First item on the agenda is approval the minutes from September 29th of their mouth.

So move by Commissioner Pulls, sorry.

Second.

Second by Commissioner Girl.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any apple right side.

So that carries unanimously for approval of the vets.

Morning, everybody.

A couple announcements.

Several of us were at the Minnesota APA conference in St.

Cloud, including uh Commissioner Riley this last week, um, which was I thought helpful.

Um several different sessions uh of interest.

Um for me, probably the most interesting and helpful was a couple of sessions on um uh greenhouse gas emissions and VMT uh inventorying.

Um there's some forthcoming uh new requirements in the 2050 comp plan cycle.

Sounds crazy that we're talking about 2050 now, 2023, but in a year or so we'll be starting that process to update our confidence plan again.

Um so there's gonna be some new requirements as passed by the state legislature uh that they put on the council and the Met Council will be determining some additional things we need to do in the space of um greenhouse gas emission reductions and targets.

So that's still being determined at the moment, but um uh there were some smart folks from um local climate solutions and uh the legislator and others who who talked about kind of how the legislation at the state uh got you know, sort of lobbied for and approved, um, including input from you know, I think we weighed in and the Met Council obviously was quick to weigh in um with the language, but um so that was I found that to be helpful just to kind of eyes wide open and know what we're gonna be getting into soon.

Um uh Nelly and Chris Hong uh were both uh uh joined me there.

And um the second announcement you probably saw in the news that the council um uh after their public hearing on October uh fourth um uh this this week.

Um uh considered um only one amendment uh to the one to four unit housing study base two zoning text amendment amendments and map amendments um to increase the height uh in the RL and the H1 district from 33 feet to 35.

And the rationale behind that was there's some um concern that popped up around modular construction and is 33 feet sufficient for a three-story modular building.

And so we did some additional conversations with Commissioner of Cho as well as a modular uh manufacturer, and uh found that you know 34 and some change would be probably better for for a three-story modular building.

Um so uh commissioner maker uh heard that and proposed 35 and that amendment did uh pass five to two.

Um and as you probably know, any amendment um that is introduced has to sit at least one week in order for the council to be able to act on it.

So that means the final vote has not occurred yet.

Um it's expected for next week, um the 18th.

So uh we will have most likely uh uh the zoning amendments uh next week that the final vote and then it would take effect 30 days following that and uh mayor uh uh signature.

So getting close to the end.

Um thank you for all your support and many hours uh helping us uh to get there.

Quick question for Mr.

So um I was reading so there was a public hearing.

Uh how many folks showed up at that?

Uh was it?

Yeah, Chair Commissioner Thega.

Um it probably was in the neighborhood of between 15 and 20 people and the demographics of that group.

Um it was pretty pretty Caucasian.

I think there was one person of color in the mix.

Um we did get a lot of written testimony though.

Um I think we got uh Emma was tabulating it.

Um it was like 80 something in favor generally of the amendments and 40, you know.

Just in general, very very sporadic when I ask people generally nobody's heard about it.

Yeah, we so we got it was at least a hundred and hundred and twenty comments at the um city council plus the folks who showed up.

Um then a few people who had ideas but weren't clearly in support or against, they just have considerations.

So you know, it was one of the few issues that I actually got a phone call about um shock and dismay from a uh person who was concerned about triplexes um developers scraping and building uh in mass, uh you know, these multi-unit housing uh units in their in their neighborhood um and you know I tried to explain the housing uh shortage in St.

Paul and the need to do this, and I felt the need for some targeted follow-up to this person who is actively involved in the community that probably are in a neighborhood that probably was responsible for a lot of written comments.

So um if there's I can search for this, but if there's some handy uh fact sheets and other info on the on the housing shortage, the need and how the proposal will address that and something that will inform folks open away some of their concerns and fears that would be helpful.

Three, I think three comments, one well, one question, which I'll end with.

Uh I wish Commissioner Starling was here because I think the Fed has a really nice fact sheet on housing shortage nationwide, and I think a good number to think about is the 20, I think it's a 20,000 units or 8,000 units were short in the state.

There's 95,000 in the state.

95,000 is it is yeah.

So that's and that's for people who already live here, not based on projection.

So if you can share that information widely, I think that that could be helpful in allaying people's fears about whatever it is they're referring to.

Um so there that's the Minnesota um housing has a fact sheet, uh Minnesota Happy Partnership has that fact sheet.

So there's a lot out there.

We've been putting some of that stuff on our website from Northfield because we have people both interested in more housing and that it's for just the people who live in our skilled already, who's had the weird there's a weird thing in that like thing because like people die, but anyway.

Um so I just want to let I think this group know that this isn't the only place and Minneapolis isn't the only place to sort of explain to these kinds of questions.

And that St.

Paul has demonstrated itself to be a leader in the thoughtful approach to this.