Hearing in this matter say I I I opposed carried uh and then staff is recommending we approve resolution 202468 which is the tree removal special assessment embodied in Improvement tr24 which is the property located on mirror Lakes Drive uh is there a motion to that effect so moved Jackson moves second member Pier seconds the adoption of the resolution 202468 which is the tree removal special assessment embodied in Improvement tr24 on the property on Mir Lakes Drive any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion say I I I opposed carried motions adopted the tree removal special assessment is in place uh next matter our water resources manager thank you Mr swansson thanks for being with us um Jessica Wilson has this matter which is a proposed aquatic vegetation special assessment good evening mayor and members of the council so this is the annual aquatic vegetation Improvement aq24 resolution 202 24- 66 I'll run through these quickly uh a little bit of background this is a is a city coordinated aquatic vegetation Management Service these are services that are requested by residents it's not required or endorsed by the city or the DNR and it's Guided by the lake and pond management policy of the Water Resources management plan and the city pays for algae treatments in eligible water bodies so for Arrowhead Lake the properties shown in green are those that are included in that assessment District essentially Arrowhead Lake Association was incorporated in September 2015 although they've been organized for a lot longer than that and these SE are all the items that are included in those 2023 Lake services that get assessed um in 2024 Indian Head Lake similar story those green properties are the ones that are included in that assessment District they also formally Incorporated in 2016 although they've been organized for decades uh and this is a list of those services that they have vegetation control um they have a Iration system that's operated they uh augment lake levels with a private well this is Lake Nancy and and the services there are submerged aquatic control submerged aquatic plant control and LG control they were Incorporated in 2016 and then uh mil Pond this one has a tiered uh assessment those that are Upstream of pond that's more shallow it's trickier to get the Harvester in those areas pay 2/3 Ru and then a few properties across the street from the pond so they don't have Shoreline uh those ones have a oneir Ru and there's those five harvesting visits uh that occurred in 2023 that was the first year that they went from three cuting to five cuting so there's an increase there um and then also the brale ramp repair um is something that was cost shared 50/50 with the city and is going to be assessed over a two-year period so this mil Pond Association was incorporated in 2022 and then a little bit of background on that brale access ramp replacement here's the 2021 before photos the spring 2024 after photos um and it was split 50/50 with the city uh the pond Association approved that uh Improvement in Fall of 2023 there's a proximately half included in this assessment and the other partial payment will be included in next year's assessment so my recommendation would be to adopt special assessment resolution 2024 d66 questions for Miss Wilson council members all right stand by Miss Wilson I'm going to open this up for public testimony with regard to these proposed special assessments for uh vegetation uh control in Arrowhead Lake Indian Head lake lake Nancy and the mil Pond anyone wish to come forward and testify no one coming forward hearing nothing uh we'll turn now to director benro again to see if we have anybody waiting to talk to the council okay first testify regarding this matter and we are open for public testimony I want to tell you that the the phone call before was our consultant so we didn't miss a resident um but I don't have have anyone other than our consultant on right now so I would recommend we wait a minute um and continue this little thing I've got going over here I'll come back to you at 8:07 or when I have a caller e okay it is 808 and I still don't have a caller so I think it's safe for you to move forward with the matter thank you uh is there a motion to close the public hearing with regard to these proposed vegetation specialist assessments uh for aquatic purposes on Arrowhead Lake Indian Head lake lake Nancy in the mil pond so moved second ja moves member of here seconds the closure of the public hearing with regard to the proposed aquatic vegetation special assessments for Arrowhead Indian Head Lake Nancy in the mil Pond um any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing say I I I posos carried uh staff is recommending we uh approve resolution 2024 -66 for The Aquatic vegetation special assessment Improvement number aq24 uh and its attached assessment role for properties located on Arrowhead Indian Head uh Lake Nancy and milpond is there a motion to that effect so moved moved member Pierce seconds the adoption of resolution 2024 66 for The Aquatic vegitation special assessment uh embodied in Improvement number aq24 uh for those lakes that were named any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the resolution 2024 66 say I I I opposed carried motion resolution 24 2024 66 is adopted uh and then Derek cotton our facilities manager has the next couple of matters and the first one involves the 50th in France business district and Mr roton good evening Mr Mayor and members of the council um tonight after I open up the PowerPoint we'll be discussing the 50th in France business district and the assessible costs from the year of 2023 so give me one second here um as many of you know um this district is the 50th and F 50th and France business district that we talked about earlier tonight with members of the Chamber of Commerce um and as you kind of look at the location map now you'll see the shaded areas there those are mainly private businesses and then the areas that are unshaded are a mixture of public walkways parking ramps and public streets so just kind of a boundary area on this uh it's uh on the east side it's France Avenue the west side is market and Halifax the south is 51st and then the north is 49th straet so the city provides a a number of um services in the district M snow removal Trash Services General upkeep maintenance things like that um in 2023 um you'll see that the costs for the uh District went up quite significantly um it was $ 57,4 49 um that's about $126 cents per square foot that's assessed to the businesses um and the major reason for this was uh some repairs that we did to the South ramp so um the costs total for those repairs in 2023 were about $715,000 um we paid for a portion of that in 2023 and we are going to be paying for the balance of it in 2024 there was just some work that carried over um City staff did a really good job of finding other funding sources for this um we're actually only assessing the business district about $240,000 to that um so you can see that there there was a major increase it wasn't that full $240,000 on top of the 2023 costs and that's mainly due to just management of other costs in the district that we were able to keep lower by uh postponing some repairs and some of the other plans that we had in the area so our recommendation is that we approve special special assessment resolution number 20 2469 um in Improvement M24 and with that I'll stand for questions all right any questions for manager uton right stand by this is a public hearing matter I'm going now I'm going to now open this up for public testimony is there anyone that wishes to testify regarding this proposed special assessment down in the 50th and France uh business District see no one coming forward hearing nothing turn to director benro to see if anyone is online that wishes to testify I still only have an applicant for a future item on the agenda who I incorrectly identified as a consultant earlier um so I apologize for that too my clock shows that it's 8:12 I will come back to you at 8:3 or when I have a caller on this public hearing whichever is first for it is 8:13 and I still don't have a caller so I think it is safe for you to move forward all right um we heard um presentation by manager Aon about the proposed special assessment for the 50th in France business district Property Owners um is there a motion to close the public Hearing in this matter so moved member Jackson moves member Pier seconds the closing of the public uh testimony public hearing with respect to the proposed uh assessment for the 50th and France business businesses uh for their uh public improvements that were made in 2023 any further discussion those in favor of closing the public hearing say I I I post carried the public hearing is closed and then director oton is suggesting we adop resolution 2024 69 which is a resolution levying special assessments for public improvements uh in the 50th and France business district is there a motion to adopt that resolution so moved second member Jackson moves member Pierce second the adoption of resolution 2024 69 embodied in Improvement 20 uh number m-24 any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the resolution say I I I oppos carried resolution resolution 2024 69 is adopted and that those levies will take place so those public improvements that were made on 50th in France and now we are going to move on to director aon's manager aon's next matter and that is the Grand View business district proposed special assessment yes similar to uh the 50th in France we also have a business district in the Grand View area um that is number G24 um this is a area that um kind of encompasses just to the west of City Hall so it's bordered on the East Side by Highway 100 and then the majority of the district kind of runs along the Vernon Avenue Corridor um commercial businesses on either side of them the city has a couple of presences in there we have a din liquor store um that's attached to the Walgreens um same strip center there we have a parking ramp that's also a water treatment plant and a few other things and then uh we have a shared partnership with henan County on the library and Senior Center in that District um the rest of the business district is mainly made up of um commercial properties some residential um and a lot of retail things like that too um this is an area that in the past hasn't had a lot of accessible costs we we've kind of kept this low in the past just because there hasn't been a lot of interest in the business district in the past we're trying to rejuvenate that we're we're really engaging with those businesses to uh start talking about improvements to the area and and try and set up a a more of a a walkable and uh destination area simil what we have at 50th in France um in 2023 those costs were really limited it was $548 186 um so it actually works out to be about a penny per square foot based on the square footage size of the district there um and that is all um centered around the inspections that we have to do annually for our parking ramp we're required to get permitting and things like that so that cost is just what it takes to uh go through that process so our recommendation is we approve session assessment resolution number 20247 for improvement number G24 and with that I'll stand for questions all right thank you uh Mr Ron any questions for manager Ron from the council all right let's open this up for public testimony is there anyone in the audience that wishes to testify regarding this proposed uh special assessment nobody's leaping up to question is one cent per square foot assessment okay all right uh let's go to the virtual world I have no callers either at this point um I show that it's 8:17 I'll come back to you at 8:18 or when I have a call or whichever is first all right thank you for another of your day's longest minutes has ended and no callers so I think it is safe for you to move forward thanks for that uh is there a motion to close the um hearing with respect to the proposed uh special assessment to the private property owners in the Grand View business district so moved second Jackson moves member Pier seconds the closure of the public hearing with regard to the proposed special assessment for the private property owners in the Grand View business district any further conversation on that any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing with regard to this matter say I I I opposed carried uh hearing is closed and manager roton is recommending we approve resolution 20247 which is the special assessment for the property private property owners in the Grand View business district embodied in number g-4 is there a motion to that effect so moved rection moves member Pier second the adoption of the resolution 20247 is stated any further discussion uh all those in favor of adoption of resolution 202 24-70 is stated say I I I opposed carried motions approved resolutions adopted and then the uh final three matters in this portion of our agenda uh our director of engineering Chad Milner will be handling these matters and director Milner thank you Mayors mayor member of the council we're going to discuss the 2022 and 2023 Street reconstruction projects this evening so last year member Pierce uh asked a question and said you should tell us a little bit of what the city's doing to lower these amounts so we got some key points here that we publish our street reconstruction Maps years in advance we manage the bid production schedule of those uh bid documents we try to be the first out the door with our neighboring agencies to get good prices create quality bid documents to ensure less confusion from the biders and we see that in most years with very tight bids and then we manage contracts fairly we're fair with the contractors so they know when they come to town they're going to be treated fairly and that helps with the prices so the first matter this evening is morning side d and e the neighborhood roadway reconstruction the majority of this project was constructed in 2022 and if you recall last year one year ago the council chose to delay the assessment of this project so the project boundaries are here shown uh on the map 42nd Street on the North uh Branson Street on the south and Grimes on the East so again you conducted public hearing and authorized the project in December of 2021 construction was in 2022 uh last year you Delayed Action on these assessments we're asking you to approve an assessment amount of 8,338 195 per residential equivalent unit that's less than the preliminary amount of $9,400 it is the same amount we asked you to approve last year at this meeting and we're looking for that approval this evening I received feedback from one resident on the Better Together web page the comment was about the change in the assessment policy they thought this was the last year of Assessments that is not correct we have another 10 plus years of Assessments as we slower slowly Ratched those down we did receive seven written objections and the addresses are listed there and then we did receive one formal letter which I think the council also received in an email earlier today or yesterday from the morning Side Community Church and they were had three requests either exempt them from the assessments reduce the amount or extend the period to 45 years so staff is recommending approval of the special assessments embodied in resolution 20247 through and I stand for any questions you back up one slide please okay thanks that's good that's all I need any questions for director Milner all right this is a public hearing matter with regard to this proposed special assessment um any anyone in the audience wish to come forward and testify I'm opening this up for a public testimony good evening hi I'm Sandy Dibble I'm speaking on behalf of the trustees fur a d morning Side Community Church um you did receive the letter would you give the address for the church too please 4201 morning Side Road thank you okay so Mr Mayor and City Council Members I speak to you tonight with a sincere plea on behalf of Edina morning Side Community Church excuse me related to our $25,000 plus assessment for the Morningside d& neighborhood roadway reconstruction project our beloved church located at 4201 Morningside Road has been a Cornerstone of this community since 1922 serving not just as a place of worship but as a vital hub for civic engagement and Community growth for decades our church has opened its doors to sery din in numerous ways we host local election ctions we provide providing a home for neighborhood association and community group meetings housing the oldest continuing operating preschool in Minnesota offering a thriving theater program for Youth and a beautiful community garden often visited by our many residents while walking through our neighborhood these Services alongside our spiritual Mission make our church chch an Irreplaceable asset to Edina social fabric however like Many religious institutions Across the Nation we Face significant financial challenges declining attendance has led to reduce contributions we've experienced budget deficits for five consecutive years and our limited finances are stretched thin maintaining our historic building and continuing our Community programs the proposed special assessment of $2,350 41 cents don't forget the 41 cents for the Morningside d& NE neighborhood roadway reconstruction project poses an extraordinary burden on our congregation it represents about 10% of our budget excluding personnel and building maintenance this assessment is particularly heavy due to our unique position our property has three facings into the project two on morning Side Road and one on Grimes we are the only Community accessible building in the heart of morning side as as the only other structures open to the community are at 44th in France and or the Weber Park Ice Rink warming house our lot's three facings cause us to Bear a disproportionate burden of the project given these circumstances we respectfully and earnestly request that the city council consider and I'm read go ahead you go ahead your thought F we need to hear what your thought is um that you consider the following options exempt our church from the assessment recognizing our Vital role in the community and our nonprofit status significantly reduce the assessment borne by our church acknowledging our financial constraints and Community contributions or extend the repayment period to 45 years instead of the proposed 15 given our three facings allowing us to manage this financial burden over a longer term we understand the importance of this infrastructure project for our neighborhood and appreciate the improvements however we implore you to consider the unique position of our church and the potential impact this assessment could have on our ability to continue serving the Adina Community we have been a faithful Steward of this community for Generations we've weathered many storms for over a hundred years but this financial burden threatens our um to undermine our ability to continue our mission we ask you as our elected representatives to show mercy and foresight in your decisions by granting us relief from this assessment you would not just be helping a church you would be investing in the heart of Edina ensuring that this vital community space continues to thrive and serve for generations to come thank you appreciate your service to thank you m Dil yeah um yeah we'll talk about this um but um thanks for thanks for coming tonight and uh we would have had the conversation regardless I think but it was really good to get your thoughts on behalf of the congregation um anyone else wish to testify regarding this proposed special assessment okay let's go to um nobody online okay all right um I think the best way to probably handle this is to close it up and then have a conversation about whether we want to address this now or you know what are what our options I know that well let's let's let's see if there was a motion to close the public hearing first still moved second all right we got a motion second to close the public hearing with regard to the proposed uh special assessments for the uh Morningside sea neighborhood roadway reconstruction project embodied in Improvement ba462 and also resolution 2024 71 uh all those in favor callose closing the public Hearing in this matter say I I I opposed carried public hearing is closed uh let's have a little bit of a discussion here when this request came in uh I emailed manager Neil and um and Dave Kendall our attorney and asked him about possible options here involving a nonprofit a religious institution that's property tax exempt but not exempt from special assessments for uh you know the street reconstruction work that was done which in which they got assessed for three Parcels so the special assessment I think Miss Dibble said was about 25,000 25 350 over 15 years that would be about 1690 per year plus interest um manager Neil I don't know if you want to turn right to uh attorney Kendall but attorney Kendall could talk to some to us about some of the options I think involved based on the statute thank thank you honor members of council uh before I do that I do want to set the set the table that you know we have done projects like this for for many years here we do assess uh nonprofits uh schools uh churches all equally right so