[0:10] Call the meeting of the Red Wing housing and redevelopment Authority.

[0:17] The mission of the Red Wing HRA is to provide quality, affordable, sustainable housing and community redevelopment programs.

[0:26] Could we stand for the pledge of allegiance?

[0:56] So, there are no absent commissioners, and we actually, with the new format, do a roll call.

[1:05] From my understanding, yes, we do.

[1:09] Do you want to call that green?

[1:10] I will. Yep. Yep. Alan Calhoun. I hear. Here.

[1:18] Here. Here. Look at. Here.

[1:21] Praso. Here. Jack. Here. Horsha. Here.

[1:28] Opponent. Here.

[1:32] Okay. Everybody's present. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda please.

[1:37] I can't think you could have a second.

[1:41] I'll second.

[1:43] Jackie, all in favor of CI.

[1:46] Aye.

[1:46] Opposed?

[1:49] This brings us to item five, which is public comments.

[1:53] Are there any public comments?

[1:59] Are there any public comments?

[2:02] Apparently not.

[2:04] Okay, then we will move along to item 6.

[2:08] And this is a consent agenda.

[2:10] There is a roll call required.

[2:14] Are there any council members that want to pull any item from the consent agenda?

[2:22] All right.

[2:23] Can I have a roll call for item 6 consent, please?

[2:27] Ellen Calhoun, I, with them.

[2:34] Zooker, I, Grasso, I, check.

[2:42] Four shots?

[2:43] Hi.

[2:44] Often, doesn't I?

[2:48] Two motions are passed, that brings us two items seven, and now it is resolution number

[2:59] 2424-22, the 2023 COOLA, and I'll turn it over to Kurt to start the

[3:06] help please.

[3:07] Thank you Glenn, what you have in front of you is work that

[3:13] Korean has done on looking at what factor we should be using in our 2023

[3:19] budget as our cost of living adjustment abbreviated as COOLA. The report

[3:25] lines out for you, the methodology we use, the analysis that we went through, and then it

[3:32] also gives you a look at what past year's colonists have been, and you see they've

[3:37] range somewhere between two and three percent, and this year we're recommending and took

[3:43] to both the personnel and finance committee who both advanced these, the recommendation is a

[3:49] 3% call for the 2023 budget and create an all let you add anything you wish to.

[3:58] Yeah, so we kind of talked with the city and the county.

[4:04] They are in contract negotiations so they didn't have anything at this time.

[4:09] They thought the 3% that we were considering at that time was probably reasonable and what they were looking at.

[4:18] Obviously, the union contracts are probably looking for a little bit more, but I don't know, I don't know the details, but other

[4:25] injuries that we've been in contact with.

[4:28] They're doing around about the same.

[4:32] There are some, you know what I said.

[4:34] We're all the work that we were told to kind of look into what we did the wage study.

[4:41] They're looking at over 4% for some, so I think the 3% is adequate considering the performance

[4:51] to brazos that we get through fear as well.

[4:57] Let's put all I have.

[4:59] All right.

[5:00] Is there any discussion amongst council members regarding this?

[5:08] Any questions?

[5:11] Okay. Then I'd like to make motion to accept the resolution please.

[5:17] As you move, I'll second.

[5:20] Very good.

[5:21] Can we get a roll call please, Corinne?

[5:24] Ellen, you all move?

[5:25] Aye.

[5:26] With them?

[5:28] Aye.

[5:29] Lucar?

[5:30] Aye.

[5:31] Cross-o.

[5:34] Jack?

[5:34] Aye.

[5:36] Four shots?

[5:37] Aye.

[5:38] Hoffman?

[5:39] Aye.

[5:41] I'm a nice motion carries.

[5:43] Thank you.

[5:44] The resolution passed.

[5:45] that brings us to item 7b resolution number 1425-22, approving the 2022 amended operating budget.

[5:56] Again, I'll hand this off the current if you can start us off.

[5:59] Sure, thank you, Glenn.

[6:00] Commissioners, what this is, is this is our current 2022 operating budget that we're still operating under.

[6:08] It goes all the way through the end of December 2022.

[6:12] We do three things with the budget. We set a preliminary budget early on, bring that to you.

[6:18] We then finalize that budget, bring it to you for your approval.

[6:22] And then at this time in the year, we look at how we're doing against that budget,

[6:27] and we make any adjustments that are needed. So this is an amendment to the final budget

[6:31] that has already been approved by you.

[6:35] You know, would we absolutely need to do this?

[6:38] there's no HUD requirement to do this. We just think it's good business practice to share

[6:43] with you where we think the year is going to end up compared to where we thought it was going

[6:48] to be 18 months ago when we started this. We do share with you each month the financial so each

[6:54] month you're able to see what's happening and in this case, Carina's use seven of those reports

[6:59] of through July to make adjustments where we think adjustments are needed. I think primarily

[7:06] there are two headlines that I would call your attention to in the Malac carene fill in the details.

[7:11] But we've had a significant number of staff turnover recently during this fiscal year and so we've had unfilled

[7:18] positions so you'll see salaries and benefits a little lower simply because people haven't been in the positions.

[7:27] And then the other thing you'll see is that the cost of natural gas was significantly higher than we had anticipated.

[7:33] that our usage hasn't really changed so much,

[7:36] so it's not a usage issue, it's a rate issue.

[7:38] But those are the two biggest headlines.

[7:41] There are a myriad number of smaller adjustments

[7:43] made throughout, but Korean can share any of the details

[7:47] that she thinks are germaning with us.

