Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome everybody to our August 11th, 2025 City Council meeting.

We begin every city council meeting with our open comment period.

This is an opportunity for anyone from the public to speak on items that we will not be taking public testimony on during a public hearing later in our agenda.

Each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of 20 minutes.

One, the uh stop light here and the red uh clock uh timer up there.

Uh and I'd ask each uh speaker to be concise to allow more people to speak during the designated time.

Participants are further encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of uh the council's ability to affect policy.

Uh council members and staff do not respond to your comments during public comment period, but will instead follow up on any specific requests separately.

If you have any materials to share with the council, you may give them to the city clerk, who's to my right here.

Uh you will be invited up in the order uh in which you signed up.

Uh please state your name clearly, and we will start with Craig Martins.

And Mr.

Martins, you may need to turn on the microphone.

There you go.

Hello, yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm Craig Martins, a Rochester resident.

I sent uh each of you an email uh last week.

City council, thank you for doing this.

Thank you for for volunteering.

Uh my topic is the sports complex, and it's the previous vote I covered that in my email.

The problem is this previous sports complex vote did not comply with Minnesota local sales tax law.

Now, local sales tax law has a couple of key components that uh really protect us, the public.

And uh so the voters voted on a sixty-five million dollar sports complex passed by fifty-three percent.

That was illegal because there was a no detailed description and no regional significance, and that's in the state law.

The only way to fix this is to vote again.

So in the new vote, the detailed subscription description should say the city council asks you if you want to do a business.

What's the business?

Sixty-five million dollar twenty-four-year half percent sales tax, a Rochester National Luther Youth Baseball Center, and five dollar pickleball business.

Because it's a business, business risk, smoke.

Probably wouldn't operate today.

Taxpayers cover it.

Rain, heat, snow.

And if the contractor, sports academy fails, then we have to provide uh property taxes to handle any failure.

Also, this sports complex is not maintained in any way.

So that means that uh we the taxpayer maintenance for 24 years based on cost per city acre is going to come out to about eight million dollars.

That's not that's not covered in the plan.

Now there's another subdivision one a regional benefit.

What does that mean?

That means that the region, Museppa, Byron, Chester, Zimborota, Hayfield, Stewart, Villota, Elgin, Plainview, all of these folks have to pay.

Mr.

Myers, can you start to can you wrap up your time is up?

That's oh.

Well, if you get a 51% vote on this, then the city council can proceed.

And uh what I'm recommending is that Rochester City Council hire a legal team to provide uh a proper legal description.

We the people need to vote on the thank you, Mr.

Martins.

On the legal description, thank you very much.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks for serving.

Big job.

Thank you.

Uh up next is uh Mr.

Loringstead.

Honorable counsel, Loringstead, four generations here in the Rochester uh connection to the family.

Specifically today, we're uh gonna address the action requested authorizing acceptance of the 416,500 economic mobility grant from the International City County Management Association.

We're all for getting extra funding to Rochester.

I'm all for that.

My concern specifically, if you haven't read it in detail, it's a big document.

Article 16, confidential and proprietary information.

All reports generated and data collected during this activity shall be confidential and shall not be reproduced, disseminated, or discussed in open forum.

Uh that is interesting to me.

Uh from what I can read, H16 specifically appears to function almost as a muzzle clause, uh restricting the city's ability to act unless an outside consultant gives the green light.

That's a serious concern.

We appreciate every effort for all of you to lead by example to make progress happen and to live out your service above self duties.

But service above self means working for and representing the cities of Rochester first.

Yes, you work with the city staff and partner organizations, even with outside consultants, but your oath is to the people.

I know we'd all agree that our commitment is to keep decision making where it belongs.

In this chamber, in the open, accountable to those who elected you.

Governance must be built on shared leadership, not outsourced permission.

Thank you.

Hey, I think that's the shortest I've ever spoken.

Yep.

Uh next up we have uh Barry Skolnick.

Hi, um, I'm Barry Skolnik.

Um I speak to here quite frequently.

I frankly, this is the second time in two months where there's been issues with whether or not staff really wants full participation.

I had last time was about the the bicycles, where there was some question if staff thought we were having too much participation.

Uh this is again the same thing.

There's a talk in here about doing the co-designers, the co-designers are not publicly uh recruited, they have no minutes that anyone can read, they their meetings are closed to the public, and they're and how they vote is closed.

Nobody knows what they do.

So uh I I don't agree with that.

I want the businesses to be able to have say in things.

I want the public to be able to go to meetings, and uh I just don't like any uh anything in here that's the Article 16 is confidential proprietary information.

This whole document, I hate to use the word reeks, but it wreaks of confidentiality and non-participation by the people in the community.

You know, I I just think that you should make sure that this document is a fully amended before you agree to it.

If they're gonna say, well, don't worry, we'll ignore that section, then if it's that unimportant to them, take it out.

Let's see if they're willing to take it out.

I don't think they are, because they want to control what's done in the city.

Uh you know, on their behalf, the grantees.

I don't think you should do something like this unless you make it transparent.

It shouldn't be confidentiality, it should be transparency, and that's what I believe.

Hopefully, you'll go forward and make this a better document so we can really work together to improve the economy here and not just the grantees.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh next up we have uh Zenab Ah Hassan.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Ainab Hassan.

I grew up here in Rochester.

I came here in second grade, graduated from Mayo High School in 2005, and spent most of my childhood at the YMCA, first in the mentorship program, later training in Taekwondo for nine years.

I'm deeply connected to the city.

I've always walked I've also watched it change.

I've seen funding for youth decrease year after year.

I've seen our young people push to the margins with fewer resources and fewer spewer safe places to grow.

And it is clear Rochester does not prioritize his youth, even though they are they are the future of this city.

When a white woman can call a five-year-old autistic Somali child the N-word and face no persecution, it tells us that justice is selective.

When millions are poured into a sports complex without including our voices, it tells us that our input doesn't matter.

And when the growing crisis of drugs and violence among our youth is ignored, it tells us that our children's lives are not a priority.

We, the Muslim and Somali community know what we can achieve.

Across Minnesota, we've proven our ability to organize, to lead, and to win real change.

And we are prepared to do the same here in Rochester.

Organizing is going to be our power, and we will use it.

We have been left out of rooms where decisions are made, but that ends now.

We are uniting and we will show our strength in numbers.

Even if the sports complex plan is stopped, even if it's turned into a so-called community facility, our life, our lived experiences tell us that without intentional change, we will still not be welcomed, included, or valued.

We are here tonight to say that we will no longer be that will no longer be acceptable.

We need change now from this council from city leadership and from every person with the power to shape this city's future.

Rochester is our home too, and we will make sure it belongs it becomes a home where we belong, where we are heard, and we are where we are valued.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have Yani Ahmad, Amaid Ahmed.

Hello, everybody.

Hello, Councilmember.

My name is Yahya.

This is the first time for me, I've never been here in a council meeting or whatever.

But I'm here today just to uh just like the previous two speakers to talk about the sports complex and how important it is uh to have a diverse voice in it.

Uh when I first came to Rochester, Minnesota was 1998 as an 18-year-old with $25 in my pocket.

One of the things that I love about uh back in the day that we had the YMCA, and that's something that has helped me as a young teenager to make sure that I get used to stay out of trouble.

Uh I had a place where I belong, a place where I can be myself.

Uh now that sense that the Y is not available.

Again, uh we have a huge struggle within our community now that our teenagers are getting, you know, have too much passive time on their hand.

Uh, they don't have a place that they can call it on their own.

So it's very important that uh moving forward that out when our voices are included, but also that what are any any project that's gonna happen, uh make sure that that we are addressing some of the needs that the community is is really dealing with.

Uh, if it's not addressed, then we you know, in the end, then we're gonna pay for it by not having uh youth who are not engaged or who are not succeeding uh at their uh reaching their their potential.

So again, uh you know, there's there's an enormous amount of responsibility in this room, and there's an enormous amount of power in this room as well, but then also there, you know, there are voices that are not here for whatever the reason it may be, whether they don't have uh uh the the knowledge or the the know-how and so on, but it does not mean that their voices are just less as important as anybody else.

Uh, you know, that's what really got me out of my comfort zone.

And the other thing is I'm not even just doing this for myself, but also I'm doing I'm a father of uh uh four kids.

I have an 18-year-old, I have a seven-year-old, I have a four-year-old, and I have a six month old.

Rochester, it is my home.

Just like everybody else, I'm I'm intended to be here until my dying day, and I want to make sure that Rochester is an inclusive place for everybody that lives in Rochester, Minnesota.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh, that's all I have on the sign-up sheet.

Is there anyone else who wishes to speak during public comment?

Seeing none, I will close public comment and uh we will move on to uh Clerk Caseau, please call the roll.

Good evening.

Councilmember Keene.

Here.

Councilmember Miller is absent, councilmember Wall.

Here, Councilmember Fredericks, Councilmember Palmer, Councilmember Doring.

Here.

Council President Schubring.

Here.

Mayor Norton is absent.

Thank you.

Uh, next up on our agenda is the uh city administrators report.

Administrator Zelms.

Council President, uh Council members, uh, members of the public, and to our city staff for being here.

Always start this off by sharing uh how they try to do their work with respect, integrity, safety, and excellence in mind, whether they are in an office um somewhere around town, we have a number, um, or out in the field um providing service to the community.

Just thank you to all of our teammates for what they do to um make Rochester a great place to live.

Um did want to point out that there is um some culminating events to the Minnesota Parks Artists in Residence Program.

Um, so there are events on August 23rd, 30th, and 7th, September 7th, at Oxpo, Cory Hill Nature Center Center, and Cascade Lake Park.

Um, those are free and open to everyone.

There will be an artist talk, um, hands-on public art activity and refreshments as they um work through the permanent art installations from Cassandra Buck.

You might recall that there have been another a number of other events related to this as they were creating their art.

And also wanted to point out for our partners at Olmstead County and in emergency management here in the city of Rochester that August is National Emergency Management Awareness Month.

So you may be seeing more information that's highlighting the important work that happens.

We're always trying to do a lot of prevention so that we are preventing as much as possible the effects of any emergency that might happen, but also training and preparing in case something does happen to be prepared to help the community.

So thanks to our teammates and partners across that spectrum.

Did have another art thing to share.

So on Thursday, August 21st is the next art walk downtown provided by Rochester Downtown Association.

You can get that on their website, 5 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

It's a self-guided tour.

You can get the maps at either Threshold Arts or the Historic Chateau Theater.

So there will be a number of different artists of different types of art, whether that uh medium is music or um uh more of a artist depicted here.

Um it is escaping me.

Visual arts, thank you for the phone of friend.

Um and so uh they're pairing with different businesses to be able to bring that to you.

There are a few more coming throughout the year.

Um also we did add a midday trip to Route 550 X.

Uh that is the route uh for writers traveling from the 75th Street Park and Ride.

Um, and so if you need information about um the transit system and your ride or what the schedules and routes are, you can find that at RPTride.com.

So that is all I have today.

And I don't know if you oh, acting mayor's report.

There it is.

Uh the may as you uh notice the mayor is away today, but she did give me a couple items to uh brief people on.

Uh tomorrow night, August 12th at Franklin Elementary is the last of the safe city nights events, free food and activities 6 to 8.

Uh according to Chief Franklin, it has been a wonderful summer at the Safe City Nights.

So if you don't have anything to do for dinner tonight, go to Franklin Elementary in Ward 1.

Uh next up we have the the some openings on the Rochester Omstead Youth Commission.

Uh this is a uh group that meets uh uh 14 to 20 year old residents of Olmstead County and looking for youth who are passionate about having their voices heard.

Uh the group meets uh the first Wednesday of every month from 5 to 6:30, and you will hear from city and county leaders and strategize and give input.

You'll be able to attend one city council meeting, and if you enjoy that, you can attend even more and uh one county board meeting per academic year.

Uh so uh share information with youth, and you'll also be able to participate in uh community events like uh Rochester Fest, Juneteenth, Safe City Nights, back to school rally.

So sign up.

And then uh finally, there are uh some uh vacancies on the boards and commissions for the city of Rochester.

We have two vacancies for the Board of Appeals, one library board vacancy, one planning and zoning commission vacancy, and a uh youth opening at the uh sustainability and resiliency commission.

So uh with that, uh if you have any questions for the mayor, Michan is in the office, uh please call and I'm sure Mayor Norton will get back to you.

So with that, we will move on to our order of the agenda.

And are there any changes to the order of the agenda?

If not, is there a motion to approve?

I'll move to approve.

Second.

Moved by uh Councilmember Keene, seconded by Councilmember Wall.

All in favor say aye.

Aye, all opposed say nay.

Motion carries.

Uh moving on to our consent agenda.

Councilmember Palmer is pulling items F 15 and F19.

I am polling item F 20.

Is there any other items?

Seeing none, I'd invite a motion to approve and block items F1 through F 14, F 16 through F eighteen, and F21 through F24.

So moved.

Moved by uh Councilmember Fredericks, second by council member Doring.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

We have two public hearings on our agenda this evening.

And before we begin the public hearings, I'd just like to take a moment to clarify the process for public hearings.

Staff will make uh a introduction of the item.

Uh if there is an applicant, uh then the applicant will have up to 10 minutes to discuss the item.

Uh after that, uh I will open the public hearing.

Members of the public have up to five minutes to address uh the council on uh the item.

We will close the public hearing.

The applicant will be re-invited up to uh answer any questions that came up during the public hearing.

And then after that, uh I will invite council members to ask questions of both staff and the applicant.

And after that, we will entertain a motion.

So with that, I will move to item G1, which is a final plat by Bigelow Holmes, and this will be presented by Mr.

Desmond McGill.

Uh thank you, Council President Schuebring, members of the council.

Good evening.

My name is Desmond McGill.

Um, this is the final plat request uh for 38 single family lots over about 12 acres.

Uh this is located in an R2 zoning district in the northwest side of Rochester, north of 55th Street Northwest, and west of 55th Avenue Northwest.

This is the eighth phase of the uh development under the Harvest II Harvest View 2 General Development Plan.

Uh this plat is consistent with the approved GDP and with the major land subdivision that was approved uh last December.

Uh this plat can provides continuation of local streets, stormwater management, uh, and that stormwater management will be addressed by utilizing the regional retention basin to the east of the subdivision.

Uh the proposed subdivision helps address uh the city's current shortage of single family residential units.

Uh and uh the development team is uh review team is is recommending approval of this application subject to the three conditions uh in your report.

Uh that concludes my uh introduction.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Uh any questions at this point, seeing none is uh the applicant or a representative of the applicant here.

Please step forward, state your name, and you have 10 minutes.

Uh good evening, Kyle Scove, WHKS.

I'm here on behalf of uh Bigelow Homes this evening.

Um we are in agreement with all three conditions and um I'm available to answer any questions you may have.

All right, thank you.

Uh at this point, uh I will open the public hearing.

If there's anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and invite the applicant back up for any closing comments.

We have nothing further.

Okay.

Uh council members, questions.

Is there a motion on this item?

Uh Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, I'll make a motion adopting a resolution approving final plat number CD 2025-026 plat by Bigelow Holmes to be known as Harvest U eighth with three conditions for the subdivision of 11.8 acres into 38 residential lots.

Second.

Moved by Councilmember Palmer, seconded by Councilmember Wall.

Councilmember Palmer, you have the floor.

Nothing, thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Uh Kyle.

Thank you.

Uh moving on to uh G2.

We have an appeal by C D 14 uh LLC, and this will be presented by Mr.

Anthony Cheeky.

Thank you, Council President Schubring.

Uh Council members, I'm Anthony Cheeky with community development.

Uh before you is application CD 2025-002 AP by C D 14 LLC to increase the permitted maximum freestanding sign height from 15 to 25 feet in a special industrial zoning district.

