Heather, will I get a cue for uh recording?

What we're ready to go.

Thank you.

Good.

Please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Yes.

One nation under God.

Liberty.

Thank you.

And welcome to our September 8th City Council meeting.

Welcome to our temporary chambers here in uh the uh RPU offices.

We'll be here for, I believe, maybe the next six weeks or so uh as the chambers at City Hall are renovated and uh brought to state of the art uh equipment.

So uh starting off our council meeting, we begin every meeting with our open comment period.

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

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

I will be keeping track of time through a couple methods, the uh clock in the back of which I can see, and then at the end of the table by the mayor, you'll see the stop light, and it will turn yellow at I believe it's uh 30 seconds.

Is that right, Ann?

30 seconds?

A minute.

So you get the yellow, you that's half your time is up.

So um and uh uh we'd also ask you to uh be concise uh to allow more people to speak during the designated time.

Uh participants are further encouraged to limit your comments generally to topics which are within the scope of uh the city council and uh uh and if you have any materials to share with the council, you may give them to the city clerk and Casey over there at that desk, and she will distribute them.

And uh the city council does not respond directly to your comments, but uh either we or staff will get back to you if you have requests.

Um with that, I am going to start with Andris Wong.

Andrew, thank you.

I'm sorry.

Sounds good.

Well, good evening, council members.

My name is Andrew Wong.

I live in the Bamberwood neighborhood.

I'm here tonight because our neighborhood is being asked to absorb new traffic from Ponderosa Pine Development on streets that your own staff has admitted, don't meet today's engineering standards.

This admission is not new.

As far back as 2002, public works memos and council discussions identified Bamboad Roads as substandard.

Too narrow, too steep, and unsafe for added traffic.

In 2007, the same conclusion was reaffirmed.

In 2016, 15th Avenue Southwest underwent roadway improvements before connecting.

Yet today, with the same roads now 20 years older, the city is allowing a full traffic connection with no improvements and no traffic study.

At the 2023 neighborhood information meeting, residents also raised concerns about this road connection.

The minutes submitted to the city by the applicant, emitted both our objections and the developer's statement that no connection would be made.

The city has since said no objections were on record, but that's only because the record was incomplete.

Our voices were silenced.

This is a break in due process, and it undermines trust when applicant prepared notes are treated as official record.

We understand the city values connectivity, but connectivity cannot come at the expense of safety, fairness, and trust.

Right now, the city is applying modern traffic standards to 50-year-old roads and knows are already deficient.

This is inconsistent.

It is unsafe and it erodes confidence uh in the process.

Given this history, our ask are straightforward and reasonable.

Do not open this connection to vehicles until a proper safety traffic study is completed and mitigations are in place in the interim, allow only pedestrian and bicycle access.

Implement safety measures for our neighborhood before vehicle traffic is introduced, traffic calming, signage, lighting, and pedestrian protections.

Publicly acknowledged that residence concerns and developer response in 2023 were admitted from the record.

We are not here to stop growth or progress.

Yet our own council members suggested our goals may be unrealistic.

I would challenge that.

So we are asking for something very basic.

Apply proper traffic safety analysis to roads you already admit are unsafe and put protections in place before opening this connection to vehicles.

If keeping kids safe while they walk, bike, or wait for a bus is considered unrealistic, then the process itself is broken.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Wong.

Next we have please uh uh in order to keep going.

Uh please uh refrain from applause during speaker time.

Thank you.

Uh our next speaker is Craig Martins.

Hello, Mayor, Council.

Thank you for uh allowing me to speak.

I've talked to you before.

The topic is the sports complex not meeting uh community needs.

It does serve national youth baseball teams, it serves economic development, it serves hotels and motels.

When we voted for the sports complex, the first video said we would revot a regist regional sports and recreation center, state of the art facilities for Rochester residents, indoor courts, outdoor athletic fields, and community meeting spaces.

That was in re renewrochester.org.

Now there is a switched plan, and the uh it seems that RCTC is involved now, also.

I'm requesting that a public hearing be supported by you, the council, and that you what you would discuss is the 65 million, 16.4 year half percent sales tax, Rochester National Youth Baseball Center and $5 pickleball facility.

The public hearing should include by you, uh a presentation by the city council, the sports complex business plan, the contract plan with sports academy, who has designed it and will probably contract it, and the financing cost of the plan.

Now I sort of took a poll and said who's it's it's a politically restless situation.

You just lost the post bulletin.

They uh they don't support anymore.

Uh you've got uh people who like baseball.

You uh lost the soccer people.

You lost you have the lost mothers of children, you lost women's organization, indoor pickleballers, you lost the community who wanted meeting rooms.

You lost representative Kim Hicks, you lost the handicapped and minority.

You have lost indoor recreation exercisers.

You have the full support of restaurants and motels, economic developers, sports academy of California, and the city administration.

Now uh Mr.

Martins, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Uh I'm gonna also ask uh people in the audience because this room is smaller than our chambers.

We can hear voices whispering.

So if you can retain re refrain as much as you can from speaking during other speakers, thank you.

Uh, next up we have John Eckerman.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Council members.

Uh love the tie, Councilmember Wall.

This could be the year.

This could be the year.

Uh John Eckerman, uh 11725 Sandy Point Lane Northeast.

Uh, here today in uh for support of the startup funds uh for the International Relations Committee.

Um, I've served on that committee for a couple years now when it was reinstated.

Uh I'm in the co-chair of the Xi Hung City South Korea group.

And uh I've had the fortune uh long time ago, 20 years ago, but I was able to go to Xi Hung City uh twice when we first uh signed the proclamation for the sister city, and uh they uh came here a couple times as well, their contingent of government officials and business leaders, and uh just a wonderful experience and the hospitality that they shared uh to us uh you know with uh dinners and gifts, and uh and we had funds to reciprocate as well.

Uh we were able to do some things for them, not as extravagant as what uh was done there, but uh, but something that uh again to continue the relationships and we had uh uh art exhibits, we had students, we had business leaders.

It was a great experience and uh happy that the mayor brought brought this back to get going again.

We had a little uh uh experience with others as well.

Uh the there's a Japanese group that just went.

I know Councilmember Miller uh went as well and had a great experience uh with that.

And uh we also had a group that went as well from uh uh Xiang City uh from uh Joel uh Traver from the Willowna State University brought students.

So again, um they had a great experience.

Um it's a world experience, and we're looking just for some startup funds to get things going again.

So thank you for the time and uh thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Next up we have Stephen Cosse.

Thank you, Cozy.

Um on August 24th, I was celebrating my birthday.

Uh, what should have been a joyful night became one of the most painful experiences of my life.

Um, I was assaulted by a bouncer at Elsie's venue here in Rochester.

Uh, when I turned to Rochester's police department for help, I was ignored.

My injuries and my voice was dismissed, and I was left to feel like my pain did not matter.

I was issued a citation while laying unconscious in in the ER without any proof of the bouncer's claims, despite the fact that there's a full video floating around showing his him as him assaulting me.

I woke up with a fractured nose, which resulted in surgery.

Not long after I saw the same bouncer at a gas station.

I confronted him asking, uh, why did he do this to me?

At first he denied it, but when I reminded him of what he had done, he finally said, I'm sorry.

That apology did not heal me, and I'm still left to carry physical pain, the emotional trauma, and the burden of being disregarded by law enforcement.

What makes it worse is that this individual is out with a known aggressive uh, I'm sorry, with known history of aggressive behavior, and he's allowed to walk free.

If nothing is done, it will not stop, and more residents will continue to be at risk.

Public safety cannot be upheld when accountability is ignored in the courtroom.

I am also homeless living in my car, yet trying every day to rebuild my life.

I came to reach I came to Rochester to start fresh, not to be a victim.

I stay before you ask and to be heard.

No one's celebrating their birthday.

I'm gonna skip that.

No victim should be no, no victim should be able to sit and watch the attack or walk walk free while I'm here literally struggling alone.

I actually need to take my story seriously and ensure accountability so that this does not happen to me again or to anyone else in this community.

Thank you, Mr.

Cosey.

Next we have Kathy Coleman.

Hi from the Bamberwood Um Development Southwest Rochester.

Um I believe the city council's decision regarding the Ponderosa Pines development and a roadway connection to 14th Avenue Southwest was made without members being apprised of key data and prior findings.

The connection decision has overlooked and completely disregarded roadway surveys over the past 20 years, surveys conducted by the City of Rochester and private engineering firms, as well as findings of fact from previous council decisions.

The safety of people living in and traveling through Bamberwood has been ignored.

Facts and data and findings have been ignored.

And this roadway connection decision is placing Rochester residents at absolutely unnecessary risk.

The roads through our neighborhood have been legally established as substandard.

There is an extensive body of findings documenting safety concerns and inadequate roadways.

The required public notification process was not followed.

Verbal information shared by the developer at a community community meeting has been dismissed and deemed irrelevant.

We have asked questions about traffic considerations and received no answers.

How is it determined that the traffic was going to be minimal enough not to do a traffic study?

How did the developer get a waiver to this?

We've received no answers.

There's no planning or legal framework that requires this connection.

We also have now documented communication from the city to us that there is currently no funding for roadway improvements in Bamberwood, though they are needed, and that those might happen sometime in the future.

So our roads are acknowledged as needing upgrades, but not now.

The whole process from start to finish, either overlooked or disregarded essential and documented procedural steps and community safety.

We'd ask that you stop this connection until further studies can be made, conduct a traffic and safety study, engage with stakeholders, and explore alternative solutions that best serve the community's interest.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Laurie Campbell.

Good evening.

I'm Lori Campbell, treasurer of the International Relations Committee, which runs the Rochester Sister City program.

I believe this is an important program as we are a global city.

There is a proposal for providing 20,000 for startup funds for our committee.

I fully support that item and hope that the console will support it during the reports and recommendations.

I've heard this is going to be a late night for you guys, but I will be watching via YouTube tonight.

So thank you again for your support.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Stephen Fisher.

Good evening.

I've been a resident of Rochester for the last decade.

It's my first time coming to city council on a uh personal matter.

It's in continuation of Mr.

Wong and Ms.

Coleman's regards regarding the Beaverwood neighborhood and the connection for the Ponderosa development.

Two primary points I'd like to make.

One elaborating on the safety uh notes that my colleagues have commented about before.

This additional connection would put increased traffic towards a known bus stop for children.

I have two small children of my own, two and three months.

And with the cities, excuse me, with the city's uh acknowledgement around the gap and funding and known budget issues, there is no existing connection or improvements to be made in my neighborhood for the next five to six years.

So, should a continuation of this connection be made, there's an acknowledgement that there, unless something changes, not no visible improvements to safety or connection.

So we have increased traffic coming out of bus stop for small kids.

More than anything, I am sufficiently disappointed as a parent in this community.

There doesn't seem to be an acknowledgement around this issue.

And while the meeting and the um discussions with the city uh officials who've been cordial professional, there's sufficient gaps in the neighborhood information notice.

So there's no known confirmation that residents will actually receive and get that despite issues being noticed.

There's also people notified on the east side of 52, someone who doesn't even have any visible connection to this issue.

Yet, despite my property line being outside 350 feet, I was not notified.

So more than anything, I'm asking the city council to look into the neighborhood information meeting and please halt this connection until further evaluation is done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Fisher.

Uh that concludes uh the people who signed up.

Is there anyone else who wishes to be heard during our open comment period?

Step forward, state your name.

You have two minutes.

Uh Jesse Loomis with uh, I guess F25 would be the number on at the bike path assessment they're trying to do through our property.

Um, but the city already owning plenty of land with many of road easements.

I'm not sure why the thought of stealing people's land from them for a bike path is any way conchable in any of your minds.

Um, there's city property that is owned to the west of us, which they can continue around, bring it to any road easements you could possibly want to get your connection to shops on Maine to Walmart South, wherever you want to go with it, but there is no reason to steal people's land to further benefit what you guys feel is a benefit to the city when there's every alternative route to get it there.

So that's about all I have to say to you guys about it.

Thank you.

We have time for one more is uh step forward, state your name.

Um, I'm Samanda Loomis.

I'm his sister, and it um our family property with the Willow Creek Regional Trail Project is what it's called for F 25.

Um the process tonight is to get the approval to have people come and do the geographical studying of the land to for the bike project that is going to the new sports complex in the future.

Um, but yeah, we just going around town.

There's plenty of CD property, the new bike path connecting 20th streets.

You could go down that to 11th and take it out that way and hit the roundabout and go that way to the city complex.

We just feel there's lots of alternatives than getting this passed for the entry to get studies on our land and then maybe going the imminent domain court route.

Um, we're just really trying to avoid that as a family.

We just don't we have a body of water on the property, the dangers for people going by water, wanting to fish, wanting to swim, something that you know we would have to worry about if it's all of a sudden exposed to public access for people.

So it's more of a safety concern for us for the community, and I just think there's other alternatives for city access for this bike path.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh that concludes our public comment period.

Uh, at this point, I will call the meeting to order and ask Clerk Caseel to please call the role.

Good evening.

Councilmember Keene.

Here.

Councilmember Miller.

Here.

Councilmember Wall.

Here.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Here.

Councilmember Palmer is absent.

Councilmember Doring.

Here.

Council President Schubring.

Here.

Mayor Norton.

Present.

Thank you.

We now have the city administrators report.

Administrator Selms.

Uh, thank you, Council President.

Uh, Councilmembers, Mayor Norton, members of the public.

We always start this by thanking our teammates for acting with respect, integrity, safety, and excellence, and everything that they do, whether they're in an office or the city is their office.

Um, so just thanks to all our teammates who are out there making sure that we're providing great service to the community.

Um, also wanted to point out, and I'm just gonna ask the clerk to advance because this isn't clicking from this far away, um, that the Rochester Fire Department is going to be hosting the, I believe it's the fourth annual women's expo.

It's at Olmsted County Public Safety Training Center on 1515, 50th Street, Southeast Rochester, Sunday, October 5th from noon to 5.

Uh, women and girls 16 and up can register on our website.

Uh, it's $10 registration fee, and it is open until September 21st or until it fills up and it has filled up in the past.

Um, so if that's something that you're interested in and determining whether or not that might be a career path for you, we would encourage you to sign up and attend.

Um, it's a great experience, even if you don't end up wanting to be a firefighter.

Um, so the next thing I wanted to point out is um the uh mindfulness in nature um series that's hosted by Laura Lens.

Um that will be at the Cory Hill Nature Center on September 13th, October 11th, and November 22nd from 9 30 a.m.

to 11 30 a.m.

It's no cost, it's for adults 18 years old and up.

Um it's two hours.

You can meet at the nature center, and there will be about a half mile walk.

Um, there will be accommodations for folks, but um just a mindfulness and nature opportunity for folks to reduce stress at Quarry Hill.

Also a parks item.

Um, if you utilize Cascade Lake Trail, it's been closed since September 2nd, and um we have a couple weeks to go.

Um, the trail is expected to reopen on when on weekends uh throughout the closure um for use to the public.

Um, but just wanted to note that that there is a trail closure there right now for some construction that's underway.

So be aware of that.

And then lastly, it is a little bit better time.

So um their fall cleanup is going to be forthcoming October 4th through October 12th.

You can learn more at our neighbors.org forward slash events forward slash litter bit better um to find out how you can participate or sign up.

So that's all I have.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh next up we have the mayor's report.

Mayor Norton, please take it away.

Thank you.

And I'm hoping someone will move the slides for me.

Thank you.

Um, the first thing I'm going to share is a proclamation.

Um, and it reads as follows.

