Policy Council Policy Committee to order.

Roll call, please.

Councilmember Bowie.

Council President Naker.

Councilmember Joost here.

Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

Councilmember Kim.

Councilmember Yang.

Councilmember Johnson.

Here.

Seeing four present, three absent.

And Councilmember Yang is or Kim is excused.

Alright, we have two items on our agenda this morning.

First one is our definition of rooming house presentation.

Welcome up Katie Dadless from Planning and Economic Development to tell us more.

Can I hand these to you?

Thanks.

Morning, Council members.

Katie Dadley is city planner in the Department of Planning and Economic Development.

So I'm here to talk about the rooming house definition.

And it's something I think that has arisen in the past few months because of some recent and some proposed housing developments.

And these developments likely are stemming from some of the amendments to our zoning code related to the one to four one to six housing study a few years ago.

I don't have like a big presentation for you today.

What I have is the handout that's being passed around right now.

What it includes is the zoning code definition of rooming house, as well as some related definitions that are kind of tucked within the rooming house definition itself, and then the housing code definition of rooming house as well, just so that we're covering all of our bases there.

So I think I'm gonna just review that definition and we can kind of have a conversation from there and see what kind of questions council members might have.

So in looking at the definition, there's two parts to the definition.

And the first part says a residential structure that provides single room occupancy housing as defined in Code of Federal Regulations, and then to more than six adults.

And if you want to know what the definition of that is, it's on the very next page, a unit that contains no sanitary facilities or food preparation facilities, or contains either but not both types of facilities.

So that's what uh SRO definition is.

The second part of the rooming house definition is basically a building housing more than six adults that has any of the following characteristics, and then there are six characteristics listed A through F in the definition, and it's there I think where we can spend a little bit of time and see that maybe in some ways the definition is could maybe use some updating.

And so the first criteria, and I should say maybe from the outset that a rooming house is a land use that is permitted in multifamily residential zoning districts, so RM zoning districts, it's not a use that's permitted in RH districts.

So um so it if a if a if a a building has any of the following characteristics, it would be considered a rooming house.

Um the first is rental arrangements are by the rooming unit rather than dwelling unit.

The second that rooming unit doors are equipped with outer locks or chains which require different keys to gain entrance.

The next kitchen facilities may be provided for joint or common use by the occupants of no more than one rooming unit.

The next rooming units are equipped with telephones having exclusive phone numbers.

The next rooming units are equipped with individual intercom security devices, and finally, each rooming unit has a separate assigned mailbox or mailbox compartment for receipt of mail, different from one mailbox for uh an entire dwelling unit as opposed to one for an individual person.

Um, and then finally, the definition also does include um standards and conditions for the use, and um in that case um there's a minimum lot area requirement for a rooming house.

You can see that it's 5,000 square feet, and then plus 1,000 square feet.

So it's 5,000 square feet for um six for six adults, and then 1,000 square feet for each additional adult.

So it that's the way that rooming houses are regulated.

Um, and so that's the definition.

As I noted on the next page, so there's single room occupancy definition.

I pointed out.

Because the rooming house definition uses the term rooming unit, dwelling unit, and guest room.

I've included those on the next page as well, just in case you want or need to reference those.

And then also on that second page, there's a definition of shareable housing.

It's a definition we have in our zoning code, but it's a and it says a residential structure designed for collaborative living in which individuals share common facilities and amenities.

But I would point out that that land use is only permitted in the Ford districts, and so it's not really necessarily relevant to the conversation today about the rooming house definition itself, but maybe it can lead us to thoughts that as part of updating a rooming house definition that either we update the existing definition that we have and some of the characteristics or think about maybe an additional or new definition.

So let's see.

And second of all, um, I'm struggling to understand shareable housing versus versus rooming house.

Um I think I understand the difference between rooming house and apartment building.

Apartment building seems like the difference is that those are all dwelling units because those units have kitchens, have living rooms, whereas a rooming unit is just essentially a bedroom.

But I guess I'm trying to understand how we're defining each of maybe each of those three things and then what's the overall problem we're trying to solve.

Sure.

So thank you, um, council member.

So I think what we're hearing is that there are some developments that are happening in the city, um, and I think they're largely enabled by some of the recent changes that we've had in the zoning code.

Um, the one to four unit zoning study and the one to six unit zoning study that resulted in some significant changes to um our zoning code as it relates to primarily H districts.

So we went from you know, zoning districts that allowed only single family or duplex to now we don't have that anymore, right?

So within an H district, you could have four units by right in an H2 district, you can have five units by right, and you can have more based on if you have some um affordable housing, so and also the number of adults that can be occupying a dwelling unit has increased as well from four to six.

So we have a situation in which we can have more dwelling units on a property, we can have more adults in a dwelling unit, and we have some developments that either are have are or are proposed to be developed that are using those changes in the code in order to maybe maximize occupancy, and that's driving questions about what are these uses, are these rooming houses, are these apartment buildings, and so it's causing us to take a look at the definition and seeing you know, are these what are these uses, and is our is our definition really adequate or should we be updating that in some way?

Um, in terms of your next question about rooming house and shareable housing.

Um, I don't know that we've ever really even used or employed the shareable housing definition.

It was created as part of the Ford district zoning.

Um it's there.

I'm not aware that shareable housing has been created in in the Ford District, but it's something that's allowed, and um, so we don't have any experience, I don't think, with any development of that sort at this point in time.

And so when you said it's only allowed in Ford districts, was that you say okay.

I think I misheard that as for okay.

I mean I'm asking a part because I'm really interested in shareable housing.

Um, and I think it's something we hear a lot about from constituents, and so I'm interested in kind of going down that road a little bit with you today.

I see Miss Coleman.

Thank you.

I have one thought on one of your questions, Council President, and then a question of my own, um, going back to the first page.

On the question of why, I just I think part of why we're having this conversation is because it's something that we've been really interested in for many of the reasons that Mr.

List laid out about you know seeing how some of the new developments that have arisen as a result of the zoning changes are maybe, you know, crossing over into rooming houses in H1 or H2 districts.

But I think also going beyond that, one of the things that we're excited about and thinking about, and I know has come up many times at this table, is thinking about what are people looking for in housing in the year 2026, and as we think about how our different people in need of different different housing structures, you know, I think about this even though it's very different context, but think about our accessory dwelling units and how people might want a smaller home than you know, sort of a traditional one, thinking about people who don't necessarily need a full apartment, don't want to pay the cost of a full apartment, but need a room, need a you know safe place to stay.

I know this conversation has come up in some instances with things like traveling nurses or people who need just a shorter term stay option.

Um obviously again in Mord 4 have this conversation a lot around college students, where this has come up quite a bit.

So I think I think that to me is a really valuable piece of this conversation, although we're looking specifically at the definition, which feels really foundational to being able to have the larger conversation.

I think that if we can get the definition right and really understand what these are and what they what we want them to be defined as, it can get us into the broader, broader picture conversation about how are we either supporting this type of development, if it is what we want to see in certain areas, and if it is not what we want to see in certain areas for a variety of reasons, what would it look like to do better enforcement or more oversight?

So that's I don't know.

Anyway, some thoughts that I had.

The question that I had is just going back to the definition, um, or the I'm sorry, the standards and conditions under section 6515.

Um, to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

So if you had six, so if you had a rooming house, a single um SRO, you have six people, then you need five thousand square feet.

If you had a multi, sorry to say this, a multi-f you had three stories and each one had six units, you would need a super large piece of land, right?

Is that am I understanding that correctly?

Yeah, council member Coleman, I so in order to have um, are you like a six unit?

Like three six unit SROs in a building.

Well, right, because well, when we talk, if you look um at the definition of um rooming house, um you'll see under item A rental arrangements are by the rooming unit rather than the dwelling unit.

So we're not talking about dwelling units with rooming houses, we're talking about like units, um, or rooming units, and so um dwelling unit isn't part of the rooming house definition to that extent.

So, but you can have a certain number of residents in a rooming house based on lot area.

So six people are allowed in a rooming house with 5,000 square feet, right?

And so if you're talking 36, you'd have the 5,000 square feet plus an additional 30,000 square feet for that additional 30 people.

Um, and I think that you know, when you take a look at that and then you compare that to what's allowed now under H1 and H2, maybe this part of this definition wasn't, I mean, one of the reasons for it to be updated is like it's is it is it out of date based on the one to four, one to six amendments, or is it right?

I mean, that's a question that we can take a look at and and try to figure out.

Um in terms of like you said, what type of housing do we want to have in the city?

Do we want to have develop and create for people at various different stages in their life?

And if this is something that we want to do, then how do we do it?

And do and it's not allowed in H districts right now, um, but it could be, but maybe at a lesser density, for example, than might what might be allowed in in an RM district.