Uh the site is located northwest of the intersection of West Circle Drive Northwest and Highway 14 Northwest at 3101 Wilder Road Northwest.

Um the applicant originally appeared before the zoning board of appeals with a variance request under file C D 2025-003 VAR at their July 2nd hearing date.

Um the board had approved a motion to deny the variance request at that time uh for this appeal.

The development review team recommends approval of the appeal request to overturn the zoning board of appeals decision and grant the uh height increase.

Um that concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Chief uh Cheeky.

Uh is there an there is an applicant to this appeal, correct?

And uh is the applicant here?

If you can step forward and state your name and uh you have 10 minutes.

Thank thank you, Council President, members of the council.

I'm Jeff Griffin with GQ Delta Chapfield, and I'm representing the applicant this evening.

Um I personally did not attend the Board of Adjustment meeting.

However, I looked at the minutes.

And one thing I wanted to point out that's real crucial for your record is the uniqueness of this property.

I've been in development in Rochester for over 30 years, and I can't think of another property like this.

It's uh I call it the New Orleans of Rochester.

This property is surrounded on the north side.

We got a berm, which is essentially a railroad on the west side.

We actually have a sheet pile wall to keep the floodway waters out of it, and then on the south side, we have a frontage road.

So essentially this property sits down similar to New Orleans.

And like I said, it's just a very unique property in Rochester.

And uh when the uh Cadillac family purchased it, they graded the whole site all as one and built the Honda dealership first, never thinking that the rules would change and all of a sudden you can't have a sign up that high.

And so um it really put them in a hardship where uh the sign to the west is 33 feet and the sign to the east is 50 feet, and all of a sudden uh you're wanting them to put a 15-foot sign that couldn't even be seen.

And so they felt very strongly that the variance requested is a minimum needed um at 25 feet to get at least so they could someone could see the sign, but I really want to point out the uniqueness of this property.

That out here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.

You may be seated and we'll invite you back up after the public hearing.

Uh this is a I will now open the public hearing.

This is a public hearing.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Anyone wishing to be heard on this item, please step forward.

Seeing none, I will close the public hearing and invite the applicant back up for any closing comments.

Once again, Jeff Griffin, we have no other comments except we agree with both staff, both the original staff report and the staff report for this evening.

We agree with all of everything.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions for staff or the applicant?

Uh seeing none, is there a motion on this item?

No.

Oh, do you have a question?

No, I was gonna make a motion.

Oh, go ahead.

I I guess uh I do want to ask uh start with staff.

I did go back and watch uh the July 2nd meeting.

Um, and I'm I'm still trying to get my head around.

There was it seemed like we talked about three different um unique situations.

That idea that land is low, uh the the concept that the uh boulevard trees are are covering what where the 15-foot sign would be.

But then there was also this stuff about access or being able to see the sign for highway 14.

Can you help me understand the balancing of these different things when you um when you use them against the criteria?

Sure.

Um so evaluating the variance request.

Um there's a number of criteria that it needs to meet.

Um and with the uniqueness of the property, again, these are all factors that were considered.

Um, the existing grade of the property, it is lower than the travel portion of the highway 14.

Um the through the um associated site development plan application, boulevard trees are being required to be planted and they will reach maturity, so eventually they will essentially be another barrier to viewing the sign on the property.

Um I'm sorry, do you mind repeating the uh I'm I was trying to think of uh if I was hearing it right, there were three three issues.

The third one was the uh access or visibility from highway fourteen.

And that one I'm struggling with.

And I want to understand if that's like an afterthought we threw in or the real reason of as you approach the the variance criteria was the first two.

I think the first two were strong um components to the recommendation.

The third being the um visibility from the traveled portion of the road also weighs on the decision for the recommendation.

Um with the kind of posted speed and again just the current provisions.

Uh it is like it's staff's opinion that it's not as easy to read a sign at the uh current uh size limitation.

So uh the applicant uh staff believe made a strong compelling argument to support the minimal increase um to achieve proper visibility to the site.

Okay, then two two other small questions.

One, um can you explain some of the thinking that led you to a July second recommendation to deny and now uh five weeks later we're the staff is recommending to approve?

Um so at the July 2nd um zoning board of uh appeals meeting, the staff recommendation was also approval at that time.

Um the board members um deemed that uh criterion A and C didn't were not met, and therefore they uh moved a motion to deny the application.

Okay, that's helpful.

I I might have had my facts wrong.

Last um point when when this came as uh a variance from 15 to 25, and you talk about the neighboring properties, what leeway did the applicant have there to be 50 feet or 20 feet or 30 feet?

Who's whose decision is that um I think there was a bit of uh preliminary meeting on this uh liaising between the applicant and staff just to kind of see where the applicant could go for their signage, what their uh height was looking like.

Um really I think there was a lot of understanding on the applicant's side for the current provisions and really their request here, I think it vary in line with what the UDC currently permits, um, keeping in mind the existing conditions uh joint on the uh adjacent properties.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Uh while sympathetic to the unique nature of the property, the uh zoning board of appeals denied based on uh the UDC.

So uh I am wondering uh, and this goes back to another decision that uh we made some many months ago where the staff was not supportive of a variance uh based on UDC.

Uh why it is that we are not going to uh the the root of the problem and changing the UDC rather than uh finding uh variances coming uh to the council take it.

I take that one.

Uh thank you for the question.

I think you know there was a very set standard and policy when we were developing the UDC as it came to signage and it was kind of clear on what that looks like.

I think even when we were more lenient on signs, we were still seeing variance requests for that, and I think we'll probably continue to see some of those.

But I think as we continue as we move through the UDC and the implementation, we'll evaluate what those look like.

Um but I would say in general, there was a pretty clear policy set by set by this council in terms of signage and what does that look like across the city?

Um and generally that's what we're following.

And the method that folks can go through is the variance process to request any of those changes.

There are some minor modifications available within the UDC, but anything beyond those minor modifications, the variance process is the way that we evaluate those.

But at the same time, I would note that we do tend to track all of these and and look at those over time to see if there's something significant that we need to look at the And does the quasi-judicial nature of this decision uh factor into uh the document into our evaluation of what the document offers to us.

Well, I I mean the UDC is a zoning ordinance, so I would say most of that we're always considering how it looks, and we do a legal review of the unified development code to make sure that we're in compliance with everything.

So as we're looking at any variance requests, we're looking as it relates to the criteria set in state statute as well in terms of variance requirements.

Councilmember Doring, did you oh any further uh questions?

Is there a motion on this item?

Yep.

Councilmember Fredericks.

I'll second.

Move by council member Fredericks and seconded by Councilmember Keene.

Councilmember Fredericks, any more to add?

Councilmember uh Palmer.

I I've got a couple of questions on our sign ordinance.

If you measure the sign from where I get I'm getting at if I put a five foot pillar at 10 feet and put a sign on top of that, does that meet the intent of your code?

Um I can answer that.

Um so typically the um sign when measuring the sign height, we go from grade to the top of the sign.

So the actual grade around the the post, the extra grade five feet from the post, 30 feet from the post.

No, so uh at the post space.

At the post base from from that point to the top of the sign is the same.

So I could if I wanted to just come in and dump 30 feet of of fill and then put a sign on top of it.

Um through the I mean you can try.

Um the uh site site development process really we go through grading for the site, so really something like that would likely not be approved through the kind of site development process for the building on the site.

Sorry, based on what?

Um well through the So I mean let's go back to the grading.

We're doing grading, and I decide that I want to have a mound in front of my business.

And so I have this mound, and then a year later I decide I want to put a f uh of a sign on top of this.

Does that I mean we're grading is is set for drainage.

Other than that, I'm not particularly sure what our our grading criteria are.

Ms.

Woodwork, if you want to take this one.

Yes, thank you.

So I think part of that is any grading that's done on that site would need to go through our civil plan set and our grading plan, and that would need to be considered.

If uh if someone came back and wanted to install a sign at a later date, they would need to make sure that they're in compliance with our zoning ordinance in the UDC in terms of the requirements of those heights.

Okay.

And the second thing I'm going back off what Mr.

Wall was was kind of getting at is we when we did the UDC, there's a large portion of this.

I'm thinking 600 pages.

And I don't believe that we really understood the sign ordinance real well, and I know our sign companies aren't happy with that.

Is there an opportunity maybe in January or February or next April to look at our our sign ordinances on UDC and and kind of tweak them if we need to.

Um I think that's feedback that we were kind of gathering as we're looking at UDC.

I think there's a larger policy discussion with all of that, and that is one that would take some time, and then we'd have to prior look at our workloads and prioritize that work.

Council President Schubert, if I can't.

Go ahead, Mr.

Yetter.

This was mentioned by one of the answers.

Um I disagree with the notion that the sign wasn't well known.

We we very explicitly spelled out what was going on with the side ordinance at that time.

In fact, the council direction to us was to re radically reduce the amount of signage.

And so we did actually exactly what the council at that time asked us to do.

And so Tyrene's point, we could redo that.

But a sign ordinance is a very complex thing, and so it it certainly will take time to do something like that.

Well, and I understand it would take time.

That's the reason I was throwing April out there, which to me is a long period of time away.

I guess what I look at is that that I don't agree that that we all understood the signed ordinance when you're doing the UDC going through all the different prospects of it.

And I don't particularly care about the signed companies, but I do care about companies like this having to go through an appeals to get stuff.

And so if I'm a landowner and I want to put a sign on my property and it's too tall, now I'm spending because these guys aren't cheap to come and do this.

Um this costs this company a lot of money to do.

And so that's that's going back to what Mr.

Wall is saying.

If we're getting some variances, should we look at it again?

It's not an item that we were real clear on, at least I was not clear on.

Um so that's why I'm saying that.

Per perhaps as a stat that the team could find is how many sign permits they do per year versus how many variances make it to city council, because I'm willing to bet there's a lot, a lot of signs that go through without issues, and likely there was the similar number of variances pre-UDC as post.

There's always going to be requests to do slightly more than what's allowed.

Councilmember Keene.

Um so a couple of comments I want to make, and then that that uh this I I think it's very much a high bar for the council to override our uh a zoning board of appeals.

This is a volunteer group we put in place, and we it it feels wrong to be the then second guessing their decisions.

Um I spent a couple of years, it's two years working on zoning board of appeals, and this this did happen when some of our decisions uh interesting, they were much more about property boundaries and things like that, but we were it seemed overly giving giving uh variances.

Um and it felt wrong, and I want to make sure we respect these other groups we have volunteering in doing this this for us.

But I did watch their discussions, um, and I and I think they got into some wrong kind of discussions of this same thing we're doing a little bit about this idea of like if there's a variance, we should really change the the rules in the first place.

And um I I don't think it's well known, but any municipality that has a set of zoning rules must have a board of appeals because it's you have to have the insight that not all those rules will apply evenly to all properties.

That's what it's set up for, and that's what I'm feeling we're dealing with today.

Uh they got down the line of saying like, well, if they should change the UDC, and I don't think that's true either.

I like the rules we put up for business signs, and I treat business signage very different than billboards and things like that.

We have a different set of rules for there, but I think it is good for our community to make sure we temper down business signs and billboards and keep them a minimum.

They become unsightly over time, and I think our ordinance tries to address that.

So I want to support the ordinance, but I also look at this as a unique situation that makes me want to support the the variance.

Um but I I do want to differentiate too, and it's something I didn't know early on that difference between what a business sign is and what a billboards are, and very different things.

Um, and they should they and our UDC treats them differently.

Um, and I think uh that the our staff has helped us work in a good direction there.

Any further discussion, Mr.

President.

Uh go ahead, Mr.

Spindler Craig.

If I could, I just want to make sure that we're building out the record appropriately.

The motion and the second, I'm assuming that the language also reflects support for the staff findings that are proposed in uh the staff memo.

So there was some amount of discussion about those findings already, but just want to assure that the motion or in second or are in support.

Council member Fredericks and Councilmember Keene.

Is that your intention?

That is my understanding with the second.

Say yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Can't keep doing this.

Seeing no seeing no further discussion, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Nay.

Uh the motion passes five to one with council member wall voting nay.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to H2, which is our P2S comprehensive plan five-year update, and this will be presented by H1.

H one.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, that I'm sorry, that was a public hearing.

We are now on to reports and recommendations.

And we have H1, which is uh developer parking agreement policy presented by Mr.

Nolan Shield.

Go ahead, Mr.

Shield.

All right, uh get this thing working here.

All right.

Good evening, council.

My name is Nolan Shield.

I'm the city's parking system administrator.

Um we're here tonight to talk about the developer parking agreement policy, which is in draft form.

A couple of policy considerations, very basic.

I won't I won't read those to you.

Um just wanted to point out that we were here and presented this topic at a study session back on June 9th, and we received uh some feedback from council, and the team took that back to um the policy to update the draft policy for tonight's discussion.

Um tonight we hope to provide you some more information and details about the draft policy, uh, receive and obtain additional feedback, finalize the policy and bring it back for um your approval at a future meeting.

Just uh quick reminder of the parking mission statement and um some of our key goals.

We're not gonna walk through those.

Uh this slide goes over our main um items for purpose of this policy.

Um, I think we covered most of these during the discussion at the study session, but I did want to highlight just two or three of these.

Um numbers one and two mainly.

So we currently don't have a policy in place at all.

Um, a policy would provide guidance to the city team, developers as well as other interested parties regarding these types of agreements.

Um the policy also helps provide some consistent language within the agreements um as far as duration, number of parking spaces, parking space locations, and some of other key terms.

Uh the last item I wanted to highlight is number six.

Um, a policy helps us to ensure that the parking system's available to everyone by maintaining a balance between contracted spaces and transient spaces.

This slide is intended to just be a summary of the study session and what we feel we heard from city council.

Um I'll just say that uh summarize items one through four are covered within the draft policy, which was attached to the agenda item.

Hopefully, you all had some time to run through that.

Um actually gonna cover a little bit later uh in some more detail in the presentation.

And then just wanted to point out number five was a question regarding just wanting to understand a little bit more about the details of what happens to the parking enterprise fund when ramps and lots are decommissioned if when that happens.

And in relation to that, we felt it would be important to use an outside consultant, typically much closer to the time of the potential decommissioning of any of those lots to understand the impact to the parking enterprise fund as far as revenues and ongoing expenses that wouldn't be incurred any longer, and capital expenses that would no longer be incurred as well.

We would we've typically in the past you're familiar with walker consultants, they were the ones that performed our most recent rate study.

So this slide is just a summary of the existing parking agreements, and this is for our parking ramps only.

So we have what we consider 15 special parking agreements in place today.

Five of those are specifically related to developments.

There are very inconsistent terms in the existing parking agreements.

Hence the need and desire for a policy.

So our ramp system is about 3,500 parking spaces, approximately 1,800 currently are contracted, which is 51%, and approximately 1700 are available for transient parking, which is 49%.

Those percentages are in alignment with cities of similar size.

Those cities are listed here.

Along with feedback from Walker, that that range of 50 to 60% is fairly common.

A few of the things to highlight on the first one is just the overall freed free parking.

Currently, so on the top chart, you'll see the three-year average, which is around 1200 monthly parkers.

You can see that this year in 2025, we're running significantly higher than that.

Approximately around October of last year.

Then down below is just the monthly contracts by ramp for this year.

So as you can see, the third street ramp is relatively high and fairly full.

Our center street ramp is really low, and that is on purpose.

That's our very busy mostly used transient ramp downtown.

And has significant turnover and is very important to those downtown businesses that are nearby that location.

These are all of the different business units and sources of revenue, and therefore those other sources of revenue are supplementing the parking enterprise fund as a whole.

A policy would help us achieve the parking mission.

It provides the development community and our city team and other stakeholders clarity.

I think items five and six are important, but kind of brushed over a little bit on the last presentation.

So allowing flexibility to encourage mobility mode shift, and then again just trying to re-emphasize the importance of keeping a balance between available spaces for monthly contracts versus transient parking.

