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Planning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes April 15, 2025 Page 4 1 concept of rental properties negatively impacting the character of the neighborhood is troubling. He is 2 sad Council would use that language. 3 4 Chair Socha stated she was involved in these discussions originally. There were a number of Planning 5 Commission – City Council Joint Sessions and later the Planning Commission was dropped from 6 those Joint Sessions. She believes it would be helpful to have a Joint Session with the City Council so 7 they can hear directly what the Planning Commission thinks about this. Previously, the City Council 8 was not “super fans” of what the Planning Commission recommended. The Planning Commission 9 asked how long-term rentals affect affordable housing goals. Market Conditions determine what the 10 housing market is. The fear of corporate landlords coming in and buying properties has not 11 materialized. The Planning Commission has further unanswered questions, such as how the goals of 12 affordable housing would be furthered by having rental limits. The idea of the character of a 13 neighborhood being preserved is not clear at all. The Planning Commission had asked if there should 14 be a cap or is this a restriction of property rights. There are some exceptions that should be 15 considered. Chair Socha asked how a cap on rental properties would impede the passing on of 16 generational wealth. She is disappointed the Planning Commission got dropped from the 17 conversation. She asked if there should be a cap at all. It is a huge restriction on property rights. She 18 is not a landlord. The question is what the justification is for capping it at all. She would like to 19 discuss this with the City Council again in a joint session. She wants to understand the justifications 20 better. If there is no justification, the property rights should be left alone. 21 22 Commissioner Erickson questioned if a cap is necessary. If there will be exceptions, would there be 23 an application process, and what is the criteria. He generally agrees it is odd to restrict property rights 24 to this extreme degree. He has not heard of this before. He stated his opinion that a community needs 25 some balance it its development. He believes St. Anthony is over a 50% rental community, and 26 limiting the single-family housing rental stock to a cap would help to balance some of that. He sees 27 some benefit to having some community balance in terms of the housing mix. Stability can have 28 benefits to a community. 29 30 Commissioner Corneille stated it is unclear what problem is being solved by this. The problem is not 31 articulated. Is the problem that there are too many renters, the housing prices are too high, the renters 32 are not in the character of the community, people don’t want to live in an apartment, etc. The result is 33 higher prices for renters who are here. We are further reducing affordability. This is the exact 34 opposite of what the Council has stated their goals are on affordability. 35 36 Commissioner Anderson agreed it feels like a solution to a problem that is not identified. If we are 37 already setting a cap with exceptions, we are admitting it is not a workable solution if the cap is so 38 low there can only be one more rental. This would be unfair to residents. 39 40 Commissioner Corneille stated the Federal Reserve put out a research paper in March of 2024. One of 41 the outcomes of rental caps decrease access to affordable housing. This does not seem to be a data- 42 driven recommendation. Most of the rentals are owned by residents who only have one rental license 43 and this is not vast corporate ownership. There could be many reasons. There needs to be a trigger 44 point and when that trigger is reached, readdress the situation. The Federal Reserve stated there is a 45 reduction in property values when rental caps are in place. In an environment where people can’t 46 afford the down payment or have monies to make repairs on a home. This causes a degradation in