June 8th City Council Meeting

Well, the City Council met again last night to attend to some business. The agenda was a little shorter than usual, but the conversation was still brisk and we learned a lot about the EDA's housing partnership, which I will do my best to outline below.

On to the meeting:

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 with all of the Councilors present!

I opened the Public Comment Period and had Linda Kratt from Visit Cook County speak concerning a meeting of the downtown business owners and managers where they discussed various ways that the downtown could be beautified. They came up with some ideas such as unifying dumpsters so that there aren't quite so many floating around behind the buildings and asked the City for some attention to be given to the trees planted on the city streets, both in trimming the grass that grows up through the grates in the sidewalk and to the tree locations where the trees have been lost. They also asked whose responsibility the grassy section on the south side of Hwy 61 near the Visit Cook County office is. They will have continuing meetings to discuss these concerns and other items, such as the alleyways of the City. I told them to keep me updated on their meeting times and I will try my best to attend those meetings to represent the City.

No one else spoke for the forum so it was closed and we moved on to the Consent Agenda.

The Consent Agenda was the usual three items (Meeting Agenda, Bills, and Previous Meeting Minutes). Without too much ceremony there was a motion and a second and the consent agenda was approved.


Next came a Planning Commission report where there was a conditional use permit requested for the construction of a garage building in the residential zone that will have a home occupation (home-based business) located in it as well as an apartment.  The findings of the Planning Commission were that the proposed structure is within the setbacks and meets all of the criteria for approval, being that the proposed use (a beauty salon) is in line with the allowed conditional uses for the residential zone. The Council asked a few clarifying questions about the application, but it was approved.


The Council was then given a presentation by OneRoof, the affordable housing developer based in Duluth that the EDA has been working with to develop some workforce housing options for Grand Marais. This presentation explained the background of the organization, how their business works, how they plan to provide some housing developments for Grand Marais, and examples of some of the other homes they have developed in the Duluth area.

The presentation started out with what is proposed for Grand Marais: 7 single family houses. The property that they will be built on has been identified and is in process of being purchased. It is located on 2nd St. W. immediately to the west of the Homestead Property.
For clarity: OneRoof will be the entity purchasing and holding the land. They operate on a "Land Trust" model, which is the mechanism they employ to keep the cost of the homes low. OneRoof will own the land under the homes, but each home is deeded to each purchaser just like a market rate home is. The only caveat is that when the homeowner decides to sell, they can only sell for a certain percentage increase over the price that they paid, which is how the homes remain affordable over time. The OneRoof representative told us that the median house price in Grand Marais raised around 75% in the past 10 years, something that is very hard to manage when you are a lower income resident... (We knew that already).
*You can only own these homes if you homestead them as well and as long as they are your primary residence. This is aimed at making sure that the people living in these homes are working members of the community.

The homes would be developed on the property, spaced out and off of 2nd St. W., using housing assistance dollars from various granting organizations as well as through payments of pre-sales of the homes. Three of the seven homes are slated to be made available for people making 80% of our area's Median Income, which is adjusted based on the number of people in your household. If you are a one person household, that would be something in the neighborhood of $36,000/year. The rest of the homes are expected to fill the niche of those making up to 115% of our area's Median Income, which would be something like $50,000/year. Remember that these numbers are adjusted for the number of people in each household.
*It is important to note that OneRoof is looking at developing these houses for the demand that we have in our community. If there is a higher demand for the 80% houses, they will look into building more of those...

In regards to whether this is the right sector of our community to be building for, I think that we have to start building something. If we don't build anything then the situation won't get any better. The Land Trust model is likely going to be the cheapest option to build well-built, efficient homes for families and residents to live in.

The 80% homes will likely be 2 bedroom, 1 bath homes with a full, walkout basement. There will be a stumped in bathroom in the basement that could be easily added in my the owner of the house.

The 115% houses will likely have 2-3 bedrooms on a similar floorplan and would potentially have the 2nd bathroom in the basement finished out.

