Planning Commission uh meeting for March 19th 2025 uh first thing we'll do is do a roll call Stephanie all right Peterson here Norwood grula here Goram here Higgins here Powell Ericson here all
right looking for somebody to uh leave the Pledge yes United States of America indivisible for andice all you're pretty good at I'm not sure been doing it since kindergarten well there you are all right we're up to
number four we looking for approval for tonight's agenda they moved a second all right just a heads up uh for topic 6C I will need to recuse myself very good very good excellent um uh without any I don't think we need any discussion um
all in favor say I on the agenda I I I oppose same sign we're looking for approval for uh the February minutes looking for a motion please uh one comment if I could yes so one change I was made aware that um one small clarification with uh councilman yager's
comments at the public hearing um and mostly was kind of presented as it was mostly in favor of and I think he just had some concern expressed some concern concerns I wanted to make that change that he uh expressed some concerns as well um Stephanie are going to be able
to accommodate that very good we have a plan all right excellent with that change I'm so moved so moved all right did we get a second here all right all favor say I I post same sign hearing none we're moving on to 6A this is an
interm use apartment for a yearound shelter in 1926 South 7th James would you like to set us up a little bit yes thank you Mr chair uh so the current interm use permit for the shelter expires on June 30th of 2025 the facility currently operates
between the months of September 1st through April 30th of each year the applicant is proposing to operate the shelter year round farming shelter for the purposes of temporarily Sheltering homeless persons must meet the following criteria according to the allowed use section operation may not exceed 16
continuous hours facility occupancy shall not exceed 30 beds or total occupancy of the facility as set by the fire marshall whichever is a less facility shall be staffed during all hours of operation 24-hour contact information shall be provided to the city of brainer police department and
croing County Community Services Department except for bicycle racks the outdoor storage of equipment Furniture personal items or other such possessions of those used the facility is not permitted the facility shall meet all applicable Building Safety fire and health code requirements the applicant
uh meets all the criteria and have not been been in violation since beginning operation in addition to the proposed use uh in addition the proposed use shall preserve the uh objectives of the ordinance and shall be consistent with the comprehensive plan Public Safety
goal one brainer will protect and provide for the safety of residents and visitors policy one make efficient use of existing facilities to ensure access to emergency services for all residents and visitors uh in staff's opinion the sh warming shelter has provided an asset to the community uh as the shelter as it
shelters those in need during extremely cold winter conditions uh shelter staff have worked well with Emergency Services also with the Community Development Department uh Public Safety goal one policy 3 continuously seek to eradicate crime through Innovative and contemporary strategies including
preventative proactive and responsive measures uh the police department did include data um along with the submittal request here after reviewing the data provided by the police department staff does see a correlation of an increase in incidents occurring at the Shel uh in uh in the shelter or within one block of
the shelter um and staff does have concerns that expanding operation of the shelter will again increase incidents in that neighborhood um I did want to note that not all incidents are crime related but some are uh the list also indicates new non-brain
residents just as a note uh during this time the Community Development Department has not received calls regarding the operation has not received any concerns after the um notice was sent out uh so with that staff recommend approval of the interm use permit contingent upon the following conditions facility operates between the months of
September 1st April 30th of each year inter use permit shall expire June 30th of 2028 if the brainer Police Department determines that the facility has been used in a disorderly Manner and upon recommendation of the police chief the interim use permit shall be brought before city council for review and
consideration for suspending or re revoking the permit um at the next available city council meeting and also that uh shelter staff shall provide a report to city council each year prior to September 1st uh so to clarify staff's recommendation um is approval but the conditions would not allow for a
year on operation with that the applicants are here to answer questions and I can also answer any questions before we start a hearing any questions for James hearing none I'm going to open a public hearing at 6:05 and I would love to have the applicant come up good evening commission
members your name and address my name is Janice shogren and I am representing 2011 South 6 Street was which is where Bridges of Hope is residing uh quick summary since we opened in uh December of 2021 we have helped 508 different
individuals with over 12,000 nights of safe warm sleep when I look at our broader impact we support individuals through their most difficult days we help people transition to treatment for addiction or mental health illnesses when needed and we assist those dealing
with medical challenges such as cancer and diabetes those who are unhoused are dealing with some of the same very challenging situations that many of us deal with we're here tonight to apply for our next interim use permit to continue services at the bridge for another 3 years with the recent passages
of ordinances related to camping on city land our organization also asks you to grant us the opportunity to Pilot a year-round operation for this summer we appreciate Mr kic's recommendation to continue operations as they have been and to respond to the
information provided to you regarding the police incidents the data sites 119 interactions with the Brainard Police Department over the last approximately 3 and one qu years after adjusting those calls for calls that I would say would
have happened anyway whether we had a shelter or not you know there were EMS calls suicide attempts General disturbances that could have happened anywhere they just happen to happen at the shelter and referrals into the shelter after 11:00 p.m. as that is our practice to have safety for everyone if
somebody needs to come in after 11:00 p.m. we want them to have to contact the police department or the emergency room that was per our policies when we opened if you adjust for those things that likely would have happened anyway it brings us to 48 calls that's 1.6
calls per month on average since we've been opened I don't think that's an extreme number uh police interactions do not equate to crime and all situations as Mr kvic said if the bridge does not remain open for the summer interactions between
law enforcement and the unhoused population will likely increase without the bridge those who are un housed will have no centralized option and will instead be forced to Camp or congregate elsewhere I would encourage those involved to look into the data on police interactions over the past two summers
related to the encampments that we know exist there was clearly an impetus for the cities in the area to put these bands on public camping so they must be some sort of an issue in addition the ordinance States law enforcement will refer to services and provide resource
options that will be incredibly difficult for officers if our shelter isn't open in the summer what services and resources will there be to refer to someone to sleep at night we've also heard the concern that the bridge brings people from outside the area and I will share this our
shelter is intended for use of locals the next nearest shelters are in bidi and St Cloud before the bridge our own community's response was to offer people a bus ticket to St Cloud when they needed it while some guests come from outside the area that is true only 8% of
the nights of sleep that we have provided have been for individuals from outside crowing Ain Cass Max Morrison Todd or wadina counties which I would argue are surrounding communities to us in many cases if the individuals were not from that area they were being
released from the Crowing County jail again not our doing and often needed a some place to sleep for the night until they could arrange transportation home the next day which I would then argue were actually providing a very good service to the community because these folks have somewhere to be at night rather than wandering around
town in his findings of fact Mr cranic States The Proposal is not consistent with Public Safety goal number one which says Brainard will protect and provide for the safety of residents and V visitors and I respectfully disagree the majority of police interactions in the
report were not crimer related it is safer to those we serve and for the general public for those who are unhoused to have a centralized option for where to stay at night rather than coming up for their own solution in our communities Mr kic also States in his
recommendation the Community Development Department has not received a complaint from the public regarding the shelter after the issuance of their iup in 2022 not received a complaint from the community as of this writing he also says no one has contacted the Community
Development Department with concerns or objections to the interim use permit I would encourage you to consider more than one police report when making your recommendation to the city council please to wrap up I appreciate my recent thoughtful conversations with Mr kvic
and chief Davis however these are the first concerns that I have heard from either of them in three years of operating the shelter I believe Mr cranic got his recommendation right with one exception I invite the Planning Commission to add a provision for a pilot program allowing year round operations just from May 1st to August
31st of 2025 this pilot would include twice monthly meetings between The Bridges of Hope the bridge on 7th the brainer police department and croing County Community Services to Monitor and adjust as needed if summer operations are determined to negatively impact Public
Safety the police chief May recommend suspending programming until September 1st 2025 when operations successfully last the summer we will then be able to plan for and seek approval together for future year round operations thank you I appreciate that any questions for
Miss Shen before uh before she steps down any questions for her I have just a couple sure in general can you tell me what happens with the homeless population in the summer in our area does it go up or down does it stay the same well we haven't operated in the summer so I can't speak to that I don't
have numbers to that but I know there are some folks here tonight that would like to comment on that I know our local county has a significant amount of interaction with folks in the summertime very very good and my follow-up question I know um Crowing County is being involved in providing some funding can you kind of describe that to me sure so
the funding actually comes from the state of Minnesota it flows to the county and then we have a contract with the county for that funding um I'm not the expert from the county so you can certainly allow someone else to speak to it more fully but it was a conversion of dollars that were already coming into the county that weren't able to be fully
leveraged and it's specifically for the housing of people in emergency situations so it's been wonderful for the Financial sustainability of our shelter very good so it's clearly a CommunityWide effort here correct to provide very good uh thank you we may ask you Mr shair oh we have one more I
do have came so your pilot program basically it's just extending what you're doing right now no difference just extending the time frame correct we just want people to have a safe place to sleep in a centralized spot so they're not all over the community right thank you very good any other questions for
Miss shogen if not we may have questions for you later but thank you very much thanks for your time all right I'm going to open the floor now um just a couple couple ground rules here um I'll have you uh state your name and your address when you come up to speak I'll ask you try to keep remarks yeah about three
minutes or so I'm not going to put a stopwatch on you but if we can keep things uh fairly quick we can get allow more people the chance to speak and if somebody's already kind of covered ground on a subject maybe try to put a little spin on it so we're not hearing the same message over and over again it's helpful if we hear a lot of different perspectives that's definitely
