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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026.03.09 CCM WORK03/09/26 -1- MINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER IN THE COUNTY OF HENNEPIN AND THE STATE OF MINNESOTA WORK SESSION MARCH 9, 2026 CITY HALL – COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER The Brooklyn Center City Council/Economic Development Authority (EDA) met in Work Session called to order by Mayor/President April Graves at 8:01 p.m. ROLL CALL Mayor/President April Graves, Councilmember/Commissioners Teneshia Kragness, Dan Jerzak, Kris Lawrence-Anderson, and Laurie Ann Moore. Also present were Interim City Manager Daren Nyquist, Interim Deputy Manager and Public Works Director Liz Heyman, Housing Community Standards Manager Xiong Thao, City Clerk Shannon Pettit, and City Attorney Siobhan Tolar. ACTIVE DISCUSSION ITEMS Councilmember/Commissioner/Commissioner Moore asked if the water meter conversation was finished. Mayor/President Graves said she thought so. Mayor/President Graves asked Ms. Heyman if she got the answers that she needed on the water meters, or if there were any lingering questions she needed answered. Ms. Heyman said she thought so, and the plan would be to come back to the Council with an ordinance change regarding a fine structure, and the City will not be paying for any valve improvements. Ms. Heyman said she did want to bring something up that the Interim Finance Director, Dan Tinter, brought up, that the Council can discuss when the ordinance draft is brought forward, but there would be an option for the property owner to agree to put a valve replacement on the assessment roll right when it happens. Mayor/President Graves said she thinks more options are better than fewer options. Ms. Heyman said if Council is supportive of that, it can be brought forward the next time they discuss it with Council. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked to clarify that there is no consensus to shut off the water. The Council agreed it was not the consensus. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked in terms of process, then there would be a fourth letter and a field notice two weeks after the third letter, a hand delivery, and some door tag, and then what, since the consensus is not to shut the water off or at least threaten to shut it off, then what will happen. 11/10/25 -2- Ms. Heyman said the consensus of the Council was to look into a new ordinance that would allow the City to levy a fine, in the absence of shutting the water off. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked what the timeline is to get that into place and do the research. Mayor/President Graves said it would be discussed at the next meeting. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore thanked the Mayor/President for clarification. RENTAL LICENSE PROGRAM CHANGES Mr. Nyquist introduced Xiong Thao, Housing Community Standards Supervisor, to discuss the next iteration of proposed rental license program changes. He noted that Staff heard feedback at the last meeting and will go over updates and have further conversations. Mr. Thao noted that Staff has brought this issue to Council over the last several months, and at the last meeting on January 12, 2026, specific questions were asked regarding the rental license program. He added that the purpose of this Work Session is to go through the requested changes in the form of a proposed ordinance amendment, which is in front of Council. Mr. Thao explained that currently there are 551 active rental licenses at the City, and these do not include the different milestones for the rental programs, such as expired or pending licenses. He added that under the proposed amendment, type one licenses would lose one year off their licenses and pay more frequently, while type three and four licenses would gain additional time on their licenses and pay less frequently. This would increase the number of inspections for 210 licenses by going to the two-year license program. He noted that Staff expect to see an increase in complaints and property code violations for type three and type four licenses due to increased time between inspections. Mr. Thao continued that the proposed ordinance eliminates the performance-based rental license program and implements a rental license that is valid for two years. The rental license would be issued administratively by City Staff and would no longer go to City Council for approval. The license would be issued prior to passing the rental license inspection, which was discussed at the last Work Session. He explained that after the rental license is issued, the property owner will have 90 days to pass the rental license inspection. He added that the proposed ordinance changed the transfer license language to allow licenses to transfer to a new owner as long as the owner passed inspection and the license is issued within six months. Mr. Thao added that after discussion with Council, the proposed ordinance removes the eight-hour Crime Free Housing training requirement, the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) inspection requirement, the submission of an Action or Mitigation Plan requirement, and the Police calls for service in determining the license type. He explained that Staff are proposing that the ordinance keep section 12-911, which allows the City to enforce conduct on the property for Police calls for service, and the City would retain the ability to ask a property owner to act against tenants who continue to violate section 12-911. He continued that language would also be changed to address licenses that do not complete the application process