Then some of the highlights, I think I won't read through all these either.

I just wanted to highlight uh item three because that was a topic of conversation during the study session.

Um we heard from a couple of different council members that in the draft policy that was shared before, I think we had a five-year initial term.

Uh, a couple council members did not feel that was going to be adequate to get agreement from both developed the development community as well as lenders.

Um, and so we've revised this to reflect an initial term of seven years with a one-time addition of three years, thereby basically creating an initial 10-year term, which we think would be acceptable.

Um, item four is uh the number of parking spaces made available in any one agreement would be based on the parking system's capacity as well as our intent not to exceed 50 to 60 percent of contract spaces throughout the system.

Uh the last item I think I will highlight here would be uh seven.

Uh we also heard this from almost all the council members that the city would be remunerated for any and all parking spaces provided by any of these agreements.

Uh this slide is is really just an example and would would need to be refined if council wants to pursue this approach.

But we also heard questions about whether or not we are charging the appropriate rate to developers for these spaces.

Um is our current rate discounted in any way.

Um this fee proposal uh was a rough calculation based on uh the average cost to create a single parking space in Rochester.

I used 40,000, the range was 38 to 44,000 provided to us by Walker Consultants.

And then I also used the prior year's operating expenditures, I think less depreciation.

Uh, all of those details could be um argued either way.

This was just an example to show that the current fee that we would charge if we were to create an agreement today is 168 dollars per parking space in almost all of the ramps, and using a cost basis, um it would be closer to 242 or potentially slightly higher.

Um we we think that that question was legitimate, and we just wanted to share an example here to show that uh a different rate would better reflect actual costs of capital and operating of a parking space that's not subsidized in any way.

Um and these are kind of the capital and operating costs that of course the the development community is um foregoing in order to uh create their development and then enter into the parking agreements with the city of Rochester.

That is it.

I am here for questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Shield.

Uh Councilmember Palmer.

Yes, thank you.

Um, who did who did how many meetings did you have with with shop owners and business owners and and developers on this?

So my colleague who's not here tonight, Josh Johnson actually met with um several local developers and had discussions about both the downtown parking requirements from the UDC as well as the developer parking policy.

Uh a lot of the comments and feedback from those folks focused on removal of the parking requirements for downtown development.

Um the other feedback from them revolved around uh parking location as far as if it was too far away, that probably wouldn't satisfy their needs or their lenders' needs, and then um uh a lot of feedback around kind of that that timeline of what might be acceptable for the terms the duration term of an agreement of a parking agreement for lenders and developers.

So I guess my question was businesses.

Did we talk to businesses to see what they thought of the parking ramps?

Because they lease a lot of them, and then not just the developer part of it.

Did we talk to a mixed group or just one couple people?

I would say in this case, it was mostly the development community and specifically in relation to this policy.

Okay, council president.

Can I just go ahead, Mr.

Yet?

Just to be clear, this policy doesn't impact existing businesses.

This is just for new development.

So a business that is that is leasing, say 30 stalls and a ramp, that's not what this is getting at.

I just want to make sure that everybody understands that.

But they they take up parking places.

So if I have a restaurant and I decide I'm gonna rent spots for my my employees, they're taking up spaces.

Yep, which still would be allowed in this policy.

Correct.

Yep.

And so with development, and so um and I I keep having this argument, and the argument is if you're less than full, why are you raising the fees?

It doesn't make sense if you have have 70% or 60% full during the business day.

Why are we why are we wanting to raise fees?

So I would say that we're not wanting to raise fees.

Um but that's what you're proposing.

That was a proposal just to give you an example based on the feedback that we received at the last study session.

But if we have surplus spaces, raising your fee means you're gonna have more surplus spaces, which means you're gonna have less revenue.

Wouldn't it be better to lower your fees and get it to be 90% full?

And and to be clear, I don't want to talk about the weekends.

That's one thing.

I'm talking about during the business hours from from like seven to five.

Sure.

So I would say I think part of part of the concept of proposing a different rate for the development specific agreements was just to reflect that there's a subsidy that the city is providing to the developers by the developer not having to incur that cost, and they're relying on the city to incur that cost instead.

I'm not saying that we have to charge that rate, that is all up to you.

But but you're paying you're paying your developer brings in a property and and they could build their own parking ramp, and and we don't want that.

And so if we have a parking ramp that's not being used, and now you have a company that wants to rent spaces from you on an ongoing basis, to me, that would make sense.

The other item that that that's odd to me is that this is supposed to be a policy.

I'm gonna read from the page one.

Each request for assistance will be evaluated by the city on a case-by-case basis to analyze the and analyze the purpose and viability of the proposed project.

To me, a case by case does not have a policy.

If you have a policy, this is what we're gonna do.

If we're gonna take each every one of these to be case by case, why would you want a policy?

Mr.

Elms, did you want to?

Okay, Mr.

Shields.

Sure.

Mr.

Shield.

The uh the intent of that language to was to align this policy with the UDC and the criteria that are looked at as part of creating developments along with the TIFF policy, if that were being requested that the parking would come later after all of the UDC steps have already been approved, but including parking, because historically some of these agreements were created completely outside of parking's knowledge.

So we're also trying to create some transparency between our own teammates and city council and city leadership.

But the city council didn't sit down with these agreements and say you shall give parking to these people.

That was done between development and between parking.

I think most of the parking policies are sorry, the parking agreements that are in place today did come before city council.

I would have to go back to double check that.

But that was for approval.

Wasn't that saying that this is what you shall do for this business or you shall do for that business.

Correct.

Okay.

One more thing for you is it's just a bugaboo of mine, but your goals to me, your number one goal should be safety in the ramps.

And that's like number four.

And so I I don't I don't know who put all your mission statement and this together, but to say that you want to be subsidized and be moneymaker for the first one, and safety is number four, safety should always be number one.

I don't think they were in any particular order, to be honest, but we can certainly shift them around because yes, safety is always our first concern.

Um, particularly with the ramps and restorations, obviously, that you see going on currently and that we do on a regular basis.

Well, uh Council.

Listen, away for other people to do that.

Council member Wall.

Following up on just a small part of Council Member Palmer's questions.

Uh uh in your feedback from developers, do they indicate that a change in policy would change any of their appetite for uh uh developing downtown, or is this such small potatoes that doesn't make any difference as far as the policy goes, um they didn't make any indications that it would be a major hurdle for them because we're not saying that we're we're not open to the discussion or open to coming and entering into those agreements with them and coming to the table for discussion.

Um so they had no major negative comments about the policy specifically.

Um they had several different comments about the reduction of the parking requirements via the UDC in the downtown.

Um mostly pros.

Um, but I think there were a couple of additional comments around that that I don't recall the details.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, so I I guess I should start out by saying this is very much where developer parking agreement policy, it's not the overall parking ramps, it's not everything.

But so with that in mind, again, I do want to kind of drill down and say, yeah, I like the idea of setting some ground rules, is what I call these sort of policy statements, and I'm glad we're moving in that direction.

But I did want to get into some of these other things.

And I I would start with your slide three, where um uh as council member Palmer points out, you know, the safety thing, but I I want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

We run this as an enterprise, and an enterprise to me means we're going to run this as a business, but with the idea of break-even.

Is that is that accurate statement?

Um I don't necessarily think that the goal is to break even either.

Um the goal says it should the full fund enterprise fund should be self-sustaining.

To me, that I'm that that's uh an important goal here.

That we're not gonna this is where you get into the subsidy world of no, we're going to collect levy and that'll pay for the parking.

We don't do it, we that's not our our direction.

We have an enterprise here that's self-sustaining.

Correct.

So the goal wouldn't be to break even, and the reason for that is that obviously annually your capital costs and operating costs continue to go up.

We have fixed assets in place that we have to maintain and spend um hundreds of thousands of dollars on annually to operate as well as to maintain and maintain their useful life.

So the goal is to obviously make enough revenue to continue to do that well into the future for all those assets.

Did anyone else want to comment?

Can I add just a little bit more to that?

And that means that over the life of all of the parking ramps that you have and all of the parking that you have and that you might need in the future, you need to be thinking about at what point do you fill up with developer agreement parking and not have parking available for the transient use and the other users of the parking, and does that mean then you need to raise 40 to 60 million dollars to build another ramp?

Yeah, and again, I I I'm taking issue a little bit with the answer here because I think all those things are taken into account to run the enterprise that that uh that we borrow money, we better be c recovering that to that level.

And I think we are.

I I think what I saw here was a fairly healthy you know, getting stronger coming out of COVID, but it really hurt for a while.

But I'm trying to establish that we're this is not a way we're saying like we're in trouble and this is how we're gonna raise more money.

That's not what's happening here.

No, definitely not.

But but that I want to establish though that this is an enterprise, and as an enterprise, I could say some for other company could be running this with the idea of like we'll run parking, and we would um that we we want to not only you know help services and have a viable business, we we want to make money off it.

And this looks like it could be a private enterprise money making operation.

If that's what we were doing, we're not doing that.

No, we're not gonna be able to do that.

Supporting our equity our I would say that all of your governmental enterprise funds look that way.

They operate as a business and charge fees and rates to the users.

And and just so I'm not misunderstood, I like that.

I that that's I want to see, I want to see the uh the the expenses we have are paid for by the people who use it.

Sure.

That that's a healthy, healthy thing.

Correct.

Um so I again I I'm cringing a little bit because I hear what the council seems to be giving the staff direction is is make it cheaper, give it away.

And I I'm uh I'm fighting that urge.

Council President Schubert, can I just go ahead, Mr.

Yetzer?

I just think it's important to reiterate.

I think everyone's tracking this, but I just think it's important to reiterate the fee that we're talking about here is only when a new development comes and says, instead of building my own parking, I would like to utilize the city's existing parking.

And that is an enormous cost saving to the development.

And so this what we were asked of last time we were here was how can we make it at a rate that it isn't such a subsidy?

And so that's what this is.

And so again, if a restaurant downtown sends their workers or whatever to the parking system to say get a monthly parking lease, that price is not changing.

If an existing business comes downtown and says, I want to rent, I want at least 30 spaces for my employees, that rate is not changing.

What's changing is when we're setting aside, say a hundred stalls for a new development for seven to ten years based on the term of this of this lease, that that should be what we heard was that that should be at a cost that um isn't a subsidy, and so that's what we attempted to come back with.

Yeah, that that's what I'm seeing happen here.

I I did have a slightly different, and I hope it's not too off topic here, but I I really it's like seeing your chart where you said how many people pull out on you know unpaid because they're off hours, or are they are there um you had a C in there about um what did you say, validated parking?

I I didn't know we had validated parking.

What does that mean?

Sure.

Um we offer validated parking for any of the downtown businesses.

Um I don't think a lot of them utilize it, but several do.

Uh and it's really mostly used at the hotels.

So help me out.

What is that what is validated mean in this case?

Is somebody paying for somebody else?

Or is is there a uh flat?

So the way that our current system works, which isn't efficient and will get better very soon, um, is basically let's say there's a business that would like to validate parking for its customers, they will come to us and say, I'm willing to pay for up to two hours or up to five dollars for our customers' parking each time.

We issue them basically a ticket with a barcode.

The user when they exit the ramp, enters, puts in their parking ticket first, then they put in their validation ticket second.

We build the business after the fact after it's been used for whatever was agreed to in advance.

But I did want to ask, and this is slightly different, but it's it has to do with ramp.

It's not a it's not the contractor parking or the developer parking policy.

But I'm I'm always amazed that uh as a as a city, it I it's probably good policy, but we give away evening parking, we don't charge anything on the weekends, which to me is a form of subsidy, but we don't come monetize it.

We don't say by having evenings and weekends free, that cost us if we were charging normal rates, that would be an extra, I'm gonna make it up, you know, two million dollars.

I have no idea what it would be.

Is there a way to count what that is and then carry it and says, hey, we are we are supporting the downtown with two million dollars in subsidies, or is it is that's am I on a find a wrong path?

No, I think um through through the parking system data, um we could probably come up with that amount internally.

Uh I'm guessing if we asked Walker consultants to do that as part of their rate study, they would they would be more than willing to do that and come up with an amount for council to consider.

But yes, the amount of free parking is significant.

Um it is it is very different than a lot of the other cities uh around us, near us, like us, uh Walker consultants uh make comments every time they come here about the amount of free parking.

Um again, we're we're we're not saying that we want to raise rates, but those existing rates that Walker recommends and that we recommend to city council for adoption at the um as part of the annual fee schedule are based on the parking enterprise fund as a whole.

And if you remember looking at the financial slides, you know, the parking ramps are being subsidized by other areas of revenue fairly significantly.

So I'll close off.

I could what the staff is looking for is I do support these sort of goals.

The one thing I would ask for when you talk about that 51, 49% balance would be some somebody keeping an eye on the fact that when does it get unhealthy?

If we have this policy and we have zero parking requirements, what if we get to 60 percent contract parking or 65 percent or 70?

Do we get to a point where we're breaking our goal of trying to have that transient parking for our businesses?

And I'd like someone to at least be aware if that's happening and bring it to our attention.

Can I just like to point out that's that's in the policy that that staff would generally be following the guidance of not exceeding 50 to 60 percent of our okay?

I missed it.

And so if we exceeded that, we would need to bring it back to you folks and say we're we're exceeding that goal.

Are you interested in amending it?

Likewise, when we bring agreements to you, because you still will have to agree to it.

I think it's important that we make it very clear of what this then puts you at in that percentage range.

Thank you.

So just to clarify on that question, Mr.

Yetzer.

So if we're at 51% now, are you saying that every time we tick up a percentage point you're gonna bring it back, or is it 60% that you're going to uh I'm sorry, that's okay.

I would say that basically each time that a one of these agreements came to our attention and came forward, it would come to you for final approval as part of that approval process.

We would be tasked with bringing you the data to say here's the number of monthly contracts, here's transient, and here are those percentages.

Got it.

Thank you.

Uh I agree with uh councilmember Keene.

I like the the guidelines here.

It still feels like we're kind of moving towards uh a policy.

I appreciate seeing the uh the 425 and kind of where that is as far as the costs of the to maintain and operate those uh a stall.

A question I have on um the so Mr.

Yetzer said that this impacts new development agreements.

So what happens with the 15 special parking agreements that we have in effect now and their contracts or however the length of them, and then it and there are the five uh development related contracts.

So what happens to them?

Are they grandfathered in or what what's what's the thinking around that?

Yeah, for now, uh the team's intent would be to grandfather those in, let them go through their full term, and either the development no longer needs the parking agreement because of the lender terms have expired or their own needs have changed.

Um then yes, the the policy would only apply to new developments going forward.

Okay, thank you.

Uh councilmember Doring, did you have your hand up?

Or not, I thought I think you just answered my question, but I I would also like to know.

Um, I think my my questions have been answered.

Councilmember Palmer.

Couple more questions, and I agree with Mr.

Keene.

I think what he's trying to say is that we don't use property tax to pay for the ramps.

Um, and and I think we agree to that.

Um the BRT ramps, the two in the end, are are parking, are you gonna be in control of those?

Not the best person to answer that, but no.

Ms.

Steinhauser.

Yes, thank you.

Uh no, the the parking ramp on West Transit Village is uh mail's building it, and we have the right to use it under contract, like 18 days a year.

Okay.

And the east the East Abs?

We don't have uh uh parking ramps lately for East Transit Village.

Okay.

Um what's what's troubling me in this, and and I'm gonna beat this till I I'm done.

If you have a thousand spots open tonight, you're not losing money.

You're not getting money.

And so this attitude that it that if you have open spaces, we're losing money, or if we give away spots on this on the Saturdays and the Sundays that we're losing money, they wouldn't be full to start with.

And getting people downtown using the ramps is a good thing, in my opinion.

So if you charge $25 to park on a Saturday for an event, very few people would pay that $25, and they yes, they would walk two or three blocks or park somewhere else.