will help us with that I'm going to open the floor and invite anybody to come up and speak right hello um I'm Rachel Z and I'm here representing the county um I am Adult Services Supervisor for our Behavior Health chemical health housing and homeless team um so um I just want
to kind of ditto everything that Janna said um we're in full support of this and kind of coming at it through the county perspective and from some of the work that I've been doing in the community for quite a long period of time don't want to admit to that but I have been um so one thing I like to
always do is I love to share a little bit of numbers so kind of giving you a scope of kind of what's happening around you know within our community the state and Nationwide around um housing and homelessness and are at risk folks so each year we collect data on how many individuals may be um experiencing homelessness are at risk on a single
night so this um study has been done for quite a long period of time so preco so I'm the numbers I'm going to start with is in 2019 our national number was 567,000 15 people in United States were experiencing homelessness in 2019 in
Minnesota we had 7,977 and then in croing County we had 76 now I'm going to fast forward a little bit um postco because during that time we weren't allowed to do kind of the normal data points that we did but in 20 um in
2023 that number our national number jumped up to 653,000 um and in Minnesota it jumped up to 9,000 and in croing County um we seen an increase of 135 people now just in our last count of
2024 um the national average 771 th000 in Minnesota um 9,000 um and like I said 135 so just in the one short year um here in Crowing County we increased to 21 in Minnesota there was a total of 88,000 or
888 people and our national average went up to 189,000 so when you look at that our numbers are definitely increasing and it's not reducing um based on the current Trend um so and uh you had mentioned you know what happens during
the summertime a lot of the individuals um who are not utilizing the shelter obviously are trying to find someplace um to find um refuge and a lot of individuals do come to the county unfortunately we don't have any housing available to them or we don't have any em emergent um needs for them um to
provide any type of Sheltering for everybody so our number um we do see a little bit of an increase you know in the calls and people asking for help during that time and our resources are very very limited um I just kind of want to share a positive impact about um some of the things that have happened you
know um bringing the shelter into our community we have been able to house more individuals because we're able to locate them we all understand that when someone is moving around a lot it's very hard to connect with them and to maintain and it takes a long time to find Services um I'm just going to share
a quick story about an individual who was currently utilizing our community resources and me the overnight shelter and then using our Community Partners so this individual was a thriving person in the community he had housing he had a job and he had an unforeseen um incident
where um he was diagnosed with dementia we all kind of know the effects of that illness um with the decline of his um memory he has lost his housing lost his employment and had nothing luckily he was able to use the shelter use the day
Center use services in the community and so forth now we all know a dementia routine is very very very important um because it brings that consistency it reduces a lot of negative effects and behaviors and so forth um this summer we're very very concerned about what may
happen to this individual if the shelter is not open it's going to disrupt that routine and there will be more um negative effects and that will impact that individual we honestly don't know kind of what's going to happen if the shelter is not given a yearr round opportunity this is just one story of
many many many um different people's options I have yet to find one individual that has the same story it's such a complex need but one thing that I can say is having the shelter does bring some type of consistency routine and safety into our
community any questions any questions hearing that thank you very much I appreciate your time next up uh good evening uh Bill we're uh 1926 sou 7th representing the bridge on 7
shelter uh so I have been working uh at the shelter since we opened our doors in December of 200 uh 21 when we opened our doors we had no idea what we were expecting our first year our Max was maybe 12 a night uh now that we're well
into operation we're experiencing uh well into the mid 20s and at capacity at some of our colder nights uh one thing to note about homelessness is it nobody is immune to it it can happen to anybody all it takes is a couple of wrong
decisions or a couple of bad experiences it could really happen to anybody and if you're homeless you do not get a day off from being homeless just because the weather is nice does not mean you're not going to be homeless you still have to find a place to sleep at night since
working at the shelter I have noticed a wide variety of uh ages coming in to shelter uh most of our guests uh are generally around the 36 to 45 age uh with
25% uh 19 to 25 uh years old is 32% and 56 to 81 is 23% 23% of our guests are in the elderly and older ages um and that comes with a lot of challenges too uh there are a lot of
challenges in this area uh lack of affordable housing uh the affordable housing is very slim to none in this area and as much as our guests are trying to find housing you can't when there's nothing available uh there's a lack of accessible services such as
treatment beds mental health facilities and reliable and consistent Transportation uh our city transportation only operates Monday through Friday from 6:00 to 5:00 p.m. uh when you don't have a vehicle and those are the only times you have to get around that makes it very very difficult
because people still do have to work on the weekends and a lot of times people do get off at 7 9 10:00 at evening and you have to call a cab and cabs can be rather expensive as well uh there's also complicated and unclear paperwork
involved with accessing Services uh I have been on the end of that too where I've been trying to fill out paperwork and I didn't understand what was going on I asked questions and I got three different answers from three different people it's very confusing and for somebody suffering from mental health
disabilities and substance abuse it's very very unclear there's also the lack of address it's harder to find a job and Fa an application when you don't have a clear representative address uh and there's also uh harder to stay up to
date on your progress of resources as well as case management if you aren't getting your mail uh and one of the big one is the distrust of officials and authority figures uh we are working very very hard to negate that issue uh we are trying to
build that trust but the fact of the matter is a lot of our guests have the distrust of authority figures uh the trust is a huge one if they're not going to trust us they're not going to use our resources I have been working very very hard over the last three years to build up
relationship and trust with our guests uh so uh I just ask that you guys really consider uh being open all year round so we can have an option for our guests thank you thank you Billy much appreciate yep any
questions I think we're good thank you very much hi I'm Kathy duur I am here as a volunteer um I belong to Beth I live in brard Minnesota do you need my address is that okay 17077 Pine Circle Road Brer
Minnesota I'm here as a volunteer so that is my perspective I'm a member of Bethlehem Lutheran Church and I don't know if you guys know but the churches take turns going in and volunteering at the warming shelter in the mornings so first I'll tell you what we do we have
been a community partner Bethlehem with bridges on 7th since you guys opened right and um we sign up for a week at a time usually three four times throughout the season and we go in and we have two volunteers each morning from 7: to 8:00
a.m. we go in and help the guests get situated for the day we make clean beds for the next morning Tidy Up vacuum do some of the things that the regular paid staff could use some assistance doing and so I don't have a lot of data and you've heard the
data what I have is what I know is what I've seen I see mother at the shelter I see grandpas I see grandmas I see I'm a former teacher in Brainard for many years I've seen students at the shelter that I haven't
seen since they were little and um I see people that are just in need of our support um and I have again we I've done this for as long as they've been open I have seen um guests become very
respectful um when they're working on communicating with others of us in the community a lot of responsibility is shown on their part if we're short staffed if we're short and volunteers they will many of the guests will help us make beds get ready for the next day
and perhaps the most important thing that I have seen is relationships and like Bill talked about the trust being built when the guests see us coming in you know month after month we build relationships I have seen many of the guests out in the community
and we'll say hi Kathy we're getting our housing situated we're getting moved in we want to come back and pay it forward and do some volunteering at the shelter as well so I see a real kind of pay it forward attitude from many of the guests
that we work with um I believe that the shelter the warming shelter is a stepping stone into more permanent housing and permanent job situations for many many people that need that support um I think that Brainard as a community
supports the shelter in many ways when they are in need of items to be donated the community steps up am I correct um people are very generous and very supportive of this program my concern is if there is no shelter if it is not
available for our guests where will they go because they are in need they are here and they aren't going to vanish so I would hope you could consider extending their year year round service thank you very much I appreciate your comments thank you very
much hi Ed Shaw 521 North 9th Street brainer I'll offer a little different perspective I everything that's been said so far is Right On Target an issue that seems to be sometimes under the surface if we have this shelter we're going to attract a whole bunch of people from who knows
where they're going to be here no matter what even without a shelter somebody who's homeless tends to gravitate to a larger community that happens all over it's a fact of life there's more places to go in a larger Community if you're in a rural Pillager you'll probably drift a
bar if you don't have a home whether or not we have a shelter or not if we don't have a shelter where will people be they'll be out and about somewhere they'll be under the overpass on the bike trail they'll be here they'll be there that's why the city passed the ordinance Banning outside Banning
camping in most areas understandably we not arguing that decision but the people will be around here somewhere if they're in the shelter there'll be a lot fewer issues for the community a lot fewer law enforcement interaction then dealing with people who are kind of out and
about backed into a corner living under a bridge or who knows what that's a recipe for trouble that's a recipe for police calls that's a recipe for all kinds of problems one other thing to think about from a business perspective you get somebody outside and you know the weather at night in the summer isn't
always lovely around here trust me I've been out sometimes they'll be out there it's wet it's cold they'll be looking for a place to go I have a business maybe they'll break into my business for a place understandably if I were in that position I would do it too if we back people into a corner not only is that
frankly inhumane and immoral it's going to create more conflict more trouble more of all the problems we want to avoid the shelter will avoid all that having it open year round thank you thanks Ed next up my name is Alyssa Johnson and I am
currently a um person staying in the homeless shelter uh me and my fiance moved up here to Emily Minnesota to um run a motel and it it didn't end up working out we ended up having to leave and um or well we chose to leave cuz but
uh we came across the shelter and I mean it has been huge I don't even know what we would have done without it I mean I've we got here in October and I have been well we did we got a house in the neighbor neighbor to love corelation
program which I'm so thankful for but had that not happen I mean I've even started college I just started college in January and it's given me the stability like knowing that I have a place to sleep that I've been able to do that and I just can't imagine if I were to have come here at a different time in the year you know what I mean or like
let say I didn't have a place to go and then what I just all of a sudden I'm going to have to try to be in college and be you know what I mean it's it's an experience that is definitely something that you it it it changes the way that I view everything I will always have something to do with the homeless community in the
