76th Street

Very interesting to compare the Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative with the Grandview small area plan. Even though Edina received a Metropolitan Council Livable Communities grant of $100,000 for the planning process. I can find nowhere in their minutes, agendas and meeting notes any mention or thought given to helping out the less fortunate with affordable housing. It seems like an ideal situation for creating affordable housing since the city already owns a good chunk of the site.

The Metro Council and the City of Richfield seemed to have stacked the deck in the Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative inorder to set the agenda to make it seem like the creation of affordable housing was a given more info

in the planning process.  They brought in the organization “Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation” to help facilitate the meetings with the Corridor Housing Initiative. Looking over their web site (http://www.tclisc.org) they appear to be more of a organization that does community planning for social services rather than an urban design agency like say; Close Landscape Architecture and Cunningham Group Architecture, which were selected to be co-lead consultants on Edina’s Grandview project. I am a strong believer in not just doing brick and mortar improvements but to help the lives of people as well. It is interesting that Edina in all of their planning process completely ignored that.

Richfield Corridor Housing Initiative:

http://bit.ly/y3Oqu6

Grandview Small Area Plan:

http://bit.ly/jUTuCk

On January 14,2008 the Housing and Redevelopment Authority  and the City Council had a special meeting to discuss senior housing needs in Richfield and Mary Bujold from Real Estate Research and Consultant firm Maxfield Research Inc. was there (the meeting minutes do not report in what capacity she was there – as a neighborhood volunteer, or hired consultant)  to report on the senior housing need in the Twin Cities and to answer questions from the HRA and council. 

She was asked the direct question/s “Does Richfield have too much senior housing but not enough affordable senior housing?”

From the minutes: “Ms. Bujold stated that due to some restrictions in the 1990’s, there is now a need for affordable senior housing.” It is interesting to note that the meeting minutes do not reflect that she had answered the first part of the question “Does Richfield have too much senior housing?” but rather made it an affordable housing issue.

She was also asked “what percentage of residents from the community move into senior housing?”

The question is somewhat confusing as what is really being asked and said. Is the question “Of 100% of seniors what percentage actually move into senior housing before they die (as opposed to die from there homes) or is the question really “what percentage of Richfield senior housing actually have residents that moved there from out side of Richfield?”

Here anwswer appears to answer the latter question in the meeting minutes, “Ms. Bujold stated that generally 85% of seniors from the community are in senior housing. Although, she explained that percentage usually includes residents from adjoining communities.”

So 85% of ALL seniors in Richfield live in senior housing, of that it is still unknown how many were originally Richfield homeowners and how many are immigrants from Bloomington, Minneapolis, Edina, etc…

So the meeting was a waste as it never answered the original question: Does Richfield have too much senior housing?