Planning and Neighborhoods Committee Meeting Transcript – 04/07/2015 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 4/7/2015 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/7/2015 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [3:08:29 PM] >> Casar: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Greg Casar, the chair of the neighborhoods and planning committee. We are meeting in the city council board and commissions room. The time is 3:08. And I will call the first meeting of the committee to order. Our first item is approval of the minutes. We have no minutes to approve. [Laughter]. So with that I will excitedly move on to citizen communication. So any citizen that signed up to speak on an item not on the agenda, we'll take their testimony now. And it looks like both Ms. Almanza and Ms. Sprinkle both did not list an item, so do either of y'all wish to speak on Jennifer Saucedo citizen communication, not on one of these items or are you interested in one of the items in particular. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Casar: Great, thank you, patty. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Casar: Great. Then come on up, Ms. Almanza. >> Good afternoon, city councilmembers. I'm Susana Almanza with poder. And poder is the organization that worked with Monica and asl with the.sinatra store, jump ali pinata store. We've assisted them since the demolition of their facility and now they're housed at the mariposa center that poder manages temporarily. I am here with two issues that I would like to put on the agenda for your next meeting to discuss. And that is the demolition permit. To be able to take about [3:10:30 PM] that policy, and we also have studied it and would like to make some possible recommendations on that policy. And the other is the temporary use permit. Those two permits made it possible to demolish the jumpolin pinata store and the temporary use permit had the ability for them to have the splash party there, but it was a temporary use permit that was granted. We would like to have that put on your next agenda so that we can discuss it and begin to look at policy changes and recommendations so that this will never ever happen again. >> Casar: Thank you, Ms. Almanza. We'll be discussing future agenda items at the end of the committee meeting. So I'd be open to having some conversation about that item at that time. Now we will move on to -- to our section on discussions and possible actions. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Casar: Thank you for scoping me. It the first time I've chaired this thing. Let me take a look here. Jeff, are you one of those folks? >> Yes, I am. >> Casar:, great. I knew. And so you are also still entitled to speak on item number 4, but you wish to speak on items not on the agenda. >> Right. >> Casar: Thank you. >> Thanks for this opportunity, I'm Jeff jack, chair of the board of adjustment. Most of you know that the board of adjustment is a quasi jurisdictional board that the city has that basically deals with variances to the zoning code. We're a sovereign board, which means that our decisions of the board of adjustment don't go to the planning commission or to the city council for approval. They are final. And if you dispute those decisions by the board of adjustment then you have to take it to district court. [3:12:32 PM] Because we have a super majority provision it means six out of the seven people on the board have to approve a variance. We're all volunteers and sometimes people's lives get in the way of their civic duties and we have people that have to take an absence and not show up. Occasionally we also have people that have emergencies at the last minute and we can't get an alternative person to come sit on the board. And in which case we end up with six people on the board, and in that case if you have a vote for a variance and you've got a five-one vote then that variance goes down. But automatically it's considered something to be reconsidered because if you had six people there, you could have actually probably got it passed. So what I'm asking today is the fact that when we go to a board of adjustment with 11 members to represent the new council, that the two alternates that we have today are not enough. We need to have four or five alternates appointed by the council to fill those lots when we do have the vacancies of the standard board. The other thing I would recommend to you very strongly is the city council considers appointments to the new boards and commissions system that you recommend to your appointees that they come and sit through a board of adjustment meeting or two or three. We start at 5:30. We often go to midnight. It's a long process, a lot of different kinds of cases to deal with. And we have the obligation to meet the status with regard to granting variances. It's very different than the planning commission deals with or the zap deals with. I would strongly recommend that council get their appointees to come and the city through some meetings ahead of time. Thank you. >> Tovo: Mr. Jack, there have been some suggestions that maybe asking the board -- the current commissioners on the board of adjustment to forward some specific recommendations might be very valuable. Is that something that you think the membership would be interested in if there were a council request, that you could forward some specific recommendation, such as the one that you [3:14:33 PM] made about having additional alternates available? >> One of the things the current board is doing a creating a guide for the board of adjustment with the help of city legal. And that's supposed to be finished up before our term is up. And I think that that would be a good starting point to have discussions. And I also think that the recommendation from the legal department to consider panels for the board of adjustment to deal different kinds of variance requests. With 11 people it gets to be unmanageable. >> Tovo: I think it would be valuable to get specific recommendations and to collect them together and send them on to city council. I would encourage your board to do that. >> Okay. >> Tovo: Thanks for being here. >> Casar: Thank you, Mr. Jack and thank you for giving my skipping over your name here. And is there anybody else that wants to speak in citizen communication? It looks like Mr. King does? >> I do. And I will be very brief. Thank you very much. My name is David king. I live in the zilker neighborhood, vice-chair. Members, thank you for this opportunity. For future topics for your committee I would ask that you take a look at the short-term rental program, the effectiveness of that program, specifically commercial type 2 short-term rentals, how they affect the availability and the affordability of housing. In my own neighborhood, zilker, we have 81 commercial type two short-term rentals taking 81 houses off the market for families and I think that has an impact on our school, on our elementary school and there and on affordability in the neighborhood. I hope you will look at that. Another item that I ask that you consider would be to review our code inspection pose proses. We had a code inspector at our zilker neighborhood association meeting last night and they spoke about challenges they had and particularly with enough resources to handle all the calls that they get. So I think it would be helpful to look at that program and see if they need additional resources. And then corollary to that would be the rental registration program. I think it would be good to [3:16:33 PM] take a look and see if that program is effective and if expanding it could make it more impactful to more renters across the city. And finally I would ask that you consider changing our making two changes to our development process for all zoning cases that we require a site plan upfront because the questions always come up in the zoning cases. So why not require the site plan right upfront so you can ask those questions during the zoning process or rezoning process. And finally that you look at looking at the development review process and ask the developers to sit down with neighborhoods before they bring their permit applications to the city. There could be on box on the permit application that says have you met with the neighborhood groups and they could check yes or no on that. We have a developer in my neighborhood and we're sitting down and we've talked to him several times on the approach and he has not even submitted an application of permit yet that. A very effective on process and I think it leads to better results and Mo are cooperation throughout the whole process. Thank you very much. >> Casar: Thank you, Mr. King. Well, I want to briefly chat with my committee members about the order of the agenda. I believe we have many people here to speak' items four and five. Item 3 was referred to us by councilmember Garza. I think that to respect people's time the majority of people here I think want to be here -- want to speak and participate and watch the discussion on four and five. So I would just want to get y'all's temperature to see if you are all right with doing the staff briefing number five first, getting the briefing on the cag and from our staff liaison and from cag members and then we could discuss and talk about possible action on item number four. And then we would end our meeting with the item on the [3:18:37 PM] possible recommendation land use and the airport overlay and on possible agenda items. Is that okay with everyone? Great. Then we will start with item number 5, which is a briefing from our staff and from cag members on the purpose and progress of the cag. We'll start with the briefing from staff and then I would ask members of the cag to come join us as soon as we're done with that portion. >> Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and councilmembers. I'm George Zapalac with the planning and zoning department. I'm the project manager for codenext, which is the effort to rewrite the city's land development code. The code advisory group was initiated by city council in December of 2012, six months after the adoption of the imagine Austin comprehensive plan. Council at that time passed a resolution and established the code advisory group for the purpose of assisting and public outreach and providing feedback on the development and implementation of the new land development code. The structure of the advisory group is similar to other temperature groups that the council has appointed for specific purposes in the past such as the airport boulevard form-based code working group. Their function is advisory only. They make recommendations which will be considered by the planning commission and the city council, but ultimately city council will be making decisions about what is contained in the new land development code. The resolution that created the code advisory group said that members should be appointed based upon their expertise in one or more subject areas. And those areas, as included in the resolution were urban planning, architect, household affordability, neighborhoods, construction, project review and permitting, environmental protection and [3:20:38 PM] sustainability, and other fields relevant to the adoption of the new code. There are 11 members of the committee and the list of members is before you on the screen and we also provide biographical information on all of them to you in your backup material. The group originally consisted of seven members appointed by the previous city council plus four members appointed by the city manager. The council made its appointments first and then the city manager selected four other members to provide expertise in areas that were not represented in the council appointments as well as to provide more gender and ethnic diversity. One original member resigned and was replaced by the current city council, an appointment you made in February. The rest have served since their appointment in 2013. This map shows the geographic representation of the advisory members residences. The -- as you can see the residences are somewhat disbursed geographically, however not all the council distribution are represented. There are no residents from districts two, three, four or seven presently serving on the group. Eight of the 11 have been active in their neighborhood associations in some fashion, and six of them own or work for small businesses. The resolution in December of 2012, which created the advisory group, had a number of conditions that are a bit different from some other boards and commissions. First it said that the advisory group would not be subject to chapter 2-1 of the city code. [3:22:40 PM] And this is the section which gordons boards and commissions and it contains requirements such as residency, membership terms, conflict of interest requirements and financial statements that are normally required from board and commission members. However, the advisory group is subject to the open meetings act, the state open meetings act, which requires that the notices of the meetings be posted, that agendas be followed, that a quorum be present to conduct business and the minutes be maintained of all the meetings. In addition to this we have been making recordings of the meetings and posting them online even though they're not required by the open meetings act. The resolution also stipulated that members must comply with the ethics and personal responsibility guidelines of the city for boards and commissions and this basically governs conflict of interest situations. It also specified that lobbyists or employees of lobbying firms are prohibiting from serving on the advisory group. It did set up the advisory group as a temporary body with a limited term. The resolution says that the advisory group will automatically terminate on September 30th of 2015 or upon adoption of the new land development code, whichever is earlier. I think we were somewhat more optimistic that we might have a code by 2015, but that's looking a bit unrealistic at this time. >> Casar: Mr. Zapalac, is there -- do you recall a reason why September 30th was chosen? Is there a certain point in the process working with the consultant that we were considering phasing out the cag? >> It was about two and a half years after the advisory group was formed and it was thought that would be sufficient time. However, it took a few months to get the [3:24:41 PM] contract executed and get the work underway. And then also we found the whole process to be more time assuming than we anticipated. >> Casar: So it's not synchronized with specific work with the consultant, rather the last council said two and a half years seems like a good amount of time to ask people to take on this kind of work. >> Right. The resolution -- the advisory group was actually set up before the contract was signed before the proposals had even come back from the consultants, so it was the best guess of how long it would take, but once the work got underway it became apparent it was going to take longer. >> Casar: Thank you. Ms. Gallo I think has a question. >> Gallo: I apologize, but we're trying to figure out lots of chapters and sections and all of that. Could you remind me again -- I know you briefly touched on this -- what chapter 2-1 references? And why there was an interest in making this group not subject to that? >> Chapter 2-1 is basically the requirements for boards and commissions and it requires things like residencery requirements, terms of office, conflict of interest situations and requirement for financial statements from members. And this group was treated differently because it is a temporary body. It's not a permanent board or commission. However, some of those provisions such as conflict of interest are covered in other requirements that were placed upon the advisory group. >> Gallo: So having said that what would have been left out? What's not included? >> Residency requirements, specific terms of membership, you know, they can only [3:26:41 PM] serve for a certain time period. Requirement to submit financial statements. Those are the main things that are not subject