Whereas Partner Appreciation Day on September 16th, 2025 is a day to show your partners that they matter and to recognize the value they bring to our lives.

And whereas Partner Appreciation Day is a time to show all the partners in our lives, our life partners, business partners, pickleball partners, all partners, professional and personal.

And whereas September 16th was chosen by Ant Shofolious to honor her father Gusha Folius for his modeling of partnership and collaboration, as this is his birthday.

And whereas this day invites people and organizations to mark the day with a special act of kindness toward a partner.

This meaningful gesture can uplift the recipient and inspire them to pass kindness and appreciation along, creating a multiplying ripple effect.

And whereas appreciation can be intimate, like a handwritten note, a small gift, a shared meal, or more broad, such as an organization's thanking a corporate part partner, its employees are recognizing volunteer support.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Kim Norton, mayor of the city of Rochester, do hereby proclaim September 16th, 2025 as partner appreciation day in the city of Rochester.

And I encourage everyone from individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and community groups to participate.

Simple actions can leave a lasting impact.

In witness where I have a hearing to set my hand and cause the corporate seal, the city of Rochester to be affixed the 16th day of September 2025.

I understand Dr.

Paul Scanlon is here to accept the certificate.

Thank you.

Next up, I'm just gonna make a little bit of brief statement.

I've kind of been making a habit of this, uh, something about the Rochester Police Department every uh every month.

Uh the Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation of Southeast Minnesota is holding a dedication ceremony for the new Southeast Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Site, which is at 7th Street South Southwest and George Gibbs Drive, Southwest.

Um, this Thursday, September 11th at 6:30.

The memorial service serves as a place to honor and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

RPD's honor guard will be participating in the presentation of colors on this 9-11 event.

So that's just a notice.

Next up, I would like to acknowledge uh our senator Carla Nelson.

She was uh honored by the League of Minnesota Cities, um, and they asked that we recognize her publicly at a city council meeting.

So we are doing so tonight.

Um, she's not here, but um the the legislation that she passed um is a city-friendly legislation that continues to strengthen the partnership between state and local government officials and was one of the and uh what was one of the priorities for the League of Minnesota Cities.

So we recognize Senator Carla Nelson today.

Uh next up, I just have a quick picture up there to share two things.

Um, this is the delegation uh that went to South Korea that we've talked about earlier this year as part of the International Relations Committee.

Um that is a group of Winona State University uh students who took the trip there.

I joined them on the last two and a half days uh to go to our sister city.

They were touring colleges and universities learning about teaching uh while they were there.

The bottom picture I share because I think it's fascinating, they created an island uh out in the ocean, uh, which they are developing as an economic development tool.

Uh, but for me, the thing I noticed was if you look at the air quality between 2018 and 2025, it's pretty startling.

Uh, they've been doing a lot of work on air quality there, and it shows in this picture in a pretty dramatic way.

So wanted to share that and just say this is one of our sister cities, Siong City, which you heard about earlier from Mr.

Ackerman.

Uh, and the next one is a couple of shots from the uh Japanese group that went uh that wasn't a Japanese group, is a group of Rochesterites, Americans who went to Japan for our sister city.

Um, and again, these were started by Mayor Chuck Hazama and uh Mayor Canfield, Mayor Brady, both participated in these events.

We haven't been doing anything up to this point, partly because of the pandemic.

Um, there were other things that we had to worry about.

And now we're trying to um restart the relationships that we've had.

So this was a delegation on the bottom.

You can see uh a group that met us at the airport.

It was a holiday, uh countrywide holiday.

They came anyway to greet us.

And um at the top, you see our delegation and the mayor of Siung City or of uh Akita, I'm sorry, in the wrong country.

And then the bottom right is uh we we attended as a delegation the Holocaust Memorial.

Um it was the 80th anniversary of the A-bomb.

And so we were able, that's the prime minister's picture.

He was speaking at the event, and we were granted space, thankfully, under in the shade, because it was brutally hot while we were there.

So wanted to share that.

Um there was an event this past uh month, I guess, in Chicago called Heartland Connect.

Um, they are working on trade and investments um across borders.

This one happens to be with China and uh DMC and the City of Rochester attended, and uh we're working on uh certainly on all of these countries.

International relations are important for our community.

It's an international community that you all have chosen to live in that we're a part of, and we try to maintain those relationships through attending events like this.

Um I think we're going to do one more, and we're gonna skip that one this month, and I'll come back.

We didn't have time today.

I did want to announce that the Rochester Umstead Youth Council, which is a city-county co-sponsored uh youth council, uh, is taking applications until for the next, I think it's um through October, from any student 14 to 20 years old, and it doesn't have to just be in Rochester, it can also be from the surrounding communities.

It's city county, and so all the county schools can students can participate as well, up through college.

Um these students meet the first Wednesday of every month from 5 to 6:30.

Um they hear from city and county leaders, learn a lot, strategize, give us input about things that they find important.

So and then they help us share information about the city with their colleagues um at school.

So they participate in events like Rochester Fest Juneteenth and a recent back to school rally.

It's a great group of kids that we really enjoy.

So that's my last uh announcement.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh next up we have our order of the agenda.

One note on the agenda.

Uh public hearing items G3, G4, and G5 will be combined into one public hearing.

However, we we will be taking three separate votes on uh these items and items G3 and G4 will require a supermajority.

Uh so with that, are there any other changes to the order of the agenda?

Seeing none, is there a motion to accept I'll move to or accept the order of the agenda with one comment?

Uh moved by council member Keene.

Seconded by Councilmember uh Wall.

All in favor say aye.

Uh, just just one comment.

Oh, you had your own comment actually.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, just want to point out that.

You were referring to my comment.

I apologize.

Go ahead, Councilmember Keene.

I just wanted to point out anyone who had pulled the uh uh agenda earlier on uh last Thursday or Friday.

There was a document added on F11 that is a copy of the contract, and that's in the the current package as it's posted right now.

And that's that's what we'd be um uh approving that as part of the agenda.

Thank you, council member.

Any other comments?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to our consent agenda.

I have not received any polled items for from the consent agenda.

Is that correct?

Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda in full?

So moved.

Moved by council member Miller, seconded by council member Fredericks.

Uh all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Uh we have four public hearings on our agenda tonight.

Six items for public hearings.

And before we begin the public hearings, I just wanted to clarify the process for public hearings.

Uh staff will introduce uh the presentation.

And uh, and then uh if there is an applicant or an applicant representative, then they will have up to 10 minutes to discuss their application.

And then I will open the public hearing.

Members of the public each will have five minutes to uh discuss the item.

Uh but again, we are uh encouraged folks to keep comments brief and concise.

And uh once uh members of the public have spoken, I'll close the public hearing.

The applicant will have five minutes to uh uh respond to any issues that may have come up during the public hearing.

After that, uh council members will have an opportunity to ask questions of staff and the applicant.

And uh after that, we will invite a motion on the item.

So with that, I will begin with item G1, which is a major land subdivision by SCS Rochester LLC, and uh this item will be presented by Mr.

Desmond McGill.

Thank you, Council uh President Shubring, members of the council, Mayor Norton.

Good evening.

Uh, this is a major land subdivision for a project known as Savannah Rochester.

Uh the subject site is located at the southeast corner of 50th Avenue Northwest and uh Badger Hills Drive Northwest.

Uh the property is located in an R2 zoning district.

The applicant has proposed four parcels consisting of two outlots and two block parcels.

However, it should be noted that there is a condition requiring the elimination of two of the outlaws as separate parcels.

Um the subdivision also uh includes the extension of Alpha Parkway, Northwest, a collector road uh from Badger Hills on the north to 50th Avenue Northwest on the west side.

Uh this site is intended for a 196 uh unit rental townhome community with a mix of four, six and eightplex structures uh and a community clubhouse.

A general development plan was approved for this project uh in December of 2024.

And um uh there is a currently a site plan in process.

Um that's my introduction.

I'd be happy to answer any questions uh when after the public hearing.

Thank you, Mr.

McGill.

Uh is the applicant or a representative of the applicant here, please uh uh state your name name and uh you have 10 minutes.

Hey, good evening, members of the council.

Um, Adam Plushcourt and I'm with Wood Seth, uh the engineer in the job.

Uh and I got Ryan here with me.

He's with Wood Seth as well.

He's the designer on it, and Tim uh is with the owner.

So um doesn't do a good job explaining it, and we'll be around for questions.

Um, we've read the conditions that are in agreement with them.

Um and we've been working with RP Water or you know, RP Electric and Public Works just uh address any concerns they may have.

So we'll be around for questions.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh this is a public hearing.

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

This is a public hearing.

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

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite the applicant back up for any closing comments they have.

You don't have to have closing comments.

Okay.

Uh at this point, I will invite members of the council to uh uh ask questions on this.

Uh council member Keene.

Yeah, I just want to ask staff if they could explain that idea of like we have the outlots and there's a condition to not have outlots.

Can you explain where that's going?

Thank you for the question.

Uh yes, uh, there are two outlaws associated with their proposal.

Um the intent of the the outlaws was to uh facilitate or be the place for their private retention facilities.

Uh there's um no need to have them as separate parcels.

Um, and of course, uh it's possible that over time um, you know, if uh taxes weren't paid on those parcels that it could be um, you know, portrait to the county.

So we just want to make sure that the the retention bases stay part of the uh parent parcels.

I I'm sorry, I'm not understanding yet.

Are they still outlauts or are they now owned by the city or are they owned by the owner?

I it would be owned by the owner.

Okay.

Yeah, with easements on them for potential yeah, for for the facilities.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Any further questions?

Is there a motion on this item?

I'll I'll uh I'll move to adopt a resolution approving major land subdivision number CD 2025-025 plat by SCS Rochester LLC to be known as Savannah Rochester with two conditions for the subdivision of 30.17 acres into two blocks consisting of two outlots, two lots and two outlots.

Uh moved by council member Keene and seconded by Councilmember Fredericks.

Uh anything further to add?

No, nothing to add.

Councilmember Wall.

Uh, I remember exploring at the neighborhood information meeting uh the concept of uh rental townhomes, and there have been at least a couple of uh communities that we have or developments that we have approved uh in the past oh 12 months, uh, which really haven't uh gotten legs.

So would certainly like to uh hear some um support uh for the idea of another rental town home community, and it could be either the developer or the city.

Thank you, council member.

I think that was your we heard your comment.

Or you weren't asking for an answer.

Or were you?

Oh would uh the applicant can come up and respond to the market if I can say something.

I'm Tim Kavanaugh with uh Stonely Companies.

We're the owner of SCS Rochester.

This is a fourth one that we've done in these, and they've been surprisingly successful.

The units are really they're you know, we really focus on the quality, and they got vaulted ceilings, they're all one story.

Um this is a very graded site, so there's a lot of transition.

So I think that's gonna be really it's gonna be pretty exciting.

So we've had a lot of good luck.

Uh we've run it about faster than we expected, and the input that we have from all our residents has been really good.

So I think I think you'll be real happy with it.

Any further discussion on this item?

Councilmember Dory.

Yeah, I was going to, I was going to ask a very similar question to council member Wall's question.

And I'm kind of curious what is if these are rental properties, what are the rentals?

What are the rates?

Uh, or are we too early in the development process to determine that?

Could you give us a ballpark figure?

Well, yeah, yeah, we do it by square foot.

And I will say that the similar ones that we've done in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa have all been started out in a 185 to 190 195 square square foot.

Okay.

So seeing no one else wishing to be heard.

Uh we have a motion on the floor.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to item G2, which is a vacation uh petition by Rochester School District.

And uh Mr.

McGill, this one's yours as well.

Uh thank you, President Schrebring, uh Mayor Norton, members of the council again, Desmond McGill, community development.

Uh this is a request for a right-of-way vacation for two alleyways uh located uh on the Northrop Education Facility in the central part of town in Low Town.

Uh this consists of uh vacating two alleyways on on the school site property.

Uh the alleyways are located between 9th Street Northwest and 8th Street Northwest and east of Fourth Avenue and west of 2nd Avenue Northwest.

Neither the subject, neither the alley right-of-way uh serves any uh access to any other property other than uh the North Rock education facility, and there are no public utilities uh located in the existing corridors.

Uh the applicant has noted that uh additional structures may be developed uh at the education center in the future uh because the development cannot extend over property lines, eliminating uh the yally ways will provide the the uh owner more flexibility uh uh to uh relating to the juxtaposition of uh the the uh buildings and uh uh the setbacks won't be as much of an impact with uh with not having to contend with those.

So uh planning commission is recommending approval as so is as well as staff uh I'd be happy to answer any questions the council may have.

Thank you, Mr.

McGill.

Is there a representative of uh Rochester Public Schools here?

Please uh identify yourself and you have 10 minutes.

Thank you, President Schubring, uh Mayor Norton and Council.

I'm John Carlson and the chief administrative officer of Rochester Public Schools.

I just wanna re-uh confirm that we intend to keep using Northrop uh education center the same way as we have been.

This was something that we are actually trying to clean up for the records as we were doing a parking lot project this summer.

So we just wanted to get everything um signed, sealed and delivered.

And as stated, it would give us some flexibility if we need to change anything at the site in the future.

So those are the end of my remarks.

Thank you, Mr.

Carlson.

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

And we have uh Beth Helm de Bira that has uh signed up.

And uh you have five minutes.

I just heimed debe and I just have a question because I'm not it's not clear to me exactly what the proposal is.

I live right across the street from Northrop, so uh I just want to make sure that I'm gonna be able to get to my house.

Sure.

Okay, we'll uh it ask any questions that you have.

And once that's really close public hearing, then we'll we'll make sure staff answers your question.

Okay.

Is that it?

All right, thank you.

Uh is 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 no one, I will close the public hearing and invite Mr.

Carlson back up, and maybe you have a an answer to uh the uh neighbor's question.

Thank you for the question.

So my understanding is nothing is changing.

We are uh simply updating the parking lot and it's been paved uh this summer, um, but we're not cutting off access to any neighbors.

Thank you.

Council uh members, any questions for staff or the applicant on this item?

Seeing none, is there a motion on this item?

Sure.

Uh I will move to adopt a resolution approving vacation petition number CD 2024-006, VAC by Rochester Public School District for the vacation of two alley right-of-ways within block 13 of Northern Addition Subdivision.

Motion made by Councilmember Doring.

Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilmember Keene.

Uh Councilmember Doring, any more to add?

Nothing to add.

Councilmember Keene.

I I did a little looking into this today just because of what the public good was and and why we'd be granting this to a landowner.

And I was convinced through the discussion that there is value to the city.

Thank you.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Moving on to uh items G3, G4, and G5.

As I mentioned before, these will be uh staff will present this as one item.

And uh and then uh I believe the applicant will come up uh after that, and then we'll have a public hearing on uh these three items.

And it's a growth management map amendment, a comprehensive plan amendment, and an annexation uh petition.

And uh we have uh Mr.

Moeller doing this one.

Evening, uh Council President, members of the council, mayor, uh Elliot Muller with Rochester Community Development.

Um and tonight uh I'll be introducing these three applications.

Um they're all related to one another.

Um so the first is the growth management map amendment, CD 2025 002 GMMA by the City of Rochester, and the second one's a comprehensive plan amendment, CD 2025 003 CPA by the City of Rochester, and the third would be the annexation petition, CD 2025 004 ANX by Pulti Homes in Minnesota.

Um so the request uh the site um is located in southwest um of the intersection of country club road and 45th Avenue Southwest, and it's currently outside city limits, hence the annexation request.