Um, but I think we really do need to take a look at um those changes.

And I think you know, this is sort of a normal process of amendments and zoning is that you make amendments, especially like the one to four, one to six, a lot of amendments, and then over time that plays out, and so we're sort of seeing how this plays out, and maybe this is a time for us to stop and adjust and take a look and see.

Like, do we need to update the definition?

Do we need to take a look at other things based on how we see it playing out and is it appropriate or isn't it?

What do we want to encourage?

What don't we want to incentivize that kind of thing?

Thank you.

I think it seems Johnson, and then why don't we let you finish up your presentation and sort of get to the maybe the question or the things you want us to be discussing today given time?

Ms.

Johnson.

I guess I can wait until the I read ahead, so I was like ready.

I'm not actually sure where you went to, so I'll wait until she's done.

You have first steps after.

Okay, that's right.

Thank you.

Please conclude and then we'll discuss.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I I really don't have much more to offer, only to just sort of bring to your attention the sort of things that we might think about in updating the definition.

Definitely item D in the criteria that make a rooming house that says rooming house or units are equipped with telephones having exclusive numbers.

Clearly, I I don't expect that a new development or any development would have like a landline installed.

At this day and age, most people have their own cell phone.

Whether I don't know whether or not the security intercom security devices are something that's that's potentially still done or not.

So we can take a look at that.

Um the minimum lot area uh was another one that I identified as something we need to take a look at based on um the the one to four changes in the densities that are allowed in age districts and how that compares to the rooming houses in our M districts.

Um, and then also I included the the zone uh uh housing code definition of rooming house just because it's a little bit inconsistent with the zoning code definition, primarily and it it's they read a little bit differently, and one of the big differences is that the rooming house definition limits occupancy to four adults, whereas the zoning code definition is six adults, so maybe that could be something that we could take a look at um as part of a part of that process.

Um and then also just the notion that you know, do we update this definition or do we think sort of outside of the box about a shareable housing or a co-living definition instead that kind of tries to get at the type of product that we see people either building or wanting to build, and and framing it just a little bit differently in light of that?

So that's all that I had that I wanted to convey to you, and I'm just here to be a part of the conversation and answer questions.

Thanks, Ms.

Douglas.

Um, Ms.

Johnson.

Thank you.

So when I hear about this, and I kind of have to think about it, it reminds me of like college days, honestly, where um folks would get together, maybe they're not related, but they would each have their own different room and essentially pay rent, but I'm not sure in that case.

I think that there was like what this requires separate leases, or like would you is there like is there a difference between I guess just like co-living like cohabitation when you have um four adults that are in a and a apartment that are paying rent one rent, I guess, instead of separate rents, or is there a separate like is there a difference?

Like I know that when I first moved here and I went to the college, that was kind of the living arrangement that we had was that we had four women, none of us were related.

We're living in a apartment.

We did we did have our own room, but it was like a shared one space.

Is that this definition, or is there distinctive difference?

Um, council member Johnson, I think it it depends um on what the arrangement is.

If you're if you've got an apartment and you've got four people living there and you're under one lease, that's an apartment.

A rooming house has to meet one of these criteria, and the very first one is rental arrangements by the rooming unit rather than the dwelling unit.

In the instance you're talking about with an apartment with four people sharing.

That's a dwelling unit and a lease by that.

Um, in this case, we're talking about um individual leases for each of the bedrooms.

Okay.

Thank you, council president.

Well, I appreciate that presentation.

I just want to say thank you for laying out all of these different definitions and going into detail with us about them.

I uh wanted to um to answer your questions about just really input on does it make sense for us to update our um these definitions, and for me, I'm uh based on the things that you shared with us, it definitely seems to make sense for us to do that.

And what I like overall is that I see a lot of our departments like coming to the council here um with um with proposals around just updating your language overall to have it be, for example, gender neutral and to modernize the language, update it because it is out.

We have a lot that are outdated.

And so I am very supportive of it.

Especially like the pieces that you named around inconsistencies, working to clean up the language and and fix that would be really important.

And this seems like I mean, it seems like overall it would be really beneficial for residents and anybody who is interested in already providing these sort of facilities to.

Thank you for that, Councilmember Yang.

It looks like the planning director is getting up to speak to that because I didn't have an answer for you.

Kind of based on leadership.

Welcome, Director.

Thank you, Council President, Council members.

We'll have to check in with Director McMahon and look at our work plan and see where we have capacity to accommodate something like this.

But as uh Ms.

Dad Les mentioned, you know, when there's large zoning changes, it's very normal to have to go back and make tweaks.

And as you all know, the zoning code is a kind of evolving organism that we always have to, you know, be uh comparing against what's going on in our community.

So we always take those, you know, types of things into account.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks.

Ms.

Coleman.

Thank you.

Quick question on so it seems to me, knowing very little about any of this, that the rental arrangements by the rooming unit rather than the dwelling unit is I in my imagination.

That is the most common way that we determine if something is an SRO versus an apartment that is shared by non-related adults, sort of to consumer Johnson's question.

Is there one lease that everybody is a part of and a party to, or do you each have the individual leases for your bedroom?

And I'm sure there are situations in which we don't see that, but I guess kind of for purposes of the hypothetical, my question is like could we scratch everything else?

And it's just if you have an individual lease for an individual room, that's an SRO.

If you don't, then the default assumption is that that's an apartment.

Or do we I guess trying to figure out what my question is as I talk this through?

Do we see based on what's happening in the city or what's happened historically, that really we do end up having places where they aren't rented out by the room, but these other characteristics of an SRO end up being really salient, and that is how we're determining if something is an SRO, or is the lease often or always the determinative factor?

Uh council member Coleman.

Well, that would definitely be one criteria that would make the rooming house different from other uses.

Um these criteria were introduced into the um definition of rooming house, I believe back in the early 1990s.

And from what I can tell from an old file from that time, the issue seemed to be that there were one in two family homes in our M zoning districts, which were converting to rooming houses, and that this was a way in order to be able to try to regulate and maybe limit the number of um rooming units within.

So that's why we have like the 5,000 square feet, like that's sort of your average single family lot.

And so like, so you have a single family or duplex, for example, or unit on it, and now you're maybe breaking up one of those units or all of it or whatever.

And so by allowing, you know, at the time it was four, we've increased that to six adults.

Um you could have that as the baseline for that 5,000 square feet, and then each additional was a thousand square feet.

So the thousand square feet addition didn't really allow that many more rooming units because most of the one and two-family lots are five, six, seven, eight thousand square feet.

I mean, really more in the five-sixths range.

So that really limited the number of rooming units that you could have.

But I think at that time, you know, the rental arrangement was one thing.

Locks on doors seems pretty, you know, standard that you'd want to have that.

You know, the idea of what what what facilities are you providing to people, kitchen and bathing.

Um so I mean, in terms of what we could do.

I mean, you know, when you open up a zoning setting and you take a look at things, you look at everything, and you kind of decide what makes sense.

Um, so you know, could we decide that the leasing is like the one thing?

I mean, we could, um, but we want to look a little bit, you know, broader than that and think about like a household and like what does that mean is you know um is it rooming units where people don't know each other and there's not a relationship between the people, or is it a household where people live together in a roommate more like a roommate situation and contribute to the household, whether that's you know, cooking or cleaning or other kinds of things.

Um, so it's you know, we can do we can be pretty broad in a zoning study if we want.

So I I would just say for my part, I agree with the vice president that we we definitely do need a look at this.

So glad that this is coming forward.

Um, and I would I would really encourage the team to take a kind of broad look at this, sort of step back a minute and just say what is the public benefit of regulating these in general.

Um it seems like the original regulation came from a bit of a classist, um probably racist perspective of we don't want that kind of people who live in a rooming house in our neighborhood.

But if you think about it from um a not racist perspective, and a perspective in which we want to be welcoming more people from lots of different backgrounds into all of our neighborhoods, I think you have to ask why do we care that it's a rooming house versus an apartment building versus shareable living versus a dorm versus co-living, right?

Like it seems to me that there's a category of shareable living where more people than a family live in a place, and we don't want to have too many people in a given envelope of a building because that's not safe, and we may not want to have too many people in a neighborhood because that becomes too congested.

So there's sort of a density question about just shareable living period, but whether or not you have your own lease for your bedroom or your own lease for your apartment, or you have a kitchen in your bedroom, or you don't have a in your unitary shared kitchen, like that doesn't seem like it should matter to the density argument.

Um, and then there's supportive living, congregate living, which I think is a different type of potential impact on a neighborhood based on the services being provided there.

That's different than just total number of people.

So I guess I would just say, like, as you're looking at this, I would really like to just kind of break open this mold and ask ourselves like as we're trying to encourage more people from more backgrounds to be in more neighborhoods, and Timis Coleman's point, there's lots of different reasons for shareable living, and lots of people cannot afford a single-family home.