[7:51] So what I did as opposed to the,

[7:54] when you did the final or when you saw the final

[7:57] and when we did the preliminary,

[7:59] is I have a CFP combined in with public housing recently. I've kind of pulled that off so it's

[8:07] separate so you can see the amount of funds that were awarded for our capital funds program separate

[8:13] from a Jordan tower one in the family units. So that's one of the big changes that is different

[8:20] on this one. Like Kurt said, the big issues are most definitely the salaries and benefits

[8:29] and the natural gas. There are some little things throughout the year like higher extermination

[8:36] costs due to bed bugs that we had over bats in one of our units. Little things like that.

[8:49] There's turnovers. The unit turnover that we did. You'll see that's a little bit different.

[8:54] That's just from staff assisting since we were so short and in maintenance, doing some additional work.

[9:04] App with the low utilization that they've had for some of the year.

[9:11] The app amount is reduced because of that, but now we're on an uptick and we are over,

[9:19] I wouldn't say, over utilizing, but we are higher utilizing some of it is higher than what is actually being dispersed to us, but we do have a pretty high HUD helm reserve, which is good that we're actually using that that is is to our benefit.

[9:35] Well, kind of keep an eye and make sure that we don't ease too much where we, you know, put ourselves in shortfall or anything, but it's good that we're getting people housed in the in the voucher programs.

[9:49] And then there is more detail now on the impact in the Women's Center that's pointed out

[9:57] in brought more prominent.

[10:00] Within general re-evalment and the women's shelter as well. Some of the other ones were ill-street, since we had some

[10:10] vacancy in that unit, and then also the twin homes since we're in the debate. How we're going to do that program,

[10:19] going slower, but for the most part things were pretty much on target. Besides a few little outliers here in

[10:29] Thank you, Chris. Questions?

[10:34] Any comments or discussion from board members regarding this matter?

[10:44] I reviewed the documents that I got from the financial meeting.

[10:47] The adjustments are really minimal.

[10:51] And that'll all be reviewed with the annual audit again.

[10:55] I don't personally have any problems with it.

[10:59] And if there's no further discussion or questions,

[11:02] Then can I get a motion to accept the resolution, please?

[11:08] Thank you.

[11:09] Here I'll thank you.

[11:10] A second.

[11:11] A second.

[11:12] All right.

[11:13] Creen, could I get a roll call, please?

[11:16] Felling Kelvin.

[11:17] Aye.

[11:18] With him.

[11:19] Aye.

[11:20] Luke Hart.

[11:23] Rosa.

[11:23] Aye.

[11:25] Jack.

[11:26] Aye.

[11:27] Or Jack?

[11:28] Aye.

[11:29] Coffee.

[11:32] That's a nice motion carries.

[11:34] Okay.

[11:34] I'm here as a solution passed.

[11:37] That brings us to item eight, which is our communication items.

[11:42] And we'll start off with the Executive Directors report.

[11:46] Can you bring us up speed on that?

[11:48] Thank you.

[11:49] If you looked at my report, you know that the biggest area in the first area is staffing.

[11:56] And Eric Johnson, our new maintenance manager, is trying to

[11:59] as well, and Eric, maybe we could have you come to the podium and just say a few words and introduce yourself to the commission.

[12:07] Hello everyone, I'm Eric Johnson, and I'm the new maintenance supervisor, so I'm very happy to be here and say to see what we can get done.

[12:21] Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.

[12:24] Kurt is pretty good at mowing, so keep using him in that way.

[12:29] Right.

[12:31] It's a done quick.

[12:33] And I'm the one they usually call trouble.

[12:36] I take care of all the garden beds and everything outside.

[12:40] And if you need to know anything, you come to me first.

[12:45] The theme is Jackie.

[12:46] Jackie, okay.

[12:47] It sounds good.

[12:49] I'd have you part of the team.

[12:52] I think that new blood's always a good thing.

[12:55] Paul did an excellent job.

[12:57] But a new perspective and a new way of doing things is always welcome.

[13:02] And I wish you the best with your new job.

[13:06] Thank you very much.

[13:07] Welcome.

[13:08] Nice meeting everyone.

[13:09] Thank you.

[13:10] So in addition to Eric,

[13:12] we have on a bass is started her position with us back in mid September just after our last meeting.

[13:19] She's our section eight housing managers. She's there with us now in training in and part of the team.

[13:27] Eric started a couple weeks ago and then Steven Gregory another maintenance technician started with us just yesterday.

[13:35] So, we are now back to three people in maintenance looking for a fourth person that has yet to be found and stuff, but we're

[13:45] you know much better place in terms of redundancy and capacity in maintenance right now.

[13:52] And then finally, Ryan Schultz will join us next Monday in the role as finance assistant or the new Kim.

[13:59] She starts next week and joins us from Good Hewan Olmsted County where she did financial assistance programs and things like that.

[14:10] So we're getting people back in the seats and now it's really incumbent on us to onboard them.

[14:16] Welcome them into our work area in the culture and train them up on what they need to know.

[14:22] that will continue for many months, you know, a lot of our programs, it's beneficial to

[14:28] have a year cycle go by so that you're exposed to all the things that are cyclical,

[14:34] and obviously you can't rush that, it just comes as it comes.

[14:37] But we're making progress, and it's really hard to see good people choose to join us

[14:46] and bring their time and talents to us at the HRA.

[14:50] I also attended a Southeast Housing Bus Tour.

[14:53] This was during the Jordan Tower Open House,

[14:57] and it was a bit of a conflict, but I really wanted to see.

[15:00] What others in our area are doing to sort of tackle the same issue that we've got, which is a lack of supply of just about every kind of housing, and then especially affordable housing.

