hello this is it's 7 p.m. um we will call this meeting to order of the regular Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting of March 17th 2025 happy St Patrick's Day everyone um we our first item on the
agenda is to elect officers for the Richfield Housing and Redevelopment Authority for 2025 we need to do I hand it over to you no I can handle this yeah okay um the officers
for 2024 were Aaron re Daniels as chair Gordon Hansen as Vice chair and Sean Hayford oi as secretary um is there any nominations for chair for 20124 and I will start off by saying this is my last year before I
term out and so while i' would be happy to serve as chair I think it'd be a great opportunity for somebody else to step up as well so before I are there any nominations for chair I believe others will have ample opportunity to step up in the
future so I nominate Aon re Daniels for share and do we need a second or just nominations let's second it for the heck of it okay I'll I believe in the past we have seconded yes are there any other nominations are there any other
nominations any other nominations all right I will accept um but you know someone's gonna have to prep for next year um all right all those in favor for Aon re Daniels as chair for 2025 say I I
opposed that has been approved um congratulations thank you you think after so many years I would be able to get this part down um are there any nominations for vice chair I'll nominate Gordon
Hansen I'll second it's been nominated and seconded is there any other nominations for vice chair any other nominations for vice chair one last time any other nominations for vice chair seeing none
Gordon Hansen has been nominated as VI all those in favor say I I opposed Gordon Hansen congrats on Ice congratulations um moving us to secretary are there any nominations for
2025 for secretary I nominate Sean Hayford oir second there it's been nominated and seconded Shan he ferto Larry for secretary are is there any other nominations any other
nominations any other nominations seeing none all those in favor for Sean Hayford o as secretary say I I opposed um motion
passes excellent okay thank you congratulations everyone may I ask before we proce is the three time thing actually a rule in b oh really I noticed you did it at the rbwo meeting okay plenty of time for everyone
Sor um okay so that takes us to our open Forum there's no one in the room no any writing in of anyone early no Jer re Daniels did we did not receive any comments great um you can always refer
to the H agenda and minutes web page for additional ways to submit comments should anyone watching like to do that um that takes us to approval of the minutes of the regular Housing and Redevelopment Authority meeting of February 18th 2025 is there a motion for approval uh motion to
approve is there a second second it has been moved and seconded any comments questions changes concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I opposed the minutes have been approved taking us to
item number one the 2 2024 housing Redevelopment Authority and Economic Development Authority year in review this always comes up so fast I feel like we just did this it felt like that to us as well um cheer reeze Daniels uh
because it is easier to control the PowerPoint um from the podium we're going to present from that right side of the room even though it feels a little silly yeah dare I you can also you can just it won't pan as they go along but you
can okay can everybody hear me and access your PowerPoint up there all set yeah great okay so we are pleased to present present our 2024 year in review assistant director Urban and I are going to split up the presentation
tonight and as a reminder we do combine the HRA and Eda into a single presentation and all of these slides will be on our website tomorrow they are not there now so this year let me move ahead a little bit this year uh we have
chosen to organize the presentation a little bit differently we've structured it to highlight the connection between the vision and direction that the city council sets forth and the work that is done and funded by the H and Eda so to do that we'll be talking about our work
as it aligns with the council um council's cor core values you'll see those on the slide here these were adopted by the council in 2021 they include leading the way being responsive being responsible stewards being Community centered and being Equitable
we'll talk about more as we go through the presentation um and highlight our work so we'll start with leading the way the lead the way core value includes two objectives the first is to continuously seek to improve the services that we
provide through Innovation and creativity one of the ways we did this in 2024 and one of the ways we always do this is to improve Services through new programs in late 2023 the Eda created the small business sewer access charge
or Sac assistance program and in 2024 we award Ed uh the first award of assistance to a new small business in downtown open hairspace will be open soon in the ground floor of the Lin view we also seek to improve Services by
looking for efficiencies freeing up some internal capacity in 2024 we partnered with Cee the Center for Energy and environment to administer our apartment remodeling Loan program Cee already administers our fixup fund and our
remodeling advisor program so this was an opportunity to build on that and again free up some internal capacity we awarded two apartment remodeling loans in 2024 we also improved Services through forethought and careful planning in 2024
