Planning Commission Meeting   12/14/2021

but we will begin with Planning Commission reports.

Mr. Hibab, please.

Ms.

Dow?

Happy holidays.

You are unmuted.

Thank you for letting me take the time.

Russell.

Thanks.

That is the big news, I think.

I think we are since.

Very good.

Representing the neighborhood development services.

We're anticipating initiating that project in January, and I'm sure we'll have a more detailed update for you at your January meeting.

I believe we are moving to matters from the public on items not on the agenda.

Chair, I see no hands raised.

1223 Harris Street and CH Brown Historic Conservation Initiation.

Just also want to say thank you to Commissioner Alejandro for providing an overview of the CH Brown Historic Conservation District, which is included in that consent agenda.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Second.

I believe we have to wait until six for the, am I right about that?

We have to wait till six o'clock to begin public hearings.

We are in recess until 6 p.m.

and I believe we are back.

Council, are you in order?

We are in order, thank you.

Hamill, will you take us over?

Joe, can you pull up the PowerPoint, please?

So at this point, I will turn it over and I'm here to answer any questions that you may have or provide any additional explanation, but largely the floor is for you.

Dowell.

Just thinking that that definitely, I mean, it's important, but not probably a high priority at this point.

Should all those dollars not be needed, they would then go back to council for council to redistribute in the CIP.

I was wondering where that other 2 million was coming from for 2027.

So 20, you talking about the affordable housing number?

Yes.

I think that was the... Sorry, I should have already had that.

Sorry to ask that question previous to the meeting.

Let's see.

for 2027.

Of course, the watch pot never boils.

Correct.

And that gets us to the total of the $4,075,000.

Is it in the categories where things are allocated to, or is there a special...

So you may see the, like, for 27 where we have $19 million of bonds, we just are showing the annual debt service for that out of the general fund because that's spread over the life of the project.

If the sales tax happens, does that mean that the real estate tax doesn't happen, or is that still needed?

So to answer your question directly, we could use all of those dollars to pay for the school reconfiguration project and pay for it in using those dollars over a very short period of time or certainly to pay all the tax, I mean all the debt service and probably would not have to do a tax increase to pay that.

And we find out in about a month or so if that passes the end of this month, I guess.

Yes, I believe the General Assembly meets in January and we should get an indication at that point and then it would actually if it passes there, it would go on a November ballot in the city.

And I don't know if that was a competition that happened or not regarding that project.

Yeah, so I'm going to defer to Mike Goddard, who is the project manager for that, for that question.

But as of right now, we're in schematic design with a target budget of $75 million.

I'm not sure if that's the correct number.

We're just trying to leave ourselves some flexibility because we do have those contractual obligations.

Mr. Lehandra?

Of course.

Russell, please.

Is that a exercise that has been done before adjusting the, you know, prior year budgets or the existing year budgets mid-year?

It's not typically something we've done publicly, but it is part of our process when planning the CIP and presenting proposal for new funding.

And we know that in the capital budget, we're not hitting that mark, but I'm wondering if there is an operating side that we're not seeing, or how do we get at that whole picture?

I don't know if he had anything else he wanted to share.

or other programs like tax abitment, human services, affordable housing program or rental assistance, those are not included in the CIP.

That's all for now for me.

Mr. Stolzenberg, please.

So is that just not reflected in the CIP or are we going to not get those funds anymore?

There just aren't any new dollars reflected here for revenue sharing.

But if we had a dedicated fund, then we can use the sidewalks to sort of do the sidewalks and fill in gaps from the priority list without tying it up with the state funding, which again, we're happy to leverage what we have with state funding, but it would be nice to have both options, if that makes sense.

for the state fund come in, which is now like on a year's delay schedule.

So it went from 500-500 to 395-605 essentially.

Or are we looking to, you know, deploy those more nimbly?

Yeah, is to use the sidewalk funds to match those projects.

