Brooklyn Park City work session: staff asks council to prioritize market-rate projects with mixed-income requirements, study tenant protections

Director Bradenow opened the Brooklyn Park City housing work session by saying she did not expect the meeting to resolve policy but wanted to outline a roadmap for upcoming housing items and seek council direction on priorities. "I wouldn't expect to solve any housing policy today, but do want to give a little bit of a road map of some upcoming discussions related to housing," she said.

Why it matters: The staff recommendations will shape which development proposals the EDA and council see and how city resources—such as Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) and EDA land—are prioritized. The choices affect displacement risk, tax base outcomes, and where market-rate and affordable units are sited in Brooklyn Park City.

Staff recommendations and data coming to the EDA

Director Bradenow told the council to expect market-data presentations tied to the Brooklyn Boulevard Plan and the Northwest Growth Area in coming weeks, including AMI (area median income) analyses and property-level AMI examples. She said staff will present a slide deck showing what mixed income looks like in practice and the rents that correspond to AMI tiers.

Bradenow said the city receives roughly $900,000 a year in Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) and that, in broad terms, about half is used for housing-program supplements and half can be pooled into a housing trust. She prefaced the amount as an approximate, "round numbers, don't quote me an exact number," and said staff would bring more precise…