And so you you lose money.

You don't, I mean, it's to me that I go from the hotel business.

The room that didn't get sold last night can't be resold.

Your parking spot from last night that was empty can't be resold.

So that's where I'm I'm missing this attitude that giving something away or lose or less amount.

I would think that having a development agreement that you have so many people who want to use your ramp, and this is the pay that they're willing to give you is a guaranteed money.

I think what we're ultimately trying to avoid, Councilmember Palmer, is creating an environment downtown where 100% of city parking is dedicated to developer parking.

And I agree with that.

So I don't I don't disagree with that.

But it when you're 60% full, you got a lot of room here to get full.

Yeah.

Could I just add something?

Go ahead and sound.

As a person that didn't work on the details of this agreement, the way I'm looking at what staff is trying to bring forward as guidelines and sort of guardrails to work around is providing more clarity than maybe was available 20 years ago when some of these agreements were entered into to say that maybe worked very well in the past when we were in like the world of building lots of parking ramps, um, and they'd cost half or less than what they cost today, as did the land.

Um but what's trying to be looked at here is how do we look at potential agreements when they make sense in a way where we're not committing spaces, and some of these older agreements have spaces committed regardless of whether or not there's anyone parking in them.

So you can't actually sell it again, to your point.

If you've committed spaces to a developer and you have to always make them available in that specific ramp, then arguably you will never be all the way full because potentially, because if they're only using, let's say you've guaranteed a hundred spaces in a ramp to uh through a development agreement, and and you've dedicated them for 20 years, and they get to make sure they could use that space no matter what, day, night, weekend, any time of year, but they're using 20 of those spaces.

You have 80 spaces that you actually have 80 potential vacant spaces in that ramp that you actually can't sell to transient parkers because the arm goes down at that point because we have to guarantee them the spaces, whether there's anybody parking there or not, and you actually can't sell it again.

Accurate?

Yeah, that's correct.

We manage the counts every day based on the number of parking access cards used for contract parkers.

Well, first, you know, we have a policy here.

If you're saying that we're gonna have a guideline, that's a different uh position to me.

But if you have a hundred spots guaranteed, any business could get guaranteed.

If I came to a barber and said, I have a hundred haircuts every day, and you're gonna cut these people, you'd be a very happy person.

And and you know, because I don't know if I'm gonna randomly do this or not.

And so there's got to be a better way.

I'll go with what Ms.

Elms is saying is there a way to say you have reserved a hundred spots, you're only using 20.

Can we free up 80?

And is there something in that new agreement that says you will we will reserve this many spots for you, but you're paying for those, and and if you don't use them, then we have a callback that we can we can resell them?

So officially there's not a clawback term in the policy, but um with the new parking technology and equipment that's going to be installed this month.

Um, I think going back to what administrator Zelm said earlier is part of the intent of the policy, whether it's a policy or a guideline is to increase the transparency to city council that your parking is a finite resource, and we don't want to overcommit it to monthly contract parking, and we want to be able to bring those statistics and that data to you and councilmember Palmer to your point.

We can definitely monitor those at each ramp uh each day, how many contracts parkers have parked and make some of those spaces available.

The challenge would be is if you're over a certain percent occupancy that you run the risk of overselling, quote unquote.

Um, but we haven't obviously reached that point.

My last question, and I appreciate your patience.

Um are we guaranteeing a ramp or are we guaranteeing a spot in one of our ramps?

That's a great question, actually.

They all are so historically.

I agree.

So historically, historically, the agreements do typically name the specific ramp that the spaces are going to be in.

The policy and the team's intent would be to not offer these specific spaces in a specific ramp, because at any given time, the capacity of the system is different at each location.

Although they're within like a six-block radius of one another, they're very, very different and unique on any given day, depending on what's going on downtown.

Whether there's an event at the Mayo Civic Center, Thursdays downtown.

And there's still a lot of hybrid workers, and I think sometimes we we hear a lot of feedback that the ramps aren't full.

And I would say that they're not 100% full, but part of the reason that they appear to be less full is because of that reason, not 100% of the parkers are showing up on 100% of the days of the week.

Thank you very much.

Any further questions?

Mr.

Shield, did you get more information to go forward with more detail with your guidelines?

I think I think so, unless we want to specifically ask, is it or do we want it to be a guideline or policy?

I think you just asked.

Yes.

I will just say our intent is to next bring this on a on a consent or report and recommendation for your approval.

And so I know we've heard some feedback, but if if there's others, we'd appreciate it now so that we have a better sense of what is approvable at when we bring it back.

In its current state, it feels like guidelines to me.

And given that we do have 15 uh agreements that are outside of the guidelines or the policy.

A policy feels to me like it's more it's a lot tighter and stricter.

So I would I would opt for guidelines.

Uh go ahead, council member Fredericks.

Thank you, President.

In your opinion, where's it at?

Do you feel that you have put everything on the table that you think should be in there and what you're seeing?

You're the one dealing with it every day and your staff.

Are you seeing are you seeing everything in there that you think is applicable?

Yeah, I think when this when this first came about, my my biggest concern was just transparency to the city council regarding how many of those spaces are dedicated to these long-term agreements.

Kind of going back to again what administrator Zelm says, we've promised these spaces.

You can't resell them, you can't sell them twice.

Um they're promised, they're ultimately like blocked off for the day for those people, whether they show up or not.

Um I think that was my biggest concern was creating some transparency again around the finite resource.

Um the terms were just so inconsistent, hoping to bring some standardization to the terms.

Um of the durations seemed excessive to me.

I feel like um 20, 30, 40 year agreements for something like this is a little excessive.

Um I I understand that the lenders have requirements uh that the developers are gonna have to achieve, um, but I think that that we can do that through this policy.

Um, and again, I I don't feel like we're we're using this as a way to make money.

The the current agreements that are in place um have you know remuneration considerations in them.

Um it would it would just be whether or not we're changing the rate or having a different read.

So for me, I think there's everything is in the policy that needs to be currently, um, based on the data that I have available to me from the parking system today.

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, I'm just I I didn't expect this discussion on policy versus guidelines, and I did a quick my quick Google search, and they're both giving direction, uh, but there is a field that this is a policy setting board, and that's what we should be working on.

And I I guess I'd more challenge the staff to make it feel like a policy.

I I actually do see policy considerations in here.

I don't see a lot of enforcement, but I'm okay with that.

Um I guidelines seem a little like weaker, and I would rather the staff come to this this council with policy statements.

Could I first just some context to the policy versus guidelines?

Go ahead, Ms.

Helms.

Um, you also have a TIFF policy that sometimes we try to apply everything in the policy, but be something unique because of a project, we still bring something forward and we clarify we applied all of this, and yet because of this unique standard, we're still bringing it forward perhaps for a longer length of time than typically would be in the the policy, et cetera.

And so while I can appreciate policy versus guideline being sort of the art of policy, um many of your policies, in fact, your entire UDC, we somewhat apply that way when there are situations that need interpretation.

So just another point of view.

Councilmember Doring.

Just a point of clarification.

Do we have some policies that apply to businesses that don't apply to other businesses in the same space?

Because I've heard in this conversation that we are applying, we would be applying this policy that we wouldn't be applying to other businesses.

So new developments as opposed to old developments.

Policy application would be different in terms of rates.

So there's non-consistency there.

So that's why I would go more towards guidelines.

So that would be a concern for me in terms of application of policy.

So I would like a little bit of clarification about that.

I would say just for again for context, much like we have many developments that were developed over many years under the land development manual, and they are now grandfathered with certain things built a certain way, and when they redevelop, if they ever do redevelop, then or something specific comes within the UDC, then we'll be applying those.

So typically it's sort of like after adoption of the policy, then you apply that.

But of course, it always comes to this policy making body, and it then becomes up to you to do the final interpretation of what you think is most important, balancing your foundational principles today or in the future, balancing your strategic priorities now or in the future, and understanding what the current you know condition is today, what it was 20 years ago, and what it might be 20 years from now.

I would just add quickly before Ryan wants to speak here, um, Councilmember Doring that the existing historical agreements are all variable interpretations of whatever started the whole parking agreement in general, and numerous different terms, numerous different um remunerations in those that weren't, you know, they weren't written in a way to be updated as council changed their rates, they weren't written in a way to update based on um consumer price index or anything of that nature, so very variable across the world.

To that point, one of the things that I would like to see in the policy, a policy for current the 15.

What is our policy moving forward with them as they phase out?

And uh is there any you know, I I have no sense of how many, you know, you do you talked 20 year, 40 year, I don't know if there are five year ones in there.

So a policy with those would be helpful to me to make it feel more like a policy.

Yeah, from my point.

Yeah, my my my term, yeah.

My concern is about uh equity, right?

So um, yeah, I would love to see if there's a way you know to honor the agreements we have in place, and once those agreements expire, if we are really creating a policy statement here, then to bring uh those those grandfathered for lack of a better word, um, businesses or developments into this new policy that we are developing, which will be a hit to those businesses.

It will be an increase in rate if we're actually talking about an increase in rate, but it seems equitable uh and and just to new developments here in this community.

Mr.

Yetzer, did you still have a point to make?

No one addressed it.

Okay.

Anything more on uh this item.

Thank you, Mr.

Shield.

Thank you.

And now we will finally move to uh what I I wanted to bring Miss Eaton's up, I think maybe it was an hour ago.

So uh H2 F2S comprehensive plan, five-year update.

Good evening, council members, council president, Terran Eidens representing the community development department this evening.

I'm providing you an update on our comprehensive plan, five-year update specifically.

I just also want to point out that the lead planner on this project, Elliot Moeller is here for questions at the end.

Want to say thanks to Elliot and many other city departments and stakeholders that contributed to this presentation and this update.

What I'm going to be discussing with you this evening is kind of the meat of the update.

We've given you sort of a preview before, uh, but we want to make sure we want to make sure you understand what's included in this update so you have some time to consider it before we bring it back for the public hearing.

So we'll be going over what a comprehensive plan is in context, the planning to succeed or P2S comprehensive plan context when that was adopted in 2018.

The objectives of this update, kind of the process around that, key changes and highlights, and then next steps.

What is a comprehensive plan?

So to make it more confusing, we call this a long-term policy guide.

So the comprehensive plan really does act as a guide for policies, right?

The comprehensive plan equipped us for the unified development code adoption, UDC adoption.

It is a policy, but it also serves to guide us and making policy decisions, right?

When we're talking about many plans that our organization has developed, we consider the comprehensive plan sort of as the hierarchy of all the plans.

Every other plan should kind of flow underneath and align with a comprehensive plan.

So this one is important, and with that you'll hear me talk about how we examine every other plan to make sure it aligns with this one.

So think of it that way that's sort of our leading document that's supposed to kind of be there to support decision making for both you and staff, and it outlines our vision and guiding principles.

It's also required under state statute, and we've committed when it was adopted in 2018 to update it regularly.

Some communities like the metro area are required to update every 10 years, for example.

We'll probably bring it to you more frequently than that.

But what that is exactly what a comprehensive plan, an all-encompassing plan to cover all the plans.

When it was adopted, it set out to do many things, but to boil it down, enhance the relationship between land use and our transportation network, design of the urban environment to benefit the livability, Rochester's neighborhoods, as well as kind of provide a strategy for infrastructure spending for current and future growth.

With that adoption, when it was adopted in 2018, it created or defined seven principles.

Those principles did not change with this update.

They're considered foundational principles.

So you really shouldn't see them change.

And what's interesting is they align with some of the proposed city strategic priorities today.

The process, just we wanted to talk through with you when this was adopted, it was quite the overhaul.

So it's very different than the technical updates we're providing you today.

We want to make that distinction known to you.

That really this was conducted under a city-county joint planning department.

It took five years from beginning to end, essentially, and a lot of engagement was had.

It included over 30 engagement sessions with community members, followed by a series of public public uh meetings.

Uh we it was noted that there were 7,000 ideas and comments generated.

So as a heavy lift for engagement, we want to note that, and we think a lot of that guided that foundational work that we're not looking to update today that was established at that time.

So there are specific objectives we wanted to accomplish with this update that I will cover now.

Um I'll mention this a couple of times, but this is really intended to be a focus update, not an overhaul of the comprehensive plan.

Those policies are still relevant today, and we see we find them to be relevant and foundational.

Naturally, things have changed since 2018, as you're aware of, and have just been discussed.

For example, the onset of the pandemic, created changes in our community.

We'll talk about emerging trends that were already discussed, like hybrid work and how that impacts land use and zoning.

Um cities' projects and priorities changed since that time.

This was also discussed, but our city's transit planning has changed and ridership changed.

So addressing that in our comprehensive plan was also noted.

And then naturally, when we do these updates, we're always going to look to make sure our data, our census data, or housing data is up to date.

So that was the focus of the update.

When we're doing these, we're going to also do the work of looking at all of our future land use and what are the best uses, how are we growing and how are we meeting what we need and what the demand is for our community.

So we did that for industrial land, and I'll also talk about residential and mixed use.

But what we've heard specifically from our development community is there's a need for more industrial land.

And what we've done previously is reduced and removed some of that land through rezoning over time.

So we conducted analysis essentially by determining the future demand, and we did it uh engage with our development community as well as partner organizations to understand where would be the best places for growth and what that need is.

What we found is that there's a need for for sites for over 40 plus acres of designated land for shovel ready sites for industrial uses.

So we looked at this both inside and outside the city limits, and when the comp plan was updated and adopted in 2018, there was about 351 acres designated for industrial land with some additions that we've created.

They're largely going to be around the airport.

Um we've are kind of we've kind of reserved 943 acres for industrial uses.

So that was one specific thing that we got feedback on, and I'll talk about later that that's also a national trend that we set out to do in designated areas to be used for future industrial land.

I'll spend a little bit more time on this one, but just as well we know housing and mixed use opportunities are priority.

I'll touch on mixed use first, but essentially with the adoption of the Unified Development Code of the UDC, any mixed use development can now occur.

Multifamily can occur wherever mixed use occurs.

So that regulatory kind of elimination of that barrier made us more enabled to kind of meet that demand throughout our community.

So we found by doing our own analysis that we have land available to meet those needs just through that elimination of that barrier.

But we had to take a closer look at our land available to meet residential needs.

So we we put all of the math on on there for you to digest.

But essentially what we did is we took a look at all of our residential land both inside the city limits and in the surrounding urban service area, and we mapped out about 6,673 acres of land of land.

And that is also after removing what we've now mapped out as our constraints to development.

So that's taking out those like flood prone areas, for example.

So we're considering just developable land and that's 6,000 number.

And then you consider 30% for infrastructure, like streets and parks.

We take that out of the equation.

So that gets us to 4,671 acres of available land for residential development.

And then moving forward, we take that and we um we we uh excuse me, we take the acreage and we convert it to square feet, and we know that our minimum lot size is 5,000 square feet.

So you take that large number, divide it by 5,000, and you get 40,000 669 single family units.

Things to consider.

Our minimum lot size is 5,000 square feet.

We rarely see subdivisions propose lots at that at that size, they're usually larger, right?

Another thing to consider this is assuming a single unit per lot.

So certainly there are density opportunities that would exceed us.

But the point we're trying to make here is that we believe both in the city and the surrounding urban surface area does provide enough land to meet some of our residential needs.

Our recent housing needs analysis showed us that the demand for four-sale housing by 2035 for single family homes is about 3,300.

And then if we're looking at for sale multifamily homes through 2035, that's about 1700.

And that would be like an attached town home all the way to condos.

And I'm just looking at four cell, we're not even talking about multifamily rental.

So our point being we feel that after this analysis, we have ample land to meet that demand if you're looking at what we have within the city and our growth opportunities.

Other things to keep in mind when I say this is we're limited to annexing property that's adjacent to city limits, so we can't jump to islands, right?

