They've always talked about the park details. Now that's sroa. No, that's a cover bridge. Oh, okay. I think there's more to this episode.
Okay. What do I have to start? This is our monthly or economic development. It's Tuesday, September 23rd, 6:30 p.m. So with that, roll call, please.
Uh Ryland here, Dan here, Jan here, Kathy here, and we're missing Jamie and Adam. And excused. Uh Mr. Baker is not here tonight.
Jason's not here. Okay. Then we have visitors Marty Walsh and Laura from Aita. All right. So, we'll um go ahead. So, we have an agenda points five, six, and seven.
make a motion we approve the agenda. Any changes or corrections? Uh we will add R. I didn't put it in here but reports underneath networking for letter C. Uh just Laura would like to introduce herself to everybody.
Right. Laura. Yes. Okay. Any other comments? See none. All those in favor of the agenda as amended signify by saying I. I. I suppose that's as approved.
Um the packet is a copy of the August 26th minutes. Make a motion we approve the August 26th minutes. Second. Sorry. I'll second. Thank you.
Any comments? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Oppos? Okay, that's approved. The public hearings branding project update.
Yeah, I think Jan, you were there. Ryland, you were there as well and kind of in and out that meeting. Uh had a virtual meeting on the se 16th of September at 4:00. Whitney West shared three possibilities for the group. Uh there were 10 people there to vote on.
After the group after the reveal, the group kind of narrowed it down to numbers one and three uh to go forward with. And you can see in your packet, number one is Oronoo with a bridge. There's a variety of different Oro fonts and ways of looking at it. And number
three is Oronoo with a tree with a root system. um but kind of voted on to go forward with and the next meeting will be a kind of an online vote. I did make copies that you can take with you of the
updated or nogo because then they took number one and they added different fonts to it. So you're free to look at those. Um and then obviously if you're part of the committee, you'll make a vote which one you prefer.
Um and then kind of go from there. So I think Jan, Kathy, and I are I'm not. We're not. Yeah, just you. Okay, Adam. Adam. So this you have it's 1D. [Music]
Yeah, you have a highlighted yellow. Yeah, 1D is kind of one that they're that's not the one it's going to be, but that is one that uh I think the office is kind of leaning toward people who work here in the city hall, but I'm it's
not a it's not for sure by any means. Can I ask just a quick question? I have been so out of it. I um missed last week meeting and maybe two meetings, I don't know. But okay, we're
just looking at the logo, the graphics. There's no uh there's no color yet or I'm sorry, no color, no uh words and phrases, no just no tag lines, graphics.
This is the thing that like they'll put on all the city trucks and all of your events and everything. What is it now? The gold brush guy. Yes, it's on the hands right now. Sometimes just Oracle public works. Yeah. Just the wording. Yeah. I've seen that too.
Okay. But we've you look at our city website there a circle with a bridge on it that Jason put on a couple months ago. That was just a thought. Not sure that.
Well, at the meeting it was um I just I speak up because I spoke for like 1B or whatever. I said you have to kind of pick out a uh something that is to the group that you can recognize or
an opal with. I mean you can look at the bridge, you know, the bridge is kind of the iconic thing to see what you do. They talked about the tree and and uh the tree that they were talking about either 3A or they're looking at I
said I've seen that logo somewhere else. the landscape, but it had the leaves were colored or whatever. And u to me, I said a tree really doesn't uh say anything about orop.
The one is supposed to be a basswood somewhere that they have here, but no one would ever know about the that bigger tree is a basswood. That's the one in the park. In the park or whatever, but nobody really Oh, I recognize that right away. Well, but most people wouldn't know. Yeah, I think I said
there is that's Have you ever been in that park and seen that tree? Yes. Okay. I just um have I looked at some of the other cities and they look at things as they got the they've got the cover bridge kind of local in their in their
thing. Um and I believe Ryan you said the same thing that you thought that the bridge was more replica of oral looking at things that to look at things you talked about. They talked about after they took the dam out about
kayaking in the river and and nature and and things like that and that represents quite a bit. There's too many cities as a brought up. I mean, there's an awful lot of cities that have a a tree as a logo or the their park and wreck department has a tree on the thing and
we're really not getting a logo for park and wreck or doing things like that. is to to look at something and and I did start out that I thought that the gold rush 51 years of gold rush everyone in Arnold knows gold rush but as a committee goes they were kind of going
away from the from the minor and I I knew I was going to lose that battle but that is what around the country they come from all around the country for gold rush you see but that's only three or four days out of the year and I understand that so
when they brought the bridge up and went up on different That's something that iconic that I can look and say when you drive by 52 and you look over to the lights around whatever you can actually see that you I guess I've lived been around or Oklahoma got things
through all my life and you just know certain things and the tree just doesn't do it. That's that's all I want to say to committee is that I I strongly think that the bridge needs to be in the river. Says a lot more about Oronoo and recreation and things to do than a tree
because I I'm going to say I'm almost going to say family tree has a tree on for their uh for their logo for their landscape business or different things. I know I have seen that tree with the leaves different colors. I know I've seen that somewhere around Rochester or somewhere that someone's got that logo
and uh and they said, "Well, it kind of shows growth and things like that." Well, as I told them, a bridge a bridge together, bridging the new with the old different things. So, I I'll leave it at that, but that just I want to come to the committee here. I've sat through
these meetings and stuff and Well, just um just make sure you share your comments with Quinton before the 29th. Yeah, I did. I said that I wanted I was the the bridge in it for the bridge, not the tree. I think I said it back to you guys or whatever. I was trying to figure
out how to do that. Yeah, the tree is popular. Pine Island has it. Charter the charter house uses a big tree on theirs local for charter house. It's popular. Okay. Yeah. Victoria, get your comments
back to So the idea is I think we're coming down to water two to take to the community. I think is the goal. That's the 29th. Was that when the 29th is what? By the 29th is what Webney
was asking for. I think once these two whatever the voting is, uh that's when they will start working with the colors. Okay. So yeah, just looking at all of them, the river one, I know exactly where I'm at.