we we apply this policy in an equal manner it's not based on ability to pay it's based on the the character of the property involved uh saying that we do have I believe some level of flexibility about how we can handle perhaps the the time frame for repayment I would ask uh the City attorney to give us some counsel on that please mayor you do have the option to remove this parcel from the assessment role tonight if you care to do that and uh set it out for um future hearing which point you could direct staff to work with the church and see if any changes should be made to the assessment one option would be to extend the period for repayment the statute authorizes a maximum of 30 years um these are proposed for 15 and I think that applies to all the other Parcels on this project and I think a lot of parcels on other projects as well so that would be a a different from the city's typical approach but that is an option under the statute questions for Mr Kendall yes so can you repeat that the last part again it's so this is 15 years and you said by State statue we could do 30 correct and for any other parcel or just that's the portion I wanted you to repeat yeah I mean the option exists for any parcel I think any the issue would be that the city has typically done 15 on all previous projects so it would be different treatment from for this Parc or any other Parcels from the previous projects the city has done okay it'd be different from our assessment policy policy it says special assessments are over 15 years according to statute you could go to 30 but you could go to 30 yeah and I just want to clarify one comment if I may on the uh the three sides of this parcel we don't assess by linear footage so it is a 02 Factor Ru Factor by the square footage of the building right and that's what we've been consistent with many other churches and schools just like manager Neil had mentioned so it's not impacting them that they have three sides to this project and you just should know as well that if you were extended to 30 years interest would run for that full 30 years so there'd be a higher there' be a lower installment payment per month or per year but a higher interest rate overall or higher interest cost overall yeah I think the well the payment uh you had calculated was maybe director Milner's done this who was 1690 plus interest per year roughly I at the 15year level correct so we cut that roughly in half correct plus interest um thoughts from council members on the options exemption reduction extend repayment period and maintain the policy but just in this circumstance extend payment period or just leave as is I guess it be the fourth option member rer um I'm uncomfortable carving out an exception that would not be something that any other um nonprofit could pursue so I just want to be clear what we're talking about if we went to 30 years that's not something that another entity could pick up the phone and negotiate with the city or is that something that could be done would it have to come before councel it would it would have to come before councel okay I I am concerned about setting that precedent um I yeah other thoughts yeah I I think that we don't when we change things on the Fly we're not consistent and not predictable and so I think um you know I agree with member Risser that as hard as it is if we start carving out exceptions then it's uncom unpredictable process and um and I don't I'm not comfortable with that thanks Mr Mayor I and so I I guess that's why I asked the question for clarification if it's part of the statute that we could do 30 then it feels like that ask is consistent apply others could ask for 30 that's the way I'm interpreting what you're saying if I'm wrong let's clarify that well there there are two there are two things at play here one is what state statute allows us to do uh but really is what our own policy lines out to do and when we we did some pretty significant policy uh changes maybe 12 years ago 10 years ago something like that where and one of them was had to do with with the interest rates that we charge uh we decrease them compared to what they used to be uh another was is the term of the assessments it used to be 10 we lengthened it to 15 to make it more palatable because that was at a time when when our assessments were continuing to grow really quickly and we were concerned that they were creating a burden a bigger burden than necessary for folks so that's why we tried to make it a little easier at that time okay and I would offer one thing there is other nonprofits and churches on docket tonight that don't know this is an option so I think there's a fairness thing of if you let one and somebody else is at home going hey how come I don't think anybody up here is in favor of doing anything tonight it was just a conversation about what we want to have a subsequent conversation about it and so where I'm sorry go ahead so where I where I was what I was getting at there is I talked a lot about us being consistent in how we apply whatever our standards are um and so I was asking for that point of clarification um for two reasons uh one just to understand what the difference is two is this something that we could apply we could choose to apply in a consistent way across the community um and so I actually think it makes sense to me not to make a decision tonight but to have staff go back and do the work and I am honestly just thinking this through if we were to say um nonprofits um like you have to figure out how you're going to apply that standard is what I'm getting at um and so one way could be to say for nonprofits we we we have this as an option but that then needs to become part of our policy and by this I'm talking about the extending to 30 years um in the case of a nonprofit that that seems reasonable to me uh but to member Jackson's Point um I don't think we should write policy from the Das when um we have an issue before us like this um and so my I would rather suggest that you take the time to look at it but through that lens is What's um in my mind so if I understood you go ahead director mner and I would just remind the council we had that street funding task force they looked at all the factors and we talked about churches and nonprofits and and they recommended these the changes to the policy that the council approved in 21 so um you know I think attorney Kendall made a point earlier today that we should if if you don't we should if you didn't want to approve this one we should approve all the rest because the assessing department needs all the other ones approved and we could set this one p aside and have discussions and figure out is it appropriate at the next meeting or is it next year because I don't know if we can do this analysis in one week to have a policy change so there's a timing piece to all the other assessments within this resolution what I heard um attorney Kendall say that one option was to carve this one out tonight let staff have a conversation with them come back to us and tell us whether or not you thought there were any basic policy reasons why we should change the exist policy sure um because when we went from 10 years to 15 years that changed things significantly even in this situation where the overall size of the assessment is not inconsequential of 25,000 the burden at 1690 a year or whatever it is that plus interest is should be manageable so um I guess it kind of begs the question we want to have that conversation right now about uh you know setting this one aside and having a having staff have a conversation about it or just take us up at some future time so mayor just to be clear I'm just telling you what the statute State statue authorizes and also the the current assessment policy as director Milner indicated does indicate 15 years that's the the time limits that's been applied to all churches schools nonprofits under this policy previously so this would be a polic if I mean you could do it with respect to this one parcel or you could do a policy change but I'm not recommending that the city violate its policy with respect to this parcel tonight yeah of course not rer and I agree with what attorney Kendall just said and um to director Milner's point there are other churches who are not aware and if we pulled this and said we're going to have a discussion I think you know that could raise some concerns and I I do think it's a challenging um decision but I think we should move forward with approving this motion with all of the properties listed thought follow on thoughts yeah I I so I just want to be clear I am not suggesting we do something separate for a par I am saying if we think there's Merit and I use the the context of nonprofit then we can have that be become part of our policy and then someone has to go forward and write that policy and bring that back but it would apply to any nonprofit not just this one um and so I'm I mean I feel like I'm trying to to uh find a a a a way forward that we can apply consistently um and so you know I kind of do this on both sides of the coin so that's one side right we could be consistent in in applying it that way the other question I have is if we do that um then I assume that that means everyone else that's being assessed is subsidizing that particular parcel because the costs are the costs and this is how we allocate the costs and so the question then is if we do something different um that's why I wasn't excited about an exemption or a reduction because I assume those costs then get spread to everyone else or how does it get covered uh that's a great question um in my opinion we wouldn't uh the city would have to find a different funding source I think in my opinion I wouldn't want to to cover that yeah spread it out all the other presence I think that'd be a question for finance director and manager Neil of is it general tax levy dollars or some other funding source to cover that 25,000 if the council so choose okay to do that so the question for me is do we think there's Merit in doing that um and so that's if we think there's Merit and taking the time to figure out if we should have some policy for nonprofits then we should do the work if we don't we should vote on it and and just move on and Neil I would suggest to you that it's it it's a pretty complicated uh question one that that when we have when we have looked at our assessment policy in the past we've we've imp paneled uh task forces and committees and they've spent the better part of a year uh talking about options and and even this particular question that's before you tonight uh with our last the last time we had a a assessment uh task force took a deep look at it and weighed the pros and cons of doing something different and and my recollection concluded that the the property tax exemption is the way that the government shows its its support or its appreciation for the the good things that nonprofits do in the community M Jackson yes so thank you I think you covered it mostly man Neil the task force worked really hard and long on a lot of really thorny complicated issues and I am very reluctant to reopen that so I would not be in favor it's I know it's really hard it's really hard the churches are you know very short on money and and it's it's across a lot of churches but I can't reopen this policy again not so soon I think the question you raised is an interesting one for future deliberation this conversation with uh Morningside Community Church yeah which we know is a great great asset in our community is uh has caused that to kind of percolate to the surface as a potential conversation in the future but um you know I I don't think anybody here thought we'd be doing anything on a one-off basis it was just all about whether or not we wanted to look at this and um set this one aside for now but there have been a good there's been a good conversation up here um the burden at under 2,000 a year ought to be manageable and um to figure out you know what nonprofits are potentially fit into a category where you'd have a extended repayment period uh up to the statutory maximum I think it'd be difficult work and and uh take quite a bit of time from a task force to look at that to see if we even wanted to go there so um yes so I I totally get that um for me this is more about us hearing a challenge in not saying well the policy is the policy but here are some options that we can do to help someone now guys we've done that in other cases person who has a tree right they it's too expensive well what can we do to help to me this is no different than that so if we don't if we're not willing to open the policy to see if there are changes that we can make then the next question is are there other options are there opportunities for and again I am I don't know all the details I'm sitting up here asking questions but these are the questions someone in the city should be asking are there grants that perhaps they can apply for to get relief are there other options that the this church has um to get relief if we leave our policy the way it is and we're within our rights to say yeah we're going to apply this consistently across everyone who's in that that zone that's fine there's nothing wrong with that there's also Al nothing wrong with us as a council saying to the city all right we're going to leave it the way it is but we're going to meet with you to see if we can figure out a way to help find you some relief and that that that's honestly that's all I'm saying so the proposed motion is to approve resolution 20247 through for the morning Side d& neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in Improvement ba 461 that would include the everybody in that uh assessment area at 15 years is that correct that is correct and just for the council's reference you could pull that one out and we could talk about it again at the next council meeting if we wanted to investigate some of these other ideas because it still needs to be filed by the end of the month to henen County so there's still a buffer in the schedule if we still want to assess it this year so before we have have a motion on the table what are people sentiments about that pulling pulling this one out to use it as a vehicle to have the conversation about um what we want to modify the assessment policy that's so you know my mischaracterizing what I'll go first I I think I feel that we're saying we don't want to adjust a policy and I'm okay with that as a motion what I'm not okay with is us just moving on it's just saying well the policy is the policy so my ask is that uh we can make the motion to approve this policy but then I still think as a city someone should meet with the the church okay to figure out and I don't even know if there are options uh but perhaps there are grants or something that they could utilize to to help um and so I think we should use whatever City resources we have um to then try to attack this issue from a different perspective and we would consistently do that with any other um organization that came forward so that that's what I'm saying yeah and that doesn't require a motion that just requires a commitment from staff to meet with we will do that yes exactly yeah think gu H all right no no I'm just um thinking we should address the motion then based on this conversation so that is there a someone on the council that cares to moove the approval of resolution 20247 3 for learning Side d& neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in Improvement ba 461 according to the uh the assessment role that staff has prepared so move second here's moves member rer seconds the adoption of resolution 20247 3 um for the morning Side d& neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in ba 461 and uh according to the the assessment role prescribed therein any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the resolution say I I I opposed carried I think folks uh from the church uh yeah Mrs dble you did a beautiful job speaking on behalf of the the community uh we all love coming over there for one purpose or another whether it's just good fellowship or um morning sight after dark you know we love being there and and uh maybe our staff will be able to help you figure out how we can maybe there is some grant money there as member peer suggest somewhere or some other ideas we can think of to help you out so I think he understood well full well what the based on the conversation of the council what what we thought we had to do thanks for coming tonight it was helpful to have that conversation thank you for discussing uh next is another matter by director Milner and that's the Morningside C neighborhood thank you mayor um yes embodied in resolution 2024-the on the border of St Louis Park down to 42nd Street constructed in 2023 uh again you conducted a public Hearing in 2022 December of 2022 and authorize the project then recall that you also received a petition in June uh 20th of 2023 to review the assessment method uh we staff discussed with the Council on July 18th and October 3rd with the Council on that matter and we had a work session this year on March 19th and we basically told you that the policy has been applied consistently over time for all of our street reconstruction projects we're recommending a special assessment of 9,000 $ 3687 per Ru that is a reduction from our preliminary estimate of $13,800 at the December 22nd meeting we had zero comments on better together D and and one objection to the assessment from that particular address at 412 Inglewood Avenue and I would recommend approval of a special assessment embodied in resolution 2024-the visent work on your part no nice to see those assessments come in lower than what we anticipated [Music] um all right anybody have a question for director Milner on this mornings Side sea neighborhood matter yes member Jackson so I know we we discussed this um a couple of times about the policy and everything but just on a general question the size of the um areas that we pick for Road reconstruction is that it's kind of kind of limited by what we can get contractors to do because I'm thinking with Melody lake when we combined the two then we didn't have enough time to plant all the sad and had the terrible problems with the grass can you talk just sort of generally about um the Practical limits of the size of these um different areas that you choose yeah council member Jackson we look at the original plat and the age of the original streets and then we start to break it down into uh project sizes that we can build in a summer in a year and that's really where these boundaries come from uh between the different neighborhoods and we have it planned out for the next 20 some years to finish our streets but really it's that level of effort and what can we get done in one summer because we don't want to have a giant mess we've seen the last few years with utility companies not doing what they say they're going to do and we have had to extend it over two years that's not a nice process for anybody involved so as far as do you think we need a policy or could we write a policy that sort of writes about what a a sized a optimal sized Rec Street reconstruction um project is so that people kind of have a sense of of how it's going to get divided up because we want it to be fair and I know there were some sense of well is this Fair these are different lots and how's it drawn but we don't want to have a situation where it can't get finished but is that is that a policy that we could come up with um I think we do a really good job of being fair and consistent with the policy drawing boundaries that are uh reasonable for our construction methods in the petition between these two neighborhoods that was the question and you saw tonight the assessment's $1,000 more than the other neighborhood the reason for that is these lots are bigger in this neighborhood that's one of the factors we also saw a 177% inflation rate so if we actually just took the original the other assessment and raised it by 177% we'd be above this number so we've managed the cost to try to keep it reasonable in here so I think we do a good job of picking project boundaries on reasonable this and I wouldn't develop a policy just to create boundaries of projects with any Dina okay thank you other questions for director Milner at this point in time morning side C all right this is a public hearing matter I'm going to open it up for a public testimony anybody in the audience wish to testify regarding this proposed assessment in the Morningside sea neighborhood uh with regard to the roadway reconstruction project that was done over there see no one coming forward hearing nothing uh Dr benot anybody online I do have some people online as a reminder if you are calling to testify in this public hearing I need you to press star one on your telephone keypad that's the the star or asterisk symbol then the number three that will put you in the Quee to speak um when you're in the queue to speak please um mute your telephone or computer or whatever listening whatever device you're listening on since there is that delay it'll provide feedback back um if it's at full volume again star three still not seen anyone my clock shows that it's 8:56 so I'll come back to you at 8:57 or when someone signals a desire to speak all right it's now 8:57 and neither caller is signaling an intention to speak so I think it's safe for you to move forward