Oh we will go to the women.

Excused.

Bowie here.

Coleman here.

Joast?

Here.

Commissioner Kim is excused.

Naker?

Here.

And Commissioner Yang is excused.

There are four present and three absents, which are excused.

Item number one is approval of the minutes.

MIN 26-2, approval of the December 2025 HRA meeting minutes.

All right, I'll take a motion from Council President Naker to approve the meeting minutes.

Is there any discussion?

Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Four in favor, zero opposed.

The minutes are approved.

Item number two for discussion is resolution RES 26-32 resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of conduit multifamily housing revenue bonds and approving the execution of related documents.

200 Wilkin Street, Joseph's Point at Upper Landing Project District 9, Ward 2.

All right, I'll turn this over to uh Director McMahon to give us an update on this item.

Thank you, Chair Commissioners.

This is a technical action related to updated bond structure for the Joseph's Point project located at 200 Wilkins Street.

Joseph's point is an acquisition and preservation of 90 affordable housing units.

The project has been presented to the HRA board at the end of August.

And on September 10th, you acted to approve the issuance of up to 13 million in conduit revenue bonds and 1.6 million in city gap financing.

Schaefer Richardson, the developer was working with HUD, but had to switch gears because of the government shutdown, and as a result, changed their bond structure, just how the bonds are sold and purchased.

So this request again is a technical change to approve that new bond documents because of the updated bond structure, and there's no additional funding as part of it.

That's great.

Um appreciate that update.

Um I will take a motion from Council President Naker to approve this item.

Is there any discussion on this?

All right.

Uh seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Five in favor, zero opposed.

Resolution is adopted.

Item number three is a staff report SR26-1.

Introduction to 652 Sherburne Avenue loan extension request.

Great.

I think uh we have a presentation from Hannah Chung on this item.

Can I have a cat?

Welcome.

Oh, is it kidding?

Oh we'll just need a second here.

We'll get the presentation up on the screen.

Sorry, I'm not sure.

Thank you.

Chair Joseph, uh, commissioners.

My name is Hannah Chong.

I'm here to present a loan extension request for the six fifty-two Sherburn development.

So just a quick project overview.

This is um this project is a rehabilitation in of a vacant building located at six fifty-two Sherburn Avenue in District 7 Ward 1, the developer model cities.

We'll re-rent it out for five years and then converted to a um ownership ownership thereafter.

And there's a total of six units, and um this is a unit mix.

There's one one bedroom, three or three two bedroom, and two four-bedroom units.

Um so again, this request is to extend the maturity date of a spending plan tip loan from December 31, 2025 to June 30th, 2026.

So this is not a request for additional funding.

It's to just extend the maturity date.

An RFP was issued in September 2020, and the Sherburn Collective was selected as a tentative developer in May of 2021 based on their anti-displacement focused rental to ownership proposal.

The collective is made up of Frogtown Neighborhood Association, Hope Community Inc.

and Model Cities.

Ultimately, Model Cities became the sole developer in partnership with Rondo Community Land Trust.

FNA and Hope Community are not a party to any of the city or HRA legal financing documents, but they are still leading the resident engagement, education, and planning for that community ownership structure with future residents.

So financing closed on May 2024, but construction did not start until August 2024 because of permitting issues, which is the main driver for this request today.

So just a little bit about model cities.

Paul and Ramsey County, and their mission is to provide affordable home ownership and rental opportunities to low and moderate income households.

So the project structure is quite complicated, but I'll try my best to explain it here.

While Model City, as a developer, leases the land and they own the building improvements.

So initially the units will be leased to qualifying residents for five years, and in the sixth year, the ownership of the property will be transitioned to a community ownership model, such as a land trust or a residential cooperative.

And once all the units are transitioned to ownership, the lease uh between Rondo Community Land Trust and Model City Cities will be terminated.

The property will remain in the community land trust, and the sales price must be affordable to families at 30% of AMI.

And um residents of the building will have a um a part in designing what that community land trust and cooperative looks like.

So the project is, I believe, one of the first of its kind in that that the HRA has undertaken.

So it required flexible financing in order to make it a reality, which means deferred or forgivable loan terms at zero to low interest.

So this is the current financing, and you can see the lenders are Ramsey County, the St.

Paul HRA, and the City of St.

Paul.

So the loan in question today is the spending plan TIF loan in an amount of 386,279 dollars.

It's in the second lien position, zero percent interest, and the maturity date is was December 31st, 2025.

So this loan was originated to be forgiven and to be very flexible if three of the conditions were met by the maturity date.

So all units have to be leased to extremely low-income tenants, which is defined as a 30% AMI, a jobs report submitted to the HRA, and a certificate of occupancy submitted to the HRA.

So because of the late construction start, model cities, the developer is requesting an maturity date extension by six months so they have time to fulfill these loan conditions so that the loan can be forgiven as it was designed to be.

Thank you, Chair Jills.

Uh, or Vice Chair Jills.

I just want to say thank you for all the time that you took with briefing the commissioners and briefing my office in advance.

Um, I'm really excited to see this cooperative housing um project to completion.

I know it's been so many years of um trans being transformative and doing something different.

I just want to also just echo and um emphasize of how this is like a first of its kind, um, but it's also my commitment that it's not the last, right?

I think um the city and the county and the state can um can continue this level of model of community development.

So I just want to say thank you for all the hands and work that uh went into it, and I support this item as well.

So great.

That's awesome.

Um, any other questions from my colleagues?

Perfect.

Well, thank you, Hannah.

We'll have this um item before us for action next week.

Yep, thank you.

Thank you.

Item number four is the staff report SR26-2 introduction to the inspiring communities project at 560 Brunson Street, District 5 Ward 2.

Great, and I'll welcome up Joel Mulsoff to give a presentation on this item.