to. >> Gallo: Okay. Thank you. >> To briefly refresh fresh you on the process we can got underway on September 2013 with the first of four phases of the codenext project and there were two reports that came out of that, listening to the community and the community character manual. Then we proceeded into the diagnosis phase of the project which analyzed deficiencies in the existing code and that phase with code approach alternatives and annotated outline reports which was presented to the old city council last fall and gave us general direction for how we should proceed with rewriting of the code from this point forward. The future process, the next two phases of the code, which are getting underway now, are number three is the administrative and public review draft. And then phase four is the code adoption. So in the summer of 2015 we plan to go back to the new council and present the same information that was presented to the previous council to the various approaches that were recommended, and ask the council to reaffirm the direction that the new council recommended. And prior to that time we will be bringing that information back before this committee to brief you all on it probably in may of this year. In the fall of 2015 we [3:28:45 PM] will conduct a week long design workshop to give the public an opportunity to see some of the preliminary results from the consulting team before the draft code is actually made available and prepared. And during 2015-2016 we will be providing code updates periodically to give status reports on where we are and to receive feedback from the public and the advisory group and other entities about some of the preliminary findings. In the summer of 2016 we expect to have the public draft code available, released for review and comment. And then by the end of 2016 or early in 2017 we hope to have it back before the full council for adoption. Once the code is adopted, then the new zoning districts that are contained in the code will have to be remapped or applied on the ground, and that process we expect to occur early in 2017. >> Casar: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I had a quick question on the previous slide. Could you speak to the timeline for -- I don't know if it's recommendations or coming from the cag and the timeline for the green infrastructure working group, which I understand is a separate group. If you could kind of explain those two groups and their time lines. >> I'm going to talk about working groups in a moment so I can cover it as part of my presentation. >> Kitchen: Sure, that's fine. >> So the first meeting of the advisory group was held in March of 2013 and since that time they've had 30 additional meetings. And they have also held quarterly public comment sessions at various [3:30:46 PM] locations around the city, one of which was just held last night where anyone in the community can come before them and express their opinions about any subjects related to the code. The identified has also prepared recommendations on draft reports, all the draft documents that have been prepared so far. They have helped to provide coordination with related initiatives in the city that have an impact upon the code. They have helped to engage various stakeholder groups. They have -- as individuals they have gone out to different groups such as neighborhood associations, environmental groups, real estate groups and business and professional associations to spread the word about what is going on with the code and how people can become more involved. They have provided recommendations to the staff and the consultants on how to provide outreach and how to prepare major public events. They have prepared in the events as spokespersons. And they have provided guidance to the consulting team on how to proceed with the code revision. So they have also formed several working groups to delve into some of the topics in a bit more detail. The first group they formed was about the vision tomorrow model. This is a computer simulation model that we're very excited about that will help us test the results of the new code in real world situations. And the advisory group helped to identify the assumptions that should go into that model and what we should look for in terms of the out puts and the performance measures that will come out of it. They've also had extensive discussions on the relationship of the neighborhood plans to codenext. And then in the past several months they have been working on three [3:32:50 PM] specific working groups to delve into topics in much more depth. And these are affordability, infill compatibility and obstacles for small business. And these as we know are all complex issues which are of great concern to the community. In this process we've been -- >> Casar:, sorry, Mr. Zapalac, pitched has a quick question for you. >> Kitchen: My earlier question, I may have had the wrong name for the group, but there's a group working on green infrastructure. I don't see it listed here as a working group. And my understanding is their timeline is different than the slide that you have on page 11. So that's what I was trying to understand. >> Yes. So these are groups that were formed as part of the code advisory group itself. The green infrastructure working group was actually formed by the watershed protection department and it's the continuation of efforts that they initiated three or four years ago to update the city's watershed ordinance. They completed the first phase of that and now they're continuing with additional phases to get into different areas and to coordinate changes to the environmental regulations with the land development code revisions. So -- let me back up a minute. The consultant is not responsible for rewriting the entire code. In order to make most efficient use of the consultant's resources and expertise, we are carving out certain sections that they will be responsible for and other sections on which staff will be taking the lead. Of course all the work does need to be coordinated so it works as an integral set of regulations. So the topics here that the code advisory group is participating in or is taking the lead on are -- the purpose of [3:34:50 PM] this is to provide direction to the consultants on these topics because these are topics in which the consulting team will be taking the lead. The green infrastructure working group, the function of that group is to provide direction to staff because staff, particularly watershed protection staff, is taking the lead on rewriting that section of the code. So it's operating on a slightly different time frame from these three working groups. It -- their work will be extending a bit longer, but all the work will be integrated in the draft -- public draft version of the code that is produced for the public. >> Kitchen: Sorry, just one more question. So if I'm understanding you correctly, the recommendations are -- that may come out of the green infrastructure working group will not go to the cag, they will go back to staff, is that correct? >> They will be presented to the code advisory group as well. In fact, they have been presenting status reports to them and they will present their recommendations to the advisory group as well. >> Kitchen: What's the timeline for that? >> It should be this summer. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Casar: Did that answer your questions, councilmember? Are there other questions now for Mr. Zapalac? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: If I could comment on that point, I appreciate you raising that question because that is one of the remarks I've heard from some of the people who have been following that green infrastructure that they would -- as the cag begins to take some votes and make some recommendations about their process that it would be very helpful if they had some results from the green infrastructure working group so that will influence the decisions they make. >> Let me explain about the working groups and what they're doing. The cag working groups, they're not really intended to develop specific recommendations for the code itself, but [3:36:53 PM] rather to identify area of concerns that the consultants should address as they are redrafting elements of the code. So their recommendations are not on specific content of the code, but rather on area of concerns and issues in a need to be at the forefront as the consulting team is drafting the code. >> Casar: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I think the point is there's a relationship between some of the work that the green infrastructure working group is doing and the areas of concern that are being contemplated in our land development code and it would be good to have those discussions happening in a timed way together. >> Kitchen: Just related to that is the concern that the green infrastructure working group, the lines of communication back to the consulting team would be important. That's just trying to understand what that is. >> Professor: Well, they're reporting back to staff and the advisory group and staff and the archdiocese will be communicating with the owe and the advisory group will be communicating with the staff also. >> Casar: And councilmember kitchen, I think you have a microphone on next to you. Just in case you mutter anything about the chair, everyone might hear. [Laughter]. Thanks, Mr. Zapalac, we'll keep going. >> So just to wrap up, the working groups are completing their tasks and presenting their a findings to the entire cag, which will be making recommendations to the codenext team. Actual drafting of the code has not started yet. It will begin shortly, but we are still in the process of developing the format and the general outline of the code at this time. Some of the upcoming activities that the cag will be taking on in [3:38:55 PM] addition to providing guidance to the consultants, they will be participating in the define workshop that I -- design working group that I mentioned. They will be working on the code content as it's drafted and they will provide continued engagement with the stakeholders. So in conclusion county cag has been a very valuable resource throughout this process to assist with the redrafting of the code. The members have developed a little more knowledge about the code and related issues, and have helped develop guidance and feedback along every step of the way. Staff would recommend that it be continued for an additional two years or until the code is adopted, whichever comes first. Thank you. >> Casar: Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Zapalac? Thank you, Mr. Zapalac. I believe we are posted torsion hear from members of the code advisory group so any of those members if you want to take seats up here if you dare or if you would like. [Laughter]. Good afternoon. Members, if there are particular topics you would like to hear the cag members address us on, we can always ask questions afterwards. We posted this to hear from them on their view on the purpose of the cag, its progress and perhaps to let us know if there are any obstacles or ways that we can help them achieve the mission that we've laid out for them. We can always ask questions as follow-up later, but as they introduce themselves is there any particular topic you would like to [3:40:55 PM] hear them address other than a report back on how they think progress is going and any obstacles that they may have faced? Okay. Then I'll take that as a yes. So next if y'all could keep it brief, two or three minutes, introduce yourselves, your sort of area of expertise or interest and then also just speak on those two items, progress and then any obstacles that you would like to see addressed for us to make this a successful process for the city. And I don't know if you have a clock right behind you, but -- I think it's right here. If you try to keep yourself to three minutes or so because we'll probably have questions for you and then we do have 13 speakers signed up for the next item and I want to try to get folks here to their neighborhood association meetings and the like in the evening. Thanks so much. We'll start with Ms. Demayo. >> I think I'm on. Mandy Demayo. I am with housing works Austin. We're an affordable housing advocacy research, education organization. I've been with the cag since the beginning, so we're on two years now. My expertise that I bring to the cag and my interest really is in the affordability issue and specifically how that relates to land use, which I think is incredibly important. In terms of progress, we have, as George Zapalac mentioned, we've met over the last two years, we've had 31 meetings. We've provided feedback on the consultants, their work product that they have developed, some of which I think was really important, particularly the code diagnosis that identified some very significant problems in our current code and one of the top 10 problems with the current code was around household affordability. So I'm really committed to seeing that through and making sure that we have some positive changes in that realm. In terms of what we can do to see this through [3:42:57 PM] successfully, I know that y'all are contemplating possibly expanding or changing up the cag. One thing I would do -- George had mentioned kind of the composition of the current code advisory group and it's clear that we're missing some perspectives on the advisory group. Some of the council districts are not represented, which I think is a huge hindrance. I will also say this that in terms of our outreach, one of our major responsibilities is public engagement and outreach. And I think we've done a good job in a lot of areas. It's clear that we've -- when we look at all of the data that we've done a good job reaching out to a variety of different areas of the city of Austin. I think we hit every single zip code when we look at our public engagement, but we haven't done the best job reaching out to communities of color, to renters versus homeowners. We've gotten a lot of feedback from homeowners, but we haven't gotten the feedback. As you all know we're a majority renter city. So my-- if I were to make a recommendation, my recommendation would be to make sure that if there is any expansion of the cag that you give consideration to renters and low income communities, particularly communities of color, people of color. And then also if there were to be anybody added to the cag I would want to make sure that person is committed to dialogue and problem solving. Not just coming up with the problems, but the solutions to provide input to the consultants. Soty. >> Casar: And I think Ms. Gallo has a question for you. >> I appreciate you bringing up the fact that there is currently someone not a renter. As you mentioned Austin is over 50% renters and I think that is a voice that we need to hear. So thank you. As I looked and every single person was homeowner, homeowner, homeowner, I think that's definitely a missing component here. Thank you. [3:45:00 PM] >> Casar: Ms. Did he mayo, I think you did say it, but can you speak briefly on what you sort receive as the purpose of the cag being? I think that that will be helpful for all of us to understand y'all's own sort of view of what your role is. >> Well, there are two major roles. One is public engagement and connecting the consultants and the -- getting the word out about codenext and the importance of the land development code rewrite and what it means to everybody who lives in the city of Austin. We have meeting fatigue. We're often invited to many of these public meetings, but really why should you care. Why should you leave here or who are a renter or you work here. Why should people care about the land development code rewrite. So I see that as a major responsibility. And then also providing feedback to the consultants on their work product and providing direction to the consultants for opticos. And my personal and professional interest is in making sure that the new land development -- the new land development code we end up with really helps with our affordability issue. It's not going to solve our affordability