Um all in all, the three requests that you are looking at tonight.

Um the first is to amend approximately 175 acres of land from urban reserve beyond 2050 to near-term urban expansion, change the land use designation of approximately 175 acres from urban reserve to low density residential, and then third, incorporate 120 acres of the site into the city limits.

Um so in 2018, the city adopted the comprehensive plan, and with it, we adopted the growth management map amendment or growth management map.

Um, and then with the 2020 sewer um study, uh, this site was deemed to be beyond 2050.

So we weren't going to serve it until beyond the year 2050.

Well, um, a lot of that has evolved in the area, and there's currently uh uh city-led extension of sanitary sewer that will go to the corner of 45th um Avenue Southwest and Country Club Road West.

Uh uh, and that would basically ripen this uh area for um development.

Um and so when we're looking at making amendments to the growth management map, um, we're looking at one is there adequate infrastructure, um, so primarily sanitary sewer.

Not only is there a physical pipe there, but also is there capacity to serve um future development.

Um, and because this was uh designated as beyond 2050, there is no land use currently, and so part of that request would be to provide a land use.

Um, right now it's urban reserve, so technically there is land use, but it's more or less a holding um until we have further analysis on what development will occur in that area.

Um, and then lastly, uh incorporating 120 acres um by state statute, the applicant uh Pulti Homes in Minnesota can only annex up to 120 acres per calendar year.

So they'll be taking a phased approach, which I'll uh let the developer um address in their uh uh presentation after this.

Um really uh just trying to emphasize the fact that tonight we're looking at a couple only a few things.

We're making sure that there's adequate infrastructure there, um, and then that uh the future development would be uh consistent or would be consistent with low density residential development.

Um so there are um some uh future steps that the developer will have to take um in terms of application.

So the first being an environmental assessment worksheet, um which does include some traffic analysis components to it again.

That's just a fact-finding document.

Um, but they'll also have to go through a floodplain development permit, a shoreland protection permit, and then the major land subdivision, which would include a traffic study as well as the final plat.

And I bring those all up to you because again, tonight a lot of those um aspects such as traffic and um floodplain and uh the environmental features on the site are not necessarily what we're looking at, um, but those would be all addressed later on in the development process.

Um, with that, I'll um answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Mr.

Moeller.

Uh, is there a representative of the applicant here?

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

Hello, uh council president, madam mayor, members of the council.

I'm Dean Lauder.

I work for Poulty Homes here in the state of Minnesota.

And what I'd like to do is maybe walk you through a real quick slide deck, um, a PowerPoint so that I can illustrate to you what we're proposing for development on this site.

Is there an opportunity for us to bring that up, please?

In two.

Okay.

I'll uh are we good?

Or or should I just move forward a little bit?

Okay.

All right.

Does somebody have it staff?

I have it on a flash drive.

Sorry, Mr.

President.

No problem.

Do you want to speak to it as she's preparing it?

Certainly can.

What we're looking at proposing is what's called a Dell Web community.

Dell Web was a standalone company for decades, and they built iconic age-restricted 55 and up, sort of resort-style living type neighborhoods.

And in 2009, POLTY homes.

Thank you so much.

Pulti homes purchase Dell Web and now continues to own and operate that brand around the country.

Okay.

We are in 45 different markets in 29 states.

So we're a large national home builder.

We also do uh provide traditional housing of all different kinds.

We build all of that throughout the twin cities.

We've been interested in coming to Rochester for a number of years, and we're happy to be before you tonight.

Um there you go.

Here we go.

Um so Polte's been around since 1950.

Um here in Minnesota, we close uh about 650, 600 to 650 homes a year.

Um we're not quite on the scale of like a Lenar uh or a DR Horton, but we're still one of the top four or five national home builders across the country.

I'm gonna back up here just a minute.

So there's my entry slide.

Um here's our site plan.

It might be a little difficult uh for you to see it, but as Elliot mentioned, you know, the questions or the requested actions before you tonight are that growth management map amendment, comprehensive plan amendment, and annexation petition.

But should we be able to move forward?

Uh there's a couple different exciting things about this development that I'd like to briefly share.

Is a Dell Webb, it's highly amenitized.

There's kind of a big green area there to the west of the Middle West.

That's where we would propose to build uh an amenity center, which will have probably indoor outdoor swimming, pickleball courts, all sorts of activities that the residents would enjoy in this neighborhood.

Um they would still be single family homes, but they would be on different size lots, and depending on what the consumer would like to buy, we will try to cater to a wide range of needs and and prices.

In the middle of that site is Cascade Creek.

We're aware of the floodplain or the floodway, excuse me, on that site.

And uh so we are we currently have that under contract.

We're working with the sellers to free up our interest so that uh the public can purchase that land and then engage in the Cascade Creek rehabilitation project on that particular site.

Um we will be proposing several different locations for open space, uh trails, we'll have sidewalks on both sides of the road.

We understand that's uh a requirement here in Rochester.

So we're very excited to bring this forward.

As Elliot mentioned, you have Country Club Road on the north, 45th on the east side, and eighth on the south.

As mentioned, it's an age-restricted uh type proposal.

Here's a um aerial of the amenity center that we have at uh what we call Bellwether in Corcoran, Minnesota.

So while there are many Dell Webs throughout the south, southwest, and southeastern parts of the country, we only have two so far in the state of Minnesota.

Uh this would be our third in the state of Minnesota, should we be allowed to move forward?

But you can kind of see pickleball courts to the north of the building.

There's obviously outdoor swimming as well as indoor swimming.

There's a patio and cookout area.

Um, and then there's uh gym facility inside, yoga rooms, yoga classrooms, things like that.

Here's a uh shot of the amenity center at our Adelwood neighborhood, which is in Chaska, Minnesota.

This was our second um neighborhood that we built.

Both of these neighborhoods have done extremely well.

Bellwether in Corcoran is uh 550 home development.

This one was a 269 home development.

Um, so this amenity center, we size these to the neighborhood.

Uh, if we anticipate growth, then we will size for that growth also.

As you can see, well manicured, well maintained, all maintained by the HOA that will exist.

And just briefly, here's what our schedule looks like.

Should it again we be able to move forward?

Uh we will be submitting an EAW to the city probably by the end of this week.

That will have uh some key components, uh thorough traffic study, um a decor edge study, and then of course, all the components required under Minnesota law for an EAW.

We would hope to close on the site, uh the the north portion of the site.

I'll just back up a minute.

Um so everything north of the floodway, everything north of the floodway, we would be closing on hopefully spring of 2026.

We would start development on that portion of the site.

We'd likely be you know looking to sell homes in 2027.

We would then petition, come back to you for a petition for the second uh portion of the site, which was everything south of the floodway, and then we would move forward with developing that in time.

Um again.

This is the uh the grounds for the humanity center.

I don't know if there are any questions about schedule or the development itself.

Uh, but Mr.

President, that's my quick presentation.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Lauder, and we will call you back up after the uh public hearing.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh uh this is a public hearing.

Uh I do have uh several folks who have signed up for these items, and we will start with Saranda Kane.

Hi.

Good evening, Ms.

Mayor and Council.

My name is Dr.

Sunanda Kane.

I'm a physician at Mayo Clinic, and I'm here to represent Lily Farm parts one, two, three, and four.

We are busy Mayo clinicians and investigators who cherish the quiet rural like commute home after long hours downtown.

Right now we are navigating the construction of the new bold forward hospital.

And upon hearing that our commute might be disrupted with yet more construction, does not come with any joy.

If we wanted a four-lane highway and views of a 300 plus unit retirement development on our commute, we would work in a larger city.

Any new housing close to Mayo Clinic should be for our cherished allied health staff who cannot afford to live in Rochester and are forced to commute, or our elders who are needing assisted care facilities.

As a member of the clinical practice committee as chief patient experience officer for Mayo Clinic, I have surveyed many of my more senior colleagues at Mayo who are apparently going to move into this development.

And the vast majority do not have an appetite to live in such a community.

Again, if we wanted that, we would move to the cities to the two existing uh communities that are there, or to another state.

And I think that the representative from Pulti is a little um, he is uh he is a little humble because Poulty is actually the third largest builder of homes in the U.S., not fourth or fifth.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Dr.

Kane.

Uh next up we have uh Larry Dolphin.

Uh who's going uh are you uh Mary Beth Nelson?

Okay.

Okay, who's uh Mr.

Dolphin?

Are you gonna speak?

Yes, go ahead.

Come up to the microphone.

Yeah, I'm in the I'm in the neighborhood of uh development, and uh I'll just say uh, and I got I got some pictures, but uh uh Kelly's gonna uh uh share some of those as well.

But on uh just to be aware on July 7th, and I wasn't here uh July 7th to 2019.

I moved into uh Rochester about two years, a little over two years ago, and uh on July 7th, 2019, the land proposed for housing development after a 7-ish 24-hour rainfall is clearly flooded, and we have pictures of that, which uh I can share.

Okay, does it make sense to offer the housing for 55 years and older clients?

What about flood insurance for those 300 or so homes?

What about runoff from roads, sidewalks, driveways, rooftops that flow from the housing development into the floodplain or floodway?

There's there is a proposal to create more stream thread along with uh pooling uh areas for to hold more water.

Will there be enough storage to deal with the heavy flows that will come?

Has there been adequate study to show frequency of heavy rainfall events, such as seven inches, eight inches, nine inches, ten inches or more in the watershed?

Here's one example.

And uh I was at the nature center in Austin, so I have um Dobbins Creek, excuse me, flows through uh the JC Hormouth Nature Center in Austin, Minnesota has a 25,000 acre watershed.

The Cascade Creek watershed is very similar in size of 24,326 acres.

Agricultural land is the primary use on uh uh in that watershed, and Dobbins Creek shut down interstate 90 on June 12th, 2008.

I decided to check out Dobbins Creek the morning at 5 a.m.

to see what was happening with the water levels on uh Dobbins Creek at a bridge just behind the interpretive center at the nature center.

It's a quarter mile from Interstate 90.

It was on that on that uh basis or on the base of the bridge, the water was settling in.

And so when I came back, uh I went home, and it would the water was at the base of the bridge.

I went home and I thought, well, everything's okay.

I should maybe let the neighbor know, right?

Adjacent to the nature center.

I didn't, I should have.

I thought it was okay.

Uh when I was driving into uh back to the nature center to go to work about seven o'clock, and it uh two hours later, the water had risen five to six feet and shut down Interstate 90.

These little streams can blow up in a hurry.

Nancy and I and others would highly recommend a plan that slows down the water before it it uh enters the Rochester community and the Zumbro River.

We would encourage uh restoration of the land in the prairie, trees and trails all the way to the West Circle Drive.

We just don't see this as a good place to put housing.

We will encourage uh placement, we would encourage the placement of the project to higher ground.

And I I would say this too, regarding Dobbins Creek.

Uh the city of Austin is uh has worked hard on the on the Dobbins Creek, and there's about 3,500 acres uh right now that help mitigate the flooding and drops the head of the water down to where it uh uh will have less of an impact on the city of Austin.

And uh they're already they're also looking at another 1500 acres um in the Dobbins Creek watershed and trying to drop that head even more.

So uh thank you, Mr.

Dolphin.

Welcome.

Nancy, do you want to go next?

Yeah, why don't you state your name and uh you have five minutes?

I'm Karen Murray, and I live on 8th Street Southwest.

So and I'm to give to you.

Is it okay if I give some to the people audience also?

Uh why don't you just hand them to uh the folks here and they can pass them back?

All right, so I'll talk a little bit about um Lar what Larry touched on with the flooding.

I took these photos on the morning of July 7th, 2019.

I was standing on 45th.

Um, and anyone who lives around here who has for quite some time knows how high the corn is on July 7th.

It's probably waist high, and you can see that it's completely underwater, completely.

Um, and then on the second photo, the road is is totally underwater too.

Half of the road did wash away that morning.

So, and it isn't just the creek that floods.

I stood up there and the water is rushing down the hillside above where the current barn and silos are.

So it's creek plus it was a lot, a lot a lot of rain.

I don't know how a meandering creek rerouting that would do anything about a heavy rain event coming down the hillside.

Um, so there's that, of course.

Higher ground seems like a better option to me, if I was gonna build my home, or just in the interest of humanity, seeing these older folks down there, basements, patio homes, a flood happens, and now, like someone else had mentioned, asphalt concrete everywhere.

Grandma doesn't even have a upstairs to go to when a flash flood occurs quickly.

There's no time.

Um, and the other things I want to talk about are the wildlife.

The wildlife now really um habitate this area.

Uh, you know, not so much when the corn is there, but somewhat the deer are there when the corn is picked.

There are deer everywhere turkeys, coyotes, the geese, thousands of geese picking up, picking up eagles, um, thousands of geese picking up the corn that's left over after picking.

Um, and now, you know, we're all glad those animals are not in our yards, they're enjoying this big space down there.

And I hate to see any more encroachments um for the wildlife.

We've already taken so much away from them, especially close to Rochester, and it's gonna drive them more into the city too, deer, turkeys, coyotes.

Um, so there's that, and of course, you know, there's a big concern with traffic and noise.

And we live in the country now because it's quiet and peaceful, and it won't be anymore.

So those are my main concerns.

Thank you, Miss Murray.

All right, thank you.

Next, we have Mary Beth Nelson.

Good evening, everybody.

I'm Mary Beth Nelson.

I live on 8th Street also.

Um, I'm just gonna kind of direct my comments on the emotions of all of this.

My husband and I purchased our home on 8th Street 34 years ago.

Lily Farm was a farm.

Eighth Street was his driveway.

There were six homes in our particular block.

We all had about five acres.

We didn't have the addition to the east, and we didn't have what's there now.

We have tolerated all this.

We've had a lot of traffic the last few years since they were building on Lily Farm.

Um I noticed the kids aren't riding their bikes on our road as much anymore.

People aren't walking their dogs on our road as much anymore.

And like Dr.

Sue said, we live out there to have the rural feel.

And we don't want Delweb encroaching on our view.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Uh, next up, and I am going to mess this one up.

It looks like uh the last name is Croach and the first name Predly.

Oh Prudy.

There you go.

Uh I'm pretty connect.

Um, I live in uh Meadow Lakes, the subdivision just to the east of that.

And we had a meeting um last week with Nick, and we voiced our concerns.

And one of our biggest concerns was going to be the traffic that's going to happen on Berkshire, which is the road that comes through our neighborhood.

If the developer has access to 8th Street, the likelihood of the people leaving the subdivision and continuing down 8th Street that will turn into Berkshire, all of a sudden we're going to have hundreds more cars coming down our street, which is dangerous for us backing out of our driveway.

The second concern that we have is construction traffic.

If the um you take your GPS system and the uh traffic, the construction traffic directions are going to be go down Berkshire, and that's the quickest way to get up there for the building.

And that's going to be tough on the roads and also tough on us living there.

We've had all the traffic from um Lily Farms being built, and now we'd have this.

So we want to ask you to very much consider a stipulation with a developer that they're told they're their construction people to use um country club road and uh 45th Street as the only access to the development and not come through our neighborhood in Berkshire because that would be dangerous.

And the second thing, as you've already heard, is the problem with the floodplain.

We with the golf course on the other side of us have had many times of the golf course being underwater.

So we concur with their concerns.

So we ask that you very specifically have an in-depth study of the water and the impact that's going to happen with this building going in and the coverage of the land there.

So those three points are very important with us.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh, this is a public hearing.

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

Uh come forward and state your name.

And I get yeah, if you see get to the microphone, state your name, and you do have five minutes.

