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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORKSESSION — DECEMBER 18, 2023 14 the community. She talked with people that have said it would be nice to have a bar that you could walk to, not just something like an Applebee's, she wondered how do they get those businesses to come to our community. Councilmember Fabel stated that all of those considerations are certainly valid. He told Mayor Grant that he keeps coming back to the fact that the southwest parcel has been changed; he fought that battle and lost that battle so he should get over it. The decision was made that the project was going to have more housing than the Mayor supported, even at the price of removing some commercial property. There is a lot of commercial space remaining. The JDA is a partnership between the County and the City. Certainly, the City has the legal obligation in zoning but it is done as part of a partnership. They want to develop the area to the west in a way that is constructive, will bring in employment, good paying jobs and small business opportunities as well. There is no reason to think the developer and the County are not also on board and want it to be a beautiful development that brings people in and that is going to happen. All of those items are laid out in the term sheet and he encouraged the Mayor to take a closer look at it to see what all the objectives are that are being pursued by the partnership. Part of the decision made by the partnership and now made by the City Council is that they are not to increase the amount of housing over that which had been previously agreed to by the City to a larger number. They have a decision to make in January of whether or not they will amend the Comprehensive Plan to accommodate that, and after that if it gets turned down, they're back where they were before and they can start talking about adding to commercial property again. But the votes that have been taken by the City Council are that they want additional housing and that area is needed for the additional housing they're going to have. The remaining property is for commercial development as a partnership with the City, County and developer and they're going to want to come in with constructive, creative, job producing opportunities that are in the interest of the City. Councilmember Holden said no one seemed to be concerned about the jobs that were lost until the Mayor brought it up. Secondly, she heard the Mayor saying they lost those 32 acres and they need to make accommodations so they still have jobs and what they have there is not meeting the expectations of filling the number of jobs up to 4,000 and making sure they are decent, well paying jobs. She encouraged the Mayor not to stop worrying about the number of jobs on TCAAP, they need the jobs because they are increasing the population. They want people to go there and eat at the restaurants during the day. It's hard to have a nice bar they can walk across the street to if the bar can only be open from 4:00-8:00. Mayor Grant responded that initially when he brought up the concept of jobs it was the loss of what the 32 acres could have brought. His point was they now have approximately 80 acres left and they need to make sure there are good jobs there. They have a precious asset of 80 acres and he wanted to make sure it was utilized in good fashion. He was hearing that they should just let the developer tell them what it should be, the developer is going to say what's going to be best for them, not necessarily for the City. Councilmember Fabel did not need to tell him about what the agreements are and what the committees are and say the word partnership again. He would remind Councilmember Fabel that he put those agreements into place; he knows what they are as he word-smithed them for the better course of a year. Councilmember Monson asked if there was any interest in having the developer come to discuss the goals that were set in 2016. Assuming the County signs an agreement on Outlot A, maybe that developer. She would prefer to have Mr. Lux there because he is their developer.