place in that I live and I just really would like to see this be open I mean that they do a lot of good for people thank you very much I appreciate your time thank you next my name is Randy Wickham um my address
is 710 south8 I am a woman in recovery I am an executive director of a lived experience uh homelessness lived experience advocacy Network I am a board member of the central Minnesota Housing
Partnership I am a board member of the central Minnesota Continuum of Care and I am a new uh employee of the bridge on 7th um I I'm from Brainard and I had to leave the area to be able to get a safe
place to stay and I gathered all the resources and all the knowledge I could and brought it back to my community when I came back here I saw that this shelter was here and it made it made my heart sore because it gives a safe place for people to get their bearings
straight we the shelter serves the most vulnerable people in our community the the very most vulnerable and without that where would these people go where would we go it's we they they are us we are it they're a part of our community
we are them um since the encampment ordinance has been passed that even that limits it more so if the shelter is closed in the summer and we're not allowed to Camp where where are we supposed to go that that drives people farther into unsafe positions it drives
them farther into stability and it makes them 10 times harder for them to have any sort of stable any sort of successful future um I just ask that you guys really weigh the pros and cons and look at the positive impact it's brought in the community look at all these
amazing people that come here to support it that's all I have thank you Mandy much appreciated thank you next anybody else one last call do we have anybody else want to have the courage to come on up it's pretty easy we're a pretty easy Bunch I'm telling
you all right I'm not hearing any oh we have come on up um a lot of the hi I'm Matt carard um I'm on the board at Bridges of Hope um so I'm representing the the shelter I I
live just uh outside of city limits in unorganized territory um just want to support everything you know I thought J Janet did a really nice job of contextualizing the police calls that were reported which I think is important that it's a
relatively low rate and since we're concentrating a bunch of people in one area it would make sense that there's a few more there that would have normally been spread around Brainard so um the the other point I would like to make is that with you know or emphasize I guess is with the camping bands in place
there's going to be more crime um because people are not going to they're going to camp and then they're going to be they're going to get there's going to police calls for that right um also consider the position of let's say a young woman um a vulnerable person uh
let's say that doesn't have a homeless shelter to go to doesn't have uh an opportunity to camp in town they may go stay with uh somebody that that would harm them right um because they have no other option or
take advantage of them so it it's going to create create situations where people are In Harm's Way if there's not somewhere for them to go with a camping band in place so I think that's that's an important thing to consider on a personal note I spend a lot of time riding my bike and I've seen people
camping on the bridge um you know underneath 210 uh I've seen people sleeping in their cars and um because they don't have any place to go and so I think it's important that we are we have an an open place for them that offers uh Services um helps them get back on their
feet um so and again emphasizing the fact that we have had zero complaints from the public I think that's really important so I hope you'll consider um letting it be open this summer for a trial thank you thank you Matt much
appreciated one last call for any speakers Final Call all right I'm going to close the public hearing at 6:32 I kind of want to explain what's going to happen next we're going to kind of do our own deliberations we'll be kind of talking back and forth amongst yourselves and with uh Mr cranic um this is not a time to jump in if you have
opinions kind of we've we've we've closed that time we may ask um some of the guests to come up and uh clarify a few points sometimes we do that but at this point we we'll begin to do our work I want to thank everybody that came up and spoke tonight I am I certainly appreciate it with that I'd like to open
the floor to uh any discussion from commission members um Mr chair I'll jump in so first I just want to applaud bridges for um the past three uh three plus years and for all the the lives they've touched in the community and uh also the
way they went about this uh I was on council at that time and um when the original um request was made and raised a lot of Community Support um raised a lot of funds had a lot of Community Partners uh that supported uh the
shelter and um weren't asking for public funds for for any of this and we're just looking for as a great nonprofit looking uh for permission from the city to uh to perform this work um so I wanted to
applaud you for that um and for how you've operated it uh since that time um as part of that initial want to give a little bit of History too um as part of that initial request um I felt like like
the seasonality was a feature um of the the application and you know in the naming of itself as a warming shelter that was a that was presented as a feature of the uh the shelter and was
almost marketed or promoted that way um intentionally it wasn't called it was intentionally not Called Homeless Shelter not intentionally called other things it was intentionally and specifically called a warm fing shelter for that seasonality um so just wanted to mention
that as my recollection of that process I know there was talk of you know you know be being open to making other requests in the future um and I'll just I just want to kick off too you know looking at the the incidents that was alarming
119 uh police incidences uh I know was spread over 3 years um and at the time when we you know approved the uh initial request the outof town um users of the shelter was a
a concern a community concern and I think that number was 30 um again spread over three years so you approximately 10 on average uh annually and so considering going year round you can roughly or approximately double that um
if you were to extrapolate that out so looking at about 20 um out of town visitors um per year if you were to extrapolate that out and that's concerning and you know just reading through the the reports there was some con obviously some concerns there with
some of the um the arrests and the warrants that were associated with with with those so I I know we had examples of um the positive and the impacts on the lives I just had to I want to be able to
provide both perspectives I think that's fair um as a elected you know I'm representing that Ward and the Neighbors in that in that area so I wanted to present that as well um and as the liais on the council I'm you know just one one
member and so just want to bring bring that perspective that there may be other opinions at Council too so very good um I I'll leave my comments there and here for so all right other members like to chime in
well I'll give my perspective on this I think this is a this is an opportunity for Brer to uh to take responsibility we're a regional center you know and that's in being a regional center we have the services we have things that you don't find in small town we have the
help for people this is part of who we are being being a regional center is going to bring in business it brings in Commerce and it brings in people I I personally see the number of people who are out of town as a pretty inconsequential number to me I see when
we went ahead when the city council went ahead and approved the camping ban really they became morally responsible for um uh for this issue because you can't have just a stick you have to have a carrot and a stick you have to give people the chance to do the right thing
you have to give people to to uh to uh to to reach out to to seek help and that's the biggest thing that's coming from the shelter we see it maybe as beds it really isn't it's contact with a system that is designed to help them designed to leave them to to lead them
forward we can you know think of of homeless people as in any which way we are but we can't forget the fact they are brothers they are sisters they are our fathers they are us they are part of our community and it could happen to any one of us I know most of us we don't think that way but as it was said
earlier it could happen to anybody and I think we'll always be judged by how we treat the least the least Among Us the people with the least resources the least abilities to fend for themselves that's how will we be we will be judged and um with that I would strongly like
to see a motion coming out of this Commission in favor of the one-year pilot program I think uh I think it's fair to um to the effort that's been forth It's been Fair uh it's fair it's a fair response to the problem and we have to understand this is not just the city
a brainer you know having something dumped on our lap this is a CommunityWide effort this is the county this is nonprofits in our community this is churches in our community these are concerned individuals in our community what Brainard can do is be the leader we can step up and we can lead on this
issue and we can um you know help provide a solution there is no total solution homelessness will always be part of the human condition but again I will be judged on how we responded how we respond to it I would personally uh love to see a motion um that would
support a one-year trial I am not in support of the of limiting the U of limiting this um so that's how I feel and that's where I'm at I should explain to people too one other item we are an Advisory Group that's who we are we are not the last word on this the city
council is the last word on this um but the the the the catch is the city council um will not be taking testimony that's not traditionally what they do on like this this is the chance for Testimony that's why it it's very important that um everybody has shown up
and regardless of how what happens tonight with our decision I I urge all of you to remain committed to remain in contact with uh your representatives to remain in contact with the city council people and let them know how you feel on this all right that's uh that's my two
cents worth and uh first of all any questions or discussion before we move to a motion any other questions or discussions for questions for James or anything if not I'm going to open the floor for motion I have a question and I don't know if we can bring um Janna back
up sure we can you bet um I'm volunteer obviously it was introduced as a warming shelter it's what I'm gathering um like what other things do you have in place that are helping you know reduce the number of incidents that are occurring sure is there is there connections with
mental health programs is there connections with you know drug and addiction programs and stuff like that where you're facilitating these people to actually rehabilitate them yeah to you know bring them back out into the world yeah that's absolutely a good question so to start with we want to be a safe warm place to land right it's
important it's hard to address any of those issues you refer to if you don't have a place to sleep and if you don't have relationships and so what our shelter provides is the opportunity for these folks to connect with not only our staff but like you said volunteers who have other expertises and may be retired and have careers that and expertise that
they bring to uh the shelter we have connected we I mean I don't have all the statistics right in front of me but we could provide that of the number of people we've helped connect with treatment we've helped connect with mental health services um we work very closely with open arms day Center where they have peer Specialists who work with
these folks during the day help with everything from putting in a job application to writing a resume to getting a job you know all those steps it's it's not as easy as just saying hey go get a place to live you know there are a lot of things that lead up to that so we absolutely are a hub and we're the
beginning point and then we as Bridges of Hope as the organization that owns and operates the shelter that's what we're all about is resource and referral brokering relationships and connections to help people from a place where life's not so great to the place where they can be
sustainable yep good excellent thank you yeah dve did you have a question no she answered it right there the only one that I have was part of it excellent other questions all right the floor is open for motions I'll make a motion to pass as uh to give
them the one one-ear shot at it because it can can be revoked if there's a lot of issues and stuff and and I agree with the camping it the people are going to go somewhere so let's control it in in an area and there's somebody there on staff to do that so I will make that motion