Um, I'm Dan Livick.

I live uh in Lily Farm uh three, and um I just want to add a few things.

Um I wanted to comment on the beautiful aerial photograph that Polte presented, but the photograph failed to uh show all the homes that are currently existing that surround this potential development.

Um the other thing I wanted to add was that Polte Group is not some fly by night small, well, not a small operation, it's actually pretty big, and that uh Bill Pulte is the uh chairman of uh Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae, and he's uh let's see, he's also um part oh, he's the director of the federal housing finance agency.

So this is not some little uh this is more like a Walmart than it is or the Walmart of uh housing development, I think.

Um so in addition to all the issues that have been brought up.

I hopefully the council will keep that in mind as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh this is a public hearing.

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

Step forward, state your name.

You have five minutes.

My name is Bill Free, Fox Ridge Town Homes Association.

We're across the highway from the uh development, and uh since 1999 when Fox Ridge was built, uh, through a lot of problems.

I think as you know, if you hear names like carriage homes, pinnacle builders and stuff, you know what our history's been.

We have a lift station there.

We'd like to know how many lift stations are still active through RPU in Rochester, and we're hoping we're not the only one.

And that lift station pumps our sewage from the metal lakes in your living boxridge town homes and the Gulfview condominiums up the hill to the water tower and dumps in.

So we've been paying sewer and water since 1999 twice.

Once to go into Rochester, once for the lift station, about 28,000 a year to pump it, replace electronics pumps, which are about 20,000 apiece for two, plus the choppers.

And we've always wanted to get hooked up to city sewer and water and pay once.

That's 106 units up there that are doing are having to pay this.

And is the is the pipe from the from the uh the people of Hope Church going to come under the road down to the intersection of 45th and vacate our lift station and let us be hooked up to City Sewer, which now Pulti homes will be hooked up to both sides of the highway, they would be hooked up to it.

That would give them access to city sewer and water because we we have it if they can hook up to it without a lift station.

That's what we would like to know.

Thank you.

Uh, this is a public hearing.

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

You have five minutes.

Good evening.

So my name is Ken Murray.

I also I am Karen's husband, live on 8th Street.

Uh I've worked at St.

Mary's for 32 years, and our work group has gotten unbelievably young.

Okay.

And they come here from California, Texas, all over the United States.

They want to come to a smaller town, which this is to them, and buy a home and stay here and everything like that.

And the point I'm gonna make is they can't, they don't want to live in these apartment complexes that are being built.

They want to build a home or buy a home, I should say, and start their career here.

But there is none.

They don't want to live in apartments anymore.

So they bolt.

Okay, it happens all the time.

And I just don't understand how putting a 55 plus community, which I would qualify, but the point I'm making with a few pickleball courts and a fancy clubhouse and a swimming pool is gonna cure anything.

Nothing.

You have no idea how much water goes in there.

None.

It's like this high.

And I don't think after you guys look at those pictures, you would say, I'd go there.

I'd have my relatives go there.

No way.

No one.

Thank you, Mr.

Murray.

Uh, 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 no one, I will close the public hearing and invite Mr.

Lauder to respond to questions that came up during the public hearing.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Again, uh appreciate it, Madam Mayor and members of the council.

Um, in no particular order, I can talk about a couple things we'll know a lot more, you know, as we're able to move forward with engineered drawings where we would actually get into uh designing our stormwater infrastructure and things of that nature.

We have looked at and studied the floodplain in the area.

We understand uh the nature of rainwater.

Currently, at this time, it's a farm field and there is no infrastructure.

So the stormwater runs completely uncontrolled and unchecked from the site, as you've seen.

There are um part of this development.

We will be creating compensatory storage uh areas that will sometimes be dry, sometimes be wet, along with other infrastructure necessary to control the stormwater.

We are not, we didn't become uh the third largest national builder by building homes that that flood and and get swept away.

So we do we do um just uh refrain from speaking in the audience.

Go ahead, Mr.

Ladder.

We we we do look into all of those risks before we invest heavily in a site.

We don't want a neighborhood that is going to be an albatross around our name, especially the Dell Webb name.

Um we're aware of water overtopping 45th.

Um, there are three large box culverts down by eighth and 45th.

They are not maintained, uh, they would be maintained.

Um there is going to be rate and water control as part of the Cascade Creek Rehabilitation Project.

And of course, again, from our engineered stormwater.

Traffic is a really excellent point to bring up.

We will share with you a traffic study.

Your engineering staff will review that traffic study.

That's all a key component.

Um, as I said, with the EAW.

And I think that will help really um show some light on what are the anticipated impacts of traffic.

The thing with the Dell Web, though, given the fact that it is an age-restricted retirement community, uh, these folks, generally speaking, aren't trying to rush to get off to work in the morning, they're not adding to peak drive times.

They're not coming home for dinner at five or six, they're not getting up and going to work at seven.

Um, they're retired.

So the traffic volume is generally significantly less than a similar neighborhood, uh, more traditional uh home neighborhood of the same size.

So we do look forward to exploring that.

Um, all of these uh questions, they're good concerns and they're excellent concerns, and we will be able to address them as we get into more specific engineered drawings that of course we will have to comply with state rules, watershed rules, uh, and city rules in order for that development to move forward.

Thank you.

At this point, uh questions from uh council members.

Councilmember Miller.

Sure, thank you.

This would be a question for Mr.

Lauder because this came up uh about why why are you investing here?

And it's kind of unfortunate that we're out of sequence on uh a different item coming up, but I see Miss Morris is here to talk about the updated housing needs assessment.

Can you talk about that specific concern of nobody wants these homes?

What are you seeing in the market and what is what is that segment that you're meeting here?

Um Mr.

President, Madam Mayor, to the council members' question.

One of the things we do uh is required of from our corporate office when we look at proposing a Dell Web is we do we engage in what are called site validation studies.

We hire uh a consultant who sets up meetings with area realtors, people who understand uh the market in a given city that we're looking at developing.

Those meetings occurred a few weeks ago, and uh the support uh is overwhelming, actually.

And and um, so we actually see a need for a resident or a uh retired community in this area.

Uh that actually will have an ancillary impact.

Uh if you have an existing homeowner who raised a family, lived in their house for 25, 35, 40 years, and their kids are now adults, maybe moved out, well, hopefully moved out, have their own family.

Um, they want to downsize and and not maintain that home.

And they can move into a Dell Webb community where the lawn is taken care of for you, the snow is removed for you, and um you can put that house back into the existing market so that the that younger family that the gentleman referred to doesn't want to rent necessarily but wants to actually own a piece of property, it helps alleviate that pressure within a community.

And that's one of the benefits of a Dell Web.

Okay.

Thank you.

You have more questions?

Sure.

Uh go ahead.

So this is a question for staff because I I've heard from folks that um there's concern about the current quality of 45th Avenue.

Can you talk about how that, I guess, Mr.

Dombrowski, the current condition is what sort of requirements might be considered for upgrade, what sort of sufficiency or or recommendations could come out of a traffic study.

Uh good evening, Mayor, President, members of the council.

Thanks for the question, Councilmember Miller.

Uh yes, as part of the traffic study, which we did require with this project, there was not a waiver granted in this uh situation because of the projected volumes exceed the thresholds as we're reviewing those requests.

Uh, as part of that study, they're gonna have to look at a a number of you know, the intersections, the abutting roadways as they look at the projected traffic, and we will then identify are there substandard segments, intersections, et cetera, and what mitigation would be required as part of the project.

So we'll review all that and uh we'll look at the assumptions that they make and the conclusions that they they come to within their traffic study, and we will either agree to those um conclusions and outline what mitigations are required, or you know, we'll have comments and we'll go back and forth as we're reviewing that.

Okay, thank you.

Uh and I guess just a simple question because it was asked towards the end, and I think there's a simple answer.

Uh, I believe Mr.

Free asked about the lift station.

Couldn't staff address that.

I I can also take that one.

So tonight uh you had item F uh 21, I believe, on your agenda, which was one of our public works projects.

So as part of the sanitary sewer extension from um the West Circle Drive Country Club Road area going west towards this development.

We will also get sewer across to the north side of Second Street or Country Club Road in that location to eliminate that uh lift station as part of the the extension of sewer.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I I guess just uh a final question.

I'll allow my colleagues and we'll continue the discussion, but can you talk about the percentage of the property that's covered by uh current flood designation and what those are and what those mean?

I can do my best.

Uh so uh there's actually two different designations out there.

There's floodway and then there is floodplain.

The floodway itself, which is uh what is going to go into the public's hands soon, is about 41 acres in size.

So the site plan itself is generally 175 acres, give or take.

Uh 41 acres of that is floodway and will remain open space that will be utilized for maintaining you know that that rehabilitation project in the rainwater that that goes with it.

Um I can't tell you in terms of acreage, but what I can tell you is that in order for us to build the appropriate amount of compensatory storage that is uh kind of those deep ponding areas, uh uh you know, we will have to uh create about 550 to 600,000 cubic yards of space for uh the floodplain mitigation.

So it's significant, it's significant earthwork.

So as you look at that site plan, you'll notice like on the southern portion of the site, there's um I don't know if it's still up.

Could I bring that up?

Jams uh to the east, there's no development proposed there.

And that's because that's all compensatory storage.

You'll notice kind of uh an outline in there.

You'll see that uh along the floodway also uh and even the entrance, the main entrance off 45th, both sides of the main entrance, there's compensatory storage, meaning that space simply to handle stormwater and manage it effectively.

So sizable, sizable portions of the site are dedicated to that.

And do you expect that property owners would still have to maintain flood insurance and portions of the No.

It will demonstrate that all the floodplain is mitigated effectively.

Um, and that's actually going to be done not by us, so that um I think there's more credibility to the modeling when it's complete.

Okay and the Lomar.

Thank you.

And I promise final question, but this is actually a question for staff because we have a similar process where we're updating our surf or comprehensive surface water management plan.

I know that Mr.

Luckstein is not here, but could someone speak to how that process and modeling floodwaters where we are on that project and how that might inform this.

Uh thank you for the question.

I I am obviously not leading that project, and we're working through wrapping up the comprehensive surface water management plan.

But um as as that gets adopted by the council, future developments need to follow the you know, whatever whatever we've laid out as far as rules and different areas within the community.

I think the the important thing to acknowledge here is we're working on a plan uh you know with the DNR to realign the creek.

Um, as it was noted, it's currently agricultural, which the runoff is much higher than when we can do a natural swale with taller grasses and that realignment that can help um reduce the runoff amount in addition to all the requirement requirements that they're going to have to meet, whether it come out of that surface water management plan or our state rules, our city rules, anything else as we think about um reducing the volume of runoff from the site to equal to what's there today or less, as well as the water quality treatment that you really aren't benefiting from today with that agricultural runoff, Mayor Norton.

Mr.

Chair, all the questions or points I was gonna make have already been made.

Council member key uh Keen.

Yeah, I'm gonna just follow up on some things that uh came up through the uh through the public hearing.

One is on the lift stations.

You made the comment that the sewer will be built out in that area.

Is the process that the um city does that get to work around the lift station, or is there a thing for the property owner to do to work around the lift to get their sewerage to the new connection, or is that something the city does for them?

We will get the trunk sewer to that lift station.

I don't have that.

I I'll have to take that back to the uh wastewater team just to determine how we're going to make the connection with their gravity sewer that feeds the lift station.

Um I don't have the the original development agreement in front of us.

It may obligate them to make that final connection, it may not.

I I that's why I'm asking.

I'm familiar with a couple of these situations, and it isn't something the city forces them to do.

It's something we say we can't get the sewer there, and they say, well, we'll do this instead, and we make an agreement with it.

We just did one within the last six months.

And it always bothers me because many years later, people feel like they've been taken advantage of because they didn't understand that when they bought into the land.

So it's it's uh it's on my mind.

Um, I also want to talk about this uh build for workforce.

Um I guess I'm gonna direct this to Miss Eidens just on um uh the city of Rochester.

We've been trying to build more for workforce, more affordable housing.

Um, do you find these kinds of projects in conflict with that?

I don't find these sorts of projects in conflict from that, as mentioned earlier.

We will hear a presentation that will give us statistics around the housing demand for the next 10 years.

So you're gonna see that there's specifically a need for senior housing, which is pretty broad.

There's lots of different types.

So I would say I don't see a conflict with that, and you'll find that a report shows there's a demand for that in the next 10 years, particularly market rate senior housing.

That's for sale.

I mean, I think the observation that we don't have enough workforce housing for it for people who want to come and purchase house, I think that's accurate right now.

And I guess the question the question isn't whether we're working on it, but does this does this impede the ability to do that?

That's a fair point.

Thanks for phrasing it that way.

Because I'd agree that the presentation will show you we have a need for work first for sale housing, and we don't see this as impeding that, but that's also needed in addition to workforce for sale housing.

Okay, thank you.

Um, my last area, and I again I think uh Mr.

Dembrowski, you'll have to take this, but just on the traffic.

I know we're not to the point of doing it traffic studies yet, but are there methods and techniques when these newer bigger places go in that you make it difficult to make cut throughs from existing neighborhoods?

Yeah, I mean, like I said, we'll have to look at the where they're projecting traffic flows and how the trips are being distributed from the site.

But this is really our opportunity with the development to look at where do we have where are we seeing potential operational challenges and issues that we can make them address at this point?

And it doesn't become an issue for us decades from now.

Like I mean, you've obviously heard from other neighborhoods just tonight in areas that were annexed into you know from the township, and there hasn't been any enough of a neighboring project that would even um require any sort of mitigation.

So then we're going through the neighborhood traffic management program, which we we could still do with this neighborhood, depending on how things shake out, but really we can get in front of it with that traffic study.

Yeah, I again I know these things are still happening, but I what I'm really looking for is when I when I'm looking at this map right now, it's just a blob.

I don't see where the road connections are, but I am bothered when I see something like Berkshire and the number of houses that have been built on that, and then that's the access point for 8th Street.

And then I just hope there's better ways to get in that like anybody who's making decisions on how to get to and from would use the roads that are there for it as opposed to what I'll call the shortcuts.

Yeah, and the traffic study will get at that and identifying those different classifications of roadways and where where is that local collector that needs to be designed to handle that traffic so that we don't start uh sending people to other cut-through areas because it's not constructed properly.

Yep.

All right, thank you.

Any further questions on this item or these items?

If not, is there a motion on the uh G3?

Uh go ahead, Councilmember Miller.

So I get the sense that we're pretty early for some of these things like uh traffic studies, environmental review mitigations.

Could you clarify probably uh Director Woodward, uh, what additional points of either public hearing or public engagement might we expect or would we expect in this process where there would be more final design so that people who are sharing concerns tonight can see something, understand how those concerns are addressed, and then share another period of comment.

Appreciate the question.

There will be additional applications, which will also require future neighborhood information meetings.

So those will take place as the progress continues.

Um as stated earlier, it's gonna any future development is gonna have to meet all of the city standards and the state standards and all of those requirements, but any future applications will go through a neighborhood information process.

Some of them will go to um the planning commission and back to city council.

So there will be other opportunities to see different aspects of this uh project as it moves forward.

Is there a motion on this item?

I'd like to make a motion on uh G3 to adopt a resolution approving growth management map amendment number C D 2025-002 GMMA by the city of Rochester to amend 175 acres on the city's growth management map from urban reserve beyond 2050 to near-term urban expansion.

Move by council member Keene.

Is there a second seconded by uh council member Wall?

Councilmember Keene.

Yeah, again, this this one is uh painful for me.