we received our first laa or local affordable housing aid payments from the state and began spending those in accordance with the budget and we began to plan for applying uh for the new bringit home Minnesota rent assistance program and planning for the loss of our
guaranteed allocation of federal cdbg funds the Shifting the shifting funding and L uh business landscape are making it especially important right now that staff be nimble that we be strategic and that we be creative to make sure that we
can continue to provide these services and provide um new ones as we identify needs the second component of lead the way is dedication to our staff whereby we cultivate an environment of growth for staff and there and thereby allow
them to innovate and be creative in terms of the services I just talked about this year we have done that by continuing to be a resource for others um particularly other cities attempting down um down payment assistance programs we participated in a best practices
webinar and although Richfield has been a housing leader for many many years we find these opportunities especially valuable not only because we're sharing our knowledge but because of the questions that we get from other communities and dialoguing with other
housing professionals we have also heard a need from our staff over the past several years for support in training and expanding their skills and this year the HRA and Eda staff took part in over 250 hours of training this was in a variety
of areas depending on staff's needs it included new and emerging trend in real estate Finance program Administration Economic Development creative placemaking and more one of the particularly important areas of training this year was for our
Section 8 housing Choice voucher staff in addition to a revised Section 8 administrative plan which we had to provide to align with it's called hotma the Housing Opportunity through modernization act um staff spent over
150 hours and required Federal trainings in order to begin that new inspection process this year that included all of our Section 8 administrative staff as well as um our inspectors who typically work on the city Side I'm going to turn it over to Julie for the next few
slides thank you so I'll go on to the second value uh which is being responsive and responsiveness means just that that we're listening and responding to feedback and assisting in projects that reflect the needs in our
community uh both a strategic plan and our comprehensive plan both identify housing affordability as a priority the Penn Station project was one project that came before you this year from Jo companies and it specifically helps us to meet our need allocation for new
affordable units in our community as determined by the Metropolitan Council the project includes larger units for families as as well as housing for people with disabilities another need identified in our community additional housing units in the area of Penn Avenue
will also help to support and strengthen that commercial Corridor which is a step towards the goal of diversifying our tax base and as you can see on the slide that um the HRA um considered funding for the project selling the properties
and then the project has also received multiple grants and very exciting uh received a tax credit award in 2024 and that'll be coming back before you in a couple of months uh another uh slide about being
responsive um next to the desire for affordable housing when we are out in the community the wants we here identify most are local restaurants and a brewery so this year the H approved $750,000 to assist loose line brewing in
the construction of a food Hall on the remaining vacant commercial lot at the former Lindell Garden site this work ticks a lot of boxes for us in terms of our strategic planning efforts it will contribute to ongoing work to create a vibrant downtown and helps to diversify
our tax space with additional commercial development and finally it's a great use of some of our pooled tax increment funds it's helping to create both construction jobs and ongoing jobs in our community in 2024 the Eda also received a $45,000 business district initiative
Grant from h in County to develop a branding and placemaking strategy for downtown that work will begin in the coming months um another way we are responsive is how we continue to uh work to meet the needs of homeowners through our
single family housing programs we are in the midst of our overall program evaluation and hope to bring that to you in the coming months but in 2024 we took in feedback in a variety of ways and were able to respond to that by making changes to help enhance those programs
and our work one of the most interesting and fun ways we collected feedback was via a puff pole at pennfest uh and we were able to make some quick changes to the application for our transformation Loan program based on that feedback this information will also help to inform our
program evaluation project we also issued seven transformation loans in 2024 helping residents meet their remodeling goals and after some rather slow moving projects during the pandemic and shortly after um mostly due to supply chain issues the projects have
started to speed up which helps us to use that money more efficiently also sharing information and being active out in the community is a way that we are responsive folks want to know what the HRA and Eda do and we communicate through this through participating in community events like
the farmers market and pennfest and we were also at unity in the community this year and then finally our very popular fall remodeled home tour we just had four homes this year but well over uh 300 attendees at the event and then we can never forget to include