very good second and we have a second any discussion on actually I was going to turn to James to yeah just for clarification um it's a A threeyear in the conditions the staff has present would it still be 3 years for the overnight shelter but then one year for the the pilot program so just like
clarification on that sound good to you D that's exactly right very good so we're we're set on what the motion is we a motion has been made we have a second discussion on the motion uh Mr chair I appreciate that you pointed out that the nature of this group as a recommending body and that
it'll go to council um and that I was going to make a motion to um approve as staff recommended uh for that reason that there's going to be more conversation it's going to go to council and if Council felt that you know they wanted to have it year round
they could have done that there um if we recommended the three-year um so I'm going to I'm going to vote no on the right the motion that's on the table very good other discussion I would I would Echo what Tad has to say I would say no to that as
well we have a motion on the floor any other discussion before we call a vote not hearing that uh can we have a roll call Stephanie are we doing the roll call Peterson yes G grula yes Goram yes
Higgins no Ericson no very good uh so just a couple things before uh before we uh we split up here as you know this will go to the City Council next James do you have an estimate to when this is going to end up at the city council yeah so the next city council meeting will be April 7th
Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers very good we're going to take a little recess cuz I think we're going to lose a good part of our crowd here I would just ask I know it's very tempting to come out of this and hang out in the hallway and chatter and and carry on if we could perhaps do it a little further
away it'll be a little quieter in here so I'm going to give you all a minute if anybody needs to uh needs to leave but you are going to miss a very exciting meeting this is the best it's ever been
year we get a good Crow yeah where we need the DJ music yeah exactly all right there it is all right very good now we're going to find out who the real nerds are than myself included with that we're
going to move on to item 6B this is uh a conditional use permit for a boarding house uh by my neighbor to love Coalition on Northwest thir James could you help us on that one yes thank you Mr chair so the applicant is currently in progress of constructing two 12 plexes
across the street and a boarding house uh the 12 plexes in in uh construction right now and the site's been graded uh the applicant can give an update on the schedule pendex a table uses permits the construction of a mixed use boarding house as a conditional use in the tn2
district boarding house by definition is a building other than a motel or hotel where for compensation and by pre-arrangement for definite periods meals or lodging are provided for three or more people but not to exceed 20 uh the proposed development meets the 10
off street parking space requirement for the boarding house and the tn2 district is included in the site plan the applicant has proposed a 6 high privacy screen shrub planting along all sides of the parking lot which is a requirement in the landscape section of the zoning
code shrubs on all sides may not be necessary at the trees and shrubs um kind of if you picture it in the side and rear yard um if they're left from the grading the grading may impact the existing trees and shrubs on site so they are included in the landscape plan uh the city engineer has no concerns at
this time with the storm water Eng grading plan um kld did submit kind of a preliminary grading plan that shows where the location of that storm water retention Basin would be based on the existing elevations uh the applicant has proposed five new trees in the front yard with a mix of deciduous and evergreen tree species to meet the tree
planting requirement as of this writing no parties have contacted the Community Development Department with concerns about the conditional use permanent application for the Mixed use 8 um bedroom boarding house so with that staff recommends approval of the request as presented with the following
conditions the applicant is allowed 18 months to start the project a boundary line adjustment which includes the storm water retention Basin is approved prior to issuance of the building permit so that storm water retention Basin would need to be on the same um property as the boarding house and with that I can
answer any questions questions for James I've got questions let's hear them um so James I just had some notes here that I was as I was looking through the um application um so you mentioned the
Landscaping the the Deciduous um trees that were there um as a planner did you feel that that was sufficient as far as land requirements of the correct is sufficient um you know we don't know what the site's going to look like upon
final grade um certainly it looks like some of the grading from the parking lot is going to impact some of the trees and shrubs around the property um as part of the requirement when you're a budding residential property you do need to screen the parking lot so it was included in the plan um to do that can I ask a followup or should want
to take so storm water is as presented did the city engineer have concerns over will this add to our storm water um so he did not have any concerns at this time um there would be upon issuance of a building permit um a final storm water
plan would be required um Swip plans as well as storm calculations would be required they would have to meet um our storm water requirements in the city code and that's really kind of directed by some of the NPC regulations with storm water so at this time there's no concerns thank you I have one for please
okay so we just heard from Bridges of Hope basically warming House people are staying there what is the really the difference between this and what this is going to be is this a long term so boarding house is um and the applicant can speak you know to what the model
they're looking for but certainly it's a little bit more longterm than like a warming shelter warming shelters are kind of a nightly basis um certainly there's a Max of beds that are in there um you know this could be something and the applicant can speak to this a month three months they have their belongings they're kind of kept permanently in
these rooms um so it's a bit different um the really the difference is it's not considered each of these rooms aren't considered dwelling units like an apartment because they don't have their own bathroom facilities don't have their own kitchens so it's kind of shared kitchens very similar to like what you'd see with a dormatory in
college sound good you yeah it is what it is sounds we'll have a chance with we'll have a chance with an a moment here into go into it a little bit deeper there um any other questions for James my question would be how do you
feel um is this the third time we've we've worked on this project I we've Revisited a few times I've kind of lost track of how many times but one of the the things I remember on this is that there always been the pledge to to retain trees and it's never quite worked
out in terms of that do are you more optimistic that uh things will be uh retained or are we just accept that we'll be starting over with plantings and you know ba based on what requirements we have in our city code for storm water retention it does make it difficult on a site like this where
everything has to be regraded to meet those requirements um you can see see when you see the solid lines coming from the dotted lines those are all things that have to be regraded essentially to meet um the storm water requirements so Sean if you want to go down a little bit so we can kind of look on the the south
end there you'll see the the kind of the darker lines going around the parking lot so those are all things that need to be regraded you you can't really pile soil up on a tree and have it at survive in those instances so in those instances they'd have to be removed so that's where I see it's it's really going to the extents of the property lines there
so you know you probably would around the parking lot certainly have have some tree removal there as you go a little bit further down the parking lot along the side property you see that there's less of an impact on grading um so in those instances you'd probably be able to save some trees in that area so the original landscape plan did not have the
shrubs going around the parking lot and and I did indicate to the applicant that that would be required if if those trees and shrubs are removed very good um a follow-up question would be on the last cup that we went through is that construction now being that's now under construction the
last phase that we that we approved that's now under construction is yeah so the applicant can speak about the timeline um we have had conversations it does need to start this summer for the next kind of phase of it with the boarding house the 12px um certainly a lot of um um a lot a lot of constructions happened on the site with
grading storm water you know that type of thing so the project has been started in that aspect but um if there's contined no um construction on on the site then certainly um she'd have to reapply for a conditional use permit for those um for the boarding house and the other 12 Plex in general would you say
you're happy with the pace of of of construction so far I do believe so um you know there's been a bit of issues with maybe some um stabilization on there I'd have to check with the engineer to where they're at with it I've heard you know some
concerns about um stabilization sand and and that nature on the site um you know again I did kind of make it clear that it does have to to start this summer in order to meet uh the coder requirements very good any other questions before we open the public hearing I do have one more question for
James uh James in and if this was in the packet I apologize I missed it but uh staff recommendation item number two boundary uh boundary line adjustment be required for the storm water can you elaborate on that what why necessitating the boundary line
adjustment and and that's so that storm water is on the same site as the boarding house so right now these are um on two properties so if you want to pull up the site map Sean um the other I should say the aerial map from the county that's in the
uh findings of fact and the properties are owned by the applicant both properties are owned by the applicant so right now you have a a boundary line that splits it I believe and based on some of my measurements the storm water would be kind of in the middle of where that property line is so we just have to adjust it in order to make sure that the storm water is
contained on the same site as the building thank you that help another quick followup and this is infiltration is that's what's happening with the with the storm water retention it's not being cast further down the hill it's staying it's going to stay there it isn't you know I I don't design storm water
typically in in 100e events or something like that there's an an outfall or something like that to make sure it's not flooding the adjacent property um but yeah it's an infiltration Basin to to meet the storm water requirements on site one thing you can say about the jackpine Savannah on the west part of town is that water doesn't stick around
long so that shouldn't be a concern there all right without any other questions I'll open a public hearing at 654 and I would like to uh invite the applicant to come up and tell us about this and if you could touch on the progress of the overall project that'd be great thank you oh yeah you bet uh
Vicky Kenny Lake Shore Minesota um you know Lake Shore Minnesota um this is phase four of our Creekside Community Development so we've currently um had a forx that we built in um residents moved in in 2023 and then we are almost done um
completing our 12px um we're hoping to have residents move in by April 1st so that's moving right along um we receive grant funding and so we are anticipating breaking ground in as soon as we get our bids in so um hopefully May um as soon as possible to be starting on our next two buildings and that as as you already
know will be another 12px and then mixed use some boarding house and some offices so this is this is uh phase four so what we're wanting to do is actually develop that whole street the the rest of our property on Third Street this is the only um unit that would require a conditional use
and to answer your question about a a what you know why a boarding house um we're trying to provide all different types of housing for you know so we have we have single units we have family units we'd like to even build larger family units this next round some people do well um in congregate living some