[15:11] So we convened in Rochester and got on our coach bus and we toured Pine Island, Northfield and Kassen.

[15:17] And all the communities are looking to add housing of all types, they've added some home ownership units and affordable rental units with a variety of partners and three rivers and Leah was involved in all three communities.

[15:35] So I'm just reaffirmed for me the great partner that we have in three rivers and the good work they do.

[15:41] You know, it was interesting that there really is no magic bullet, towns that are working on keeping new ownership units affordable.

[15:51] They're doing it with smaller lots, narrower lots, they're doing it with houses that don't have a basement.

[15:58] And what they're finding in all three communities that are doing that, they're getting snapped up as soon as they're even begun by seniors.

[16:07] are looking to come out of a house and shed all the extra room and responsibility and upkeep

[16:13] and yard care and they really just they can't build them fast enough so it's sort of interesting.

[16:21] Along that line, I went to a separate event up in New Brighton.

[16:26] It's put on by the St. Paul area of realtors and this was focused more on accessory dwelling units

[16:31] are tiny homes and the idea is, you know, these can be added to an existing lot where

[16:36] permitted and they provide a housing option, you know, sometimes referred to as mother

[16:41] and lost weeds or or what have you. But it was a chance to see where they're made and see

[16:47] three of their models and talk to the builder, see how they're being deployed. It was pretty

[16:53] interesting. I was intrigued by the notion of four of these units, put in common and connected with a

[17:04] common area, another structure that what house things like laundry and storage and some shared

[17:10] community types of things, and then they put four of these in a group and then they group these

[17:16] groups together. And they're doing it a lot with housing for veterans. And so I was talking with

[17:23] the fellow who runs the factory there,

[17:25] and I was curious about price and things like that.

[17:29] And right now, they're producing their units

[17:33] at a cost of about $160,000.

[17:36] That's exclusive of land and things like that.

[17:39] So even small structures are expensive, right?

[17:42] Is that a monogular home?

[17:44] It's a 16 by 24 unit that has a separate bathroom,

[17:49] a kitchen area, and then kind of a combined living,

[17:52] dining area. It's a square footage, do you know what it would be?

[17:58] Hard square footage. I want to say, I would like to do math quickly,

[18:03] 60 by 24. I don't know. I can't do that fast in my head.

[18:10] I'm kind of like 400 square feet. I mean, they're both kind of like 20. Yeah, yeah.

[18:15] And so the intriguing thing to me was that the Veterans Administration is

[18:19] purchasing these and deploying them in locations where they have a shortage of housing for veterans,

[18:26] particularly homeless veterans. And it was interesting to see the construction techniques.

[18:31] It's all built to Minnesota weather standards. It's all insulated panel construction,

[18:37] very energy efficient, very airtight, all that sort of stuff. There's less than 500

[18:43] it's quite a fee. Yeah. Yeah. It's 60,000. Yeah. No, we should get used to the fact that even

[18:53] small stuff costs that much to produce. So there's, you know, there's no 40 or 50,000

[19:00] unit out there, really, to address it. But it's interesting to see the different things people

[19:08] are trying and the ideas. I really, at first time, I even considered this concept of

[19:13] them and then connecting them physically and giving, you know, some shared space in addition

[19:19] to your own dedicated space, there's space where you could, you know, wash your clothes,

[19:25] store your bike, right? Because that's one of the things that's like, where do I put all my stuff?

[19:29] And they buy the house. It's not a rental. I don't know that if they're buying them,

[19:34] or if that's just an organization that's purchasing them. But that was the cost of the unit.

[19:40] you get a yard. You get a common shared area, you know, kind of like a common interest community,

[19:47] kind of, you know, there's a lot of creative things being thought about and tried to tackle

[19:53] this notion of how do we provide, you know, what had used to call modest but adequate shelter to people, right?

[20:00] It's not large, it's not luxurious, but it's adequate, right? It's better than the streets, or it's better than a shelter, and it gives you some autonomy and things like that.

[20:09] So, it was interesting, you know, I'm just always sort of curious as to what other communities and what other places are doing, because, you know, you've got to have an open mind and, you know, sometimes you see stuff that you just don't think will work in your community and then other times you take nuggets away, where you go.

[20:25] Well, I got to remember that because that one's a good one, so that way.

[20:29] I see a lot that they have to take those storage containers and make them into.

[20:36] Yep.

[20:36] You see that as well.

[20:39] I would say that what I saw on New Brighton was a lot more attractive in the storage container.

[20:44] You know, it used residential materials and, you know, she holds them with sighting and windows and things like that.

[20:49] So a little bit better than that.

[20:51] But every community needs a spectrum of housing

[20:55] from a affordable to high end and everything

[20:58] between big, small.

[21:01] It was interesting in Cassin, where

[21:04] the city opened up this new subdivision

[21:06] and they did 50 foot lots.

[21:09] And the tortoise around, and of course,

[21:12] in every community, including Redway,

[21:14] there are whole sections of town

[21:16] that used to have 40 and 50 foot lots.

[21:19] and houses built on them, and families, large families raised in them, right, and we all came out okay.

[21:27] So the notion of getting smart with your land, because that's a high cost thing, getting smart with

[21:32] your density of utility connections and things like that, anything you can do to bring that

[21:38] cost down, helps it get built, and then helps it be sustainable and a lot more. Just reporting back

[21:44] on some of those. And then I'll close with two other things. Our twin home update. Good

[21:51] who habitat is interested in working with us. They have reached out to the family. The

[21:56] family is interested in working with them on becoming owners of their side of the twin home.