And then naturally sanitary sewer capacity needs to be considered before development.

So things to keep in mind.

So we did that math to make sure we were on track to meet that demand.

I mentioned this, but just as well, we have to consider data figures and maps when we're doing updates.

Over 20 plans were adopted since 2018 that we had to consider, and our can our wonderful consultant helped to review all of those and make sure they're in alignment with our comprehensive plan.

And even since our last update to you, there's some additional plans in here that we made sure were captured.

Um it also includes us taking a look at updated capital improvement plans and other infrastructure and planning and updated demographic and housing data all have to be included in an update.

Our last kind of big objective was to make this documented tab more user-friendly.

It's rather uh dense and technical, and we want it to serve city teammates as a guiding document, but we also want community members to be able to understand it.

So we did reduce the document length from 350 pages to 230 pages.

We try to simplify language where we could, we aligned with city branding, we maintained Section 508 compliance.

So I like to note this one because it seems like a light lift, but it is a it is a big lift that we want to make sure is captured as well that our consultant and communications team and other staff support.

What was our process for this engagement for this update?

Now that I shared the level of engagement and process that went into the 2018 adoption, that's helpful context for what we did for this one.

Um so I I sort of mentioned already all the things that we did, but ultimately it was a very collaborative effort.

We meet with various city departments on uh parts of the comprehensive plan that are relevant to them as well as many other stakeholders and partner organizations.

It took us about a year and a half to complete this update, just for context.

Our engagement was different than the 2018 adoption.

As you can sort of see in that engagement spectrum, the goal was more to inform and consult with folks.

So the engagement is listed there, it was a technical update, so we found less engagement was needed, but still did hold, for example, um an open house and and did connect with a variety of organizations for this update.

Uh I did cover kind of the big objectives, but every time we do an update, we're generally looking at emerging forces and trends.

Most of these are informed by American Planning Association, national best practices and trends.

So these are things that we say these are happening.

We're supportive of them.

We want to call them out in the comprehensive plan.

It's just sort of a guide that's in there.

So just worth covering this quickly with you as well.

One that I mentioned was hybrid work.

That percentage of hybrid workers has doubled from over 7% to 16% just from 2020, just in the last five years.

So we're recognizing that this is an event, right?

That once again could impact land use zoning from how we use our office spaces to how we commute and transport around.

So it's not something we're making policy recommendations, but calling attention to this for future policies to be considered.

Industrial land extension.

So not only did we hear this from our development community, but national best practices call out the need to consider expanding land that can be used for industrial uses.

This is important because we heard it, but also it makes way for more diversity in job creation, frankly.

So it's something that we like to point out that we're hearing it in our community, and it's takes a thoughtful approach, a balanced approach to considering where this land is, so we're considering our community's health, but also the need to create job growth and diversity and jobs that often don't require a higher education, for example.

Old forward abound isn't a national APA best practice, but something that's noteworthy for our community that we need to make sure is captured in our comprehensive plance it's defining a lot of our work and will define our future uh to come.

So naturally, I think a lot of you are very very for very familiar with bold forward unbound, but it's important for us to note this in our plan to talk about how it's creating five uh flexible clinical buildings and how it is um how it is making waves and how digital and integration of care is important and noteworthy.

It very much aligns with the Rochester destination medical center goals, supports local economic growth, and it includes sustainable technology.

So you all know the importance of this and how it's shaping our downtown, and so that was important to call it out and consider that as we move ahead.

Short-term rentals and is an emerging trend that wasn't included in the 2018 update as well.

Uh the city of Rochester started regulating short-term rentals in 2022, 2022.

We have about 600 short-term rentals that makes up a little less than 3% of our estimated 22,000 rental units.

We regulate them just like we do a long-term rental unit, they have to get a rental certificate.

Um they additionally are regulated through zoning and building code requirements if by limiting the number that can exist in a multifamily building.

So, really the point here to be made is Rochester is incorporating some best practices in how we regulate these.

We're can and we at the same time we should consider um evaluating the impacts and assess for alignment with how we regulate and allow short-term rentals in relation to city priorities.

Adaptive reuse is something that the city already supports through other financial incentives, but once again, worth pointing out that this was not mentioned in our comprehensive plan and is a best practice of supporting uh community and architectural character in our buildings as well as reducing waste by through preservation versus demolition.

So just pointing this out as a best practice to support and worth noting in our comprehensive plan update.

So, with that, once again, there was no council action requested before you this evening.

This is primarily to serve as uh information, but it will come back to you on uh September 8th, 2025 for city council public hearing.

Before that, it will go to the planning commission for a similar um uh presentation and public hearing.

So it gives you over a month to review the draft document.

Um with that, I I will pause for any questions or comments.

Um it's difficult to show where all the changes were made in this document because it was a lot of reformatting and reorganizing, uh, but we certainly welcome feedback on emerging trends, industrial land uh inventory, residential and mixed use development as well.

Council Member Walls.

Thank you.

Uh we did not have access to the presentation before uh tonight.

Would you consider what you just offered to us a kind of executive summary of the changes?

Yes.

Um was it like a hundred pages you took off?

I don't quite get the 100 pages.

So really all sections had defined some substantive change.

I don't know that I would say all had substantive changes.

Some of them were were were minor.

So I would say that's not necessarily the case.

Okay.

When this comes back to the council, uh could could we have a little bit more digestible uh executive summary, not necessarily in a PowerPoint, but just in a list so that that uh we can uh look more critically at the places that would offer a difference between our first uh effort and this one?

Yeah, I think that's a fair ask.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

I just a clarification.

Uh it appears that uh in my prep we were going to uh have a motion to uh direct the staff to continue on with this.

And that's as I think we're just in our language now, we're saying we're not gonna do that.

Uh is that uh clerk case so is this an actionable item?

Stuff I'm just flipping the agenda.

It's not a critical.

Let's get the answer.

I guess I will get the answer.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I'll just make a statement here that just a little bit um I mean I remember watching in 2016 and 1718 as this document was going through, and it was a gnashing of teeth and a really difficult thing, and a lot of this council debated a lot.

And I remember asking after it was approved.

I said, well, what changes now?

And it was like nothing.

But what's going to change is those other documents you pointed to when we started doing rezoning when we when we started doing like the uh the other big one was the sewer districts.

I mean and this document has driven a lot of the strategic moves that have happened in the last five and six years.

So I I really like the idea of upgrading to this, these other things that have happened around us, that idea of work at home or that idea of like how does bold forward you know fit into what we were thinking about for our downtown?

So I I'm obviously supportive, but I'm I I guess I did want to point out there's a little more aspirational concept to this and maybe communications, but I think you pointed out it's hard to pick this up and flip pages.

It doesn't it doesn't lend itself to that.

It's more of a reference thing, but but I've seen major changes come into how the city does business based on this document.

Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I might have missed it.

And we've had this discussion um before.

Do we have percentage of BIPOC home ownership just for Rochester?

I know the number we've been using is is all is Almston County.

Do you know that?

I don't know it off the top of my head.

I feel like that is included in the updated housing needs assessment, however.

Okay.

I'll look for that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Kissel, is this an action?

Are we taking action on this or is it required for the update?

Is it required in your process?

Not required for the update.

Okay.

I think what we are asking you in the agenda item, if I may, is that if you didn't want us to move forward with the next steps as is, like you didn't want the city staff to move forward with this to the next steps of the process outlined in the RCA to the public hearing with the planning and zoning and then back to the city council, then you should probably keep it moving forward.

So I don't think you technically have to, but we were feedback to do that.

As we have.

So a question that I have.

So and I I agree with uh councilmember Wall on uh seeing some kind of executive summary of the document and where the changes are.

And I'm a little confused because in the previous presentation it was termed a technical update.

And what you just presented feels a little more policy-oriented than a technical update, which I don't disagree with, but it um so maybe can you talk about why it's been characterized as a technical update for this year and is there a more policy-oriented update down the road sometime?

Sure.

We would consider we would still consider a technical update because we are not changing those seven principles as mentioned, right?

We are um updating, we're updating data.

We did an overhaul of our future land use needs, which is technical, but it also includes that emerging trends component, which could be perceived as policy, but we're really just recognizing these are trends to keep in mind.

We're not directing policy, but it does provide a guide.

So to us it's not changing the kind of foundation of the plan, and that's not what's proposed now or in the future.

Got it.

So keeping with some of the the um the areas of uh like the hybrid work, short-term rentals, others.

Well, actually, no, I'm gonna go back to the data.

And I'm not sure this this is in there in the 100 pages, but I'd like to see uh what how much land do we have that we would consider infill land that is developable that's within that that's in the city, not in the urban service area, and kind of to get a sense of the ratio between the two and what prospects for development in those areas as far as if we were to do housing, similar to the equation that you uh created for for the other.

I think that's fair.

Other comments, suggestions.

Seeing none, thank you.

And we will take a uh seven-minute break.

Again, if people can take their seats.

And we are moving on to H3, which is the economic mobility grant uh in the amount of 416,000 from the International City County Management Association.

Uh Ms.

Steinhauser.

Yes, thank you, Council President Schubring.

So this is a request for you to approve acceptance of the 416,000 dollar grant from ICMA.

Just a little bit of um context related to this process and this grant.

We were selected as one of only 15 communities in the country to receive this uh economic mobility grant through the International City County Management Association.

The grant itself is design is designed to support communities in advancing coordinated efforts that improve economic mobility and opportunity for residents.

And so specifically our approach in and our application was focused on um using the funding to unfunding to uncover systemic challenges, identify and better communicate assistance available across all of our existing economic development partners, and collectively through a co-collaboration process, identify actionable opportunities to improve support structures and expand uh access to resources.

Ultimately, the goal is to help support what already exists uh in our community.

We want to bring together and highlight the unique things that each organization does so we can make it easier for us to support us as a collective whole doing work in economic development to support a new entrepreneur, a business, expanding businesses to the and and aligning them and pointing them to the right resources and data so they can make the best decisions that they need to for um uh their their project.

Uh the grants provides funding for both a limited term position, which is a 30-month position, and um also some dollars for program implementation.

So following the council's acceptance of the grant award tonight, we would be bringing back to you to the council meeting next week uh the final agreement.

Um we are currently reviewing the language in that agreement and have added language that addresses state of Minnesota data practices law, which we saw was absent in the agreement.

Um there is uh a bit of sense of urgency around this.

ICMA wants to get this funding out into communities.

Uh they want to get it out by early September and had initially required us to bring everything August 15th, submitted by August 15th.

However, recognizing that there was language that we wanted to add into the agreement, they agreed to extend our deadline so that we could bring the agreement to you next Monday, and then we would submit it pending your approval of that sub-award agreement.

So uh with that, that's uh a very high level um overview of the what this grant application is intended to do, and happy to answer any questions.

So uh as some of our uh public speakers pointed out uh regarding the privacy confidentiality provision.

Uh I did review it myself, and it did seemed uh somewhat limiting for a public body that's got a commitment to transparency.

Um did you review Mr.

Spindler Craig?

It looks like you're gonna take the microphone.

Did you review this?

Is this more uh stringent than you've seen in other contracts or is it standard?

I don't have a context to compare it.

Thank you, Mr.

President, Council members.

Um we have had conversation back and forth uh with Ms.

Steinhauser sorting through some of this language.

Um yes, you've probably noticed you see of a variety of versions in in these contract clauses that attempt to provide some some level of confidentiality, but what we focus on is assuring that um folks that we are contracting with understand that we're subject to Minnesota law and our data practices um law is particularly robust, and that's the provision that we want to make clear to all of them that what we are required to disclose under our data practices law is binding on us.

Um Frankly, the the current version, um though it doesn't explicitly reference the Minnesota data practices law, it does have a have have a clause that indicates or required or as required by law.

So I think that gets it done, but we will make it more explicit and it's not a concern from my perspective.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

That's good that you have gone through that.

And I I should just for full disclosure, I did speak to attorney Spindler Craig about this contract today.

But I guess I want to reiterate one part that you're talking about the you know what Minnesota law must have.

But I read sections in there that talked about we'll need the this group's approval to go to take some information public.

I I was getting concerned that it sounded like it was more we're going to take their money, but we have to follow their rules, or is it uh do you think I'm reading it wrong?

There was a section, I apologize, I can't pull up the thing, but Article 16.

Yeah, that we're talking about no disclosures without the approval of the funding body.

And Councilmember Keen appreciate that that observation.

I I think that's generally accurate.

There was attempt it attempted to be fairly tight language, um, but with respect to the clause that referenced it or disclosure required by law.

Um that was not essentially a veto power to them.

That was a notice provision that if we need to disclose certain things as required by law, um, we will give them essentially a heads up or notice of that disclosure.

Uh they don't have the right to uh preclude us from providing that data.

Um you mentioned you've gone through obviously we've gone through a lot of these sort of accepting grants, and it makes sense that the funding group is going to want to make sure you live up to certain standards.

I I I felt this one got to the point that I almost felt like the City of Rochester was going to work for them.

Can you tell me if we have any like almost liability concern that if we don't do what they're like what they think is the purpose of the study that we could have legal trouble?

Your Honors, I um that is what we focus on when when we're reviewing contracts like this.

As I indicated to you in our in our phone call, but yes, this was tighter and more sophisticated language than we sometimes see.

That that's not unusual to see a variety of perspectives or tightness in in the contract language.

And and frankly, some of these, um, particularly the the grant agreements are kind of negotiations, right?

It's not just us telling them what we want or need.

Um there can sometimes be a bit more of a flavor of a these are our terms, these are our terms that we use with all bodies that accept these particular grants.

Um, and of course, we have the choice to take it or leave it to some extent.

We still continue to push what's in our favor.

Um, but to answer your question a bit more directly.

I'm not concerned about taking on liability.

Um I do just want to assure that um the parameters that they set and the requirements and involvement that they require of us that that we're comfortable with that.

And that's some of what Ms.

Steinhauser and I have talked through, and I think um she has a comfort level uh with that, and and that is important.

Okay.

If I oh go ahead and sorry, if I may just add to that from the non-legal perspective, right?

Um in the uh in the webinars that we participated in prior to submittal, and in the one-on-one that we had when we found out that we were one of the uh 15 selected, uh ICMA has made it very clear this is our program, right?

This position reports to is the city employee reports to city administrator.

They do not want to get in the way of us developing the work plan.

They have had some success in this space, and that success is driven by a very much a hands-off approach, let the community design the program that they need to fit their needs.

And so that was reaffirmed in both the the uh technical webinars that we attended as well as in our meeting with them about the conditions surrounding the award of the funding to us.

Good.

That's helpful.

I'm gonna listen to my peers see if there's any concerns.

One thing that I did learn through this back and forth with staff is that the one there that there is a very like clear 30-day to be able to get out of this contract if we end up with these sort of worries that maybe I'm I'm just being paranoid, but that gives me a better feeling that we don't have any sort of long-term concerns.

So Councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

I'm I'm uncomfortable with the interpretation of the law or or how we're gonna do this.

It needs to be very, very clear, and I don't believe that it is.

Um I didn't see any goals or benchmarks or or what are we trying to achieve with this.

And one of the words that's used here is face barriers.

What what what barriers are we trying to overcome?

So part of um thank you for the question, Councilmember Palmer.

Uh, we intentionally do not have a work plan because the intent is that we do the work plan and we build the work plan with our partners.

And and so it would be presumptive in in my opinion to say to submit something that says this is what we want to do without having our partners in economic development at the table, co-defined, co-collaborating on what our goals are, what our milestones are, what are the benchmarks we want to hear and want to try and meet and how they perform on it.

I there's already been this conversation has already been underway, and I I'd be uh remiss if I didn't uh talk about the work that um Miss Woodward along with City Minister Zelms have done already to bring the partners together, including a meeting that happened last Friday where there's a lot of enthusiasm around this conversation and the intentionality of bringing the groups together and co-collaborating on a work plan.