problems, but put us on the track toward creating a more affordable and inclusive city. Thank you. We move on to Mr. Jack. Great. Jeff, talk to us, purpose, progress, obstacles. >> Appreciate the opportunity to speak to you again. I'm Jeff jack. I'm an architect, by the way, by profession. I've been doing projects in the city of Austin for 30 years. And we are making some progress. I'd like to say that the meeting that we had earlier today was probably one of the best discussions about the problems that we have in creating a new code that [3:47:00 PM] this cag has this in last two years. But it's a discussion that really started with the imagine Austin process, but we are now finally getting to the point where we're wading through all the words to understand the realities. The problem that we have is that we need additional data to answer a lot of these questions. Significant additional data that we don't have. And we need time to digest that and understand it and understand the implications. Codenext, compact and connected, complete communities, all of these issues are connected to a lot of other things like affordability, transportation, and whatever. Sometimes we look in situations in a silo effect only one part of the problem. We don't know exactly how it relates to the other parts and I think that's a critical issue that we're dealing with today. And I think the cag has made great progress in beginning to expose those kind of connectivities and the kind of issues that they raise. The obstacles I think is a matter of data. We have the envision tomorrow tool that we started out with at the beginning of this process with a lot of teaspoon it will provide us a lot of economic analysis. Unfortunately that has been sort of put on the side lane. It's not moving forward as fast as we would like to use it. We're hoping it will get restarted so that when we go to the charrette process in the fall that we have that information available to us. The charrette process will be critical, it's where the rubber meets the code. Writing a new code is like writing a dictionary, you don't know when you pull the roads out of the dictionary whether you write a love story or horror story. And the horror story could be only exposed if we look at the charrettes and understand exactly the implications or the options that are present understand the code to apply them neighborhood by neighborhood throughout our city. So there's a very big step that we're getting ready to take with regard to getting ready for the which rhetts and making sure that -- charrettes and making sure we have the right kind of information available to us, the [3:49:02 PM] right process to evaluate the recommendations and make sure we have a charrette that makes sure of the implications for the new city. I do believe it's appropriate to extend the life of the cag. Certainly beyond where we were supposed to terminate at the end of September. It was a good idea that we could get this thing done in a year, two years, but it will take five. And probably I would suggest this to you. I believe that the cag does need to be expanded. Right now I do believe that we need more neighborhood representation, whether it's renters or homeowners. But also we need some environmental representation. The discussion about the green infrastructure working group is very important because take infrastructure like that in consideration with impervious cover. If we're looking at a new code that changes the impervious cover limits in our urban watershed and we don't have a tool to deal with the implications of that, we might make a recommendation as a cag that actually access certify baits our flooding problems in the community. I think it's an appropriate thing to get that information and weigh it versus the zoning recommendations that we might have. So I think adding an environmental representative to the cag would be very important. When we go to the council to adopt the final code, I think it would be very important that we have district representation on the cag at that time so as the council adopts the new code, members of each one of these district are sitting there listening to this discussion so when they go to the mapping process there's district expertise to help in the mapping process in those districts. So I think that is something that I would like to see happen. It essentially means the cag would go into the end of the mapping process. >> Casar: Thank you so much. Mr. Duncan. >> Don't have any questions? >> Casar: I do have some questions for all of you, but I think that [3:51:03 PM] we can hear from you and then I'll open up the Gates. >> Jim Duncan. I'm the city planner. I have been one for 50 years. Last week I retired from my firm, so now you will see a lot more of me. [Laughter] I wanted to say that this has been a really wonderful experience being on the cag and I really appreciate Ms. Morrison who appointed me originally. I wish she were still around, but that's another issue. I would be less than candid if I didn't tell you when I went on board I had some concerns about the composition. Your predecessors when they appointed it, 11 members, seven members of our 11 members were Rocha members and owe reca members. And I have a feeling in this town there's arc versus reca and that's one reason for us to reason together. I will tell you after two years that I love my colleagues. Everybody is super constructive. We have some holds and I want to get right to that. First I want to agree with my colleague here that we have number with a strong orientation on our committee. I think the city of Austin that doesn't make sense. I have reached out and I have named an offer in your considerations of brad rock well. Brad rock well is an environmental attorney, he would serve -- I have contacted him and he is willing to serve. I was shocked that he had time to do that, but he has a strong S.O.S. Background. He would be an asset to our board and I think most of my colleagues would agree. Another person, and I'm getting right to this because I think some names will be forthcoming. I think my only disappointment with my colleagues on the board is I recommended ed Wendler to be one board. We don't have a person who has hammered a nail and built a home. Ed is a developer and he has more than that. He's a native austinite. I hate to tell you this, but I never even met ed. I knew his father well. They are a -- they love Austin, okay? He would be a good [3:53:04 PM] person. We have a lot of good people on our board who are professionals who work with the development industry. I'm talking about architects, landscape architects, engineers, et cetera, but we don't have anybody who has actually run a construction company and actually built homes. So I wanted to get that on there. In closing, I just wanted to say that one of the things that I have been most excited about, and I call it one, I don't know if that's offensive or not, but our new council and I was excited and -- is that I had hoped that you as a group would be more comprehensive in your -- in your naming of committees that some of your predecessors were, quite frankly. There have been a lot of things that I've sat there and I've wondered -- I will tell you this, I think we've had some neighborhood studies where we had not had the appropriate representation. We talked about low income rentals. We've had people -- we've done plans for areas and we have not taken them into consideration I think as much as we should have. And they've become displaced. Everybody is making a lot of money, but we haven't solved the socioeconomic problems. I think in the future we need to look at not just having a geographic representation. I know that we're more oriented that way now with our new council. I think it's more important to have economic and cultural representation. Professional and technical and political. I mean, it's -- I just am trying to get it out. I think there's a big issue and you will be faced with a lot of committee appointments and I hope you keep that in mind with all groups. I love our group and with a couple more additions, I don't know what you're thinking about, it would be good -- we don't have any facial neighborhood representation. I'm talking about -- Jeff thinks he is. [Laughter]. But I have -- but there is a frustration. I think even those representatives would have a greater comfort [3:55:05 PM] level if we had people like I named on the board. So I'm excited we'll be riding the train with you. Thank you for having us today. >> Casar: Thank you is so much members and councilmember kitchen, you may also ask away. Thank you so much for joining us. Any questions for our Numbers here? Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: Yeah. I want to get back to I think all of you mentioned not getting enough input from communities of color, from renters, from others. And I know that's been a concern add an interest and intent from the beginning of the imagine Austin plan. So what kind of engagement you have done that's been successful? What do you think you could do differently? How could the city support you in really making sure that we are engaging a diverse array of individuals? >> Well, issue one of the community engagement folks were here. There have been a variety of strategies and I think some of the -- speak up Austin has been tried and that was somewhat successful. The traditional old having a meeting at 6:00 in an evening, people who -- it's difficult for working people, for people with families and certainly for people with economic considerations to make a 6:00 meeting to talk about the land development code. So I think one thing we have been successful, George mentioned that last night we've done -- this is now our third very well attended, I would say by a diverse group of people, public comment meeting. And those have I believe varied in time, but they've varied in location. They're not held at city hall. We've done one north, one east and last night was one south. And we had a great problem, which was we didn't have enough room in the room. That's a good problem to have. We need to do a better job of engaging with I think organizations like Austin interfaith. I've had some meetings with them. They are very interested in land development [3:57:05 PM] code, but organizations that maybe represent or interact with low income populations I think would be helpful. Developing materials that councilmember Houston, I remember her saying I don't want to go to a meeting and it's all this stuff on the computer, developing some written materials, materials that speak to people in a different -- in a different way, more creative way. >> Tovo: Can I ask a quick follow- up? Have you tried teaming up with pta's at schools, really trying to get out there and talk to people when they're already there for another purpose? >> We have not. I've done lots of presentations, though, to similar groups. I think I visited with groups -- folks who live in housing authority properties where they're already having a meeting. That's what I did with Austin irrelevantter faith as well. They're already having a meeting so I'm coming to that meeting to talk to them about the land development code. I think that's a great idea and pta's would be a great idea, particularly in farther, more outlying areas. Seems like we've done a pretty good job of engaging central -- more of the urban cox but how do we get to some of those more outlying areas. And again, I don't know -- there is a specific group, community engagement who developed all the materials and things like that. And they could have been working through pta's. I am just not familiar with that. >> Casar: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I'm wondering if you all would like to comment on the timing concern that I raised earlier? I am concerned because I would think that the green infrastructure working group recommendations or thoughts, whatever the appropriate word is, would be helpful to you all. And if I'm understanding [3:59:06 PM] the timeline correctly, there would not be in a position to provide those until sometime in the summer whereas if I'm understanding that you all may be in the -- may be targeted for your recommendations earlier than that, maybe March or April or so. So I guess my question is do I have that understanding of the timeline correct. And then the second thing is what are your thoughts? Would it not be helpful for you to have information from the green infrastructure working group before you made your other representations? I would also say in addition to the green infrastructure working group, there's also the subdivision regulations that are going on at the same time so there are other working groups. And I think one of the concerns ideally it would all come back together and be wrapped up in a nice bow, but I think one of the concerns is making sure that we get to these charrettes in the fall. We really need to get information to the consultants and provide direction to the consultants as soon as possible. That's my understanding from conversations. We have talked about wouldn't it be best for us to wrap up in June, which is my understanding of the green infrastructure working group? >> Casar: Do either of you have anything to add? >> We understand that there is an ongoing discussion between pdr, planning, development, review, and watershed protection, with regard to the whole issue of impervious cover, flooding and drainage issues. It seems to me that would be a very important piece of information to have before we go and make any extensive recommendations. However, the working group that met earlier today on infill compatibility and the missing middle housing is we basically have high level goals, questions. What might we kind of questions. We can't get much further than that at this point. So recommendations on April 20th would be [4:01:07 PM] very, very general. I think maybe that that's okay to send to opticos and the city staff to forward that to them, but I do believe that the real nitty-gritty is yet to come and any specific recommendations need to be informed by other things like the subdivision regulations and the watershed protection analysis of our urban watersheds. >> We're not totally devoid of green infrastructure. If nothing else I should point out that Ellen Mckinney is an honorary member of our committee. I don't think she's missed any of our meetings and she keeps reminding us that there is something other than gray infrastructure out there. Soy la Vega is president of the heritage tree. She's fighting for every tree in town. But I can assure you that this committee is not going to be ignorant of those type of issues when we come down to the wire. And I'm not necessarily telling you to put her on the committee, but I'm saying we are not ignorant of the green infrastructure. Either in the watershed type issues or just keep Austin green. >> Casar: Ms. Vega goes to same yma that I do, have I have trouble avoiding. [Laughter]. Not that I ever would. >> There is not a more dedicated individual for her cause in this city than Zoila. >> Casar: Mr. Jack. >> I would like to second a comment that Jim made earlier. One of the big gaps we have in the committee is expertise with regard to actually getting things through the system and understanding the economics of development. As an architect I can run a F p.m.er and I can look at it, but I'm not in the business day-to- day. His suggestion of ed Wendler junior is a good one. Ed has the expertise of knowing the economics of development to the point where it becomes less high level discussion and gets down to the [4:03:07 PM] nitty-gritty and there's actually expertise that can tell you what the impact of financing terms is, what the impact of land costs are, so forth and so on. So when we look at these code changes, there's a reality based in experience that we can benefit from. >> Casar: Committee members or councilmember kitchen, any other questions? I will ask y'all just a few, and then I think we'll hear from the public and perhaps from there we'll generate more questions and we'll reserve the right to call you back up here if you haven't