You're in or noco with this one. This is all right. But it's a good process going with going through and I think it's we have a lot of other stuff to the taglines and stuff like that we still need to work on yet
too. So this is the first part of this. All right. Uh new business. Um, Marty Wolf is the economic director for People's Energy Cooperative and he's going to share some information about a housing project.
Yeah. First got a PowerPoint here. Click to the laptop on the screen. So, while while we get that pulled up, u just just a little bit of background. Um, we are not doing housing development. We are offering land up to be done as a
housing development. So, we don't know a lot about the final steps. We have some objectives for it. Um, I had was tracking along with the zoning updates for a while. Um, and we had hoped to wait until those were all done. Um, but because some stuff going co-op,
we just wanted to get this project moving beforehand. So, we'll still have to fine-tune some things with updates to the zoning uh city zoning code. Um, but I I met with Jason and he recommended, you know, bring Kurt in the loop just to have people aware of the
project. And Kurt thought that this would be of interest to the folks here. So, I want to give a good rundown. That's fun. Um, on what we've got here. And I I've got notes on my phone, so I'm not I'm not texting while I talk. But
you're used to do that. I mean, I might be, but I'm gonna tell you that I'm looking at my notes. Oh, you got that repeat. Yeah. Where is that? Well, I Well, they're figuring that out and and Curtain knows this a little bit.
The the property that I have it up on a map is the property that used to be the co-op septic system. So, uh, once we hooked into the city municipal sewer system, we didn't need that to be a septic system anymore. And so, we started kind of brainstorming on what
could be some opportune uses, beneficial to the cooperative, beneficial to our members, beneficial to the city, and helped live out our mission of being a trusted community and business partner. Um and we in doing so identified from a number of sources that housing and how
we can support housing would probably be the best thing there. My professional opinion is while affordable housing is really important. Any housing is what we ultimately need in this region. Um see a lot of houses even in my neighborhood in
Rochester that shouldn't be $200,000 houses going for $300,000 because there's no $200,000 houses to buy. So, or because there's no, sorry, there's no $300,000 houses to buy. So, they bid up the next most affordable housing that they can. Uh, so we're not not saying
this won't be affordable housing, but we're not explicitly pursuing it to be affordable housing. And I think that's important to understand. The city, a developer, is going to have to make that fight themselves and make that argument themselves and figure out how that's going to work. Where do you have a happen to have an
insight of why this isn't coming up? No clue. I could email it to you if you to that desktop if that would be popped up last time. Hold on. Stop that. This is me. So, hold on. PowerPoint at the bottom there.
Just leave it just like that. There you go. And then if I go to to slideshow. Yep. All right. It's just okay. We had issues in getting it on the slideshow version.
Yeah. Got to We'll just look at it like this. Y. So, you can um Yeah. So we're referring it to it just as the orno housing project or crossing housing project. Um again I'm the economic development and key
accounts manager for the co-op and there about six years before that I worked for CEDA. Um before that was a financial adviser for Edward Jones down in Mason City. Go ahead and go. So this is again the the lot highlighted in green. Um we're there on the left camper world and
and all that stuff is there on the right. our solar pan solar field on the top right baseball field at 12:00 and then as a reminder the residential kind of what behind our project is not currently in the city limits. Um it's my
understanding that there is a plan and maybe even a requirement long term that that will need to be annexed into the city and have be connected to the wastewater system because of the county's regulations on public health. And that's one of the ways that you may
annex people is they say they need to be annexed. Um so that is something to maybe keep in the back of your head. So just a little bit. Go ahead Kurt. About the lot. Uh it's 5.32 acres including that weird little um leg that goes off the side. It doesn't include the
retention pond that's right there. Serve it purposes. Leech field. Cost basis which becomes relevant. 313. Very quick math. 371 would be what we think the market value would be. Doing a little initial research, I think it might be higher
than that, but that's what we're going with. So, next slide. We we looked at a number of options and this would be animated. Uh we could sell without restriction. Let whatever happens happen there. Sell with some guidelines. We could develop it ourselves similar to
how we did the orno crossings commercial development. Um or we could kind of do a wait and see. We weren't too keen on that. we'd like to get out of the real estate game. So, we we settled on selling with guidelines and as I said, identify housing is the biggest
priority. We see housing consistently comes up in our business retention expansion survey and it comes up from our our developers and it comes up from the county housing uh analysis which I I'll get into a little bit. Go ahead, G.