And we don't want everybody to be in a single-family home because there's no way we could ever accommodate all the people you want in our city, in sh in single-family homes.

So let's come at it from that perspective as allowing as much of this as possible, um, and really thinking about what the public benefit is.

So those are those are my two cents.

I see Ms.

Jost, and then it's young.

Um, thank you, Council President Naker, and thank you for this presentation.

I I just I just want to share that I agree.

Um, I'm really interested in making sure that these, you know, definitions really meet um kind of the moment that we're in of trying to provide multiple types of housing to everyone.

Um, ward three is home to two colleges and adjacent to a third college where we have a lot of students in our community, and just wanting to make sure that they're you know able to find housing that meets their needs and that is you know safe and affordable and reasonable, and that's been you know, very challenging, especially in the McAllister Grollin neighborhood where community members just seem to really push back on that.

Um, and to your point about uh, you know, making sure that we're welcoming to everyone and that some of this language, you know, does have definite like racial undertones in it when we're looking at, you know, what we're trying to do here.

Um, not this exact language, but some of the when we're thinking about that language, we need to be really cognizant of that, because that has you know led to some of the major, you know, housing accessibility uh challenges that exist in in my ward.

Thanks, Ms.

Just.

Ms.

President.

Thank you, Council President.

I just wanted to share that.

I thought that was a really great and interesting point that you made, and also a question that you're posing to to each of us and the the department too.

And it makes me wonder, and we're uh, wondering for the staff here today, can you share like in our modern day today?

Does it is there a use for these definitions?

Has there been a benefit to it?

I guess like you know, if we were to put that on a spectrum between, um, from having these definitions um in uh in a way where let's say it made sense in today's world and then just scrapping it all together, like as you know, where where's the the department on that doesn't make sense for us to continue having these sort of definitions in our modern day today?

Uh Councilmember Yang, I think, you know, we hear there's some issues in the community, and we feel like if that's the case, then we need to take a look at it and see if there are changes that we can make.

As the uh planning director mentioned, like the the zoning code is a living document, right?

Like we're constantly changing it.

You see amendments before you all the time.

Um, and the the one to four amendments were very broad and sweeping in terms of the changes that they made to single family duplex zoning.

Um, and we're seeing, as I said, the effects of that now, and um in some ways we maybe need to s again stop, take a look at it and see if there are adjustments that needs to be made as part of the process.

We have one minute and 40 seconds left.

Sorry, my way.

Yeah, I'll just do a quick follow opening.

Like, I look to you all for guidance since you are the experts in the fields here, so that that's um where the the question comes from, too.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Council President.

I I wanted to respond uh to um Councilmember Yang's question.

So that was a really interesting one.

I think it depends on what our intent is.

You know, I think back in the early 90s, the intent was different than the intent is today.

Um, and so I think we have to decide what that intent is, you know, in order to look at this definition and say, is this serving us?

Is this helping us achieve our housing goals?

You know, is this does this work for people?

Um, you know, a lot uh obviously a lot has changed since the early 90s.

So um there's always pieces that we need to be looking at, and um I think you know um the other comments about um like the racial undertones are 100% spot on that like in the past, you know, um zoning codes have been used in order to exclude, um, and I don't think that's something that anyone wants.

Um, you know, and we need to start looking at that and saying, hey, we're not we're not in that place.

I think Ms.

Johnson and then Ms.

Bullman, did you have sort of a closing?

Okay, we'll do Ms.

Johnson, we'll let Ms.

Pullman have the closing words because I think this was the NMU brought forward, um, and then we'll move on.

Okay, yeah, I appreciate just kind of I feel like I've learned a little bit more throughout this conversation and definitely appreciate it being brought forward early enough to where it allows folks to kind of one learn about it, put it on your radar, especially if it hasn't been.

Um I guess my question was really just around like could you what is an individual intercom security device and then also how when it comes to like telephones and you know having exclusive phone numbers and it being equipped, I just wanted to pose in the in the spirit of updating, like it's very rare nowadays to to also have landlines and spaces.

So is that just phone, is it like landline ability?

It's just like I haven't had a home landline since I have resided in the twin cities.

I've been usually most mostly using my mobile phone, my cell phone.

So I'm just wondering like what those two, it's a technical question, but I think in the spirit of updates, I'm just wondering like what quantifies an intercom security device and how often are you seeing the phone numbers piece, like the telephone option.

Councilmember Johnson, um I I think as I noted previously, at the time that the these criteria were adopted in the early 1990s, no one had a cell phone.

Um, and so a way to reach a person who was living separate in a separate room from you know four or five other people maybe in a house if they had their own phone they could receive their own messages as opposed to a phone in the living room that ring and who knows who's gonna answer it and who's you know that kind of thing um as far as the um intercom security devices concerned I mean it was just another way of alerting a person in a room like if they don't have their own phone there but there's a button outside at the front door related to rooming unit four that rings into their room they know somebody's outside waiting for them.

I don't know um based on a couple of the developments that we've seen whether or not they are accommodating that sort of thing um but you know sure everyone most everybody I should say has a cell phone um but you know you've got a lot of delivery people coming and they don't have your cell phone necessarily and so maybe those um it security intercom systems might still be relevant today when a package is being delivered or something like that um unless there's some accommodation for that in these developments and I don't really know because I haven't been to one and know how they are accommodating that sort of thing.

Okay thank you.

Thank you.

Alright well let Ms Coleman have a closing thoughts I know we're two and a half minutes over so I will keep them short.

I just I really appreciate this conversation and appreciate P the PED team for bringing this to all of us and I think that really getting into these questions of what are we actually trying to accomplish here why are we why are we defining SROs at all?

Is that something that we want to be doing if so how are we doing that in a way that is really inclusionary and welcoming of the people who of everybody who we want to be living in every one of our neighborhoods feels so valuable.

I think one of the things that we hear frequently is that people feel like we have this definition on this book we on the books in theory we regulate it but in practice aren't feeling like it's regulated and so I think that it's really so valuable when we have something that's 30 35 years old to take the time to ask these questions and to say do we want this this on the books at all?

If it is going to be on the books then you know we want it enforced like every other ordinance that's fine but if it's no longer meeting our needs are no longer reflecting the type of community that we're trying to build then I think it's a really good opportunity to think quite expansively about what we might do to update that.

So that's all I have appreciate the conversation.

Thanks so much.

Sounds like there's interest in this body of in this project moving forward and hearing some recommendations from PED so we look forward to hearing what the timeline for that might be.

And hopefully this gave you some idea of where we're at on this on this body.

So thank you.

We will hard pivot or soft pivot I don't know to uh pivot to Ramsey County um welcome we have a presentation on both the economic development authority and building stronger together come on up here.

And thanks to Jacket for tag teaming Tim was our chief policy officer who was supposed to be here was delayed in another very important meeting that we want him at but as a result we are tap dancing a little bit paging OTC I do not know how to work OneDrive.

Okay.

Why don't we get OTC's help but I don't know Josh if you can start we have limited time and I want to make sure we get through very hefty update.

Not a problem uh um thank you, Council.

My name's Josh Olson.

I'm the uh director of community economic development for the county um so we're gonna tag team this between county manager uh Becker and uh deputy county manager uh Collins and I kind of talking about these two topics, but I'll kick us off talking about the EDA.

And so um one thing I wanted to start by saying is you know uh so last year uh the state legislature um approved the county's EDA bill, or that's what it was called, or or given the tagline, but it was the economic development authority and the creation of that.

It also allowed for some kind of textual changes within the existing housing and redevelopment authority statute uh that is associated with Ramsey County.

So the county uh board uh took that initial step in December of last year to formally create the EDA.

And I and I want to say that this was the first and necessary first step, as you might be aware.

Um, when things are approved by the legislature, they need an action before the next legislature comes into to start.

And so that was the first action, but it's by far not the only action that our board uh will need to take in the coming uh weeks, months, and and into the through the next uh through the rest of this year.

Um but that legislation just to um and I didn't I didn't bring it along, but just to frame up a couple key points, it outlined two important conditions.

The first was that the county's EDA could not have taxing authority, and that was purposeful, even from at the beginning where we as uh county staff and and um and and leadership pointed to our goal here was to be able to use the existing HRA levy of the county with just an expanded um set of um eligibilities to include business programming.

Um so again, the EDA does not have that tax that was built into that legislation, um, and that was a particular piece of feedback that we received from leadership across the city uh across the county from our various cities.

The second uh part of it uh was around uh that each Ramsey County city who is a part of the existing uh county's HRA would be required to opt into this business programming or this EDA.

Um again, that was purposeful.

Um we heard from heard in feedback as we brought forth that legislation, that was an important piece, and we built that in.

