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Regular City Council Meeting <br /> Monday, February 9,2015 <br /> Page 12 <br /> ture taxes, but essentially taxpayer money being used to subsidize a development <br /> project. <br /> Mayor Roe echoed the comments of Councilmembers Etten and McGehee regard- <br /> ing qualifications for "affordable" versus "market rate" housing, using his own <br /> previous experience as a recent college graduate as a Professional Engineer whose <br /> school debt and beginning salary qualified him for affordable housing rates. <br /> Mayor Roe noted that one of the problems the City of Roseville was attempting to <br /> address was some of those existing multi-family older buildings that were classi- <br /> fied as affordable due to their age and maintenance/upkeep issues making them <br /> less desirable for market rate rental fees. Mayor Roe opined that if the result of <br /> using taxpayer monies to assist with getting new, high-quality construction of <br /> multi-family housing in Roseville as a currently missing option, he was support- <br /> ive of such an improvement in making Roseville a better community. Mayor Roe <br /> noted that this would provide a broader range of affordable housing types to meet <br /> market needs beyond the single-family housing option. To seek to keep a portion <br /> of the units affordable by qualifying for tax credits, Mayor Roe opined made <br /> sense, and therefore he had no problem using TIF to gain workforce housing in <br /> Roseville, and in applying the number of units needed to get the project viable <br /> and to change use of the project site. Mayor Roe noted that, with funding provid- <br /> ed through grants and TIF, they only represented 22% of the total $40 million <br /> projected cost of the project, and only 9% to 10% funding from the City when <br /> grants were excluded from that total amount. Mayor Roe opined that this was <br /> what TIF was intended to be used for; and while understanding the concerns ex- <br /> pressed by the adjacent neighborhood, opined that they could be addressed, and <br /> noted the developer's willingness to further review or adapt their plans as much as <br /> possible to address the concerns expressed. <br /> Mr. Sherman confirmed that they were interested in making this a successful pro- <br /> ject for the City as well as for their development team, and even though there <br /> were a lot of moving parts, expressed his willingness to look at both buildings for <br /> consideration of an equal percentage of affordable units. Mr. Sherman offered, <br /> once further refinement was completed by his team, to return to the City Council <br /> with a number that worked. However, Mr. Sherman stated that he didn't think the <br /> assistance level from the City would change; and whether or not the Twin Lakes <br /> Parkway extension was approved or not, it made no significant impact for their <br /> project and was a decision for the City Council alone. <br /> Mr. Sherman reiterated his firm's long-term ownership commitment of the build- <br /> ing; and their typical high-quality construction materials. Mr. Sherman recog- <br /> nized that there was a strong possibility that they would lose a portion of their <br /> funding in mixing the affordable and market rate units in each building or by <br /> changing the percentage; however, he opined that they would attempt to meet the <br /> test and find other ways to address that. Mr. Sherman noted that the financing <br /> gap was larger than the TIF request, and since the project had been awarded sig- <br />