We've uh dealt a lot over the um the last even six years about how to do this uh sewer grow the sewers, one of our big uh restrictions on being able to grow.

But as we move the sewer systems out, we start getting into these things.

Um I I've become convinced from some people at the Rochester builders that housing really is a system, and adding any housing is good because it takes it allows some movement out of the lower end housing into into other places.

Um, so I want to support housing, and I'm gonna trust um because of the staff we have that when we get into this the flooding concerns, we'll have the right people on it.

We get into the traffic, we'll have the right um response to so that we'll mitigate any of these potential problems.

Thank you.

Any further discussion on this item, council member Miller.

Yeah, I'll I'll just say that I I will also, as not an expert in flood management or traffic control, understand that we have some real uh checkpoints still to come.

And also, I I know there were some comments about who wants these houses.

I've actually received comments, not in this project relations specifically, but from members of the community saying, they have aging parents, all their grandkids are here, and I really wish we had something that I could own and still have amenities.

And I've not been able to point to anything, but I actually was looking back at those messages coming into tonight because the the tricky thing is folks have received notification who are adjacent to this project, and I understand their real concerns, and I want to make sure that we we do the right thing.

And looking at the broader community, there are needs that we're not seeing or hearing from tonight, and I just want to recognize that as well.

Um so I am hesitantly inclined to support this as well, in spite of the concerns, knowing that we have other points where we assure presidents and ourselves that we are sufficiently managing our the flood potential and the traffic potential.

Um but that's where I am tonight.

Councilmember Keene.

I'm sorry, I thought other people on that side of the table.

I was trying to get attention to council member Doring.

Yeah, sometimes you have to look over here too, President Schubert.

Oh, so Councilmember Keene, you were waving to have me look that direction.

Got it.

Who's looking out for me down here?

I just want to say I feel so much better.

It's okay.

Uh I approached this with some hesitation as well.

I'm going to be voting in favor for this, but uh, I'm uh approaching it with hesitation because I share share some of the same concerns that the residents here shared this evening.

But I am comforted that we have additional points of check, uh additional checkpoints as we continue uh uh with this process going forward.

Uh that makes me more comfortable uh as we continue to proceed.

So I just wanted to state that for the record.

I uh I really appreciate the expertise of our city staff, and I I trust them as we continue to proceed, uh, that we will be um uh trying to address the concerns that were raised this evening uh through those uh different checkpoints in the process.

Any further discussion on this item?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Uh uh now I will entertain a motion on item G4.

Is there a motion?

G4, which is a comprehensive plan amendment.

Sure.

I will uh move to adopt a resolution approving comprehensive plan amendment number CD 2025-003 CPA by the city of Rochester to change the land use designation of 175 acres of land from urban reserve to low density residential.

It uh move by council member Doring.

Is there a second?

Seconded by Councilmember Fredericks.

Anything more to add, Councilmember Doring?

Councilmember Keene.

I'll just clarify is this a uh uh majority vote or is this a this is a majority vote, yes.

And so was the last one.

Council so we need we need five comprehensive plan amendments yes, requires five.

Yes, majority, supermajority.

Oh, I'm sorry, you said I thought you said supermajority.

Yeah, it's the room.

All right, any more to add on uh this item.

We do need a supermajority.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say nay.

Moving on to item G five, which is the annexation.

Councilmember Fredericks.

Move to approve annexation petition number C D 2025-004 A and X by Poulty Holmes and Minnesota LC to incorporate 120 acres of land located southwest intersection of country club road and 45th Avenue Southwest.

And directing the city attorney to prepare the ordinance for first reading.

Move by council member Fredericks.

Is there a second?

Second, seconded by councilmember Keene.

Any further discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Lauder, and thank you, neighbors uh for attending.

Moving on to item G six, which is uh the planning to succeed uh P2S comprehensive plan five-year update.

Um, and we have Miss Eidens here.

Good evening, members of the council, council residents and mayor, Tieron Eidens with the community development department.

Um providing you the last chapter of the uh comprehensive plan five-year update.

Uh so just as so the action before you tonight is to approve the adoption of the P2S comprehensive plan five-year update.

As a reminder, this uh this leading uh guiding document for our community was overhauled and adopted in 2018.

Uh, the comprehensive plan is what we often refer to as the guide above all the guides for the city of Rochester, and all additional plans should align with comprehensive plan.

Uh it sets out to do a number of things.

It sets guidance for our growth, uh, gives direction around design uh for our for our community to uh benefit livability, and it also enhances the relationship between land use and transportation.

So it provides guidance on how we should grow as our community grows.

This has been before you before uh a handful of times.

So just showing you a timeline of the process.

Once again, we did use an outside consultant uh for this technical five-year update.

Um that was awarded back in August 2024.

It's since come to council on two occasions via study session in 2025 to provide progressive updates, and it's kind of the planning and zoning commission on two occasions as well.

So it's here before you.

Uh naturally, there's a lot of there wasn't there was engagement throughout that process as well, which I'll touch on, uh, but that engagement looks different for a technical five-year update than an overhaul.

Uh this really summarizes the the large amount of things that went into this update, but it's been presented to you before.

A summary was included in the package as well.

Uh, but to attempt to summarize um what we what we set out to do, one part of the scope of work was to look at areas in Rochester where we could look to grow industrial land uses and that very much uh mirrors with those um emerging trends that we're seeing on a national level as an industrial uh uses, bring diversity and jobs to our community.

So we're intentional about finding areas where we could add industrial land since it had sort of been reduced since our 2018 update, uh resulting in over 900 acres of industrial uses, largely around the airport.

Um we also did some analysis about our residential and mixed use developments was a lot of consulting with internal staff with the industrial land.

We also did, I should point out that we did a workshop with developers for areas as well.

So engagement was had at different levels to consult and make recommendations um around that.

And as shared for during the analysis that was done by one of our planners showed that we have enough land within the city of Rochester and within the surrounding urban service area in the future to meet our housing needs if we're making some conservative assumptions.

Uh emerging forces and trends, we're looking at national best practices, primarily with the American Planning Association to make notes of where we are today and recommendations for the future.

We did a lot of updating of data and figures and maps, updating census status, updating our maps to be relevant to today, and we created user-friendly document, which uh which was a lot of uh lift as well.

Um, but making that document five-way compliant and reducing it down to 230 pages were some of those things.

So things you're familiar with, but wanted to remind you this has come before you and included a handful of uh uh objectives.

I mentioned this, but the process engagement was really to just inform and consult uh stakeholders specifically, um, less of an overhaul when we did the 2018 adoption.

Uh, it was much more robust and really guided that.

The overall the overall guiding principles have not changed from 2018 to today.

So, with that, this is a public hearing.

So I will pause for it for that to conclude and I've listed the requested action before you this evening.

Thank you, Miss Edens.

Uh, as Miss Edens mentioned, this is a public hearing.

I will open the public hearing now and ask if anyone wishes to be heard on this item.

Does anyone wish to be heard on this item?

Seeing no one, I will close the public hearing and invite uh Miss Edens back up or um questions from council members.

Councilmember Keene.

Uh yeah, again, I appreciate this.

I know we're a little late, I think a year or two behind on our schedule for this.

Um, just as far as like the close out, would you uh if you wish you had, are there two or three areas that we should stay focused on as far as like looking out three to five years from now for another update that things that are like things are changing in the world or in our community that should uh ref that will still should be reflected in our on our um comprehensive plan?

Just to make sure I'm understanding the question.

So your question is what should we look at for frequency of these updates going forward and other items that weren't covered that we want to include in the next update?

Let me let me state it differently.

I think the question is uh is there anything you wish we had done that we didn't because we don't either had enough time or it's a technical update?

That's a good question.

I don't think there's anything that we overlooked.

I think anything that we might have missed will be coming to separately, maybe not part of this process, such as updating the growth management map.

Um but in this case, I would say there's nothing that we overlooked um that we wanted to make sure was in this.

Okay.

To my colleagues for any additions.

You've got something.

Mr.

Dombrowski, go ahead.

Our our engineering team looked through this with the planning team recently, and there is some transportation framework that that removed that we we really utilize that.

So we're actually going to come back um and look at drafting a document separately that that we can still refer to because it is pretty important as we're evaluating projects.

I I was a little bit, I mean, that was one of the ones that's on my mind with where we are with bus rapid transit right now, and I think it could have major impact on other sort of transportation things.

And I I just I think that is reflected in the way the comprehensive plan is higher level.

But to me, that's almost something I I would uh think we in the next five years we really need to be looking to say.

How do we do this into the uh with this new asset?

What changes about our other uh hub and spoke with public transportation, but what are our other sort of uh transit last mile sort of concerns?

Thank you.

Uh council member Wall.

Councilmember Keene uh brings up a salient point.

I mean, we don't know what we don't know.

In 2018, we didn't know anything about a pandemic.

uh with this new asset what changes about our other uh hub and spoke with public transportation but what are our other sort of uh transit last mile sort of concerns thank you uh council member wall council member keen uh brings up a a salient point i mean we don't know what we don't know in 2018 we didn't know anything about a pandemic uh we didn't know about both forward and bond both of which have uh perhaps altered some things that uh happened in 2018 with uh what seems to be a constant state of uh upheaval uh i don't imagine we'd be surprised if in the next five years there would be some significant alteration to uh the plan to meet the needs of the community uh the staff is clearly open to that essentially the comp plan yes we could say that's true the comp plan commits two periodic updates we found five years to be a good cadence but certainly something that would change we would bring forward thanks to city engineer for pointing that that that out is that is something we discussed and that could likely evolve and um be a reason for updating it again council member miller I guess to take a different version of that same question um obviously this is not changing the underlying philosophy of the comp plan obviously it includes a a date of 2040 we'll do these periodic updates how long might this philosophy of a comp plan last through how many periodic updates versus when we get to a point where we need to fundamentally rethink our planning yeah that's a good question in short I think we're gonna always approach it with that with that lens right every time we're doing an update is this a technical update or are we at the point where we need to do a complete overhaul right that could be 2040 likely it's going to be before then we're seeing that with other reports for example with our housing needs assessment right it required a full revisit again so I think that's a full a fair point we'd like to see how long we could provide technical updates but we'll we'll have that lens every time thank you so what I I understand it's a technical update and but in your last presentation we're talking about different trends that are happening and those trends could actually become focus areas one of the areas that uh we talked about at our last meeting was uh the infill housing or the infill uh property that we have within the city limits and do do you have a uh a more comprehensive view on how much we have here in the city what we would say is we plan on updating that data regularly as part of the upcoming annual action plan that's proposed so to today that's our response is that something we'd like to monitor per council's direction going forward kind of regardless of the comprehensive plan.

Okay thank you uh other uh is there a motion on this item I'd I'd like to make a motion approving the adoption of the planning to succeed 2040 comprehensive plan update second a move by council member keen seconded by council member miller council member keen any more to add yeah I'll just again just uh kind of musing on this when I was running for office back in 2018 uh this was a big issue whether we should approve the existing comprehensive plan that was being debated and somewhere in April or May or so it did get approved uh and I asked a question okay now what changes it was this was this big and basically they said no that's the uh aspirational document the real changes came when we changed zoning or when we ch when we tr when we changed uh things like the um transportation kind of goals though the comprehensive plan drives those things and these other plans exist underneath it and and in the seven years there's been major changes because of the comprehensive plan.

Thank you any further discussion

I mean the DNR did some weird we know that works, right?

It hasn't flooded in like folks can be seated, we are going to get started again.

And council the council members that we have left, we have five of us.

And I will invite uh uh Joe Marie Morris to step forward, unless there's a staff member that's going to introduce her.

Um to uh talk about the twenty twenty five Ohmstead County housing needs analysis.

Yeah, I'm happy to introduce Joe Marie Moore.

She's the executive director of the coalition for roster area housing.

Um, as a reminder, the city sits on the coalition of roster area housing, uh, which is sort of a funders collaborative.

So Joe Marie's been giving this presentation to different bodies um and is here before you tonight to provide an update on the updated housing needs assessment.

So thanks, Joe.

Thank you, Ms.

Edens.

Um you move the whole base forward a little bit.

There we go.

That's better.

It catches you guys.

Okay, fantastic.

Uh President Schubring, Mayor Norton, Council members, thank you for this opportunity to talk with you today about our Maxfield housing study that was just recently completed.

Um, one of the things that we're doing here is reaching out to stakeholders um and including the city council uh to really get feedback based on this data.

We're still consuming some of that 333 pages, um, but also are looking forward to hearing from our community members as well.

So the um the reality is this has we've had considerable collective impact um with the coalition um in the last five years.

The study has really shown um that it really is this cross-sector collaborative that has been really successful by the city, the county, uh, mail clinic, restaurant area foundation, everyone coming together with different pieces and parts, um, a policy of gap funding, of uh programs to really move the needle.

Uh, in the last five years since the last study, the coalition has invested 20 million dollars.

We have created and preserved over a thousand homes, and then with our partners, um, including the city, we have uh again created uh programs and policies, 20 new programs and policies to really move the needle on housing, and that will be uh in in many different ways that we'll share.

Uh the the exciting piece of this is that we have been able to decrease the demand for affordable housing by 26 percent in the last five years, and that's despite the fact that we've had pretty robust growth in the region.

And the other really exciting thing that's been happening, and you've you don't heard from um the pality group here, but the city team, the DMC team, Mayo Clinic with their investments um really have been instrumental in getting the ear of regional and uh national developers to consider developing housing along with our local developers here, and because of that, we have an incredible pipeline of over 2500 um units that are coming uh on the pipeline.

Uh, everything from rental to homeownership in every different kind of uh category.

So we're really really excited about that all happening.

Just wanted to give you a little bit of background on the study here.

Uh the study is a little bit different than the 2020 study in case you're uh comparing them, they're not exactly apples to apples.

So we added the DMC downtown district because there's been a lot of changes there.

We also um we also uh added a Chatfield subdivision or submarket, and then we moved uh the Pleasant Grove Township to the Stuartville submarket.

So it looks a little bit different.

You'll see on the right hand side chart um the DMC uh map, and there's an overlay there with the um census block that was utilized in order to do the study, and they're not exactly perfectly aligned, but they're they're pretty close, and that's about as best as we could do for the study.

So, what have we seen?

So, for population change, again, we've seen incredible growth.

Um we've seen uh 10% growth countywide, um, 52% growth in the DMC district.

Seniors are driving our growth, and one thing that was really interesting to me is that 80% of our growth countywide is in the city of Rochester itself.

The other thing that was really striking is the fact that households look different than when I grew up, right?

Um 60 some percent of the households right now are one and two-person households that could be seniors, that could be empty nesters, that could be never nesters, um, but it looks much different, and because of that, we have to be looking at different types of housing options.

Again, just reiterating uh an incredible growth here in the county.

That growth is scheduled to continue.

Um we're looking at a gain of almost 15,000 jobs through 2032 from 2025 to 2032, and again, um the the investments of DMC, the state of Minnesota, and um Mayo Clinic have really been catalysts to really moving the needle for us.

And I would like to just mention that you know there are a lot of parts of the state that aren't growing like we are.

Um, so it's it's frustrating sometimes that it is around growth.

We have to feel fortunate that we do have this great economic um growth here happening in our region.

Um, here is our multifamily rental housing demand for about 5,000 units.

Um, again, interesting to note on this chart that the city of Rochester um, and it looks like these for some reason these are not lined up the way they should be.

I think we had to transfer this in in the last couple hours from a um a PDF to a um to a PowerPoint, and it looks like some of the numbers are messed up.