[22:03] They've made application and at this point they're waiting to hear from the selection committee

[22:08] because they open their application process I think October 1st. So they're waiting to hear

[22:13] from the committee whether they've been a proof for the program or not, it looks promising

[22:17] but we won't know until the final end, but I just had a conversation with Bob Hawley

[22:23] today that you know, if the family qualifies and wants to pursue forward, then we were talking

[22:28] about next steps and I said, you know, that's things like they would like an inspection of the

[22:32] property, which is prudent. We would have to talk about a sales price and a timeline and things

[22:40] like that. But so far it's moving forward. I was pleased to know that the family was interested

[22:46] in learning more about habitat when over met with Bob and he explained the program and they're

[22:53] fairly enthusiastic that, you know, wow, this could happen for us. That was good. And then

[23:00] our long talked about joint meeting with support authority. We've sort of zeroed in on a date

[23:06] in December, and I'd like to know your preference.

[23:11] December six is when the port would meet,

[23:14] and so we have a couple of options.

[23:15] We could move our regular December meeting to the sixth,

[23:20] meet from 330 to say 430,

[23:22] which is usually adequate for our business.

[23:24] Meet combined with the port from 430 to 530-ish,

[23:29] and then the port would convene their regular monthly meeting

[23:31] at 530, their normal time.

[23:33] So, we could move ours and do everything in one, or we could simply schedule an additional meeting for us on the 6th at 4th or 30th, that would be in combination with the court.

[23:45] And then we would have our regular meeting the week later on the 13th.

[23:50] What day of the week is the 6th?

[23:51] They're all Thursdays.

[23:54] Tuesdays.

[23:55] Okay.

[23:58] And so just looking for a little bit of feedback from you, would you prefer a separate

[24:05] meeting?

[24:05] Would you like to do a meeting on one Tuesday and come back and do the regular one on 13th

[24:11] or should we move it with enough time to notice everybody that we're moving ours to another

[24:16] date?

[24:18] So I don't think from a staff perspective, we have an opinion of whatever is most

[24:23] for all of you. What we're looking at for a time commitment to combine meeting. I think about

[24:29] an hour, give or take, you know, if it goes a little longer, and they're able to flex their

[24:35] starting time, you know, I think we go. What we're envisioning is, is, right, kind of a sharing

[24:44] of things that we're working on, things that we have on our horizon. They certainly are working

[24:49] not a lot of development things in and around town, we're working on some housing stuff with

[24:55] three brothers.

[24:56] It's just a matter of meeting everybody and kind of with their hearing.

[25:00] What the two bodies have in front of them, and then, you know, just kind of affirming our desire to continue to work together and move some of these things forward.

[25:11] The time is that meeting?

[25:13] They need their normal meeting time is 530, so we're thinking we need before that, say 430, or if we do a separate meeting, it could be 4.

[25:24] or we could do it, we could move our meeting up from 330 to 3 if that's agreeable to you.

[25:31] It really just depends on your appetite for or usually done by five o'clock game.

[25:38] We started at 330 and we were down at five o'clock,

[25:41] give us about a half hour window and then go into the next meeting.

[25:44] Well, I think the vision is we're either doing a combined meeting or that's sort of the topic.

[25:52] and then they, since they normally meet on the 6th and they would go into their regular meeting,

[25:59] it could work out if we stack them, we're typically 330 to 430, we can use to get through our

[26:05] stuff, hmm, quiet. And then 430 to 530, joint meeting, and then 530 to say 630,

[26:14] court meeting. So boom, boom, boom, if we're doing it that way, or if you don't mind having an

[26:20] additional meeting on the 6th and starting say at 4, go to 4 to 5, 30. That works. It just, it's really, works best for your sketches.

[26:32] I don't think so. I mean, I think you're certainly welcome to it. At that point, we would have had our joint discussion and

[26:51] We'll proceed with that basis then, and we'll notify everybody so that we get the public notified that we're meeting date to this date and time.

[27:05] And then Korean and I will keep an eye on what's cooking on the December agenda, but the reason

[27:11] we didn't do it in November is we've got our 2023 budget for you at that point and we

[27:19] don't want that to be rushed.

[27:22] Okay, I will proceed to do the 6th and get our meeting scheduled before that.

[27:30] Thank you.

[27:31] It's all I have.

[27:33] Any questions for Kurt?

[27:35] I have one.

[27:37] So backing up to the tiny home deal, your last paragraph says that you understand the school

[27:44] maybe that is that red wing?

[27:46] That's red wing school.

[27:48] There's talk.

[27:49] I haven't confirmed it with anyone at the school, but habitat is currently building a home

[27:55] out next to the high school and I think they got the land or purchased the land from

[28:00] school. And as I understand that they want to sort of do a trade with habitat for another

[28:07] lot that they own out there because they'd like to have a couple of lots in their considering

[28:15] a number of tiny homes as a recruitment retention tool for new teachers.

[28:22] Now whether or not that comes to fruition or not, I don't know. I think it'd be a

[28:29] wonderful opportunity because they think the idea is and the high schools trade

[28:34] classes and stuff would participate in the construction and you know it

[28:39] could be a cool deal.

[28:41] Bill Bill.

[28:42] And when I have the high school students used to build up.

[28:45] Yep, did they still do that?

[28:47] I don't know what they build a whole house.

[28:49] I don't know what they do.

[28:50] That's where the college is today.

[28:52] Oh, so.

[28:52] I've used to.

[28:53] College was our partner on the twin-oam.

[28:56] I don't think they have that program anymore, but I know the high school has, you know,

[29:01] shop class and building trades and things like that.

