08-15-07 EDC Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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EDC Minutes August 15,2007 Page 4 of6 Scorecards: The Mayor indicated there are two separate report cards - one for housing and one for commercial. He said most of the evaluation criteria seemed job-based and indicated we already have a disproportionate amount of people working in the City and not living here as opposed to both working and living in the City. Community Development Director Barton suggested adding language regarding "job retention." Mayor Harpstead indicated that currently the City is under pressure to maintain neighborhood businesses. Ed Von Holtum noted that he polled 5 residents and said two of the younger residents he polled wanted more of the "chain store" type businesses. He said of the 3 older residents polled, they were more concerned with keeping the neighborhood businesses rather than pulling in "chain store" type businesses. Rob expressed he thought if the City had a vision for the character of a neighborhood, the residents could then buy into it. Community Development Director Barton said Arden Hills definitely has an aging population right now and the Mounds View School is suffering right now because of it. She indicated the City needed to maintain the school by attracting younger residents. She indicated the median age of residents who attended the recent Comp Plan meeting was 61. The Mayor said we need to give credit and point value to development beyond just creating jobs. The services this City needs do not require high-paying jobs. Chair Kunkel suggested seeing what other cities had for a grading report card. Community Development Director Barton noted that a lot of other cities do not have a grading report card. Mayor Harpstead said this grading card also helps to facilitate discussions with potential developers. Ed Werner said he had some previous stats that said of the 13,000 people working in Arden Hills, less than 3,000 lived here as well. He said he would find this information and send it to the group. The Mayor thought if the demographic of a 5 mile radius was conducted, we might find that there is a great ratio of residents living in Arden Hills and working within this 5 mile radius. Mayor Harpstead said under the "Housing" section, he needed clarification and suggested a "saddle curve" be used. Community Development Director Barton said the sentence ratio needs to be flip-flopped (it was worded wrongly). The Mayor suggested a ratio of 50-50. Nancy said low income housing can be incorporated into a development. The Mayor noted that he liked the Heritage Development in North Minneapolis where low income housing is in the mix of the development without anyone particular property having to stay that way. The point he is making is he doesn't want one building, or one particular unites) designated as low income. Dale asked if there is any reason the scorecard uses both a letter and a number grading system and wondered why we can't use just numbers. The group agreed to just use numbers for grading only.