people don't um some people uh need that kind of family environment I mean that's the that's the best thing for them and so this is actually potentially permanent housing so some people might you know it might be just for a while just a kind of a place to live for a few months until they can find something else um or for some people this could be
this could be home and that's why we have a property manager apartment right right next door and so um we may decide to do provide meals there's such a wide range of people that are currently without housing if we had a state hospital open maybe some of these people would be you know would be more more
served safely there um so we don't know um so we're we just want to be open that if if people are needing more a little bit more care maybe they're needing meals maybe they just want to pitch in and and cook together um we want to have that that openness and have a manager on site to to help with any of those issues
so a boarding house uh can be temporary um but we're open for permanent housing we want to Pro and and we absolutely need them also for the boarding um I mean the warming shelter overnight shelter absolutely needs every Community should have one so we are so so in favor
of that but it is not a solution it's it's a solution to emergency housing it is not a long-term solution and so we absolutely need that for stage one but what we're doing is then providing the next stage stage two how do we get people into permanent housing so they
can become stabilized so they can they can address those issues they can get jobs they can um you know deal with all those those issues that maybe contributed to um homelessness so what we're doing is providing low rent housing um for for the you know the people that U can't afford most of the
rents that are in the brainer Lakes area so this is this is phase four and I I get the trees done I know I mean you saw the cluster we did keep you know but with with the terrain the the property and having to do that large water retention Pond I mean there was really
no other way to develop the property and not having access to you know you know the whole thing we had to replot the whole thing because we couldn't build on Second Street blah blah blah so this is really the only way that we could develop that property we do want to keep as many trees as possible and so the other Lots um on there will not be
requiring big Retention Ponds they'll be um to we're hoping to do one or two for plexes maybe maybe some duplexes and we're we're looking at some of the accessory dwelling units as well for people that maybe live better um in single units any questions yes any questions uh
for uh for Vicki go ahead be able start with you well um think I know the first one we we have ordinances in the city of Brainard about keeping things up and grass I know because I've gotten letters even on even
on a wooded parcel I drive by the place almost every day and it if you have a property manager on site that's what concerns me about all these they're not doing a great job we we we don't have an on-site property manager we we have a property manager now but not on-site for
the fourplex yes and and I do appreciate the the city and the community being patient growing their stuff every I I own rentals in town we would be on our tenants for for the way it looks right now that so that concerns me a little bit I guess that's the biggest yeah we
do have um I don't know if you've noticed our our one unit that normally has a lot of bikes on there we have cleaned that up and and holding the line there we're working with the another Resident that is now cleaning up things you probably said some garbage bags and and so we're really tightening the ropes on what's strict we we've tried to be
patient we're trying to let people get stabilized and and settled but we've learned that um you know we have to change things and and tighten our ropes so that is what we're doing now um the lawn yeah we're that's been a challenge this last year we did put in a sprinkler system we were kind of hoping we could maybe you know with enough rain we were
doing okay we planted a bee lawn it's not a regular glass lawn so it does take a little longer to establish but then once it's established it's better for the environment so it does take a little bit more but we did we did put in a sprinkler system last fall so hopefully this um this summer the lawn in the
bushes and flowers and stuff will look nicer good Dave sure all right Dad thank you U hi Vicki hi um in the applic I think you had requested 18 months yep and I just wanted if if you could
comment on why the additional time sure we need funding the the only way that we're going to be able to build this is if we we receive a grant um I'll be writing the grant this next month they make a decision in December and so if we receive the funding then we can proceed but of course we can't start in December
so then we would have to wait to the spring to get to start so that's the reason why we'd need a little bit more time if we don't get the Grant this won't be happening cuz we obviously do not have the funds to keep to keep going without that so that's the reason we we you know we'll know in December if this
if this whole block will be able to be developed or not other questions for Vicki um just a try to make this qu this question quick what has been your biggest what's been the biggest unexpected challenge in your first what
three years the project now what's been the biggest unexpected challenge just oh unexpected okay that's different then I could say the city council like the challenges that none of us were talking about when we first approved it what what has come up I'm just out of curiosity um oh for challenges I I would
say I mean we've had some Growing Pains ourselves just learning I mean we're a new nonprofit our our heart you know big hearts and and really wanting to help people um you know we've just learned like okay we we do have to tighten things up I think that was different I mean and it's we are very involved I
know we've been challenged by um some people and the council about expecting that we should be proving ourselves um instead of just we are proving ourselves by providing low rent housing that should be that should be enough that's what we're doing we're not we're not uh claiming that we're Supportive Housing
but we are being supportive to our tenants I think we're more involved with our tenants than any other landlord in Brainard so um so I guess we're not surprised by the level of involvement we help with budgeting financial management we help teach life skills um so you know maybe we didn't quite realize we'd be as
involved with teaching how to clean um clean Apartments um that you know some people like to collect things and so there there's been some Growing Pains there that we've had to learn to to um to help a little bit more um yeah I guess that's probably probably it we've
we've you know received a lot of support um you know and I know it's it's tough you know we've asked people to please be patient as we're working with our our residents um one of our residents just two weeks ago had said to me she's been there now 18 months their original residents that moved in 18 months ago
are the same residence today so which is to me that speaks a lot um then those person's had you know 20 plus 30 plus years of homelessness and just said to me I'm I'm just now starting to feel settled and it's taken that long um so
it's tough and so we do ask um ask people to be patient with us as we're learning as we're growing we're making a difference in people's lives and and the some of the things and the trauma experiences that people are going through and struggling through it doesn't happen overnight it starts with home but then we have to dress other
things as it goes and it does take a while it takes a while to learn those skills we just expect oh it should be cleaned everything should be just so it it does take some time so we do ask for some patience there as well thank you any other questions otherwise we we may have questions later but thank you for now appreciate it I do have one if I may
you don't probably have to answer it I'm just wondering what the price point is for the rents like I mean exactly you know the ones that you've got now and the new ones in process and The Boarding House sure um with the boarding house we're not 100% sure yet so it depends on
how much we can afford we're trying to keep our costs as low as possible but we are a nonprofit and you know we're trying not to operate in the red um so it's been tough but our current fourplex we start rent at 450 and they pay their own utilities um with the next building they're slightly smaller the two-bedroom
units start at 600 um the other units start at 425 because we're paying water and sewer to save them that that fee and an extra 25 for if they want internet so but typically about 425 and these are month-to-month rent and we do that on purpose because we don't want people some people are afraid
to commit this is a big step you know when you haven't had housing um so this gives them a chance to just like try it out you know let's just just see how you do um that helps them and then it gives us the opportunity too if somebody is not compliant and not following our rules we have a handbook um we have neighborhood association meetings that
are required and if somebody's not cooperating or they're not willing to we of course give them as many chances as we possibly can but then it gives us a way to to to terminate the lease without an eviction thank you thanks for asking that question I was going to ask it and I forgot all right we're going to open
it up to uh anybody else kind of Follow by the same sort of guidelines we'll do name and address if we can keep it to a few minutes that'd be terrific so I'm going to invite anybody who like to come up and speak on the matter edaw sorry I'm speaking twice in the same meeting but anyway I haven't been here for a while and I I certainly
support this proposal this kind of housing structure used to be more common decades ago but we still have them I think over the sawmill in is still what you'd call a boarding house they have individual rooms and a common bathroom I don't know if Berg stallers and Northeast is still
operating that certainly was around for many years they are allowed by the zoning ordinance so this isn't a new thing and our neighbor to love isn't the only place trying it and it is a it certainly provides affordable housing for single people who couldn't afford a regular apartment
their rates are certainly below market rate and I'll even confess years ago back when I had here I I if we lived in a boarding house type setting didn't need a full-sized apartment it worked for me I turned out semi-normal well at least I think so so I think it's a valuable part of the community and I
certainly hear Mr Peterson saying you can have some struggles with tenants I'm in the rental business and I have to kind of be on top of my tenants about yard and who knows what sometimes but where will these people be otherwise there'll be a lot less problem in a house and outside of a house all around
so it's a it's a win-win better to have a someone in a house even if they're not a perfect tenant than out on the street thank you thank you ad hi Mike Higgins 1801 M Avenue and 1511 Northern Pacific Center Road um I guess I'd just like to say that I
support um this type of housing I have a a brother that um was incarcerated for 20 years and in Michigan and got out of prison um very quickly and um we ended up getting him in a in a very similar um
housing situation where he's got some care and can be taken care of and his his quality of life um even though he he's about the age of a 12-year-old mentally his quality of life in that in in the home that he's in is a lot better than where he was but I guess as a as a
somebody that gets um talked to a lot about my properties I guess I would just ask that fair's fair um that that she you know this project should be held accountable just like any other project in the city of Brainard and and I I
think it's a a great nonprofit and it's a great program but we still have to hold everybody accountable to the same standards so thank you thanks Mike next upep do we have another we do good evening Mike Duval 468 Ty roll
Drive um you know I like the vision of the applicant I don't dispute that and I'm not disputing the need you know as we heard already in the previous agenda item so I I believe that this permit application should be denied U for three
basic reasons number one I don't think the boarding house and adjoining apartment meet the density standard for the tn2 district uh the second is that the applicant hasn't really demonstrated that they can timely complete the existing development that they've
already got um resulting in undesirable impacts to the neighborhood uh adjoining and then thirdly the proposed development does not conform to the guidance and the comprehensive plan I'll speak to each of these separately as far
as the zoning District um density standard the proposed development doesn't meet that standard for 9 to 12 or excuse me 9 to 20 dwelling units per acre so um the definition of a dwelling unit in the ordinance is a building
designed exclusively for residential occupancy and it has specific items cooking sleeping and sanitary facilities are included within the dwelling unit okay and your definition then also expressly clarifi