all right thank you is there a motion to close the public hearing with regard to the proposed Morningside sea neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment matter so moved second member Jackson moves member Pier seconds the uh motion to close the public hearing with respect to the morning side C neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment matter any further discussion all those in favor of closing and public Hearing in this matter say I I I opposed carried uh hearing is closed and U director Milner is recommending we uh uh move to approve the he moves to that we approve the resolution 20247 for the morning side C neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in Improvement number b-46 62 is there a motion to that effect so moved second member Jackson moves member Pier seconds the adoption of resolution 2024 d71 for the Morningside C neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in Improvement ba 462 any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the resolution is stated say I I I opposed carried resolution is adopted those assessments are approved uh and then director Milner has one more matter and that is the proposed special assessment with regard to the Blake Ro Blake Road neighborhood roadway reconstruction project thank you mayor members of council this again was a a project delay due to private utility companies it was supposed to be a one-year Construction in 2022 but we had to separate that between 22 and 23 construction this is a municipal state aid roadway so there is some additional funding sources used on this particular project the limits are from the Hopkins border um down to just south of interlock and along Blake Road at has embodied on this map uh you conducted a public Hearing in December of 2021 and authorized the project we estimated at that time $77,000 per Ru and we are recommending uh $7,000 per Ru this evening so we received three comments from two residents from the same property on the Better Together web page the comments were about they like the sidewalks kind of but they don't like all the pedestrians walking by and making their dogs bark so not a matter that the city usually considers when we build sidewalks um and we receive zero oblig uh objections to the assessment so we're recommending you approve resolution number 20247 to I'll Stand For any questions director Miller standing for questions any questions from Council Members I speak uh you will be able to a moment just hope bear with me a moment thank you all right and then now I'm going to open it up for public testimony so all you can come forward okay thank you there you go just a split second Rene hey Chad how's it going so I'd like to comment that on well give us your name and address please Renee Mitchell 5020 Blake Road South it's been a pleasure to work with however I'd like to comment that on the public website um the comments did close on September 25th I did receive the paper letter in the mail but nowhere in the letter did it say the public comments would close so I'm happy to be here in person all right welcome okay and we did leave several voicemails I believe within the past couple days but I believe the voicemail also closed on September 25th so I apologize we tried to get here on time and I just flew here from DC oh you're just fine so um I'm here today to express my opposition to the proposed special assessment of $77,000 per address for the Blake roadway project the project has raised several environmental and safety concerns that I believe should not be overlooked first the project has compromised significant trees in the area many which have provided critical habitat for local Wildlife including wood ducks these trees were not just part of our natural landscape but also part of the biodiversity and ecological balance of the area second the construction has led to an increased erosion along the shoreline which has negatively impacted the water quality which you guys may have seen from The Watershed water quality assessment that we've all received everybody on the mirror Lakes waterline due to the degradation of the shoreline caused by the project segment uh set runoff into the water has become a significant issue this not only affects the ecosystem but also has long-term implications 10 years 20 years 50 years plus of our community's environmental health Additionally the project has caused an increase in traffic along Blake Road with this uptake we've SE also seen an alarming rise in speeding which poses a risk to both residents pedestrians and children in the neighborhood this change in traffic patterns has further disrupted the crank tranquility and safety of our neighborhood for these reasons I do not support the special assessment I urge the council to take these environmental and safety concerns seriously thank you for your time and consideration I'm backed up by four more residents of uh my property on 5020 Blake Road South I believe have Hannah on the phone line trying she's tried to comment on a few things in the phone line like wouldn't unmute and open up so Hannah are you there but we'll check with her in a moment you're you're done with your testimony was Mitchell yes I am thank you anyone else yes sir hello my name is Dave ham I live at 6228 Interlocken Boulevard that's right in the intersection of the uh roundabout um I'm not a very eloquent speaker I'm just a average guy I've listened to some other people here working on this for months I I should have been maybe in contact with you um but when I received this notice of the hearing I I I don't know anything about the procedures or or what I should have what I should have done previously but I thought I recogn read something and hear about um maybe being overse 65 there's a potential of some kind of deferment or W waiver something I'm 75 I've been retired for for uh 10 years um so I I don't know if that has any bearing on anything I'm just kind of stating making a statement but I also wanted to to add uh one secondary thought um the the roundabout is right in the middle of my driveway entrance and exit and I'm not concerned about the entrance I'm concerned about the exit to my driveway so when I pull out of my driveway I'm in the culdesac or I'm in the roundabout I mean the front of my vehicle uh is well let me back up here a little bit I have about maybe 30 feet where I can see the the road I can see interlock and Boulevard to see if any vehicle are coming as I approach the uh roundabout so mik vehicle really extends out into the sidewalk and I'm still having trouble seeing any vehicles coming into the road so I have it's a safety concern for me personally maybe not for anybody else but uh I I'm in a position where I half the time I expect just to be T-boned as I pull out because there are so many cars that are coming at least 30 m an hour and some even faster around that before they even see my vehicle 30 fet away from them so um so I don't know what the proper wording should be I don't know how what how I should express myself but uh I'm against this assessment to me personally so it Not only was not a benefit to me personally but it's a potential detrimental uh safety hazard to me so okay so is it is it the is it the traffic coming from the from interl from east to west that you're concerned the traffic is coming from the East going to West yeah going past interlock Interlocken Country Club your house into the uh roundabout yeah gotcha yeah so okay okay okay all right thanks Dave thank you and then on the deferment we'll have director milder come up and you can hear about that yes come on up I'm John Loren I live at 517 Blake Road South and I'm here to a ask the mayor and the council to re reject this uh special assessment for Blake Road uh I think the idea behind the special assessment is it is it accrues to the benefit of owners on Blake Road so it would be fair for us to pay an additional amount for property tax but that's just not correct for a re for a large Road within Blake within Edina that funnels traffic from neighborhoods into um other main roads or or interstates um the reconstructions actually hurt my value in that it's increased traffic in the neighborhood which hurts the value of the property uh it en it encourages people to drive too fast uh which hurts the value of the property um I think if we're honest the true benefits of redoing Blake Road and I'm not saying that I think he dinina needs Blake roads with any Dina but I think the benefit of cruise to not the people that live and own property on Blake Road it accurs to the people that live in the neighborhoods it accurs to the the country club interlan that's just a few blocks away that has a lot of traffic coming down Blake Road those are the the residents that really benefit but yet they're not assessed I'm being assessed I think the truth is my property would be worth more if Blake Road was a dirt path and I would take that dirt path up to down to Interlocken or up to excelsia and by the way we wouldn't need a speed sign an electronic speed sign if it was a dirt path because people wouldn't be speeding um so that's why um I'm here to ask the council and the mayor to reject this special assessment and uh move to immediately move to a plan that's more Equitable and fair I I think the city would agree with that I think there's a long-term plan to change how these assessments are done but when you have something that's not fair and Equitable the time to change is immediately you don't delay it you make the change immediately and that's why I'm asking the uh Council mayor to reject the special assessment thank you very much thank you Mr Lance evening good evening Council uh Tim Grant 521 Blake uh Avenue Blake Road South um during the course of this construction project W which did take over two years and I think very significantly almost three uh Blake Road was actually torn up twice and I don't understand why there wasn't a better coordination with the utility repair and replacement that was done and then the road repaired and then the city coming in and tearing up that and then putting in their Road the the new road it it's insane to me that we need to pay the full price of the assessment when better organization between the the utility repairs and the city's goal of uh increasing speed along Blake Road uh could have been done at a lesser at a lesser dollar to Residents I agree fully with uh John's comments that were just made uh my property value hasn't done any better uh we see much higher speeding traffic uh going by and even some confusion with the two bike lanes that were put in that that people are going the wrong way on some of the bike Lanes instead of traveling with traffic they're traveling against traffic so I'm against this this assessment predominantly because I don't think it was done efficiently with in coordination with the utilities has they replaced uh those utilities along the same road roadway thank you thank you Mr Grant evening my name is Helen Ferraro I live at 645 Blake Road South um I guess I actually have questions about what the purpose of the project was if it was just for the utility um repair or whatever or if it was also this also includes the roundabout was it this is for both oh yeah you go ahead and pose your questions and we'll answer them afterwards okay thank you um so if this assessment um includes the both the utility project and the roundabout I guess I'm confused as to what the purpose of the roundabout was um I have only lived here for two years my family and I moved um moved from California here in 2022 and the roundabout actually I feel is causing more confusion and the traffic feels a lot faster a lot more dangerous we live right on the corner of Blake and Waterman and um it is very dangerous for us to come out and make a left or a right because people are coming so fast on both sides of Lake Road um I don't really other than the bike Lanes I'm not really seeing an improvement to what was done um and I guess that's why I didn't I had questions about actually what this whole project entailed but um I I guess I just I don't agree with the assessment because I don't feel that the people on Blake Road have received any benefit from this thank you thank you good evening my name is Bill P I live at 6324 Waterman Avenue um my main concern is uh somewhat what John had mentioned it's not the people that live on Blake Road that are benefiting from this Improvement it's people cross flowing through that's a major Street where people are coming off of 169 coming off of Highway 100 going out to exceler Boulevard going to nolwood going to Miracle Mile going to Hopkins going all over uh I would say if you did a traffic count the people that live along Blake Road that are being asked to pay for this are using it less than 1% of the total cars going by so it makes no sense that a few are paying for the benefit of so many others so it's just a big imbalance on who's benefiting and who's ending up paying for it so that's the area that I would like you to focus on thank you thank you yeah I think you probably should be done so you treat everybody the same here but yeah anyone else here new speakers okay let's see if we got anybody online I do have a speaker who's indicating a desire to speak um so I am unmuting your your line caller please Begin by stating your full name and address for the record hello my name is Hannah Mitchell resident of 5020 Blake Road South and I'm here today to express my opposition to the proposed special assessment of $77,000 for the Blake Road neighborhood roadway project as stated by our neighbors Mr ham Mr Loren Mr Grant and others this project has been detrimental to the residents of Blake Road South the project has led to increased traffic related speeding people are running over the cement center of the roundabout not even using the roundabout and in addition this project has created massive amounts of erosion in the pond at Borders as well as the destruction of many critical trees which were home to Wood ducts who only nest in trees along the water for the foregoing reasons I ask the council to reject the proposed special assessment thank you yeah thank you for calling in I do not have any other callers signaling a desire to speak at this time all right let's um but Senator T closing the public hearing here and then we'll go back to director Milner and get some of these concerns addressed that the residents have raised um so with regard to um the Blake Road neighborhood roadway roadway reconstruction proposed special assessment is there a motion to close the public hearing so moved second M Jackson moves member Pier second's a motion to uh close the public hearing uh in this matter involving a potential special assessment on Blake Road the Blake Road neighbor neighborhood roadway reconstruction project uh any further discussion all those in favor of closing the public hearing say I I I opposed carried public hearing is closed let's go back through some of these um concerns that have been raised um starting with Renee Mitchell I guess at 5020 Blake Road South um but she raised several issues that were environmental related and uh like to have you address those uh thought the project had compromised several trees increased erosion water quality uh assessment is not good there's a lot of settlement run off why don't you address some of those issues for us sure uh if you recall the project we sheet piled along Mirror Lake to provide space for bike lanes and extra sidewalks that weren't in that area before remember we had a lot of people walking in the street one of the main purposes is creating a safe Ro for people to walk through this area we did remove trees uh we removed trees we replanted greater than one to one uh replanted a lot on her property on Mr Ham's property and others within this project so we did lots of replanting the erosion we've added a whole storm water Vault that catches sediment now within the project that before drained directly into that lake so now we're collecting sediment sucking it out and depositing it within uh uh the proper Waste Management WS the sheet piling also stops erosion control of the shore because we drove that almost at the water line normal water line so that's again limiting the erosion control erosion issue um and then increased traffic and speeding we haven't collected data on the road yet because it was only been open for one year so it can't speak to whether there's increase in traffic or not I really don't think there is I think it's back to what it was in probably 2021 or maybe even pre-co right because we kind of had that covid time frame in there uh the roundabout was built to calm traffic uh that's intersection was way worse before the roundabout went in you couldn't people from the South got queued up well down down past Rene's property and around the curve and they couldn't get out of their neighborhood on AM and PM Peak so at least now we have a roundabout where people can get in and out of the neighborhood in all directions um so that's that those were the main points from Renee what about the water quality assessment but she said there was a water quality assment I don't know she's speaking about to that so I have to look into if there was have we done a water quality assessment not that I'm aware of pre- and post not that I'm aware of we've had to we had to meet the pollution control agencies erosion control measures during construction and like I just discussed we added a bunch of stuff that wasn't there before that's going to be permanent long term but we've got a vault in there now that catches set is that what you're saying yep Vault and systems like that to catch erosion during construction we had flotation silk curtain Biol logs all the necessary measures to meet the PCA permit Mr ham talked about uh the deferment he needs to contact the assessing department so if he's interested providing maybe having that review by the assessing Department it's based on age and income he may able to defer this assessment it still is on the property so it' just be deferred in collecting interest over time and once the property sells then you'd have to worry about or figure out how to pay that assessment off at that time um the safety comments about the driveway we worked with Mr ham we pushed the wall back he let us do some work there to you got a brand new wall along his property big boulder wall um in my opinion when we looked at sight lines we increased his driveway width and yes he does have to pull out over the sidewalk to see to the east but we felt like like it was reasonable and and uh sight lines reasonable sight lines from the driveway in that case um I can speak to I'm sorry I wrote down first we thought about any if we thought about any traffic calming measures on interlock and Boulevard that would cause those cars moving eastbound to westbound to travel at a lower rate of speed because that seems like a street where uh people get going at a pretty good clip the roundabout the roundabout is built to slow people down before they were going 40 plus miles an hour now they're slow at the roundabout area by his driveway and we narrowed travel lanes and pavement markings to shrink that uh pavement width and the driving lanes that typically slows people down and we'll do those investigations here in the future on the speed and traffic numbers um a couple of people Express a concern about the benefit was other people not them and uh why should they have to live on a busy street that serves all of Vina and uh and pay for a special assessment and I think I think we've been you know you said it was a state aid street so you might want to explain that again yeah so John and and Bill mentioned the they shouldn't be paying for the assessments well state aid route we're starting back in 2021 we used to only assess 20% for that in fact fact that you shouldn't pay for 100% of the assessments so right now in this year they're paying 14.7% of the uh assessible costs on this project versus the other hearings we just had were 68% so we already baked in the benefit of living on a state a street and bringing that another funding source into uh the project so so your point is this proposed special assessment at 7,000 is a reflection of cost reduction because they are in a busy street exactly it's way lower than it would be if we followed the local Street assessment policy which is uh in the policy um sorry again I only wrote down first names but the four speaker Tim he mentioned why was Blake Road done twice and why couldn't we coordinate better with private utility companies we share our maps of the 5year reconstruction program with utility companies sometimes they participate with us sometimes they just show up with permits and say we need to do Project X in this case the gas company came in and did a big gas project in advance of our project we have budgets on how we do our projects and we can't just move one up two or three years to align exactly with a gas company so they couldn't wait and we couldn't speed it up what they did after the project is just patch the street and we came in and made the improvements of a brand new Street brand new curbing gutters narrow dissections and added sidewalks added bike lanes and really made a continuous Improvement versus the patching they left after the project so when Mr Grant expresses the opinion that he thought better organization would have