some before and after photos transformation Loan program provides uh an excellent example of those you can see the before kitchen and the after kitchen here that was helped uh with our transformation loan stewardship is our next value and that means that we are managing our
resources human natural Financial Etc in in a responsible manner the HRA and Eda continued to fa facilitate good stewardship of our housing stock through remodeling loans for both single family homes and apartment communities through our remodeling advisory programs and by
managing the H's loan portfolio richfield's housing stock is one of its most important assets and the HRA and Eda continue to prioritize its maintenance and Improvement we were able to uh support the uh issuance of six remodeling or Home Maintenance loan um
loans through the fix up fund and deferred loan programs and then there were also actually 54 architectural and remodeling consultation recipients that is a typographical error I apologize for that perhaps less exciting but no less important we also cleaned up our Loan
program data in preparation for the housing program evaluation many of richfields Housing Programs have been around for multiple staff changeovers and we have a homegrown database that we use for program Administration this large loan portfolio data is being
reviewed and standardized in order to move forward with our comprehensive evaluation we also uh practice stewardship um through the eda's commitment to financial assistance for Energy Efficiency upgrades $5,300 in rebates were provided to businesses this
year for lighting and other Energy Efficiency upgrades stewardship also means land stewardship the H was a ble to purchase a neglected tax forfeited property in pen Avenue for assembly and ultimately construction of a new Housing Development the at also accepted in 2024
a second donation of property formerly owned by the mathwig family this has created one contiguous larger Redevelopment site along Interstate 494 the donation was a testament to the working relationship we had with that property owner and their belief that
Richfield deserves the opportunity to do something great for the community with the site it's also one of many examples where staff also works hard to be stewards of relationships with members of the community and I'll pass it back to Melissa okay thank you moving back into
our next value that is community centered so Community centered as a core value means that Richfield celebrates and takes pride in its community and that we are resident focused now I know because I work with your HRA and Eda staff members every day that they are
deeply passionate about their work they care about the people in Richfield but I want you and the broader Community to know that as well so each year um as a staff award ceremony we give out Awards based on the core values that we're discussing today in 2024 I gave out
three Awards to HRA staff for their Community centered work the first two awards were for Celeste mcdermit and helary Lovel our housing Specialists who injected a deeper level of humanity and Care into our work by developing HRA and
Eda loan forgiveness policies that allow for the administrative forgiveness of loans in cases of dire financial hardship you'll recall that this eliminates the requirement for people to disclose those personal hardships in public meetings something that was deeply uncomfortable for everyone who
was involved uh the third award that I presented was to Lynette Chambers our multif family housing program administrator Lynette developed our award-winning kids at home program many years ago and she's a significant driver
of its continued success she is regularly adapting this program particularly the parent share group trainings and meetings to meet the needs of our families in the program at the time she is creative she is dedicated and she is generous in 2024 our program
was at its maximum capacity and our families have continued to impress us this past year two program graduates surprised us when they asked to return to the parent share program to share the wisdom they had gained with current participants they shared what they did
that led to success and what they wish they hadn't done so I I really wanted to highlight that um I think it's evident in work that we do um but maybe not to the broader Community uh the H also continued to
support utility upgrades at the W La Terrace Cooperative in 2024 and those are nearly complete moving on to our final core value Equitable um Equitable as a core value means that the city of Richfield
is dedicated to building a diverse inclusive and thriving Hometown first I'll focus on our partnership with henpen County's Elevate henpen program in 2024 um Elevate henpen provided 588
hours of assistance to 4 41 Rich field businesses in the last 2 years 72% of those entrepreneurs were people of color I also want to highlight our firsttime home buyer program 2024 was a banner year for this program we closed on 16
loans we contined to serve higher than industry average of people with marginalized identities nearly 85% of total households served since 2019 are households of color we served our first Native American household this this past year and a contributing factor to this
was the Statewide first generation Housing Programs those brought more Twin Cities Realtors and lenders into this world of home purchase assistance despite the challenging interest rates and then finally our favorite slide a summation of all that I've just