escaped yet. One, I understand the community engagement piece and I understand your purpose to work with the city on that. Another purpose of the cag that Ms. Demayo referenced is giving direction to the consultant that we've hired and feedback and I understand that's sort of taken by vote, but those votes are nonbinding, just like most other advisory groups. It would be helpful for me and I think this group to understand the recommendations, perhaps case studies of recommendations you have made and how those are implemented or how you see your relationship with both the council or city staff and the consultant we've hired to do this work. Considering sort of the recommendations being nonbinding, I'm interested in hearing sort of what weight has been given to those recommendations and how you have seen those going. And that's all in the context of if we are to of course expand the membership or add any members how does that affect votes, recommendations and the way that the direction is given to the consultant. So I guess that's there's that extra wrinkle to it and be helpful for me in my decision making so it's not a discussion group, there are also votes and recommendations being given and I think we also need to take that into consideration. So if we can do a lightning round where each of y'all very briefly fills me in on [4:05:10 PM] how you've seen -- what the relationship is on the direction giving. >> I think most of our votes have been more consensus and discussion. We're not a formal group. Today we there was a formal motion and we don't do motions. It's more a consensus and operation. I will say with the approach alternative that was probably the last conversation we had in the fall and our recommendation went to city council and I think we fell in middle, 2.2. There was approach one, two, three and we were wiggling around somewhere in the two-plus range. Andic that's ultimately -- and I think ultimately there was a discussion amongst councilmembers on the dais. We like this, we like this. Some people want this. Let's go with this, but go heavy on this type of approach. So to me it was or conversational and consensus. >> To answer your question, we don't know. We have had a lot of conversation about compact, connected, communities, preserving the character of Austin, neighborhood protections. But we haven't seen any product yet out of the consultant to know whether they're hearing what the community is saying. That was one of the things that concerns us that we're going to be two and a half, three years down through the process before we actually see any work product that begins to be informative to the community about how our input has been taken and used to create the code. So the charrette process we've talked about in the fall is really the first time we've had an opportunity to understand what input the community has given, how it's been translated by the consultants in their work product. >> First of all, I think [4:07:11 PM] we have an excellent consultant. My firm does the same work, so I'm familiar with them. I think any consultant, our firm, for example, has done Chicago and Philadelphia and all that. The main thing we'll provide as a committee is austinizing the ideas that they're going to be bringing to us. They're going to -- one of our problems is sometimes we are sort of insular. As long as we're number one on all the top 10 lists we think we're doing great, but there are communities doing things better than us and there are things that are transferable. And that's what opticos will be able to bring to us. It's -- the real work is coming down to the wire. We've been talking more and fill on so far kels, whether proposition one, two, three, all that. We're just on the edge now of starting to get down to the meat of what part of our codes are good and salvageable. Maybe they need tweaking. What part of our codes need to be totally looked at with a new way of doing things. Opticos will be able to help us do those things. But just like opticos is doing with staff in Cincinnati, that's what -- the good part is coming up and you will be be right there with us, thank goodness. Congratulations. Welcome aboard. >> One quick additional comment. I think it will be very important that the zilker report be -- the Zucker be taken into account in all of this. It is difficult to administer and why it's causing all these procs. I think the Zucker begins to show that a lot of the issues about the code are administrative, managerial and procedural as opposed to the code itself. So I'm hoping that we have some resolution of the major issues in the Zucker report to help inform what the new code looks like. >> Casar: Thank you for that comment. In our future agenda item section I think we will be addressing when we begin discussing some parts of that report. Believe it or not, the report has not been released yet or [4:09:11 PM] completed and released. We'll probably discuss it after that point. So I do have one last question for you all. And a simple yes or no or names of the members would be helpful. We've heard a good bit about that there are several districts that aren't geographically represented, although there are people who may know a lot about those districts. There is a lack of geographic diversity, renters and environmentalists. Somebody with expertise in permitting or construction, which is actually listed in the cag resolution. Y'all motioned that we could add sort of somebody that has robust expertise in those areas. We've also had a lot of discussion as a council about economic segregation, displace the of lower power communities, not just lower income, but those that have less political voice or other issues. So I know that isn't specifically listed in the resolution forming the cag, but I just wonder if y'all feel like you have enough support from somebody with real expertise on how to make sure that lower income communities aren't displaced and actually earn -- see the benefits of growth and change in our communities. Did y'all feel like you have something that really has that expertise on the cag. >> Are you - - oh, identifying a new person or somebody within the cag? >> Casar: Do you feel like within the cag you have somebody with that expertise? >> I think we are lacking that. We essential have people with connections to organizations that represent lower income communities and we have people who are committed to reaching out to those folks. But I think that would be an area that could certainly be fleshed out with additional cag support. >> Go ahead. >> While it would be very informative to have more people on the cag that have the experience that you're talking about of having to be in a city that's becoming [4:11:13 PM] less affordable everyday. But the key is the economics. We need people on the cag that can explain exactly how entitlement changes affect property evaluations and how that affects income levels and so forth and so on down the line. Without that we can have all the greatest continue tensions that we want and we can be well intended but have unintended consequences. I call that a zero sum game that we help some, but in the same instance we hurt a bunch of other people and end up in a situation not better than what we have today. I think the solution to making sure we address those issues is having the economic expertise at the table. >> I was just going to say that I think also one thing to remember that our major purposes are community outreach and responding to the -- providing guidance to the consultants. So my concern is if we get too committed to certain areas of expertise we're going to lose people who could perhaps provide a bridge to some communities we're not properly engaging. I think a lot of that expertise is something that can be provided by either staff or outside consultants coming in to talk to the cag, but I think we really need to stay grounded in what our primary responsibility is, and that is community outreach and guidance to the consultants. >> The word sustainability is thrown around a lot and it's thrown around by people who have no idea what it means. It's in fad. But to me simply I like to use I will lit ration. It's people, planning and profit. It's all three. Unless you have all three of those and you tend to those things. We've been doing real good on profit. At least half this community has been making a lot of money the last several years. We're attentive on planning, environment, austinites. On the issue of people, [4:13:14 PM] I'd like to think that I'm sensitive toward socioeconomic differences and all that. I live in Sheri's district and I don't have the same problems. So I try to go around. I've done it even more as councilmember and stop and talk to people. And I have learned so much and I've been -- I'm old. I've been around a long time. I talked to a small business man on Lamar. One of my ideas is the corridors. He said yeah, it's real nice but all this development, as soon as positive something is built across the street my taxes went up 50% and I have to close. One of my favorite restaurants is going to be relocated. It has an effect on those people. We're not going to be be able to get a small business person. I want to close with a comment because there was a phrase that we've been using for about 15, 20 years in planning called smart growth. And a gentlemen that I -- gentleman over there that I know, Mr. Yanez, he used that phrase one time -- he was standing. I guess he left. He said smart. He lives in east Austin. Smart, send Mexicans across the river today. All right? His frustration with it. That's not smart growth because east Austin has been the gentrified, everything else. I thought sending them across the river wouldn't do anything else because we did the Riverside plan and sent them to montopolis. We need a sensitivity plan in our committee. Whether or not we need Danielle to be on the committee or not, he comes and represents us. It is a critical and it's one of the most important things that we need to face. Sign off. >> Casar: Thank you. >> Tovo: I want to better understanding your last comment about -- it sounded like you were saying there would be a trade-off to extending to particular kinds of expertise, I'm not sure I was fully understanding your point. >> I think my biggest concern is increasing the diversity of the cag, and if [4:15:15 PM] we get overcommitted to finding an economist or home builder or if we can accomplish both in one fell swoop, I think that's fabulous, but I think we need to remember that our primary -- we have two primary responsibilities, one is public outreach, and whether you're an economist or not an economist really didn't matter so much. It's what communities you're connected with, and the other is providing feedback on the consultants' products, which I think we have done a good job of, we've already received several, three I think at this point, work product from the consultants that we've provided. We've contemplated, discussed and provided feedback on, and I think whether or not you're an economist or a home builder probably matters less to providing robust, thoughtful feedback. >> I'll let you have the final word unless other members have questions. >> I prevent your perspective, but I think the primary purpose of the cag is to build community trust, and what the new code is going to provide to our city, so that the community gets behind the new code in the future, and I think what we've been lacking for so many years is understanding the implications of our decisions economically. I don't care if an economist is an African American or hispanic or whatever, but we need somebody that can look at the realities of the zoning changes that we're proposing and be able to tell us what the consequences are for people that are low income or moderate income in a particular situation. I think that that is an expertise that will help the community build that trust that we need to establish. >> Casar: Well, thanks for you all's comments. Like I said, if you don't get out of the room we reserve the right to call you back up and ask questions after public comment. Your choice. Oh, actually, council member Gallo already -- >> Actually it's more of a staff question but it's to address your concern about [4:17:16 PM] having the voice that can represent the economics of development. Is that -- are those answers that staff can help address if the questions are asked specifically as far as what IFS? >> Council members, George Adams with development services department. Yes, I think we can -- we can assist with a lot of those types of questions. I would say that, you know, there is -- someone who's been in the private sector and dealt with the various aspects of the development process, not only with the city but the financing and all the myriad things that go into that, is going to bring a different expertise, especially on the financial side. But we can certainly help with a lot of those issues. >> Gallo: Okay. Thank you. >> Casar: Okay. Well, we will move on from that item, which I believe was item no. 5. And move to item no. 4, which is consider the expansion of the cag and potentially take action to recommend any potential appointments to the group. We have 13 speakers signed up. We -- I was just informed that somebody needs this room at 5:30, and so we will ask you to talk almost as fast as me on coffee to try to get your comments in in two minutes rather than three. That way we can hear from everyone. And then hopefully also hear the airport overlay item and get out of here at 5:30. So if we could start with peter torgremson. I apologize if I messed up your name, and if David king can be ready to speak right [4:19:16 PM] after him, that would be great. >> My name is peter torg rem son, I represent the 2222 coalition, which is an a mal gem of neighborhoods out in the northwest part of the city. I urge you to get some people on the -- or somebody on the committee who is familiar with the different sections of town and -- in particular the part of town covered by the hill country roadway ordinance provisions in the land development code right now. The last time around, whether it was a major change, commercial design standards, and my understanding is nobody west of mopac was represented in any part of the -- any part of the consideration there, and some of the provisions that were put in had unfortunate unintended consequences applied to our area of town, and the hill country roadway area. And after a confrontation of city council we established that the hill country roadway provisions would still prevail. That wasn't very pleasant, and I proposed that we do it differently this time around, which is a much bigger effort, and involve people who have an understanding of how the code actually applies on the ground, not only in the hill country roadway area but also in other sections of town that have some unusual features, not necessarily only geographic but the way the territory is laid out and the way development has progressed so far. Thank you for considering this. >> Casar: Thank you so much. Mr. King, you have two minutes but let me ask a question of staff. Do we have a timer in the boards and commissions room or -- >> We have a timer. >> Give em two minutes starting now. >> I'll be very brief here. So the cag does need to be rebalanced and expanded, and simply -- I need two -- I think two new members won't address all the rebalancing concerns expressed here today so we need to look at some of the current members, and maybe that is an additional strategy to [4:21:17 PM] adding two new members, and the two new members I would recommend would be for the neighborhoods, Austin neighborhoods council is identified as a key stakeholder in the contract at the opticos. They should have a seat at the table, and I recommend Mary Engel be that person. For the environment I recommend bill bunch, and we need someone with the expertise in the environment, including water. There are other names that have been identified here today and I think those would be fine as well. But I would urge that you think outside of just two additional members to accomplish the