The Crookston Housing & Economic Development Authority met before the City Council meeting on Monday night for a special meeting.
The board first approved the minutes from their meetings on January 17 and 23 and their Payables for February. The CHEDA checks for the month totaled $72,294.32, and the March 1 CHEDA checks for $66,578.15.
HOUSING REPORT
The board then began discussing their Housing Report for the Oak Court Apartments. They currently have ten vacant units after they issued some lease violations, pet policy, and lease terminations to make Oak Court a more pleasant place for long-term tenants.
They had also updated their community room with a sitting area for tenants, where they purchased a couch, a love seat, and mounted TV, which tenants used to watch the Super Bowl on February 12. They had also ordered new blinds for the common area and provided a table and chairs for residents to enjoy on each floor.
They were also working to finalize their advertisement on housinglink.com and were working to have it also be advertised on KROX’s website as well as be recommended to Tri-Valley and Alluma.
They are also finalizing recertifications for all Oak Court residents, with the new rents going into effect on April 1.
Section 8
The Section currently has 141 Vouchers and ten clients still searching for housing. They are continuing to pull their waitlist every two weeks for clients.
They were also working on completing their Section 8 Management Assessment Program (SEMAP) Report by Wednesday, March 1.
MAIN AGENDA
The board had completed an agreement on a 35-foot strip of property that ran between B&E Meats, Total Lawn Care, and RB&B Electric. “There’s been a talk of developing that, and negotiations have been ongoing for a significant period of time about how we would deal with that property because each of those entities were interested in it. That’s now been resolved, so what will happen is that the property will be split width-wise, 17 feet on one side and 17 feet on the other. RB&B Electric and B&E Meats will get one-half of the first half (8.5 feet each), and Total Lawn Care will get the other half. The businesses will each pay for it. Total Lawn Care will pay $1,500, and RB&B and B&E Meats each will pay $750, and the city will convey those parcels of land for their use now and in the future.” The board approved the sale.
B3 Grant
The board heard an update on their B3 Grants that they had created new funds and resources that new businesses could use to start in Crookston. “What we are looking at doing is providing resources to entities within our community and hopefully downtown where they will be able to use monies for external use, like remodeling buildings. Also, if they meet the criteria, which is currently being redrafted, we can give essentially development money to assist with the remodeling or reusing of their buildings.” City Administrator “Corky” Reynolds and Community Development Director Kari Kirschbaum said they would continue to work on the redevelopment of the grant.
OTHER BUSINESS
The board finished the meeting by making the final approval of their operating budget for 2023, which they approved unanimously.
The next CHEDA meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 21, at 7:00 a.m. in Valley Technology Park.