[29:04] So, you know, if that comes to fruition, I'm dying to see the first instance of it in red

[29:11] wing and to see how it looks and how it's accepted by the community because if there's

[29:16] good acceptance of it, you can imagine utilizing other pieces of land that are maybe challenging

[29:26] for some other reason, but might be a perfect fit for two to three tiny holes.

[29:33] But somebody has to do it first, right?

[29:35] Somebody always has to be the first.

[29:38] And if the school has a wherewithal to do it,

[29:40] and they have a sort of a built-in audience to occupy these,

[29:45] I mean, when I first started teaching,

[29:47] I sure would have jumped at something like that.

[29:49] I had to find a roommate and double up in an apartment.

[29:52] All that sort of stuff.

[29:54] They're intriguing.

[29:55] Yeah.

[29:59] Any other questions?

[30:03] So, a couple items of notes in the financial statements. You see the increase in public housing and that is due to the first payment that we received from the Ross grant.

[30:15] Social service grant.

[30:18] Basically, I'm taking anything from there to kind of put in our vote of equal reserves for public housing just so we can kind of build them up.

[30:28] So that it's sitting there, obviously, if I need to use it, I can pull it from there.

[30:34] But kind of trying to build up reserve for public housing, so we don't find ourselves having any issues down the road with that.

[30:43] The decrease in the redevelopment is from allocating the $50,000 to the affordable housing trust fund.

[30:52] And then small cities is due to a loan pay off and the payable loan in the forgivable loan for a total of $42,000.

[31:05] For other business, we're working well.

[31:08] I got answer back finally from Deed on the small cities.

[31:12] I do not need to do any annual reporting of our small city funds just because we have figured it out that the funds that we have are all local funds.

[31:23] The program income funds from the grant that we did in 2014, there wasn't in excess of $35,000, so then it maintains as local funds for that as well for you to utilize those pretty quickly.

[31:42] Anyways, so I do not need to do any annual reporting on that and everything is all squared away.

[31:49] If, over the next two years, I end up getting $35,000 or more than I would need to do a report there.

[31:57] So, the annual report for the Ross Grant is due by the end of the month.

[32:03] This did just start June 1st, but HUD's fiscal year ends September 30th.

[32:11] So, they're asking for everyone to do their annual report so that they can finalize everything.

[32:18] So we'll then again have to do it next May.

[32:23] Another one to actually finish off our first full year.

[32:28] So Jessica and I will be working on that.

[32:29] She'll have all the resident information that she'll need to submit.

[32:34] And then I will have to do the financial piece on what funds we did.

[32:38] You will be between June 1st and September 30th.

[32:42] Bridges will have some annual reporting do.

[32:45] and then they'll be preparing to do a new grant cycle, I think by March, I think is when that's all

[32:52] due March of next year, so we'll have reporting for that that Jennifer and I will be working on.

[32:59] And then as I mentioned last month, the home reporting that we did have an annual report is now

[33:04] monthly. I've been working with someone from Minnesota Housing Finance Agency in

[33:12] it all squared away so as soon as I receive the financials from Hawkins Ash, then I'll input all the

[33:18] information and send off to them at every month. Then busy onboarding new staff, getting them set up with

[33:25] benefits and in all the payroll selection so that's been obviously very time consuming all the new staff that

[33:32] we have. And then I'm also working on the 2023 final budget that I'll be bringing to you next month.

[33:40] And then they have the personnel and finance committee summaries attached to my report as well.

[33:46] And it's all I have.

[33:49] Thank you.

[33:51] So, that brings us to housing and Jennifer's not here.

[34:02] So the housing report for the month ending September, you can see our wait list is staying

[34:09] a pretty steady and we're pulling people off, but people are applying so we're staying

[34:13] more or less even a slight uptick.

[34:17] Our occupancy rate in Jordan Tower 2 dipped a little bit, we had a number of moveouts in September

[34:24] And so they're hitting us now. We've been a little delayed in turning those because that for a good portion of that time

[34:31] We had one maintenance person and so we've used more vendors to help with that and Korean alluded to that in the amended budget

[34:41] But we have folks lined up for most of those units, so I would expect that October you'll see an uptake there as well

[34:49] and then on the family public housing units and market rate rentals that's one vacant unit that's a small number of

[35:00] And so, even one vacant unit there, throws those down a little bit in the market rate unit is the other half of the twin arm that we're holding open at this point.

[35:12] Voucher program continues to re-play rewards of a lot of good work from Reagan and Lisa earlier in the year.

[35:20] We're utilizing almost all of our vouchers, we're spending all the half that HUD gives us and we're dipping into our HUD held reserves, which is great,

[35:28] because I don't like HUD to have too many of our reserves held in their hands.

[35:33] I would rather put them out on the street in our community.

[35:36] So we're going gangbusters there, and that's wonderful.

[35:39] We're having conversations with HUD on a monthly basis of how much we want to draw out of our HUD held reserves.

[35:45] And that's a positive thing in my opinion.

[35:48] And then the bridges program we're seeing a similar impact there.

[35:52] Utilization is up where, you know, we've got 14 of the 12 least so you say, how do you do that?

[35:59] Well, because for a long time we were underutilized there and so the grant money is available and we can

[36:04] least as many people as we can pay for and we have a fair amount of money available for their remainder of the grant period

[36:11] So we're flying there

[36:12] I will say some good news out of HUD recently is that you recall we asked you to

[36:19] to improve increasing our payment standard, going for a waiver from 110% to 120.