rebalancing that we discussed here today. The cag will make important decisions here over the next few weeks, and I think that those important decisions should be delayed until the new members have been add and the cag has been rebalanced based on the wishes of this committee and the council. The -- you know, the affordability has been used almost as a hammer to say that -- changing the code, that will get us more affordability and the fact of the matter is there's a report, 2015 study from did didhe mog reafa, that says wherever they've tried increased denies to stop crawl it had the reverse effect, affordability got worse. I don't want to change the code, add more density, it will solve our affordability problem. That's simply not true, nor is it true that these urban containment policies, like we talked about today and Mike has been -- like has been discussed with the cag, do not stop greenhouse gas effects. That study also indicated there's been no material impact on greenhouse gases from these urban strategies, urban density strategies. Thank you very much. >> Casar: Sorry, I just irealized I have to call the next name. I was waiting for mayor Adler to tell bobby to speak. After bobby is frank Aaron. [4:23:21 PM] >> Hello chair, committee members. I have two -- I'm bobby, with the save our springs alliance. There's two main issues I want to bring up to you today. The first is I mentioned this as the -- at the cag meeting last night too. I feel like we're still having a high-level discussion with all the working groups and we haven't brought it down to the level of discussion where we can have meaningful input into the code process before it gets to the consultant and we're drafting the code. We're going to save time and money by putting the issues that we know are going to be talked about and thought about, quite frankly, if we have these conversations now rather than later. We're going to save time and money. And in order to do that just from my own personal experience, you've got to have people that have a broad expertise with the code and have the community connections and the broad community interests that can sit at a table and create compromises. I feel like we have some really great members on the cag, but there are some areas that are missing from sos perspective. We don't have a water expert right now. That is our most pressing issue for the city. In ten years from now when we're talking about this code rewrite, I hope we look back and pat ourselves on the back for what we did for water, not regret the opportunity we had to engage in water now. It's just -- you have to have somebody at the table that can know to ask the questions. It's not just about being able to ask staff questions for expertise. It's about knowing what questions to ask. And then last -- I'm going to take off my sos hat real fast and just say from a broader community perspective, there are certain groups in this community that we all know about that have the organizational structures already within their systems to reach a broad group of people. Austin neighborhoods council is one of those organizations, they can reach out to over 100 neighborhood organizations almost instantly and I do believe whether I agree with them all not on all the issues it's an important voice to have at the table. And then also when we do get [4:25:21 PM] to the mapping phase, I do think that it's important that we increase the diversity, especially geographically. >> Mr. Chairman, I have a couple one-pagers, could I get those to council members? >> Casar: Sure thing. We'll ask for your time to talk when you start talking. >> Mr. Chairman, mayor pro tem, council members, my name is frank Herrin. I chaired the comp plan committee for the board of realtors in 2010, and for most of that year and was a comp plan chair for cnu during 2011 and 2012. I wanted you to be aware of the fact that there was lots and lots and lots of neighborhood input since the beginning of this process. Scenario D is the preferred scenario under imagine Austin, that was overwhelmingly voted for by the public, and the public is really our neighborhoods. It's not an organization they chose out of five different options the densest of the five options. It would have made us the equivalent of 92% of the density of Vancouver, which is the third densest city in North America. That was the public vote. That map was changed somewhat to get to our growth concept map, but that's -- that's the neighborhoods' input. Anc as an organization had every opportunity beginning in twine to have whatever -- 2009 to have whatever input it wanted and at the end of the process this plan passed against ANC wishes. They were the only notable organization that voted against it. And it passed with unanimous council, including two former ANC leaders. It passed by unanimous vote of the planning commission, and it got passed by 19-3, by a citizens task force that had one developer on it, one developer out of 28 [4:27:21 PM] people that were there at the end. It was not a biased plan in any way. And I just want to be sure that you understand, this cag is not to relitigate that public process. It's to implement imagine Austin. In terms -- if you do expand and add additional neighborhood voices, I would suggest to you to look at the Hyde park experience this year, where the old neighborhood association voted against ab Hughes overwhelmingly, a new associates -- okay, I would suggest that you not appoint another ANC leader to the cag. >> Casar: Thank you so much, and next we have Ms. Bashiana. And after Joyce, roger Coffey. >> Good afternoon, committee members, I'm Joyce bassiano. I'm the first vice president of ANC and I want to reiterate what Mr. Levinski said before. We are a very good organization. We have ten sectors that cover the entire city. We -- the sectors meet on a regular basis. We have many neighborhood association members use us. We are here, we've done a lot of outreach. I just want to say something about scenario D from the imagine Austin plan. As irrelevant, there were only four scenarios and there should have been really five options. One of them should have been none of the above, but I don't think we were given that option. [Laughter] So some of the speakers spoke about trust. I know Mr. Jack has often said this. The neighborhoods have a problem with trust in the department, and I think the Zucker report really brings that out. And I think it's really important to have more neighborhood representation on this cag, and also as a [4:29:23 PM] former geologist I'm asking to you please put someone who has great water expertise on this cag, because we can live without infill, we can live without a lot of things. We can't live without water. And that's something that's really going to hurt us, and it's something that I can tell you when I worked for the state survey 40 years ago, we saw this train wreck coming, and the state unfortunately hasn't done much about it. Thank you. >> Casar: Thank you. >> May I ask? >> Casar: Absolutely. >> Tovo: Before you get too far away from the podium, could you let us know what the current membership -- how many member neighborhood associations are part of -- >> He does membership. How many -- David? >> We're up to 81 and growing. >> 81 and growing. >> Tovo: Okay. Got it. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, city council members. My name is roger covin. I'm a -- I live in the downtown neighborhood, and I'm on the chair -- I'm on the board of the downtown Austin neighborhood association. I'm also a former task force member of the imagine Austin task force. I wanted to talk about the true purpose of codenext. We were supposed to hear what the true purpose was, but I don't think I heard it. The true purpose, according to the resolution that created it and created the codenext advisory group, is to promote the overarching compact and connected theme of imagine Austin. And it also is mentioned in imagine Austin itself as priority program no. 8, which says the same thing. So I think it's important to remember that. And I also think it's important as you consider the possibility of adding new folks to the group, that [4:31:23 PM] they all champion the founding purpose of the group. Any new or existing member of the group should champion that founding purpose. If they don't, they're probably not appropriate for the group. Thank you. >> Casar: Thank you, Mr. Covin, and next we have David Whitworth and after that Ms. Sprinkle. Welcome, David. Got you two minutes. >> Good afternoon, council members. My name is David Whitworth. I'm an infill builder with an interest in more affordable homes. I'm also involved in my neighborhood. I'm the zoning co-chair for nuaca. We are -- nuaca is not a member of ANC but I'm involved in my neighborhood. I do think that the cag should have more disciplines, expertise and practice experience. For example, a builder might know that you can reduce impervious cover by reducing the footprint and allowing an additional residential story, things like that. We don't have to put our environment at risk putting people in affordable homes. This should be a very happy time. We have common goals that are supported by imagine Austin. It passed. It's a wonderful document, and against all odds with staff and council and all the neighborhood stakeholders working together, we have it, and it calls for affordability, traffic improvements, and we're very lucky to have this document. We need to support it. We're very lucky to be in Austin. There is no nonaction for solving affordability in Austin. A home is tripling in value on its own without remodel or addition, and so really I hope that we can all be positive, think about real solutions and work together as part of imagine Austin [4:33:24 PM] and codenext and with involvement on the cag. Thank you. >> Casar: Thank you so much. Mr. Whitworth, I think council member Gallo has a question for you. >> Gallo: Thank you for being here, and I appreciate the expertise and the infill building, because particularly in a lot of the districts in Austin that is the type of building and construction that we're dealing with now and all the issues that go with that. You did make a comment, and I just wanted to confirm that, you mentioned that nuaca was not a member of ANC, is that correct? >> Correct. >> Gallo: So I think that's important information to convey, is that ANC is not a representative -- or there are a lot of associations throughout Austin that are not members of ANC, and as we've tried to be very proactive about reaching out and attending neighborhood associations in district 10, we've probably attended 60 over the last months. We have found that there are a lot of neighborhood associations that are not active in ANC, and I think if we are wanting to expand the neighborhood representation, that there are lots of neighborhood particularly in 6 and 10 and probably even 8 that are not involved. So -- excuse me. I appreciate you bringing that up so that I could remember to remind that there are -- there are other areas of town and other neighborhood associations that if we were interested in doing that, that we should look to also. So thank you. >> Casar: Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I appreciate that, and I certainly think that it's true that not every neighborhood association is active in -- in the Austin neighborhoods council or may not send regular members or hasn't joined officially, but an organization that has membership from every -- you know, every part of Austin, and 81 membership groups does -- does provide some of that -- those fingers into the community that I think are very important in the same way that Austin interfaith and some other groups that 2u67 lots of different avenues of our community do as well. So I just -- I want to be [4:35:25 PM] clear that while not every neighborhood association may be a member, active in the neighborhoods council, I know we have leaders here from the neighborhoods council -- you know, I certainly appreciate the work that they do in reaching out and trying to get as much representation around the city as they do. >> Council member Gallo? >> Gallo: I appreciate that. And my comments are certainly not to say anything negative about the Austin neighborhoods council, it's just to share with people that there are a lot of other active neighborhood associations out there, for whatever reason are not involved, and I think Mr. Jack, whatever -- where did he disappear to? He's hidden behind the podium here. It looks like -- and this was really good information that was provided to us about the different members now and kind of their backgrounds, but it looks like that you were past president of ANC, so I would imagine that you would be a great voice for that organization already, and then it looks like a lot of the members, and I applaud all of you who have been very active with this process, are also extremely involved in their neighborhood organizations. So it really is good to see that representation already and the members that we have too. So thank you. >> Casar: If we have no other questions, next we have Ms. Sprinkle. Is she still in the room? Sorry, I couldn't hear -- >> She doesn't want (indiscernible). >> Casar: Okay. It's good to see you anyway. Next we have Jeff jack on this item. Should have asked you not to sit down after you answered the question. >> I appreciate the fact that you read our dossiers, but I was president of ANC 20 years ago. I'm not currently a member of the board or participate on a regular basis. Whenever they ask me to come talk about codenext I do that. I think we do need to change the cag to have better representation for areas. [4:37:26 PM] One thing to keep in mind, neighborhoods are not just homeowners. Neighborhood associations, like Sil zilkers, are part of our neighborhood association. We've not avoiding neighborhood associations by having renners in our neighborhood. Keep that in mind. The overriding goal of the imagine Austin process was to create a sustainable and prosperous city for all of us. Compact and connected is an important idea, but it should never be used to override the major goal of our comprehensive plan. If we could become siloed and focused on simply making compact and connected the Glod for everything we lose -- god for everything we lose sight to making the city responsible for our water resources, our environment, our people, and prosperous for everybody. So what I also hear a lot is that we pick and choose out of imagine Austin what we want to use to justify our position. People say we have to do compact and connected because that's what imagine Austin says, but also -- imagine Austin also says that we have to recognize and respect neighborhood plans. We don't hear that in the same sentence. I think we have to be very careful when we talk about the overriding goal of the codenext is compact and connected. It is not. It's to imagine the city ha we want as laid out in the imagine Austin plan, sustainability and prosperity and how do we get there from here. Thank you. [Applause] >> Casar: Next we have -- I'm sorry, David -- huff? >> Huff. >> Casar: Thank you so much. >> I donate my time to Eleanor Mckinney. >> Casar: You absolutely may. So Ms. Mckinney is up next, and so -- you have [4:39:27 PM] four minutes. And I appreciate -- I apologize to Ms. Sprinkle, you did write down that you did not wish to speak so that was my mistake. [Laughter] >> It would be helpful. >> My name -- oh, you already hit it. >> Is that okay? Am I on? I'm Eleanor Mckinney, I'm a landscape architect. I'm the chair of the codenext committee for the American society of landscape architects. We've been working on codenext for 15 months. We worked with council member Morrison and tovo and others that were on the previous council to bring forward green infrastructure and sustainable water management as a focus to codenext. At the time that wasn't a focus. That wasn't even being considered, and yet imagine Austin, these are two of the eight priority programs. So we were successful in getting that to happen and to get council members to understand how important it was. Since then -- that was last December. Since then we've been working and we've also been working with staff in terms of watershed going to the green infrastructure working group meetings, but also communicating heavily with watershed staff to try to bring this green infrastructure focus. We still see that silo, frankly. You know, there's still the silo of the working groups over here with the cag and the green infrastructure working group over here. And we feel like it's important to bring them together. Even in some of the codes that have been produced around the country, foreign-based codes, those elements within the code are separated. They're not integrated. And we really hope that this is the goal of our whole city, to integrate nature into the city, to have a livable place, to have a place we all want to be, you know, 20 years from now, not a place where we look back and we go, did we just create canyons of highrises, right? And -- but do we have the type of place that we all [4:41:28 PM] want to live in. That's what we bring as the American society of landscape architects. We have a broader purpose. We have -- we're a natural conduit from there. We feel like we could especially contribute to the sureette that's going to happen in the fall, we could be invaluable in that process, and we feel it's important to have representation on the cag. We definitely support the expansion of the cag and hope we have someone in green planning and design from the American society of landscape architects as a rep on that expansion. And, you know, also just to be able to come and talk to you about your districts and how -- how can that be responsive to your districts. We -- our members are from all the districts. You know, they're not -- it's not just one district or another that we're representing. So I think that's the main thing that I'd like to say here, and to say that there are lots of good examples from around the country that we are -- we have been sharing, Seattle, D.C., Nashville, Tennessee this have been leaders here that we can bring that knowledge and expertise to the cag. