09/17/15 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

He stated this is showing on the side of affordable and there are some points there. He reviewed a few other projects done in the City with the EDA and noted what areas scored higher than PSD. Econ. Dev. Mgr/Assistant City Administrator Brama stated reading through the application the only minimum thresholds or any qualifier that he has pulled out is that all applicants must be in one of the following thresholds that are outlined in the document and there are a handful of goals and based off of that one indicator, this project does meet one goal and partially meets two other goals. Development Services Manager Gladhill stated on page 4 of the policy draft one of the goals is to provide a variety of housing options for people of all life stages and income levels so in looking back this does meet that goal. Chairperson Steffen stated this is just one of the tools they would use to analyze a subsidy and is not the only one. Development Services Manager Gladhill stated a lot of housing assistance programs out there with proximity to transit will score very high and as soon as Ramsey's rail station opened up they started to see requests for housing assistance quite frequently. He stated they needed a tool to try to gauge success amongst each other. Member Burandt asked what the unanticipated project costs were. Econ. Dev. Mgr/Assistant City Administrator Brama stated there are two major items PSD has outlined as unanticipated project costs. He stated the first was the increase in project costs over the past year has been significant so they have identified that as part of the reason for the gap in their Proforma and second is the amount of fill they have had to provide on the site. They have imported a significant amount of fill that was not anticipated for the project. He believed they were at an unanticipated cost much larger than $500,000 however that is what they need to move the project forward. Ms. Stacy Kvilvang, Ehlers, stated it is hard to compare each project to another because they are apples and orange and are meeting different goals. Ms. Kvilvang gave a brief overview of her memo to the EDA. She stated their recommendation is if the City chooses to move forward that it be a pay as you go TIF assistance and will be paid off in four years. With pay as you go, they have to construct the project and pay the taxes and as they pay the taxes they will get a portion of that rebated over a four-year period back to them. Chairperson Steffen asked why costs differ from city to city and is that based on land cost and fill. Ms. Kvilvang stated the biggest factor is land cost. Chairperson Steffen asked if they did not have fill brought in would they still be asking for TIF assistance. Economic Development Authority/September 17, 2015 Page 3 of 6