[36:28] That has played a big part of how our utilization is increased and we were a little worried

[36:34] because that was set to sunset at the end of this year but how does just announce that

[36:38] they're extending it for 2023 so we'll be applying for that again because that's money

[36:44] is what makes that program work and if you can pay a landlord what they're asking for

[36:49] market rent than people can find a place. If you can't pay them going right and you can't find a place.

[36:56] So that's positive news for us there. We're also seeing some progress on different

[37:03] projects. Our sidewalk project is near completion. The welders tell me that they might be out of

[37:09] there as soon as tomorrow, which would complete that portion of the project. They had a little bit of a

[37:19] And that's since sort of been worked out.

[37:22] The tunnel windows are all complete and in and look great.

[37:25] No more looking out through fog windows.

[37:28] That happened really quickly just a couple of weeks.

[37:32] We're almost done with our Jordan Tower one commentary updates.

[37:35] We just have some artwork and some nice cities to put up there.

[37:39] But our furniture arrived just in time for our open house.

[37:43] Our electrical project in Jordan Tower one

[37:46] we're working out a little bit of a snag with Minnesota housing back in 2019. I think the

[37:54] city gave us some small cities funds to do some ceiling of the exterior of Jordan Tower 1,

[38:00] which was wonderful. But at some point that got recorded instead of as a grant it got recorded

[38:07] as a loan and recorded against the property which is now entangling, closing on another pop loan

[38:13] from Minnesota housing they do not like to be in second position.

[38:18] So I had a chat with Kyle today in our meeting next week, we think it's a relatively

[38:22] simple fix on our end, it's an agreement between the city and us and there's no chance

[38:27] that we're foreclosing or selling the property, it's going to be owned and operated as affordable

[38:34] housing and perpetuity so that's fine.

[38:37] We had a great open house, I wish I could have attended but I was on the bus tour but Jennifer

[38:43] Jessica and others who attended said it went really well, very positive. The radio station

[38:49] had Jack called well there and I guess he was always quite good Evan and Glenn. Both spoke with him

[38:56] and as well as Rob, our maintenance guy who happens to be his neighbor. Rob walked into the room for

[39:02] some reason and said, hey, Rob, come on over here and so he sat down and they shot the breeze for a while.

[39:09] is quite entertaining. Luckily, last year I complained

[39:15] mightily at the increase of our property insurance from housing

[39:18] authority insurance, they may have

[39:21] modified us a little bit by giving us a $120,000 to fix

[39:25] some concrete at one of our public housing properties, so

[39:29] I like them a little better now.

[39:31] I don't think it's our rates, but

[39:36] essentially at Featherstone will be replacing some sidewalks

[39:39] steps that have heaved in our tripping hazards, and if possible, I'd like to redirect some

[39:44] of the funding from Featherstone and also see if we can accomplish some similar stuff

[39:49] at our dear run property. They're both public housing properties, both eligible, both need

[39:54] some sidewalk work to reduce tripping hazards and things like that. So that's positive.

[40:00] And I've already spilled the beans on the payment standard waiver extension. So that's the housing report.

[40:07] Thank you. Quick question. In the past, we've done bus tours where we've gone around all the properties that the HR has.

[40:18] That's something that we could look at doing again now that COVID's over.

[40:22] Absolutely. Yeah. You know,

[40:28] what time frame have you typically done that spring summer?

[40:30] or is that a winter?

[40:32] I don't know.

[40:33] When was the last time we did that?

[40:34] Is it anyway?

[40:35] Clear, is that all I said?

[40:36] What's that?

[40:37] It was in 2019 and it was in the spring.

[40:41] It was in the spring.

[40:42] It's just not been a while and unfortunately,

[40:45] the last time we did that, I couldn't attend

[40:47] for some reason and it's been a while for me

[40:49] and it gives an opportunity to look at the projects

[40:52] that we discussed from month to month.

[40:55] And also, just give us a gentle view of everything

[40:58] that we've got on the table with our property.

[41:01] I don't know, just thrown it out there, you mentioned you did a bus tour, and I thought they're kind of...

[41:07] Yeah, remind me, maybe we could look at it.

[41:10] Absolutely, can.

[41:15] It might be something, well, I don't know if January is very much for that.

[41:21] Probably more of a spring, summer thing, so that we can really disembark and spend some time outside and not be freezing or, you know, Russian.

[41:29] There's a lot to see, right?

[41:31] Some of our companies are in very different ways.

[41:32] For first of all, they have snow on the ground,

[41:34] so we can actually see this amount or whatever that will happen.

[41:38] Absolutely.

[41:38] Maybe something to just pencil in for the future.

[41:40] Yes.

[41:41] I think that's good idea.

[41:43] Okay.

[41:46] All right, community redevelopment that brings us very

[41:49] back to Kurt Gumpier.

[41:51] I'll be brief on this.

[41:52] Our small cities program funds.

[41:55] One of the people I was keen to meet on the bus tour

[41:58] was the new community development director for Sam Crow or southeast Minnesota Multicounning

[42:04] HRA because they too are administrator of small cities funds in addition to Sita and there

[42:11] is some capacity constraint at Sita so I was pleased to make a connection and meet the fellow

[42:17] he was the former city administrator from St. Charles. But we are soon to be in a position where

[42:27] think we could submit a competitive application again now that we've clarified our program

[42:32] income versus local funds and have committed a great many of those we have three small

[42:40] cities loans yet to close. In a couple of cases they're being held up by the contractor being

[42:46] able to get the materials, but you know they're on their way that sort of thing. But our good work

[42:52] there is going to position us to make an application sooner rather than later, so that's positive.