Wonderful, welcome.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Chair Jost, and thank you, Commissioner Naker, for sponsoring this item that will be before you in an upcoming meeting.

This is an introduction to an action that will be before you regarding additional funding for a proposed project at 560 Brunson Street under the Inspiring Communities Program umbrella.

I'm Joe Musoff.

I work in the Department of Planning and Economic Development.

I'm a principal project manager.

Um I'm here to provide an overview of the request, and um the HRA has previously authorized 1,145,000 fifty-nine dollars of gross subsidy, and the developer is requesting an additional 87,313.

I'll show you those numbers in just a minute, but I just wanted to set the stage of what the ask will be.

First, just a brief orientation to the project location, 560 Brunson Street is in the southern part of Railroad Island neighborhood.

Uh, this is in Ward 2 and in the Payne Phelan Planning District 5.

Zooming in a bit, the lot is at the northeast corner of Brunson Street and Pettit Street.

Uh this is um an 11,325 square foot lot, 0.26 acres.

It has 115 feet of frontage along Brunson and 98 feet of frontage along Pettit.

Um there are many interesting uh quirks in the Railroad Island neighborhood.

One of the reasons why I love the neighborhood so much.

Uh one of those interesting quirks is Pettit is a platted street that's only 20 feet wide.

The HRA uh this HRA owned vacant lot was offered as part of the Inspiring Communities Program's 7th RFP in June of 2024 by resolation by resolution PH 24-144.

The HRA board authorized the sale of the property to the developer Amani Construction and Development, and also authorized a gross development gap subsidy of the number I mentioned earlier, 1,145059.

Amani Construction and Development is a local women and BIPOC owned for-profit residential developer and builder with over 10 years experience in affordable and market rate residential.

And Amani proposes to build four townhouses for ownership.

Each townhouse containing three bedrooms, two and a half baths of approximately 1,600 square feet, and a two-car garage.

And Amani uh construction and development has committed to restricting these the sales of these to uh owner buyers at household media at household income of 80% area median income or below.

Just a quick review of some property history.

Uh the HRA acquired this property in 2010.

Uh this was part of a number of acquisitions that the HRA made, primarily with a funding source called Neighborhood Stabilization Program, a federal funding source.

Uh this was one of a larger transaction uh purchased from Fannie Mae.

There was a single family house there that was vacant due to foreclosure.

It was in a condition that was determined to be so dilapidated that we felt the best route was to demolish and eventually rebuild on this property.

Excuse me, in 2011, and the HRA to date has spent around $80,000, including the acquisition and the demolition and some holding costs.

Just a quick slide of an image I found of the home that had been there on the north end of the lot on the Brunson Street side.

And then a few slides containing some images of the proposed townhouse development.

Here are two facade images.

The top to the left there is the frontage along Bronson, and you can see this is four side by side two-story townhouses.

Fronting on Brunson with two car two car tuck under garages accessed from the east.

Each of the units will have a garage, kitchen, living room, and half bath on the first level.

That's on the left side of the screen.

And three bedrooms and two full bathrooms upstairs.

Since the HRA's 2024 approval, the developer encountered unexpected challenges that arose through the site plan review process.

The lot size crossed the threshold to require stormwater management.

This required site redesign and the addition of engineered stormwater retention infrastructure.

And so on this slide, you'll see on the right in green is the development budget presented to the HRA in 2024, resulting in the approval of the 1.145059 gross subsidy.

The total development cost has increased by 87,313.

And you can see that new TDC in the left column in blue, and the increases can be seen in the hard construction cost and soft costs, which reflects additional engineering and architectural design fees.

This slide is a quick refresher on how the inspiring communities program structures the provision of development gap.

The HRA finances the cost of the purchase of the land, and that financing along with the development gap is provided to the developer in the form of a forgivable loan.

That loan carries no interest and is forgiven upon successful completion of the project.

And in the case of 560 Brunson, the development gap will be funded in part by an award from Minnesota Housing Finance Agency that's contained within the inspiring communities dollars that we're working with.

In addition to the development gap, uh HRA also provides affordability gap assistance to inspiring communities buyers.

There's no requested change here.

An authorized gross development gap contribution in the amount of 1,232 372, which is an increase of 87,313 over what was previously authorized.

And I'm happy to take any questions now or in between now in the uh action.

Any questions for colleagues?

Thanks, Chair Jost.

Uh Mr.

Roosevelt, thanks so much for this update.

And just to be clear, this is a project I strongly support, especially excited about the fact that it will be a kind of unusual form of development for us where it's for ownership of townhomes.

It's not a that's not a type that we see often.

I think that kind of missing middle housing is really important.

I'm just um I just want to highlight the fact that this is another example where regulation and process has caused costs to go up yet again for an affordable housing project.

Um I think there's there's an importance in the processes that we have, and it also drives up costs and takes a lot of time.

So I think knowing the fact that this was due to site plan review and the stormwater management requirements is as helpful context as we consider this request.

Um just to make sure I'm clear, are we ready to go with this project at this point?

Is it when do we anticipate construction beginning?

And is there a possibility that there could be further delay, further cost increases?

Uh Chair Jost and Commissioner Naker, um thanks for pointing out the challenges associated with uh project like this.

And yes, this project is ready to go upon approval of the additional subsidy.

We can rush to closing on the property sale, execution of development agreement, and spring construction start.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Commissioner Acre, for the for that question.

I think it's very very important information.

Uh any other questions from my fellow commissioners.

Great.

Um, well, thank you, Mr.

Moussoff.

And I think I said your name incorrectly before, so I apologize for that.

But thank you for um your presentation and for sharing that information.

Um I guess that is the end of our agenda today, and so with nothing else to come before us, we are adjourned.