So we will get you a better copy, but the reality is 91.51.5 percent of the demand for multifamily rental housing is in the city of Rochester as well.

So the lion's share of all of our rental housing demand is in the city of Rochester.

Just so the the uh PowerPoint on the website is correct.

So yes.

Oh, the okay, very good, very good.

Thank you.

I was a little disconcerted when I'm looking at it.

This is not matching up.

This doesn't look like um, but so again for multifamily rental demand, um, about 5,000 units, um, about 65% of that is market rate demand, about uh 25% is affordable, and about 10% is deeply subsidized.

And subsidized are those um units that are specifically for folks with household restriction of 30% or below AMI, whereas the affordable units, they are based on contract rent that could be at 30%, could be at 50%, could be at 60%, could be at 80% AMI.

Here is the um market inventory and vacancy rates.

Um, the last study, the overall vacancy rate for rentals was 4.4%.

It has moved down to 3.1%, so even a smaller vacancy now.

Um, that the highest demand or the the smallest vacancy rate, I should say, is for the deeply subsidized uh apartments at 1.2%.

Those are very steadily filled.

I would also just point out too that some of this data is moving targets.

Because when they're doing this, there's some properties that are leasing up, and some properties.

So it really has a fluctuation.

It's really kind of a point in time.

But suffice it to say, we do have a very low vacancy rate for all housing right now in the rental markets.

Just wanted to point this out.

Incredible growth in downtown in the DMC district, doubled the number of units in the last 10 years since the DMC launched.

And there this was from a DMC slide that was utilized that was recently done separate from Maxfield, but the housing cost burden decreased from 16.4% to 12.8%.

Now that is really good news for a lot of folks, but I need to point out that it doesn't apply to all folks, right?

So even though we've got a lot of folks who whose uh incomes are rising and have been rising more than the cost of housing, there are many, many folks that that has not happened to.

They haven't seen the same kind of wage increases.

Again, just noting the fact that in the livability index, um, we're we're ranked number four in the country.

And our housing uh category is one of the reasons for that.

Some incredible positive trends that we've got um since the last study in 2020, we have 5,000 new rental units added.

And we have uh again, that's an increase of 31% of active rental licenses, 2,500 units in the pipeline of various means.

Again, this is not just rental, but uh in uh the overall housing market.

Um, and the demand for affordable rental homes was decreased by uh over 1,200 units.

That said, we've done lots of great, had lots of great progress, but we have a lot more work to do.

And as I pointed out earlier, you know, there's a good share of our community, almost 25% that are making 50,000 or less households.

And those folks are struggling to even afford a one-bedroom apartment here in Rochester.

And many of those folks for that reason are moving, you know, to IOTA to Cass and to Dud Center, Claremont.

Um, and that that is absolutely the reason why.

Market rates uh went up 17%, and affordable rentals went up 41% in the last five years.

To me, that's really striking.

The single family for sale demand.

We have about 5,000, um, actually 7,000 total, but 5,000 in the solo single family uh for sale demand target area.

Um these looks like they're a little messed up too, as far as the the not the the uh numbers on the bottom, but it is also interesting to note here too that um of the single family for cell demand, 68 percent is right in the city of Rochester as well.

Um Byron is taking a big slice of of new homeownership demand and and building um at 8.2 percent, but folks are looking to build in in all of those places.

So we again have made significant progress.

We've got an incredible pipeline.

Um, and uh the city council here has been a big part of making that happen with some of their work that I'll talk a little bit more about in just a few minutes.

Um again, the other thing is we've really been looking at um innovation and models for homeownership like the row homes and other types of uh housing products like that for homeownership.

And that herein is the uh demand for uh 2,000 more kind of multifamily uh for sale homeownership products like the villas or the townhomes or the detached um detached townhomes or the the twin homes.

Um again folks are looking at these because the cost of lots are so high and they're more affordable to build in general, they're about 20% cheaper to build this way and more affordable, especially for people that want to move out of the family home and move into something more affordable.

Or they're for young professionals too that are looking to move into a home is 20% cheaper for that first home that they're moving into.

A lot more work to do, barriers for home ownership.

Some of it we can control, some will we can't control.

But when I could think that I get excited about is with a coalition, we have the ability to pivot fairly quickly and to really look at our priorities constantly and pivot our allocations without going through lots of hurdles.

And that has been really, really helpful in us moving the needle on especial affordable housing projects.

But we can say that one of those many challenges is that 50% that the cost of construction in the last five years has gone up 50%.

I have a couple of the local developers saying they think it might even be higher than that, which is difficult to hear about.

And you know, we're hoping that that's gonna stabilize, but at this point we don't know.

It's kind of a watch and see.

Um, most of the listings for for sale are 500,000 or more.

And so the coalition is very cognizant of that, that the entry-level homes is something that we really really need to focus on and different housing options.

And then the the reality is the housing market in some ways is is stuck because of this lock-in effect, right?

We know that many folks, 75% of homeowners have a rate that's locked in less than 5%.

If you have a uh a rate of two and a half or 3%, you're likely not gonna wanna move up to that next home or make a big change unless it's you know something that that would really uh make a difference in your life, or that you've got to be had a big change.

So that is really impacting the the continuity of the market as well.

Senior housing market.

Um it was good to hear uh discussion about that because fully one-third of our demand for housing is senior housing options, and that's gonna continue to grow over the next 20 years.

It's gonna even continue to grow further.

And it's the entire spectrum of housing options for seniors too.

It's not just affordable housing that's needed, it's all kinds.

Um, it's it's rental housing options for some folks who want to downsize out of their house and move into rental.

It could be folks that want to look at for a co-op that I would love to see another one coming to our community as well, because we've got um our co-ops with wait lists of a year or two years long.

Um, but as you could as you notice from this graft here, um the uh active adult home ownership, um 0% vacancy right now.

So um that along with the highly subsidized um affordable active adult for uh what 1.1%, but all of those numbers are very low, and the overall rate is at 2%.

So senior housing has to remain a large priority for the coalition at all types of um price points, and I think it was really interesting the discussion that Ms.

Edens and the point that she made earlier, too, about um whether whether providing a um highly amenitized kind of um more expensive senior home um project will really dissuade us from doing other projects of affordability for seniors.

I don't think so.

And I do think there's ancillary benefits, and I think what I've learned is that there is need all over the continuum for senior housing, everything from bells and whistles to deeply affordable senior housing, like the the county is going to be opening shortly for trail side that you were very much a part of as well.

Just wanted to highlight the exciting uh, you know progress that we've made, both in policy and our community collaboration.

Um I think that UDC has been incredibly well received by our developers, um by community members now that we're understanding more about it.

I think it it really helps with the urgency and getting housing done.

Um, you know, we always have challenges, but what I've been hearing from the community, especially our community developers, is that things are going much much much better.

It it's done two things really.

One diversifying the type of um housing options that can be across the city, right?

That as well as really uh again streamlining some of those processes and making it more easy for local developers to national builders to come in and work again, an incredible collaboration on projects.

It's been so exciting to see all of the different policy and and and programs besides the UDC, the Economic Vitality Fund, the single family homeownership creation fund to me has been a huge success in launching that with Prairie Ridge.

Um we're also doing that with the senior home community that Big Low is doing for 44 uh twin homes that are affordable for seniors.

Uh so we've got a number of really great projects where we're being able to leverage what the city is doing with their homeownership program, with what the coalition is doing with our 0% interest loan program for developers for helping with that infrastructure and that short-term cost, and then being able to bring that money back for future developments as well.

Just want to touch on the fact that one of the things that's really important to the coalition, as I know it is to our city council here, is is the community involvement, right?

So we have um we did a community co-design project for BIPOC homeownership um recently.

Um took some of the recommendations from that report, and we launched a mentorship program in partnership with Three Rivers Community Action to for BIPOC Homeowner Mentorship Program that's been successful, and uh we funded that for a year, and happy to say that other funders have now picked that up and are moving that um project forward.

Um so we're very excited to see that.

And it's been a really great compliment with the first generation down payment assistance that the state of Minnesota has given.

So that's been really wonderful to see.

I'm also going to touch on too um the senior housing transitions work group because this is something kind of new and hot off the presses.

I've been working with since we did a senior housing co-design right before I started with the coalition three years ago.

There were a number of recommendations that were made by that group.

Um, and one of the recommendations was to provide more information to seniors from a trusted source.

Um, and so I have over the last year brought a group of senior housing uh stakeholders together, including about a half dozen our senior uh seniors from the community as well, to talk about how could we what can we do to implement um or assist seniors uh that are really thinking about transition um before something bad happens, before it's a bad fall and you you don't have options or you you can't really think through what you want to do.

And um just this last meeting um at the coalition leadership council.

Um I've been given the green light uh to do an RFP to senior organizations to provide a similar to the BIPOC home ownership mentorship program to provide a transition mentorship program for seniors.

So seniors that are interested in may not and really not understanding what their choices are, and then helping them learn about all these different opportunities that are being built in the community and the pipeline and what's available without having somebody sell something to them.

So this would be a mentorship program where there would be somebody who's already downsized, and it could be into a rental, it could be into the a co-op, it could be into another form of homeownership that's more accessible, mentoring with another senior in the community that's interested in doing so.

So I'm excited that we're going to be sending that RFP out and launching that here soon.

Again, the bottom line is we've made incredible progress.

We have a lot of work to do.

I want to really thank um Councilman Palmer, who is not here, but I want to acknowledge him.

He sits on the coalition leadership council.

A lot of his uh tenacity, tenace tenacity around homeownership has really helped us with the urgency in developing our homeownership program.

Also, really want to thank the city team, Taryn Eatons and Irene Woodward and everybody from the city, extremely collaborative to work with.

Um, just being able to uh you know, pick up the phone and say, you know, Taryn or Irene, this is what we're thinking about.

What do you think about this?

What piece could the city do?

What could what could the county do?

Again, just really putting our heads together.

Um, it's just really been a pleasure to work with them all.

Questions from council members.

I'll I'll start.

Well, great work on uh the um this update.

Can you so I recall there was kind of a mantra after the first study, and I thought it was very successful to get it into the community that we needed uh uh senior housing.

What do you see with this study as if there's any shift in direction that you see the the coalition going, and I know it's early and you're going to be discussing, but kind of what are those top lines that you see percolating and we as policymakers really should be paying attention to.

Well, I would say at first blush, without I'm gonna be um you know providing this um presentation to many different community groups over the next couple of months to get their input as well.

Um, but what I really see is doubling down on a lot of what we're already doing, but maybe the coalition after getting community input, uh making different allocations as to what I mean.

To me, the big ones are our are senior housing um and helping with that whole continuum of senior housing.

Um it is uh again even more entry-level homeownership opportunities, and I think it's in the form of you maybe single family town homes, maybe we can start getting people to build single family condos again.

Um, but but different types of home ownership options because what I have learned is the majority of seniors I've talked to prefer senior uh home ownership and moving into a smaller slab on grade in a community with other seniors.

Uh that said, I also have uh, you know, the um one of the finance directors for 125 live on my housing transitions group, and um he has he and his wife had moved into um uh a senior home uh rental situation and are extremely happy there and and glad for that choice too.

So again, I think that that's big.

Then then the final really big thing is really looking at how how can we continue to do these 30 and 50 percent AMI rental um opportunities for folks, especially the deeply subsidized ones.

Um right now it's been taking a lot of um complication and capital stacks with federal dollars, local dollars, state dollars kind of all coming together, but we'd need to really focus on these folks that you know, the 25% of the community that's supporting so many things in our community to be able to, you know, have a teacher that teaches in Rochester be able to stay and live in Rochester, or a firefighter or a new police officer, to me that's super important.

So uh again, I think we need to have our eye on the ball on that one as well.

Thank you, and thank you in particular that last point.

What strikes me is one the 41% rise in rental rates, and then the low uh the the low uh vacancy rate that's in rental.

So if you can just talk a little bit more about the commitment to rental properties and and from my perspective, I think there needs to be an increased focus on that in our community to just your your last point uh so great point.

We do have um a number of rentals that are coming online shortly, which I'm super excited about.

Um sometimes it many times these developments take two, three years or more.

I'm not a patient person, and it's difficult for me, but that's the reality of the situation.

But we know we've got a number of these great projects that are coming online and some some really good projects that are 30%, 50%, AMI, um, and some specifically for seniors too.

Um, that will be, you know, for example, we've got uh Charter Haven that will be open for families.

We're hoping that that will close in a year or so.

I mean, taking things through Minnesota housing takes time, unfortunately.

We've got the Sherman project that will hopefully be breaking ground in early next year.

Fingers crossed and toes crossed that the AN project will will come across the finish line too.

It's extremely exciting.

You know, West Transit Village, that project is an amazing project.

And to see that first AN piece coming and then possibly doing you know the market rate in the middle and then family affordable uh rental as the third phase.

Again, there's a lot of great things going on, but I don't disagree with you president that that there's a lot of work to do in the the subsidized and the very affordable rental.

Thank you.

Councilmember Wall.

Thank you.

And thank you so much for the presentation.

I find uh so much of what uh you have said to be very uh exciting and encouraging us to uh continue uh the work in uh a newspaper today there was an article about Northfield housing and they made it sound almost as if uh one couldn't buy a house in Northfield uh no matter what kind of income level uh you are at and I think uh a lot of that narrative uh gets told and spread to other communities uh and I think what you have said tonight belies that kind of narrative for the city of Rochester uh for instance we have no affordable housing but you said that we decrease demand for affordable housing by 26% in the last five years I think I think that needs to be a a headline um I think we heard tonight from a gentleman that said uh young families are just bolting I think was the word he used uh out of Rochester uh but you said uh that 80% of the growth uh in the area is in Rochester um how how do we change the narrative so that uh people can be encouraged that we're uh working toward answers rather than throwing up our hands in despair that that is just a great point councilman um wall and we're we're working hard on that narrative I think for us it's trying to do a better job and tying who lives in these affordable um apartments or um more modest homes again um sharing the idea that it it it may be your child's teacher or it may be the firefighter that's rescuing your your mom who fell on the third floor of the or second floor of of their place all of those kind of things it's interesting you mentioned Northfield because um recently um Jen Woodford from the community land trust and roster area foundation and I uh had a meeting with some stakeholders from Northfield asking how the coalition worked and and why it worked and and what could they be doing in their community so um I think the word is getting out for others that that we are doing something that's really unique.

Quite frankly I wish all of these folks that were here earlier could have been here and would have stayed and because I'd love to engage with those folks more and that's again why we're meeting with uh different groups in the community and really invite anyone who wants to come and talk to us about what we're doing and what we've got left to do um that would be great.

Councilmember Keene uh yes uh I wanted to clarify you said I think you said 60% of our households are now one in two person and is that of the of the households the number of households not the number of people is that 60% of the people live in one or two bedrooms one or two person households.

Yes that's correct 60% of the people 60 60% of the households are one and two okay right so that means I mean because I'm just trying to count people in I'm also interested like you said it's different than when we were young um I I mean are is it a different world now and we're going to have you know 40 to 55% owner occupied homes and it's just a different uh economy and a different uh society and we should get we should think of that as opposed to working towards 70% home ownership.

Yeah I think we need to be thinking about that um I actually met with a young entrepreneur probably a half a year ago who told me that he would rather keep his money in investments than putting in a house and was very happy just renting that said he wasn't married or had children yet either um but I really do think that that's the case and I I think that it's going to shift and change over time.

And I think we need to be ready for that um but I don't think I mean you know we spent the some time at the housing alliance last time talking about the homes that we grew up in.