So, really, we're kind of at this point where the legislation has now been approved and we're moving forward with that implementation.

Again, just reminding you and and those who are tuning in that the funding for the EDA activities that we talk about in the subsequent slides are really funded through a portion of the county's existing HRA.

We still have some next steps to do with all of our cities, and and we'll talk about that here on this.

If you're tracking with me, this is slide five of the presentation, um, outlining the opt-in process.

So the opt-in process requires each city to adopt a resolution by June 1st.

Um St.

Paul is unique in this piece that uh it does it will require resolutions by both the city council and the HRA.

And the reason for that is um this kind of stems back to how the HRA levy of the county was kind of not necessarily formed, but how the beginning of uh the county's levying through its HRA was established, and so we're following that similar process that was um forged in 2021.

Um this process will will create a map, a new map that shows all those communities who have identified business programming to be eligible or being permitted to be funded by the HRA.

Um, again, this uh one thing I want to preface here is this does not have any changes to the existing HRA.

So the existing HRA map maintains, and uh for that what that area of operation looks like right now is the entire county minus North St.

Paul's part of that map.

Um so communities, whether they opt in or whether they opt out, will still be eligible to all the programming that is identified right now under the existing HRA.

So our programming that goes towards affordable housing projects, our emerging and diverse developers program, where applicable, where it's connects to down payment assistance programs, and our critical quarters programs.

These are all things that are currently funded by our HRA.

At this time, 14 of the 19 jurisdictions in the county um have opted in or placed this item on their council agendas, so we're looking forward to that.

Um I didn't include you in that yet because this is our kickoff in many ways our conversation.

So you'd be the 15th that we're kind of starting through that process.

Again, once we establish the area of operation of the EDA, the county board will take an action on June by June 15th, and the programming that is EDA programming will start January of 27.

This follows a similar kind of statutory requirement that we we have built in based on the HRA.

So moving forward to if you're tracking along again, slide six, our tentative plans.

So our tentative plan is to allocate approximately one and a half to two million dollars of our existing HRA and our existing HRAs in the neighborhood of about 13 million at this point towards business programming.

Again, this is predicated on the idea that all jurisdictions within Ramsey County will opt in.

If communities don't opt in, we'll have to adjust our numbers to do that.

And part of that reason kind of points to the last bullet, which is around maintaining the parity requirement that we have built in, maintaining that 50-50 split between the city of St.

Paul and the rest of the county.

We identified five core areas for what we intend to utilize this HRA or this EDA business supports for.

I'll walk through those on the subsequent slides.

I won't spend my precious time walking or talking individually calling out those again.

But what I will say is that in all cases, this is really about an extension of our ECI plan or our economic competitiveness and inclusion plan, which called out several strategies as well as many recommended actions about how the county can support businesses moving forward.

Unfortunately, because of where we've been over the last several years, we've been hamstrung by the ability to actually do that by limited resources.

We've we've been able to successfully, you know, petition and get other funding from other sources, but within our own funding strings, we've been limited.

And so, you know, within the ECI plan, it calls out developing pathways for entrepreneurship and business ownership, attracting high wage industry and innovation, including technology, advanced manufacturing and life sciences, and strengthening business retention and expansion infrastructure to support communities.

Those are kind of the high-level strategies, but underneath those are several recommended actions that were just really kind of at that point to kind of get going.

So moving on to slide seven in your packet, I've lumped these two together because I think they're very connected to some of the work that we are currently piloting, but also to what we're kind of the central theme.

Our business support organizations, these are the many ways a lot of our organizations with acronyms.

Alright, sorry, Mr.

I'm so sorry.

It's it's kind of distracting to have three people standing next to you.

Do we know how long it's gonna take to get this up?

Or if not, could we maybe just give up on this one and move to try to get the next one up?

All right, I think we're there.

Sorry to take the magic touch.

Thank you, Tim.

Okay.

Please proceed.

Yeah, let me jump right to that slide.

All right, so um, you know, one of those core areas or two of the core areas that we talked about on that prior slide was improving the capacity of our business support organizations as well as expanding technical service offerings to businesses.

You know, we um our business support organizations, and as I was just about to mention, many of them are acronyms that we like to talk about.

They're the AEDS or African Economic Development Solutions or Asian American Development Association or HAP, Hmong American Partnership, and the list goes on.

But the point is, as many of these organizations are important lifelines to our business community.

Often the first step for businesses to move forward, ask questions that they may be grappling with in the development and build up of their business.

They're often, you know, seen as a trusted partner as businesses navigate regulatory or technical hurdles, and or they might be a really key partner in the financing of that business.

And so we saw, as the county, we saw very clearly firsthand the importance of our business support organizations during the pandemic, where they play a critical link between government and funding.

They are important partners and to a business in navigating, as I said, those technical uh challenges, but also to being eligible and also being in that position where they can be aggressive in seeking resources and support for their business growth.

And so we saw those critical linkages with those organizations with entrepreneurs and small businesses, but we also saw the challenges that they faced in their response, especially in moments of widespread business interruptions.

So we launched a excuse me, an initiative that kind of responds to some of that feedback.

Our business reimagination center uh pilot um was recently launched that helps support some of those community-based organizations as they explore ways that they can be better equipped, so it's in the capacity building stage to help support businesses at that moment that they need them, um, but also to ask of them where are those extra, where are those new spaces they are hearing from their constituencies about how they can be better supportive?

What technical assistance supports um might be available that match where businesses are needing them right now, and so that central goal of the reimagination center.

Well, it's still early, it's we're piloting this work while at the same time we're talking about EDA planning for the future, but it's about supporting the business, and I would go so far as to say how we the collective we center businesses in that ecosystem.

Um we aren't here to support individual organizations for the sake of supporting business organizations, we're here to support their support and their offerings to businesses.

Um, and we saw that that disconnect at times during the pandemic when, and even prior to the pandemic, where the state legislature often is a feeder of funding into these organizations, and they have to be competitive, they have to be ultra competitive against their own peers in some ways.

And so, how do we help support them?

Um, how do we create better linkages between and bonds between those organizations?

Again, coming back to how the business is centered in that, how their growth is being supported, and it's not just specific to the organization.

So, sorry, Mr.

Austin, I'm gonna stop you there.

We have a question from vice president.

Thank you, Council President.

I just want to make sure I'm on the same page with you.

So the slide about the 1.5 to 2 million yearly, and then all these estimates that you have like 250,000 for this program and that.

Is that just specific to St.

Paul for in a single year, or is that is that like the full amount that you are looking to spread across all the cities that opt in?

Yeah, thank you, uh council member.

Um it is for the whole county.

So this is um this $2 million proposal um is inclusive of all these things spread across, making the assumption that all 19 jurisdictions are opting in.

Um we'll adjust those accordingly if necessary.

Um, but this is kind of to give you kind of a scale of what we're thinking about in each one of these categories.

Thank you.

So hypothetically, you could think about it as split in half in each one of these, I guess if you're thinking about return on investment back into the city.

Okay, and Mr.

Olson, if St.

Paul does not opt in, that means that the HRA levy, which remains the same, we're talking about the same amount of money, but it would not be spent on economic development activities in the city of St.

Paul.

Is that right?

Correct.

And would the amount available for economic development activities outside of the city of St.

Paul change?

Um, no, it would not.

So if if the other 18 jurisdictions in Ramsey County choose to opt in, we would build basically a suburban only program around business economic development.

We, you know, the I mentioned before the eight cities who have already opted in, many of them are eager to kind of jump into this enhanced eligibility because for some jurisdictions, they are smaller and they may not have large affordable housing projects coming through their pipeline continuously every year.

And so this is an opportunity for them to see a return on investment within their community on a year-in-year-out basis.

But I would also say that they've expressed a strong desire for us to do this.

And in part because they were a key participant, many of them were key participants in our ECI plan in the development of that.

And they have asked us how do these things interact?

How do the intersections between housing, economic development, wage, and business growth intersect, and that's where we kind of have been, and that's how we've been trying to build this programming and build the resources around them.

So, quickly just moving on.

I do want to leave some time for my colleagues on the other section.

You know, one of the ways the county has supported businesses in the past, again, we haven't had a large portfolio of programs supporting businesses, but we have had some legacy ones that have been funded through the county's general levy, as well as some other unique programming income.

But it is in those areas of cohort-based learning programs.

We've learned CEOs like to talk to other CEOs, they're they're encountering similar challenges, and there's there's truly a weight and an importance to kind of help support those.

And so we've had a couple of those programs over the last several years.

Um, CO Next has been our longest standing program.

Um, it's in its 13th year.

We've supported 73 businesses across the county.

These are second stage businesses.

These are big businesses.