And so when we have these more year gaps in new sidewalk funding, we're looking at, you know, a pause essentially in new sidewalks and ultimately, you know, like falling behind on what our schedule would have been for sidewalk construction.

We'll have $100,000, which is not going to get us very far.

We're probably not actually issuing those bonds until later, but at least we have them kind of theoretically in the bank as authorized but not issued so we could apply for those matching funds.

you know simply yes ideally we're not always in an ideal situation, and so we have to figure out how to best fund you know the immediate need.

Would that see us falling behind and losing the timer button being under our turnoff target?

I don't know.

And if there's no one here that can answer that, then we can certainly try to find an answer for you.

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Or do we just kind of not have any hope of meeting our goals in those out years?

We're putting all our eggs in the basket that's before you.

Or do we have a little bit of room in this scenario that we're just not using in order to keep?

So it really is a value judgment.

When do we see ourselves getting off of zero, and when we do, is it going to be kind of all at once we can get back to the amount per year we're bonding now, or are we looking at still reduced amounts for some years after that?

And so it doesn't give us a lot of flexibility.

Mr. Palmer, do you have any thoughts on this?

occurrence happen?

And so that's why we're bumping up to this capacity issue.

Could that be a possible thing that we could talk about in this conversation?

We didn't need it, we found, as we've closed out 21, and so that will be coming to council at the next council meeting to vote, and by policy, those dollars would be going to the CIP.

Ms Hill?

Thank you.

Mr. Snook.

Maybe by the next year they're appropriated.

And so it does look like that there are balances, but they do have pretty detailed plans for how they're envisioned to be spent.

Is there some issue there or is there a reason we're not spending the million dollars that we've previously allocated?

Alex, do you want to talk about SIA?

So there are several ongoing projects now that could consume that balance, which actually may not be enough in case that need arises.

And when we're scrounging to figure out how we might put another $100,000 into building new sidewalks for this year, I just find myself wondering why we keep putting money into accounts that aren't getting depleted.

And, you know, that's part of that whole reallocation conversation, either for monies that were previously budgeted or monies that are currently budgeted, to look at those and ask those questions and do the hard work.

that's the kind of thing that just doesn't make much sense.

You know, if we're never going to get those folks and the large projects are going to keep coming, then I think your question is a very legitimate one.

Thank you.

Mr. Payne?

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All of those things are competing factors because our sources of money are one pot and how we choose to divide those up, the needs and the wants are plentiful.

But these decisions directly affect all that.

So yes, they are directly related.

And then the second question is, given that, do we have a sense of, one, the total dollar amount of what those bills would be, and two, when those bills will be coming due, and what we would need to do in terms of our fiscal planning and priorities to make it so we could actually pay those bills that we know are coming.

So I'm not going to say there's not an operational impact, but I think largely it's small in comparison to the dollars we've spent.

So I know this is super rough ballpark, but it wouldn't be unfeasible that when you factor in the school's fire department, the wage and compensation study and defer departmental requests, we're looking at like a $10 million plus bill.

to help pay for the comp study, and there were additional dollars there to help address other related needs, but certainly to fund any sort of pay scale change or anything like that, there are no dollars contemplated or included in that.

Thank you.

Who wants to start?

Chair, I believe we need a public hearing as well.

I believe we are ready to hear from the public, please.

Hey, Gadeem.

Peter Krebs, Good evening, this is Peter Krebs, can you hear me?

Peter Krebs, Sounds good.

Thank you.

And thank you.

You have three minutes.

And thank you.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

You have three minutes.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

Next, please.

You have three minutes.

Thanks again for your time.

That is okay with you, Chair?

Mr. Meyer, please be cognizant of what you show.

Thank you.

Next, please.

You have three minutes.

And next, please.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

And thank you.

Katherine, you're on with the Planning Commission.

You have three minutes.

Please unmute.

Thank you very much.

You have three minutes.

Thanks so much for your work.

You have three minutes.

Can you all hear me okay?