told you Julie and I have just told you but in numbers that really bring it home in 2024 noting Julie's uh from the earlier Slide the HRA and Eda helped over 600 households and businesses in the
community so I'll I'm not going to read through all of these they're in your slide to refer to but that's really exciting that's a lot of people um that in Partnership you um as the H and Eda board and staff uh that's a lot that we've
done and then that's like I said a result of the hard work of you and the hard work of these folks folks um on the last slide your H and Eda staff and that's it we're happy to stand for any questions if you have them yeah I'll open up anybody have questions
comments yes go ahead I don't have any questions but I I always love this um report because it just highlights all the great work that everybody's doing and I really appreciate everything that the that you all have been doing and that the the city has been working
through the H and the Eda to do um I happened to drive through woodlon Terrace today and it was so exciting to see all the um utility work looked like it was mostly done and a lot of new units and so that was just fun to see that come to fruition so thank you for
everything that you do yes go ahead well I have a question the uh the Vel Drome project we heard about um in past years is that still percolating in the background or is that kind of Gone by the wayside thank you that's a great question commissioner Hansen um you know
I the Minnesota Cycling Association would love for that project to move forward however they do not have the funding for that the H and Eda don't have any sort of exclusive um agreement with them to hold the property although if they did come back to us and want to
talk about that project further we'd certainly be open to it I just want to say Well done it's a long list of great achievements and and I'm really proud of what Richfield has done and thank you for your hard work I also thank you and everyone and the
staff and I think this is our favorite presentation every year and it does feel like it comes up quick so I'm like oh it's like the most memorable thing when we kind of pull this all together and step back and reflect on all the awesome work that the staff does for the community and your passion and your
passion for the staff and everything that happens is just so visible and um so kudos to everyone because it's the numbers really for themselves I think that's our's a great place to live and you guys are a huge part of that
thanks quiet claping all right we'll move on to approval of the agenda I'll move to approve the agenda second it has been moved and seconded any comments questions concerns or changes seeing none all those in favor
say I I oose osed the agenda has been approved item number three the consent calendar executive director Palin thank you chair reeze Daniels let me move ahead here did you pull your thing back up yeah the consent calendar
in this case contains one item which is acted upon by the H and one motion once the consent calendar has been approved the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved no further H action on these items is necessary however any H H commissioner May request that an item be removed from
the consent calendar and placed on the regular agenda for H discussion and action all items listed on the consent calendar are recommended for approval the single item on your consent calendar tonight item a consider resolutions designating official depositories for
the HRA for 2025 including the approval of collateral and I submit this for your for your consideration is there a motion to approve or anyone would like to remove anything from the consent calendar I make a motion to approve the consent calendar uh second it has been moved and
seconded all those in favor say I I I opposed the consent calendar has been approved taking us to item number five exective thank you a review of the H bylaws revealed that procedures related
to attendance at a special meeting were ambiguous and could be interpreted to read that all members of the H must be present to conduct business in consultation with the H attorney attorney an amendment removing this ambiguous language has been proposed Additionally the amendment allows the
executive director to call a special meeting and aligns the notification period with the statutory requirement to post special meetings at least three days in advance uh I'm happy to stand for any questions I have a question about the um
not about that portion but section six um you know we always kind of joke that the approval of the agenda comes halfway through the meeting um I was watching the Planning Commission meeting a couple weeks ago and as they were going through their is it true that we're in this order because
of the system that you guys use to generate the agendas this might be a question for the city clerk I will answer to my to the best of my ability but Michelle May jump in here um right now we are
evaluating um the order of agendas and putting in into a new system so part of what we're doing is just making sure that all of the commissions and boards are aligned um that process happened I believe it was about five years ago so the reason you're in this order is
because the council was in the order at that time um it's a consistency issue okay if there is opportunity to change it I would love for that to move up if I could say and this is something I've complained about as a council member a number of times too it it makes