Um, so our objective is to maximize the long-term value to the cooperative. And I will say that as as you're obviously all residents of Oronokco, you are all member owners of the cooperative. Um, so anything that the co-op does long-term benefit if it benefits the co-op, we're
talking about benefiting you, our consumer member owners. Supporting cooperative principles. There's seven principles that guide all cooperatives. Um, this is Paul from a board report. So board members would have known them. A big thing is concern for community and economic participation. It inspires
innovative housing solutions regionally. So we know that by us derisking this project a little bit, we can maybe prove to some other projects, hey, you can do this too. There's there's a fear of first mover, right, in housing projects. And I'll get into what I mean by
innovative housing in just a minute. And then serving as a role model for leveraging institutional land. We know that there's uh three, four, five parcels similar size to this regionally that if we can demonstrate how an institution can be involved, maybe we see some more movement. So some of the
the incentives that we would be looking at to derisk reduce price, one would be discounted price. So we would go from that appraised value that 370 say or 375 down to the 315 300 mark. offer that as
a forgivable loan that as long as they stay within development agreement gets forgiven. Then use that as a match for a Derryland Power, which is where we buy our power from, low interest loan, so we can help keep some pressure down on this project. We're also looking at some custom rebates, and I'll I'll tell you,
we've been in uh communications with the Cedar Crest folks with Dragon about how they can also take advantage of those rebates because we're not interested in undercutting somebody else's project. Um, again, why housing? No other uses are likely to succeed here in this
parcel to about 195 ft wide. So, we think if there was commercial that went in there, it would probably just be storage. Uh, that's not really a great load for us and it's probably not what is great for the city of Oronoka. We don't think um housing, as we said, is
not growing at a rate needed to support growth, economic growth regionally. Alms County has a study, our business retention expansion survey. All point towards we need greater housing supply to get a larger workforce. Shortage of labor is the number one constraint of
economic growth in southeast Minnesota. Shortage of housing is the number one constraint on labor. Um and then per our own economic development plan will support housing. Um, this is a lot of text, so I'll just I'll just point out in the housing
study, the comprehensive needs analysis, they identified that the cost of construction and development makes it so that rents are unattainable. if you're if you're renting or for uh
cost of purchase are unattainable to pay for the house that needs to get built at the price that houses are going for that people need to be hitting and that pretty much the only way we're going to see significant housing get built is through some form of private public
partnership especially outside of Rochester. So, the co-op is willing to step in here and be the public in that environment. So, next, excuse these slice be part of the minutes tonight. Um,
it's going out on Zoom. Yeah, I I that should be okay. Yeah, sure. Yep. Yep. Thank you. Um, so this is just again some potential project objectives for a developer. So
what we've done is we've put out a request for qualifications developer to come forward and say, "Hey, here's what we've done in Mano and Rochester and Mason City and Lacrosse, whatever." Um, and these are some of the things that we're going to be looking for. Somebody came in with a 10 units per acre
maximum, you know, project that really maximized compactness. We think that'd be great. and I'll go into a little bit of why. Uh I know that that's a stretch and that's that's going to be tough here, but um I think there's different approaches. That's the objective. That's doesn't mean that
that's where we end up. Uh we want to go with this innovative housing designs and variety of units and types qualifying for our electric new home rebate. So that's way another way that we're going to push this down. Basically, what that means is they're all electric housing, no natural gas. So
there's not an additional cost incurred of bringing natural gas into that site because there isn't natural gas there. Uh we want to facilitate the installation of EV charging infrastructure and then leverage multiple programs to maximize the benefit to the cooperative. Again, there's there's things out there.
One of the things and and the reason we're not saying this has to be affordable housing, this has to be whatever is we're seeing that oftent times these structured support programs end up driving the cost of development significantly higher. And so the subsidy
is all on the demand side. And if you do econ 101, pushing up demand just pushes prices higher. We're trying to focus really on the supply side here very and drive the cost down from that side. And also rather than using structured
programs, hearing from developers what can make this project more successful for you rather than us trying to guess that ahead of time. We're not housing developers. Um and I would say that even regionally, you know, or local to Rochester, there's probably a lot of room for improvement and what can make it successful. We want to hear what they
experienced in these other communities. So when I talk about innovative housing, go ahead. Next slide. Um, these are innovative just means innovative to the region. Things that we're not seeing a lot of in southeast Minnesota. So things like twin homes and association
maintained communities. Um, they're the least forms of housing, least common forms of housing in the county. Uh, larger rental units, so things that are three-bedroom plus. They're always in short supply with no vacancies and long waiting lists. and then all electric housing with things like built-in EV
conduit, uh, smart thermostats, heat pump appliances, all that. We'd want to see or we we would favor a proposal that came forward with some of those. And I'll give an example. So, that that town home development there is down in Mason City. And one of the really neat things about
that is those are available for sale or rent. They can be in the same facility. They are two-story town homes, but they're constructed such that with the construction of one like 10 square foot wall, you could subdivide and put an ADU upstairs. So, there's plumbing to the
upstairs to put a kitchenet in. So, you can have it as either a three-bedroom house or like two one-bedroom town houses stack. That is the sort of thing. Doesn't mean we're looking for that project here, just that that is the sort of um
innovation that we're looking for. It doesn't mean wild and outside, you know, crazy units or anything. Just something we're not seeing locally. So that's a 10 unit. Those are 10 units totally. Yeah. 10 unit. I think actually right now it's all it is all dup. It is all combined. So it's
five units. Um but it could be up to 10 units. Yeah. Okay. Uh so why exactly do we want to encourage density? Um these are some units in Byron. And so just to point out like that same development could be
twice the density if you did it like that other the project in Mason City. Um that is uh I think 12 units per acre. So the the benefit are that we're increasing the sales for less buildout costs.