*These are all very early stage designs. Nothing is set in stone yet, although they want to start construction in spring 2017!

Because these houses will be built with assistance from federal and state agencies, there are certain standards that they homes must meet: They must be Energy Star certified, which means that they are efficient to heat and cool, as well as that they are outfitted with Energy Star appliances and utilize efficient lighting choices. This will lower the monthly operational expense of the homes, which will make them a good choice for those people who don't want to spend a lot of money on utilities and heat (which is most of us...).

So, how does someone get one of these houses? Well, they will open up pre-purchasing when the designs and schedule is all set and all you have to do is take a look at the houses, contact your bank (I believe that Grand Marais State Bank is working with them to make mortgages more accessible) and get approved for a mortgage, and then submit your offer, with your income information to OneRoof through a local realtor.

*It is important to note that OneRoof has various tools that can help people get approved for a mortgage for a Land Trust home as well as assistance with down-payments.

So, that is the basic summary of the presentation. I tried to put in all of the little snippets of useful information that I took notes about.


After that we moved on briefly to approve the last batch of hires from the Park Department for the summer. They were all approved, so I believe the Park Department is now at their summer staffing level.


That having been the extent of the items on the agenda, we moved on to Council and Staff Reports:

Councilor Moody reported that he has been spending his time working on getting the OneRoof presentation to happen... as it just did...

Councilor Benson asked again if the summer porta-potties had been placed and again urged the Council not to forget about bathroom development concerns.

I reported on a shorter list of meetings where the Library Board is beginning its budget meetings, I attended the Chamber's latest meeting to give an update on City Planning and other projects, there were a number of concerns raised regarding the "pop-up" store on 1st Ave. W. which I spent some time getting to the bottom of and found that with our current zoning, there is nothing out of line about that development. If you disagree, then I would encourage you to be a part of the City's planning process and make that clear so that your preference can be heard and considered. Other suggestions about that space were to make the curb cut in front of the space a parking spot since it isn't going to be a thoroughfare for cars anymore with the idea to be at least one handicap parking spot. I think that makes some sense... we will continue to look into it. I also will be doing a Proclamation for the Grand Marais Playhouse, which will be celebrating its 250th show this summer, which is remarkable for a small playhouse! Congrats! Also, in breaking news, I believe that I will be playing in a certain Alumni Football game this summer as I was invited/agreed to play even though I didn't graduate from CCHS. I DID graduate from a small school that played 9 man football though...

Councilor Mills reported that the YMCA had an emergency meeting concerning childcare in our community and is still in conversation with the Cooperation Station about a potential partnership. The Co-Working space in the old visitor's center (attached to City Hall) is almost ready to open, which the Broadband Commission is excited about. The Park Board took some public comment at their last meeting where they explained the different upgrades and projects that are happening at the park this summer to address a seasonal camper's concerns that there needs to be more improvements happening down there.

Councilor Kennedy reported that he attended the downtown conversations that Linda Kratt mentioned at the start of our meeting as well as an Active Living Steering Committee meeting where they discussed the proposed National Bike Route (Route 41) that would run from St. Paul to Grand Portage and how that organization may begin working on community food issues.

Administrator Roth had a few things for the Council. There were a few bids placed on items up at the Tomteboda site, which the Council accepted. If there is anything you would like that is on that property, make an offer to the City! We may accept it!
In addition, the Council will be meeting with one of the agencies that responded to the City's RFP for assistance with the Comprehensive Planning process on Tuesday to see if they are the organization the City should be working with. Administrator Roth also asked the Council to accept a contract with Moving Matters to hire someone to work with the MN-Department of Transportation to make sure that our Hwy 61 Redesign continues to go smoothly. This is a very good idea considering the amount of work that we have put into the process thus far. The contract was approved.


Following that we adjourned for the night.
As always, please contact me if you have any questions or comments!

**I will be re-issuing the last few meetings' blog posts as I got pretty busy this early summer and need to spend a little more time editing them!