I you know they're not going to be the same as how kiddos are going to be growing up right now.

It's just not not going to be the same.

Yeah that that's what I'm still trying to understand like when you do the the Maxfield a lot of times what we're working for is back to where we had it.

And I'm I'm trying to just make up my own mind if I think that's the right goal or we have to see how people live in the 21st century and have housing that supports that.

You know, again, that's a great point.

I I always like to to give the uh example that Mike Paradise, um, who just is, you know, um 40 some years experience building uh tells a story or tells example of you know, 20 years ago, um Bigelow was asked to build the first slab on grade home, and people thought they were absolutely nuts.

No one would build a slab and grade home in Minnesota.

Now a third of the homes they're building are slab on grade.

So again, that's probably a good leeway.

And yeah, the other thing I I'm always uncomfortable with the alliance and with the coalition work is that there seems to be a gap between what the priorities when you look at what the coalition says is needed, and then what you see what the market delivers.

And we even have it some of that in our room tonight, was saying, like, are why don't we stop building rentals or stop approving rentals so that we have more people and owner-occupied homes?

And it it's sort of to me, it's like, well, the private enterprise builds houses, city of Rochester or Olmstead County doesn't build houses.

And it seems like there's a gap between what we think is needed and what the market thinks is needed.

I'm and I'm not sure I agree with that or not.

I mean, I again, to me, I I always am looking at it like a continuum of housing that we need, right?

Um, I think that you know the data is important, but I think listening to the community and what people are seeing and what they're telling me is important too, and trying to really, you know, justify those two things or align those two things as much as we can.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, I too was struck as uh council president uh Schuebrain was with the 41% rise in uh uh in housing and then the cost of housing, the new housing going up.

It's one thing we talk about new construction, but the existing housing.

So as much as we say there's all this uh challenge for people to get in, there's a real positive side to the story, amount of the amount of wealth that's been built in homes in the last, you know, in Rochester, at least the last 10 or 15 years.

Um, unf you know, unfortunately, some people think that's the way it always works, and they didn't live through 2008 or they didn't live through some of the these big downturns.

Um, but I I guess I'm I'm still struggling with that idea of like um there this isn't all the negative picture of people, you know, it's hurting our economy.

I think the work you guys are doing is really helping address the need to help support the economy grow the way it wants to grow.

But I also think there's other players in here that we don't seem to understand their motives and their motivations, and I I'd feel more comfortable if I if I understood that better.

Thank you.

Great question.

Uh council member Doring.

Yeah, I really appreciate the work of the coalition and uh the alliance.

Just have a few specific questions on slide 10.

You had uh there were some rental rates that were included on there for I think it was the DMC district.

Um and it was like average rental rates, like 1,1300 for downtown apartments, and I want to know where those rental units are, uh, because that's not what I hear for rental prices in the downtown area.

So are those because of subsidized apartments included in those average rental rates uh in the DMC district, or or how should I be thinking about that?

Yes, well, what's interesting to note, and some people don't realize this too.

So over the last 10 years, um, since DMC launched and added these additional units, 40% of those units they added in the last 10 years have some level of affordability in them.

Okay.

And so for example, there's a lot of student housing, which we're excited about with UMR.

There's, you know, um so again, there are there are other units that, and I think a lot of people don't realize that there are units with affordability that are still in the downtown district.

Yeah, and I think that's a narrative that that also should be uh reported to our community uh here in Rochester.

Um secondly, I have not taken the opportunity or afforded myself the opportunity to read through the entire Maxfield study.

It's very data dense, and I want to give it the time that it deserves deserves.

But I know that I hear a lot from uh the differently abled community here about uh the need for accessibility and accessible housing.

And is there data set points in the Maxfield study about our uh ability to provide fully accessible housing and where those gaps might be in our community?

Uh there's some data points, but we have a lot more to do in that area.

Um we're the the housing alliance group is is also working with a group of stakeholders around accessibility too, because there's a lot of work to do there.

And one of the things we're looking at along with the city of Rochester team that has really helped spark some of that work too, is really to see um can we connect landlords who have those ADA compliant units or some level of accessibility to the folks that are needing them because there's a misconnection there.

They're not the the folks that need those accessible units, aren't able to find them.

Apartment.com does not have that information on them.

So it's been really great for me to see that a number of our landlords that are talking with us that are on that panel, including you know, Titan and Black Swan, are willing to say, yes, we want we want to help with this too, but we have a lot of work to do in that area.

Yeah, and I appreciate the work that has been done so far.

And I I wanted the public to hear that work as well.

I've been aware of that that work happening.

So uh again, thank you for your work and thank you for the presentation today.

Any other questions?

Mayor Norton.

I'll make a couple of comments, and then I do have a question.

You know, I really appreciated uh the council's comments and dialogue.

I think it's good.

I I picked up things too from the presentation that I thought are really surprising, actually.

Um, and I think one of the things I feel about Rochester, we're growing, we have the struggles of a growing community, but we're able to offer the best of all worlds for folks.

And part of it is because we continue to talk about the spectrum of needs.

We provide for every level.

With that comes some angst and and pushback sometimes from the community, particularly those that are interested in affordable housing.

And I've really appreciated um the position that we've taken here, which says yes, we absolutely need affordable housing.

And certainly uh, as you said, uh senior housing, a third of the demand is for seniors.

And we had a you know talk tonight about that in a different project.

Um that if we go if we provide something at every level, it allows for the market and the people in the market to move around where they need to go and where they want to go.

And as was mentioned, and I think you mentioned it, and it kind of came up earlier uh by one of the my fellow council members.

When you provide something, a slab on grade, single, you know, unit, single um for a single family unit, people who are in older homes that they don't need or want anymore because of the two stories, or because they have too many bedrooms or too many toilets to clean or whatever the deal is, you can move out of that and on into something that meets your current needs, no matter the cost, you because you can you can sell your home and and purchase something at the same cost that better meets your physical needs and free up your home for a family.

And I think that's just so important in this discussion, and sometimes that gets lost.

Um, also I really um 24% of folks are still struggling with housing, and we know from work and data that we've been collecting over the years, those are often our community of call communities of color, um, new new immigrants that come into the community, and we have to keep that in mind and and build for those needs, find programs.

And I think you've done a really nice job of braiding some programs to try to meet those needs, but clearly there's and we cannot forget that quarter of the population.

And uh, and I'm just struck by um the cost of construction is up 50% in the last five years.

I mean, that's really a remarkable number.

It kind of took me back.

Is that everywhere, or is that just here?

Because I think sometimes what who we hear from, these are all Rochester problems.

We don't have housing, not no houses have been built, construction's too expensive, you know, fees are too high.

This isn't a Rochester problem as I understand it.

Is that correct?

Or is it it's a nationwide issue, absolutely.

I think we need to keep that in mind.

And I think we have done a lot.

I'm astounded by the numbers that I'm hearing today.

It's impressive.

The community isn't hearing that.

In fact, I see comments.

The city hasn't done anything about housing.

We have done a lot.

And so, to the point that was made earlier, how can we message what we've done, get the information out there?

I love the idea about having a resource for folks that are other abled that are looking for places to live, that we have a resource for them.

Um, and and we're growing from a small town to a big city.

I mean, that that's the fact of it.

And we have to offer things, and I I often hear we don't want any apartments in Rochester, no more apartments.

We have to have apartments.

There are a lot of people who want apartments, and the numbers show it.

They're full, people want to be in an apartment, at least for this part of their life, whether they be a senior or a single, you know, or young married couple.

There's a need for that as well.

So I I'm I'm not saying anything very profound here, other than I think our size city can give, can be that place that people want to come because we're gonna have something for everyone, just simply because we have apartments, we have homes, we have acreages for those who want to live on acreage.

We have acreages for those who want to live on acreage.

We have everything, and we need to continue to provide that.

So I want to thank you for your report.

Um, I found the numbers some of them startling, but uh overall really impressed with the work that's happened this last year by you, by the city, by everyone, by our developers.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Morris.

And just to echo what the mayor said, uh thank you for all the work and thank you for the the coalition, the city, the county, Mayo, the uh Rochester Area Foundation.

Uh, it's really is a model.

I'm glad to hear that Northfield is looking at it.

I think a lot of uh cities are looking at it.

I think we're looking at it for other uh issue areas.

So I think it's a model that works and uh keep up the good work and uh we'll be in touch.

Thanks so much.

Moving on to item H2, which is uh renewable energy power purchase agreement.

Uh and this is there's no action uh attached to this, but Mr.

Tim McCullough will uh will lead off our presentation here.

Very good.

Uh council president, council mayor, uh, good evening.

Um, just to set your mind at ease, the Vikings are down by only four with the field goal at the end of the second quarter.

So now that I have your full attention, I would like to highlight that this is uh focused tonight only on the renewable energy power purchase agreements topic.

We will be back, Bill and myself.

This is uh Bill Bullock, director of power resources on September 29th to do a broader overview on the power resource plan, but this is a timely item for tonight that I would like to introduce uh the topic to you all as well.

This has been a conversation in the RPU boardroom for most of this year.

Um, and just for some initial framing, uh, there's two major components to our power resource plan our capacity needs um served by reliable sources and some our renewable energy needs, and that's what we're here to talk about tonight.

I've been accused of bringing too many charts to uh meetings before.

I have four for you tonight.

And so if you'll be patient with me for just a moment, um, this is a representation of our renewable energy target goal and how it would play out from 2030 and beyond.

Um, the purple section of the chart that you can see represents the current period through 2029.

When you see the green step in, that's the year 2030.

That is the end of our wholesale power agreement with uh Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency.

It is also the target goal for our 100% net renewable line.

Um the bars represent the amount of renewable electricity that we anticipate being in our portfolio, and this was our target a year ago in our resource plan efforts in 2024.

As you'll note, there's a number of lines in the future period.

The one I want you to focus on is that top line, RPU 2030.

That's the target that we're trying to achieve in the 2030 time frame.

And as you can see, our resource plan in its previous iteration in 2024 targeted a portfolio of wind and solar projects represented by the orange and the green of about 350 megawatts of wind and about 50 megawatts of solar that would give us enough to supply 100% of our annual electricity sales needs.

That resource plan from a year ago actually had an excess in there.

You can see the bars go above that 100% line.

And you'll see there's kind of a climbing line called rec balance that's puttrects in the bank for future use that allows us to have load growth that allows us to have fluctuations in a low wind year or a low solar year, which can happen to cover future needs as well.

So as you read one of these charts, what I want you to focus on is that rec balance line.

As long as that line stays above zero, it means we're in compliance with our goal.

This was our plan a year ago, and a lot has changed in the last year.

And I want to frame some of those changes, the most notable of which is changes to federal tax policy with the real the vacation of much of the provisions in the inflation reduction act, um, particularly investment tax credits that largely applied to solar projects and production tax credits, which largely applied to wind projects, um, have been phased out starting uh in 2027, really the full year 2028 projects will be no longer eligible for federal level production or investment tax credits.

So we've adapted our plan and we've targeted projects now that we can accelerate and bring forward that can still retain eligibility for those tax credits.

We do believe that's the most cost-effective means of supplying renewable electricity, but it does mean we're taking on some of those projects about two years ahead of our schedule.

And I'll talk a little bit more about what the impact of that is.

I'd also like to highlight there's been a number of uh executive orders and tariff announcements that still have yet to fully play out.

Um the bottom bullet there, this is actually an amendment from the packet because it was in very recent um last couple weeks.

There was an announcement that interpretations of uh import tariffs would now specifically apply to wind turbine components, up to 50% of the materials, particularly steel and aluminum.

And we have not yet understood the impact to these projects that we'll be talking about tonight of those tariffs.

So there's still some unknowns, even in these discussions that we're trying to price in and understand.

About a year ago in December, we started turning our plan into action and we put out a request for information for renewable projects to understand what the market could bring, what projects were ready.

And we've been working through the responses to that request for information.

It included also capacity.

Um, but tonight we're talking about the renewable electricity pieces of it.

Um, there was a package of projects that totaled roughly uh 100 uh, sorry, 200 megawatts of wind and about 50 megawatts of solar.

So if you take those projects and apply it to the same chart graphic, you can see that if we were able to be successful of all three of those, what I'm calling wind one, two, three, and the solar 50, this would put us in a position of compliance with our renewable electricity target, our local goal through when that line crosses the bottom graph in 2038.

So this this portfolio of projects makes great progress on the renewable electricity goal.

And we can hit the goal in 2030 and sustain the goal through most of the 2030 decade.

And then with later load growth and later additions of wind, it would need to be supplemented in the 2038 timeframe.

Now, here where I need a little bit of grace and trust in this graphic.

Part of the work that we've been doing is trying to understand the implications of taking on renewable energy a couple years early.

Um, we still have an obligation through our wholesale power agency to buy nearly all of our energy from SIMPA.

So any project that we take on early renewable electricity based, then exposes us.

Uh, we have to operate it on a merchant basis or economically in the market.

So we make commitments to these projects typically on a fixed base price.

So we buy all energy at a fixed price.

The market doesn't give us that guarantee.

The market buys the energy at the moment it's made at some price, and the average market price for the last couple of years has been about half of the project cost that we're targeting here.

So, what we've done is done some modeling.

This means that we might be exposed to some short-term higher energy costs.

That's part of the rate driver that you've seen in the proposed budget in 26 and 27.

But what I want to highlight is long-term uh these projects around 40 to 50 dollar wind provide a good hedge on future energy costs.

And the line, the tiny line that's read 2022, means in a condition where the market price goes high, we might not pay anything in the short term on these renewable energy projects.

They could be hedged and provide very little economic exposure to us.

But in the long term, we could see a cost reduction of up to $7 million.

So you could spend a half a million dollars in 208 and 29 to realize a $7 million lower cost in 2030 and beyond.

So the pricing of these is critically important to us.

Um, we believe that these three wind projects that we'll be bringing before you uh tonight are in the range of pricing that provides a good hedge for long-term energy needs, but does have some short-term cost exposure for us as well.

The case is a little bit different on solar.

Just in the last month, we've seen uh some solar pricing escalate 20 to 35%.

We see projects that are now in the 100 a megawatt range.

And so we're not bringing forward the solar package.

Uh, we did not propose it to the RPU board, but we did review the wind one, two, and three with the RPU board and the RPU board did support uh us bringing that forward to city council.

And in your packet, you have a um a report from the RPU board prepared by the RPU staff recommending the council consider moving these projects forward.

It is within charter authority for the city council to sign any long-term supply agreement.

That's the purview of the city council.

That's why it's in front of you.

We have these near-final uh form where we're nearing terms sheets where everything's uh finalized.

It's getting ready for signature.

And so this meeting tonight, this discussion, this report is a preparation for the next time you will see these, which we hope will be execution and final authorization.

I would suggest that maybe we could uh accomplish that through a consent agenda item at a future meeting.

Umeliness is important.

Um, what I didn't really point out earlier is the new executive uh the budget reconciliation bill sets a clock that these projects must start construction now within the next 10 months to be eligible for those production tax credits or finish in the next two and a half years.

So time is of the SF essence here.

These projects are near finish line.

The counterparties have brought these forward to their governance boards.

There's comfortable on the there's there's a comfort level on the other side of the project.

And so we're prepared tonight to uh start talking in real terms what these projects are.

Um, I'd like to highlight the three wind projects that you will see come back um to you at a future state.

Two of those are already in existence.

They're wind projects in the near region, Adams County and Dodge Center County.

These are wind turbines in the air.