The city's cost to to a development like that for the number of housing units is significantly lower. Same for the co-op. our total utility plant per member is significantly lower because we're building one 10-ft line rather than
maybe eight 10 to 20 30 foot lines per house plus all the connecting wires plus all that here we're reducing costs in that way. Um, and also because we're expanding, we're spreading all of those costs, the the site development costs,
the wacken sack fees, driveway fees, all of that onto a smaller number of those for more units, reducing the cost to the end of the final person. Um, so a question where
when you when you talk about the dense housing in the streets, I've been up some of those places. You have a guest come there, there's virtually no parking. So, um,
and I think some of those things are all, um, if that's one environment, those are all private streets. So the city doesn't plow those streets. It's up to the people in the townhouse association to do that. And if you have someone come over, there's no place for you to park
your vehicle, which in any place is uh you got a twocar garage and things like that in a small plot like that. I just u if you have a two or three bedroom and you have some other people there, there could be three three
cars very possibly three cars. Yes. I think so. CFO lives in actually that building right there. I didn't know it when I made that picture, but to point out she lives on the back side of the center building here. And I think hers is a two-bedroom unit, which is the more common thing. I think just I don't
even think the corner ones are three bedrooms. They're a little bigger, but I think there's two bedroom. Um, that would I would say fall on the developer. What is what is marketable? What do they think they can build at a profit? Um, just putting up as a general example. I know there's a a development similar to this down behind Menard South and they
have a couple of communal parking spots. So you have things and then kind of like uh on the left side there there would be three additional parking spots that rotate through live there for a while and they had plenty of extra I mean they had garages but they also had the extra now
the condos that Dragon's building over behind two sisters uh they that was specifically asked and they did put in extra parking. Yeah. And and that that would be on on a developer to get that part through. But I think that's there we're seeing um you know there's a development up in uh it's technically
Wabashaw but it's between Wabashaw and Kellogg. Um again kind of similar to their standalone homes but they're pretty tight together. And they're seeing most families only have one vehicle um because they're being they're attracting a lot of young families, starter families and they're they're
happy to just have it. they they're not to that stage in life where they have multiple vehicles, they only have younger kids. This is filling that gap in that case between apartment living and three-bedroom, threecar garage that they want to get into eventually, right? Because even in Rochester Stone
Hedge, $300, $400,000 town homes, same thing. The streets were very narrow. The snow removes along with it. When you start to when you get a foot of snow, they start pushing snow around those places. There's not a whole lot of places to put the snow on the on the property
and everyone's got to get their vehicle off. Yeah. To be able to do it. So that high density, I'm just saying in a small area, uh there's a lot there's a lot of things to even in the very expensive four and $500,000 places. Absolutely. Yeah. Um and again, that's
that's a level specific. It's a very valid question to bring up. Level specificity that I'm not equipped to answer. Uh we want to see what people bring and what the innovative solutions you know people are doing this in in St. Cloud in Duth in places with plenty of snow and I'm guessing they've got some
ideas. So and just a comparison what dragon is doing he's put in 24 foot streets because he did coach fire department to make sure their emergency vehicles could get through those not have narrow streets. So yeah.
So yeah, so one of the things we like we I did this for the power side and you don't need to see the power side but part of how we can we can reduce the cost is because we'll make more we will make more money back on this the residential development therefore we don't have to pass it on rates to people uh but looked
at a water impact so using your water studies your rates kind of what they told you to estimate if you looked at um like a one unit per acre large lot single family looking around 47 $4,800 a year in water revenue revenue, a little
over $20,000 in the sewer availability charge and investment fee scaling up. I want to be very clear, we are not proposing that any we I don't think we would be able to get behind a 54 unit threetory apartment building just trying to show the outside end of
what is possible. Um, but if we were looking say at a couple of uh, you know, four eightplex units or some 16 unit two-story buildings, there's a lot of different items. I've got some more examples. 30 40 50 $60,000 a year in additional
revenue from water. Uh, a couple hundred,000 potentially in the investment fee upfront, which is going to significantly reduce the um the barrier burden on the rest of the city. And I think that's it's an
important thing to consider. What does development do to the cost for the rest of the city? So then some other things, property tax revenue, and I I have I will go into that. There's also development fees you could be collecting on this. And then gaining the workforce and the consumers.
When I've talked to retail developers and we talk about Oronoko as a spot they would maybe want to put another gas station or things, there's not enough rooftops. there's not enough people here for them to be interested in developing here and that's that's a a challenge a city like Dober faces. There's a lot of
things. So unless you had a private developer, an independent person who's going to go in on that, um we hear that pretty consistently from retailers, they're not not very interested right now. So next slide is how is some property tax estimates. So the city or county has
a really cool tool. You can plug in different things. take a building from one place and plug it into a different city. Um, again, if you looked at five single family homes at $450,000, uh, city's take on that would be about 76 $7,800.
Um, to go up to So, the Kodiak is is not by any means a very luxe apartment, but it's pretty nice one in Byron, kind of behind the McDonald's. There you have the Eastgate in Rochester which is a very large, very new, very spectacular
big building. Um, you can see rapidly the tax revenue starts to go up pretty quickly to the city and your investment is not significantly higher, if it's even higher at all. Uh, it can be depending upon how the site's laid out might be lower. That's something to dig
into with the developer, but it's a significant thing. So if you go to the next one, I dug in a little deeper on the quarters, which is just one you go back there. So those the bottom four are all apartment buildings. Yeah.
