HomeMy WebLinkAboutCouncil Information Memorandum 11-14-2019CITY OF PLYMOUTH
COUNCIL INFO MEMO
November 14, 2019
EVENTS / MEETINGS
Housing & Redevelopment Authority Agenda for November 21 ............................... Page 2
Official City Meeting Calendars .................................................................... Page 3
Tentative List of Agenda Items ..................................................................... Page 6
CORRESPONDENCE
Metropolitan Mosquito Control District Summary ............................................... Page 8
Rockford Road Bridge over I-494 Fully Open to Traffic ....................................... Page 10
Capital Investment Committee Tour Set to Visit Plymouth Creek Center November 14 . Page 11
REPORTS & OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Economists Identify an Unseen Force Holding
Back Affordable Housing, The Washington Post ............................................. Page 12
CITY OF PLYMOUTH
AGENDA
Housing and Redevelopment Authority
November 21, 2019, 7:00 PM
Parkers Lake Room
1.CALL TO ORDER
2.PUBLIC FORUM
3. APPROVE AGENDA
4. CONSENT AGENDA—These items are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion.
There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a Commissioner or citizen so requests, in which
event the item will be removed from the Consent Agenda and placed elsewhere on the agenda.
4A Approve proposed September 26, 2019 minutes
4B Plymouth Town Square. Accept monthly housing reports
4C Vicksburg Crossing. Accept monthly housing reports
5. NEW BUSINESS
5A First Time Homebuyer and Owner Occupied Rehabilitation Programs.
Consider changes to the subordination policy
5B Senior Building Budgets. Review and approve the 2020 budget
6. UPDATES
7. ADJOURNMENT
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SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
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November 2019
3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR Phone: 763-509-5080 plymouthmn.gov
5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
Budget, CIP, Utility Rate Study Medicine Lake Room
7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING
Medicine Lake Room
5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Review Board and Commission Applications Medicine Lake Room
7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
SUN TUES MON THUR FRI SAT
THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
CITY OFFICES CLOSED
CITY OFFICES CLOSED
VETERANS DAY
CITY OFFICES CLOSED
7:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Plymouth Ice Center
7:00 PM HOUSING AND
REDEVELOPMENT
AUTHORITY
MEETING
Parkers Lake Room
Plymouth Arts Fair Plymouth Creek Center
Plymouth Arts Fair
Plymouth Creek Center
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SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
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December 2019
3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR Phone: 763-509-5080 plymouthmn.gov
7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers
5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Dundee Nursery Redevelopment Concept Plan Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
7:00 PM HOUSING AND REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING
Parkers Lake Room
SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT
7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Council Chambers
7:00 PM CHARTER COMMISSION MEETING Medicine Lake Room
7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING
Council Chambers
CHRISTMAS DAY
CITY OFFICES CLOSED
CHRISTMAS EVE
CITY OFFICES CLOSED AT NOON
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Old Fashioned Christmas Plymouth Creek Park
5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING Board and Commission Interviews Medicine Lake Room
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SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
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MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BIRTHDAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED
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January 2020
3400 Plymouth Boulevard Plymouth, MN 55447 OFFICIAL CITY CALENDAR 763-509-5080 plymouthmn.gov
7:00 PM PARK & REC ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETING Council Chambers
SUN TUES MON WED THUR FRI SAT
CHANGES ARE NOTED IN RED
7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING
Council Chambers
7:00 PM PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING
Council Chambers
7:00 PM ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE MEETING Medicine Lake Room
7:00 PM HOUSING AND
REDEVELOPMENT
AUTHORITY
MEETING
Parkers Lake Room
NEW YEAR’S DAY CITY OFFICES CLOSED
5:30 PM SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING
Renewable Energy Alternatives for City Facilities Medicine Lake Room 7:00 PM REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING Council Chambers
Absentee Voting begins for Presidential Nomination Primary Election
6:00 PM-8:00 PM Skate the Garden Millennium Gardens Pond
6:30 PM-10:00 PM After Hours at the Creek Plymouth Creek Center
Page 5
Tentative Schedule for
City Council Agenda Items
November 26, Special, 5:30 p.m., Medicine Lake Room
• Review board and commission applications
November 26, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers
• Oaths of Office to Firefighters Adam Kragthorpe, Jeremiah Steele, and Paul Mann
• Adopt amended Post-Issuance Debt Compliance Policy and procedures
• Authorize “No Parking” on the south side of 27th Avenue from Niagara Lane to 28th Avenue
• Approve final payment and Change Order No. 5 for Public Works Expansion project (15020)
• Approve Joint Powers Agreement with the State of Minnesota for Hotel Fire Code inspections
• Approve Payment No. 4 & Final for the 2018 Contractor Mill & Overlay Project (ST189004.002)