reduced the assessment what are your thoughts on that it would not it's the same it would have been the same project if the gas company was with us or had they been two years early like they were yep other questions that I might have missed have member Risser go ahead and did on the memo it states that uh a majority of the project costs were related to large sheet pile retaining walls along Mirror Lake to support new wide sidewalks and adjustment to Street including a roundabout and I'm just wondering um were there any I mean could any grant money cover the sidewalks at all if if in the retaining walls were there other outside sources that thanks for the question that was one other question we had is what's included in the assessments water main work not included sanitary work not included all the storm water and erosion uh discussion we had that's all the utility funds we have Municipal state aid funds that are from the gas tax as a agency we brought that that's a big portion of this project the residents didn't pay for retaining walls they didn't pay for Sheet piling walls they didn't pay for sub cuts that was all part of the street funding task force to lower um what we did bring in PX funds for the sidewalks so what they're paying for is literally 8 in of travel uh this street has five or six Ines of binus and the Restorations of the driveways and properties that's what's included in the assessments not even the roundabout the roundabouts Paving that's part of the street so that is in the cost of the assessments yes but it was a $10.5 million project and we're assessing I don't have the exact roughly 7,000 I think per Ru per Ru and should have the number of properties so I don't don't know the total assessment it's it's probably in your packet in the uh resolution so if it had not been on the state aid Street the assessment would have been roughly what uh 4X that's number 28,000 without the state aid portion of it and without the task force taking away retaining walls and sub cuts um and reducing the assessment from 20% to 14.7% already in that policy transition over time questions other questions yeah member Jackson you had some um I'm this is for I'm going to pick your memory because mine's not working but Blake Road between uh exceler and interlock and has been under construction forever it seems like with a light rail um and so I think you know first of all relief that is done but also traffic compared to it goes back before the pandemic I think it was like maybe 2018 they started messing with Blake Road um so I just kind of want to set expectations that for a long time people couldn't get through Blake Road um and this is the final step of of all of that I hope that we don't have that shut down but I just wanted to kind of set expectations around that um so as a comment more question but does that ring true like about about a lot of work in the area Excel here in the intersection the Southwest light World project our project so yes I would agree co uh had two years of low traffic that took took that came back again so I think we're starting to see normal operations and we can go back and look at numbers traffic counts historical traffic counts okay 25 years in the past if we wanted to take a peek at it okay great Pi thanks Mr Mayor so question on traffic can you just describe again I think you said we don't have data yet because it's only been open for a year um can you just speak a little a bit more about what we might be doing to assess if we do need to have calming or other things um on that road yep stated routes are required to do traffic counts every four years so we go around and do counts every four years so then we get the comparison of has traffic stayed consistent as it increase decrease and then we look at some of the construction projects in the area maybe that impacted but we also collect speeds and then we can start to investigate the need for dynamic speed signs or narrowing traffic Lanes or adding roundabouts we did a lot of the things that we would do for traffic combing here one of the next steps is what we talked about earlier this evening is a potential sign Dynamic speed sign um along this Corridor at some point okay um because I you know I do have this principle that I don't I think is not a good position or a great position for us to be in if residents are experiencing something but our data doesn't support it and so I like for those two things to be be to correlate so and so I am on that road quite a bit we live in Highlands and so just like one of the other residents said I'll go through there to get home often and um I actually do think it's faster going through there for some reason like it's not like the roundabouts here where you've got two roundabouts and so people really go slowly on uh E Avenue when they're going through those roundabouts um this one is it almost feels like it's more of like a speed bump when you're going through there um and I think the the one thing that I have seen that helps is when we have police station on that road um that does cause people to to slow down when they they see the police officer there um so I I don't know if that is an issue of the roundabout or just an issue on the road in general um but there I think there are some some challenges with speed on that that particular road so it would be great to be able to get the data and then I think we should assess that to see what we might need to do uh to make it safer uh the other thing I'll I'll add I um I thought going around the um the curve right right in that corner yeah um I used to cycle through there and felt like one once I got to that curb I would just ped as fast as I could to get around and I thought all right this is going to be a great project we're going to put these sidewalks in and I don't I don't know that I've ever seen a cyclist get off the road and take the sidewalk and maybe they're not supposed to they kind of merge into they stay in the the Road and so that still feels like the one of the safety benefits I thought we'd have um just isn't there and so I don't know if that's education of a cyclist to say NOP the safe route around that curve is to be on the Sher use path versus in the street I I don't know the answer to that uh but I do think it warrants us to look at and you've said we would do this um signage maybe some some lighting or something to to Really guide that traffic to make sure it's uh as safe as it can be so I'll just speak we provided on street bike facilities and off street so for us it's the responsibility of the cyclist to choose where they feel the most comfortable so every time I'm out there you see somebody biking through and they either choose to use the big wide sidewalks or the bike lane so that's a personal preference on how comfortable they feel on those facilities but we provided both options we don't always have that opportunity to have enough space to provide ride both on street bike lanes and separated facilities so yeah so just to be clear I get that I am saying if we have the data that suggests that in this area perhaps it's safe for you to be on the sidewalk versus in the road that's an awareness thing that we could do to share with folks that this is a safer route than being on the road but they do get to choose to your point Y thank you I'm trying to remember what year the Twins won the World Series when we beat Atlanta was that 97 87 and 91 91 yeah so I was living on Blake Road on right there on 91 my next door neighbor was a former catcher for the Atlanta Braves so we had to go sit in the Atlanta Braves section we gave us tickets and that was no it was actually fun at the end when Kirby hit a home run but uh uh you know we didn't have I live in that old farmhouse right north of Blake right north of fox meow on the the east side we didn't have Curb we didn't have gutter we didn't have sidewalks it would rain and the water would pour down and because it was house was lower water in the basement you know there's been so many dramatic improvements over time but forever that street has been one where you have to be concerned about uh speed and volume and and that continues I think even though it's it's a much more modern street it's uh it can manage water better uh manage traffic better uh and it's there's some vast improvements in terms of the beautification of it with the walls and everything else it's uh really quite remarkable looking but when you hear people talk about as remember Pierce is saying still concerns over speed and volume uh we got to we got to keep on that so I just say that uh sooner we get some data there the better I I concur with him on that all right uh were there other points that you remembered that cover um I think we covered all the stuff that I had written down okay um could um have a conversation or we can we can take a motion I guess and then have a conversation is there a motion to approve resolution 2024 D um I was just trying go ahead I wanted to make sure we answer your question about the purpose behind the project um okay all right thank you yeah that's good thought I had that note written down too all right um is there a motion to approve resolution 202 24-7 oh excuse me 202 24-72 for the Blake roadway neighborhood roadway reconstruction special assessment embodied in Improvement number ba- 463 so moved second Jackson moves member Pierce seconds the adoption of resolution 202 24-72 which is the special assessment for the Blake Road neighborhood roadway reconstruction project embodied in Improvement number ba- 463 uh discussion anybody have discussion points they want to make okay all those in favor of adoption of the resolution is uh as as stated say I I I I opposed carried the resolution is approved um I think we tried to answer all those questions and understand the concerns of the residents so that was a good discussion um all right uh the next matter now we have before us is uh dealing with a piece of property we've talked about before over in henerson Avenue Donnie Holmes was in front of us a while ago with an idea uh what to do over there and they're back in front of us with a new idea and that uh this is a public hearing matter as well and um we're going to take test 20 tonight but defer any decision on this until the middle of October at least and um I'm going to turn now to our community development director Carrie teag will will make the presentation and then uh don Holmes I saw Mr Don here and uh Steve beny may be with us remote I'm not sure but okay go ahead yes thank you mayor members of the council uh the project that you mentioned um that the Council made decision on this past May was a proposal for two duplexes on these two lots that we're looking at so the picture on the screen is the two existing single family homes on the property it's located just north of the Hankerson town home so same developer to the South properties uh zoned R1 single dwelling unit district guided in our comprehensive plan for low density residential basically their single family home District again the two homes that exist on the site access is gained off of the alley to the West this property was originally platted way back in 1913 it was originally platted with all 50ft wide Lots so you can see the two properties that we are looking at this evening were originally platted as three 50ft wide Lots the request is to basically reest establish that original plat over time when this neighborhood developed as was the case with these two properties sometimes Property Owners would purchase a half a lot or combin lots to build on 100 foot wide lot the little dashed lines here indicate where that happened where they purchased two lots or a lot and a half and built on a larger property so again here's the lots that we're looking at so again the proposal is to reestablish the original plat they would gain access off the alley to the West the homes would be required to be code compliant at the time of building permit in terms of setback um building coverage Imperia surface all of those things the required lot size changed in in the early 7s the minimum lot size is 9,000 square ft 75 ft in width and 135 ft in depth when you run the median calculation for this neighborhood the three lots that are proposed meet the median average that come out to be just over 6,500 square feet 50 feet in width and 130 feet in depth so to accommodate this subdivision um lot width variances are needed for all three lots lot depth variances for all three and lot area variances for all three so when we look at our pyramid of discretion we're in the middle here looking at a subdivision with variance so we do have some discretion whether to approve or deny over the past 20 years or so we've had similar requests this map indicates most of them are around Pamela Park where the neighborhoods were originally planted as 50 foot wide Lots the cities approved some and we've denied some in fact there's one lot at 59th and conquered where where it was originally denied and then approved 3 years later each decision that the council has made at that time really zeros in on the neighborhood if it's the last 100 foot wide lot in the neighborhood those have been pretty standard those get approved but it's when there's a mixture of a variety of homes where um those have been denied just a quickly look at building coverage and impervious surface the building coverage requires M changes for Lots below 9,000 sare ft the um the building coverage is 30% at 9,000 square fet or above it is 25% so when you look at the two existing homes they're well below our building coverage requirement at 7 at 17% and impervious as well if the two existing homes were to be torn down they could build up to that 2 5% would be about 4,800 Square ft and the impervious surface obviously stays the same with the proposed subdivision they could get a little bit more building between the three lots because the building coverage goes to 30% so just a little background there primary issue that Planning Commission and staff considered are the variants are the findings for the variants uh met both staff and the Planning Commission our recommending approval the Planning Commission vote was 8 to1 going through the variance criteria uh first the variances would be in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the ordinance the purpose and intent of the ordinance is to stablish a minimum lot size that's similar to surrounding properties so again most of the Lots in this neighborhood are 50 foot wide lot lots so we believe it would be reasonable to reestablish the original plat it's consistent with the comprehensive plan again um single family homes proposed on the site we also believe that the three uh the Practical difficulty test is met first looking at the reasonable use again reestablishing that original plat to be consistent with the majority of the properties Lots within this neighborhood um is reasonable the plight of the uh land owner is due to circumstances unique and not created by the prop property owner again the combination of those lots to make them larger were done by a previous property owner and we don't believe that three single family homes here as opposed to two would alter the essential character of the neighborhood within the staff report staff did provide alternatives for approval and denial but again staff and the Planning Commission are recommending approval subject to the findings and conditions that are outlined in the resolution and staff report but the recommendation this evening is to close the public hearing at noon on October 6th and then continue action to the next meeting with that I can stand for questions questions for director Teague at this point in time okay I guess you you don't have to worry about that but you you talk to the applicant about their presentation yes Mr Banky is online with us and he'll make the presentation 15 minutes or so is that what you correct suggested okay let's um get Mr branky on the line and Mr Don may want to participate as well we don't hear you yet Mr Banky hold on he's unmuted it's on his end I'm sorry I was there you go yeah we can hear you now I apologize thank you Mr Mayor and members of the council um we are bringing this project back before you uh it is the two Parcels at 5120 and 5124 Hankerson Avenue uh the proposal is to remove two uh over homes and replat the property into the original configuration of 350t lots um more than 78% of the existing neighborhood is the 50ft lots that were originally planted back in 1913 as U would you restate that would you restate that percentage Mr Banky 80% is that what you said 78% 78% okay so so it's a super majority of the of the Lots in the neighborhood um one other comment I think that we would like to make is that you know that we did have the picture of the front of the homes that were there um when you turn around and look the other way you are looking at the back of Wells parle so these these properties are still up against the commercial uh development of Vernon Avenue um the variances that exist here are strictly because of the change in the zoning code that was adopted many many years after the project was platted and while it was uh occasionally uh a situation where those home buyers or Builders would choose to build on a bigger lot my grandparents had one in South Minneapolis it certainly isn't the you know what happened in this neighborhood with 78% of them being P for Lots um all of the homes in the area that will be that we proposed or would be bringing in the build would be meeting all during our building requirements um our front setbacks m match the adjacent projects and the adjacent homes uh we're going to continue to use the alley for Access um we're not changing to um homes that would then drive out of the anerson um we're using all current R1 Zoning for our build and building distances um we did have a uh neighborhood meeting on August 20th uh more than 200 letters were sent out to meet the th000 foot uh CL and we had one attendee outside of two from the Grand View Town Home Project and that attendee was in favor of the project um generally it's uh simply returning this part of this neighborhood back to its original configuration uh we don't believe it Alters the essential character with the super majority of homes sharing the sizing uh we do think that the uh Harmony and general purpose in inent is only ordinances met because of the the the issue of the zoning F changing well after this this area was developed we uh we concur with the other elements of the Varian discussions um we don't believe that this is caused by us and we don't believe that there's any other reason why this shouldn't be uh adopted um with that I would take questions all right thanks Mr Beni uh let me ask council members about uh questions for you you know uh let me just start out by saying you know when when we approved those town houses that were constructed over there we were we were all thinking about I think year group included the missing middle and then the cost of construction went up I think the land well the land you had but the labor Lumber side of it went up and so they didn't quite hit the missing middle but when you think about put putting uh three smaller single family homes on these two large Lots uh are you thinking that we might hit uh that mythical through middle missing middle or is it still going to be pretty high end we believe our our homes will be market rate uh and determining what market rate is these days can be a a a hard thing um we are choosing at least on one uh at this point to uh construct a Ram one um beyond that we we really have to just like any other lot that we have purchased uh and redeveloped in the city of Edina you know we typically are are working with what the market asked for and reminder that you know even with a A Home of a little bit higher value on a lot like this you you know typically you are freeing up a home home elsewhere in in the city or whatever you know however you want to look at it there are other homes that in the city they either could be purchased instead of this one or that somebody could move up from I mean there are just a number of different Avenues where uh you are helping missing middle uh by having new construction all right yes member Pierce has a couple questions for you so thank you for your your uh answer um I let me make it easier for you to answer the median home value in heat din is projected now to be at 712 are these homes going to be above the median or below the median I assume given current pricing that you're going to find them to be above the median it's simply a function of the cost of Redevelopment and the cost of new construction and the mayor did allude to some of it materials and labor have changed significantly in The Last 5 Years it is virtually impossible to build an empty level home in Minnesota for less than $450,000 today between developing property and then um you know building the house so you know I think you have to understand that the median is skewed currently with some lower priced homes but new construction replaces homes that typically are aging out of usefulness um I know that one of these two homes is probably uh going to be removed uh I know that one of them has a great potential of being relocated um you know we we also looked into that uh after a previous meeting and and one of the other homes that we are redeveloping in Edina is being relocated