Yes, you sound fine.

Thank you all so much.

and thank you.

And next, please.

You have three minutes.

Can you hear me now, Lyle?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you.

You have three minutes.

This is Patricia Johnson.

Yes, thank you.

I apologize if I've signed up in the wrong place.

That's fine.

And you will catch me, yes?

Yes, thank you.

Appreciate it.

And next we have Brian Menard, followed by Robin Haynes.

Great.

I thank you for your efforts and for your time.

You have three minutes.

Thank you.

And next, please.

And if anybody else would like to address the commission on this public hearing, please click your raise hand icon.

Chair, I see no other hands.

Dowell, can you start us off?

And I would just be curious to get the commissioner's thoughts on possibly moving funds from that line item and allocating it somewhere else.

Is that a motion?

I just wanted to kind of get the feel for the commission before possibly presenting a motion.

Are you thinking like a thumbs up, thumbs down kind of thing?

So I'm just thinking, just wondering, you know, how we could possibly play around with the funds that we do have to best use them to help our residents.

Mr. Bob?

We can just do that when that happens.

Other thoughts on that?

But, you know, I think where we're going is how much can we squeeze out of that parking structure and try to distribute among other projects.

I definitely want to make sure though, because I think this came up last year, we do have a commitment to the county and I want to make sure that we're upholding our end of the commitment, but I'm just not sure if we need that many dollars allocated to do so.

Does that make sense?

If you could refresh us on what was the option that we could possibly fully fund the school reconstruction without having to raise property taxes?

Okay, thank you.

So that's all I have for right now.

Mr. Abbott, thoughts?

I don't see why we can't request that to be funded to move on just basically move up the spreadsheet without any significant implications.

Did you want people to try?

Okay.

So if we could figure out a way to move that up on our priority, that to me would be essential.

And so, you know, to me, the fiscal implications of that are pretty clear.

Stribbling out?

No.

Mr. Hibab, what was your next thought?

And if that does pass, then I think we'd have to go back and look at our CIP budget, and then we'd probably have to nickel and dime what things are CIP and what things are not, because we'll be relying on that 3% going into the CIP to fund projects, and we don't want it to get kind of diluted with other projects that aren't CIP-specific, if that makes sense.

Did you want to solicit thoughts on that topic?

Sure.

So I don't know that I'm comfortable expressing an opinion either way, except that I really, really hope that if we go through with it, that the sales tax comes through and frees us from this burden.

And you start jeopardizing that first key point.

Anyone else want to put a hand on that ball?

Mr. Hibab, next thought, please.

Thank you.

Mr. Alejandro, please share your thoughts.

I thought I just did.

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I mean, I don't know where we are with that, where you want to go, Chair?

Mr. Sulzenberg.

for smaller area plans for several years until the next one is finished and a pause on SIA implementation.

Mr. Palmer, do you have any thoughts on this topic?

So, yeah.

Moving to council, thoughts on this topic?

I wasn't sure we want to get us into all of our thoughts.

But thank you for giving us opportunity.

Mr. Snook?

What effect does that have on any of the other equations that we have to balance in our finances?

If they're not spent, then we can remove those from the authorized but not issued list, remove the budget for the project, and that now becomes additional capacity you could allocate someplace else.

And if we say we're not gonna spend it, it doesn't sound as though that suddenly frees up $2.9 million for us.

I'm not sure I'm totally following your train of thought.

I've never quite figured out what we're supposed to do with that information.

It's just a reallocation of your credit spending limit, essentially.

But nothing on the ABNI list is in the CIP.

And so rather than trying to look at the list in isolation, it really does come back to sort of a conversation about individual projects and which ones we want to move forward and which ones we don't.

It doesn't change anything on this spreadsheet, on this spreadsheet.

Now, what that does is it doesn't leave you any ability to address our contractual obligations because 2.8 is all we have on the books right now for the parking obligation with the county.