[43:00] Our formal housing trust fund, we in addition to what we awarded as part of the downtown

[43:06] redevelopment challenge, there are still two people who own properties in our target area

[43:12] that are talking about coming forward. They'll get all warm and fuzzy and we'll have a conversation

[43:19] and they'll be up, yep, yep, I'll get that to you and then nothing for a while and so I remain in

[43:25] contact with them both and just sort of say you know we have money and we're ready to consider

[43:32] your application when you're ready to submit it so that's sitting out there. The reserves of course

[43:40] will go down by $125,000 when we fund the Avanti project directly north of us here.

[43:47] If housing district number eight, if you've driven by out there, you notice that the last building is underway, they're digging and starting footings and that sort of stuff, so that will be the final phase of that tiff district.

[44:02] That will be built out. We're still working with them to certify the last district and get us what we need so that we can enter and disperse their tiff payment to them.

[44:11] But we figure since we've got about $100,000 of theirs that they'll soon or later pay attention to us and get us what we need.

[44:20] And I can imagine that it's just chaotic and busy trying to get everything coordinated, but they will come around.

[44:26] We're going to check this out.

[44:28] It's the new senior building that's going just up there.

[44:32] I don't know where in the park place.

[44:35] They've got to move like 13,000 took loads of dirt.

[44:37] Yeah, it's a lot of stuff there.

[44:40] three rivers in our tax credit development and will you project Leah has held I think at least one

[44:47] and possibly two community information gathering meetings with different stakeholders in the community.

[44:56] I know she's still planning to get in front of the council yet this fall.

[45:00] With an update and ask for some action perhaps so that they can be positioned to move forward on an application to image of a by July of next year.

[45:12] And housing related meetings, I went to the neighborhood informational meeting that the stencil group, Nate stencil from the stencil group held at the library, concerning the former St. John site.

[45:24] they have that under contract and they previewed for the neighbors, what their intentions were.

[45:31] Essentially, a four story, 90 to 100 issue unit apartment building, where the old hospital

[45:39] used to sit and then 16 count homes on more of the parking area that is closer to downtown.

[45:49] very mixed reactions, probably more negative than positive, which wasn't unanticipated, but I thought

[45:57] the Nate did a nice job of just, you know, being very transparent. This is what we're looking at.

[46:03] This is what we're considering, want your feedback, won't always agree with your feedback, but still want to hear it, that sort of thing.

[46:13] There's also a party that has the associated bank building under contract, which is a step forward from where we've been.

[46:21] I understand they're looking for limitarily at a concept that would be 28 to 30 rental units and then retail space on what's the former sort of lobby street level space there.

[46:35] Nothing firm, nothing, no hard to ask to the city or ourselves yet, but they do have it

[46:41] under contract, which is step farther than we've been there as well.

[46:47] And then lastly, good Hugh County does a fall housing summit series and so Tammy Moyer from

[46:54] Semkran I did a presentation last week on the housing choice voucher program, just to sort

[47:00] of share information with smaller newer landlords about what the program is and the

[47:05] and if it's participate, things like that.

[47:07] And that's plus recorded and if you're interested,

[47:11] and knowing about Section 8,

[47:12] you can listen to that on the County's EDA and say.

[47:17] This tensile group is at all market rate.

[47:20] Stensile group would be all market rate.

[47:22] Smaller units, studios, ones, twos,

[47:27] in the six to seven hundred square foot range

[47:30] for the smaller units,

[47:31] I had about a $900 to $1,000 a month rent point.

[47:38] They've built similar buildings in communities around us, including Mancato and Rochester,

[47:46] and not only enough, the HRA and Hastings has given them, I think they're partnering with them

[47:53] to enable a former lumber yard site in downtown Hastings and doing this neat thing.

[47:58] So, these regional development companies are waking up to Southeast Minnesota and some of these other communities besides

[48:05] the native and Rochester and sensing that there's opportunities that there's a pent-up demand for

[48:12] quality, affordable, or just market-rate housing, and which I think is encouraging, right?

[48:18] We always want to be able to ask about affordability and show them what we have in terms of resources.

[48:25] But, you know, even if we didn't get any, that's okay. Again, there's more housing.

[48:32] Every type makes more housing available for our section 8 holders and everybody else.

[48:39] So, freighter supply helps ease the imbalance between supply and demand.

[48:44] I have to say it since I've been on the HRA Board, I don't think I've ever seen more activity

[48:50] for housing than I have in the last year and currently it's pretty exciting and it's

[48:57] something that we've been hearing for a year. We need to tell them all of them.

[49:02] And I'm getting answered.

[49:06] I think the project at Caler Bartman did prove the market.

[49:11] I mean, it showed builders and developers and lenders

[49:15] that you can build that product in Red Wing.

[49:18] It's a viable financial, you know, it's worth the risk.

[49:22] And it's been received remarkably well.

[49:27] And so, you know, fingers crossed.

[49:28] I hope more good quality projects are covered directly.

[49:32] We can work with them and feed in some affordability, yay, I know.

[49:38] When I think too, when you have housing here, then you can get people coming in that want to have companies and stuff.

[49:50] Yeah.

[49:51] You have places to live then.

[49:56] All right, thank you, Kurt, and that brings us to Jeff.

[50:00] Jackie for our favorite resident council report.

[50:04] Well, I'm honored.

[50:07] Welcome.

[50:10] Well, we had open house, and the council, of course, stepped right up there, and they sold high.

[50:18] And, and the clerk forgot to tell you, but I talked on the radio too.

[50:26] But then I do every year, so it's no big deal.

[50:30] It's stopping me from talking.

[50:37] And then I also was the hostess with the most.

[50:42] But now the council is getting ready for Halloween.