So that is why you do not have an attached work plan because part of this process um is was very intentional in that our partners inform it.

And I don't know if Ms.

Woodward or Ms.

Elms have what group what groups are did you meet with on Friday?

It was a meeting last Wednesday where we gathered most of the partners that are directly impacting and working in economic development.

So there was about a dozen different partners across the city, and um, including, you know, for example, ready and collider, just number uh two of them, but we really reached out to all of the entities that are doing work in that economic development space, whether it's the entrepreneur or the nonprofits space, and really starting to look at and work with them on building out what are the programs that they're really doing and how does it all work together, um, and recognizing they're all really doing great work in those spaces, but how do we kind of connect them better and provide that feedback and then identify perhaps going forward where there might be gaps in that system?

And so really that work is going to be collaborative, working with each one of those partners and kind of building out kind of that economic development ecosystem and kind of mapping how it all works together.

Um, and so we kind of had a kickoff meeting last week with all of the partners, invited them, um, and all of them were very enthusiastic in saying this was a good time to have this conversation and recognize that they all need to work together to be able to deliver for the next phase of Rochester and what does that look like in terms of workforce and economic development.

So we just started those conversations.

We're asking them to provide some feedback and kind of a bit of a self-assessment, and then we're gonna start to from the city and kind of facilitate this work and really start to map that out and then continue to engage them in the process and get their feedback to make sure that they are engaged throughout this process.

Well, well, I guess my one of my problems is 416,000 by the time we get all the staff done.

I don't know what that meeting costs, but but it it's gonna take a lot of meetings and a lot of costs.

And so I'm not I'm not supportive of of this.

And and one of the reasons on that is that we just got done with the 1.7 million dollars to get 12 jobs in construction.

And and I don't need to have another one of these that we don't really have a scope and a goal and uh this is what we're going to achieve, and you're gonna spend 416 or accept 416,000, and this is what we're gonna get for it.

Administrator Zelms.

Council President, um, Councilmember Palmer, I realized it wasn't totally a question, but if I may, um, I did just want to point folks to um page two 603 of your packet where there is a scope of work that is outlined um that shows very I think fairly clearly recognizing that it's not 50 pages long, what what the purpose of the dollars would be.

The lion's share of that is to pay for two and a half years of an employee that would help continue to move through this process.

Employees and FTEs are a finite resource in the city of Rochester, and we try to be sparing about bringing those forward.

Um and so the scope of work doesn't exist yet because part of the scope of work for this grant is very clearly saying the city of Rochester will have an a position plus 100,000 of implementation dollars that we figure out together on how this could move forward and um continue to be able to build out progress within the system.

Um and and we shared with the partners that we would be bringing this forward, and that could be helpful in how they're able to either commit their time and have additional resources on staff to be able to build out um the clarity of the plan and where are there gaps?

Maybe there aren't any gaps.

Maybe one of the main gaps is that we don't have a clear place where the entire economic development ecosystem lives in a place, and we have to say, go to this website, go to this website, go to this website, and different individuals maybe have challenges figuring out if they want to go to a website or open their business, and they don't necessarily think to go and get assistance with how they're going to get workforce for their business.

And some of the things that came up in that meeting was we all have a lot of different data, and depending on what a different partner does, for example, workforce development Inc.

versus Ready versus the SPDC versus any of the other entities like DMC or even Mayo Clinic and some of their economic development, that we might really find ourselves in a place to say this is where the gaps are, even within our economic system where we think this type of business would really thrive.

Whereas if we've seen other businesses have challenges, either being able to hire employees because maybe we're short on that skill set of employee, you know, one of the things we don't want to do is set business owners up for failure if we could have given them feedback that said, you know, we've seen three of these not work out, and every time we've heard from the business owner that they weren't able to hire the number of people necessary in order to operate their business.

I'm just giving you ideas of what might come out of some of this work.

Um, fully up to the city council if you want to accept this or not.

I'm not sure that we would like actively be able to get as far on the work if we have the same employees that are doing every other thing in your strategic plan, and this is in your strategic priorities, um, building a you know, having economic resilience to be able to do that.

So I see it as a way to really be able to move us more quickly on that economic resilience, strategic priorities.

The timing maybe isn't perfect because you will be having your study session about that on August 18th.

But there is in this RCA, it does talk about formal approval of the agreement on August 18th because we know that we are still working on language.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

Uh I have heard uh the term co-collaborators or co-collaboration a lot uh this time around instead of the co-design, and in the budget, it talks about co-design.

Uh what is this and what's the difference?

Sure.

Thank you for that question, Councilmember Wall.

The reason I intentionally said co-collaboration, because we have a very specific prescription or definition of co-design, right?

Like there is very much uh Rochester has a co-design process that involves co-designers.

The way in which ICMA, for the purposes of this grant, is using the word co-design, it is not defined as prescriptive as the way we design it.

It is really about co-collaboration, and so that is why I use the term co-collaboration because that is a better way to describe their definition of co-design.

Okay.

So it will be really a different group of people than we might normally gather around a table for a co-design for a bridge or something like that.

It is not how we think of co-design here.

It is just what administrator Zelms um indicated.

It is about bringing the partners that touch this work together in a collaborative way to develop the work plan.

That is the co-design process for the purposes of this grant.

Thank you.

And I'd like to go back to uh Article 16 because it is really uh restrictive and just uh quote a couple of things.

Uh, all reports and data collected uh shall not be reproduced, discussed in an open forum, uh all findings, conclusions, recommendations shall be considered confidential.

Um I would surely love to see where it says in this document that Minnesota law would supersede that and would make me far more comfortable in ensuring that uh our government is uh open for all.

And uh maybe rephrasing one of Mr.

Palmer's questions, uh, what would success look like for this?

Council Council President, Councilmember, maybe I could um share what what some of the partners shared last week.

And so for some of them they felt like success going through a process would be that they had a shared vision, um, that they had a shared understanding of what some of their challenges and like the niche unique things that each of those organizations does that they would regularly be getting together, not every month.

They did not want to do that.

Um, but you know, regularly getting together to understand how are they updating that vision that they aren't competing with each other, but they're really a collaborative ecosystem where someone maybe has someone come in for a question about workforce, and they say, you know, you should really talk to name the entity because they do a lot of work in this space, either with grant funding or connecting people to financial resources, things of that nature.

Um, like the sort of gentle handoff to the next person, not just, hey, you should call X entity, but actually bringing them into the process.

Um also I think they identified it would be really good for them to have a shared sense of like what are the top priorities over the next few years, which might mean some of the niche things that one entity does isn't necessarily the top priority, doesn't mean it's not a priority, but if we really had movement in certain types of either data or understanding that you would potentially be able to really make a lot of progress more quickly collectively as an economic development group.

And they also talked a lot about how great it would be that we have this unique ability in Southeast Minnesota in Rochester and the region to work together because we're not too big, we're not too small, um, and really better tell our story so that investors that are either per looking for somewhere to bring their dollars or individuals who already live here that maybe had never thought about how they might open, be entrepreneurial or expand their business would have a better understanding of all of the different opportunities that they have and that our door is open.

If I'm hearing you correctly, then it's not necessarily uh a success would not be job creation, but a framework for future job creation.

I think it depends.

I if I may, it I think it depends on what is identified through some of the stages of the process to say, you know, if we really get out there and are successful at building out the framework, and one of the priorities is job creation creation, and um we do have economic vitality funds that aren't all committed.

Um that might be something that that group could get behind saying, like this is probably where we should be supporting first.

I don't have that because we haven't gone through the process, but I would say that kind of aligns with the spirit of what we heard, which is wouldn't it be we've talked about this before?

Another thing we heard was we started talking about this 20 years ago.

And wouldn't this be a great time to really like dig in and do some of these things?

And some of those are our own self-assessment of where are we continuing as a city to create barriers either through the licensing and regulatory process or um being able to, when someone comes in for that, say, you know, you should really we should be able to hand them off to say as you're thinking about the permitting process, you should really be talking to ex entity because we've seen them be very helpful to this type of business and how they've been getting their start or something of that nature.

And is this going to be so specific to Rochester that it uh won't be useful to I can I can ask that better.

Uh will the results from Rochester be usable by the granting agency in a way to improve the lot of uh cities not unlike us in the uh around the country.

Uh Council President, Councilmember, I can maybe start and say, A, that's not a requirement of the grant that it be replicable anywhere else.

It does say scalable, but I think you can learn from almost anything that any other community is doing and say what piece of that might be helpful in the community that I either live in, I'm serving on a council or um on a you know city staff.

Um I would also say that some of those entities are not just Rochester, they're 11, 10, 20 county region.

Um just outside of Rochester, there's a lot of employment base that's living there and different types of employment and different challenges than we're experiencing inside of Rochester, but it does still impact our economy.

And if I might just add to that, I think first and foremost, it is indeed about what works for Rochester.

That is the foundational to this work.

But like every other thing that we do here in terms of developing potential best practices, are there emerging themes or best practices that we can share with the other 14 communities that received it?

And likewise, do they have lessons learned from their projects that we might glean from to say, hey, we could prototype that here, or hey, we want to connect you to the talent here that our economic development person at the chamber or at Ready or at you know collide or name that and and learn from each other.

Certainly there are that would be encouraged to build those kinds of networks across the grantees.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Thank you.

Total time in this program again, two and a half years, did you say?

30 months, yes.

30 months, okay.

All right, we have a 416,000 grant.

What's the city's responsibility going to be beyond that 416,000 dollars?

We are not contractually obligated.

Once the 30 months is done, it's done.

If if yeah.

That's that's gonna fully fund the program for the entire time.

We're not gonna be adding additional monies to this program.

There is a local match.

Um, and so we have identified the there's 175,000.

I think it is local match.

We've identified the funding source.

Again, it is just during the 30 months.

We are not obligated in any way to do to obligate ourselves to additional costs beyond the 30 months.

And the local funding source is the DMC administration administration line item.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Councilmember Palmer.

Well, on the DMC money, we've been told that we don't want to waste it in in it's a you know not an infinite amount of money.

So um and I'm gonna go back to a statement you made that that you know 20 years ago we wish you would have, you know, what could have happened.

I would think people from 20 years ago look back and go, wow, Rochester's doing very, very well.

So I would think people from 20 years ago would be happy to.

To clarify that wasn't in relationship to how Rochester is doing, it was in relationship to moving through a process where they collectively work together to try to identify what our economic development ecosystem is.

And and I go back to what Mr.

Wall is saying about Article 16.

And in basically, you're collecting all this information, but you can't share it.

So if I want to open up my my bakery, yeah, you can't share that information with me.

And that to me defeats what we're trying to do.

It sounds like what we're really doing is doing an experiment to give this group a bunch of information at our expense.

And you know, I I also read that we're also paying their their benefits.

Um is that correct?

We are required to provide um that's in the match.

That's calculated in that local match, providing the benefits for the position.

It is again um the concerns raised around Article 16, that is what we believe will be addressed by our um language that we've asked to be included, which is the Minnesota Data Practices language.

This is not about just providing information for ICMA to use and for us to not be able to benefit from this program related to the DMC funding, the 100,000 dollars that is um 100,000 that is currently in our DMC development administration fund that does not come that is not dollars that was is intended for some of the capital uh programs that we've talked about in the past.

Uh I'll uh so I look at it and I I do say it is one of our strategic goals.

Uh economic mobility is an important issue that I don't think we focus on exclusively in uh all of the uh development partners that we have.

I think the idea of partnering with all of the great uh economic development partners here on that specific goal, if I'm hearing you right, I think that's a laudable goal.

Uh from my standpoint, though, I tend to agree with a piece of what Councilmember Palmer said, in that oftentimes we get you know sort of the the golden goose comes here and uh and we take the money, but we don't have a plan for how we continue after the two in this case two and a half years.

So I would like to see one more clarity on those initial objectives, and then how do we keep it going?

How do we work with our partners to keep that objective continuing beyond the the uh the usage of this 416,000 dollars?

Councilmember uh Doring.

I would agree with some of what um the council president just said and look forward to uh the group itself coming up with those plans about how to continue uh the work going forward.

Um I am wondering uh if we uh authorize acceptance this evening, are we authorizing the final acceptance or are we just saying continue to negotiate so we can authorize acceptance with the amended contract language reflecting Minnesota state law next week?

Thank you for the question, uh Councilmember Doring.

We it's it's not final until you have approved the subward agreement.

Um we did not think it would appropriate to continue negotiating the subward agreement language without knowing that there was support for even accepting the grant.

Okay, so just to clarify, Ms.

Steinhoser, you are asking for a vote tonight to uh accept the grant.

Yes.

Okay.

Any further discussion?

Is there a motion on this item?

Councilmember Doring.

I move to authorize acceptance of a 416,500 uh economic mobility grant from the International City County Management Association ICMA.

Is there I'll second uh move by Councilmember Doring, seconded by Councilmember Keene.

Councilmember Doring, you have the floor.

I think we've had a great discussion.

I think this is a a good opportunity.

I uh I appreciate my colleagues' comments uh wondering what the the overall outcome is, what the work plan is going to be.

I also appreciate the point of the grant is to develop this uh uh as the grant uh comes to fruition.

I I look forward to uh seeing uh Minnesota state law reflected in the finalized grant agreement as it comes forward to us next week.

Um if that if that uh state law language is not reflected in it or not accepted uh by ICMA, uh I will uh probably with withdraw my support at that time.

Uh but I'm uh I'm voting in favor of this moving forward.

Um looking for that language to be in uh the contract language next week.

Councilmember Keene.

Um no, same same thoughts.

The good good discussion.

I I had my concerns reading this last Thursday.

I did some chat and I also had community members showing concern.

But I I one of the things that helped me with this was that that idea that if we get into these bad situations, there there is a there is a good clause in this that says either party within thirty with 30 days notice can can withdraw from it.

So I I'm confident that the staff knows what they're working with, and I I think there is a real situation here to be addressed.

And and um I I guess I would say that it may not work, but you we're trying we're trying.

Councilmember Palmer.

Um to know what's surprised, I won't be supporting this motion in um the confidentiality in this Article 16.

Um, you know, if they were going to fix it, we could have fixed it already, and we're not we haven't.

So um I'm not in favor of this.

I'll just say I will be supporting this this evening.

I have confidence in our city attorney and our staff's uh ability to work through that concern.

So that uh does not concern me at this point, as uh councilmember Doring said, if it is a problem next week, uh that may be a different story.

But I I believe we'll resolve that issue.

I do think that uh the objective and the goal of uh focusing on economic mobility is an important one for a growing community like Rochester, where we're expecting to see 40,000 new people in the next two decades.

That issue is important to ensure that everybody thrives in our community.

And uh so I think the ability to really get positive partnership in the community focused on uh economic mobility is a uh a strong goal, and uh I like the fact that uh we were one of 15 communities awarded this, so I will be supporting it.

Councilmember uh Wall.

With the uh with the caution that Councilmember Doring has already offered, uh I too can support it tonight with that.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Uh uh those opposed say nay.

Nay.

Motion passes 5-1 with councilmember Palmer in uh opposition.

Uh moving on to H4 contract with Alliant Engineering for Elton Hills Drive Northwest traffic study.

Uh this was polled by Councilmember Palmer.

Councilmember Palmer, go ahead.

Yeah, I have a lot of questions on this one.

And and one of the things that bothers me is that we already looked at this issue.

Um, and for me, you know, listening to the community six years ago in in coming back now with the same request, kind of you know, wears down the people going, well, you know, you're not gonna listen to us.

Um Elton Hills is 1.8 miles of of road.

Uh I have some questions in in one of them I think was answered was that there is no storm sewer going to be redone in the next 25 years.

Storm sewer water mains.

Is that what you're saying?

Mr.

Dombrowski.

Good evening, Council President, members of the council.

Uh Councilmember Palmer, that is accurate.