so these simply don't go into a uh a disposal site if if the home is still has some quality to it it can be you know relocated and restored in some fashion uh that is certainly a a choice that we made uh that doesn't necessarily mean it makes sense to keep it at this location uh I do believe in this case given its proximity to Grand View and Vernon and the commercial properties adjacent to it that gentle densification in this area is a benefit to the city of be the long term uh new construction also you know you restarting the clock on the age of a house um both of these were built uh wow uh both of these were built before I was born and that doesn't necessarily mean that you know they they like I say they should go into a a dumpster but honestly uh homes of this uh age have issues that go far beyond just whether or not somebody can move into them uh you know we do want to look at energy we do want to look at um you know is this really a help uh in terms of the city's uh clim goals and you got to expect that the answer to a lot of that is no um homes built today [Music] use about a tenth of the they can use as little as a tenth of the energy as a home built at in the 60s um they can ALS you know you you find that most of our homes when you look at them are are using energy at 50% of the level that the federal government requires for 2006 era houses so you know we do build a very good home and that does contribute to the uh I think to the energy goals of the city um so I I just have one other question and I this could be um something Mr D you could expound on as well and I'm just trying to to test the theory here so um we done some work on housing affordability and the the theory part of the theory was if you can take a lot or in this case you're taking two and you are essentially replatting those so that you can build three structures on it that the biggest issue in Edina is the cost of the land and so you're diffusing the cost of the land you're spreading it across three structures and so the theory was if you're doing that then the prices of those homes why they may not be $450,000 they should be they could be above the median but not million doll homes and so that was the the the theory and so it'd be great if you could just explain to me that I'm I'm wrong in what I'm thinking um and we got to go back to the drawing board thank you Mr D did walk up here so thank you Mr Mayor uh council members um no you're correct um we're going to divide those that price of the two Lots now into the three and obviously we're going to get a lower value for those lots uh these aren't going to be million dooll homes unless they you know I'll build I'll build one of them and then just like I build the town house model um consumer will come in buyers will come in and we decide what they are looking for if they finish the lower levels um and they add a lot of options um yeah the price of this home could could approach a million but they're not going to be base priced at a million so we'll finish them with and if someone comes in and wants the the upper two bedrooms finished and we have the optional two bed to be finished down and they don't want to do that right away um we can consider just selling them the two bedrooms up in the great room uh kitchen several bathrooms up with the option to finish the lower level um so I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for saying that I don't know if you remember you and I had a conversation over a year ago about that I was down in Mississippi visiting my father and you and I had a conference call about that right and so I thought that that model was had some promise and so I just wanted to validate that so I I do appreciate you coming down and validating that and I think this is a perfect area um like your studies that the University of Minnesota did on this area with the Vernon cor Corridor and all the commercial I think it's a fir a great area to have this type of product and we're certainly going to hope that we sell some to empty nesters because I had uh huge majority of the people that came through the parade homes during the townhouse mods were looking for that type of product and uh it had that product had a little too many stairs for them this is going to be designed for for that age group good all right questions yes member rer um I'm looking at the diagram that shows proposed residences and I'm just wondering it appears there's going to be a backyard or okay good I just wanted to affirm that cuz I really felt like that was something missing from the earlier proposal and that it really is part of the character of the neighborhood so that's important to me um I really did appreciate hearing that one of these houses might be moved to another site and I think that's if that does happen that's a story really worth telling so I think that um is notable to member Pierce's point about affordability one thing that I've been thinking about for a while and it wouldn't apply to you because the code is the code right now but we could consider saying if a lot is under 9,000 square feet it has to maintain that 25% instead of getting permission to go to 30 and that might encourage smaller homes that were more affordable it's something I've been thinking about for quite some time anyway thank you yes just to comment on on the moving of the homes I have I have done some Ina where we've moved them off off the lot and and uh moved them to other areas and sold them and it's worked out pretty well unfortunately the one on Chowan that I've got coming up we have to wait for the um I just talked to the house mover today who's buying that one and uh um France Avenue has been under construction so long that he's he's getting uh kind of disappointed now but I said did you know probably by November he'll be able to do it I I want pictures I want to see this it sounds great and it keeps it out of the landfill so thank you all right uh folks stand by this is a public public hearing matter this Mr D was there anything else you wanted to add no or Mr Banky anything at this point in time I think Paul covered it very well thank you all right very good stand by uh we're going to open this up now for um public testimony because it is a public hearing and um is there anyone here in the audience that wishes to testify regarding this matter again seeing no one coming forward hearing nothing um anybody online I don't have anyone other than Mr Banky on the line right now um because of that delay in broadcast I would recommend we wait a minute before moving on it's 9:56 I'll come back to you at 9:57 or when I have a caller whichever is first on the 15th yeah okay it is now 9:58 and I still don't have a caller so I think it's safe for you to move forward with the item thank you um well staff is recommending that despite the fact we don't have anybody online or anybody that wanted to testify here that we uh keep the public hearing aspect of this open for somebody to comment until noon on October 6 so the motion would be close the public hearing at noon on October 6th and continue the action uh to the no uh October 15 2024 city council meeting meeting is there a motion to that effect so moved second member Jackson moves member briser seconds the uh motion to close the public Hearing in this matter at noon on October 6th and continue the action to the October 15 2024 city council meeting any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion is stated say I I I oppos carried the uh matter will now be closed on October 6th at noon and it will be continued to the October 15th city council meeting and um the rhythm of the public hearing continues old nondorf our development manager has the next matter or Economic Development matter manager I mean excuse me yes good evening uh the next item tonight is another public hearing I believe this is your last one for the evening so maybe that's a good sign um but the uh the discussion tonight is in regards to the establishment of a new tax increment financing District uh this is embodied in resolution through uh uh the purpose of this uh resolution and this proposal uh it is a public hearing so we don't expect any uh action tonight but are here to answer your questions and summarize where we are and where we think we're going to go uh so this particular District we're calling it The 72nd in France number three District uh it's right at that intersection of 77th in Gallagher and France um and there's been a couple other districts there the intention is to create a a financing District to help support private Redevelopment of that parcel that's currently occupied by the Macy's Furniture Home Store the int the intended Redevelopment there is ided is ided in PUD number 25 which has been working through the process for about a year and a half so the the uh purpose of tonight's discussion and public hearing uh is to uh consider the future creation of a tiff District that's done by adopting a tiff plan uh that Tiff plan is in your packet it's been posted on online for for about 3 weeks and that plan outlines the basics of how this Tiff District would operate the scope the purpose the duration the budget Etc so I'll run through uh a little bit about how Tiff Works in a Dina run through the site um I do have several slides that uh you've seen them before they're not new um I don't intend to spend a lot of time on them based on the hour but please know that we're here to to answer any questions that you might have so the site itself 7235 France Avenue uh as shown here in our greater Southdale District uh for context uh this was not always a furniture store before it was built as a furniture store in the late 1970s it was a gravel pit and a sand pit um so this old aerial photo uh remembers uh a day a few Generations back when France Avenue looked nothing like it does today uh but but was gravel pits and sand mining operations in the late 1970s the Dayton company uh bought that parcel and built this home store and it's been there ever since 1977 if you visit the site today this is pretty much what you're going to see uh the Macy's Home Store uh is about 80,000 Square ft of retail it's in the far corner of the property and the other 75% of the property is uh is essentially a pave parking lot uh of course the building still is occupied Macy's uh does operate their furniture store there but they have uh uh accepted a purchase offer on the site um if things go well their intention is to relocate that store to a different location here in Adina and then have their property redeveloped uh the city did commission a study and an an inspection of the property to evaluate whether or not it complies with the Tiff statutes in Minnesota law um to be eligible in the first place and after inspe the site running through the numbers we find that it is eligible if uh at your discretion if you say that it's eligible but by the math and by the state uh statute it is uh an eligible site uh just a reminder of what the future site plan could look like this is essentially the embodiment of PUD number 25 that's been working through the process they would take the one large parcel subdivided essentially into four building pads three different sites surrounded by by public space uh sidewalks Trails private roads that are all public accessible uh outdoor plazas and those types of spaces so it would it would look quite a bit different than it does today uh so what is Tiff and how does Tiff work uh I'm not going to go through all the fundamentals unless you want me to happy to do that um but Tiff is an economic development tool that's been used in a din since the early 1970s it's been used throughout Minnesota since that time uh and it's been used throughout the United States uh for several decade SE several decades even before it became a law here in Minnesota it's an opportunity for the city to finance to help uh finance a private investment or to support a public investment to achieve those desirable public outcomes um and it's an alternative to to uh raising the tax levy it's a way to leverage up the private sector's investment to secure something that we're looking for as a community so in Minnesota uh there's two levels of of governance when it comes to Tiff there's a state statute that really sets up the guidelines of how the city council can choose to use Tiff um and then Adina also has a tiff policy that has three fundamental tenants it's a very long policy but uh the first intention is to use Tiff only when necessary just because a developer wants to do something in a Dina doesn't mean they get Tiff or even we have a conversation about Tiff um we also typically only re verse a developer after they finish the project so if they fail to start the project fail to finish the project the city is not responsible to give them a dollar uh and thirdly that level of Tiff support or interaction uh should be commensurate with a public benefits that's that are delivered on the site so those standards are a little bit tighter than what's allowed in Minnesota statute but as a community over the decades that we've used Tiff we found those criteria have worked well for us in the past and they they frame our conversation going forward this map shows the 11 Tiff districts currently in Adina uh they are scattered throughout the city uh but they're in those areas of change those mixed use and Commercial areas that we've been seeing a lot of change in the last 10 to 20 years and then the bar chart on this on this slide um shows the extent to which A din uses Tiff compared to our neighbors our surrounding communities and our peer communities in hanapin County so Adina currently has about 1.6% of our tax base located in a tiff District you'll notice we're uh we're not the lowest but we're far from the highest we're definitely in that in that lower segment of of cities when it comes to the use of Tiff um one cave about caveat about this chart is that it changes every year as property tax values go up and down um but we've been on the lower end of the scale for at least the last Dozen Years uh I mentioned Tiff has been used in a din since the early 1970s several projects in town that uh we find people know and like um were created but for Tiff um so Edinburgh Park and that whole Edinburgh Corporate Center was a tiff project Centennial Lakes the office the retail the Condominiums the town homes those were all Tiff projects uh the initial Grand View project with uh that used to be industrial the Condominiums the office space the parking garage um the retail building the senior center that was all a tiff supported project and we've used Tiff twice at 50th in France to really transform that into a desirable and a hot retail destination um I included a a a brief overview of a number of Redevelopment projects that we've seen in ad the last 10 years or so um sometimes you hear comments that every project gets Tiff in a Dina well when you look at the numbers it's quite the contrary certainly we have used Tift on some projects but the vast majority of projects in our community are privately funded without uh without public intervention that's always our first choice but we do see some of these more complex projects that are phase developments um or have a lot more public um outcomes where Tiff is uh is uh used to make those projects viable and then as far as transparency when it transparency when it comes comes to Tiff that's something that's very important we take seriously um so we're we are required by state law to file an annual report to the office of the state auditor of course we do that um we find that those documents might be legible to to the auditor's office they're not fun or interesting to read so for the last several years we've taken that information and put it in a more easyto read format uh we and we call that a year in review so every January we that it lists the previous year's uh uh efforts of the H and the H is the body that really governs the use of Tiff and and how it's used on a on a daily or project basis so that document is uh of course delivered to the HRA board at the beginning of every year and posted on on on our website so if you're interested to see how Tiff dollars are really used that document has the annual update of of all those details there's a lot of process when it comes to the use of Tiff so that's why we're here tonight at our public hearing we're at step step one and that's creating this financing District in the future we'll consider uh if we if we take that step and create the district we'll consider how to actually spend those dollars or make those Investments whether it's an agreement with a private developer or whether it's a contract that the city holds and lets for public infrastructure and then our final step is that ongoing monitoring and compliance um and that goes on for the duration of the Tiff District until it's eventually decertified but tonight we're looking at the areas in yellow we're just at the very front end of this uh the Tiff plan that's in your packet includes some of the key details of this District the boundaries the scope uh the duration the budget Etc we've already shared this information with our school district and with the county did that about a month ago uh we shared it with our Planning Commission a couple weeks ago and just met with them uh a few nights ago and we're here tonight for our public hearing now tonight's hearing is our live event the information has actually been live on our website for three to four weeks we've accepted comments there and we'll continue to to accept uh feedback on our website but tonight's is our live event uh as we finish our public comment period we'll then enter a point in time where we where we will ask you as both the HRA board separately and the city council separately to make a decision on on how to do this but tonight it's just about information so the the Tiff plan is prepared by Ellers uh Ellers is the Public Finance firm the city has used for many years um also uh a Public Finance firm that provides their services to our school districts um but for this plan uh ERS prepare that with lots of input from staff and and other other folks uh and I'm going to just run through the highlights these are the same highlights that are in my written report but um I have them called out here with a couple couple illustrations so we're recommending that we that we create a Redevelopment Tiff District there's several different types of districts we're looking at a Redevelopment that's the most appropriate the boundaries would be the 8 acre Parcel Plus the adjacent public rights of way on France Avenue in particular in case we want to do some public infrastructure at France a Redevelopment District lasts for 25 years uh we're we're targeting starting that District a few years in the future in 2028 and then continuing it for 25 years until we're finished part of the reason why um I recommend taking this strategy is due to the transformational growth and increase to our tax base so um the assessing Department looks at tax capacity always a term that confuses us because if you're the homeowner and you get get your tax bill in the mail there's no language about tax capacity but behind the scenes you're when the assessor is doing the math that's the terminology that that they use so today this particular parcel has a tax capacity of of about $276,000 in the future when the project is finished presuming Tiff is support provided to make it possible that to that tax capacity doesn't just increase by 10 or 20% it doesn't double it doesn't triple it do doesn't quadruple it increases by a factor of about 14 times that's the kind of transformational growth that really propels our our community into the future the Tiff plan is all about financing plans and so there's uh a sources and use table in the plan um our folks at Ellers have calculated that over the 20 25y year life of this District the cumulative amount of tax increment collected is approximately $81 million um so that that's on the revenue side in this Tiff plan on the spending side we've identified the categories that are uh called out in the state statute um they're very uh they're not very detailed but that's the state statute that's what we work with so the projected uses of funds include expenses like future acquisition site preparation and site improvements affordable housing utilities other improvements like the public parking the public spaces the public plazas all those types of uh other improvements uh the administrative costs are also an eligible expense and then the construction of any type whether it's privately funded or publicly funded requires debt and so there is an interest payment component to this um uh that's calculated at $39 million is um is the interest component of these sources and uses now at this point in time we don't have a specific um line item budget for these expenses where it's way too early for that but the purpose of this document is to just lay out that that broader General plan uh a few other measurements of the of the growth in this District um something that uh might be more familiar to taxpayers are the market value of this property or the actual taxes that it generates uh and I don't want to just uh throw a ton of numers so I'll just go to the to the bottom row here today the property pays about $348,000 a year in taxes that's the existing use um if the Redevelopment plan does not go forward we could expect for