no sense for approval of the agenda to be like way through the meeting like because what if a presentation were added or deleted like we have no power over that um so uh I will share this with Katie as well as C manager but I would strongly like approval of the agenda to move to the top of the
agenda that said I so noted I have no issue with staff's actual actual change we're discussing right now thank you perfect all right is there a motion are there any other questions anyone like to make a motion I'll move
to um approve the which wait the resolution the resolution so hold on a second I got to get back to it I scroll down to look at the bylaws I'll move to adopt a resolution amending the bylaws of the Richfield Housing and Redevelopment Authority second it has been moved and seconded any comments
questions concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I opposed the adoption the resolution has been approved um taking us to item number six H discussion items are there any H discussion items I have
yes go ahead um I just wanted to alert anybody that's watching to watch your mail you should be getting your hennipen county valuation notices and so if you have any questions about your assessment you can call the county assessor and the
phone number is 612 348 3046 61234 4 83046 but watch for that um information and it has a whole thing of what to do if you want to appeal it and how to go through the process so it should it
arrived at my house today so it probably will be getting throughout the city in the next day or two thank you for sharing anybody else all right item number seven executive director hman thank you I have a couple of
announcements today um first wanted to make the h aware that we are in the process of applying for the state trust fund match um they will match up to $225,000 so we are applying for that money and also the bring at home
Minnesota program which I referenced in the um in the presentation we're working on that application and we're also working to partner potentially with hennipen County and the school district um with our with formation of our
program our bring it home program and that's the rent assistance so working on some Partnerships to do the most we can um with the funding that we get and then finally I will mention that there was an openhouse last week related to the Loos
line Food Hall proposal was very well attended um a couple of you several of you were there probably I would guess 50 to 60 people uh based on signin uh the general feeling I think was very
positive there were um some concerns related to um you know the potential frequency of performances how late they might last into the evening um some Landscaping related to
headlights um in the neighboring residential units and some parking concerns the sort the same kinds of concerns that we hear um regularly with Redevelopment projects so hopeful that that will keep moving forward that the developer will take that feedback and
work with the community on those things um we expect a land use application to come in in the near future perhaps for the April Planning Commission meeting that is the next step is the Planning Commission and that's all for my report do you have any update on the or
could tell us a bit more about the strongest Town competition I know we did not move forward in the last round right perhaps commissioner Heyford oi has an update on that I do not yes unfortunately we did not uh we did not I
was assured by someone at strong towns that Maran Ohio our our competitor in the last round did an exceptional job at getting the word out they had like editorials in the local paper about the importance of voting in the strong towns competition so we shouldn't take it personally so yeah we are out of the race um you should still vote because it
is still a cool competition that we got to be a part of um we will still be on the strong towns podcast coming up we got like a 10minute segment to talk about what's cool about Richfield uh what makes this a strong town and I also have a recap of our application materials although much of it is already on the strongest town website but
that'll be on streets. man in the next week or two awesome thanks all right um if there's something else we have uh brings us to number eight claims is there a motion to approve claims I make a motion to approve
claims second it has been moved and seconded any comments questions concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I opposed claims have been approved and that takes us to adjournment thank you everyone we'll
roll right over to the Eda ready all right we will call to order the um March 17 2025 Economic Development Authority meeting of the city of Richfield um our first item is to consider the election of officers for
the Richfield Economic Development Authority for 2025 officers for 2024 were Aon reze Daniels as president Gordon Hansen vice president Shan Hayford or L Treasurer um Dustin lesli vacant secretary although
not required to be an Eda commissioner and then uh kimun Verma the assistant treasur also not required so are we voting on all five he uh yes you are voting on all five uh I can give recommendations for the
secretary and assistant Treasurer positions when you get to those perfect thank you um are there nominations for president I'll nominate eron fze Daniels second uh are there any other
nominations for president any other nominations for president any other nominations president all right um seeing none um it has been um moved nominated Aaron re
Daniels for president for 2025 of the Eda all those in favor say I I I I opposed um motion passes um is there a nomination for vice president I nominate Gordon Hansen for vice