The top one is your five. Yep. Which what you're looking at. Yeah. Just as a comparison, I did um this the county hadn't updated some stuff. We had to request an update on the town homes in Byron. I have that on the next slide in the notes um to give a
comparison. for whatever reason there that property tax page wasn't working when I built this. But to look at the the quarters in Rochester just to give you a sense of of what kind of revenue you're talking about. Let's go to the next page. Um this is 60 units and five buildings which is um about 10 units per
acre. It there's there's some green space where they're going to develop additional buildings. They have a little community center, big lawn, volleyball courts that in Rochester and these are 15 20-y old buildings. These are not new. that sorry that in Oronokco would
generate county estimates $28,000 a year in city taxes, $72,000 a year in water revenue, uh $310,000 onetime water revenue for hookups. So 10-year revenue city of Oronokco without development
fees other than the water development fee, $1.3 million. Um, when I was doing this for the buyer and town homes today, if you went I did with either four chunks or five chunks, so between 46 and
$55,000 a year in property tax revenue. They're newer buildings. They're valued higher. Um 60 to $72,000 a year in water, 260 to 310 in uh onetime water hookup fees. So now you're talking 1.3 1.5.6 million.
$50,000 a year in additional property tax revenue would be 3.5% of your city tax levy. But you're not looking at a threetory. No, the town the town homes would be over $50,000. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So to put those town homes in to put
four town five four or five town homes I forget if they did four and five or five and six, but in that neighborhood because your property your levy will change the next few years too. three and a half% of your levy that could be paid for just by that development.
And some of the other uh and you I also looked at the fire truck, the fire safety place. Um they'd be looking at like another $25,000 in just the city share of their tax revenue. That's a lot packed in for almost no
additional infrastructure investment right in that area, knocking down a lot of your stuff. And I think that that's something that needs to be considered is what is what are both sides of the ledger look like here. So a couple other things to consider if I go down one more Kurt. Um you have the same or less
infrastructure for the entire project as compared to single family homes if you do a little density. There are also some city projects that could be timed uh to reduce some costs. So based on your your existing codes and things maybe for your your parking
issue, you say, "Hey, we want the developer instead of doing a park to do some park improvements to the baseball field, we want them to put in 15 20 parking spots along what is it 12 that 12th Street there um or anything they want a bike walking path along the
road." There's things like that. Then also when you annex that subdivision um in talking to the city engineer, you're g the intent is to access the water man off of 12th onto second that
could be timed to be done at the same time as this project cutting the cost to the city by 30 40 50 60%. Um so you're bringing in that those new houses as well. Um, lots of opportunities there.
And then additionally, you get the revenue growth and the population growth while preserving some land adjacent to existing developments for more similar developments. So, you kind of get the best of both worlds because there's nothing else around this that's going to grow into. You do have the the
couple of homes outside of the city, but that's not going to grow much either. CH Robinson is not going to allow housing to encroach on their facility. So, you're saving maybe more prime housing development land for the larger lot development that would be consistent
with the city of Oronokco's general plan. Um, this is also I didn't put this in here, but in your comp plan, this is R2. Currently, it's zoned M because that was the plan. That's what it needed to be for the wastewater facility, but it is zoned for mid mid density residential
uh in your comp plant. So uh just a couple other things kind of on the process again. So we put out this RFQ. We have gotten some interest uh exciting from like some smaller developers, people who are getting started. Um people who see the
opportunity and some folks from a little further field we're also interested in. Go next slide. Um but it'll be sent to a variety of regional and national development groups because we think it's a pretty attractive parcel. um Rochester
area builders obviously, but then as I mentioned, Mason City, Mano, Lacrosse, Oaklair, there's developers there who want to get into this market and maybe have a little bit sharper pencils if they can get in here. So, we're going to accept those proposal or the
qualifications through uh November 14th and then we'll invite probably invite maybe even a couple of them come talk to council or EDA or PNZ. um you know we want them say what would make this project more attainable for
them versus giving us a full proposal. So we're not November 15th we do not expect to see here's a general development plan. We expect to say here's three or four projects we've already developed and and here's what we think we can do at a very high level. What are the the hurdles that we're not
seeing? So, so the RFQ it's a I mean I understand what you're doing. It just seems like it's the chicken or the egg and how you know you're going to the RFQ is going to give you a whole
bunch of ideas and how you well that based on the city codes. So, it's going to give us a whole bunch of people, we hope, and we're going to be working on who seems to be the most qualified to work within the parameters that we provide and that the
city constructs. So, we don't we don't if we get someone who's only ever built in Minneapolis, Chicago, you know, wherever, probably not the best fit. But, if we have someone who shows, hey, we've done, you know, seven developments in cities under 5,000 people in the last 10 years, that's who
we want to be talking to. Uh, but we didn't want to exclude anybody um or expect somebody to do a a full proposal could be a $20,000 project for them. We didn't want to have that be the case before they even had a real crack
at it, especially with the zoning code still being a little up the air. So, you're the RFQ is looking to find I mean you what's the bottom line for the RFQ is the dollar figure to find a development partner. just a
development partner that we think could be successful. And you're saying you want this all to be all electric. That's our objective. That'd be so the best proposal would come in saying, "Here's how we think we can get the most number of units on this lot. Then this
is why we think the city will agree with us. Here's how we're going to do it all electric. Here, you know, X, Y, and Z." Um, if someone comes in and says, "We'll buy this lot from you for $600,000 and we're going to put up eight single family homes that are going to have all
gas appliances." We're going to have to seriously consider a figure like that, too. Um, but our objective, the ideal proposal would be all electric. And that's again part of how we keep the development costs down because we recoup the revenue for that.
