City Council Worksession

Watertown City Council T Work Session Mayor Michael Walters Fred McGuire Adam Pawelk F Dan Schuette Kay Thul A 4/9/2024 - Minutes 1. Call To Order And Roll Call R Mayor Walters called the Watertown City Council work session to order at 5:40 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9, 2024 in the Council Chambers at City Hall. Councilmembers present: Mike Walters, Adam Pawelk and Kay Thul Councilmembers absent: Fred McGuire and Dan Schuette D City Staff present: City Administrator Jake Foster and Administrative Services Director Michael Sommerfeld 2. New Business 2.I. Family Focused Housing Discussion Jake Foster spoke on family-focused, family-intended housing. It's certainly been something that every community has been dealing with since, largely since COVID, that when inventory goes down, lot of availability goes down, building interest rates go up, labor costs go up, there's just this huge increase in the cost of what always was a traditional entry-level home. Mayor Walters, Councilmember Thul and I met with the School Superintendent, members of the school board, Chamber members, to discuss this in relation to declining enrollments and what can we do as a community to help provide some of that family-focused housing that young families, young professionals can afford to live in and not have that $400,000 plus mortgage. As a result of that conversation, I talked to Mark Kaltsas and asked what have we done, or what could we do, is there appetite for it, and is it reasonable? I just wanted to have a conversation, get the input from council, maybe receive direction to explore any of these avenues, or if there are other ideas, we can certainly dedicate some staff time to vetting them a little further. I would be remiss to you if I didn't say that both Hunter the school board chair, our president, as well as Darren Schuller the Superintendent and Kyle Jarvis were not able to attend tonight. So just to give a background on what the city's done to, A) entice development and B) have that development be somewhat reasonable for folks to own. As we've discussed, several of the last developments we've can certainly dedicate some staff time to vetting them a little further. I would be remiss to you if I didn't say that both Hunter the school board chair, our president, as well as Darren Schuller the Superintendent and Kyle Jarvis were not able to attend tonight. So just to give a background on what the city's done to, A) entice development and B) have that development be somewhat reasonable for folks to own. As we've discussed, several of the last developments we've done, have been planned urban developments, which have slightly decreased lot sizes in exchange for things like amenities where there's natural resource preservation, community buildings or facilities, we haven't really done that, elevated landscaping. So those are all these tools that you can use to make smaller lots in an internal, in theory, more affordable land, which turns into a more affordable house mortgage, etc. The most recent developments are Forest Hills, which actually has kind of a wide housing stack. So it's a PUD because there are some townhomes, some row homes, type of condos, some lower and higher T density single family homes, along with traditional single family homes. Rosewood States is a PUD townhome development, they do have several lots that have yet to be built. The previous developer has sold the remaining lots to a different one who has not built on that, but that is one opportunity for townhome development, which generally is a little more affordable for the end F user. Just to continue and review the Cove, which we talked about at length, obviously the south side of that one is a PUD which has the smaller lot and then at the north the single-family, which is great because then you just get a more diverse housing stock. Certainly, a quite a bit of green space and open space A that was preserved with that one, trees and what have you. One interesting thing the city did a few years back is the Oak Grove Estates developer didn't want to tie up capital and pay for a letter of credit. The land was owned free and clear. In lieu of the letter of credit to provide that security, the city attorney and their attorney worked out a way to use the actual land R itself to secure any issues with utilities or lack of development what have you. If something ever were to happen where they open up the streets, dig all the utilities, don't put anything, don't finish, the city has the ability to take that land, fill in the holes and then that is then city property. Jake also reported that in the last 12 years there have been 309 homes built. D Mayor Walters he reported that he met with 7 fellow mayors from Carver County last Friday and this was the biggest discussion on affordable housing. All of them said that the only way you can do it now is mutli-family complexes and multi-family homes. Councilmember Thul added there is a lot of discussion at the Commission on Aging meetings that there is no place for seniors to go. A lot of them are having a hard time staying in their homes aging in place, but they have to leave the community. There is no senior apartment building. If we did have a couple more slab on grade, one level smaller homes for older people, then that's going to open up some of the homes that seniors are in right now so other families can come there. Councilmember Thul also added, in reading the Missing Middle Housing Bill and researching all of that, Jake and I went down and talked about it at the Capitol. I don't agree with most of it, but some of that did talk about the building requirements in each of our zoning, like, you have to have 25% brick or natural stone on the front for aesthetics. Jake added that those other design standards are what typically are implemented via the development agreement process or the PUD ordinance process. Councilmember Pawelk added that for just the Council and future Councils in the City to consider some of those things and work with our planner and ask, what are other communities doing? You know, working with other city administrators, like, what are you doing? The Mayor meeting with the rest of the county mayors. I think there's a lot of ideas that can be shared, some of it may be applicable here and some of it may not be. Councilmember Thul continued, the other thing is that the age that we have here, we aren't a whole community of young families. In 2000, there were a lot of young families here, but it's 2024 and those kids are all out of college now and have moved on somewhere else. There are a lot of people that are 45 plus. I don't know that where the boom that happened in 2000 through 2005, those were all single family  some of it may not be. Councilmember Thul continued, the other thing is that the age that we have here, we aren't a whole community of young families. In 2000, there were a lot of young families here, but it's 2024 and those kids are all out of college now and have moved on somewhere else. There are a lot of people that are 45 plus. I don't know that where the boom that happened in 2000 through 2005, those were all single family homes and young families moving in, that's not really what we're seeing. People are staying here. We do have people that are living in Florida half the year, or we're aging because we like it out here. We like our small town. Jake continued that this is where he can have those conversations with the developer before they even have a concept in mind. Like, is this something you would be willing to do? Could we do this here? Let us see it and react to it. A big thing, Kay, mentioned was having the diversity in housing stock, which is a bit of an issue here now. Focusing on that diverse housing stock, which is just good planning T anyway, and that's something that Mark Kaltsas focuses on, and he knows that, and we know that. So we can certainly keep working with developers who are building townhomes and who are building these rural homes. In closing, Mayor Walters added, I think that everyone here in the city supports growth and supports F accommodating new homebuyers and accommodating increasing enrollment at the school. They are our biggest employer in town. If they're not growing, it's an issue for all of us, and we all want to work together, and certainly with the Chamber as well. 3. Adjournment Workshop meeting adjourned at 6:29 p.m. R A 309 Lewis Avenue South; P.O. Box 279, Watertown, MN 55388 __________________________________________________________ D Michael Walters, Mayor ATTEST:__________________________________________ Jake Foster, City Administrator