They're multi-million dollars, they have you know well over 50 employees in some cases, and it's helping them kind of move to that next stage of their growth, something that they've encountered in their challenges and in their business growth, and so this is an opportunity for them to link in.

Um, we expanded that uh program or we expanded that partnership that we have with Henman County who does manage our CEO next program to expand that to a CEO now.

And that involves businesses at a slightly smaller stage or smaller, smaller growth.

You know, they're they're smaller business, but they're at a different growth stage.

So they aren't, they maybe only have one employee or two employees, and but they're still growth-minded, um, they're still looking to grow their business, um, and they're encountering some challenges, whether that's like HR issues as they grow, uh, financing, regulatory hurdles, things that certainly benefit from other CEOs who maybe have managed or gone through this similar process, or they're going through that process at the same time as them.

Um, so working for that.

Um, those two have been really great partnerships, regional partnerships with Hennepin County.

Um I would be remiss if I didn't speak to the emerging diverse developers program as well, which is a cohort-based program.

It has a lot of overlaps with some of our business programming, but it's in many ways a housing focused program.

But you can see the overlap when I meant before, like the intersections between housing, economic development, and this is probably our our key piece and our key project and program that that speaks to it.

It's a two-part program, and that's what's makes it different and makes it exciting as we think about future growth of these cohort programs because not only does the emerging diverse developers program pair these technical supports, supports to housing developers who are getting into the business, trying to understand their hurdles, how they build that business up, but also a solicitation at the end of that process that invests, the county invests in those those projects, the growth of the of the business.

Um so it's really kind of an exciting piece.

Um it gives us kind of a little bit of a um a roadmap to how we think about how we build out these cohort-based programs.

Um we're currently exploring opportunities to have greater frequency of these cohorts.

I'll just mention that I'm not to surprise my staff who might be in the office in the audience.

But like our emerging diverse developers program is way oversubscribed.

There's significant interest in the program.

And we do that once a year, and we're excited by that, but it's it's a challenge to be able to kind of think about that as a you know as a second or a larger program.

So we kind of have to do a little bit more investigation there.

Um, you know, exploring the feasibility of cohorts that are Ramsey County only.

Um, as I mentioned before, CEO next and now is collaboration with our regional partner in Hinnepin County.

We do a lot of the staffing for that.

We appreciate that.

Thank you if Finnepin County is listening.

Um, but we also are beholden to their you know expectations.

Um, and so we often reserve spots on what we think we can, but uh we were oversubscribed this past uh cycle for both programs, and we'd like to be able to expand that and not be like held to uh four slots or eight slots on a yearly basis.

And then also lastly, just to kind of talk about cohorts in other industries and opportunity areas, you know, certainly emerging diverse developers is focused on a specific uh sector.

I see Ms.

Bowie and Mr.

Olsen, I think we should try to wrap up, including questions the next two minutes to make sure we have enough time for the other presentation.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you so much.

I just want to highlight for someone who was part of the inaugural cohort for the emerging diverse developers.

It was an incredible cohort.

I learned so much.

Um I think it actually really benefited my time transitioning as a city council member and really understanding like the whole functions and like the the business of being a developer.

I would say I just want to emphasize too, I think this is a great opportunity for us to have stronger collaboration between the city and the county from my experience, and it may have evolved over time, but from my experience, um when I was in the cohort, there was a lot of conversations around like capital stacks, there's a lot of conversations around financials, but there was rarely any conversations.

I don't know if that's improved now around zoning, which I found really interesting, and it also just a really small snippet around like the HRA sites that are available to them, so some of the developers who are looking for some of those sites.

Um, but I think it's a tremendous program, not only because of like all of the networks and education, but like um you had mentioned um before the solicitation at the end.

I believe many of them get up to $500,000 to go towards whether it's acquisition or pre-development, and many of the developers that we see here are even help support come from this program.

So I just wanted to highlight that I you know, I'm happy to see it still grow, and I definitely would love to have a conversation with my colleagues around what is a stronger partnership looks like since we we do get a chance to invest in many of the developers that comes from that cohort.

Thank you, Ms.

Billy.

Um so I'll buzz through these next two slides in part because um, well, the reasons that you stated chair.

But you know, I think I'll just preface by saying, you know, data is important here.

Um it's an area where I think collaboration, you know, having greater data accessibility across all of our partners at municipal as well as many of our other uh business support organizations.

I think greater bonds, ways that we share that information and how we use that information will strengthen our thing, our relationships and strengthen how we place businesses at the center.

Um, you know, I just want to last thing I would just say that is I think it also helps us also on the internal side for the county and how we deliver various things, including construction projects, road construction projects.

The more we know about what businesses are in specific corridors, I think the better way we respond to their feedback as well as their needs, even before you know the shovels get in the ground.

Um the last thing we want to talk about is just direct business support.

And so, you know, as I mentioned, you know, the cohort learning section of the EDD program is a great example of where we've kind of bridged between like supports and technical advice and and and information to areas where we look to opportunities to invest in that business's growth.

It's important to the community, it's important to our economy.

And so we we certainly have some ideas there.

We know the city, this isn't a space where the city has a lot of existing infrastructure and programming.

And so our goal, obviously, and has been since the beginning is to augment that that work and how we can kind of feed into it.

And I and I want to point out an example, and that is within our affordable housing space.

Affordable housing projects take a lot of partners, they take a lot of creativity in terms of how we package in different sources of funding, whether it's the city's funding or the counties or the state to be able to kind of bring those projects to light.

And so, you know, I think we're gonna lean heavily on what we've um built over the last several years as that affordable housing programming has um is built up that we'll will look really hard to working very closely with city staff so that the different funding is placed in the right way again to center the project's movement forward in some cases or to position a business to grow.

Um so I'll I will stop there and be open to your questions.

Thanks so much.

I would just say to my colleagues, if we have any urgent questions, let's ask them.

Otherwise, I we have a very substantive presentation coming from um uh county manager Becker.

I know that Chair Johnson and I are gonna be following up with everybody related to the council and HRA resolutions that will need to be in front of us before June 1st.

So we'll have time to talk then too.

Um, but is there anything burning for Mr.

Olson?

Right.

Thank you so much.

Sorry about the tech difficulties.

Not a problem, all down.

Specker, welcome up while we um it's already there.

Gorgeous.

Good morning, Council, Madam Chair.

Um, can I even uh jazzed up the colors for you guys here for the next session?

Um, thank you so much for your time today.

Um, before I go into more details, I just want to acknowledge this is my first time before the city council as the county manager, so thank you for having me.

Um yeah, it's been about a year and a half almost or so, but I haven't actually spoken to you all as a collective, so thank you for doing that.

Um, I know some of you uh had familiarity of my role previously, six years as the workforce director, and I just wanted to take a minute to talk about how important the city county partnership is important to me, and I think I've uh demonstrated that in my previous role and certainly have been uh driving that home with our teams, not only just for the city of St.

Paul, but for all our cities within our service area.

Um, I'll just uh remind folks that you know one of the proudest things that I got to do in that part of my career was to partner with the city over um around about 25 million dollars of ARPA funding for our workforce uh initiatives that really helped our residents and invest in them during a really really difficult time in our community.

And so I've taken that as a real critical theme into the administration and the work that we're doing right now, and so all the things that we're talking about, we're talking about partnerships and certainly city partnerships around this building stronger together is really critical.

Um, in addition, I think some of you have um know that we've been working a lot on the joint property tax advisory committee and trying to uh propel that work forward about how we do better government, and so again, another theme of how you know, city county school district, all of us have to just work together, and I think this project is a good symbolism of that, both in the way that in turn like deeply it works with partners, but also that many things have to happen at the same time, and we have to rely on our partners across the whole city to do some things.

Um, today the downtown alliance is gonna be talking about a lot of the work that they're doing.

Obviously, we understand the city and the mayor's office has been you know working on a lot of the things, whether it's a vitality fund or uh working on the arena, like all these things have to happen all at once, and they're not necessarily um sequential in the way that I would think about them because the city and our community needs a lot right now, and so I'm excited to be able to share some of this with you as well as um with me today is also Deputy County Manager Kerry Collins.

Um, together, uh Deputy County Manager Collins and Director Olson have contributed significantly to the foundation of all the parts that of what we're gonna see today for the county to create this moment.

Um, many people have asked me since we've rolled out this initiative.

Why now?

And I'll say there's a lot of reasons, and I'll quickly go into one, but the the one of the primary ones is that we've been building over many years in order to get to a place where we could do this.

Since 2018, you know, we've made really deliberate steps to build up the team, the partnerships, and the tools.

Our community and economic development department is nothing like what it was in 2018 in terms of the tools that they have and the teams that they have and the work that they've been able to do.