So do you envision whoever does submit a a response to your RFQ are they going to come to the city and I I would ask for guidance with planning I would expect so yes our engineering yes so who's going to pay for all that extra
services the reason I say that because a developer puts together you know cost security agreement which pays for engineering responses to plans administrative work to the plans And so right now without a CSA, the taxpayers
are funding all of that. I think once if if they're getting to that stage, then they would need to have it. But if they have questions about what does this component of your development plan mean, you know, what is it of your zoning code mean? What does uh can I get access to your map? Things
like that. That's as you would expect to see from any other developer. I'm not I don't be the devil advocate. I'm just saying no there there there's a line to situations where we don't have a cost security agreement. All of a sudden we got a $12,000 bill from engineering and planning services and saying
that's my concern. Yeah. Yeah. And that's again part of why we we want to get some developers narrowed down first so that you don't have 20 different developers trying to do proposals generating. Yeah.
Yep. But I I will check with Mr. Baker and tell them, hey, when people are if they start calling and asking for that, pass them our way first and we'll make sure they have all the resources that we've already gathered uh instead and explain the level of detail we expect in
their RFQ. Well, I a comment as you were going through your slides and all of a sudden you hit it when you talked about density because I was curious how you you fit into our comp plan and density no doubt is in our comp plan and this definitely fits that. Yeah. and and I I I believe so I think
that the new language is around like 4.3 units per acre or something is mid is the R2 allowance um normal plan that high it's 10,000 square feet
for multi- housing R2 is what this just going to be proposed so that's yeah just over four maybe 4.1 or 4 so it's in there Um, I think we're, you know, we're really interested in compact. I would say compactness over density. Think about
that two different ways. Compactness is how you limit your infrastructure investment. Um, and so that's why I I know we're we're asking to go beyond. We're going to ask for a cup to go beyond. Do I think we're going to get to 10? I think we'd have to make a very
good argument to convince a lot of people. Um, but I would hate to go for 4.5 and and then find out we could have gone to five. So that's that's always my philosophy on the tenant projects. Back up. I I think the proposal is
14,000 square feet for multiple multi-ousing in R2 and 10,000 for single family in R2. So 14,000 is currently the for how many units on 14 for multi- units. So, whatever the R2
up to three, which so so right there you're actually at uh you're at like six units per acre right there. Acre acres 40,000 square feet.
Yeah. 43,000 or so. And yeah. Yeah. So they're you're almost maybe if if it's three per 14,000, you're almost at nine acres right there or nine nine units per acre right there. Yeah. And I think it's depending on how it gets a loted out, right? Like
and and that that that's part of why we're at the RFQ, not the RFP, because we don't know exactly how that's going to end up in the next couple of months. Um and there's different ways. There's also you we own a little bit of land around that. So, if it was, hey, we need to just guarantee that you're not going to see this other parcel go development.
We might do an easement or something. We've also talked about um so one of the developers that has already reached out does cooperative housing and um they would like they need to have a community center for their annual meeting. Well, depending upon how big it is, we could host that at the co we could have a
long-term agreement to host it at the co-op. Um so, there there's just so many fuzzy edges around this. That's why I don't want to get too down the road on any one style of development. Um there's a lot of a lot of stuff that could come forward. I'm not a housing developer.
Nobody in the co-op is. I would um in good hue I've seen where they've put up some senior I I guess I look at parking the land and maybe and more people together is they have and good you and some different things they have twostory or
whatever the less garage less cart because it's the seniors that are there so you you get your you get your density that you want um the turnover rate I would I think
depending on what it is would be greater because most people move in there at an older age and health-wise whatever the turnover three four years people are there they're gone the unit is is up um
in the housing is manageable that someone owns the stuff so that you know I always look at the upkeep and what it's going to look like when they put up a building a cheaper building what the life expectancy of that building. Yeah. To go down the road. In other words, it
turns into an eye a very eyesore. Nobody wants to do it. And someone says, "Well, put any more money in it. It's not worth putting money in." So, I'm always thinking when you in a plot like that is that I see it in I see it in all these little small communities. I think u up in Canon
Falls, they put a twotory right on the when you come off the bridge, your main thick way there for the seniors. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I I mean, I'm just saying is you have a parking lot. the people are in the parking lot and they don't need the garages because they can park a car or whatever. It's
just my thought when you look at this piece when I see this narrow piece like that that uh it's one person that owns it that you know that you go to you're dealing with one individual to make it look right and look good versus if I have 10
I I I I the housing when I go down uh behind the car dealerships in Rochester uh to witz did build the low the the housing where they had houses high density houses no garage, two together. And you drive
down those streets now and it's one of the biggest eyes I could see in Rochester. They're parking on there is no front yard. There is nothing. They're not taken care of. And this person takes care of half a house and this person over here doesn't. And when you go down through those neighborhoods, it is really totally an eyesore. And that
always is what I always look at to say, what do you have that one individual in that parcel? Yeah. And it's all electric and just a lot of things that the older people in other words electric their heat's taking care of everything's taken care of which
falls into your electrical thing. Whatever you do whatever and there's there's always turnover for more people coming into town they're aging to sell their place to be able to move in. So that's my Brian what I think of that. Yeah. And so again that co-op that I
mentioned that those developers that work on a project over in St. Peter um same thing. So, it's it's it's almost like a condo. They own the whole thing cooperatively and they're they're taking care of it. Um, I don't know that that's going to work out because of the style
of building. I don't think would would fit an Oronco, but they're they're looking at what some other building options would be if they could do a style that would fit and still be the cooperative model. Um, yeah, exactly. So, you mentioned these would be
purchased units. That'd be up to what the developer thinks will work. Mrs. Reynolds. Okay. So, with this being long and narrow, and I don't mean to get in the weeds real quick, but will this have two accesses? Uh, so in talking to Joe, it would be required to two or three even. So, one
thought was maybe you start with two off of Lake Shady and then when you do the the when you repave second Elm, depending upon which map you look at, um that you add another one off that side. Lot again, lots of options.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. Thank Yeah, because another kind of quirky thing is your rightway for Lake Shady Avenue is incredibly w far wider than it needs to be by standard, but you need some additional rightaway when second becomes a city street. So maybe looking at you
vacate 10 feet of of rightway on the Lake Shady side and condemn 10t of rightway on the Second Street side. Something like that. Those again are those really specific things we didn't want to bog down a proposal with.
