Abby Nadeau
Staff Writer

In an effort to allow for more citizen input and additional information, the Forest Lake Affordable Housing Task Force has made a request to extend the Duffy Development/HSI settlement deadline.

Now the lawyers for the city and Duffy are in legal negotiations to determine if an extended deadline agreement can be made.

"The lawyers are trying to put an agreement together," said City Administrator Chip Robinson, "but any decision has to be approved by a full council."

However, the next city council meeting is not until Monday, Feb. 12. Therefore the group must continue on their rigorous schedule until an agreement is made.

If an agreement is made Robinson said the group would be able to adjust their schedules and work through the process more carefully.

If an agreement is not made, the group must stick to the May 1 deadline.

The May 1 deadline means that the task force's recommendations have to be reviewed by the planning commission, city council and be reviewed at a public hearing.

If the recommendations are accepted by those groups the information goes into the city's affordable housing amendment, as an addition planned for the 2007 comprehensive plan.

The amendment then must spend the next 60 days circulating through area cities like Scandia and Columbus.

The amendment would then be presented to the Metropolitan Council for their consideration. The completed amendment must be seen by the Met Council by May 1.

Deadlines

The plea for an extension came on Thursday, Feb. 1 when the AHTF discussed the need for more time.

Some task force members felt that information from the city was not provided in a timely manner and others felt not enough information had been provided.

Member Jim Heck opened the meeting by asking for additional task force meetings or an extension of the settlement agreement. He said he felt that the group was not receiving all of the information needed to make a valid recommendation.

Some members challenged Heck and asked what types of information he was speaking of, but others agreed with Heck and said they also felt there was not enough information, nor was information delivered to the members in a timely manner.

Task force member Dale Swanson agreed with Heck saying he felt the goals the group has could be "fine tuned."

"I have no expectation there will be a product that I would put my name on by the end of this meeting," Swanson said. "My request is that we set aside some more time."

The group then debated the timeline and what good more information would actually provide.

Swanson said that he felt the group has only accomplished "25 percent of the mission." He then continued to argue the role of the task force and where their responsibilities begin and end.

Council member Susan Young responded to Swanson's question of responsibilities and said she hoped the group could provide the planning commission and city council guidelines to help evaluate new housing in Forest Lake.

"You must give us some housing goals and ideas for specific tasks for instance purchasing tax forfeit land and making it available," Young said,
"ideas that you believe as representatives of your fellow citizens, that the city council can look to.

"It is not the charge of this group, from this council person, to implement the settlement agreement. That is going to be upon my head, I am going to have to deal with that. I hope to be able to do that with the tools that you all are coming up with."

However, John Buzza, of the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing, had a different impression of the goals of the task force.

He said that he agreed the group is not supposed to fulfill the settlement agreement themselves, but that a good faith effort to fulfill the settlement would be beneficial. He went on to speak about his concerns with the task force.

"I concur that not all the information has been given to them in a timely manner," Buzza said. "I am deeply concerned of the good will of the city of really incorporating citizen input. There is some input, but when it comes to crunch time the city does not allow for it [citizen discussion]."

Although the task force continued to discuss and evaluate their own roles, some progress was made to insure their weeks of struggles were valid.

Housing goals

During Thursday's meeting the group discussed over 50 possible recommendations on how to effectively incorporate affordable housing into the Forest Lake community.

At the very basic level, task force members agreed that they would like to see people who work in Forest Lake be able to afford to live in Forest Lake.

Task force members Pat Brain and Marcia Wielinski said they would like to list specific occupations that could qualify for affordable housing.

"Many entry-level positions would qualify for affordable housing like beginning teachers and beginning police officers," said Task Force member Debbie Feist.

The task force then spoke about the misconceptions that the term "affordable housing" produces and the need for education of affordable housing.

Overall the group discussed different types of goals and principles they would like to see the city adopt in their comprehensive plan.

From housing principles as simple as "the city of Forest Lake will create, preserve and improve existing affordable housing," to the more complex issues like "creating an affordable housing trust fund to manage city funds, programs, and accounts for maintenance and creating of new affordable housing."

The task force also evaluated goals for existing housing, goals to increase affordable housing and goals to increase housing maintenance. Within each goal the group decides what the goals are, ways of funding for the goal and how the goal can be implemented.

By the end of the meeting City Administrator Chip Robinson said he would speak with the city's lawyer Robin Wolpert and have her speak to Duffy's lawyers to try and push the May 1 deadline back.

However, he said he would make no promises.

Since neither of the groups have been able to come to an agreement the AHTF will still meet in a special meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at city hall.

The special meeting on February 6 was called to finalize all of the goals and recommendations the group has made. The goals and recommendations had to be finalized due to a planned joint meeting between the city council and planning commission on Feb. 8 at 6 p.m. at city hall. Those two groups are scheduled to discuss the housing study.

If an agreement on the extension is made on Monday, the group will re-evaluate their schedules.

If an agreement is not made the city will continue with its schedule of a events including a public hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 7 p.m. at city hall.

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