And certainly one of the silver linings out of the pandemic, if we can find some, is that we were able to flex tremendous muscle around doing really big things and doing hard things with lots of money, and we are excited to be able to step up and do that here.

So with my first slide here, I'm just gonna, you know, some of you have heard me in different spaces talk about this, so I don't need to go uh too deep in this, but this goes to the why now.

You know, we have uh some unique things about Ramsey County and about the um our pressures around property tax that just are forcing our hand to be really uh strategic about the work that we have to do, and so um uh those include, you know, we have a high percentage of our county that is tax exempt.

Uh we have, as a result, we also have um seen that we have reducing uh property uh taxable property value and therefore reducing our overall revenue capacity.

Um, in addition, we are small, we are the smallest county in the state of Minnesota, we are densely populated, and as a result, uh much of our lands are already developed, and all we have are and you know, City of St.

Paul's no different.

We have challenging redevelopment projects in order to grow our tax base.

And um, this this year, um, we this is the first time we've seen some of the property tax pressures shift from uh commercial to residential, and so those are all things we're tracking, and then on a broader scale, um, with um both federal and state pressures, whether it's HR one or the state budget, um, we have a lot of areas as the social safety net of the community that are pushing it on our budget, and some of those are things we cannot control.

They are mandated services that we have to provide, and the need is high.

And so, as a result, you know, we're looking at potentially, you know, across all counties in the country, potentially like what what they're estimating to be about a trillion dollar shift over the next 10 years.

So we have been significantly managing this even as we speak.

One of the biggest things we've done, even during Metro Surge in the first three months of this uh year, all our departments have worked through budget pressures.

We are trying to reduce every budget pressure we can with um like a long-range view of not, you know, we have a biannual budget.

I think we're gonna get to some of you about that uh next week.

Um, but you know, really around the biannual budget, we're not looking at two-year budgets, we're looking at six-year budgets now in the county, trying to figure out how we're gonna manage this trajectory.

And so it's never been more important to work on the tax base, certainly.

And so, um, I'm sure that's some some of that is not new to you.

Um, and then to set up Carrie for kind of why our strategies, you know, we um for the second time we invested in a fiscal health analysis.

We did it um back in 2020 when we were working on our first economic competitiveness inclusion plan, and the analysis um really points to that the property values is one of the key factors, you know, obviously used to calculate tax base and making development patterns and land use uh decisions are extremely critical to long-term fiscal sustainability and downtown plays a huge role.

Uh, downtown is a significant opportunity while also a challenge, particularly post-pandemic.

And like, like I said at the beginning, we all have to do our part.

And for the county, this is our moment to do the do our share of what we need to do.

Um, and you know, it's interesting when we talk about tax exempt.

I don't know how many of you know this, but when we look at our taxing district of downtown, 49% of the estimated market value in downtown is tax exempt.

And so we have a lot of significant land challenges that are a little bit out of our control.

So for the land that we do have, some ability to think about what we should be doing with that land, we have to be really thoughtful and strategic.

Now, when I walk up and down the streets, I'm like, what should we be doing with that, you know, little little plot right there, right?

Like we can't let any of it go to waste.

And so, um, and then this is, and I want to get carried up here because I'm I'm sure this isn't new, but this was actually the most significant slide of something that I did not realize till we saw it this way.

Um, this is land per acre um of all the metro counties.

And as you can see, you know, the metro area is very wide and vast as I compare myself to our colleagues in our mutual county jurisdictions.

But if land is really a driver of wealth and also a pressure point against how we sort of have to fund property taxes, we are in a very difficult state recognizing that Ramsey County only has 5.5% of the land in the metro area.

So, again, another really important um notch in why it's so important that we focus on building the tax base and be even more strategic about the land that we have and to leverage the assets that we have.

And so I'm gonna turn it over to Carrie to get into the details of our two-part strategy and then um all three of us are here for questions if you have to.

Okay, welcome up.

Thank you so much.

Uh, Council President to the uh members today.

Let me just move this all right.

Um, and I see we've got a countdown here, so that's that's wonderful.

I'm Carrie Collins, I'm the deputy county manager of economic growth and community investment for Ramsey County, and it's just wonderful to be here today.

Um, we just want to talk a little bit about this building uh stronger together framework, and really that's what this is.

It's it's not a budget, um, you know, there's going to be a lot of community engagement to follow.

There's going to be a lot of board actions to follow.

Um, and uh it's it's a multi-year investment, but it really is a framework to understand how we uh intend to be intentional with the funds that we have.

Uh so really we're focusing on two areas, which include supporting a dynamic downtown and strengthening economic development by selling county-owned land that is you know currently well suited for redevelopment.

Uh, these sections together kind of help us to organize our funding sources and staff to catalyze the work at a faster and more focused pace.

These are not new concepts.

Many of the projects that you've seen in here have been around for years, and and you've seen that, however, um much of these projects have been ongoing, and yet our commitment to affordable housing remains, and you'll see that in this investment.

Uh, the urgency, however, is as a result of um, you know, how we go about strengthening our fiscal health.

As the county manager just mentioned, it's now an economic economic imperative that we become far more strategic in the how.

The goals of the plan are in alignment with our economic competitiveness and inclusion plan, the downtown investment plan developed by the St.

Paul Downtown Alliance, and lastly, very much aligned with the city's comprehensive plan, particularly the land use chapter, which includes creating signature public spaces, connections to the Mississippi River, economic development and greater density, enhanced multimodal transportation, etc.

The board is now eager to invest in these goals and strategies during a time that requires both a thoughtful approach and yet urgency.

As we deploy these tools to catalyze the projects, we are also developing a solicitation for a project team that will lead a robust engagement process with community on the next iteration of our economic competitiveness and inclusion plan 2.0.

The first plan laid out a vision for meaningful investment over a five-year period.

Now we have an opportunity for a look back and a look forward.

As discussed in your earlier conversation about rooming houses, the needs for housing do evolve and change.

So that plan will include a housing needs assessment that will be a part of the plan iteration to ensure we're investing strategically and meaningfully.

In fact, between 21 and 2025, Ramsey County awarded 92,274,734 to housing development projects across the county.

And of that, 61 million uh plus were awarded to housing development projects in St.

Paul.

66% of all the counties' awards across all funding sources went to housing development projects within the city, and those investments remain as we look to make serious investments into place and space moving forward.

So let's get into a little bit of the details here.

So building a dynamic downtown, we're looking at upwards of 250 million dollars again over the next years here to catalyze key projects like the Park at River's Edge to support housing and establish a housing fund through office to residential conversions, enhance our public spaces, including improvements to transit, multimodal opportunities, elevating central downtown corridors that better connect residents, workers, and visitors through high-impact public realm enhancements and activating business growth through like what you heard earlier today from Director Olson, opportunities to expand eligibility through our HRA to EDA eligible activities and to expand and establish business activation resources to attract and support new business downtown.

But why downtown, as county manager Becker uh said, the fiscal health analysis is demonstrating that downtown remains the center of the county, but also that Ramsey County is central to downtown.

The inner depends interdependencies of the fiscal health analysis were clear.

The strategic investments for building a down a dynamic downtown again of upwards of 250 million will be felt for future generations.

And it builds upon the important works like that the city of St.

Paul is doing, St.

Paul Chamber, our partners, and more of the building downtown strategy, the park at River's Edge.

We know there's a lot of interest around this project.

We're so happy that we've made so much traction with the railroads as of recent.

In fact, our board's going to be looking at considering approving engineering documents soon and uh coming out up as early as May 19th.

Um, but for the investment that the legislator legislature put in 2023 into this project, we wouldn't be at this design stage.

Engagement has and will not stop as part of this project.

Finding a pathway to build the literal and figurative foundation to this vision has been the main task.

Now, with the commitment from the Building Stronger Initiative, it signals to the market that we are a meaningful partner in this vision, and we're excited to explore with community how best to design a space through focused and not speculative engagement.

So again, we have a lot of mini workshops coming up with our board on this, and as those move along, um, we'll continue to keep the the council abreast as well.

Thanks, Director.

That's a question from Ms.

Jost.

Thank you, Council President.

Thanks, Director.

Um really appreciate your presentation.

Very supportive of the investments in downtown in the park at River's Edge.

I was just looking at um the one of your appendices slides about the funding sources for the 250 million dollars.

Could you talk about that a little bit and also like what portions of the money?

I see one of them's a current state bonding request for the park at River's Edge.

Um, like what money it looks like some of what we already have, some of what we still need to secure.

Could you just talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely.

I might ask Director Olson to come up.

He's been kind of putting together the capital stack here, but it is a combination of funding sources.

We do have an ask to the legislature right now for 20 million dollars to kind of help be a partner with us on this project.