but then make it again really more attainable for the city. So, so when you get the RFQS, do you see the process of coming to EDA or the council for um zoning or what what what's your
envision of getting acceptance from the city? We're kind of waiting to see what the volume is. Um, but I I think that we would seek at least staff input pretty early on. Yeah, it'd be to your and everybody's
advantage. So, Ryland, is that is this parcel of that narrowness about the same size that the city or had up at behind the gas and go for their septic system? Is that about the same acreage and the same
thing that this gas and go? I mean was good for the two sisters whatever that was all uh yeah that was that was a mound system across the street that yeah the city that's city property correct is that yeah city property correct
which the mound system was right behind they had a white fence that's just like what you have that was Tom's huh that was Tom's okay so that's not city property then no no okay I was just curious so the long narrow strip like that same type if they do one like this if that was a
if it work there. It would have works. You know what I'm Any questions for Marty? Well, it's an interesting concept. I like it because it does Yeah. And again, I think it's important to recognize um I I was honestly surprised when I pulled up your guys tax levy and then looked at that and that
that three and a half percent a meaningful meaningful number for sure. I think that needs to be kept in mind. And again, a couple couple hundred thousand dollars for uh water access when you only have to maybe put in two
two pieces. I'm sure Dave Dunn likes this approach. Yeah. And so we so we you know we we also worked with the county. We worked with uh Rochester Coalition for H Greater Rochester Coalition for Housing. I always forget what their name is. Uh we we sought some some input from few
people developer that works in the cities on some projects just hey what are we missing what are the things so we tried to tried to see around most corners but inevitably some corner there's going to be another corner we didn't realize was there and someone's going to surprise us but we'll deal with that though
uh I've got cards so if those of you who don't have my card I'll leave a few with card you can just put in the office and um if you Any further questions? Otherwise, I didn't realize they kind of got out the Highway 52, the the Golden Road.
Yeah, they went the whole whole way. Yeah. It's like the uh the golden spike on uh I90 over by Blue Earth. Ever driven over that? What's it? There's 15 feet of I90 when you go head west and it's where I90 met east to
west. but in two different places for the eastbound lanes and the westbound lanes because they didn't meet at the same place but they painted it they dyed the concrete so it's a different color it's go it's golden golden asphalt yeah you've driven over that like that's weird that's what it is
the golden spike for all the time thanks Marty thank you I Very good thank you am going to add that practice so I sent you all right should we move on Yeah. Um,
so speaking with Jason and Laura, we have money budgeted for a pedestrian trail planning and expansion. And one of the expansions possibilities was to possibly run a trail to Douglas Trail.
Is that correct? Um, two, one of two. And the other one was the other one was to follow the Lake Shady frontage road up Lake Shady on the west side. You Lake Shady north. Okay. To where it meets um Pine Island which
comes this way. Yeah. And then just run it there. Yeah. So we'll be working with the idea is just extend that all the way up to County Road five on the rightways. There's about a six foot rightway on either side.
Okay. There are some grants available uh safe city more looked at it today like safe routes to school. It's like a seven mile route from Orno to get to Pine Island school. Okay.
So we'll see if Yeah, we'll see if that's a possibility. Is that this MDOT safe routes? Yeah. And then there was active transportation planning assistance grant but those will open in 2026. So that would work with our park
um future or comprehensive plan, wouldn't it? The the bicycle route. Yeah, I think that's I think that works with a comprehensive that was a Yeah. Did anybody look at riding getting a route to Douglas Trail?
Well, that's on the the county project. There is a project of with rogue rog. At one time there was a plan to add a trail along 100 street from Oronoko to
um Douglas Trail and uh in the I was just looking at this the other day that Road has approved there was a public hearing in August I missed it of their bike trail plan this Iowa State or Minnesota
state school trail plan. Um it didn't identify 100 street but it had the blue line through the map of our area down 52 up to good view and then up to Redwing but um I don't know what the status of that
plan. One time it was 2026 but that was like three four years ago. Okay. And I don't know if it's in the plan yet or not to do that but that would be the other. It's not really a safe route to school. I mean it could be because you go to Douglas Trail and take Douglas Trail to the school goes right by it.
Right. Well, I'll do a little work on that. That slip I slipped through and I should have been doing that before. So, there's there's two different ways, but those are the ways that Rebecca and I were talking about with our previous EDA. So, okay. And you can by all means give How's she doing? Have you heard?
