Arlette Preston

Adequate and affordable housing is essential for workforce recruitment. Housing prices have escalated in recent years and is getting out of reach for many families and individuals. We will have to be creative in finding solutions to ensure everyone has adequate, safe housing. Transparency and responsiveness in the governing of our city has been a priority for me in the past four years and will continue to be. I’ve worked to make the budgeting process more open. Long range financial planning is central to ensuring a sustainable future and to address the needs of a growing community.

I have served on the Fargo City Commission for a total of 12 years (2020-2024 and 1992-2000). I served on the Fargo Board of Education from 2002 – 2006. My background is in nursing and I owned and operated my own business for 16 years – an in-home service for the elderly. I have managed up to 100 staff and budgets that go along with that. All those experiences have prepared me well to guide the financial and human resource management of the city, as well as focus on long range planning.

Ensuring adequate housing for all residents is the most pressing issue. The increasing price of housing - whether owned or rented - is causing a strain on many systems. Evictions are increasing, our homeless shelters are overwhelmed, and the issue of chronic homelessness needs to be addressed. The cost of our infrastructure requirements, our zoning laws, and making our approval processes more streamlined are all examples of how the City can address this issue. We have a model to follow addressing chronic homelessness – Milwaukee, WI. It’s a matter of financial planning to garner the resources to manage it.

The City's most important role in attracting and retaining a workforce and businesses is in the design and ongoing maintenance of neighborhoods. Whether a person is renting or owns a home, their quality of life depends on having a safe, adequate home to live in, the ability to interact with friends and neighbors and an ease of movement around the City, whether for employment or recreation. Access to amenities and a variety of recreational opportunities is what a potential workforce looks for. Ensuring these are the priority for everyone, no matter their income level, race, religion, etc., is essential.

Incentives are important to encourage targeted housing and business development. I support incentives which assist us in achieving goals. For instance, we have a minimum wage requirement for awarding property tax exemptions for businesses. In the housing development arena, we should target the incentives toward meeting housing gaps. We do not have sufficient housing for the “missing middle”. We should be using every tool available to encourage development in that segment. It may require additional tools which do not exist at this time. We will need to work with financial institutions, developers/builders and the legislature to get it done.

The number of housing units needed is not out of the ordinary. We have produced similar numbers in the past. What is unique is the mix of housing. We are not producing housing that is attainable to the working middle income family - the "missing middle" housing. We will need to be creative, with all stakeholders at the table across the entire metro area, to identify what tools/programs are needed to get this segment of housing built. The first step is to establish the regional housing committee through Metro COG, which will be the stakeholders to move this issue forward.