It frankly still puzzles me, but I'm not going to get over my puzzlement tonight.

Thank you.

I don't have to get over it for another couple of months yet.

But absent that, there's no deus ex machina coming to solve this issue.

Mr. Russell?

if there was a bigger bucket of money in the affordable housing pool, I guess.

Who is this a question for?

commitments, dollars in next year and future years, could that be the route by which projects like that go?

um it was 100% bond financing and so something like the PHA project CAF the supplemental rental assistance that does not um qualify for bond funding so it's not a one-for-one trade-off in that instance unfortunately okay that makes sense um

I mean, it seems like we're getting you guys a lot of a lot of direction, you know, sort of assignments, but maybe there's a way to look through and do that sort of accounting of what if we reduce from what's bondable, you know, and reduce from what's not bondable, where does it all kind of where does it then shake out.

So I would just offer don't let that limit you and make your suggestions based on the project.

Thank you, duly noted.

Mr. Stolzenberg.

And so I don't know where that puts us.

Russell.

budget for both fiscal years, 22 and 23, to the minimum amount necessary to, you know, meet our obligations with the county.

Is that the full motion?

Does that sound like a good motion?

Sounds like a motion to me.

Second.

Yeah.

With that revision, yes.

I think I've heard that staff does not intend to change the contract to add extra obligations, but right now the county has two choices and we should be planning on meeting those typically one of those.

Creasy, can you please take the roll?

Russell's statement or are we going with the original statement?

Is that correct?

Yeah, I think that's good.

I would definitely second it again.

Second.

Greasy?

Mr. LeHendro?

Aye.

Dow?

Aye.

Mr. Havab?

And Mr. Solla-Yates?

Russell, did you have another thought?

That's going to be tough because it's not going to all add up.

Maybe we can start with the first three.

Yeah, yeah.

Inside the amount we're talking.

Sure, so reallocate $100,000 to tree planting.

In past years, we've avoided specifying exact amounts and gone with more and less.

funding request by staff at full amounts in tree planting, new sidewalks, and bicycle infrastructure.

Second.

There's tree planting and then the hazardous, the removal of hazardous trees.

The two categories.

Yes.

Can you state that motion, please?

A motion to reallocate funding to the amounts suggested by staff in the following categories, hazardous tree removal, tree planting, new sidewalks, and bicycle infrastructure.

Additional discussion on this motion?

The staff proposal is what you have in front of you for reducing it.

For reducing it.

I'm just curious.

And so we'd rather take them down in a deliberate, methodical way ahead of time, rather than waiting for an emergency, taking out power lines, falling on a road becomes far more expensive.

So it's prevention.

Yes.

Thank you.

Could that motion be amended to just include the caveat that the recommendations come from tree commission and city staff?

Well, I'm not sure the process of, but at some point it was the staff's recommendations, maybe it was the economic portion of staff to as they balanced all of this to reduce the amounts.

and then bicycle infrastructure unfunded, it was 400 and then sidewalks for 600 in this year and then 300 in out years, I'm assuming that's to make up for the loft in the previous, the current fifth year, that said about a million one or so or 800,000 in the long term.

Do we have a final language here?

Sorry, Liz, to keep shooting holes in your promotion.

requested budgets for new sidewalks, bicycle infrastructure, as well as original budget requests as presented by the Tree Commission for hazardous tree removal, if it's another name, and tree planting.

If we say we're going with staff's recommendation, but isn't staff's recommendation the funding levels that we have that we're trying to reallocate?

I'm referring to the unfunded list.

So maybe if you want to just say to fully fund the request and then not worry about where it came from, that might help.

Thank you.

Yes.

Russell, do you have that?

I'm sorry.

I think we can just say fully upon the request for each of those four items.

Four, hazardous tree removal, tree planting, new sidewalks, bicycle infrastructure.

Additional discussion on this topic?

I'll second that motion.

Creasy, would you please call the roll?

All right, Mr. Lohindro?

Aye.