It's going to require a lot of funding sources to make happen, but I'll defer to Director Olson on that.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

So, as you noted in there, there's kind of a list of things, and I would say certainly the one we we have least control over is our bonding request, and we certainly remain hopeful that um that a request will come through.

But the remainder, I think, you know, probably the with the exception of one, and I'll point that out.

Most of this is locked this is available funding at the county's, you know, fingertips.

Um, the one that is different is around the growing downtown housing.

Um, and so we, you know, recognized a while ago that you know, as I was speaking a little bit around the HRA, we built tools, we built systems, we built the capacity to be able to take on efforts to kind of grow.

And so that particular bit of funding comes through a future, we'll say vehicle through a future piece.

And so, one thing we're exploring right now, and I mean we're beyond the exploration piece, is to actually excuse me, uh bond through the existing county HRA to be able to kind of accelerate some of that development.

Um, we know that downtown housing and downtown projects will need funding, sometimes greater than other projects in the county.

Um, but this is our way to kind of help accelerate that because while deputy county manager Collins noted, you know, $92 million over the last less than five years, that's that's significant, and we've built those systems.

We've we've also tested this model.

We early on in 2021, we we actually reallocated existing bonding dollars of the county towards affordable housing projects, and we learned a lot of things along the way about how we did that.

That was a 10 million dollar uh transfer change.

Um, so this is kind of building on all the series of works, building on a lot of the information, but that just to get to your question a little bit more directly.

That is the one piece that is subject to the next set of approval process.

Um, and and we'll have to go forward, yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ms.

I have a follow-up question on that.

Um, it looks like there's 150 million dollars coming from the transit and transportation investment plan for both the park at River's Edge and public spaces downtown.

How what is the connection between transit and transportation and those investments and what's the opportunity cost?

Where were those 150 million otherwise be going?

Um, and then secondly, I know that the uh private developer at Rose Edge, AECOM is no longer part of the project.

I'm curious how a private developer will be engaged.

I know right now it says that this will bring a mix of housing, retail, and workers, but it's my understanding that what's being built is the park.

So, how what is the plan to actually bring in the housing, the retail, etc.?

That's well, president maker, council members.

Yeah, very great question.

So I'll first talk about to the AECOM.

Uh so initially when we contracted with the AECOM as our partner, that was during um pre-pandemic times, and you'll recall that the vision that was set out to community was a variety of class A office towers.

Uh so we partnered with them, we started to develop um design documents with that and started to build momentum there, and then of course, uh COVID happened and the office market softened, not um unique to the twin cities, but nationally, and so our vision for the site started to change as we started to also um you know the juxtaposition between elevating our housing and redevelopment authority at the time, starting to invest in affordable housing and seeing a huge opportunity to build a range of incomes on the river, became more possible and to be a meaningful driver in that residential growth.

And so as a result, AECOM, we contracted with them.

Um they're traditionally more of an engineering firm.

We contracted with them for engineering services, and so we just concluded that contract with them, and they were able to get us to 30% design that includes the kind of the park scheme and much of the what I will card like hard infrastructure, hard engineering work to demonstrate the feasibility of bridging from Kellogg all the way down to the river.

And so that was a big piece of their task is we've got this bold and transformational vision.

Now let's demonstrate feasibility, and they've done that, which is fantastic.

And so we concluded a contract with them, and now we're going to be building upon that once we have a certain percentage of the capital stack in place, you know, hopefully through our partners at the state, to now do a solicitation for residential developers and say we have an amazing opportunity to build residential growth on the river, come be a part of that process.

But until we had the engineering secured around the foundation, the literal foundation of the project, um, we didn't want to have that solicitation go out prematurely.

Yeah, and then in terms of the transit and transportation.

Yeah, I I think um so this is not an a typical development project.

Um it has complicated and challenged us as we advocate for it at the state level because we'll go to one uh legislature and they'll say, Is this a private real estate project?

And we'd say, No, it's a public infrastructure project, it's a park, it's it's something built over and will be a publicly owned asset.

And then at other times we would go to them and they'd say, Well, is this a transportation project?

And we'd say, Well, yes, it's a transportation project.

And you know, this kind of circle kind of continues on, and I I I think what is referenced here is recognizing that there is a multitude of parts and components to this project.

Transportation infrastructure is a core component of this project.

We are building over existing railroad tracks, we're building over an existing uh road, with the goal and the course core initiative and objective is to connect people of all abilities to be able to connect downtown centrally down to the river, which has been a challenge for decades.

It's been a known thing, and this project has been a bold effort to kind of link that.

So that is what you see in kind of the capital stack for this project is identifying the transportation specific components of the project, aligned with the transportation uses.

Like I said, it's not a straightforward project, it isn't a development-only project, it's not a publicly owned project, it's it's truly a public private partnership as we move forward.

But all that infrastructure sets the foundation as DCM Collins noted, to have the ability to talk about the development that sits on top of this, and that has been a challenge for us since the beginning of this vision is what comes first.

It's the chicken and egg.

And I think we're recognizing the need to build that foundation now, so that we de-risk the project to a point where private real estate and private development and opportunities can kind of come faster and easier.

All right, I'd love to get to the selling county owned land portion because I think that that's just kind of a fascinating piece and an exciting proposition here.

So as county manager Becker alluded to as well, not only are we a very small built-out county, which means every project we do is redevelopment, which means every project is complicated, we, the county, make up about seven percent of the total land in the county.

So we own about over 7,500 acres of Ramsey County land.

So we are kind of in a key position to be able to be very strategic in how we find opportunities to dispose of real estate in partnership with community, in partnership with emerging and diverse developers, in partnership with businesses, and uh so it's a really exciting proposition.

So the seller county owned land portion represents an opportunity to really expedite real estate project readiness and jumpstart this portfolio of underutilized property, and that includes an investment into Rice Creek Commons.

And you know, as I think about when I first arrived at the county, and where we're at in negotiating affordability at that time and where how far we've come, it makes me uh really glad that we kind of help firm in terms of the goals and the vision, mission, values of the county, and that we didn't settle in the spirit of development.

And so it's our commitment to you as the county that as urgent as we are in the disposition of real estate, you know, we vet every proposal we get against an equitable development framework, and that we will not just release real estate for the purpose of disposing of real estate, but we will do so with an equitable development mindset.

And so again, we're kind of uniquely positioned because we we hold a lot of land.

Um, so we we have put aside some money to really position these major redevelopment projects to go.

And I'll just say, you know, by leveraging our existing and enhanced strategic partnerships, we're going to prioritize selling county-owned land.

We're going to position staff to be able to do so rapidly, but with um focus and really transforming them into revenue generating projects that will attract businesses, create jobs, and generate property tax revenue and sales tax.

Uh so really expediting these real estate projects, jump starts our portfolio.

Um, and this includes enhancing and advancing the development readiness of projects, like I mentioned at Rice Creek Commons, which is now to the went from 1460 units, now it's over 1900 units with affordability requirements built in, and invest in public infrastructure that fosters economic opportunities and contributes to enhancing vitality.

So it's really a huge opportunity to strengthen our tax base and to start thinking more strategically about what we have control over, which is the land in which we own.

And so I just wanted an opportunity to make sure that we touched on that.

And with that said, in terms of next steps, we're having these kind of mini workshops, if you will, with our board, so that they can start to see meaningful change and focus and that they can see that we're driving against this framework.

Um, and that we we commit, we're going to work very closely with your city staff.

We're going to work closely with our with the partners that are at the table with us, including Downtown Alliance and the Chamber, and just want to extend an open invitation.

We host quarterly economic development summits with community development leads across the county.

And if your aides or your office wants to be a part of those and to continue to learn and kind of get in the weeds with us, we extend an invitation to you to be a part of that process.

And then we we plan to authorize bonding authority this fall to kind of start to activate those residential opportunities where possible where we see office to residential conversions.

And then there will be other related actions that kind of get the kick off this building stronger together efforts to include regional rail authority actions and housing and redevelopment authority actions as well.

And again, we have no problem sending you all that information and bringing it at the table.

We're happy to do more presentations, focus groups, so that we're in this together, and that we're not that you're not caught off guard in any way.

So appreciate the time today to four or three, two, one, and now I'm over time.

And just uh so appreciate the partnership we've had with you all.

Will so you have some tremendous staff that are very invested in the outcomes of these of this framework, and so we've been uh communicating with them pretty frequently as well.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Director.

Um I appreciate that invitation to partnership.

I I do think it's important to include this body, both as CHRA and the city council in that list.

I do think that some of us were somewhat surprised to hear about the announcement, didn't have a lot of notice before the press conference occurred, and I think have a lot of interest in the details.

Um, so I I hope that there will be additional briefings available to all of these members if we have additional questions afterwards as well.

Um, I'm looking to my colleagues.

I do have one question, but I want to see what other folks have.

Vice President.