president I'll second it has been moved in second Ed Gordon Hansen for Vice President are there any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations all right seeing none all
those in favor of Gordon Hansen for vice president for 2025 say I I I opposed motion passes is there a nomination for treasurer I nominate Sean Hayford o as Treasurer well second
it has been uh Sean ha for lirry has been nominated uh and seconded for Treasure is there any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations hearing none all those in
favor for Sean Hayford alir to be treasurer for the Eda of 2025 say I I I I opposed congrats motion passes um is there nomination for secretary a recommendation yes president
uh reze Daniels I would recommend that you appoint uh Michelle Friedrich city clerk uh as the secretary for this year thank you is there a official nomination I'll nominate Michelle Friedrich is there second that is there
any other nominations or recommendations any other nominations any other nominations seeing none um all those in favor of Michelle friederick of being secretary say I I I opposed
congratulations and thank you um is there a recommendation for assistant Treasurer yes president freze Daniels I would recommend that you appoint Mary bogie who is the fractional CFO or acting Finance director thank you is there a
nomination I'll nominate Mary bogie second it has been nominated and seconded uh there any other nominations any other nominations any other nominations seeing none all those in
favor say I I I opposed motion passes please thank her for her service as well okay I believe that wraps up that item um takes us to open form there is no one
in in the room um always you can refer to the EDR agenda and minutes uh for additional ways to submit comments that takes us to approval of the minutes of the regular Economic Development Authority meeting of February 18th 2025 is there a motion to approve the minutes
uh motion to approve second it has been moved and seconded any comments Corrections concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I I opposed the minutes have been approved taking us to approval of the agenda I
move approval of the agenda second it has been moved in seconded to approve the agenda is there any changes comments questions seeing none all those in favor say I I I opposed the agenda has been approved
item number two the consent calendar uh executive director pman thank you president freze Daniels the consent calendar contains items which are acted upon by the Eda in one motion once the consent calendar has been approved the individual items and recommended actions have also been approved no further Eda
action is necessary on these items however any Eda commissioner May request that an item be removed from the consent calendar and placed on the regular agenda for Eda discussion and action tonight the single item on your consent calendar is consider resolutions designating official depositories for
The Economic Development Authority for 2025 including the approval of collateral and I submit this for your con for your consideration thank you thank you is there a motion or uh would anyone like anything removed from the consent calendar I make a motion to
approve the consent calendar second it has been moved and seconded all those in favor say I I opposed the consent calendar has been approved item number four executive director pilman thank you uh the proposed uh change to the Eda
bylaws is exactly the same as the proposed change that you just considered to the HRA bylaws for anyone who was not listening in though a review of the Eda bylaws revealed that procedures related to attendance at a special meeting were ambiguous and could be interpreted to read that all members of the Eda must be
present to conduct business in consultation with the Eda attorney an amendment removing the ambiguous language has been proposed Additionally the amendment allows the executive director to call a special meeting and aligns the notification period with the statutory requirement to post special
meetings at least three days in advance I'm happy to answer any questions any questions or is there a motion I'll move to adopt a resolution amending the bylaws of the Richfield Economic Development Authority second it
has been moved and seconded any comments questions concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I opposed the resolution has been passed um taking us to item number five the Eda discussion items is
there any Eda discussion items yeah I just wanted to say again it was really great to see the small business assistance part of the presentation and the um the fact that we're actually going to do a sack loan and some of
those type of things so thank you for that anybody else all right um taking us to item number six executive director's report thank you that leads well into my uh report which is just to forecast for you that there will likely be a study
session in April ail um anticipating a 6:00 start time and that's to discuss a new small business assistance program uh that we've been developing so uh we will confirm that date as as um the end of April approaches but just to get that on your calendar now and that's the only
item I had thank you item number seven claims is there a motion to approve claims I make a motion to approve claims uh second it has been moved and seconded any comments questions concerns seeing none all those in favor say I I
opposed claims has been approved takes us to adjournment thank you everyone