that motel hotel and boarding rooms are not dwelling units by themselves so in other words by your definition then um you know u a dwelling unit um would include a boarding house because it has
the bedrooms and the drawings uh of the proposed development pretty much clearly show you have bedrooms and then you have common spaces for cooking you get the bathroom and and living spaces and I just want to also point out that a dwelling unit is not a use right
it's not a residential use it's not a commercial use it's not an industrial use but a dwelling unit just uh it's independent and uh um of the allowable use and and that's apparent in the definition so when you look at the
zoning District standards for tn2 that's clearly identified in the table of of of standards and and so thus this this proposed boarding house and the attached apartment is really a two two
dwelling unit building on basically a little under um 2/3 of an acre 62 acres that's 3.2 dwelling units per acre it's far below what the standard is for the TN uh 2 district and so um as such it
really doesn't qualify for cup it qualifies for a variance it would require a variance because you're not meeting the basic standard of that um of that uh uh zoning District the second point is that the applicant hasn't demonstrated they can finish the
development in a timely uh manner if you drive by and look at the site and some of you have um or if you view it from Google Maps it's very clear there's nowhere else in the gra greater Brainard area where you got a site torn up like
this of this scale this size um it's the largest Disturbed area area in the in the brainer and Backer area when you cruise around on the aerial photography and the the adjoining neighborhood is poised to enter a third year of blowing sand and dust from the
site the state site stabilization was initiated after complaints to the city and has been further hampered by the fact that there's drought so it's hard to grow grass in sand right um you're now being asked to consider a request to
extend the duration of a up for this site up to 18 months and that's in in the in the findings of fact to allow the applicant to to further capture um grants and donations to fund the good
work that they do um but the unintended qu consequences of obtaining a cup uh before the applicant has the resources to begin and complete the development is an incentive to break ground on the project so that they can meet the time
on of the clock that's ticking down um I believe the applicant may be currently overextended although I'm I'm encouraged to hear that um um the the buildout plan and such is is likely to be taking um
taking place this summer for the current U development site um but I I worry about the the change of focus from the work that needs to still be uh done there and worried about redirecting limited resources away while we have this large dispersed Disturbed
area and finally the proposed development doesn't conform to the comp plan the current comp plan guides our community toward creating housing and lots of housing um goal one policy five is states that ensure an adequate supply
of quality and affordable housing units for current and future residents and and the applicant is trying to take a bite out of some of that need but I emphasize the adequate part of that as well the 2020 Crowing County Housing study identifies the shortage of available
housing all across all income and demographic groups and there's an alarmingly projected shortfall of 4,800 housing units by 2033 and brainer share you could extrapolate very easily as a third of that shortfall which which
really equates to 100 housing units are needed a year to close that Gap and we're nowhere near that um by 2033 the proposed site under the tn2 zoning class would support up to a 13 dwelling units on that site and many more by cup
if they were to come in so a higher density um it as proposed it's vastly underdeveloping the site potential that is suited for high density multifam housing on a scale comparable to what's just been recently completed the Lofts
on nney and Brainard and the proposed 805 Laurel project that's kind of what this development or or this this zoning class was envisioned prior to the current zoning um uh districts that are in our
ordinance we used to have many more residential districts and this was once zoned at R3 which was very high density housing um and we're now um basically underdeveloping this site when we have a great housing need and that's not where
our some comprehensive plan is is sending us so with that I respectfully ask that you deny the um condition and use application for you tonight thanks thanks Mike all right who would like to be
next one last try do we have an next I know somebody's almost ready to stand up right somebody's almost ready to stand up all right I will we'll close the public hearing at 7:14 and uh as we did before we'll turn
to uh discussion on amongst commission members open to open ideas questions ask a clar Mr chair could I ask a clarifying question of Staff yeah uh James so um giv the application the
underlying zoning is this use um this is comp compatible with the tn2 Zone via this um inter or conditional use so boarding houses are conditional uses in the tn2 district um certainly
density was brought up um that was questioned uh ahead of time as well uh staff did provide an opinion on some of the dens requirements of tn2 uh certainly when you look at the overall site plan um I can see you know opinions on you know is it uh as dense as what
the purpose and intent of the tn2 district is uh perhaps not um we you know certainly good for good or bad we have parking uh minimum requirements for these types of uses which um certainly take up more space on a lot and then because of that impervious surface you
have storm water requirements as well um so could could the site be more dense perhaps uh boarding houses are listed under commercial uses in the allowed use table um you know within the definition it mentioned hotels motels um so those are also commercial uses in um our
allowed use table um so for instance uh they're very comparable to each other how you maybe look at you know dwelling units uh if you were to take say a hotel on a tn2 district you know kind of under the same same format of interpretation of the zoning code could have a hotel on
a 2 acre lot in the tn2 district consisting of one dwelling unit um certainly not meeting those requirements um of the nine dwelling units per acre um so I do see that as an issue if that's an interpret ration going forward um staff's interpretation is the minimum dwelling units should probably be used
for residential um developments large scale res devel residential developments making sure that the lot sizes are appropriate um also my neighbor to loves 12px strictly residential um it starts to get um a little bit of a hindrance if we're looking you know at Commercial and
mixed uses and and how those would correlate to those minimum minimum design requirements but again um certainly when you look at the site plan could it be more dense you know perhaps um so with that I can I guess answer any other questions thank you U I'm going just jump in real quick um Sean is it
possible that we could get a global um a uh a little Google Earth picture here we take a look at the site if we could get something a current so we can kind of all yeah it's going to be the sandbox on the right hand side is that where we're going is that agreed to be a fairly
current picture of current depiction of what's going on or is that like old I'm just trying to kind of get what I'm trying to get at is what what what are we looking at here what just what what condition are we in here there's a building up there now there's a building up there now so this is old this is old
and so I put a whole lot of stock this really almost looks like a CG sort of thing there but okay all right that that helps a little bit there um well Mr chair yes please to put it in context since I'm a licensed Builder also it
takes time to build these the structures St you know the sides that they've got and everything and then you know you've got Seasons depending on when you start it and stuff like that that does not concern me about the time frame whatsoever James I'm a little bit confused of why we have a minimum in in
some of these zones on your property why can't you build a single family home on this if you wanted to that's just one of my things that I I guess I'm trying to struggle why we're I have no problem with it I guess in a boarding house I
think I heard it was going to be 24 people living there or a possibility of 24 how many just a quick eight okay plus another I mean we are in reality meeting
that density even though the termine or the definition of a boarding house is different there will be basically make make it an apartment call it an apartment then all right I can see that perspective
any other uh questions comments had another one I guess I can defer go ahead once um Sean can have you scroll down to the rendering of the the structure P
57 um just going back to the when not to get too nerdy as you mentioned earlier on the uh zoning update that we did in 2022 we kind of moved from more of a traditional uh zoning order ordinance to more of what we call a form based code
and my understanding of that is you know it's less of an emphasis on the use of the property which I think was mentioned but more on the form and you know given that this is technically a commercial use the way um it is listed in our table of uses in a residential area I just
wanted to have us consider maybe adding a condition um and I asked James to provide me a little bit of language here that I'll read but um just add a condition that uh we require them to do two of any of these things from our
single family detached residential structure standards I just look at this rendering and it's a beautiful building just looks a little plain for that neighborhood and so you know and there's a there's a list here of you know I was thinking maybe shutters if we could
require maybe a some ornamental shutters um some Al alternative side there's a list here so covered and this is again from the single family detached residential structure standards so again given that we're focused on the form what it's going to look like um you know
maybe some shutters would be good but you know a porch window shutters covered entry alternate sighting uh some some um I guess some uh texture to it so and you know I think the language that I was asked asked James to provide me uh comes
from that and you can pick any two so that would be um and I can try to frame frame that into a motion but um basically adding two elements from the design elements yeah got it got it design and I I don't think those are too
intrusive um there's a a list there that they could pick from but I guess I just wanted to enter that into discussion Fair Point other questions or comments Dave I'm going to comment back on that being it is intrusive because it all those things you just mentioned cost money and they're trying to do
affordable housing that's detri Al to that um you can do a lot with paint colors and just changing directions and colors of sightings without adding porches and all these facades that you're talking about literally cool
costs and and I I just have a hard time always dictating that's why if if you weren't here the last meeting it's I wanted you guys to tell me what your favorite looking commercial spot is in brainer right everybody is probably going to be
different different and and that's nothing wrong with that I guess that's the point I was getting at so we I might like something you may not why do we get to pick exactly why the way you we want you to build your
building I have a I have a problem with that I think um you can drive out around any Street in this town every house is different don't we want some diversity I would push back a couple ways first of all not every house is
different if you drive to the north side you can see certain houses from certain areas they're replicated they're replicated oh that house there it is again and I I would think I think we put flexibility in our design standards we're saying pick one or two elements we're not saying this is it that's what a house looks like we're saying pick
elements and because I I think there's a tendency to create housing sometimes low-income housing that becomes it it almost it becomes a little ugly that's how you get low income well the trick is how can we how can we provide dignity on
a budget and I think that's the trick we're trying to do but let's not get too Lost In The Weeds here let's continue on the discussion here um any other thoughts on uh I guess we're getting closer to asking somebody to uh make a motion here but but any other questions or comments before we get to that stage
yes from just for clarification um it sounds like there's been previous projects that are still kind of ongoing and stuff like that and then this is B an additional start to a new project okay um but then with those previous