the next foreseeable future to get $348,000 of property taxes from the site of course there's inflation adjustments it' go up a little bit maybe even down as the property de depreciates a bit more um but it'd be in that same category however if the project is redeveloped if we do decide to use Tiff on this site in the future that project will pay about $3.6 million in property taxes and that's an increase of about 10 times where they are today so again it's that kind of transformational change that's that's really impactful to our community as a whole after evaluating the numbers we've been talking with the developer for for gosh more than a year uh we find uh that their argument argument is compelling uh we find that without the use of Tiff they won't be able to secure the private debt um from the mortgage lenders to get this thing built and but for the use of Tiff we don't believe this project will go forward that's why we're here tonight when when you say that um do you mean it won't go forward in the way that it was approved correct what we're I mean yes that make sense I mean we asked for a lot of public elements in this project there were things there that we wanted to see that they might not otherwise have done so I think what you mean is that based on the things that we wanted to see in there and with 40 some per public use uh and all the elements with parking and everything else that if we if we want this project upgraded in terms of materials and design and all the public elements they can't do that without Tiff that's exactly correct they they could do a project without Tiff but it might not be the project we want or have it have the component parts of it that we want to see or Embrace those design experience guidelines or other things that we want to see exactly um we're evaluating what's in front of us today um so I know years ago there were some questions that were being asked could we create out lots and put a fast food restaurant in the front parking lot um that was you know we talked to lots of developers and lots of interesting folks but there was interest in doing that I mean that was a few years years back and Macy's wasn't really interested in that either but certainly there are other things that could happen on the property um but then it still BS the question does that comply with our comprehensive plan does does it comply with the greater Southdale plan does it comply with all the codes and policies and regulations that we apply so um uh so there's a lot of hypothetical discussions we could come up with but this Tiff plan really focuses on the project that's proposed that's been working through our process through the Planning Commission and and through the zoning code to to check all those boxes as far as what our standards and policies are Pier thanks Mr Mayor so I I like I want to say that you shouldn't answer the question that way but I can't tell you how to answer the question I asked the developer last council meeting how either not getting Tiff or a significantly reduced Tiff would impact their project and I think Mr Brahma if he felt like he couldn't do the project but for TI if he' just said that and he didn't he even started to say I can tell you how it would impact the project I have some ideas and I feel like we were gracious and saying no don't do it off the cuff go back do your analysis and I want to see that and so I want to see that and and I like I struggle with creating and you know maybe I I I'm understanding this differently I struggle with creating a tiff District this conversation without that information because it feels to me that by approving it we're signaling to the development Community I put it that way that um Tiff is available at this site if you're if you're a developer if you come here to do a project let's say this one doesn't get approved then we we're signaling that yeah with this is a tiff District depending on what your project is you can secure Tiff from Edina for this site is that is that what am I am I misinterpreting that I have a hard time giving firm answers to hypotheticals um that's not hypothetical but if I could um maybe answer your question in a in a different way and uh ask for for a little bit of patience and time so tonight's public hearing is about the Tiff District not about the developers Alternatives um on we have an October 10th HRA board meeting scheduled where we've asked the developer to come and give us an answer at that session um the idea being that as we have our public hearing tonight about the Tiff District we're assembling lot lots of information eventually we're going to bring that information together to the city council as a whole and and remind you you heard from the Planning Commission you heard from the developer you heard from the public hearing it's time to make a decision so um that information you answer Mr mayor's question in the affirmative that if we didn't have Tiff then that project couldn't go forward in the way that we have so I don't think I asked a hypothetical question at all maybe if you could re ask your question maybe I didn't hear it properly why don't we just continue forward go go ahead and keep going okay yeah so what you're what I heard you say is that what you're going to present tonight is the reasons why we ought to think about having a tiff District established but we're not going to make that decision tonight correct we're going to take public testimony on that notion and then middle of October or something sometime and you know in the near future we're going to make that decision but in between then is what I did this was new information that early in the next meeting of the HRA Mr Brahma will be there to say what he could or couldn't do without Tiff correct right yep that's how we've scheduled it which is really a critically important thing I think for us to understand is I think we'd all like to know that what could he build there if he didn't have tip you we didn't say we wanted these things what would it what would it look like might not like that at all or I think it's fine I don't know oh okay good so go ahead let's see that's so one other part of the Tiff plan is in regards to the impact of the city and our other taxing jurisdictions so every time we um consider the use of Tiff we uh talk with our various City departments police fire Public Works engineering to make sure that if we temporarily uh cap the the taxes coming out of the district to the city that we're not creating an undue burden on any of those essential services and so there's information in the Tiff plan uh to that effect uh but in brief uh after talking with our fire department our Police Department our engineering and Public Works we find that uh the use of Tiff on this site does not create the need for any additional staff any additional equipment any additional facilities that it is within the abilities of our various departments to do what they do even if the monies from those site are are are capped uh for the impact of the schools in the county we find that there's no impact because per our finding so far without the use of Tiff the site will stay as is there won't be any incremental taxes it'll just be the base tax so we find no in no uh to those entities as well and as a uh this is just for reference but we all talk about public benefits M rer has a question for you can you go back to that last slide okay um I get concerned when I see that the way we're measuring the impact of a development on staff is based on whether we're going to have to hire additional staff because I think that's not a very um accurate measurement of the impact the development could have on the burden of providing service and so we are taking a furniture store and replacing it with a lot of housing um you know some commercial and all of that possibly an underground tunnel one of the um people I think it was Michael fiser or not Michael Fisher Michael Schroeder noted that he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't be a place where people gathered or you know sought shelter and stuff like that so um this will place additional burden on our staff true after speaking with the fire police engine and Engineering departments they will certainly provide service to the site but they did not indicate to me that would create an a burden on them okay so it'll be like the exact same amount of time as they spend servicing the Macy's site uh there's there's detailed language in the Tiff plan I can read it if you like but um the response is different the um the users are different so right now the furniture store um I don't know exactly what the service calls are there but the um the sprinkler system is um there's calls for service on the fire protection side I'm guessing there's calls for service on the shoplifting and those types of uh Provisions so certainly the police and fire department do go to that site today when there's different users on the site they'll continue to go there um they they did estimate the call volume based on what they typically see um uh so it's not exactly the same because of course the uses are different um uh but based on their input they don't foresee it to be a problem thank you go ahead Mr nun thank you anytime the city uses Tiff we always try to align that with public benefits with our policies and our standards that we apply to new development so just a reminder um uh for this Tiff project we're looking at uh taking the the large parcel subdividing it it subdividing into smaller pieces uh as uh directed in our greater Southdale plan creating public easements over all those places so the general public can use those uh uh as they feel comfortable um renderings of the buildings just as a reminder um different uh perspectives of of the of the site plan these all come from the most recent PUD number 25 and then just again as a reminder in case there's conversation later we still are looking at a possible pedestrian Crossing across France Avenue um these are the most recent sketches um they're far from complete it's not the end of the story um but anytime you use tax in commit financing you can always use those dollars to finance public infrastructure um most recently we've just finished we've just done that here around City Hall all the the roadway improvements here were funded through Tiff doll a few years ago we did it on the west side of the highway where those Road improvements um by Eden um by the hilltop by OGG those were all Tiff funded and we could do something similar here if that decision is made in the future so um at our last conversation with the uh city council and H there was definite interest expressed in pursuing something so we did leave the door open for that but whether it's it goes underground over the road whether it's an enhanced atg grade crossing none of those decisions are made yet but the way the Tiff plan is written would allow us to use some funds that are Tiff generated to pay for that public infrastructure on that same topic then on slide 18 the projected use of funds does that include the potential construction of the underpass I'll call it passage way it does in that broad category it's called other improvements um that's where we included those types of improvements during the Planning Commission um and I believe they did not approve this but the vote was kind of challenging to understand uh one of the concerns raised was that they wouldn't have an opportunity there wouldn't be a public hearing on the proposed underpass if this is approved will there be public hearings on the underpass if the Tiff plan is approved um I don't believe there's a there are public hearings that are required certainly there'll be public meetings and public input but I don't believe unless our City attorney has a a clear answer I don't think there's a mandated public hearing for that type of capital Improvement so it would be just like the Grand View pedestrian bridge where there was no public hearing for that I don't correct I don't believe there's public hearings required for roadway projects could be if we wanted one you so this slide just summarizes some of the other public benefits to be um pursued on the site uh compliance with our applicable plans and policies regarding Sustainable Building affordable housing that greater Southdale plan our comprehensive plan uh and then on the right side of the screen is a more itemized list of a lot of those benefits that we are pursuing here through the use of Tiff and having the developer um put those improvements in the ground for us as opposed to the city paying to put those improvements IND directly so in conclusion uh our findings do do determine that the site does qualify as a Redevelopment District um the site plan is generally consistent with our plans for redevelopment uh the project is capable of of supporting public benefits that would not otherwise be delivered and that I think that's one of the key things right now the city does not have a plan to put in sidewalk an additional public space on that building but the developer does have a plan to do that um we do find after reviewing the developers performers that the construction costs do create a financing Gap that would hinder the um ability for them to secure private debt that's where the Tiff can come in and fill that Gap and get the get the project moving uh we also find that there's additional taxes not only to support the private investment on the site and the public benefits there but to also support a a pedestrian Crossing if it's determined to do that in the future so in conclusion it's our finding that we don't reasonably expect that this type of proposed project can move forward without the use of Tiff that's the staff recommendation uh of course the finding is always in your hands um uh and that's where I'll turn it over to you um our my recommendation is that we continue this public comment period uh of course we're here to answer your questions tonight he from the general public tonight but we keep the public comment open for another another week until Sunday and then uh table the consideration of the of the resolution until later in the month look uh right now looking at October 15th is where we're aiming to to uh schedule that for action with that I turn it back to you uh of course I'm available to answer any questions and our team from dorsy and Whitney and 's Associates are of course here to to answer questions as well further questions for Mr nondorf at this point time yes member Jackson yes thank you Mr Mayor I have a number of questions first of all in this packet we got the Tiff policy um in just generally looking at the website how can we find a copy of the where where would we find the um policy if I wanted to look online and not look at tonight's meeting sure sure so um uh if you go to Adina mn.gov uh there's a tab that says Tiff or maybe about Tiff there's also a search engine at the top right corner I think of the website you can type Tiff and it'll pop up but we included a lot of pertinent information so that the general public uh and anyone in general can find that information readily and uh that's the Tiff policy I think is in the second sentence or this or the third second or third sentence from the top where it talks about policies that we apply when we consider Tiff okay thank you um so why 25 years why did we choose the type of development that would have the Tiff last for the I think that's the maximum amount of time they're they 15E Tiff and 20-year Tiff and 25e tip why why are we looking at the 25e tip sure so there's two reasons uh when you create a Redevelopment District that's the term that goes along with it um there's other types of Tiff districts that are shorter uh but this particular site qualifies as a Redevelopment so that's kind of the pairing and then from a more practical perspective based on the scale of this project based on the size of the financing Gap that the that the developer is seeing and based on the interest in pursuing some type of public Improvement near the site as well we're finding that we would need that full 25 years now when it comes down to the end of it as it gets close if we've been too conservative in our estimates maybe we can close it early um but we I I wouldn't want to um create a shorter District knowing that our needs are going to necessitate a longer District the 25 years okay thank you you intimated it my next question is that is so this is a two-part question first of all the capacity that we could potentially have a tiff would be the 80 million 80.98 million that's we're not going to necessarily issue a note for that amount or no but that's that's sort of the maximum size of what we could do um and and it would be considerably less than that is that correct so the 80 81 million is the cumulative amount of tax that would be that would be foreseen to be collected in that District um that could be spent or allocated as we deem appropriate um at this point as we've been negotiating with the developer and we're still hot and heavy in the middle of those negotiations um we're aiming at about 75% of the Tiff being used to support the private and about 25% being used to support the the the public infrastructure um uh but we would uh until we're actually finished with those negotiations I don't have a firm dollar amount to identify okay and um as it is possible though that it could be paid off early and and closed out before the full 25 years is that correct we don't like to tell our developers this but um uh one of the reasons that the city likes to use ERS is because they look out they only accept municipalities and governments as our clients they don't work for the private sector per se and so as they do their projections they're always a little bit more friendly to the public sector so sometimes their numbers are conservative not ridic L conservative but if there's going to be an error we always like to error in the Public's favor and so while we think that we'll need the full 25 years as an example if all if everything goes well and a little bit better and things in A din tend to go well and a little bit better than you expect um we should be able to pay that off a little bit early it's hard to predict what's going to happen over 25 years so I don't want to lock us into something um uh but yeah we always try to to make sure that the uh assumptions are in our favor in The public's favor okay thank you M Jackson can I just a clarification on the question that you just asked you said that we're negotiating with the developer can you just clar when you answered that last question can you just clarify what we're de negotiating with the developer currently sure so there's there's two parts of the of the Tiff conversation right so tonight we're looking at creating the Tiff District which essentially is a spending plan what's the budget um separately we're having negotiations with the developer to find out what they really need to make their project viable so we're talking about how we would structure a tiff note what the interest earnings look like what are the requirements what are the levels of risk who does what first and uh We've prepared a term sheet that was presented to the H in August that had a general road map but there was a lot of blanks that still need to be filled in um we all know that interest rates dropped a little bit in the last week and a half which is fantastic so there's uh and we also know that there have been some changes to the site plan from the preliminary approvals back in June to the final approvals last two weeks ago and and then tonight so there's a lot of moving parts and so until those parts stop moving as quickly we're still in that negotiation phase so I go ahead no rejection yeah thank you I have some questions for Mr Lindgren good evening mayor council members again for the record Jay lingren with the dorsy and Whitney law firm uh special Council of the city for economic development great thank you so much Mr lingren so um first of all I just kind of people often talk about well this isn't really blighted it's a store it's open can can you give us and and I know this is a big question for a short answer but has the use of Tiff changed over the last 20 30 years was it originally um used for projects like this or has has the the general growth of the use of Tiff in Minnesota changed from like really blighted nobody no jobs no nothing we're desperate we need Tiff to what we're looking at here which is public benefit for development taking a nice property making it much nicer C can you summarize that I would say and and and saying as someone that has done this for 30 years actually it's more difficult to use tax increment than it was 30 years ago it isn't easier um there are a variety of different districts that can be used for very narrow purposes and so forth um I think it's important to sort of focus on on this word blight because it's commonly used but it's not the standard in the statute the standard in the statute has really two parts one is a whole listing of things that aren't functionally working well and pretty much any building that's old in any sense of the word is but then there's another very specific test which says that and I make sure I get this right but I think I will that if if it costs more than 15% of a new building to bring that building up to current building standards that makes the building substandard and so what's developed