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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — NOVEMBER 7, 2024 7 meeting if there are three councilmembers or more participating. He doesn't believe an open meeting is the ideal negotiating strategy. Councilmember Holden agrees with Councilmember Rousseau. The negotiators need to know what is important to the Council, as a whole. Discussions regarding the depth and details need to happen before negotiations can be successful. She hasn't seen anything from the County that they are going to pay for affordable housing. Everyone talks about it, but she's not seen anything in writing. With the changes at the federal level, we can't be certain that grant funding opportunities will be available. The City needs to protect itself. Prioritizing the items is important, especially since we don't know what the deal with the County looks like. Mayor Grant said you can't get into the details because then you're showing your hand. They'll know what's important and it will be harder to get what we want. Councilmember Holden said that negotiations are public. Kori Land said that depends on who is at the table. If there are just two councilmembers at the table it's not an open meeting. Mayor Grant agrees whoever the two negotiators are, need to know what's important to the whole council. Public discussion needs to be at a high level otherwise the other party knows what you really want and you will get played. Councilmember Monson thinks everything on the Term Sheet folds into each other. A lot of it flows into the financials. She doesn't know how you can say one item is more important than the other. She thinks the first step is to go back to Bob Lux and talk about the items. It would be ideal if we had updated park plans. That can be a public discussion. We want to keep the civic site, we can discuss the Public Works Facility and TIF. She believes they all overlay each other. Councilmember Holden said that's how Councilmember Monson looks at it. There are more financial pieces to discuss. Councilmember Monson said the cost to build the parks vs. park dedication fee goes back to the Term Sheet and ties together. She doesn't know how to say one is more important than the other. We want to keep it all. Councilmember Holden said it has been repeatedly discussed the item of 10% ownership for affordable units isn't good enough. Homeownership should be the number one thing for the affordable housing. It was 20%, now it's 10%. She thinks that will affect the financials. Stacie Kvilvang explained that the 20% meant 20% of the overall units. The affordability requirements are higher. Of the affordable units, 10% are required to be owner occupied. Councilmember Holden said of the 500 units going in, she doesn't know how many affordable units are in that mix. How many affordable units will there be? At what level will they be affordable? How many are going to be Lux building? She knows that information is out there, we just haven't seen it yet.