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Thank you. >> Casar: Next we have Mary Engel. >> Great, two short women in front of you speaking. I'm Mary Engel and I'm the current president of ANC. One of the reasons we're advocating for expansion of the citizens advisory group is for balance and fairness, and I have a subcommittee that's been following the codenext process since the beginning, and we've attended every meeting, and so we -- -- we know what's [4:43:28 PM] going on there and we do feel there's an imbalance and there are things that need to be corrected. We need to have more representation from east Austin. We need to have more representation from neighborhoods. And also for water in particular, last night I spoke at the public input session about infill tools and about water. Water should be connected to every development project, the usage, the calculation of it. If it's not just for green things, it should be connected to buildings, because buildings use water as well. And in order for our community to be sustainable, it's very important to have a water person serving on this code advisory group. So I really appreciate your contemplation of the expansion of the cag and I hope this will go someplace. Thank you. [Applause] >> Casar: Any questions for Ms. Engel? I probably do have one, Mary. Do you all have any? Okay. I'd just like to let you go first. Mary, you brought up balance and fairness on the code advisory group, and that's -- you see that in reference to what Mr. King brought up that you see the cag making key decisions that you would like to see balance and fairness in, because as far as community outreach goes, which I know is an important goal, I trust that you all are already doing a great job with that in your attendance and your ability to reach out, and I'm sure you could do even more if you had direct representation, I suppose, on the cag, but it seemed to me that some of the comments that you've made to me prior to this meeting and just now has to do with balance and fairness as far as the deciding making that the cag is doing. Could you expand and elaborate a little bit on that for me? Because most of the conversation I feel has been about the community outreach piece but sounds like both you and Mr. King had concerns about the [4:45:28 PM] decision-making progress the cag is making or going through. >> Well, in some respects, I think it has more to do with district representation, and also having east Austin at the table. Anc now, it didn't always, but it now incorporates every nook and cranny of the city. We have sectors that incorporate the whole city. This wasn't always like this, and we also have an organization called ANC east. It's sort of a subgroup, and that particular group meets to talk about particular problems in east Austin. And they're very different from west Austin. It's just different. That's -- that's what I'm talking about with fairness and balance. But balance too because Austin will grow. We have development in this community, but we also have people who live here, and I feel like sometimes we, you know, supplant -- the growth will supplant the people that live here and some people are being displaced. So that's what I'm talking about, and those voices need to be at the table. >> Casar: Thank you. Next we have Danielle Yanez, but I got a note that I think is from him, and it is, that he had to leave. So our last speaker then is pat king. >> Good afternoon, I spoke at the cag citizens public communication yesterday, and I kind of got off my script so I'm going to stick to the script today since I only have two minutes. My dmaim is Patricia king and I live in well valley, there is undeveloped land in del valle with coda and airport. Road construction down 973 will bring infrastructure to our community that presently [4:47:29 PM] has no infrastructure. Economic development will be similar to that of business bastropand Kyle. I'm here today to express my concern over the fact that there is no representation on the code advisory group. From district 2. That is my district. In fact, there is no representation from district 3, 4 and 7. However, there are two reps from district 8, three reps from district 9, and two reps from district 10. I understand that these appointments were made before the 10-1 creation. However, it is not too late to right a wrong. Progress in this group has not gotten to the point of no return, and a need for diversity is obvious. I do not want someone from district 8, 9 and 10 making land development code changes without my district being represented or having some say so in code changes and rewrites. It seems almost descrim anywhere to me. I am sure cag doesn't want to give that impression. Thank you very much. [Applause] >> Casar: Thank you so much. And since Mr. Yanez wasn't here he just in his note wanted to pass on the public comment that he supports the appointments of Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Windler, or for someone from automatic neighborhoods counsel poder or Austin tenants council. With that is there anyone signed up that I missed, as far as I can tell? I think there isn't so with that I'll open it up to discussion here for the members and our council member Garza, thank you for joining us and also council kitchen. >> You know, I'm -- I have a lot of concerns about the cag, because we really don't have anyone from our [4:49:31 PM] district that's serving there presently on the cag itself, so I never -- I haven't really, you know, talked to someone about appointing someone to the cag because of knowing that, you know, we -- we -- sorry about that (phone ringing). >> Casar: Is Jeff jack calling you? [Laughter] >> Renteria: And I'm not in the position right now to make a decision on increasing the cag because -- knowing that there is presently four districts that doesn't have any representative in there. So that's where I'm going to come from about increasing the cag, because I really can't make a decision knowing that there's only going to be two added that -- knowing that there's four districts that don't have representatives on that. >> Casar: And just a point of clarification. This item was referred to us by the mayor to consider additional appointments, but there was no stipulation as to how many we could make. So I think that the -- our action and our scope of possible action is pretty broad. We could take no action today, if you aren't comfortable with that. We could also discuss whether to expand by one, two, four, whatever it is, that there's -- we're not discussing addition of two members specifically. Just to clarify that point. >> Council member Garza? >> Garza: That being said, I would ask that you all consider appointing enough people that each district is represented, so it sounds like there's four that aren't. So I would be -- would ask that you would consider doing that so we can get representation from every district on the cag. [4:51:34 PM] >> Casar: Council member kitchen? >> Kitchen: And I would also -- in addition to that, I would also suggest that you think about some of the subject areas, and I understand what some of the testimony was not to get overly involved with the areas of expertise, but one of the things that could be considered is having the committees bring forward recommendations. So that might be something you consider also. >> Casar: Council member? >> I do think every district needs to be represented and whether that's adding four new members or -- it sounds like that at this point this task force dissolves in September. And so whether we look at changing the membership to represent -- there's a lot of duplications, and I'm one of those districts that, through appointments, not mine, but other appointments, there are two, and she said there were 3 and 9, and there's another one that's double. So we certainly at the very least need to add members that represent the four non-represented districts. But I don't know whether we want to have the conversation that says we have other districts that are overly represented on it, and how that -- how that comes into play. It was interesting to hear both from Mr. Jack and the staff a concern with having representation -- needing representation with people that can talk about the economics of development. And to hear that both from those two maybe diverse voices, I think that would be important for us to listen to also. >> Casar: Council member, Renteria, do you have a question for me on process? >> Renteria: Yes, I just want to know the process, because I know that the resolution that was passed, [4:53:35 PM] elected 11 members, seven from the city council and four from the management. So what's the process that we would do to be able to increase the four memberships? >> Casar: My understanding, which, you know, legal may hear me say this right now and then email me later, is that a resolution of the council can be amended by any other resolution of the council, so we could extend the time period, we could end the group at any given time with a majority vote. We could -- you know, essentially -- it's not -- it's not an ordinance and so we can change it just with a simple majority of the council at any time. Mayor pro tem? >> Tovo: I just want to thank the community members who brought forward this idea. I think it's a very good one. I think thinking about representation on the cag right now is a very good idea, both the district representation that's been discussed. I also support the suggestions that we look toward making sure that there is somebody on the cag who has a strong environmental perspective, and I think one of the phrases that captured my attention was the cag's role of helping us build a community -- community trust, and so I think that is an important goal of mine, to make sure that we've got in all of the various efforts of this land development code that we're working toward that, and absolutely making sure that we've got representative views both on the board and out in -- in terms of the public feedback that we're receiving, but also that we're working hard to build a community of trust. And so I take seriously the suggestion that we look also at -- at neighborhood association representation -- representation from the neighborhoods council. I think it is important to building trust with those many organizes that are part of our Austin neighborhoods [4:55:36 PM] council. And so I think it probably would be appropriate to take some more time to think about this and whether we can find individuals who are -- who come from all of those goals that we've talked about, district representation, environmental, with water expertise. I mean, there are lots of talented folks in all of our areas, so I think that would be -- in addition to the names that were mentioned today, a longer discussion. >> Casar: Council member Gallo? >> Gallo: Thank you, and I just want to thank the people that have been serving already. I know it's been a lot of work and a lot of effort and a lot of late nights, and as we start ending our meetings a little earlier, our hearts will go out to you as you're meeting till midnight. But, you know, as we talk about one of the things that should be part of the conversation is, as we talk about expanding this task force for another two years, there may be people that are currently serving that perhaps would not be interested in a commitment -- an additional commitment for two years. So, you know, I think what I'm hearing here is there's an interest in making sure that every district is -- is represented on this group, but it sounds like the conversation, do we do that by adding, do we want to make sure that all the current members want to remain on the cag, if it's expanded for another two years, how do we do the appointments between city manager and city council. So, you know, it sounds pretty much across the board we all agree that we ought to have district representation on this and then maybe just a little -- some more effort along a different line of figuring out how to do that. And that would be -- that would be my recommendation. >> Casar: Members, I do want to book end this conversation soon so that we can get to the airport overlay issues and get out of the room at 5:30. So if there's any final comments, I'll take those from you now quickly, if you can, and then I'll give mine. Great. Well, I think that this is a [4:57:36 PM] longer conversation and a big issue, and so my preference is -- and my sense from the members of the committee is that we won't be taking action today but we'll continue discussing this. We have -- our next meeting, we have another meeting on April the 30th. Not on April the 20th but on April the 30th, because as -- by the time we had set up the committee schedule for the committee process a lot of us, including myself, had already been booked into lots of things, commitments through the month of April and even into early may, and so we do have a meeting scheduled on April the 30th where we might consider taking action on this item. My recommendation is that we consider both the membership issues in conjunction with the timing issues and the life of the cag. My understanding prior to this meeting and then confirmed by Mr. Zapalac is that September was not -- was a semi-arbitrary date set, and so that as we consider expanding the cag, we also consider what the cag would look like after that time period. You know, one action that we could take, and I'm not saying this is my preference, but an action that we could take is just make cag appointees at the same time as we make all our other board and commission appointments rolling over July, and then we would have an 11 member cag. That's an option. I'm not sure it's my preference, but just so we understand and the community understands that really it sounds like September was just sort of a placeholder and that at this point we have to decide how we move forward moving from here. I do think that community trust and community outreach are key parts of what the cag can do, and while having no district 4 representation is an issue for me, a greater issue is just the amount of outreach being done to district 4. And so I would be open to hearing about appointments of member, whether that be sooner or later, that can do those outreach efforts in district 4, whether or not they live in my district and folks that have expertise in [4:59:36 PM] issues facing my district and other districts that aren't represented, and so would be excited to -- if there is someone in district 3 that cares a lot also about the issues in district 4, I'm generally open to that. I als I also think that areas of expertise surrounding issues of gentrification, police tase placement and economic segregation are important to me and hearing from the members of cag is really concerning to me because I think that is one of the key reasons why I would be supportive of rewriting the land development code is to get ahead of those issues with that tool, although we would have to use others, but with that in particular. So I think that we should all think about sort of both of those components, time, expertise and membership before the next meeting. And also how that interacts with voting power. I think that there are just different opinions on sort of the baseline purposes of the cag and how much the cag's purposes, community outreach versus giving direction and suggestions, even though they may be nonbinding to the consultant and so we should also think about as we add members how that affects those decisions or those recommendations being made by the group because right now as it stands there's one member from each councilmember and then four from the city manager's office. And fire department we are choosing people from our -- and if if we are choosing people from our individual districts we need to make sure everyone feels like group is fair on the council side and also on the group. So with that I want to just get a sense from y'all if we're okay not taking any action today and can just let item set and I'll put it back on the agenda for the April 30th meeting. That okay with everyone? We'll get back with our regularly scheduled meetings starting in may. Now we will move on to numb number 3, a [5:01:37 PM] briefing and possible recommendation considering land uses and the airport overlay and thank you so much for joining us for the first meeting of the committee. Mr. Rusthoven. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers, jerry rusthoven with the planning review department. This is posted for land use in the airport overlay. The issue here we have is the city council has recently had three cases which we haven't had a discussion about in front of the full council yet. Two of them are known as the Scott airport parking zoning cases and the third one is known as 71. The two Scott airport cases as well as the 71 case are for two different -- I think what you could call pet motels. The Scott airport property is property owned by the city of Austin aviation department. It was purchased with F.A.A. Money, airport noise mitigation money. The federal government requires that when we do that that we use the property for an airport use. And in that case 2013 the previous city council agreed to enter a public-private partnership with the Scott company to build in this case a pet motel. The idea of the motel is that you would drive to the airport with your pet, you would go to this property, which is located right on the other side of 71 from the airport, kind of near presidential boulevard where you go under 71 as you're leaving the airport, it would be to the right of that. You would go up with your pet, you would get out of your car. They would take your luggage, put it off to the side, they would take your car, whisk it away in a valet. You would enter into the building with your animal, you would check your animal into the pet motel if you will, and then you would come out [5:03:38 PM] and get on an airport shuttle which would take you straight to the terminal. It makes it a one stop shop of boarding your animal and dropping off your car and going to the airport at the same time. The second property is the zoning case known as 71, which was on last week's agenda and they've all been postponed to April 16th, I believe. Is for a public piece of property, very close to the Scott airport property. It is for another pet motel I believe that's called the stay and play ranch. It I believe is a similar concept to what would be occurring in the public-private partnership on the city property. The difference being that it is entirely a private project and has nothing to do with the -- formally with the city. So my understanding is we've been referred here today as of concern whether this was an appropriate use in the airport overlay. The airport overlay was incorporated because of the -- because of the use of the federal funding to purchase property to take away like for example the del valle schools and residential in the area. The feds wanted to be sure that we didn't replace it with the residential that we were being given money to take away. So we have an airport overlay which is there to mitigate the effects of noise on people. So the two uses that we can possibly consider this under the city code are the kennels or pet services. The major difference between the two pet services are most vet offices in town. The main difference between the two as far as the code is concerned is the kennel keeps the animals outside overnight whereas a pet service usually keeps them inside overnight. My understanding for the Scott property, the city-owned property, is the animals would be kept indoors at night, but there of course would be a play yard for them during the day. I'm not sure exactly how the private one, the stay and play ranch, would operate. With regard to the question of whether the [5:05:39 PM] use is appropriate, the staff feels it would be appropriate and we feel that there are several mitigating factors to make that -- that make that the case. The first is that the applicant or in this case the Scott company, has agreed to build a building that would have a 25-decibel outdoor-indoor noise reduction level. In other words, they're building the property out of rather thick cement and with rather good insulation. Because it is located near the airport and I think also part of that is frankly in some instances to keep the noise in as well as to keep noise out. The second one is that the highway serves as a buffer between these two properties and the airport. At this portion, 71 is elevated to go over presidential boulevard so we have a wall, if you will, one of those txdot kind of geo grid walls, which is between this property and the airport. And third the -- at the end of what we call highway 17 left, the planes are 80% of the time are landing over this property as opposed to taking off over this property. And that is because we have prevailing southerly winds, planes land into the wind so most of the time when you're landing at Bergstrom you're landing over 71 and taking off over Burleson road. So that being the case when planes are landing their engines are at their quietest and it is not as severe a sound as when they're taking off. They do take off this direction about 20% of the time, most of the time that's in the winter when the wind is blowing out of the north. And finally, we do have uses -- although we prohibit residential uses within this portion of the airport overlay, there are other uses that are allowed that would allow humans to spend the evening, the night within this section of the airport overlay. An example being the hotel. It's commonly known as the donut, the Hilton hotel, right in the middle of the airport. [5:07:39 PM] We have other airports along Riverside drive that are also in the airport overlay. At one point there was discussion of putting the mobile loaves and fishes campground out there. It would have been a permitted use, however that was decided not to be done, but -- so I think there are certain situations where we think it's okay for people to say there. The difference has to do with the amount of time that a person is there and we think that a dog kennel would be kind of a similar analogy that it was okay for a person not to live there, but to spend a few nights in a hotel. That's probably okay for the dogs to wake a few nights in the kennel for that same reason. So with that I'm available for any questions. >> Casar: Thank you, Mr. Rusthoven before I get to questions I want to note that it is not the -- we've had some discussion amongst committee members about how we're going to conduct business here regarding zoning. Of course we have now council meetings dedicated to zoning. And so we're not going to be -- as for right now the consensus among committee members is we're not going to be making recommendations about specific zoning cases, but we will, a, be talking about proactive policy areas in which we can deal with issues related to planning and neighborhoods, for example, the code advisory group item that we just heard. And also we want to deal with the policy issues underlying key zoning cases so that we can discuss toes broader policy areas and hopefully inform the council so that we can make more thoroughly vetted and talked about decisions when we're making -- taking on those zoning cases. I think this is a great example of that. We're talking about that airport overlay and permitted land uses and I think it will help inform us as we also talk about the particular cases of the pet motels. And so I think that that's right now the will of the body and we'll see how it goes. Thanks so much for helping us understand the entire picture and also bring into focus this particular case that brings out the interesting nature of [5:09:40 PM] land use around the airport. So I'd like to open it up for questions to Mr. Rusthoven. Councilmember Garza? >> Garza: I don't have any questions. I wanted to explain to the committee why I wanted this referred here. When I looked at the backup for the airport -- there's two. There's one that's going to be on airport land, city land, and there's one that's on private land. When I saw the backup for the airport use one, it just set off some alarms for me in that I have nothing against people bringing their pets to these kennels, but -- and you stated it perfectly that we're talking about proactive policies and how we plan stuff. And I just wanted to have the conversation about when we're having a master plan for an airport we really need to think about the surrounding community. And in this case the surrounding community is drew and part of that -- is district two and part of that is del valle, which have been, I don't think any of us would argue, has been neglected in a lot of ways and one of -- it was interesting that Ms. King was here earlier because a she's been the biggest advocate for an H.E.B. And getting a grocery store in del valle. So I wish she would have stayed. I don't think she knew this was the next item. It set off an alarm for me to see the city planning this. I think they thought of it as the airport and not the surrounding areas. I hope in moving forward when we do these big kind of master plans in areas of our city that we really consider the surrounding area because what I consider is you have this part of town who has long felt neglected and when they're driving into town to go to their jobs they're passing a pet hotel and they can't [5:11:40 PM] even get an H.E.B. Out there. They have to drive 20 miles to the closest H.E.B. So that's a conversation I wanted to have. I understand that -- and I had a meeting with staff and we -- I addressed my concerns there and I'm not saying that land should be used for an H.E.B. Nor can be used for an H.E.B., nor should the city give land for an H.E.B. Or any store. I'm just saying when we have these kind of big plans we really need to think about the surrounding area and how that affects. Because I had people reach out to me and see that there was going to be a pet motel there. The second kennel or pet hotel, I don't really have an issue with that. It was just kind of coincidence that that came up right after. I figured if we were going to have this conversation we could have it all together. I'm not saying I'm asking for a recommendation that we don't approve this zoning. I'm just asking for the broader -- to have the discussion on a broader level when we consider these kinds of projects, we think about the surrounding area and how it could affect the surrounding area is why I asked this to be seen before this committee. >> Casar: Thank you, councilmember and thank you for joining us and clarifying that for us. Do you have questions for Mr. Rusthoven? I know I have a couple, but I'll ask mine after you ask yours. I would really like to keep this conversation unfortunately just to another 10 or 11 minutes so we have two or three minutes to talk about future agenda items here on the public record and get out of here at 5:30. Councilmember Gallo? >> Gallo: Thank you for your presentation. I think the clarification from our chair that this committee has made the determination that we really don't want to hear the zoning cases, that what we're interested in learning is more of the background information and the policy areas. What would really be helpful in the future [5:13:41 PM] and we will use this one as an example is I thought we were going to talk more about the uses in the airport overlay just to get a broad perspective and maybe some more information on what other communities do in the surrounding areas of their airport. So I guess just a request that when we have issues like this, it's just a little bit more background information, not of the zoning case, but of the pieces that are part of that policy decisions. Thank you. >> I'm sure Mr. Rusthoven can get that on over to us and we can have a conversation before the council meeting. Are there any other questions for Mr. Rusthoven? Councilmember? >> Renteria: Do y'all have like a master plan for that area? I mean, I know that you're concerned about parking, expanding. Is this pet motel going to be -- it's in the airport overlay, isn't that correct? >> Yes, it's in the airport overlay and we do have a master plan for the airport. And we do have representatives from the aviation department who are here if you would like to discuss that master plan specifically. >> Renteria: Yeah. I'm concerned about when y'all start expanding. Because the airport is going to grow and it's still growing. And we're going through a major project right now with parking. And I've gone to other airports where I've seen that they're using the land just outside of the airport where they're putting their parking structures and their rental vehicles and I have -- is that part of the master plan? The pet motel, would that affect that in the future if you wanted to expand? >> Yeah, Shane Harbison with the aviation department. Overall we have an airport master plan and we have a program where we're trying to reach 15 million annual passengers a year. We're at 10 million now. So you will see when you go to the airport, you will see a car rental facility being built right now. That should be open right around October 1st. It's a large garage [5:15:43 PM] structure. About two weeks ago city council approved a delivery method for a new parking garage as well. That would be adjacent to the existing garage in the car rental facility. And this product for the pet hotel is another parking product, which is a covered parking and another service, which is for the pet boarding, which is to attract customers to the site, but overall that property north of 71 could be used for parking or car rental service areas, not ready return parking areas, but where cars get their oil changes for the rent-a-cars, tires, et cetera. But the ultimate plan is to have land side services for the airport north of 71 and then any services adjacent to the runways be for aviation uses that serves taxiing aircraft, parking of aircraft, et cetera. We'll be doing a master plan update starting in about 2018. Master plans for airports usually last 15 to 20 years and we'll be hitting our -- around 