over the course of the last 20 years because you all are asked to make a finding that it is substandard and so it's become very common to use a professional consulting firm not Ellers not dorsy but someone with architectural or engineering or building operations to come in and say is that the case and so that that's why um at least all the time that I've worked with the city we always get a report that says you meet the statutory definition so I hope that answers your question there's a specific statutory definition and we always make sure we have a complete professional set of findings and that it's not a gut check okay good that that's very helpful so another thing that we've been talking about is um creating public space in this deal and the interior streets and and um and some of the walkways and everything the you you've helped draft this agreement and everything how public is the public space that we've got we're going to get some easements I understand can you tell us is that fully public is it quasi public like a shopping mall or what what is the the space that we would look at the picture and say it's green it's a walkway this looks like public space how public indeed is that space so this Redevelopment agreement that we're negotiating as Mr new andorf you know that comes back to you based on that term she you looked at before we'll have all that detailed out and you get a full look at that you know just again affirming that that decision hasn't been made but to your specific question again without it in front of me but if you think of the four buildings and then all the stuff that on the diagrams is green that would all be subject to a one or more public EAS ments so for example there are two private roadways which are 100% 24 hours a day need to function as if they were a public roadway but they're privately maintained so there's full access to those including full access into the parking structures where we would have designated parking agreements which are perpetual and so the public could always park there and then there's what I would call the plaza the main area between the Northwest building and the the Southwest building that is fully publicly accessible except that it could be limited to ours the same way we would limit a public park you know say 7:00 a.m. to 10: p.m. or something like that which is more for safety than anything else so I mean and and the other thing then there's one other public easement along the west side along France that would either be a public easement that would go into the underpass if that was the decision to be made or it would be a wider than normal Public Access sidewalk along France that would be 24 hours a day Perpetual I think I've covered them all there but yeah in my mind they're very public okay terrific and so in our policy I was looking through the policy this afternoon we looking for permanent public benefits so an easement is a property right and that's permanent it's not 20 years it's not 50 years it's we have that and it's permanent is that correct absolutely I fully agree okay great thank you um I was going to stump the lawyer a lot but I haven't stumped you yet um I think that's it I'm ready stump me um but just just to confirm one last time and that is that the city of edina's tax Inc increment policy is considerably more narrow in what we will if we follow our policy that's more narrow than what's allowed under the state statute is that correct I is and it is and I say in the better part of 20 years that I've been able to help you with these projects has become more narrow and it's become focused on the things that have also changed kind of qualitatively as you all and your predecessors have made decisions about what you want the community to look like we only focus in on those so we focus on public benefit we're EXA actually under the state statute if a building was just too expensive to finance you could pay for bricks and mortar for the building we we we've never done that yeah so directly yes you have a more narrow tailored approach that is primarily focused on public benefit okay thank you very much F thanks Mr Mayor um so I I've got a couple of questions and I think they may be for either you or um Mr an Hut um and so I'm just going to Tee It Up This Way and then you guys can Rush the podium to answer um I I feel like there's um I I need more clarity in what we're doing and so I teed this up last time I've never every time I've ask the question what happens if we don't approve Tiff the answer has always been the project eyes the project won't get approved right so I asked the developer if you get little tiff or no Tiff how does that impact your project and he did not say well if you don't give me Tiff this project dies and so I think that we are making statements here that to me seem either they're not true or we're not we're not sure whether they're true or not and so I am saying you are Mr an Hut because on Mr Mayor I'm sorry no I'm sorry cuz on slide 16 right where we've got the ERS brand is here and the dino brand is here the second statement says but for the use of Tiff the approved project will not be able to secure debt and Equity required to move forward I don't think that's true true and if we have data to suggest that that's true I'd like to see it and I'd like for the developer to have said without Tiff I can't do this project and I will bet both of you a bourbon that he won't come back and say that because if he does then we don't offer Tiff and we should get the project that we've preliminarily approved but he won't say that he will have to come back and he'll have to adjust that project somehow because he because he's now he's now already admitted that yep there is there's some I have some ideas of what I would do if I don't get all of the Tiff he's already teed that up so that statement can't be true um unless this is just some general statement that we make about every Tiff project um and then the second one but for the creation of the Tiff District the economic and physical benefits will not be realized like that can't be true so that's saying that without Tiff in this area we can't we can't fund public improvements and you just gave an example not an example but the statement that sure there could be other sources to get this work done and so I just I just want us to be like really clear here the one thing that has been clear to me is when we talk about capacity and so Tiff creates more capacity for us to get work done okay logically I get that and so the example ex Le that Mr nindorf you gave which I think is a great one around this building we use Tiff for to address some traffic concerns that the Sunny Slope neighborhood had we've increased pedestrian Pathways so people going to OGG now can more safely Traverse this area we've got some other Road improvements that we're doing so that that all makes sense to me that we've created capacity with Mason green to do some of that work that makes sense to me but I struggle with some of these statements because I I'm being very honest I just don't think they're true because I've not seen any data to support that and the developer has already teed some of that up so what how how should I as a council member here's the question how should I as a council member interpret what the developer is already teed up and the data you're the information you're giving me tonight uh that we're going to use to establish this Tiff district and Mr mayor council member Pierce if I can start and I'm sorry when I interrupted you before I think I was saying I think it's going to it should take both of us to answer this because I think there's two parts to it okay and the first part that I would say is that you have a approved a land use plan that has many many elements okay I I'm not here to defend the developer I'm here to defend you but the first thing is the numbers that we look at that I'll pass the buck to Nick in a moment show that there isn't the capacity to build all those elements particularly the elements that are public so I could I quantify what they are and do I think you ask a great question that the developer should quantify them but I know what the list is there the public benefits we talked about would the project be financeable to include dedicated public parking so people could park there and access um you know other areas in Southdale it would be the amenities that are within the Green Space not just because it isn't because the residents wouldn't want those amenities but a they wouldn't have to be publicly accessible because we wouldn't have a tool to require them to be publicly accessible and second they would be something else probably okay that's the first place I'd start now the second thing and if I can hand it to Mr anhut the other thing that we look at carefully is actually understanding whether or not their project is financeable or not at the budget that's been established with all of those approved elements and and just to clarify so that includes um in the context and using the construct that you just presented would be all of the um additional benefits that the city of Edina is placing on the project and and expanding the prominade the additional two roads sustainability standards building to certain lead standards or whatever um all those things add incremental cost that make a better project you know and I'll make one other Global statement because I I it's always the way when somebody asks me for the first time what tip is it's as simple as this just to build something in a green field costs here to redevelop a piece of land costs here there's already a gap and then you add qualitative additions because of the great place we all want a Dina to be the Gap gets biger so all Tiff is is a tool to fill that financial gap and again Mr anun can explain the financial gap better than I but I can see it's there and so I'm comfortable saying this project wouldn't be built or at least once we're done with our negotiations that we present to you it would say for your consideration this project can't be built without the use of tax in some other project can be built yes and I get that you haven't heard the answer what else could be built but the project that was approved by you from June to September could not be built without the use of tax increment okay thank you and to just piggy bake on that point Nick an Hut with Ellers and Associates financial advisers to the city um and we did uh draft the Tiff plan document um um in coherence with the statute um but to get into the negotiation aspect that that Mr nindorf had mentioned you know this is a $300 million project that the developer is going to have to be able to leverage over $100 million worth of equity into the project and then potentially $200 million worth of mortgage or Bank financing in order to actually build everything that's being included in that project and that scale of Redevelopment we estimate based on the rents that they are proposing to charge the rents that are uh other developments are able to obtain in Edina in existing properties are not going to be able to support that level of investment where it makes it financially feasible to use that kind of money to invest in this community and so our analysis suggests that somewhere between about 20 to $25 million there's a gap just from the financing specifically of the project however you allocate that to whatever component of the project you want to there's a fundamental 20 to $25 million gap inherent in the scale of the costs associated with building this project and so that needs to be tackled in some way that um using additional forces Beyond private sector investment we can certainly imagine a developer standing up here and and hypothetically offering that may maybe there are some tweaks that could be made the city's policy requires affordable housing within the development if the city waved that affordable housing requirement that would unlock additional rent proceeds that could lever more debt and more Equity investment that could Whittle that gap down I'm not speaking for him on that and I know that you all are going to uphold the city's policy but that is something that I think he was probably thinking about in trying to frame an answer to that question um but given the project that we know and all of the restrictions or benefits that it that you all have adopted for this site we do estimate that there is about a 20 to $25 million gap in this project that would need to be filled by an external Source not from private investment in this site but from tax increment financing maybe from Grant proceeds from other types of entities which we are I believe in the agreement trying to pursue but we don't have control over um and absent those things I don't believe that we have any other tools the city could certainly find another pot of money and make that available to the development but that would be leveraging your own resources that you need to use to operate this this city invest in your own infrastructure and things like that and those uh that level of investment probably isn't Rising um to the priority necessary to to make it used for just this site but that's that's my answer to your question well if I play that back um just to try to simplify so here's here's the Macy's project and what we've done as a city this can be financed privately and then what you guys are saying is that you know all the city codes all the things that we've asked for um you know the dog park right sinking the dog park more parking extending the prominade The Underpass car it into four pieces carving it into four pieces those things are creating this Gap and your analysis is saying now the project is here to get this done plus this requires some other funding source and the one that we are choosing to use as a city for now is Tiff and we're looking at Grants and other things this is not a gotcha kind of statement I'm just trying to clarify it sounds like that's what you're saying I do I I think this is a a a building with all a development with all its elements that's not financeable so you know use this number of $25 million $25 million would either have to come from some Source or it would have to come out and now you have a whole new project which a you haven't approved is what you want for our town and B I don't know whether that's projects financeable or not it doesn't exist because it doesn't exist yet yeah okay and it might not be a project that developer wants to invest over $100 million in equity into but that's there certainly is a lower scale project out there somewhere that could be financed um but I suspect that it's a much larger or a much smaller development and it's not going to necessarily meet all the objectives that I think the city wants to pursue for this site well that's fair and and so I've also asked the question I don't know if I asked Brahma this but I have asked developers the ROI and this comment about well the return that our investors want right so if we're in the position as a city to make um adjustments right what's the and maybe you don't know that but that's my other question then so let's let's let's that let's understand that too so the the level of equity that would need to go into this project and and the debt so certainly they need to demonstrate to banks that they're going to be able to generate enough Revenue in operating these facilities that they're are going to be able to repay whatever debt they lever on the project in addition to that they're going to be a to show their Equity investors that they're actually going to provide a return on their investment um after that debt is paid um there's a variety of different ways you can measure returns um but one of the ones that we've used in other projects to try to streamline and make projects comparable to one another uh despite their differences in how much debt they use how much Equity they use what types of projects they are is just a a simple return on cost measure where you take the total cost of the project and you look at the operating income that it generates and you compare whether that operating income generates a sufficient return to be financeable their projections based on a $300 million project are that they're going to be able to leverage enough debt and the equity that would be required would probably have a 3% return we're hearing that you need an excess of 6 to 7% return to make anything economically feasible for that level of investment you know these are private entities they do need to actually make a profit on this uh or they need to see a light at the end of the tunnel if you will um so that's almost double what what they can leverage on their own now you know I'm using rounded figures but we are in negotiation right now with them we also will typically include a cap in the the agreement that says that yes we're we're committing to potentially use this fund with you right now but we're going to require that you actually prove out the final costs the actual uh income that you're generating on this project and we'll evaluate those returns in the future and have a mechanism that we can rightsize the amount of assistance based on the actualities of the project and so right now those returns that we're we're we're trying to negotiate what that level of return should be and I will say it's it's in that you know 6 to 7% range add two things the right sizing the not is important I mean it was mentioned in Mr neend dorfs but understand the the way that we've always done it in this city is even if you approve this Redevelopment agreement they don't get a check they get a promise that once it's built and once they come back and they prove to Mr new andorf and Mr an Hut what their actual costs are the dollar amount that we it will never go above what we put in the Redevelopment agreement but it could go lower okay and the second thing and I know you know this but I think it's important to State we have another test and a St test that goes beyond the statutory requirement which we call a lookback which is depending on the time whether a project if it's at a project sold or some point in the future we get to look again and say okay how is it performing compon that measurement of return that Nick was was talking about and if there is if it if it is higher then we get to terminate the note or claw back in some fashion so we have a test and then we continue to test it over multiple years with you know I okay thank you rer um I share some of the frustrations that member Pierce articulated a little earlier and one of the points that was raised during the Planning Commission was that Tiff financed projects bump out what could naturally occur on the site and I um get that it might be smaller that might not be such a bad thing especially if we can save all the money we would have spent on the Tiff um so that that does really matter the other thing is seeing that slide and I think it was 19 you know which put the value of the property at I think 12.1 million but the property's changed we've subdivided the property we've added um we've rezoned it so it's no longer only PCD 3 you can put residential on there you can put medical office so I think we've already enhanced the value of that land um and so to argue that we're never going to see anything over $348,000 in tax um payments I think is a little misleading but the other thing is I'm I mean I still have a lot of questions this is a complicated project but this is also a public hearing and it's 7 minutes after 11 so um you know I'm just feeling and you know having been that person on the phone waiting for the public hearing to open up I don't know if that's happening or not but um it's a lot and maybe we want to let people speak Mr nondorf could you come back up and tell us a little bit about the conversation with the Planning Commission then we'll then we'll have a public hearing we'll open up to public hearing uh sure are you referring to the recent Planning Commission yeah I guess the recent one that member rer is alluding to sure um so we met with the Planning Commission on September 25th um uh a visit to the Planning Commission is one of the steps in that procedure uh per state code and uh had a vigorous conversation there um we I've always found that when you discuss a tiff plan with a Planning Commission every single time it's confusing uh I haven't found a way to simplify it or make it not confusing and last week's conversation was confusing for the planning commissioner we're compelled by state law and Mr lingren can can clarify if I'm off here but we're compelled to ask the Planning Commission for their opinion about whether or not the plan like the the project the four building Private Road Public Access Project if that complies with our com comprehensive plan um and they're requested to make a written opinion as to whether or not it complies with the comprehensive plan uh at the Planning Commission I did submit my findings of or my report where I listed the various goals and objectives in our South greater Southdale plan our comprehensive plan our Southeast A din plan um along with the fact that the city council had followed up on the planning commission's recommendation to approve this PUD number 25 and then had it formally adopted that PUD um and so the the conclusion that I reached was based on the procedural steps and the planning commission's initial recommendation followed through by the