• Approve payment No. 4 and final for the 2018 Sanitary Sewer Lining Project (SS189001.001)
• Approve payment No. 2 and final for the 2019 Sanitary Sewer Lining Project (SS199001)
• Approve tree removal, trimming and hauling contract for 2020-2021
• Select and Approve Northwest Greenway Building Design and Authorize Advertisement for Bid
Package Two
• Public hearing on the On-Sale Intoxicating Liquor License application with Sunday sales of
JSGMP LLC d/b/a Green Mill Restaurant and Bar, 2705 Annapolis Lane North
• Consider 2020 Legislative Priorities
• Consider Variance to side-yard setback to allow a garage addition for property located at
17510 25th Avenue North (2019076) (Tabled from November 12)
December 3, Special, 5:30 p.m., Medicine Lake Room
• Board and Commission interviews
December 10, Special, 5:30 p.m., Medicine Lake Room
• Dundee Nursery Redevelopment Concept Plan
December 10, Regular, 7:00 p.m. Council Chambers
• Recognize Police Citizen Academy graduates
• Approve 2020 Target and Trap Shooting License renewal
• Approve 2020 Amusement License renewals
• Approve 2020 Tobacco License renewals
• Approve Change Orders No. 4-5 and Payment No. 8 and Final for the Schmidt Lake Road at I-
494 Expansion Project (ST180003) and the Fernbrook Lane Mill and Overlay Project (ST189002)
• Award bids for lower level City Hall Office Remodel project
• Public hearing on 2020 budget, general property tax levy, HRA levy, and 2020-2024 Capital
Improvement Plan
January 14, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers
January 28, Special, 5:30 p.m., Medicine Lake Room
• Renewable energy alternatives for City facilities
January 28, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers
• Appoint election judges for the March 3 Presidential Nomination Primary Election
Page 6
February 11, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers
February 25, Regular, 7:00 p.m., Council Chambers
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Page 8
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City of Plymouth
News Release
For Immediate Release
Nov. 7, 2019
Contact: Chris LaBounty
City Engineer
City of Plymouth
763-509-5541
clabounty@plymouthmn.gov
Rockford Road bridge over I-494 fully open to traffic
Plymouth, Minn. – The Rockford Road (County Road 9) bridge over I-494 and all ramps are open to
traffic.
All construction activities are scheduled to be wrapped up and traffic control signage/cones removed
from the site by Wednesday, Nov. 20. Remaining construction items will be completed in the spring of
2020.
To protect curbs from snow plows and provide a smoother ride through winter, crews will paint
temporary pavement markings, grade the boulevards and place pavement wedges on the approach to
the bridge deck.
Remaining Items set for Spring
In spring, crews will complete final paving of Rockford Road and trails on the east side of I-494, finish
final soil restoration and install permanent striping, fencing and railings.
The remaining work will require temporary lane shifts, but disruption to traffic will be minimal.
The City of Plymouth thanks area businesses, residents and motorists for their patience during the
project.
For more project information, plymouthmn.gov/RockfordBridge.
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City of Plymouth
Media Advisory/Photo Opportunity
Issued Nov. 8, 2019
State House Capital Investment Committee set to visit
Plymouth Creek Center Nov. 14 to learn about city bonding request
What: Members of the media are invited to attend as the Minnesota House Capital Investment
Committee visits the Plymouth Creek Center as part of a House Bonding Tour.
The City of Plymouth has requested a state contribution of $15 million for a $52 million expansion and
renovation of the Plymouth Creek Center, a regionally-significant facility that draws about 300,000
visitors annually. Built in 1999, the Plymouth Creek Center includes an activity center, fieldhouse dome
and the Millennium Garden.
Photo and interview opportunities are available.
When: 1:15-1:45 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14
Where: Plymouth Creek Center, 14900 34th Ave. N.
Who: State lawmakers will visit the Plymouth Creek Center to learn more about the facility and the
bonding request from city officials, including Mayor Jeff Wosje, City Manager Dave Callister and Parks
and Recreation Director Diane Evans.
State, county and Metropolitan Council officials representing Plymouth have also been invited to the
event.
Contact: Event information – Communications Manager Helen LaFave, 763-509-5090
or hlafave@plymouthmn.gov
Project information – Parks and Recreation Director Diane Evans, 763-509-5201
or devans@plymouthmn.gov
Background: The Plymouth Creek Center renovation and expansion project began in 2016 with a
feasibility study and progressed to a year-long community engagement process in 2018.
Project amenities include gymnasiums, a year-round indoor walking track, an indoor playground,
multipurpose rooms, fitness/wellness rooms, art rooms, redesigned Black Box Theater and more.
The project cost estimate is $52 million, which includes about $8.7 million for needed maintenance and
renovation of the existing building.
For more information about the project, visit plymouthmn.gov/pccproject.
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Page 11
Economists identify an unseen force holding
back affordable housing
A completed house in Brandywine, Maryland, in 2013. (Gary Cameron/Reuters)
By Andrew Van Dam, Reporter focusing on economic data October 17
When the smoke cleared after the Great Recession, the home builders who
survived were in a surprisingly strong position. They had fewer competitors
and more power in their local markets. They have since built on that
advantage, consolidating until many markets are controlled by just a few
builders. Their power has exacerbated the country’s affordable-housing crisis,
some economists say.