Yeah, thank you, Council President.

Well, thank you for the very thorough presentation from all of you.

Um, I I really enjoyed learning um about these updates and am excited about um the the work ahead too.

For uh for me, I just wanted to share to my colleagues.

I'm very supportive of uh us in the city here opting into the EDA programming.

I was very enthusiastic about this, even as we were talking about authority for the county to pursue this at the legislature.

I will definitely follow up just because I'm curious more about like the funding source breakdown that you had, and this was a back-to-back uh presentation, so to me, I'm a bit confused about like in terms of the full funding for EDA, how much of that is going into, for example, the um, let me see here, the the uh Park at River's Edge project.

You know, is it like a small chunk of the 1.5 to 2 million is going to that, or is it like a you know, other dollars in the EDA pot that you're talking about?

So that'd be really helpful just to understand so I can get on the same page with you.

And then I wanted to share that I'm very um I'm very supportive of the five core focus areas that you've identified here for the EDA programming.

I would um I think it's great that there's a little bit of everything for everyone, whether you're a startup business or your business that's ready to grow and transform wherever you are.

Um, I uh I would um urge us to to continue putting extra and more focus into businesses that are that aren't at that stage yet where they're ready to grow because right now we do have many businesses on our corridors that are in this phase of recovering from not only the pandemic still, but also Operation Metro Search.

And uh I've even um I even know of entrepreneurs who run businesses and don't do any bookkeeping because that's just not a part of something that they need or have had to rely on.

However, when it came to trying to apply for grants, then all of a sudden they had to figure out how do I even get all this paper trail to qualify for this grant I need, and so I I like this aspect around putting more dollars into the technical assistance and want to just uplift my support for that.

And also to um one last thing I'll name is that the direct support to businesses.

One of the main requests that has come my way, and I believe to all of my colleagues too, is can we provide financial relief to businesses and they're looking for relief in the form of money to pay for rent?

And I even spoke to a business in the east side that had to close down after months of uh of closing down their business due to uh during the operation metro surge, and they were behind $30,000 in rent, and that was why they um they had to close down.

Their landlord came and changed the locks, and they couldn't even get in anymore.

And so that's still something that um we're working in in in conversation with them about.

So it's really concerning.

I wanted to upload that to you all, because I think that direct support looks like many different things, you know.

Again, wanted to emphasize that importance of providing the the relief for them financially, and then also that sometimes it's not even in the form of money that they're looking for.

Um, it's it's can we find out a way to make it safer for pedestrians to cross the street to get to our business?

And I want to um name White Bear Avenue, for example.

I mean, that is the county road.

I know we have a lot of uh great things happening on White Bear, that even south of White Bear Avenue, you all have a study that you're doing, and then north of Maryland, we got the bronze line coming into, and this is a county and city partnership project where it's St.

Paul and Maple Wood working on this together, and so I really wanted to highlight the need for us to expand the use of the dollars when it comes to that direct support, because um, again, that support looks like many different things, and even when I've talked to folks at the county about can we even do something temporary, like putting a pedestrian hock like pedestrian hawk lights in front of this business corridor and White Bear Avenue so that people can cross see for like the answer is well, the bronze lights bronze line is coming in three years from now, so we're gonna wait till then to do that, and and that's really frustrating.

And so the temporary solutions, they do matter, even if sometimes you know it it doesn't fit the puzzle piece so easily for us because it means that it comes with a price tag to our residents to our entrepreneurs, it matters to them a lot, and they care about that temporary res of solution.

So again, those are my asks to you.

Um, and also the desire that I would want to to um that I wanted to express because I would love to see that be incorporated into this.

Okay, thanks, Mr.

President.

Oh, and sorry, just one last thing too, like the mitigation funds during these uh construction projects, whether it's for transit or just you know, redesigning the street, that's also very important too.

And um, we learned a lot from Mendot, you know, when they came in and and uh redesigned and reconstructed Arcade Street, and so I just know that White Bear, we're gonna go through that and many other streets in the city too.

So that uh that's also another way to support our businesses, and I I'm very supportive of that.

Thanks, Mr.

President.

Um, I recognize that we are past time, so I'm gonna hold my question.

Also, became three more questions in the meantime.

So I'm gonna hold that for my my private briefing, but uh, are there any final questions that anyone has before we close?

Sorry, that's present.

Oh, Ms.

Johnson.

And it's not even necessarily a question, it's really just in regards to some of the city-county partnership uh pieces.

One of the things that I know that I've had a chance to just preface and talk to um uh the even mentioning with the county manager as well as um some of the county staff has been just how hard it is once we get the funding actually to ensure that there actually is partnership between the city and county and moving money between the two entities is challenging.

And so, you know, with the timeline that we have really put out, and I guess it relates to the EDA a little bit more.

You know, I I'm excited to see that there are certain city programs here because I also appreciate just the investment in pre-existing programs, pre-existing ability and work that we're doing here at the city, I think is important versus creations of further pilots that we have just seen historically right happen when we have funding, and then everyone's wondering what to happen when we run out of funding during ARPA phenomenal time, you know, to be able to have resources and also a very challenging time to have resources.

So there was a lot of pilots, a lot of trying, a lot of a lot of things that we now are all working to try as government entities to defend and protect and keep moving forward when we have city county partnership when it gets down to the J the joint powers agreements or the how we do that, I think that that process is just as important as identifying what like what the actual programs will be for investment, and so that is actually where I see um the inclusion of like our of the city councils uh, especially as it relates to the HRA, and so, like that's just something that for some of these programs, if they're funded through the like their council commercial corridor funding, that commercial corridor fund started with council support, and so just some of these programs included us directly in the creation of them, and so just really hoping that they can they include us on the help for facilitating what that actually would look like when it comes to resources and being able to make sure that it gets to the entity that we're intending to fund or to the you know commercial corridor funds has several different community partners that works within it.

So just making sure that there's no hang ups when it comes to just how that happens, I think on the forefront will benefit us in the long run.

So if we have to spend some time to really outline what that looks like to move those resources in a way that allows us to do that both equitably but quickly, um I think that's time well spent.

And so just wanted to name that.

Thank you, Chad.

Ms.

Bowie.

And I just have a point to make.

Thanks so much, Council President.

And also I really appreciate this presentation.

Also appreciate having our county attorney or excuse me, county manager here for the first time to present.

I know she's been doing the phenomenal work for over a decade.

So here I just wanted to highlight something particularly around the building stronger together from my own perspective as a council member.

Uh, when I think about my relationship with the county, and in terms of how they've been really great partners, is really just like the sheriff's department.

Um, and they have, I know they have really strong partnerships from the state, uh, being able to provide not only safety but also community engagement.

They have amazing youth programs, they're really highly visible.

Um, just a few days ago, I had a chance to do a tour on the uh Capitol Commons, and uh I just would like to also reiterate when we're thinking about like what is good for businesses and what's good for you know, um, you know, attracting people to invest, not only downtown but in Ramsey County as a whole.

One of their bottom lines is safety, right?

Um, when we think about what are some of the barriers where um if people are going to be um you know putting you know their future investments in certain areas, how are their patrons going to be supported?

How are the residents going to be safe?

Um, and I know like downtown has a downtown improvement district and have a phenomenal uh safety specialist there, and they've been highly visible, but I would be really um curious to know just kind of how Ramsey County sees their not only sheriffs but other alternative um programs uh uh how it's tied into ensuring that there's you know a strong public safety plan for when we are building a beautiful park landscape and investing in um more transit, more transit means more people here.

What is our strong safety plan and how we can all champion that together?

Yeah, I might invite our county manager up, um, and I would just say um your remarks about our county manager are very true.

She is um a working leader, she has all sorts of ideas around the space of public safety and the intersection with economic development, and so I know we're at time, but if there's a minute for her to respond here, yeah, thank you so much.

Um, you know, we've been thinking a lot about this because all of this is um contingent on people feeling like they are safe moving in and around our downtown, and so um we've created sort of an internal uh leadership conversation around quality of life.

We're gonna be re-engaging with the city.

I just got off the phone with um, I was walking back from our government center and was talking to uh Assistant Mayor Schumacher about quality of life as we were, you know, as I was getting here.

So it is high on my list of uh things to work on, recognizing that we have social services, public health, um, lots of things that could lean in to support and the city and county need to be working better in that area, and so uh that is uh, you know, Carrie will call I kind of just I I kind of flipped our whole exec team meeting to focus on this topic, and so there'll be a lot of conversations about this.

This is all of this needs that part too, and so thank you for acknowledging that, and I appreciate it.

Great.

Thank you all so much.

I know we try to fit a lot into a very short time.

I appreciate your forbearance with our technology, and uh, we look forward to hearing more um multiple different opportunities.

So, with that, thank you all.

We are journed.