within the 90-day 11/10/25 -3- inspection period will be considered an incomplete application and will be required to reapply for a new license. Mr. Thao explained that the City would still be sending license renewal reminders at 120, 90, 60, and 30 days before the license expires, and this does not prevent the owner from renewing outside of those dates, as long as they renew, the Staff will schedule the inspection and get a new license before the license expires. Mr. Thao explained the next steps and said Staff plans to meet with the Housing Commission on March 17 to provide an overview of changes to the rental license program. He noted that at this time, Staff has not met or presented the proposed amendments to rental property owners or tenant advocates. The earliest that he could bring the amendments to Council would be April 13, given the notice requirements, and because it is an ordinance amendment, it requires a first and second reading with a Public Hearing. He added that if the ordinance is adopted, it will go into effect 30 days following publication. He asked if the Council had any questions or updates for consideration. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak said Mr. Nyquist introduced Mr. Thao as a Supervisor, but said his title is Manager now, so out of respect, that needs to be corrected. He said he is not opposed to the police calls for service under section 12-911 and thinks it can be effective, but it was problematic when police calls were not tied to rental tiers and did not affect the tiers. He asked Mr. Thao to explain to the Council how this would work then. Mr. Thao said Staff are proposing to leave section 12-911 titled Conduct on License Premises, and this essentially means that if a 911 call goes into the system and police go to the property and validate the call for one of the violations in the ordinance chapter, then the police would send a first notice to the property manager informing them. He continued that if there is a second 911 call and the police validate, then a second notice is sent to the property manager to take enforcement action against the tenant. He noted that if police are called to the property a third time, then the police would notify the property owner and ask the owner to consider lease termination. Mr. Thao said this would reserve the right for the City to continue those processes if it is kept in the ordinance, without it, there is no way to enforce police calls for service that have been validated under section 12-911. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak thanked Mr. Thao for that explanation and said he assumed this has been run through the Police Department, and they are on board because it is an effective tool. Mr. Thao confirmed the Police Department is on board. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak asked if there was an option in there to write administrative citations. Mr. Thao said there is no section regarding administrative citations, but the City can still issue administrative citations for property and license violations. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak said he understands that there is not a final ordinance yet, which is why this has not gone to the Housing Commission yet, but his understanding was that the Housing Commission is not able to make a quorum, and he is not interested in delaying this ordinance change anymore. He added that there have been meetings both with tenants and landlords, so they know, and it has been made public. He said he understands they have the Housing Commission for feedback, but this delay will affect rental licenses that are upcoming, and if it is a larger building that goes into the old tier system, they may defer maintenance costs because 11/10/25 -4- it has to be brought back for license renewal under the new ordinance. He noted his other concern is that, because it is IPMC-related, and just shuffling the chairs on the deck will not do any good, this is meant to be a balance between the tenant and those things. He said regarding more complaints from tenants, if the landlord is not repairing or doing things that have always been the role of the rental license. He said he does not think the City will see much of an increase in violations if they are inspecting these buildings more than every three years. Inspectors are going to see better-maintained properties. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore said she concurred with Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak, the Housing Commission has talked about rental guidelines for the past few years, and she does not want to delay it and go to the Housing Commission. She apologized to Mayor/President Graves and said she had meant to mention that the Council needs to discuss the quorum status of meetings of the Commissions. She added that this is advisory, and she does not think this should be delayed any longer, since they have been talking about this for a long time. She thanked Staff for being diligent and doing the work to update this ordinance and get this in place, and it is a balance between Staff going out to make sure these properties are up to code, so to speak, and providing clarity for the tenants and property owners with the inspection process. She reiterated that she does not want to delay this ordinance change and would like to see it at the next meeting if that is possible. She said she does not know what Mr. Nyquist has on the agenda for the next meeting this month, but she does not want to see this delayed any further. Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson said she was concerned that some of the problematic properties are going to have a two-year license. She said she has read the information and heard that the six-month provisional was intended to be somewhat punitive by nature, and it is probably very problematic for City Staff to be in those properties that frequently. She said they will all see how this goes. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak said he anticipated Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson's question, and it is a fair question, but removing the tiered section for rentals would not matter anyway because the type four rentals kept repeating and never had them come for revocation, which has been discussed and is not the option they wanted to take. He continued that oftentimes, these type four rentals would continue to repeat and would become an administrative burden because the license would expire before the next one would happen. He said that it is a fair question and they do not know the answer, but if this is not working Staff should bring it back to the Council. He said everyone has put a lot of work into this, and it is time to move forward. Mayor/President Graves said she has some of the same concerns that were already voiced, especially when the changes are just bullet points, and there is no nuance to them, which sounds kind of crazy. She said changing the language to issue the rental license prior to passing the rental license inspection sounds crazy, but there is a good reason to do that. She stated she always wants to get as much input in decisions that are going to affect them as possible, and there has been a lot of work with tenants and landlords as part of this ongoing discussion that has been ongoing for a while. She said it is important to be clear on why these changes are being made in the ordinance, 11/10/25 -5- because the bullet points may not make sense. She added that when Staff are communicating about it, it is important to have that additional context and nuance explained. She said that may make things harder, but it is important for people to buy into the new system. Councilmember/Commissioner Lawrence-Anderson asked if they could request a presentation and update on this ordinance change six months after it goes into effect. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak said he would agree with a follow-up presentation, and if it helps, he brought all 60 pages that have been previously discussed with this ordinance in case he needed them, because oftentimes, people forget the reasons for changing the ordinance. He said Brooklyn Park does the inspection after issuing the license, and there seems to be a balance there, and no one hears a lot of problems about rentals. He added that Brooklyn Center is not doing this alone, and the IPMC is in Brooklyn Park, where they also have a two-year license, and the difference is that Brooklyn Center added a deadline of 90 days. He continued that as far as he is aware, there is one property which everyone is aware of that has changed hands now, and there have not been significant problems, and that came out during discussions that Staff had regarding the number of landlords. He said he understands going back to the Housing Commission, but he would like to make a motion. Mayor/President Graves said she is not suggesting it go to the Housing Commission, and normally she would want as much input as possible, but because she knows there has been a collaborative effort over an extended period of time, she is encouraging that there is a clear message and context and nuance explaining the changes as this gets rolled out. Councilmember/Commissioner Jerzak said he would also like to be clear that they are not revisiting tenant protections for the record; this is for the rental license process, because there was concern about that. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked if Mr. Nyquist could confirm that this could be an item on the next meeting's agenda, because this is just a Work Session item, and there is no motion on the table for the ordinance changes. Mayor/President Graves said it was a Study Session item. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked if Mr. Nyquist could confirm that it can be on the agenda for the March 23 meeting. Mayor/President Graves said that might be too fast for Staff to turn around the ordinance. Mr. Nyquist said they missed the notice and said Ms. Tolar may need to look over some more drafted language, so two weeks would be tight. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore asked if Mr. Nyquist could confirm that it would be discussed during the first meeting in April, then, because Staff will have plenty of time for notice, changes will be made. Mr. Nyquist said that would be a safer bet. Mayor/President Graves said that the meeting would be on April 13. Mr. Thao confirmed that April 13 would be the earliest, because of the public notice requirements, and there will be a public 11/10/25 -6- notice and a Public Hearing on April 13. He added that the second reading will include the adoption of the ordinance changes. Mayor/President Graves said since they are waiting that long anyway, she encouraged Staff to go ahead with their plans and meet with the Housing Commission, and if there is additional feedback from tenants and landlords, she would be interested in hearing it. Councilmember/Commissioner Moore thanked Mr. Thao for the presentation and his work on this. CITY-WIDE WATER METER CHANGEOUT PLAN: POLICY DECISION DISCUSSION This item was moved to the Study Session. ADJOURNMENT Mayor/President Graves moved, and Councilmember/Commissioner/Commissioner Jerzak seconded adjournment of the City Council/Economic Development Authority Work Session at 8:24 p.m.