projects like there's still ongoing issues and time frame that they're trying to get caught up on um I would say a lot of this to me feels like we're kind of putting the cart before the horse um you know saying that we're
applying for the cup but then still waiting on the funding giving them 18 months I don't know it just feels like it's not the right timing for this I appreciate that and that's one of my concerns too one of my thoughts here now is maybe we need a six-month of catch up six month of consolidating the gains
that have been made before we open up another project but that's those are my thoughts Mr chair yes could we get an update on the timeline from either staff or the applicant or both I think we should uh Vicki would you like to step up and give us a timeline here and James
if you have anything to chip in please do good because I also wanted to let you know there are two front porches and a couple different textures on the building too it's hard to see in the picture so I just want to let you know that so um so actually our first phase phase one is completed the only thing that that's not is the the grass I mean
we we are still growing a lawn in the plants of course our perennials and bushes are still small they're growing it takes you know third year they leap so hopefully um it'll be looking nicer we really want the properties to look nice and we have a really nice Landscaping plan community garden a park
playground um so we are in development of the 12px um broke ground in the the late summer early fall so it's not too unreasonable to think that this project is not completed yet um they're building all winter we're moving in soon and we'll be doing landscaping this spring and summer so I don't think our timeline
is unreasonable it I mean that seems pretty pretty fast to me for building a 12px to have it built in eight months and we're working on Landscaping um the the next two buildings will be breaking ground this this spring and working on them throughout um hopefully we'll getting getting them done this next
winter again that seems pretty reasonable in getting two more 19 more housing units built um so phase four wouldn't even be starting until 2026 so we'll have been completed with phase one phase two and phase three by by the time
we been break ground for phase four and so of course we we prefer higher densing and we'd love to be able to build more but it is a a funding problem and we are that's what we're relying on is is funding donation we get no government uh state or federal f fing
at all and so um we're just relying on on donations and grants so we are kind of at the mercy of when we can get funding so we can build so do specifically I think I probably just missed it there when will the first three phases be completed um the first three phases should be completed by the
spring of 2026 um because we're breaking we're breaking ground this this spring but because our two buildings are not going to break ground immediately at both they'll probably start the 12 Plex and then then break ground on the the next building let's let's make sure we're on the same page phase one is done phase f is done phase two done well just
about we've got well we're moving them in in like two weeks but we still have Landscaping to finish phase two is not done not done phase three phase three will be starting in May phase three starting May and this is phase four we're talking about yes okay just want to make sure we're all kind of on the same page here um anything to add to
this James or that pretty accurate in terms of what we're describing here that's what I've heard from the applicant previously okay very good any uh questions for Vicki long as we have her up here if not thank you very much okay thank you and uh further discussion or if somebody feels daring to make a
motion I'm going to entertain that as well I'll make a motion to pass it as per staff recommendations all right and would that be the conditions of the shut of the design elements I think that's how so you're not going to add the
design elements to it that was what I was suggesting be requested but um sounds like they're from the applicant they are incorporating some of those already so I would second the motion okay very good any discussions on the motion as it is right
now if not um let's do uh let's do a roll call vote on this one Stephanie when you're ready Peterson yes grula yes Goram no Higgins no and Erikson
yes me2 all right we are uh this is moving ahead um next steps for the applic James so again this is a um recommending body this will be heard at the next city council meeting on April 7th at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers very good I want to thank
everybody who spoke tonight I do appreciate your time very good thank you all right we are moving on to um 6C we're looking for a conditional use permit just sorry to interrupt this is the part we I I'll recuse myself very
good all right so we are looking at 6C uh conditional use permit uh for vehicle uh trailer and equipment sales at 1801 mil Avenue James can you bring us up to speed thank you Mr chair appendex a table of uses allows for auto and trailer dealerships and Outdoor Equipment service sales and rentals with
an approved conditional use permit in the GI District the facility must meet the following criteria according to the allowed use section sales area is limited to 50% of the girls floor area the principal use sales area is proposed as proposed in the site plan is 44% of the girls floor area uh outside sales
areas are fenced and screened from view of neighboring properties in any public rights of way uh the proposed sales area is completely fenced with a row of mature red pine trees along the fence line um however the trees do not provide screening from view of the neighboring properties in Public's right of way um
staff certainly sees the need where you'd want a sales area to not be screened from the public um so I will have a recommendation based on that however um the property has historically been a heavily utilized manufacturing warehousing and distribution facility that has not been screen from the public
um historically uh all display storage areas must be paved and uh must be must comply with the requirements from the city engineer city engineer has no concerns the proposed use shall organized vehicular access and parking to minimize traffic congestion in a
residential neighborhood uh the proposed use will not significantly increase vehicle traffic on M Avenue this is something we've been discussing um with the county as well uh this property is Zone General industrial and can accommodate off street parking and loading as currently constructed uh the Community Development Department
recommends approval of the conditional use permits for 1811 mil Avenue as presented and then further recommends um that the screening requirements in the zoning code should be removed for outside sales areas it's kind of note uh sales areas are meant to be viewed by the public screening could be added back
um if necessary through a conditional use permit process so with that I'll open it up to questions good questions for James um just a quick question in terms of the general signage of it what would be maybe this is a question for the applicant but will they be restricted at
all in terms of a sign on the highway anything like this or just out of curiosity signing and lighting um if there are any additions to that essentially would just have to meet the criteria of the zoning code AS presented um I the applicant did not uh um let staff know if there were any going to be
any additions but certainly could could speak to that okay very good thank you uh without any other questions for James I'll open a public hearing at 7:31 and would invite the applicant to come on up tell us a little bit about your project hi Mike Higgins 1801 M Avenue uh
I've got a tenant that's requested to put um trailers little toe behind trailers and rent an office for me he needs a um properly zoned um site for his dealership application through the state of Minnesota I also have a couple
other um people that have requested recently um to be able to sell equipment and or possibly some little cabins or little out buildings so I just figured I'd cover everything with this cop and
um I guess I'm available for any questions if you have them questions for Mike C please just address the sign question well was that your question that that was my question but why don't you go ahead and bring it up you got the floor well just that how will there be any sign I guess I never thought about
it uh with the 220,000 ft building right now I have one 4x8 sign out I I'm going to guess that by code I can probably put a sign up we would get a sign permit or talk to staff about whatever we need to do but it's not it probably something
that hangs on the fence in front of the trailers Mike I have a question are are the vendors renting from you or will you be in the business of equipment Sal no they're renting they're just tenants they're just tenants yep okay just a renting a rental attendance then and um
do you expect more than one to be using this place then you you expect possible possible okay hopefully okay very good um just one more question there trailers we talking like pop-up 10 trailers we talking like industrial pull behind your pickup haul your lawnmower trailers there you go
thank you that's the question I had other questions for Mike not seeing them I I'll thank you we may ask you back for any further questions and I'll open the floor uh the uh the mic for anybody else who would like to come on up and uh speak on this matter well we're not seeing it so I'm
going to close our public hearing at 7:33 and open the floor to discussion any discussion any questions all right not not hearing a whole lot then I guess we're just waiting for a motion Mr chair I would
move to approve the uh recommendation as presented with the addition of the recommendation that screening requirements and the zoning code be removed from outside sales areas all right very good I'll second and we have a second any discussion on
that not hearing that all right Stephanie let's do another roll call Peterson yes grula yes gorum yes and Erikson yes very good next up for the applicants
James yes thank you Mr chair so this will be heard at the next city council meeting on April 7th at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers can we please go in front of everybody [Laughter] else very good and I'll let you take
that up with the city council on that one uhhuh we don't have to touch that one all right we're on to number seven we're on to unfinished business we're going to uh review the data center ordinance James would you bring us up to speed on the issue
please thank I should say on our issue thank you Mr chair so this has been reviewed um numerous times by the Planning Commission we've been altering adding things um our public uh utilities director was here at the last meeting to provide some recommendations uh based on
what has been already provided to the Planning Commission uh you want to pull the uh ordinance up Sean staff highlighted those sections uh there's questions about uh backup generators so kind of clarifying that curtailment of power supply or voluntary shutdown of power is not considered to be a power
outage um to be running those generators uh you'll see in the Hazardous Waste plan uh has changed to um the operator rather than developer uh as requested by the public utilities director next part the water and wastewater plan prior to approval the
developer shall apply for a sewer extension permit with the mpca and submit a water and wastewater plan for review by the public works department and public utilities department um certainly from a Community Development perspective um we want to see a review by the public uh utilities to make sure
that water and waste water are applicable you that is continuing to be less potentially of an issue with with some of these data centers um as opposed to what they were in the past using the significant amount of water um but certainly if it's not going to work with the water and waste water plan this
Planning Commission should know that um I'm not sure what goes into um applying for a sewer extension permit from the npca so that may be um you know a little bit more than what we typically require in the zoning code so something for the Planning Commission to consider um and
then last part uh prior to approval loads over one megawatt in capacity will be responsible for having a system impact study completed by the appropriate power transmission owner operator in the area um again uh you know could be quite a bit of work going
into this uh there's certainly other data centers um CTC would be an example of where they'd have to have data center storage capability at their site um so Planning Commission can consider whether one megawatt should maybe be that threshold I think it's it's appropriate
to potentially do that to make sure that um we can provide Power before granting that cup um but you know maybe it's a different number than that one megawatt number and with that I will open up to any questions yeah looks like you have a question no questions all right any