We as we are thinking about you know contemplating this updated study, we talked with all the utilities thinking, do we need to look at this more holistically and it becomes a full reconstruction project?

We the utilities, water mains, storm sewer, sanitary sewer are not of the age or condition where it warrants uh replacement at this point, so we wouldn't see that on more of a 15 to 20 plus year horizon for for the full reconstruction.

And and one of the questions on that is you know, over at Sunset Terrace, you know, we're replacing roads because the the sanitary or the water mains are bad.

This road was built in 1957, so I I'm I'm that I think is a legitimate question to ask.

So it it is, and and throughout the community, depending on soil types.

However, the the construction methods um we do see pipes that don't last the the likelihood of the full life expectancy that we would think they should, but um in this case, these utilities are sufficient and will continue to function for a number of years.

And you know, I asked for the updated traffic study, and and you gave that to us, and I and I'm not a traffic engineer, obviously, but when I read it, about 15 percent of the accidents are caused by drinking drugs or medical issues.

Um a larger amount of them is is caused by kids in their I use the word kids, adults in their 20s seem to have the more accidents than anybody else in that in that range.

Am I reading that correctly?

I didn't do a deep dive on that because as part of the study we will we will go into that level of detail, but it I I would acknowledge that in the last six years there's been 99 crashes.

I did note notice that there are some, yes, just run off the road, um, which could be weather dependent.

We you know, as part of the project, we'll we'll pull the crash reports and and dig into it in more detail.

Our consultant would.

And and so, you know, I mean, $50,000 doesn't sound like a lot of money.

It's a lot, you know, to me, but but if we have a study from from six years ago, we're gonna have the same company do this study.

If we're not going to go down to three lanes or two lanes, why wouldn't we want to just spend that money and design bump outs and some some other uh creative ideas to slow the traffic down?

Because slowing the traffic down, I think I read that the average speed limit was five miles and over the the actual speed limit right now.

So wouldn't it be better just to invest our money into slowing down the traffic and keeping it four lanes?

Well, we have an opportunity to again since the last study, we've had COVID, traffic patterns have changed.

Um we we really want to understand where we're at with volumes uh turning movements, looking at that crash history, uh really understanding what's happening to that corridor and what opportunities do we have to address those safety issues.

So coming out of that study, there's a likelihood that we would you know the plan is to identify where are there intersections where we can shorten pedestrian crossings.

But some of that involves understanding what the different alternatives could be for do we have parking on this side, do we not?

Because parking lanes are where we can add that bump out.

Well, if we determine that we can only have it on one side, so our team doesn't want to just go out willy-nilly and start building bump outs until we've actually studied the corridor in more detail.

Well, part of the in part of my problem is is that you know, back in 2019, I think it was or 18, we redid 19th Street from 19th Avenue to the west.

And in my driving of it, and many times during the day, it's it's backed up, and you're going three times before you get through a stop lane.

And so I I'm not particularly sure.

Do we go back and say, hey, we achieved what we are going to wanted, or do we just kind of do something and let it fly?

Well, we're we would you know, with that, it's a different cross section.

We unfortunately the road's not wide enough to where we have a center turn lane, so you can't get those left turning vehicles out of the through lane, and it does back up at in the peak periods during the day.

So, you know, we we'll monitor that as we see uh issues with traffic operations and/or we have another pavement preservation project where hey, here's our opportunity to think about how do we stripe this roadway.

That's that's what our team would evaluate as we think about 19th Street specifically.

And that's what we're we're really proposing with Elton Hills Drive.

Here's our opportunity to look at different options and and you know, quite honestly, we could try one if if the project moves forward and we select one and and we learn that oh, this isn't working.

But the the good thing is we're not talking about rebuilding all the curbs, spending all that money, it's really striping, which we can change over time.

And and and I go back to back to 2019, we did this study and in and we didn't we didn't change the lane markings much of anything.

We're going from 52 to all the way to Broadway, and we already redid the bridge.

We already have in front of the commercial spots, and if I remember correctly, isn't everything east of a rest river parkway 40 miles an hour?

That's actually 30.

That that used to be um before it changed to 30, it didn't used to be 40.

Okay.

When did that change?

It's sometime in the last 10 years.

I should probably notice that now.

Um I'm almost done here.

So so bear with me.

Um the the difficulty I have is is I'll use my example in 9th Street Northeast.

I'll use my example on 9th Street Northeast.

It's a road that runs to Cory Hill.

We've asked to have it studied.

We've asked to have bump outs put in.

We resurfaced it.

We didn't do that.

This seems to be staff driven and not city council driven.

You know, back in 2019, I don't remember city council doing a CIA going, hey, let's look at this intersection.

And we weren't doing a mill and overlay at that time.

So I I commend you for the doing it for the mill and overlay.

That makes sense.

Yeah, I mean, that was a project though that we'd identified traffic safety issues, and that was a priority, and that's why we did the study in 2019.

Obviously, um, no action was taken, and the project you know did not move forward.

But again, like you said, with the pavement preservation work, we really do have the opportunity to re-evaluate, understand what options we have, and uh you know, that's why we're bringing this recommendation to you tonight.

Well, and and to be fair, I mean to be up front with you.

I've supported the CC Heights going down to the two lanes.

I've supported 7th Street Northeast in front of the the Silver Lake Pool going down to two lanes, and I think that that's worked out well.

I don't have a problem with us redoing some part of the intersections on on it.

I don't want to go back and do four lanes or three lanes and get in that argument again.

Um, but I I think length avenue would be an example that we could do a lot better job of of shortening up pedestrian walkways and stuff.

And I don't see the the accident.

What you're showing me so far is going, wow, we this we have a huge problem here.

And and yeah, that's I I appreciate those comments.

Um obviously part of this study would evaluate lane configuration and do things change.

Uh part of that analysis is looking at what are those those cra what are the you know intersections or the stretches of Elton Hills Drive that are you know high crashes?

Um how does it compare to the statewide average, the critical crash rate, the things that the traffic engineers really dig into as we as we evaluate it so that it can help inform not only the lane potential lane configuration if things were to change, but also dialing into where are there intersection challenges where we really have an opportunity to make improvements with this project.

It and my last thing is is is because of our way we do traffic is if you have a neighborhood award and you want to get a traffic study done, I have to sign up 75% of the people.

You have to sign 10 people need to sign the the petition for the neighbor the neighborhood traffic management program, and it does have to be a local street, which this Elton Hills doesn't qualify as a local street, so it's really has to be within a neighborhood, but it it actually only takes 10 signatures.

I was understanding it was 75 percent.

You might that I'm wondering if that's being um thinking of the residential permit parking program potentially, which requires more, a higher higher percentage of people within a neighborhood.

But yes, with the the neighborhood traffic management program, 10 signatures and and then you'll get on the list and we'll start to evaluate your neighborhood.

So when the 10 neighbors did it at Lincolnshire and they gave you the 10 and you did your traffic study, how long did it take before we got all the improvements?

Uh we're planning to uh bid that project yet in the next bids open in a couple weeks, so the plan would be to construct that this fall.

Uh it took a few years.

Uh the team studies it, collects the data.

Uh we go through a variety, uh, you know, a public engagement period with that one.

I think there are three open houses, for example.

Um, really come to uh the conclusion of what's the preferred alternative to address these safety challenges in your neighborhood.

And now here we are.

We took the time to design the the permanent improvements and we're bidding it.

So it can take two to three years.

And you did a temporary examples, didn't you?

We we use the we we pilot with the delineators to to learn, you know, we we put them out so people can get a feel for what it looks like.

We can collect speed data to understand is this really gonna work?

Are we gonna be able to reduce speeds?

And and that's all part of the process.

Thank thanks for all your help and I appreciate it.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh yeah, thanks.

I guess um I I went through this item maybe not as uh deep as Councilmember Palmer did, but I I didn't see anything in here about redoing 2019.

This is I believe the impetus for this is in 2027 we have the money to do the the um re-digging up the road, the surface road, and in order we it with the goal of doing it right, we want to have the traffic study done well in advance.

So when we have the opportunity, we have the the deep background on what are possible and what should be done.

Yeah, and the most current data again with with the COVID and the changes in travel patterns.

Yeah, ideally maybe we could have taken a study from six years ago and used traffic projections, but they really have changed.

Um early in my career, we would just say two percent a year, and we would project it out 20 years.

Well, we're seeing corridors where we're the growth rates are only a half a percent, and so it's really just making sure we're collecting that current data.

Okay.

Um and then I mean it is talking about a study that'll come back.

Is it is it we if in the realm after what we went through in 2019?

Is it possible or likely that they'll come back saying we really should do different lane configurations, or do you expect that not to happen because the feedback we got when we did it five years ago?

Uh we're gonna in we're gonna do public engagement as part of this.

Okay.

It's possible that traffic has grown tremendously, which I I don't think it has, but that's also possible.

And um, but again, we everything's on the table.

Okay.

So is it I is it time to put a motion?

Uh council member I was gonna make a motion if you want to no go ahead.

You pulled it.

Okay, I'll make a motion on authorizing a contract with Alliant Engineering Incorporated for $59,000, $15 to complete a traffic study and provide recommendations for safety improvements in Elton Hills Drive.

Northwest project number J7313.

Moved by council member Palmer.

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Doring.

Uh any further discussion on this item.

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Motion passes.

Uh moving on to H5, which is a grant agreement with Minnesota Police Pollution Control Agency to design and construct the Zombro Riverfront Trailhead Plaza project.

Councilmember Palmer.

Yeah, this one I have a lot more questions.

Um, if that's believable or not.

Can you give us a number?

Yes.

How many?

Because I'm gonna count.

Let's say seven.

Okay.

Let me know when I get to six.

Okay.

One question.

Bye.

Uh is there a storm sewer that this project is gonna handle it?

Uh councilmember Palmer, could you could you just clarify your question about the storm sewer?

Well, there must be a storm sewer that empties into the Zumbral, and this is supposed to help all with water quality.

Do we have a storm sewer that's running into this project and we're gonna treat that stormwater?

Uh the goal of the project would be, and again, we haven't done any design, but we would capture uh through graining some runoff from the parking lot, uh, infiltrate it because of the adjacency to the flood wall, we can't saturate the groundwater.

So likely uh after the filtrations of the contaminants are taken out of the stormwater, we'd likely route it back to an existing storm sewer.

So you're just picking up the water from the parking lot?

Yes, and cleaning it before it discharges.

Okay.

Um you're talking about building a shelter for the bike people and for pedestrians there, but it's not really on the trail.

Uh correct.

It would be uh very close to the uh pedestrian bridge that connects to the trail, or also near the railroad spur, there is a trail connection that heads up uh to the north and connects to the west side trail along the Zumbro.

So to the north, we have a a shelter, and to the south we have a bike um fix it thing over there at Soldiers Field.

Why would we want to repeat this at this location?

I think it's a matter of um this is an area that anecdotally uh though those of us involved in active transportation, uh it's kind of a crossroads.

Uh people coming from the easterly neighborhoods looking to get the downtown.

A lot of people use this connection for Third Street uh through our other work, whether it's Peace Plaza or other active transportation outwork uh done last fall.

UMR students have talked about a place to gather.

Uh so again, this was uh trying to look at what the grant allows for an application and what might be a good fit and understanding uh the riverfront small area plan calls for the same real estate to be green space.

Uh we selected this uh as part of the grant application.

And and I guess I'm disappointed that we're not doing competitive bidding on it, and that's a bugaboo for me.

I don't I I guess I don't understand.

Is it that these grants come surprise and they're due tomorrow, or are we not following them?

Um why why can't we do competitive bidding?

Uh this grant in my experience uh was unique.

It required us to list the design consultant in the grant application, and our team became aware of it about 30 days prior to the application, so there really was not time to um do a uh competitive process.

So we did it, it was relatively small contract values, so we did a direct solicitation and through the grant or sorry, through the contract agreement that's on, you know, looking at hours of time invested, average hourly fee uh of design consultants, it's well within reason for the scale of a project.

My last question on first avenue across from um well, next to the parking ramp, we have a water demonstration, which didn't go well, and it took a long period of time to do.

really was not time to um do a uh competitive process so we did it it was relatively small contract values so we did a direct solicitation and through the grant or sorry through the contract agreement that's on you know looking at hours of time invested average hourly fee uh of design consultants it's well within reason for the scale of a project my last question on first avenue across from um well next to the parking ramp we have a water demonstration which didn't go well and it took a long period of time to do I mean we're one block away why would we want to do what one block away do this again well uh two thoughts one uh with the UMR students there I mean I actually spend a firm amount of time on first avenue I don't not every day but uh it's not a natural congregation point so uh again is this being a crossroads a lot of people walk over from government center to restaurants on third street uh southwest in that area so there's an opportunity for higher exposure there's parking there's on site parking right here within the parking lot so people are getting out of the parking lot uh down uh downtown Rochester's uh sponsoring um say this wrong basically aerobics classes uh there so we have more activation in the lot and that's also a goal of this space over time is to activate it so again just trying to be uh informative we'll have interpretive signage there for people understand what they're looking at so maybe they can bring it home if they want to do a small rain garden at their at their house there an opportunity understand there's resources available uh to s to gather expertise and also just what it's about and what's its benefits.

Thank you.

Any further questions is uh is there a motion on this item I'll make a two part motion um to uh authorize the grant agreement between the MPCA for funding the Zumbro River front trailhead plaza project and number two authorize a contract in the amount of 71 thousand two hundred and forty thousand with RPG planning and design to design the services and bid the documents moved by council member keen is there a second second seconded by council member Doring Councilmember Keene you have the floor.

No nothing to add any further discussion on this seeing none all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed say nay nay uh motion passes five to one with council member palmer voting in uh opposition moving on to item H6 which is property acquisition six street bridge river front and street improvements I am going to have a lot of questions on this one uh I'm gonna start with kind of the action request seven seven okay uh I'm gonna start with the action requested and uh so uh at the end of the action requested is the you know uh that we're going to acquire property through many means and andor including if necessary uh imminent domain obviously to community members this is kind of a scary term so uh Mr.

Sampson Brown can you talk uh about how much land are we acquiring and where is it and and how much of it it uh is on residential lots sure uh within the project corridor there's approximately uh 28 different property parcels uh that the city will be acquiring easements for there is one residential parcel that I think it's uh approximately 15 square feet will we'll be requiring uh the corner of their property to widen the sidewalk but other than that we're acquiring easements along the corridor uh with the trail going to the north uh the multi-use trail uh we need temporary grading easements in a lot of people's yards because as again we're we're not changing the road we're not reconstructing the road so we're stuck with the road elevation and the curb elevation and then there's kind of a standard cross section to have water drain from people's houses towards the road so that means that as we're building the trail we'll need to blend their front yard back into the trail so uh there's construction easements involved so are these 27 are these temporary easements so they're so there wouldn't be uh imminent domain involved in a temporary easement is that correct um ultimately well specifically to construction easements if they're just for grading uh we would and I defer to my friends at public works to talk about the poly I guess local practice on that Mr.

Dombrowski yeah thank you council president so with with this project there's federal funding so anytime we're doing a project with federal funding there's a a process we need to follow as as it relates to property acquisition uh which includes appraisals they get so much time to respond to the the initial offer property owners can do their own appraisals it's very it's laid out very well and we we hire a consultant that leads that process um and as part of the project uh if we're acquiring temporary easements for grading it's really just that it's temporary it has an expiration date that uh is in the uh agreement with the property owner and at the time of the project being complete we've restored let's say it's their grass uh and the grades to make sure we're not adversely affecting drainage patterns or whatever it might be returns to the property owner if we no longer have access to to use so are we in communication with the 27 property owners yeah Steve can speak to that but all the I don't know if everyone's received their initial offer package but they have started to go

It has an expiration date that uh is in the uh agreement with the property owner and at the time of the project being complete.