2018 we'll be hitting our 15 year part. And we're growing much more than other airports so we'll be doing another master plan update that we'll be looking at the airfield, the terminal and land side. >> Renteria: How would the pet motel be -- would affect that growth? >> That would be incorporated into our parking spaces for the next 20 to 30 years. And we will be expanding on the actual part adjacent to the terminal. Our plans are to do garage parking, but we also want to do long-term parking, which is a lower rate, daily rate. And we want another service that is covered surface parking, which the pet hotel is combined with, that provides another level of service, but not at a [5:17:45 PM] higher rate that would be next to the terminal, which would be a garage structure. Those daily rates are much higher so we have different levels of services with different level of rates, but ultimately what we're trying to do is accommodate our customers that use the airport, specifically we have a lot of counties outside the Travis county area that folks come out and use Austin as their -- Austin Bergstrom as their destination. We have to look at all those things, where our customers is located and our infrastructure at the airport and what it needs to do to meet those demand capacities. So that's part of it. It's part of the overall parking plan. >> Councilmember Garza? >> Garza: When these master plans are done is there community input taken? Not just including the surrounding -- the immediate surrounding community, but even airport customers. I want to know if this process is like deliberate -- I know when we had this conversation a few weeks ago I asked like where the pet motel idea came from. And I just -- I'm concerned that we're planning stuff around ideas instead of what people have specifically asked for. And I know you responded that when you go speak to people about this, they're really excited about it, but before that happens is there community input, is there a survey at the airport that says what are you looking for when these master plans are created? >> Master plan process is about -- that's a good question. Master plan process is about four years and includes a technical advisory group and a citizen advisory group. And then hiring a consultant to lead these stakeholders. And part of it is educating both groups of [5:19:45 PM] master plan process and existing conditions of austin-bergstrom and what the forecast is and then the infrastructure of what each subcomponent of an airport, the capacity is. There's an airfield capacity, a terminal capacity and a land side capacity. And the land side being parking and roadways. And it's taken a look at what you can do infrastructure wise to meet your demands, your forecasted demands. So there is a lot of input from the citizens group and what we do is we have different neighborhoods and we have different real estate businesses all participate and there's public open house where the public is invited to come and look at some conceptual ideas, give comment cards. And that's all correlated into discussions of what the final alternatives are. And then ultimately it goes to city council to get approval to send to the F.A.A. For the final approval, what's called the airport layout plan. That's what we follow then for the next 15 years. When we did the 2003 master plan north of 71 was identified for could be employee parking, public parking or rent-a-car services. >> Garza: How do you decide who is on the citizen? Do you know how you decide that? >> When we go through it, it's folks that are involved, it's community input, recommendations, et cetera. And then it's an outreach. A lot of folks. The technical part group is folks who have specific technical knowledge of an airport and airport master plans and the citizen group is a lot of recommendations. And like I said, the first few meetings is a lot of commitment. It's about four years' long. And the first meetings is really educating that citizen advisory group of an airport master plan and the components of it and the whole process. [5:21:45 PM] >> Garza: Okay, thanks. >> Casar: I wanted to ask one brief question at the heart of this, and perhaps I missed it for a moment. Can you remind us why zoning change is being requested for these particular uses in the overlay? >> Sure. On the publicly owned property, I met with Shane awhile back and we were talking about there's existing zoning on the property and we were talking about the master plan and what the long-term uses are of the plan. And I advocated for a change to av or aviation zoning, which is what the airport itself is zoned. If you look at the code definition of where aviation zoning is appropriate it says for the airport or airport-related uses. So since this is property owned by the aviation department it's for an airport related use, my recommendation would be to change the zoning to av, which is the parking and pet motel. On the second property the request is for cs zoning, which would actually allow kennels. It would not -- cs is not required for pet services, so if they are going to be' keeping their pet -- the animals inside overnight at the second location, it may be possible to approve a lower zoning category than what's requested, but we are recommending it because it is in conformance with the surrounding area. >> Casar: And back to our part of not trying to litigate too much on the zoning case, but the idea that there is city owned land that is not zoned, what is that classification? >> I believe I would have to look again. I believe it's G.R. Zoning or lr for a portion of it. It seemed appropriate to bring it in since it is for an aviation use. >> Casar: And there is some private land in the overlay that is currently not zoned and intensity sufficient to allow a kennel or pet services? >> That's correct. >> Casar: I think I would echo councilmember Gallo's sentiment that we would like to look at [5:23:45 PM] the zoning that occurs in that overlay and that will inform our decision making. >> Gallo: I apologize. To most people that know me I'm directionally challenged. Am I correct that this property we're talking about is north of 71? It's not part of the airport where the planes land on the property? >> That's correct, it's on the other side of 71 to the east of presidential boulevard where you exit the airport. >> Gallo: And what about the individually owned property? Is that in the same area too. >> They're very close to the same other. >> Gallo: To the question of the airport expansion, none of the airport for actually landing planes and storing planes, none of the development on the north side of 71 would impact that. >> That's correct. >> Gallo: We're just encouraging airport services. >> There are height limitations, of course, because you're within the landing zone, but no, the -- there's no plan to expand the actual airfield site to the other side of 71. >> Gallo: As busy as everyone gets now, the opportunity to have things done when you're gone, you drop your car off and can have it serviced or those of us that -- councilmember mayor pro tem tovo just asked me if I had a pet and I said my pet rules my house, yes, we have a pet. But being able to find appropriate places for our pets to stay when we're going in and out of town is good. I just wanted the clarification of the location of those. Thank you. >> There are a lot more places you can do at these places, dry cleaning, car washes, oil changes. >> Gallo: Absolutely. >> Casar: I'm going to give councilmember Garza the last word briefly here and then we will have to take testimony from Paul Kennedy. We have one speaker signed up. Councilmember Garza can have the last word unless anybody objects we'll let Mr. Kennedy speak and then I'll hear if anybody wants to take any action on this item. Then we will maybe have to email about future [5:25:46 PM] agenda items. >> Garza: Thanks. And councilmember Gallo, I thank you for reminding me of -- I forgot to say what set off the alarms were what I already mentioned and the other was fact that some people's pets are like their children, and this area that the city-owned land is in the flight path where that's why it's not habitable for human services, but it set off the alarm of it's not okay for human services, but it's okay for pets. And I know jerry explained that mayor not spending the night there for a long time. That's why I also asked this to be brought before the animal advisory commission to see what their thoughts were on putting pets in the flight path. The private property is not in the flight path and I have a map here if you wanted to see it. So this is the Scott one and the other one is over here. It's not in the flight path. That was another concern that I -- the purpose was committee was to get this vetted and discussed. That's why I wanted to bring it to this committee. Unfortunately the animal advisory committee cannot look at it, but my intent was not to stop this zoning from happening. It was just to have the conversation. >> Casar: Are the camping uses and the hotel in the flight path or just in the overlay? >> The overlay, if you would like, I guess I was going to ask for clarification of exactly what you would like from us. If you would like in a future committee meeting we could talk about the airport overlay and what it allows and what it doesn't allow. There's different bans, if you will, based upon the distance from the runways that allow a different level of uses. So we have like each one that has a different thing allowed and different types of construction you have to do to mitigate the noise. >> Casar: Okay. Thank you. And so I would like to ask Mr. Kennedy if he is still here. You've got a couple of minutes. >> I won't take that [5:27:47 PM] long. Paul Kennedy. I am the owner of stay and play pet ranch. We're two miles east of dripping springs so we're the applicant for the privately owned land. And I was -- it was recommended that I attend and so I signed up to speak. If there are any questions I'd be happy to answer those, but I think we all have someplace to go. I have baseball practice to get to, but -- I'll take any questions that you might have. >> Casar: Thank you for waiting through the committee meeting. Are there any questions for Mr. Kennedy? Great. I think we will follow up with those that are interested, follow up with emails to Mr. Rusthoven and I trust you will be able to get us information on the broader picture and we do have the specific zoning case ahead of us soon. [Off mic]. Depending on if we get kicked out of here or not, if we get kicked out in the middle of you speaking, I apologize. Mr. Von dough less than signed up to speak. Thank you for waiting on us. >> Chris Von Dolen. We represent Scott airport parking. Y'all had the background. There were a couple of slides that I think would be directly responsive to several of your inquiries, if I could get that pulled up. One point, I may be a little out of order here, but in terms of the sequence, interestingly the Austin animal center is 2.43 miles in the direct line of the western runway. We are near the eastern runway, which is .7 miles, and most of the planes that take off when the noise is really loud use the western runway. So that's one point to be aware of. [5:29:52 PM] We have -- you've got the background, but we visited many pet services facilities all over the country, specifically in Texas and the south. I mentioned the Austin animal center. Lots of lenders, lots of design professionals. We have engaged animal arts out of Boulder, Colorado. They've done over 600 of these facilities. They are the experts. This slide right here is just the logistics. Jerry did a nice job of describing what's happening. That's all that slide does. Now boarding is one of 13 different entities that has other -- in other locations in the United States where pet services, specifically pet hotels, are at airports. We're not on the leading curve. We're looking at a growing trend. I've given you the sources there. Denver and Salt Lake City are two of the most recent. We considered and negotiated with numerous large and small pet service operators across the country. Austin is Austin. It's unique just like it like its unique vendors inside the airport, and we chose to go with a local Austin, very experienced pet service provider, and that's taurus training. I know they don't have time to speak today, but William and Melanie Mcelroy, we're very proud to have them as our partners and working with us. And I don't think you will find two people in the city of Austin that are more interested in the safety and good care for pets than these two folks. They started out as trainers and caretakers themselves. They have four locations and other 20 years in this community. We appreciate all the process discussion and the policy discussions. We think it's fine and appropriate. We appreciate it. We're glad to be a part of it. We're really excited about our project. We think pet hotels in conjunction with park along with car wash, window crack -- I can't speak. Window repair for cars [5:31:54 PM] that have cracked windshields, are great cohesive, efficient services for the customers. Incidentally, the airport and therefore the city will receive ground rent and percentage rent from both our parking services and our pet hotel. Thank you for squeezing me in. >> Casar: No problem. Thank you. Committee members, is there any desire to take any action or any recommendations to the council, not on the zoning case, but just on uses in the airport? Is this just -- otherwise it could just have been an informative discussion and we could talk about what we thought at the council meeting. >> Renteria: Are you -- are there two groups that are competing for this? >> Casar: There are two different sites. >> Renteria: Two different sites. Okay. >> We're on the site of the city-owned property. Chairman Casar, to the extent that there is a possible recommendation, which I believe is the way the item was referred to, we respectfully urge that any recommendation that comes out of this committee would be positive for our project, Scott airport parking, in light of the history and the information that's been shared today. Thank you. >> Casar: Thank you. Okay. Well, since we aren't being dragged out of here, we could take one minute before I close in case anybody wants to mention future agenda items for the public record. And we can then -- feel free to email me. I'll add anything that you want added to the agenda, but anything you want discussed, put into the record now, we can do that. >> Gallo: I received an email from someone, and I apologize I can't remember who it was, but there was an interest in making sure a recommendation that we make sure that any backup material that was at the council and posted on the agenda as backup material, and if an item was referred to council committee that that information also got attached to the council committee agenda too. >> Casar: I think we'll be working on that [5:33:55 PM] on all the committees. Overall I don't want to September up a different process. Hopefully very soon we'll have very robust backup for all of the committees. >> Tovo: Just a quick future agenda item. I know that the housing committee had an informative presentation about density bonuses. At a couple of our policy work sessions we discussed that there are options available to the council in terms of policy decisions and I would like to and plan to move forward and suggest some changes to our existing density bonus programs to change from a fee in lieu to an on-site requirement. I would like to suggest that that be added, if possible, to our next committee meeting so that we can have that discussion in advance of those resolutions going to council. >> Casar: Consider it done. And I know that there is a lot of interest on getting updates on permitting in zucker, however Mr. Guernsey has negotiated me it won't be at the April 30th meeting. So we'll kick it to past that. Without any objection, I will close the first meeting of the planning and neighborhoods committee. Thanks to my members for sticking around and having such a great discussion.