Page 12
U.S. housing debates rarely involve the “O” word. But oligopolies, a cousin of
monopolies in which a few powerful players corner the market, are emerging
everywhere. From 2006 to 2015, the number of builders who controlled 90
percent of a typical market dropped by a quarter, according to a recent
working paper by economists Luis Quintero and Jacob Cosman of Carey
Business School at Johns Hopkins.
The economists find this dwindling competition has cost the country
approximately 150,000 additional homes a year — all else being equal. With
fewer competitors, builders are under less pressure to beat out rival projects,
and can time their efforts so that they produce fewer homes while charging
higher prices.
From 2013 to 2017 home prices grew more than twice as fast as they would
have if the market hadn’t consolidated, the economists found.
To be sure, industry experts note that the creeping oligopolies that have come
to define the housing market are often a symptom of deeper problems with
scarcity of land, cost of labor, restrictive zoning, NIMBYISM (also known as
not-in-my-backyardism) and the financial markets.
On a national scale, mergers among building behemoths, such as Lennar’s
2017 union with CalAtlantic, have increased the market share of the top 20
builders from 21 percent in 2008 to 29 percent in 2018, according to the
National Association of Home Builders. But a casual observer still might not
consider the housing market as an oligopoly. After all, there are still thousands
upon thousands of builders across the country.
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But oligopolies in housing are fundamentally different due to three simple
factors, which we will list for the first time here: location, location and
location.
Consumers are shopping for homes in a narrowly defined town, suburb,
neighborhood or other market, and the only competitors that matter are those
within the same market, Quintero said.
To understand the difference, consider the cardigan sweater. They are easy to
ship, and — if we’re being honest — one wool sweater is about as good as the
next. Consumers who could not afford something knitted in Virginia could still
get an affordable sweater from a supplier in Alaska or Arkansas.
But land is not like sweaters. It is harder to ship across state lines, for one
thing. A beautiful shovel-ready plot in Alaska is useless to a federal worker
who’s being priced out of the market in Northern Virginia. A wealth of
competitors in Anchorage would do little to intimidate a developer in
Arlington.
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Quintero and Cosman evaluated data from Metrostudy, a housing-data firm
whose representatives pore over local records and visit sites to track
construction progress. They analyzed data from 137 local markets stretching
from the southern suburbs of D.C. to the northern suburbs of New York City.
They extended their analysis to the rest of the country using federal data.
To exclude less-competitive markets, they limited their analysis to Census
Bureau-defined places with at least 25,000 residents.
By 2015, most of the 137 housing markets they studied were concentrated in
the hands of just a few builders, according to a metric government regulators
use for antitrust calculations. That’s a large increase from 2006, when the
economists’ analysis begins, and enough to raise red flags among regulators if
it happened at the national level.
Page 15
Oligopolies are theoretically linked with higher prices, but Robert Dietz, chief
economist for NAHB, said it is difficult to disentangle consolidation from the
other forces making housing expensive in the United States.
Housing and land costs could be a cause of consolidation, not an effect. As
land prices and other costs rise, developers sometimes acquire smaller
competitors to gain access to their inventory of lots, Dietz said. “Market
concentration is occurring in many markets, but it is often due to a lack of
land and a lack of builder loan availability.”
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Ali Wolf is an economist with Metrostudy’s sister company, Meyers Research.
She agreed land availability, along with the costs of labor, regulation and
materials, is driving the lack of affordable housing as well as the consolidation
in the industry.
“Land is a scarce resource, and once you use it, it’s gone,” Wolf said, adding
later that “it’s not like we have those huge tracts of land in the most desirable
cities that are available to be built on today like in the past.”
The largest builders are national publicly traded companies that have thrived
even as new-home construction remains far below historical levels, but
success in real estate is local. Relationships with city or county officials, which
oligopolies have used to cement their advantage since the recession, are often
decisive.
Brookings Institution affordable-housing expert Jenny Schuetz praised
Cosman and Quintero’s analysis and said that while market concentration
helps explain part of the housing shortage in high-cost regions, the debate
always comes back to expensive regulation and its cousin, NIMBYISM.
NAHB estimates that from 2011 to 2016, regulatory costs rose 30 percent to
$84,671 for a typical new U.S. single-family home. That is a high bar for
smaller builders to clear.
“Most of the ordinances and rules under which the county building and zoning
departments operate are so convoluted and confusing that they don’t mean
anything,” local developer and Washington Post columnist Justin Pierce wrote
in April. “The entire system benefits the large developers who pay huge impact
fees to the county and strike deals to get a project passed,” he added later.
Big firms’ advantages are compounded by their access to capital and credit,
Schuetz said. They can hoard land for years and try to time the market, which
further restricts the supply of new housing.
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“If zoning and other local permitting processes are complicated, land is
expensive, and the time needed to develop a project is long, then only large,
well-capitalized, politically savvy developers will be able to build,” the
Brookings fellow said.
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