We've restored, let's say it's their grass uh and the grades to make sure we're not adversely affecting drainage patterns or whatever it might be.

Returns to the property owner if we no longer have access to use.

So are we in communication with the 27 property owners?

Yeah, Steve can speak to that, but all the I don't know if everyone's received their initial offer package, but they have started to go up.

Okay, okay.

Uh I'm gonna move on to uh so uh I understand that there are a lot of mature trees being removed.

Can you talk about the number of trees that are being removed, the number of trees that are being added, and uh and uh kind of the variety of the trees if that level of detail?

So we in a count uh we didn't uh through our design professional accounting, so we kind of broke it up into the eastern segment, which is generally uh uh east of the river and west of the river.

So on the east side, which is in the residential area, so we're protecting 31 existing trees and not touching them.

Uh 13 will be removed, 33 new trees will be planted uh for a net gain of 17 trees along that corridor, and on the western side, uh which is adjacent to Broadway and the two blocks to the west, uh we've protected 16 trees.

We'll be removing nine, uh planting approximately 34 for a net gain on that that piece of the corridor of 25 trees.

Um, did you talk about um the creek to the two blocks the creek to uh to the west?

Yes.

The um two blocks to the west.

So I don't have a specific well, actually I did.

So if you want to know the the two blocks to the west of Bear Creek, yes.

Uh so by quick count here, we're going to uh remove one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Eight trees on those two blocks.

We are going to protect one, two, three, six, seven.

Eight trees, and we're going to add four, five, six, seven, add eight trees back on those two specific blocks.

Okay.

Uh then I I've got a question on the um I've talked to several neighbors in uh Slatterly Park, and there's some concern with the uh the bike pedestrian uh path and that it ends in the neighborhood.

Can you talk about its connectivity to the trail system?

Sure.

And the value to that.

Sure.

Um again, this road was uh previously placed uh through the actor of transportation plan adoption as a uh multimodal corridor for active transportation on the eastern end of the project as you cross over the Bear Creek Bridge.

Uh there is a direct connection from the Bear Eastern side of the Bear Creek Bridge to the existing trail along Bear Creek, so there's a connection on the eastern side.

As you cross the new bridge over the Zumbro River, there will be direct connections from this trail system and this east-west road segment uh to both the eastern side Zumbro River Trail and the western side Zumborough River Trail.

And as you're passing west across Broadway, uh this will uh build two new blocks of separated or protected trail, and then that will connect into existing on-street trail system on 6th Street itself.

So there's connections on both ends and midpoint approximately at the Zumbro River.

All right, I've got two more questions.

Okay.

Uh a lot of concern.

We've seen it on Center Street, uh mini roundabout.

Can you talk about uh the uh how many roundabouts are looked at as far as a safety feature in uh in neighborhoods, Mr.

Dombrowski, or who who's gonna take that one?

Okay.

Uh I'll start and I'm sure he can add some data.

Uh so first of all, we we've come to understand through uh crash data research done by the high federal highway administration.

Uh there's been a 39% reduction uh of crashes for all way stops that were converted to mini roundabouts.

Uh we've also seen that uh we're slowing traffic at that particular intersection without stopping it.

Uh so many roundabouts with slower traffic speeds can reduce the severity severity of crashes uh based on crash type.

And then also we reduce the number of potential conflict points from 32 down to eight, which is just the ways that vehicles uh move through the intersection and can potentially uh uh connect with each other.

And then to me, a big aspect of this roundabout is we'll be approaching the Minnesota Department of Transportation requesting a variance to their design procedures to include uh raised crosswalks on each leg of the roundabout, and those crosswalks will serve uh if that variance is approved as a speed hump or speed bump.

Uh my uh research has shown or or yeah, research and homework on the subject shows that with the raised crosswalks, traffic speeds slow dramatically and we expect good results.

I did talk to at our May interaction with somebody who rides a transit bus at one of the neighborhood stops along Sixth Street, and they noted to me that as they stood and waited for the bus one morning at a stop sign, uh 18 of the 19 cars rolled through the stop sign and did not stop for it.

So stop signs are not also a clear sign of um safety just because people are supposed to stop.

So uh we feel the roundabout, and I'll defer to Dylan if he has anything else to add.

My my final question, and uh we've uh Mr.

Samson Brown, we've talked about this in the past is uh the idea of some kind of traffic diversion once the new Sixth Street Bridge goes in.

Uh and um is there a way one?

I guess my question is uh are we going to be doing traffic studies and are there uh means to uh to kind of create a slow glide path to the traffic in the neighborhood?

What kind of uh what kind of monitoring and potential diversion if the neighborhood sees it becoming a huge arterial street?

I I can take that.

Mr.

Domski.

So uh with a traditional diverter where you would actually place uh an impediment to to through movements within an intersection, let's say, and require vehicles to to turn and avoid uh that through movement.

These are state aid uh core corridors that are on our municipal state aid system, so we can't do something like that on a state aid route.

Obviously, with the project and the traffic study that has occurred, the the project through the neighborhood east of Third Avenue, in addition to the mini roundabout that's gonna slow speeds, reduce crashes.

Uh we also are making improvements at specific intersections along that corridor uh as we look at closing or shortening the the distance a pedestrian has to cross, thinking about proximity to uh an elementary school right there, uh, which will help with um with speed reduction within the neighborhood.

But what we will do, like we have been doing with our reconstruction projects, and I know this isn't a full reconstruction, but we'll still collect the data is we'll collect the pre-project speed data, and we'll go out after the project's built, we'll collect post-speed data to understand what's working and see what sort of uh reduction we're we're achieving with those the corridor.

So again, with the mini roundabout at the intersection and some of the other improvements that is going to help calm traffic through the neighborhood.

Councilmember Frederick.

Thank you.

Well, it's no secret that the residential neighborhood's not excited about an addition to traffic in their neighborhood.

So couple questions.

Um well, first of all, I'm supportive of the bridge big time for the shot in the arm for the business area on the east side of the river.

I I think the bridge coming across is a great thing.

But the unfortunate part is we get tagged with this into the residential neighborhood part of this project, and it's been a source of a lot of contention in that neighborhood.

Honestly, I haven't heard anything positive come from the neighborhood itself.

So I understand I'm probably kicking a dead horse here, but you know, it's it's I understand why they're not excited about it too.

You you have a quiet neighborhood, and all of a sudden, boom, you know, you're projected at twice the traffic.

I don't think anybody in this room would be excited about that.

So, including me.

Uh so what's gonna happen with the parking?

I gotta read my question here.

What's happened?

What happens to street parking near the corner of 8th Avenue Southeast, especially on the east side?

Mr.

Samson Brown, are you gonna take that?

Yeah, so I think I heard your question.

Are you talking specifically parking on Sixth Street itself or on the side street?

Eighth Avenue Southeast by the roundabout, I'm guessing this is.

Yep.

So as we um within a uh short distance of approximately one house adjacent to the uh roundabout, we will be removing on street parking on uh the side of the road.

Okay.

What happens to the bus stop locations?

Uh the bus stop locations are not planned to change at this time.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Councilmember Doring.

Uh, per the request of some uh citizens of Rochester, I took the time to drive uh the street uh earlier today.

Well, my son drove me down the street.

Let's be real about it.

And um I looked at all the pretty little flags, and some of them were quite alarming.

So I'm kind of wondering if you can explain to me what the different different color flags uh meant on the street.

So uh in particular the purple flags, um, were those marking the temporary uh easements uh in front of people's homes uh for construction easements.

Uh some purple flags were less than 18 inches from people's front stairs.

I'm not sure if that was marking bike path or whatever.

Uh and some of the the messages that I received were people freaking out that that's where the bike path was going to be that close to the front of their home.

So I'm hoping that you can provide a little bit of clarification for me as well as clarification for those watching the meeting tonight.

So I'm gonna look at public works even.

I'm not aware of purple flag color in terms of markouts.

Um I apologize.

I'm not gonna answer that.

Be happy to go out and check them out tomorrow and clarify.

It could be pink.

If the purple are pink.

Okay.

So I I guess with I'd be cautious about answering that without observing them myself.

Um again, the bike path is not moving outside of the existing right-of-way.

Okay, it is the property line, and those would be worst case, uh, they would be grading limits.

Again, we're just trying to re-flatten people's lawn to the best possible.

We would be happy to work with them if they don't want that level of grading and reseeding in their front yard, we can shorten those distances on their property.

Mr.

Nemeyer, were you gonna address the flags?

Yes, thank you, Council President.

I was just gonna note that neither purple nor pink are standard um Minnesota markings for utilities, so it's likely it has something to do with the survey, but um it wouldn't be marking a utility in that case.

Okay, no, that's just great.

I I I think that's where some of the communication from from that we're receiving from the the community uh it's just that there's not been a lot of clarification, maybe or in in communication exactly where that bike path is is landing.

So I appreciate that clarification this evening.

Uh councilmember Palmer.

Thank you.

Um I understand people's problems outside of Third Avenue West and East.

I mean, to me, that those are the the commercial area and everything outside of that becomes residential.

So um in and we're not heard a lot from people in Southwest, but I don't think they understand that when this bridge goes in, traffic's gonna increase on 6th Street Southwest all the way to St.

Mary's.

And so that that to me is a a problem as much as it is in Southeast Rochester, and I understand that.

Somehow, and and I've lived on Eighth Avenue Southeast.

My grandma had a house there since 1947, so I'm familiar with the neighborhood and I run it a lot.

And so what I'd like to do is somehow convince or somehow come up with some idea outside the Third Avenue's heading west and heading east.

How do we make sure these residential people understand that we're not going to be wrecking their neighborhood completely?

It is going to change.

And I don't know, you know, 9th Street Southeast got rebuilt, and that's a residential street.

Is that a familiar or is it going to end up a little bit like 9th Street Southeast when when RPU went through there?

Uh Councilmember Palmer, thank you for the question.

Uh slightly different uh functional classification, but not necessarily unlike what happened along 9th Street with the improvements to that corridor.

I mean, we had existing trees, we had new sidewalk, we got new curb in and we did that.

Have we done a traffic study?

Has speeds increased, has traffic increased on 9th Street since we did that.

I can't answer that tonight.

I'd have to talk to the traffic team, but it's something we could go out and collect information on.

Because I mean the fear of the unknown is is real, and and and I'm trying to do is is is somehow could not convince them, but but make them feel at ease that we're not just running in a super highway down the middle of their neighborhood.

And in I but if I had a house there, I would be concerned with this.

But I think 9th Street to me, if you could do a traffic and say, hey, we didn't increase traffic that much, or this is what we're going to do.

And again, if we have flags out in people's front yards and we don't know what they're doing, that's a little concerning.

I mean, if I came home and saw flags in my front yard, I'd be like, and I understand construction.

So I mean, if I don't, that that would be really concerning to me.

Um, so somehow I want, I don't I don't just want it to be a few people.

I want us as a council to say we really want this to work well for all the neighbors in that area.

And what can we do to assure that outside the Third Avenue?

Is that fair?

Mr.

Sampson Brown, do you have an answer to the flag question?

Uh well, uh Councilmember Palmer, how do we you asked how do we uh let people know?

So one of the things we're our project team is actively working with the communications team to re-engage with the public starting in a few weeks through a series of meetings to help them uh explain how we got to here, where we're going, give them an opportunity for more feedback on things that are still under design that um have to do with landscaping and things like that.

So we're gonna have more opportunity for clarification, and then also each property owner that did have flags put in their front yard has received a letter from our consultant regarding the acquisition process.

Uh that letter had the name of uh project manager Jamie Wilson from our team on it with a phone number and email.

So um they did receive a letter and contact information with questions, and we have not received a lot of questions yet.

So understanding that perhaps you all are receiving more questions than we are, we will uh double back to to clarify to let people know we're available.

My my experience in North Broadway with the businesses was that when they received cards or letters, they didn't necessarily read them.

And so I don't know what else we can do if we have to do door hangers or something.

We're not talking, we're talking eight blocks on in the southeast part, and I don't know what the what the west part is talking about, but I think that some kind of a door hanger to to let people know this is who you contact, and this is real.

And I don't know the mix of rental versus home ownership, and that's a huge deal because I mean the renters concern isn't big, but the homeowners that yes.

Happy to I've had prior good luck in my prior uh projects with door hangers, people pay attention, so that we can uh we will be out walking and knocking on doors, so we'll make ourselves.

Ms.

Steinhauser, did you have something to add?

Yeah, thank you, Council President Schubert.

I would just say we also have a presence at the neighborhood association meetings.

Um they only meet quarterly, so that is a little bit of a challenge as compared to others that meet monthly, but we will go back and we will incorporate additional strategies into our engagement beyond what Steve has shared this evening, because these are all great points raised.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Yes.

I was just gonna add one thing.

It is a little bit of a different situation from 9th to 6th, because 9th T is on Broadway and 6 right into a very busy street already coming all the way from 52.

So it is a it is a sizable difference.

I I don't know that not to throw gas on a fire here, but I don't know that that's a fair comparison, actually.

Any further discussion?

Is there a motion on this item?

I'll make a motion.

Uh go ahead.

Mr.

Keene, yeah, I got it here.

Adopting a resolution authorizing and directing the um proper city officials and agents to secure the city's ownership of act of the acquisitions of the Sixth Street Bridge, Riverfront Street Improvements, project number J7919 by direct purchase and if necessary through um exercising of enemies domain.

Uh motion made by council member uh Palmer.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Seconded by Councilmember Keene, Councilmember Palmer.

I have nothing more to say.

Thank you.

Councilmember Keene.

The only thing I'll add is it is uh you your your um antenna should go up when you see eminent domain um because it is something that's you can be a very disruptive government action.

But I we went through this on second street, and it appears that what we're dealing with here and what we deal with in 2nd Street is a very well-defined legal process that has all kinds of uh you know kind of process tied around it to make sure the people that are affected by eminent domain are treated fairly further discussion.

I I actually am going to vote against this, and um the reason why is I I and I heard Mr.

Samson Brown talk about we're going to start engaging, and I know there have been some uh community engagement uh opportunities in the past.

I don't know that they've been very successful.

I don't know that the community felt that they were being engaged.

I think maybe they felt like they were being uh told what was going to happen.

I think as uh council member uh Keene said when that word is in there, the the engagement should be extremely strong and heavy and uh door to door.

Uh I also do know this neighborhood well, and it uh is a neighborhood that is changing.

I would say to the neighbors there that it is a neighborhood that uh that is probably one of the last bastions of affordable housing, first-time housing in Rochester, close to downtown.

Now, if you would say that a 250 to 300,000 house is affordable today, that's what you're gonna get in uh that neighborhood.

There is a changing demographic there, and the that demographic is interested in moving to that neighborhood because it is close to the close to downtown.

It is uh close to walking and biking, and so I think the change that is happening is going to happen.

Uh we just need to be very uh conscious of the neighbors there and make that change as uh as communicative as as we can as it happens and uh with the the traffic uh coming in after the bridge goes up.

So with that, uh all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed say nay.

Nay.

Uh motion passes four to two with council member Fredericks and Schubring voting in opposition.

Moving on to uh we have no count we have no council initiated actions, we have no uh ordinance readings, uh other business.

Uh uh we will uh is there a motion to recess to the economic development authority?

Moved second moved by council member Keene, seconded by council member Fredericks.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Uh uh a uh I'll call the uh Rochester Economic Development Authority into uh session.

We have no organizational business.

Uh our consent agenda uh we have the uh minutes of the June 16th, 2025 meeting.

Is there a motion to uh I'll move to approve the consent agenda?

Fredericks, all in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

Say nay.

Uh uh we are now moving back to uh the city council meeting.

Is there a motion to accept the findings of the EDA?

So moved.

Second moved by council member uh Palmer, seconded by councilmember Wall.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Any other business for tonight?

Seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Uh move moved by councilmember uh Palmer, seconded by Councilmember Keene.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

We are adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.