questions down that way all right um so I I just want to ask a question kind of based on commissioner Norwood's um letter from this afternoon and um I was a little confused because he was talking about moving it to three megawatts and that almost seemed like lowering the threshold so I was a little
confused by that did you what was your Takeaway on on his letter so I think that uh would may be potentially more appropriate I know um the data centers that we've been reviewing in the last couple years here have been more in that 20 to 25 megawatt capacity so when you look at 1 megawatt I'm not sure sure
where that looks at you know for some of the other data center needs of of other standard businesses in here so I know um commissioner Norwood talked about maybe a three U megawatt capacity where you'd have to do that prior to the um Planning Commission meeting so you know I think
that may be appropriate um Public Utilities director was the the one megawatt so it's kind of up for discussion and recommendation from the Planning Commission all right thank you other questions for James on that um
and um well I guess I don't have a question at this point we don't have other questions I mean are we good do we feel like we've done the work on this I my personal opinion is f is probably the thing we kind of have to make sure we're comfortable with with f and uh with with
the energy plan there any thoughts on that any thoughts on one megabyte versus three I guess my thought would be if that's what the Public Works director recomend amended that's probably what we should go with uh he knows his system
much better than we ever will yep there we go there we go um I think this is an important element too because we have to understand that um I and I'm sorry I missed the last meeting with the uh I was caught up in Community Theater once again I didn't have the chance to be here at the last meeting here and to
discuss this because we have a a BPU who they have goals they have mandates that they're supposed to set moving towards renewable energy and moving um um towards a carbon free um model and what this gets down to me is we have to make sure our right hand and our left hand
are working well together that we that we're not you know setting standards and then going out and handing out permits that are going to make hitting the standards impossible they're going to potentially raise the cost down the line so I would hope that um uh uh F would
include uh some uh uh consideration for the overall plan um do we have a a sign off on for BPU to sign this off are they going to sign off on F or yeah so they' be would be providing a recommendation after the system impact study has been
completed um I guess the last few um crypto facilities or data center facilities they've almost approached BPU before the the city on things um so trying to make sure that they could secure the power at the price that they're looking at and then coming to the city for conditional use permits or
the um development agreement with the Eda so so that's been that's been the process so far energy is kind of the most important thing to them and then trying to figure out the um I guess the city aspect in land use permits after that so um very high on their priority list so I I think having this in there
would be no issue and so what you're essentially saying is by the time it gets to us the energy issue has been discussed that has been in the past yes okay very good those are the questions I have any others if not do we have have uh I guess
you looking for a motion to move this what would you like James out of this what are you thinking or it could be a recommendation to move forward with the public hearing at the next meeting all right so can we have a uh a motion here to move this ahead to uh the public hearing phase so
move second second I'm gonna give a second to uh to to the new new guy Mr Higgins thank you very much all right any any more uh any more discussion if not I would say on this one I'm good with all in favor say I I I post same
sign all right so um do we expect to see this uh in April Yep this would be at the next meeting in April for a public hearing very good thank you very much all right that moves us to uh um our public forum this is a chance for the
public to uh opine on any matters that are not on tonight's agenda time limits may be uh imposed and with that I'll open the public form at 7:41 look around the oh there we
go Mr Maron nice to see you guys likewise hey Chuck Marone 616 North 4th Street very nice to see you all thank you um I'm sorry I couldn't make the meeting last month I also know you guys have a lot going on so I will try to be quick there's two things I wanted to
bring up in relation to last month but also just in general the first one's about Street vacations um I was a little surprised when not only you got a recommendation from staff that everything was cool at the street
vacation but that the street vacation uh conversation while it wasn't part of the request that you got was part of the discussion and the conversation I just want to bring two things up about Street vacation the first one is when we think about Public Safety what we talk about
often is response time how quickly can we respond to a call how quickly can we respond to an incident if you are in a city like Baxter the way they deal with response time is to make streets really really wide so you can drive really fast
down them that's not what you do in an urban city in an urban city you need to make streets narrower you need to slow traffic down the way we deal with response time is to have a lot of redundancy in the street Grid in Baxter you'll have collector streets that go into local streets dead end called the
Sachs everything's kind of a dead end in a neighborhood like North Brainard or Northeast Brainard or South brainer the way you get around that is not to have dead end kacs have lots of connectivity if the fire truck's going down one street and it's narrow and tight they can't get by there's all kinds of other
options to get to where you're going every time we close a street you dramatically decrease that capacity you you really impair Public Safety in a city like brainer if someone was coming to us and saying we want to vacate a culde-sac somewhere vacate every
culdesac I mean that would be good public policy to me me but when we're talking about an urban street a gritted street it's a really really bad idea from a public safety standpoint the other thing is if we look at State statutes on vacations they talk very
clearly about uh the conditions under which a city would vacate a street and they talk about uh it being something where the public has a benefit to that vacation when we look at a public right away what that is is it's land dedicated
to the public for a public use if we are going to give up a RightWay a RightWay that has a public Street on it has public sidewalks on it has Public Utilities that go down it whether they're overhead utilities or underground utilities whether they do today or possibly will in the future
because they're part of a grided network even if we retain an easement so we can go back in or even if we retain some type of right to go across it what is the benefit to the public for doing that what does the public gain from giving up something that in a sense we have and we
own and we occupy it's a really high standard that didn't come up it wasn't part of the discussion it wasn't part of the staff recommendation or the attorney recommendation but it's something that I think this plan commission should know about should be aware about and should be prepared to talk about when that
comes up again there are a lot of places where entities that own lots of property would love to be able to accumulate and aggregate property uh by vacating streets um I can think of in North brainer just the hospital and a bunch of churches as example examples and this is
really really bad overall for our neighborhood so I I I want to bring that up I want to make that part of your conversation um the second thing has to do with housing on the same application that you reviewed last month it wasn't part of the preliminary plat discussion
but it was again ancillary to it and I just want to talk about the housing issue um we spent a great deal of time on this commission years ago uh coming up with an ordinance to deal with two issues number one the housing shortage which you heard a lot about tonight we
don't have enough housing we're losing housing uh we we we need to have a lot more we need have hundreds of units more every year being built just to close the gap that we've got now we also were dealing with uh kind of the I'm just going to call rolling blight or uh the
cancerous growth of parking lots throughout our core neighborhoods we can look at the school district doing this we can look at the hospital doing this we can look at churches doing this this blight has an ongoing kind of negative feedback loop because every time you buy
up houses and expand parking we not only lose that housing but the parking devalues the next line of housing it actually makes that next line of housing less valuable less desirable and that reinforces it because when it becomes less desirable and less less you know
less uh valuable it's cheaper to buy up and make into parking thus allowing like the next rung and the next rung and the next r wrong we made a recommendation to the council and I I hope you listen to the council meeting or at least get feedback about the council meeting because it did come up there and it was
part of the conversation there about how uh that ordinance in particular the idea that we would you know eliminate two houses replace it with one oh there'll be more net bedrooms all this kind of stuff it it really went against not only the spirit of what we were trying to do
but it went against the the the the overall conceptual idea of retaining our housing stock and allowing the neighborhood to mature not be kind of ripped apart for parking so I I wanted to come here and just emphasize those two things for you I think they're very
important to not just North Brainard I think they're important to the entire city uh please please please slow down and think deeply when we get into Street vacations and slow down and think deeply when we're removing homes uh both of those things we've taken great efforts
to uh to make sure are not going to be part of our development approach here we should be building up neighborhoods not letting them decline so thank you so much for your time thank you chck much appreciated public forum is still open just
saying last call all right I will close the public forum at 747 and with that we move on to uh staff reports yes thank you Mr chair um so that was the update uh uh council did approve the preliminary plat for St Francis with a 4 to3 vote um however as
Mr Mor stated they did express some concerns and would like to see a master plan uh moving forward uh the city council also did Deni the rezoning and text Amendment request from Paradigm Auto and further directed staff to um enforce the ordinance uh also um from
the last council meeting staff have reviewed underdeveloped rental properties in brainer and will be sending out development opportunity letters to those Property Owners um certainly trying to look for properties where um standard lot and brainer in the loton block is typically about 50 to 150
in size um some of for one example we have a single family home on essentially three lots um so trying to let people know about our new zoning code um what our opportunities are for you know expanded use duplexes accessory dwelling units um so that that'll be sent out with their uh renewal application letter
to let them know about opportunities um so with that uh that's everything I have very good thank you any questions for James last chance all right we will move on to item 10 uh commissioner reports and uh commissioner Higgins do you have
anything for us you don't have to not this time thank thank you for joining the group I do appreciate you being here tonight I think it's going to be you're GNA be a good addition I do appreciate it thank you thank you Dave no I I do not all right yes Justin anything uh
other than to point out Dave's comment last month yes um I definitely like Craftsman Homes okay and I like the mixed use buildings downtown those are my favorites okay there we go all right I like a good Craftsman home
too I can appreciate that yeah with all the buildings the built-in kind of things yeah I appreciate that pad um yes to Craftsman home um I'm trying to think of I'm trying to do the homework on the Fly here so you didn't
do your homework got a couple in M it's hard to pick I'll put it that way um nothing to report other than Vice chair I'm glad you're here I didn't want did not want the gavel again tonight thank you well this this may be a one off here but it's it's it's fun to be back behind the gavel here so you're you're all a
good group um I have nothing I'll I'll work on the uh on my favorite uh home style and Commercial Business I'll work on that for next month for that'll work with a couple winners there with that we're looking for a motion to adjourn so Move Motion second all right
all in favor say I hi sign thank you very much folks