They have been operating and they're in a position where they can make renewable electricity for us very quickly, and they have an option to be repowered, which means putting new blades, new turbines up to new towers on them very quickly.

They have interconnections, they have easement relationships.

And so we believe this is a good, it's not a lot of volume that we need.

Um, it's a modest amount, but it is a certainty, a certain price, and they're already across the finish line of many of the major milestones that other projects don't quite have secured yet.

So these are two that we think are in the in the money for us right now, and they do become available in the 26, 27, and 28 time frame and increasing volumes.

The larger tranche is uh about 50% of our annual load.

It is 180 megawatt project in northeast Iowa.

Um, the counterparty is looking for a 25-year agreement.

I will make a wager here that in 25 years, at the very near end of my career, this fixed cost of energy will be in our best interest long term.

So I would like you to invite you to think about these as a long-term energy cost hedge as well, not just a short-term market exposure.

We do believe these projects are in positions to retain tax credit eligibility.

There is still some unknown risks there that could play out over the next couple of years.

Um, and so we're working on the final terms about how to manage those risks on these projects.

We are hopeful that we might be able to bring them back and bring them forward by September 22nd as soon as the next regular council meeting.

Um, we've made some pivots on our resource plan.

We'll talk about those more on September 29th.

Largely we're focusing on uh renewable commitments that can that can happen in this time frame and secure the large majority of our renewable energy needs.

There are still some future needs to hit our 100% by 2030 goal.

Um, there's a possibility that pricing may not come back down in that time frame, but there's also the possibility that it could.

Our focus has been to be adaptable.

That's been the word that we've used inside RPU because the last year has required it.

We've had to adapt this plan.

So we're focusing on what we can get in in place and bring it online as early as 2026 and then assess future project needs based off of what we can see the market bring to us.

I do believe there will be less volatility, hopefully, in maybe a next federal administration beyond the current, but I do think we're in the tax policy realm that we're going to be in for the next couple of years.

So I don't have any hope that it's going to change in the very near term.

So I think we need to look towards the end of the decade before anything else significant.

And maybe the tariffs are also another piece that may not exist long term, those do affect short-term pricing as well.

So it gives me a little caution on going a lot further in a time of high volatility for additional volume beyond these immediate projects.

So final slide, final chart.

If we are able to secure, if the council supports these and we move forward with them, wind one, two, and three would put us in a position brought on early to bank enough recs to hit our 100% by 2030 goal in 2030 and maintain that goal through 2034.

So this is a position to secure our renewable energy needs for the next 10 years and leave time to make future decisions beyond that within the same time frame that we could sustain the goal.

And if we don't, this is also a compliance pathway with the Minnesota Carbon Free Standard.

So we are in a path to comply with the 60% uh Minnesota Carbon Free Standard that kicks in in 2030, ratches up to 90%, and then it uh aligns with our goal in 2040 as well.

So, with that, I would uh like to take any questions and just hear what the council would need to be prepared to take action um at a future meeting.

Councilmember Keene.

I was gonna listen in here, but I guess I if it disappears you want to have me comment.

I'm I'm as our representative on the RPU board.

I think it's most appropriate that you lead off.

Very good, very good.

Um I'll give you my reading from the RPU board meeting in August.

I I'm amazed that we're uh in a place to get 245 megawatts of wind power right now and be bringing it on early.

This is, I mean, you you I think the staff has to be very worried about all the different flight uh cost fluctuations with fuel and how it it's you know, it could happen this way, it could happen that way.

But by and large, the outlook for the future would be these are the kind of things we need to keep our costs reasonable, even though that this upfront investment.

I mean, it it's eye popping.

It's we're we're going to be uh extending a lot of a lot of money.

Um, I I guess I don't know how much I I have spent a lot of time over the last four years trying to understand capacity and energy and uh chits and this sort of thing, and then the mislevel marketplace and how you you know, you don't we're not gonna buy these things and just use them in Rochester.

We're gonna put these into the marketplace and purchase out of the marketplace.

It's complicated world, but it it is actually done to with the goal of making us do the right things.

Um, and I think we're uh we've got the right people at RPU to sort of help us lead our way through this.

But um, I I'm comfortable.

I was I feel proud to vote in favor of the giving the staff and the attorney to go to the next steps with this.

Um we're really talking about the renewables today.

We're doing similar stuff with you know what is our on demand uh energy.

And same again, we're we take this, you know, the rates very seriously, but we take reliability as serious or more serious.

We don't want to get caught with the idea of what happened in Texas in 2021 where okay, it was storms, these other things, and then oops, we we don't have we can't get anything working.

And um, I feel proud that where we're at right now, and I think we're on the right path.

Any other questions uh or comments?

Uh council member Wall.

Yeah, Mr.

Keene knows a whole lot more than I do, but these this is eye popping.

I it's just it blows uh relatively new council members' mind right out of the water.

Uh would I be conflating things to say that what you have presented thus far tonight corresponds to a suggestion of 6% increases in electric rates uh for the next five years or so, or have I tied those two clo too closely together?

So great question, Councilmember Wall.

And even some of the risks that I've talked about were not in our four or rate four or six percent rate uh question that we asked of our customers.

So originally when we did this modeling back in June, that's what this basis is based off of.

This would have represented a 4% rate trajectory through the end of the decade to accomplish these projects.

Um we do see that there's some risks being priced in here with tariffs.

This might look more like a 6% in the short term to fund these projects with uh a softer tail at the end of the decade.

So I will be more prepared to answer that question.

I think by the time I we come back on September 29th.

Um we're working on some final revisions to the budget.

We'll be prepared to bring uh tariff schedule and a rate schedule to the RPU board the day after our meeting.

But I do think that these represent with the uh let me answer it more specifically, I guess.

Um last two years energy has been very inexpensive in the sense of about 20 a megawatt hour on the open market.

These projects are around 40, 40 to 50 dollars.

That means we're spending 30 bucks, net of 20 to 30 bucks to have the privilege of off taking and capture the renewable energy credit and sell.

So there's a cost to that.

If the next three years, if gas prices go up and the market hovers around 40, this is a break-even.

So um, some of this fluctuation we will not be able to predict until we know what the future years are, but it would be a necessary pass-through cost to our customers.

So, this is one of the questions that we'll be discussing in the RPU boardroom of what's the needed rate trajectory to accomplish this, and then any future decisions beyond that, we'll have to address what the rate trajectory is beyond that as well.

So you're asking an astute question.

Um, and I could say maybe is the 6% to your answer.

And would it be also uh fair to say that uh as an enterprise fund of the city of Rochester, um, we are providing a very valuable service to the consumers of electricity.

Uh, and they don't uh other cities don't enjoy the same rates that we do.

Uh yeah, that may be a fair thing to say.

This is a this is a I would go even further to say a very valuable, this is a critical service to our community that underpins everything that we do on a daily basis, and our need to maintain reliable and affordable electricity is an underpinning of our economy, and the environmental attributes are also an important value and a requirement for us as well.

So, yes, it's critically important for us.

Nearly every utility in Minnesota and the country is facing the same cost pressures and risks that we are today.

We're not in a unique position, but we are in a very privileged position in being able to make decisions about our destiny because we're one of the very few utilities that is facing the expiration of a wholesale contract and have the opportunity to reinvent our power supply with the decisions that we're making.

So, not many utilities get to be in a position like this, um, but many of our peers are facing many municipals that we share currently Simpa Energy with are in a similar position trying to solve for 2030 for those who will remain with the agency as well.

I hope I answered your question in that.

Did you oh I thought I saw you?

Uh Mayor Norton.

Yeah, thank you.

I I know this is a difficult time and a very volatile time uh in the industry.

Um, I know we have lots of uncertainties.

Um, I also know that election cycles are every two and four years.

And so it's hard to predict what two years or four years will bring.

And and so you are placed in an untenable position of uh providing the wishes of the council to provide uh renewable energy as our source at the time when things are so up in the air.

Um, not only with the price of energy rising everywhere, no matter what energy source people are using, which is happening as well, but also um with our added desire to do the right thing, um, not only environmentally, but um hopefully in the long run financially.

And I was actually heartened by your your sharing the information about the price of wind.

Yes, all of these things have upfront costs, um, but it sounds like more so than solar and some of the other energy sources.

This does have a pretty quick payoff, which was uh surprising to me.

It could have some real benefits to us in the 2030 and beyond in hedging future costs.

Yes.

Yeah, that was a surprise, and I was very pleased to say it.

And so I'll just say thank you.

I know you've worked really hard.

I know this is a difficult time.

Um, I appreciate your dedication to trying to get us where we want to go.

And if we can have this on the 22nd uh for a vote on my birthday and pass it, I I would I won't need anything else.

Thank you, Mayor.

That's why I turned to you.

I knew you would concisely uh uh speak to the issue.

Uh I also uh appreciate the hard work and the just the expertise and knowledge and nimbleness of RPU to really understand all these markets and and uh where we're going in such a volatile time.

And I one of Mr.

McCoa, one of the last things that you said, I really appreciated the the way you talked about how we are here to provide reliable and affordable energy and also focus on our values as a community, which includes sustainability.

I thought that was a really good way to put it uh because one of the things that I really appreciate about uh about Rochester is we are the city of health.

We also and health also includes our environment.

So I appreciate that.

And I will also be supporting this on the 22nd.

Council member uh Dory.

Yeah, thanks.

I think this is a sound strategy to move uh to move forward uh to meet our goals.

Um, I also appreciate uh the hard work and dedication of our RPU uh team uh to present this to us, and I look forward to supporting this as well.

With thank you, uh Mr.

McCullough and team, and we will see you in a couple weeks.

Keep up the good work and hard work.

I neglected to mention that I get to stand on the shoulders of all of the team that put this together.

Bill came on board a little over a year ago and jumped into a significant challenge in joining the utility.

He and the team have done an incredible amount of work to make this happen.

Great.

Thank you.

Next up, we have uh H3 adoption of the new city action plan.

Mr.

Aaron Parrish, take it away.

Uh Mayor, President members of Council.

I'm a little embarrassed.

I don't have an extensive presentation like everybody else uh this evening, but I am excited to tell you that uh this is the action plan for your consideration.

I've had a number of other people I see a blank page.

Is that what it is?

That's exactly what it is.

That is what I have for you this evening.

Um but in all truthfulness, you have uh talked about this extensively and um we attempted uh to incorporate your feedback from the August uh study session uh to the best of our ability.

Uh really this is the action plan that will drive the strategic priorities of economic resilience housing access, inclusive growth management, responsible environmental stewardship, which we just had a great conversation about, and transformational capital projects, which you also just had a great conversation about.

Um so that um the request is to adopt the action plan.

And I'm happy to answer any questions or if you'd like any clarification on any of the uh edits that we made since your last time you saw this.

Thank you, Mr.

Parrish, and thank you for being very brief.

And yes, you are right.

We have discussed this action plan and it uh coming off of our strategic priorities at several study sessions and through many uh items that have come before us.

So uh council members, any additional thoughts on the action plan.

If not, is there um this is a this is a motion.

Is uh is there a motion to uh adopt the new city action plan?

Yeah, I'll make a motion to adopt the new city action plan as a guiding framework for advancing the city's new strategic priorities.

Uh motion made by council member Keene and seconded by council member Fredericks, Fredericks.

Any uh additional thoughts, council member.

But the the charts and then usual other than what the indicators are and so I I spent some time how this works when we go through and we create the action plans and we work.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay.

We have an action plan.

Uh next item is startup funds in the amount of 20,000 uh dollars of 2025 contingency for the International Relations Committee.

Mayor Norton.

Thank you.

I know you've had a presentation by a member of the IRC already, and a couple of folks spoke this evening, but I'll just reiterate that as an international city with the world's best health care.

Uh, we have regular visits from people and also from dignitaries from around the world.

We also seek business interests from around the world.

And uh you have some recent examples of that with some work that DMC has been doing.

A budget for hosting visitors, which include some recent visitors we've had and struggled with entertaining, such as we had a recent visit visit visitor from an ambassador.

Uh, we have had council generals come through.

Um, we have certainly physicians and other prof business professionals and owners who come through.

And our sister city uh group that has been meeting has been, I think, impressed with the way we're treated in other countries and also frustrated that we have not been doing a proper uh when we don't reciprocate necessarily properly, but it's been a little embarrassing, quite frankly.

And so they have they are going to start on a um uh their own path of doing some fundraising, but uh we have two delegations from Germany coming this month, and we have other potential visits from South Korea, depending on the politics of the day and uh and Japan in this coming year, and we really need to, I guess one of the things the committee talks about is upping our game as a city.

Um in the past, uh there was funding in years ago for other uh they didn't call it the IRC, but it was a different type of committee, had a different name, but very similar.

Um, and so we're just looking for um, I think the committee would like a little seed money to get us going, and they will try to take it from there with either grant writing or fundraising or whatever they need to do so that we can reciprocate and we can entertain people in a um in a way that's uh representely represents our city and community.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh and uh I uh fully support uh the the mission and and just the connection to Rochester being a city that brings in uh international folks that work here in our city.

And I I think that uh it's important that we present ourselves at a high level for our guests when they come here.

uh representely represents our city and community thank you mayor uh and uh i uh fully support uh the the mission and and just the connection to rochester being a city that that brings in uh international folks that work here in our city and i i think that uh it's important that we present ourselves at a high level for our our guests when they come here can you talk a little bit more about uh the uh uh the work that the committee will do uh when it comes to public uh events for our guests um i've had some questions about whether it is just for the dignitaries getting together or will there be public exposure to uh the delegations when they get here and uh and opportunities for the public to participate yeah i appreciate um that question the german delegations that'll be coming this week are here only for one day of a a Minnesota visit so they're actually the international relations committees will be coming here and we spent seven dollars purchasing little German flags so uh that we can wave the flags as we have had done to our delegations when we arrive at other cities so um that's all that we're going to be offering besides a meal um that I think the county is taking care of this time with the German delegations um moving ahead the committee does definitely wants to do more public activities to engage the public in uh visits from folks that come here um as well as perhaps events that celebrate the diversity that we have in our community more publicly than we have been able to do in the past few years and I just will point out we have lost our diversity council we have lost our uh the world fest committee many of those nonprofits pri that we had prior to the pandemic fell away and have not come back and the international relations committee is talking about stepping up and uh taking over some of that activity and being a part of that so um I do think there's an interest in involving the community and the delegation visits that we have as well as uh cultural celebrations moving ahead any other uh council member keen uh yeah again I took some calls on this today from people who are interested in it getting passed and I I'm prepared to support it my only comments would be I'm I'm viewing these as startup because I think we call it start up um uh funding it doesn't appear that we have the plan yet for how to do this and again the mission can actually be quite large when you think about not only the international visitors or delegate delegations but you also have these sister cities and what's the plan slash budget for there so I'm looking at this as startup I'm uh fine I I think it's a good starting point I think it's good that there's a committee trying to look at this but the the I I guess I wouldn't expect a request for contingency in 2026 or 2027.

I we either got to find a way to do this or or or not but with that I will uh move approving the 2000 and the 20 out of from the 2025 contingency fund to create a startup funding for the International Relations Committee.

Moved by council member Keene seconded by councilmember Doring any more to add councilmember uh any further discussion seeing none all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed say nay passes moving on to ordinance first readings uh Mr Spindler Craig thank you Mr.

President item J1 and ordinance rezoning approximately 5.48 acres of land located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Bandel Road northwest and overland drive northwest pin number 078598 from MXS mixed use street to MXC mixed use center and amending ordinance number 4478 known as the Unified Development Code of the City of Rochester