[50:49] So that's always really exciting in the outside, we'll be dressed up and know I'm not going to tell you as what, because it's a surprise.

[51:00] But if you do happen to stop in, go out into the courtyard because we have witches and ghosts and old men, old men,

[51:10] from kids that have monkey parks, but we always have good fun in Jordan Towers, so in the

[51:22] council is part of that. So stop in any time. Thank you. Jay, the coalition. Yeah, thank you.

[51:32] I hope coalition met on September 15th, Thursday, and just to quick overview,

[51:43] they have

[51:44] filled the remaining open positions in the staff, and they're only hiring for a relief

[51:50] staff at the shelter right now, so that's a good thing.

[51:54] They have relaunched their quarterly newsletter, and we'll be sent out July 22nd to any

[52:02] You're interested in receiving that, you can sign up at their website,

[52:09] rescoeolition.org and programming,

[52:17] given a whole pad, a COVID-up break with their staff,

[52:22] but that's all under control now.

[52:27] the transitional housing.

[52:33] We're having some talks about

[52:41] the lease and renewing it,

[52:42] and that kind of thing, nothing decided yet.

[52:48] They have an advocate splitting time as a, in the area of kids count,

[52:55] which is their, it's advocacy.

[52:58] heart, splitting between red wing and cannon fall school districts and they're

[53:05] working to expand the time in other schools in the region just great

[53:09] thing to do, there are things,

[53:17] that's not up is it, you know,

[53:19] school chainers are new building, it said they were in a different building or they

[53:24] are in a new building, that's in Mavashaw, not up here, no, not here yet,

[53:28] We're still on all of us, man.

[53:30] Right. And they're still.

[53:32] I think they're still undertaking the whole.

[53:34] Yeah. What do we want to do?

[53:36] Yeah. Okay.

[53:38] Build, find, whatever.

[53:40] So that's still.

[53:45] And then that brings us to Evan for a city council report.

[53:50] Thank you.

[53:51] Kurt, you kind of stole my thunder.

[53:54] Sorry, I want to follow up a little bit on this associated bank.

[53:57] I think that's a really big.

[54:02] exciting deal. And again, what they've done has come in quickly, attracted to the city, just

[54:10] kind of seeing the city in the vibrancy of it. And so I kind of want to stress that that

[54:15] what we are doing kind of generally is working and attracting developers here. And I really

[54:21] with Kurt that I think the Keller Bartman project which was really a catalyst for really saying

[54:30] that we have this huge pen up demand. As we know we look at just about every new development

[54:37] and it's full nearly as soon as it's open. And so everything has waiting less a curve, you know,

[54:43] just everything, and the vacancy rate is crazy low.

[54:49] So I'm excited to see that come.

[54:52] That, you know, they move fast.

[54:54] We've been working with someone who was interested,

[54:57] but would never pull the trigger, even.

[54:59] Thanks.

[55:00] Put the party under contract, I mean, so they are leading with their money, and they are really excited. You know, all this kind of, you know, activity in housing has done something really

[55:13] else. Interesting, and I think Jackie sort of alluded to it, but we do have a, we're in that importer of workers in the city, you know, more people come in to work, that

[55:23] to go work out at places, and yet from 2010 to 2020, the city was, the population was

[55:32] essentially static. We didn't have a lot of new housing. Now that we're starting to

[55:37] see these housing units happen, you know, a community development analysis shows that we

[55:43] have since 2020, and this includes some state analysis and also local analysis through our

[55:52] community development, we're estimating right now through the end of this year, we're looking

[55:59] at an increase in population of two and a half percent and two years.

[56:04] That's significant and that's a trend that I think when we see all these new housing developments

[56:11] that are online, that are coming in, we are looking at hundreds and hundreds of new units,

[56:17] we really do believe that will bring in further increase in our population.

[56:24] So that is a trend that helps us a lot, and so I really want to highlight that, you know,

[56:30] kind of, it is Roseanne said a few meetings ago earlier to me.

[56:36] She was like, you know, the idea that all these groups are kind of working within the kind of

[56:40] same roadmap.

[56:41] And we're all in the same, you know, we're all headed in the same direction is really

[56:45] part of the transformation I think that really helps.

[56:49] I think when people work together things get done is finally, finally happening here.

[56:55] Exactly.

[56:56] So that's what I got to say.

[56:58] So I think it's exciting time.

[56:59] Thank you, Ellen.

[57:01] All right.

[57:01] Before we close, I do have a question.

[57:04] I guess for Kurt, I was thinking about this as we're

[57:08] winding down with Paul Hall and moving in the winter.

[57:12] You know, when Regan was part of the organization, she represented us with the, and I'm not exactly sure the official name, the Red Wing homeless coalition, Red Wing homeless.

[57:25] It was an event.

[57:26] And someone from the HRA actively involved with that currently, do you know, and who is that?

[57:33] And would they be able to maybe give us some kind of an update?

[57:36] meeting for that and if we can be of any help at all in that project.

[57:43] Yeah, Jennifer's tapped into about three different groups that are working on that, and that's

[57:49] part of the it's a little bit of who's advancing what issue at any given time, but Jennifer

[57:57] that's her background. She comes out of working in homelessness and so she's maintained those connections

[58:03] and that involvement so she could absolutely put you at some point in the future about.

[58:08] Just haven't heard where things are out.

[58:11] Yeah, sure. Very good announcements. The next regular meeting is on November 8, 2022 held right

[58:19] here in the council chamber.

[58:24] Anyone else have any other announcements before we adjourn?

[58:29] Well then this meeting is adjourned.

Red Wing Housing & Redevelopment Authority Board Meeting

Agenda

Transcript