city council based on the codes and standards that we've adopted uh it was my my opinion that the that the Tiff plan and the project that's in in the Tiff plan follows our comprehensive plan um it's always confusing for Planning Commission so at the end of the day um the fin final vote was three folks in support one person in opposition and two people abstaining from the vote um so if you look at the eyes and the N it looks like it passed but when you look at Robert's Rules of Order the two abstentions mean that you lost your Quorum so it was it was a 3 to1 vote without a quorum which means that the the Planning Commission could not reach a formal conclusion um on that recommendation um so it's not mandatory that the Planning Commission can consent uh or or better way to put that is the ultimate decision rests with the city council right the Planning Commission serves as an advisory role to help inform you as the city council makes their decisions in this case that body was unable to reach a written approval or rejection um so that's what we present to you as far as the outcome of that conversation um uh I hope someday and find a way to make it not confusing but every single time I've done that it it is confusing so that's a little bit about what happened remember rer um one of the things that they were very concerned about was if they approved it if that was saying they were approving the tunnel and so I know that was a really big concern so I I just wanted to note that so noted yeah there one of the comments and I and I did not go to the Planning Commission meetings from months ago but um apparently there was conversation I think uh director te Teague had had attested to that that when the concept of an of an underpass or an overpass or whatever it might be was brought up to the Planning Commission they had rendered an opinion along with their previous recommendation that the site plan be accommodating to whatever that might look like um uh but yet the Planning Commission um a couple of them raised concerns they wanted to know to know more about the underpass or the overpass how it might look how it might work and uh uh there was some concerns that were raised by them also location um right um okay any other questions for Mr newor for our Consultants all right let's open this matter up for public testimony and um my name is Jim grz I live at 5513 Park Place my wife and I have lived in this city since 1979 first 30 years uh I would classify the city's objective was fiscally conservative it now appears the financial objective of the city has changed to be fiscally aggressive it appears this Tiff project is an an example of a fiscally aggressive handout to a developer which lacks Financial disclosure it started out as an approximate $23 million handout to the developer however as previously pointed out by a at a city council meeting by another Resident the future approximate interest cost paid by the taxpayers would be $28 million and that was not disclosed because the argument was oh we don't know what that will be in the industry of my I'm in if you sold on that basis it's a one and done your ticket is done that brings the total to 51 million which is still growing tonight we saw 80 million Ian we're not ready you're not ready to do anything here because this thing is so fluid and so flux and changing so fast I'm concerned these aggressive giveaways by the city will cause a decline in the city's credit rating which will negatively impact Allina taxpayers I hear statements made tonight oh well we have to pay for the public benefits including a sidewalk wait a minute if you're going to have a business and you're going to offer retail these are improvements that have be paid for by the developer because there's no Market whatsoever for retail space where the public can't go into the business if you're selling there's no market for that they have to pay for that that's not a public benefit that's a requirement they have to have you're just all making this up to Jack the money up this defies logic because the mayor is on record stating this is one of the most valuable pieces of property in the city of Edina so why are we paying somebody 80 million bucks to com in and build get over it there's no green space this is a concrete jungle this was be this is built in 1950s standards this whole thing needs to be scrapped and started over with green space thank you for your time thank you Mr GR good evening mayor members of the council this has been a very stimulating uh introduction here tonight so uh let me just mention that in just a few short days he your name and address please yes Ronnie Anderson 5728 camer drive thank you you will reconvene to vote on the matter at hand a now 80 million tax increment Financial District the term sheet associated with the proposed District indicates 51 million for Enclave in addition the Tiff plan plan presentation to the Planning Commission references 30 million for a non-motorized crossing of France that's been discussed a bit here earlier that seems to me to constitute an assumption of an approval of a future project of that nature at the very least it begs the question of how you might opt out of it I urge you to reconsider this approach for that matter I urge you to reconsider approval of the Tiff District in its entirety for the following reasons you will create even more Frozen tax capacity this will continue the prevention of residential property tax relief for necessary police fire and Emergency Services someone has to pay for these services and with frozen tax capacity it falls to the current taxpayer given the failure to close out Tiff districts even after their desertification it continues to make a case for continued sequester of Millions ions of dollars of potential tax relief on September 17th as council member Pierce mentioned earlier he asked the burning and very necessary question how would no Tiff or a significant reduction in Tiff impact the site plan that you've shown us today I would suggest that the site plan would be smaller reflective of more of our zoning ordinances and design guidelines a quicker project completion would contri contribute to the tax revenues of the city in real time it would still be profitable for the development team this could create less Demand on infrastructure as well that's called smart development as you may know the city of viina has seen an increase in Tiff districts since 2020 we go this would be the 12th uh 10 districts in 2020 this would be the 12th and yet there are still desertified districts which remain open we're moving in a direction at odds with both the state and common sense because there's been a Statewide decline since 204 and Tiff districts and flat for the last eight years in two weeks you'll give a final vote on this Tiff District please vote no as always thank you for your continued service to the city of udina thank you anyone else for for is there a way to zoom in on that better hold that microphone closer please yep is it on yep there you go thank you good evening my name is Ralph siker I live at 4311 Cornelius Circle residents of Adina I'm going to start with two quick slides followed by a short vignette first an overview of Tiff this slide summarizes the key information for every one of adina's 15 active T Tiff districts the Osa reports as referred to by Mr neindorf except for the two that he was two for the two years he wasn't able to provide for the Eden Wilson District the first thing I'd like to point out is the $351 million that have is projected of Tiff dollars captured by these latest 12 sites another $80 million from the proposed Macy site means that there'll be $432 million of tax revenue sequestered into these districts the other thing I want to point out is that there's $18 million associated with three districts who were do that were do desertified some 10 to 20 years ago so the the early closing out of a district albeit that they F stop capturing incremental taxes after the certification they've gone on for another 10 to 20 years and have some $18 million in cash and and loans and recently allocated another $9 million to the spark fund second second let's look at the specific associated with the Macy site in a way you've not seen before I'd like to share two things one when you look at the tax levy for 2024 the total tax levy for the city was $54 million when you look at the Macy site what's proposed for enclave and and lifestyle it's $51 million there's another $29 million of that Tiff District to reach that $880 million the only way you're able to Fig see those numbers they're not on any presentation that's been made by City staff not in the HRA not in the city council meeting what you have to do is look at follow the whole chain of events you have to look at what's been posted in in manager comments and better together to be able to come up with those numbers but that's what they are finally let's talk about how Tiff really works for [Applause] in A din in a diner let me ask you Mr ziker um I've let you drift over the three minute Mark and you've let people drift over way over the three minute Mark and if you're not I'm but if they're not concerned about $80 million I'm going to let you I'm going to let you finish up your presentation here so go ahead thank you you've got your your your your housing your residential housing and your and your apartment units and Dina today their combined piggy banks have a nice stash of cash each year via the general Levy some of that cash some $54 million is put in the general Levy you also there are also some future promised $51 million of taxes of property taxes that are associated with the Tiff District each year a little bit of that is put in the bucket a little more is put in the bucket a little more NE the next year is put into the bucket a little more is put into their piggy bank the next year so in the end you end up with $51 million and at some point you start taking out of those future taxes and start filling the $30 million bucket until that full when you have that IOU paid off the incremental P the taxes Associated that well maybe you want to take some money out of the three Tiff districts where you've got $28 million and transfer it to the spark fund residents of ad I hope this has been helpful yet I have no illusion that my loone voice will change the outcome of the vote on October 15th I say that as prior comments by the HRA members reflect the Allure of creating yet another $30 million piggy bank over which there's almost no oversight however I do hold the illusion that my lone voice will in the coming weeks change some choices at the voting booth thank you for anyone else not seeing anybody coming forward anybody online okay all right um the suggestion here from staff is that um we're going to take this up after um more public input um leaving it open for more public input until Sunday October 6th and continue the action on the potential resolution until the October 15 2024 city council meeting is there a motion to that effect so mov D there a second second we get a motion and second to close the inperson public hearing keep the public input open until Sunday October 6 2024 and continue the action on the resolution until the October 15 2024 city council meeting uh any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion say I I I opposed carried uh that motion's approved all right we got some more work to do yet and uh chair Lansbury's been waiting patiently back there all this time uh we're going to go to reports and recommendations we're finally through the public hearing portion of the agenda and we're going to go to uh the first matter in reports and recommendations portion of the agenda and that has to do with the potential modification of um uh the Heritage preservation commission and Iden Heritage landmarks uh embodied in resolution 202 477 director Teague is going to introduce the matter uh we've got Jane lanquist our HBC chair of Harry's preservation commission chair Rachel Peterson Elizabeth gails others available for uh for consultation uh uh as we talk about these possible amendments so um director te go ahead lead us off yes thank you mayor members of the council this is a project that the Heritage preservation commission and staff have been working very hard on over the past one to two years I just want to reiterate the names of the people who were most involved here Emily Del Del rmle our uh assistant city planner who's the um the leaz on to the commission who couldn't be with us this evening she's due any day now um chair Jane lonquist uh Bob cundy and Rachel Pollock who were the subcommittee that worked um countless hours in in helping with this our new excellent Consulting team uh Rachel Peterson and Elizabeth Gil also were big contributors here as well as of course the City attorney to make sure that everything we were doing was legal they the the full presentation was at your last city council meeting and there a ton of detail there um some of the bigger picture items the process is made more clear um we've added a escrow fee and policy to help with enforcement um updated the plan of treatment the Planning Commission reviewed this and their recommendation was for approval on a unanimous vote as well as the Heritage preservation Commission of course um this ordinance would be implemented when the building department oh I forgot Nate borage our building official who is also here with us sorry about that Nate but uh Nate was very helpful all along the way as well um this ordinance would be implemented when the building department implements a new software system some of the IT staff will now have to review every building permit within the within the country club District um so that's going to take some time to put out the red flags and they are looking at a new system so that will likely occur in late 2025 as mentioned this earlier this evening at the work session the HPC hopes to do L of Education around this ordinance um so we're ready to hit the ground running um the requested action this evening is to adopt the ordinance number 2024 um and wave the second reading and adopt the resolution that approves the update to the country club plan of treatment so with that everybody is here to answer any questions that you may have member rer um at the hearing for the Planning Commission and also for our hearing there were residents who expressed concern about this being burdensome for replacing windows and doing energy upgrades and emergency repair but when I read the ordinance it appears as if there is exception for that so could you just comment on that am I reading it correctly if you're changing out like Windows for like Windows those do not need need to go back to the commission for review same with a a roofing permit but those are some of the permits now that staff has to review to make sure that they are like for like um if you're going to change out those features those would have to go back to the to the commission you any other comment on that issue other than yeah you agree with director Teague all right too tired to talk a little bit all right um other questions from Council Members excuse me or comments yes member Jackson so thank you Mr Mayor what's the approximate cost of the software that we need to is is is a software we're getting connected just to this or is it for the planning in general but but how much are we talking about it's for the whole building department but perhaps um Nate could comment that we're just in the beginning stage um of interviewing different software providers but just kind of ballpark so Nate bwood Chief Building official um at this time we don't yet have a cost we're exploring which software um would are what options are available that would best suit us and then we will um search out pricing on those products could you give us $100,000 1,000 not even to that point not even a a ballpark not yet um cuz currently our software um that we are using uh through logis they are sunsetting that product so we're on the very front end of exploring um the products that that are out there so this is an expensive so this is this this software replacement is not directly related okay to this this is something that will be needed because the current permitting software we use City wide for building permits is sunsetting um in the coming years okay that's that's extremely helpful thank you all right um member of Pierce anything nothing for me all right me either um is there a motion to approve ordinance number 2024 let me before we go there anybody want to make a comment no no okay good to know you can still talk all right is there a motion to approve ordinance 20246 uh Amendment concerning the Heritage preservation commission and the D heritage heritage landmarks and wave second reading of that ordinance and adopt resolution 20247 which would approve an update to the country club plan of treatment effective January 1 2026 so moved second second all right um we'll take member Pierce off the hook member Jackson moves member Brer seconds the adoption of the motion to approve ordinance 2024-25 d77 which approves an update to the country called Planet treatment effective January 1 2026 any further discussion just real briefly I want to say a profound thank you it took hours and hours of work so incl tonight so thank you hold that thought we'll vote and then you can give them a big shout out too before they bolt out of here that's why you did it isn't it before they want to stay for the vote all right all right um any further discussion all those in favor of adoption of the motion is stated say I I I opposed carried all right thank you so much for this yeah it was really quite some extraordinary work that was done here so thank you hope you get a good night's sleep yes you thank you all right we've got one more matter in the main body of the agenda and that's director Teague has this matter for us and that involves 7235 France Avenue yes thank you mayor members of the council so this is second reading of the ordinance that you approved on first reading with the the Macy's project from a couple of weeks ago there have been no changes to the ordinance so we would recommend that you adopt the ordinance on second reading questions from Council Members all right is there a motion to approve uh ordinance 20247 establishing PUD 25 at 7325 France Avenue and Grant second reading so moved second got a motion by member Jackson second by member Pierce to adopt ordinance number 20247 establishing PUD 25 at 7325 France Avenue and granting second reading any further discussion all those in favor of motion of stated say I I I I opposed carried the motion is approved motion uh yeah thank you all right um manager Neil any comments none tonight Council comments remember rer uh no but were we going to talk about that sidewalk or did we decide we decided not no we're going to have a work session we're going to have a work session on sidewalk okay U real quick uh just the road is going in we have the under lay in our neighborhood and it was sort of magical watching that asphalt go down and be rolled out and at least on my block people just kind of saw it as magical and so I just thought I'd talk about that you could see kids after it was okay to do it um on their little boards and whatnot going up and down the street it was great so that's all I have good Jackson well I had I did a little quick math here and if if we keep our budget at $54 million for the next 25 years the money acred or the money spent will be1 tr350 million so I want to compare that to the 80 million not one year of data versus 25 years of data just to put things into perspective so thank you yeah thank you remember Pierce um just a a shout out to the police openhouse um that was extremely fun um I convinced uh Steph my wife to come and I'm sure she's asleep now but um I'll have to play this clip back to her tomorrow but when I asked her to go like she was like well sure I'll go but we're leaving when I'm ready to leave we're not going to be there all evening and I think she spent 30 minutes with the SWAT guys and she just had this look on her face she learned a lot um she didn't want to leave and so she's walking around talking to people and um she said she didn't realize that that event was as as B big and comprehensive as it is and so I think you guys did an awesome job and um I enjoyed it as well um and so um if you missed it this year you can catch it next year but put it on your calendar when it comes out thank you an open house was the first chance to use the new Street we were all out there walking around the new Street and uh kids were having a wonderful time I think I had the 700th hot dog um I think they did make 700 hot dogs it was pretty extraordinary night as James says um and then again a reminder Restaurant Week get down there and support those 50th in France restaurant tours uh maybe uh once or twice at least and U wish them the best on there that's it for me we got a I guess we got an mlc meeting tomorrow with we've got Keith Ellison and uh Peggy Flanigan coming to the meeting which was kind of All-Star lineup all right is there a motion to adjourn so moved second and a motion by who else member Jackson second my member appears to ad Jing this meeting of the city council it is still October 1st 20124 but barely uh any further discussion all those in favor of adjournment say I I I posos carried stand adjourned