I have not she got a new job or not. Uh last I spoke with her uh she was managing a bar while she was looking for something more economic development related. So, she's working I'm sure she fit in right well based on her experience of being a bart
that before. Yeah, she's a bartender. Okay. Yeah, I'll get that out. Now, the other part of the trail system is from River Park, excuse me, Riverwood Hills. That's in our budget. It's in our CIP plan, not our budget. It's in our
CIP plan for to pave all of the remaining Riverwood Hills Park trails. It's like 132,000. What it doesn't include is a trail from um
mountain view, sunny view. I think it's Mountain Dew. This road right here, there's a little threeacre city park down to Third Avenue Southwest and then to 12 Street and then down to Lake Shady.
There's an area here. This it's a city park. It's city land. It's not a city park, but we mow it from this. We're just across the street. These this white gray is the Riverwood Hills Park from the playground. It goes up
here to Mountain View, this road here. Then it jogs over then goes down through this city property to third and that could be used for some design or design work as well or continuing the bike trail.
Right. And it also could be for striping you know for because long leg shy there is on one side there is you know so it could be used for striping. um all the way up through this area too on Lake
Shady or bicycle or wherever it needs to be shared going across the bridges that type of thing. So, all right. So, I'll you know, I'll stay on that uh reports open seat. We I did contact Carl Rogers.
I spoke to him and he was very receptive to the possibility of joining the economic development association. So, I'll uh continue that. He was going to fill out an application. Uh, so speaking to him, I haven't heard
anything from him in a couple weeks, so I'll give him a call this week to see how the Yeah, he want me to touch base. I can touch base. Yeah, that'd be great if you want to do that and let me know. Yeah. Uh, as far as networking this week or this month, I did contact the owner of the Gas and Go. It wasn't the most
fruitful contact. Uh, English is an issue. So, it was more nervous that I was from kind of the city. So, when I stop in there, uh, I'll I'll get more information because it's got new owners, the gas and go.
I spoke to Hilltop Campers and Tilly's and they're doing very very well. U spoke with Andre Wle Ringle about the possibility of an Eagle Scout. I kind of knocked those um possibilities down to something that an Eagle Scout could do such as a shelter or getting rid of
vegetation. saving the city some money. I met with Marty Walsh as we saw and I met with obviously with Whitney West Marketing or Tulip Tree Marketing with Whitney was the leader of
that and yeah, I'll continue those this month. And I think we're down to Laura Letter C. Okay. Um I just wanted to come down and introduce myself. Um, again, I'm Laura
Quali. For those that I didn't meet when you first came in, um, I'm I work with Kurt from CEDA. So, I'm technically the regional manager for um, the Goodill County and Dodge County areas. So, I
guess I'm Kurt's boss, um, which is kind of a weird thing, but, um, that's just what it is. So, I serve the Cannon Falls uh contract three days a week. That's also where I live. And then I serve the Dodge County contract one day a week. So, then that gives me
one day to kind of catch up and check in with my team. And I've been trying to make it to um an EDA meeting with in all the communities. So, has three different communities. um some of my other or other colleagues on our team serve um
three to four uh if they're a small contract. So trying to make my way through all of them before the year ends. So I just wanted to come down I didn't have a meeting I didn't have a council meeting that uh that I needed to attend tonight. So I wanted to uh make sure that I got in before the
snow started to fly. So good. Uh but if you ever have any questions or um concerns or whatever, uh don't hesitate to reach out. Um I've got some cards I can leave with you. Um we will have um I did we uh have a
phone conversation with uh Jason um Baker last week or two weeks ago uh just talking about what 2026 looked like uh for uh CEDA in your community. And um he did say that uh there that he's budgeted
to uh bump the contract back up to one day a week um so that Kurt can have more time to work on projects and whatnot in your community. So uh we did change it I know for 25 to just doing every other week or two days a month but uh Jason
has budgeted to go one day a week for next year. So, so our first year with CEDA was I think was it two days a month? Um I can't I think that it was it was
one day I you know that was before um that was because I've just been in this role um almost a year now. So I'm not sure what the original contract was. Um I know that it changed in 25 and it went down to the one single day because we cut back
on our budget. So, but it is in the budget proposal right now for one day a week, which I think is great. Yeah. To see it, support that. Um, Kurt does show up for our meetings, so just in case you're wondering if he does, he is here for all of them. So,
so um yeah, we're glad he's here. Well, that that's good to hear. So, one day a week is or one day a month is not a very efficient effective way to it's it's hard to get momentum. It is. It really is. Um, fortunately, we got
our branding program going, so that's that's a plus right now. So, but um, you know, and I've asked, um, and I, you know, told Cart, I said, you know, if you want to, you know, run the EDA packet by your agenda by me ahead of time, you know, so that I can kind of go
through. I've been with Ceda for five years, um, almost five and a half. Um, you know, I've seen quite a few projects, especially a lot of housing. I've worked on a lot of housing projects in Canon Falls. Um, and you know, just a
lot of other things as well. Um, so you know, if there's ever anything that I can, you know, kind of offer some suggestions or just different perspective that I'm happy to do that as well. So yeah, we've we've got a lot of potential for growth and there's a lot of things
happening now and once we get our codes in place that will kind of help yeah, eliminate that discussion. So yeah. So, I'll leave, like I said, I'll leave a few of my cards. Um, so if you ever have any questions or whatever, feel free to reach out. Okay. So, thanks for letting me crash your
meeting tonight. Well, thanks for coming down. Absolutely. All right. Any other comments for the group? Seeing none, I make a motion the meeting adjourned. I'll second that. All in favor say I.
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